Because I'm a nerd.

Our computer is officially gone (cause of death: hairball), but our new Dell baby (it's our adopted Texan!) should be delivered by the laptop stork soon. In the meantime, I've been doing very important personal work. You know, really trying to "find myself" as a person as I navigate this important time in my life.

The results of said deep personal investigation?

Posts may be few and far between for a bit...

... because our cat Kermit...

• who I have rescued from a shelter life
• for whom I have improved his oral health by an exponent of at least six (which is how many teeth he's had to have pulled in the three years we've had him)
• who's food I have switched several times in an effort to bolster his weak kidneys, address his acid reflux issues, and provide him with an easy-to-chew diet for his fragile teeth
• and who I have protected from certain death at the hands of Wade (and, I'll admit, myself) when his incessant yowling at all hours of the night drove us to the brink

...threw up on our laptop this morning.

Good kitty.

Baby activist.

I just got a email forward from the bean's (and Wade's) "Cool Aunt Liz" (you may remember her from such instances as my amazing trip to DC for the March For Women's Lives and some of my better clothes (her hand-me-downs)). She included the note: "So here's my baby shower gift to you."

"Subject: Thanks for your generous support, Bean!

Dear Bean,

Thank you for your donation and commitment to safeguarding a woman's right to choose. With your help, NARAL Pro-Choice America will work diligently to build a stronger pro-choice majority able to ensure this freedom for future generations of women..."

A) Liz knows me very well. B) I can feel the bean down there in women's rights HQ (aka, my uterus) raising a tiny fist in solidarity. And C), if you are a religious fundamentalist and/or pro-lifer, my last two posts have probably made you blanch a bit. Kind of I'm sorry and kind of suckit because it's my blog.

Dear Cultist,

Caveat: I may be the only person who finds the following funny or interesting (or inoffensive). Feel free to skip this post, but I found this entire thing priceless on so many levels.

As I've mentioned before, my cousin Yasi runs her own online store for the streetwear-loving hipsters among us (Cultist is doing very nicely, thanks; go buy stuff from them). One thing they carry a lot of are t-shirts that display bare boobs, Minnie Mouse in fatwa-gear, lots of sexified guns -- y'know the usual. Recently she told me what I think is a HILARIOUS story regarding said gun-wear. (Again, I apologize to all the readers who are religious fundamentalists. In theory if not in practice, I'm a fan of the big Jeezy myself, but this woman is in another league.)

To begin, start here (scroll down -- you're looking for the scanned letters below the interview with Leah McSweeney) and read the return form that this woman sent in. The background -- this mother did NOT approve of her daughter's purchases from Cultist, which consisted of two shirts: one had a bird embroidered on the collar and the other was a t-shirt with some lady legs and guns and bullets. Clearly, she's not happy with the gun t-shirt. And just as clearly, she's pretty kooky (hand-scrawled messages about the end times usually indicate such things). Really nice, but pretty kooky.

But here's the thing: SHE SENT BACK THE BIRD SHIRT, NOT THE GUN T-SHIRT. Baby girl was must have been all Hell to the naw, moms! and pulled the ol' switcheroo.

Here's what followed (all emphasis is the writers' own; I did not edit any grammar or spelling (including that of my new favorite word, "upsetment")):

***********

Hi _____,

We have recently received your return and will be happy to issue you a refund, however we are a little confused as to which shirt you wished to return. On the receipt, it indicates that the shirt you
wish to return is the Hellz Bellz "Instant Violent Action" t-shirt, however, the shirt enclosed in the box and returned to us was actually the Insight "Moondancer" top. Please let me know if that is the shirt you want the refund for, or if there was some sort of mix-up.

We await your response.

Best,
Cultist

*****************

Hi Cultist,

The shirt that I returned had a picture of a woman's legs with high heels and there were bullets under her feet and a gun along the side of her legs. I guess that I mixed up the name, to me, I would have called that one "Instant Violent Action." The shirt that we kept was all black with an embroidery of a bird on the collar.

Thank you,

_________

****************

______,

The shirt we received was the one with the embroidered bird, not the t-shirt with the black and white print of the woman's legs.

Best,

Cultist

*******************

Dear Cultist,

Please be informed that I am now in the process of having my daugher find the shirt with the bird embroidered on the collar. My daughter told me that she washed that shirt in the laundry last week, but now cannot find it! I now am having her search the house for this particular shirt so that she must prove that she did not secretly switch the shirt to be returned as for some reason she was in favor of the violent tee shirt. Because of what you have shared with me, that you have received the shirt with the bird, I have no choice but to assume that my daughter is lying to me and that she switched the shirts. It is very important that I come to a conclusion regarding this matter. My daughter has never done something like this before, but I cannot assume otherwise, it just makes no sense. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. This tee shirt has really caused a very great upsetment to my daughter and I, but Lord willing, we will get to the Truth of this matter.

Sincerely,

_______

***************

Dear ______,

After some thorough investigation, it seems we made a mistake. Please accept my sincerest apologies, my employee has informed me that the bird shirt we received was in fact from another return, and we did in fact receive the "Instant Violent Action" shirt from you. I'm sorry for the mix-up. Your refund will be processed first thing tomorrow morning.

Best,

Cultist

*******************

Dear Cultist,

Thank you for your reply and investigation of this very honest mistake. I am very thankful that you realized how serious this was for my daughter and I, which led you to investigate. I do accept your sincere apology, and now, I must apologize to my daughter as well, Lord willing, my daughter will find it in her heart to forgive me for false accusation, which is a very difficult thing to do.

Thank you again, I am very greatful for your thorough investigation,

I don't remember if I shared with you about www.familyradio.com and the free book Time Has an End, but this is something that I am telling everyone that I meet about. It is a book that took the author 50 years of Bible study to understand the Biblical Calender of the World. 11,013 BC-2011AD. or you can call 1 800 543 1495 to order the Free Book.

This book is so important to know, because according to the Bible alone, the Lord will return in 2011 which is exactly 7000 years from the Great Flood of Noah's day.

I learned this myself between 1985-1989, you can go to www.peopleofclay.com to read my testimony of how I came to this understanding of the Latter Days.

I was very stubborn and wanted to know what this one verse meant in the Bible.

2 Peter 3:8

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing,

that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,

and a thousand years as one day.

Then go to Genesis 7:4

For yet seven days,

and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights;

and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

When the Lord told Noah, "For yet seven days"......

The Lord was telling us, "For yet seven thousand years"....

Seven thousand years from the great flood of Noah's day in 4990 BC, is exactly 2011AD.

The man who wrote the book Time Has an End discovered that according to the timeline in the Bible, the Great Flood was in 4990 BC.

Today, the Word is proving the Word, meaning the Bible is proving the Bible.

I really don't know if you are interested in this at all, but I truely pray that you are interested at least to do some investigation for yourself. This is my main concern for people whom I meet. At least read my testimony on www.peopleofclay.com.

Thank you again for your concern for my daughter and I,

________

************

The mom actually seems like a nice person -- a touch nutty, but she's obviously concerned for "Cultist," who is clearly going to hell for selling such heathen stuff.

But as a future (and hopefully respectably cool) mom myself, I must say, I admire the daughter's chutzpah. I mean, kids have to rebel. That's what we (um, they?) do. Otherwise they'd never flee the nest, right? Break some rules, find yourself, and start forging a path to independence -- that's what ages 12 through 17 are all about. And I can only imagine that this closeted hipster girl in lord-knows-where-Pennsylvania or where ever is feeling a bit more rebellious than the average bear what with her end-of-days, nice-bird-collection mom and all.

Oh, and if you couldn't tell, Yasi finally decided to save the girl's ass and let the mom know that Cultist had made a "mistake." Yas, on behalf of all teenagers, past and future, I thank you.

I was joking before...

...about Lulu trying to eat the baby through my belly (if you look closely at the previous entry's photo, you'll see a big blob of peanut butter smeared next to my belly button). And I THOUGHT I was joking about Kermit also plotting the bean's demise. But then, last night I was fast asleep and woken up by a painful sensation on my belly -- like a scratchy burning. Followed by ticklish whiskers. Followed by "MEOW!," when I pushed the offender off my belly.

This morning I was telling Wade that I couldn't quite remember but I thought I'd had a weird dream where Kermit kept licking me in the same spot on my belly over and over. And then I looked down where "dream" Kermit had tried to "dream" lick me (and the bean, once he got through me) in to oblivion.

More like "nightmare" Kermit.

The bun is 3/4 of the way cooked. Here's an update on the oven.

Here we are at 30 weeks. Lulu is clearly going to eat the bean, and she's not afraid to go through me to do it.

***
With this whole pregnancy thing, I've been quite lucky. Really, I know it. No morning sickness, edema, hemorrhoids, skin discolorations, heartburn, varicose veins (yet), stretch marks (yet), sciatica (again yet). Certainly (knock wood), nothing that would keep me bedridden or anything like that.

Of course, I have found things to bitch about: there have been the ridiculously copious trips to the bathroom, the fatigue, the shortness of breath, the sore boobs, and the (boys, turn aside) itchy nipples (Seriously? I mean, seriously? These things have been up to some crazy business lately, getting tougher, itchier -- like they're putting on little suits of armor to protect themselves against the upcoming gummy onslaught).

So here's a summary of where we (me tonight, the bean at some point when I'm not falling asleep) are at with a less than ten weeks to go. (Oh, and as an aside? People at work have lately been telling me about how their first baby came four weeks early or how their brother came six weeks early. So while I'm freaking out about having about ten weeks left to go, according to them, I should really only plan to have four to six weeks left. YAY.)

(courtesy of www.whattoexpect.com)

Your uterus can now be felt four inches above your belly button, which means that it's pushing all the internal organs that used to be there somewhere else. Hmm, that might explain why I can't breath while walking up stairs, while walking and talking, while just talking, while doing anything ever. Whatever bean, that's cool. If I need some space, I'll just draw a line across my belly and we'll each take a side (like in Happy Days episode 133, "Ralph vs. Potsie," where Ralph Malph and Potsie are bickering roommates and they get some advice from Aunt Fanny (who is really Richie, but they don't know that) who says to draw a line down the middle of the room, but then Ralph can't use the bathroom because it's on Potsie's side; we'll make sure the vagina is on your side).

You are probably starting to feel more tired by 30 weeks pregnant. This is due in part to the increasing levels of progesterone in your body during pregnancy 30 weeks and in part because you are probably having trouble getting comfortable enough to sleep at night. I sleep fine--for now--but I think it's the progesterone plus that 25+ extra pounds I'm carrying. Let it not be said that I'm starving myself or the baby.

Your balance is probably quite a bit skewed by 30 weeks pregnant. In addition pregnancy hormones have allowed your joints to loosen. Many women find that their feet go up an entire size during pregnancy. This is due to these loosening joints. If I was actually still exercising beyond walking around a hilly campus (which kicks my ass thanks to those half-capacity lungs I'm working with right now), I might actually notice loose joints. And luckily, growing feet haven't been an issue yet because here in Cali, flip-flops are an acceptable business casual option.

Many women find that they are experiencing more emotional swings once again when they enter the third trimester. Yeah. Blah blah blah. What's new. Ho hum.

***

One thing these sites don't mention at any week is the insane feeling of someone doing somersaults on your insides. The kicking was one thing; this latest feels like you have a Ferris wheel of hamsters going around in there.

So anyhoo, all that to say that my excess progesterone is kicking in right about now. Mama's going to bed. Ciao for now.

Le freak, c'est chic.

Hello dear friends from the 30th week of pregnancy. As of today, I'm 3/4 of the way done. Three-quarters of the way towards being a mama. Ten more weeks til we're a family of three...

Oh dear god.

This is terrifying. Have I mentioned that? That when it dawns on you that you're going to never not going be a mom again, you freak the hell out? I mean, for god's sake, I still like to get up and eat cereal and watch cartoons on Saturday mornings (though you can't find a decent Loony Toon on TV to save your life anymore). Or worse, I eat leftover Chinese food for breakfast. Or even worse, I skip breakfast entirely and have a bag of peanut M&M's at 10:45 a.m. This is no way for a mother to behave. What kind of example am I going to set?

Other freakouts that I've been having recently over my impending motherhood (or, as I like to think of it, my arranged parenthood--like some yenta up in the heavens spotted me at a party and fixed me and the bean up without my knowledge):

What if I'm one of those mothers who doesn't like her kids? I mean, I'm sure I'll love her, of course. But, what if I just look at her and go, "Feh"? It happens. And if it does, I'm sure you grow to enjoy the kid, but I've got to think that maybe a lot of mothers just sort of look at this thing attached to their boob and wonder how either one of them ended up there.

What if postpartum depression is just incredibly sucky? Clearly, anything with "depression" in the name isn't going to be a party. And, as we've seen, I'm anything but immune to pregnancy hormones. I'm certainly not worried about going off the deep end, I'm just saying that I've been Ms. CrankyPants for pretty much 30 weeks, and now books, Oprah, whomever are all saying, "No, no, wait. It's about to get really bad." Awesome.

What if I can't get used to not being the center of attention? For those of you who've never been on this ride called pregnancy, one thing that's fricking awesome about it is all the well-wishers and generosity you encounter. Seriously, it's like Christmas everyday. People stop me on the street to tell me congratulations and give me good wishes for a healthy baby and speedy delivery--daily! I've been directed toward handicapped bathrooms when the line at the regular restroom is too long. Old ladies get up to give me their seats on the bus. Friends, even acquaintances you barely know, give you stuff. No joke, it's like that Eddie Murphy sketch where he gets made up like a white man and then the people at the bank give him free cash. That is your life when you're a pregnant girl. I'm supposed to give this up? I mean, I guess all the attention will go on for a while because I'll be the mom of a brand new baby, and so I'll get a bit more attention from that. But after a while, you're just another lady with a kid. A dime a dozen.

All forty of my "WooHoo! You're Having a Baby!" books say these concerns are totally normal. (Actually, they don't mention the worries about not being the center of attention anymore--clearly I'm a huge freak.) All new mothers worry about this, along with: Will I get enough sleep? How will this impact my relationship with my partner? Will my dog and cat like the baby or will they try and smother her in her sleep? And, believe me, those concerns have been on my mind along with the other ones (my mom is actually convinced that the cat is already plotting the bean's demise).

So... as usual, I have no conclusion or wrap up to this. (FYI, here's an $800 answer in Michelle Jeopardy: If something's on my mind, it usually me a while to work through it. In this case, I'm guessing it'll take another 10 weeks, give or take.) I'm sure I'll love and like the bean, be crankier than usual for a few weeks or months postpartum, and get over being a person of interest for the rest of the world.

It's just that in this stage of pregnancy, there have already been so many changes going on (your boobs threatening to take over Los Angeles, for example). And just when you're getting used to those changes, you realize that big boobs were the least of your worries. Big boobs were just warm-up worries. And then you freak out. And then you blog about it.

Waterworld.

So I'm discovering that pregnancy is full of these things that you've always heard about but that you've never really considered the implications of. Things like: being hungry all the time (no really, you have to access to food all the time); being hormonal all the time (excellent for the workplace where being sad and cranky is looked on as a real asset in an employee); being tired all the time (the world is not, as much as we would like it to be, made up of nap-able places or opportunities).

Another such example: peeing all the time. We've all heard this one, haven't we? How funny it is that pregnant women have to pee all the time? Oh ho, jolly good laugh that one! They have to get up every five minutes! They can't sit through a movie! Sleeping through the night sure must be rough!

But the thing is, we really do have to get up to pee all the time. (Even more frustrating? Because your bladder is being compressed, when you do go, it's not all that much.) So maybe we don't get up every five minutes, but it is every 30-40 usually (15-20 if you're drinking a lot of fluids). Movies? Forget it. Besides being too tired usually, why should I pay $10 (yes friends who do not live on the coasts, movies are up to $10 here, sometimes more) only to miss at least three five-minute segments? And sleeping...?

Trying to sleep. When you're pregnant. And you have to pee all the time. Good times.

This has been a special challenge lately as the bean has gotten bigger, and my bladder has been backed into a dark, out-of-the-way corner of my pelvis by my uterus. In fact, dear uterus is becoming a bit bully. It's beginning to physically intimidate all my other organs: "Oh yeah, you think she gives a crap if you're feeling a little smushed, spleen? When I, uterus, am carrying her progeny? Oh, what's that gall bladder? Remind me why you're necessary again? Yeah, that's what I thought. Bitch."

All the books say to limit your pre-bed fluid intake, but damn it, a girl gets thirsty in the evening! And I stubbornly insist on taking my vitamins at night, which requires more water. But I did try for a few evenings -- after several nights of getting up to use the restroom multiple, multiple times (my record is six visits in one evening) -- not to drink water after 5 or 6 at night. The result? Thirsty every night and two nights woken up by charley horses. (Have you ever had a charley horse? I hadn't. I can only imagine it's what labor feels like -- but in your leg.)

Here's where mother nature has helped me out though. In the last week or so, I have been so tired at night that I pee right before bed and then sleep so soundly that I only get up once in the night.

It's funny how things work out the way they're supposed to.

The tse-tse fly is back.

So either I'm fighting African sleeping sickness or my really amazing second trimester energy boost is fading. Fast.

Oy jeebus. I've gotten home every night this week and just sat on the couch, staring off into space, trying to motivate to, oh I don't know, put down my keys. Put down my purse. Let my dog out to go to the bathroom. No matter how much sleep I get, it doesn't seem to make a difference. Tonight I'm going for nine hours. I'll probably still be a dumb-dumb tomorrow, but I'll hopefully be a better-rested dumb-dumb.

In bean news, girlfriend has been kicking the crap out of my upper abdomen. Yesterday I emailed Wade and told him that his daughter had been pulverizing me in one spot for the past two hours. His email back? "Go little Pele!" Dude. Who's side, dude? Who's side?

Anyways, that is truly all that I have the energy for right now. Because this is such a short post though, I'll leave you with this reading material. It's over four years old, but I just saw it today and found it hilarious. Who knew that nearly 1% of Britain's population felt so strongly about this? (Oh, and the link on the right -- "No Rush to War, Blair Says" -- is so interesting to read now. No judgments or politics here, I'm just saying it's interesting.)

It was gonna be HUGE!

I had big plans tonight--BIG!--to post about all kinds of things that have been on my mind:

• About how A of all, Wade and I need to decide what kind of crib we should get--drop-down side or fixed-side rails with a drop-down mattress; and B of all, the other furniture in that room is sort of caramel-y wood, but I really think white would go better for the modern look we're going for, so do I get a white crib and leave the rest of the furniture alone, get a white crib and paint the two other pieces in there white, or get a matching caramel-y color wood crib so it all goes together? (Even though I'm totally copping out with this lame-ass post, if anyone has opinions about any of this, feel free to express them.)
• About how Easter and Persian New Year have had spring and rebirth and renewal (and in Easter's case, resurrection--though I prefer to think of that metaphorically--the dormant seeds rising from the soil, etc.) on my mind. Pair all that with Heidi's recent post on granolaism and the new green issue of Vanity Fair that came in the mail with Hottie McAwarenessPants, Leo DiCaprio, on the cover ... and what I think I've come to is that religion and environmentalism are really one and the same. I mean, if we (the--I have no idea if this is even in the ballpark--90% of the world who believes in a higher power) truly believe there is something larger than ourselves and we wish to revere and honor that spirit, isn't nature just one manifestation of that? So shouldn't we always be looking to do everything we can to keep the earth pristine and keep our footprint on it as small as possible? (If I seem a bit whack-a-doo over this right now, just know that I should not be allowed to watch too many episodes of that new show "Planet Earth" on the Discovery Channel. I really do feel super-strongly about all of this, but honestly, letting me watch that show is like giving sugar to a five-year-old.)
• About how that picture I posted a few days ago made me look like I was ten months pregnant, and how I've seen friends lately who've seen that picture and then seen me in person and remarked that I look like I'm exactly 6.34 months pregnant, just as it should be. Just so you know that I won't be delivering any 19 pound, 35 inch babies in 2.66 months.

So anyways... I was GOING to write about all of that. But I'm not. Because I'm exhausted.

'Night y'all!

Ten reasons I like working on UCLA's campus.

1. No one blinks when I use my debit card to pay for a pack of peanut M&Ms.
2. It's one of the few workplaces where people use skateboards and Razor scooters to get around.
3. It’s completely international. In a five-minute span walking through campus today, I heard Vietnamese (I think), Arabic, Spanish, Farsi, and a tiny bit of English.
4. There are both healthy eating options for the California part of the student population and cheap, crappy eating options for the student part.
5. You have to (get to!) walk around a lot because it’s a large campus.
6. It smells like I’m at camp all the time: every breeze brings pine, eucalyptus, wildflowers. Amazing.
7. There’s such great energy on campus, especially right before mid-terms and finals. And I get to gloat that I’m not freaking out (anymore) about cramming for my Oceanography 302 exam.
8. While it sucks not getting a spring break, winter break, etc., the benefit of those times is that there are no lines for lunch at the union.
9. I get 10% off at the supermarket with my BruinCard! (If I cover up the part that says “Staff.”)
10. My whole “If it’s cold enough to wear Uggs, it’s too cold for a miniskirt” theory of life is constantly being challenged. And I like a challenge.

Don't f*&* with me.

I'm going to blame my hormonal alter ego Preg Nancy (or it could just be that I am, not too far deep down, a raging bitch) but lately my fuse has been millimeters long. On a good day, it's perhaps a centimeter or two (what? is that bad?), but not the last week or two. The last week or two I have been a seething, roiling lake of wicked lava dressed in a Michelle suit.

Wade and my sister--pretty much the only two people who receive full-on, filterless, claws-out me 100% of them time--are angels for listening. Best thing about them? Both are kind enough not to do even try and talk me down from my rage tower. They just laugh at me, and that makes me laugh at myself.

I won't even give examples of what pisses me off, because frankly it's nothing and everything. It's no one in particular and it's everyone I know. It's hypocrites and people who are annoyingly earnest. It's Alex Trebek and "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader." IT IS EVERYTHING.

Granted, there are some situations occurring at home that are putting a wee bit of stress on old Michey. Situations that will be wrapping up soon and therefore said stress will dissipate somewhat. Whatever. Doesn't change the fact that I want to just shout "Oh, BALLS!" at the top of my lungs every five minutes.

When I get like this, I have three options to make my self feel better:
1) Call my sister or Wade.
2) Clean my house.
3) Think of one or more of the following things: rumspringa, FLOR, Zingermans, "Lie back and think of England", Huelo Point Flower Farm, "The Thin Man", vodka tonics at Gay Diner, Anne Lamott, Viggo Mortensen's tail or Mr. Darcy.

And to all the people who read this and are about to comment or tell me that all this pissyness is bad for the baby: Suck it. I'm turning her into a bitter, mean old crone like me, and we're going to sit together and make fun of people and throw popcorn at them like those two old dudes from the Muppets.

WORK. Unh.

Between Persian New Year (and Chaharshanbeh Suri), Caesar Chavez Day (last Friday--si se pueda, people), and Passover, this is like prime social season if your a Persian Jew in LA. I have been a busy, busy little girl.

Oh, and by "little girl" I mean "enormous heffalump." Check it:

Hi, I'm huge, nice to meet you. Pardon the crazy-eyes.

When did this happen you ask? I wonder that myself. Certainly recently. I know this because it was until recently that I could still see my toes. Now though...
This is the birds-eye view of my footless, legless torso. (Mila, these pics are for you, love.)

As far as my non-physical self goes... Do you ever get the impression that the universe is trying to tell you something? Like your vibrations are in tune with something larger? Here's what I mean:

• Friday (on the drive up to San Francisco; thank you CrackBerry), I read about--LIVE--Angela's delivery of little Olivia. You too can read about it here. In addition to Heidi's truly impressive photojournalism, I was blown away by Angela's strength and insane commitment to the work. I mean I guessed that labor would be, you know, laborious (see previous post), but damn. Hours upon hours upon hours of just some damn hard work. During the weekend in SF--gorgeous weather, fun touristing (thank you and your convertible, Marnster!)--I was mildly obsessed with labor. Angela's, mine, the entire long history of millions of women working their uterine mojo.
• I'm currently reading The Known World, a book set in the pre-civil war South about a freed slave who now owns slaves himself. (Kim, I'm finally reading it--thank you!) I am not comparing my life--painful squeezing out of a bean or not--to that of a slaves. At all. Clearly. What I am saying is that the theme of work popped up again.
• We went to a Passover seder Monday night at the home of a partner at Wade's law firm. Really amazing--25 super nice people in a fun, meaningful environment. (It was such a serendipitously lovely evening that it turned out that one of the lawyers there knew my dad 25 years ago; I nearly started crying on my seder plate.) The hosts even had a class set of haggadahs (Passover textbooks sort of) for everyone, and they'd prepared special Passover prayers for Darfur and the environment. How much did I love these people? Passover is all about the Jews breaking free of the bondage of slavery and making the exodus out of Egypt, so again, this theme of labor, work, physical sacrifice (not just the Jews' slavery but that whole 40 years of wandering the desert, etc.) crops up.
  

OK, so I just wrote a lot of words to say... what exactly? I don't know. I guess my eyes are (re)open to the honor in hard work? I have a decent work ethic myself, but this is different. True labor (asked for or not) is all of a sudden commanding my respect in new ways.

OK, universe, for reals? I'm learning. Labor=scary but can also build character. There's a certain dignity to it. Gotcha.

Le sigh. Either way, I still have to push a basketball out of my yoni in less than three months.

P.S. In case you're wondering what Preggers Command Central looks like:

I'm a human pet bed when I blog.