Who can you trust?

Today I recieved even more annoying news (of the same kind I recieved about 3 weeks ago). A good friend, S, emailed me because a mutual friend of ours (N) emailed her to find out if I had my baby yet. (Why N didnt ask me herself is an unknown). N's mother is an old friend of my mother's, so I know where she got this misinformation. I certainly didn't tell her. Very few people knew I was pregnant, and S wasn't one of them.

This is the second, and most infuriating, time this has happened. When I was pregnant and we decided to tell our parents a few weeks earlier than we wanted to, the main reason for that was to give my mother some much-deserved good news (other bad family stuff happening on her side of the family, which is why we are going to Japan). We made them PROMISE not to tell anyone until I cleared the first trimester. They promised.

M's mother cracked, she told her sister (who undoubtedly told the other 3 siblings, their kids, and M's grandmother). But when I miscarried and we confronted her, she admitted that she told someone. So we knew what to expect.

When I miscarried and both of my parents knew, only my father told me that he "accidentally" told his brother that I miscarried (and not before). I was annoyed, but ok with that because I KNEW. In light of this most recent email, I now know of at least 2 other people my mother told, who obviously told their own daughters, who emailed S, who emailed me. One of the other daughters called me about a month ago asking when I had my baby (apparently my mother told them I was due in October??)

Needless to say I AM PISSED OFF. VERY VERY PISSED OFF.

S was very kind and sad and upset that she had upset me. She also tried to calm me and remind me of how excited everyone must have been to share the good news, before I rip into my mother. But regardless, my mom is going to hear about this. It was never her good news to share, in my opinion, it was ours. It was ours to decide WHO to tell and WHEN. And when we were kind enough to share OUR news with them, it was not so that they could tell whoever, especially after we specifically asked them not to tell anyone for a period of time. I dont care how excited anyone was, we said "do not tell anyone." And it was for a reason.

If you can't trust your parents to obey your wishes, especially with something so damn personal, then who can you trust?

*update: i confronted my mother on this issue in Japan. She *claims* not to have leaked the information. I want to believe her, she was adamant, but there is simply no way these people could have found out if not from her.

Is it normal?

To want to drink more before you become pregnant to ward off any desire to drink lovely and amazing wine when you hopefully discover that you are?

In the last month, I have probably consumed more than I admitteldy normally do, partially on account that i *may* become pregnant sometime soon. The problem with that plan is that if I don't become pregnant before Thanksgiving, I will have consumed a sub-optimal amount of wine calories for no legitmate reason other than straight up selfishness. DAMN. You really can't win in this situation. You will feel guilty either way. The only minor consulation is that in organizing our wine closet I've realized how much great wine I will be able to drink after our (hoped for) child is born and not living off mom's post-pump & dump.

Damn. It's hard to be good. However, going to visit my Grandma and Aunt (as well as a few other relatives I've been informed want us to visit them while we're in Japan) this next week is going to be quite sobering, and I'm sure it'll be much more sobering once we arrive in the wonderful prefecture my grandmother lives in.

I will restrain from saying or writing more for fear that the five or six folks who read this blog will be offended or judge me for my wrongdoings. Rather, I will post upon our return from Japan and hopefully be knocked up by then. :-)

Is this TMI? oh well. T'was never my forte anyways.

Another baby boom?

Since my last post about a good friend becoming pregnant, we have learned that 2 more friends are pregnant as well. One, a good friend from high school who has been trying for 10 months. Of course, I am thrilled for her and her husband. The other, a friend from law school who M and I adore, but rarely see for geographic reasons. His wife is 5 months along already!

Are we experiencing another baby boom or is it just me? 3 new (to us) pregnancies in a week and a half!

Fall break... it was long overdue

Well, now that I don't have Cal football to get all excited about...

It's been really nice to have a couple weekends to regroup and relax. After an insane summer/early Fall, M and I are finally falling into a comfortable rhythm. No more insane plans every single weekend day and night. Although November is tentatively booking up, there's nothing so hard core that we'll be exhausted or running ourselves into the ground. We only have 2 weekends of travel (one of which is a week-long trip to Japan for family reasons, the other is Thanksgiving), but the rest of the time we're home. Yeah! We will, undoubtedly, watch Cal and Oregon football as the season winds down. I will happily plan and test out new recipes for Thanksgiving (which I'm cooking this year since my mom will still be in Japan). We will also celebrate our recent escape from the jail of consumer debt by treating ourselves to a "real" vacation before year's end that doesn't involve visiting family members' graves, family birthdays or spending time with our elderly grandparents--all of which was wonderful and time well-spent, don't get me wrong, but not a vacation by any stretch of the imagination. Finger crossed that M can get the time off work and we will be celebrating Christmas in Italy where we will walk around (hopefully) mostly-empty Italian towns, cook yummy food in our rented apartment, drive around the Tuscan countryside and just relax on a D-style vacation.

I'm not sure what other folks consider "normal" with respect to the time between big vacations. Some of our friends go on vacation every 3 months, while others go every 3 years. For M and I, going out of the country on some sort of vacation (at least one week long) is necessary at least once every 12 months (on a rolling calendar basis). Not only is it our life's passion and admittedly much easier for us due to M's job, it is also a big part of how we reconnect while at the same time happily disconnecting from the rest of our lives for a short period of time. In the recent past, we've tried to line up these vacations around our birthdays because December and January are good times to travel for us (rather than summer when everyone else travels and we can't). Accordingly, this celebration will be an all-in-one deal since it coincides with my birthday, christmas and our new debt-free status.

In the meantime though, we've spent our weekends at home reading, planning our trip, talking, biking, spinning, getting back into running, cooking lots and lots of yummy soup and doing uber-fun stuff like steam cleaning the carpets, organizing our wine closet and making goodwill runs. And strangely, it's been so nice!

I love Fall!

Classic Cal Football

So we won't find out what it feels like to be a fan of *any other top 25 team* this year. This year is, yet again, a Classic Cal Football season. I hate that we're so cliche. Damn boys, you have all the talent, the fan base, etc... what happened?

Well, the good news is that at least Big Game tickets will be cheaper now. And it may actually be a well-matched game. Yup. That's how far we've slipped down the Pac-10 ladder. And our schedule isn't going to be any easier... Arizona State, USC.... now I'm just crossing my fingers that we take home the Axe this year. DAMN.

Ouch, it stings.. more than a little bit

You know what I'm talking about if you saw/listened to the Cal game today. When I heard the commentators call FINAL, I could hear CG moaning, groaning and swearing like a drunk sailor at our downtrodden Golden Bears. WTF was Riley thinking?!!!

To be fair, Riley will be an asset to us once he [1] makes it through this season and next summer and [2] gets his head around what he just did to our season. Our unbelievable, gorgeous season. Thank god we're not the only BCS-worthy, one-loss team this season. However we are one of just a few who have lost to an unranked team.

Remember previously mentioned Duck husband? Even HE feels bad for our beloved Bears. (of course the Ducks absolutely creamed Washington State) That's saying alot. One, that he really loves me, so much that he can commiserate with our absolutely miserable showing today. (truly bad, Nate, I never thought I would miss you so much.. Especially your first season. I swore you sucked eggs). Two, that we really performed badly today.

'Nuf said. I'm going to a movie to forget my sorrows... already drowning them with some lovely Zin from Easton. (wintermute! cheers!)

Roll on you Bears... next week you better come out ON FIRE against UCLA. First of all, they are FAKE BEARS who have copied our colors, schools and now our football program. Second of all, you better come out JUST F'IN PISSED.

Some random thoughts

Are you lucky? I think so.

Today I met with an associate (who happens to be a good friend and colleague of BT) who shared a snippet from her life that made me think, "wow you are lucky." Mind you, she is a first year associate at Gigantic Firm of Whitey, Whitey and Whitey. I know what her life will entail in a few short months. However, she is married to a wonderful guy who has a flexible job/schedule. They've been lucky enough to have a son. And most of all, as she said, "we have family dinner every single night, no matter what. We started doing that before I started being a lawyer and before we had our son and I will try my hardest to continue to do so now."

Wow. In large-firm-lawyer-land, she'd be lucky if this continued through the end of the year. In regular 40-hour a week job-land, she'd by lucky if this worked out more than a couple years before the next big promotion. In married-to-a-pilot land this is an impossibility. An unattainable wish, particularly if the pilot commutes to his base. So kudos to everyone and anyone who has this capability. As much as it's a pain in the ass to plan a meal and make dinner every night, the ability to feed to people you love, to have time every single night together, and to fall asleep in the same house/state/time zone, is quite a blessing that I think most folks take for granted.

Don't feel bad if you do. It's true that you never know what you've got unless you don't have that particular thing anymore (not like you lost it necessarily, you just don't have it). But hopefully at least once in awhile you do realize how lucky you are.

All forms of communication are not created equally

On another note, I have recently been making a concerted effort to be more communicative. For the last 4 or 5 months, I've basically shunned the phone. Which is very wierd considering I LIVED to talk on the phone as a teenager and used it as a lifeline to home & friends during law school and the bar. But now I talk for a living. On average 4-5 hours a day, during a busy week up to 7-8 hours a day. That's no joke. So, to be quite honest, the last thing I want to (or physically can on some days) do at night during my downtime is talk on the phone. Unfortunately, my shunning the phone has also made my closest friends (and likely my family) feel like I've shunned them. Without knowingly doing so, I left a friend without support, without a lifeline, during a very difficult period in her life. And I feel awful about it... so I'm making an effort to be more communicative on the phone. I'm great at email, great for meeting for lunch/dinner/drinks, pretty good at texting..... but I suck at making and returning calls.

If you have ever been on the recieving end of my abstentia from the phone, please know that it's not personal. It never was. It's just me. And I'm sorry, I really really am.

Not to be redundant, but DAMN it's good to be a Cal fan!

Again, I hate to repeat the jubilation of Wintermute's post but DAMN! It's good to be a Cal fan. This year we will legimately, and rightfully, earn BCS respect for many good reasons. One of them is because we are in a damn good conference. When the (formerly) #9 team in the Pac-10 takes down the (formerly) #1 team in the COUNTRY, you know you're in a tough conference. Fuck the SEC. I'm not even going to pardon my language. We have Cal, Oregon, USC, Arizona State and surprising comeback kids like Stanford and Oregon State (and even the inconsistent UCLA Bruins). So f-you if you don't think the Pac-10 is real college ball. It is and we're gonna prove it this year.

That is all.

except....GO BEARS!!

Challenges

As of late, there have been challenges thrown my (our) way... most recently...

We hosted a weekend of Big Crush at my family home, which was fun and challenging at the same time. On the one hand, it was great having our good friends at the house with us for a nice getaway weekend, wine tasting was a blast, albeit crowded and overrun with frat boys and plastics (see wintermute's blog). On the other hand, even though we don't have kids yet, it was as difficult as dealing with a colic infant all night long for an entire weekend. M and I didn't sleep, really sleep, at all Friday or Saturday night, yet we drank Friday night and all day Saturday with our guests. We certainly tried to be good hosts, but when you're dealing with *ah-hem* disgusting animal health issues, while trying to keep your guests away from the nasty that is occuring all weekend, it's quite exhausting. Luckily for us, H and O were the most gracious guests, the most understanding guests imaginable. But needless to say we were unbelievably exhausted driving back to the bay area Sunday night (with an accident at the 80-west/50-west junction no less).**

Even more recently, we have just learned that a very good, deserving friend/couple has found out she is pregnant. Over the past couple months B and I have been sharing our ups/downs/insight/speculation/grievances regarding getting pregnant and dealing with my miscarriage. And despite her predictions to the contrary, she and F were so lucky as to concieve on their first try! Of course, I could not be more thrilled for them both. Truly. I am so excited for them and can only hope, with all my heart, that they never have to experience what we went through. But there is an undeniable part of me that is (I hate to say it) jealous. Eww. I know. Gross. I hate it! I am excited, jealous and hopeful that M and I will have similar luck too--all at the same time.

So, it has definitely been a weekend/beginning of the week of challenges. The upside is also a double-edged sword as well. While we acquired a significant amount of lovely, amazing and enjoyable wine during our weekend in wine country, I am also hoping that I am pregnant and thus won't be able to enjoy said wine for another year-ish. :-) C'est la vie, no?

**For H, O, K and G: The animal issues you witnessed were NOT normal. My dad took her to the vet Sunday morning where she recieved treatment for severe dehydration (due to the issues you witnessed) and has been on medication to deal with those issues since. When she returned to the house Sunday night, after spending 6 hours at the emergency vet clinic, she was a completely different dog than the one you encountered. So I'm sorry to had to go through that! She's not normally like that, I swear.