Sequestered in the Nerdery...

Hello all, just wanted to check in. I have a head full of stuff to write about, just no time to do it. I was off work for a few weeks, but I just got some really important nerd work to do. Really important as in feeding the hungry--no. Promoting world peace--maybe. Defending our nation--possibly. Really important to the work my peeps are doing on their respective projects--definitely. And they pay me, so this is where I cave to the man and retreat to my nerdery to do CAD, and FEM, and stuff like that.

Some snippets to get you through--

His Highness locked himself in my car with a box of mini PB cups. While we were trying to get him to hit the UNlock button he was having the time of his life getting all jacked up on chocolate & peanut butter. My keys were on a carabiner attached to the diaper bag...in my car. I LOVE carabiners these days...they might be close to achieving Emotional-Tap-Light status for me...but I really need to remember to keep my keys in my pocket when dealing with His Highness and cars. Maybe a carabiner on my belt loop or something...

...While on vacation it was left to me to explain a rather explicit and sexual term to my mom. The Cat Daddy thinks I should blog about it. I'll leave it at this: we were in a restaurant with Dad & Grandma (and His Highness, but he's not embarrassed by his parents' crassness), and the term is also the name of a chick-band that sings a song called "To the Nth Degree." Go Google & knock yourselves out. The Cat Daddy better watch the kind of spots he puts me in, that's all I'm saying...

...My first thought was to not blog about the above anecdote because I like to keep the place family-friendly. But sometimes I wonder if I'm using that excuse because I'm more afraid of what my readers might think if they find out how crass I can truly be. Not that I want this to become a potty-blog, but am I trying too hard to present a certain image at the expense of being my true self? Maybe. It's something I'm mulling over lately. I've always wanted to be edgy, but I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to offend everyone, but the not-hurting is the more important thing to me. There are some people that maybe I need to offend, because at least then they'll know me better. I also like to think it takes creativity to convey the crassness of things without actually being crass, but maybe I'm just way overthinking it. And overestimating my creativity. We'll see...

...I went on a new spouses' tour of the base here. It didn't suck. And they fed us...

...I bought a huge Valentine's balloon for His Highness. I bought it yesterday though, so it was marked down to 99 cents from, like, 10 bucks. Rock ON. I also bought a second vacuum yesterday. It's more or less a Dustbuster with a stick & handle on it. Lightweight. Cordless. Good for doing stairs. Perfect for letting His Highness "vonnie dwive" to his heart's content. Between the balloon & the vacuum, you'd've thought it was Christmas at our house yesterday...

...Miranda lives in AZ but is spending a semester studying in England, living in a castle, and seeing all sorts of cool stuff. She's an artsy, creative, drama-type, so her stuff is really fun to read. Go check her out while you're waiting for me to regale you with tales of my own fascinating life. In Cheyenne...

...I'm not, like, leaving or anything. Just not sure when I'll have time again to post as often as I'd like (every few days as opposed to every week or so). Maybe never. Or maybe now that I've said "I have no time," I'll suddenly have a ton of time to blog, and I'll become this super-efficient writer that only needs one draft and doesn't need to edit-post-edit-post-edit-post ad nauseum. Shyah...

Countdown: 8 weeks (or so) to Baby #2. We finally have a boy-name that might be "it," but I'm afraid to make it official for some unknown reason. Stupid indecision...

Don't Panic...

Some of you nerds of various persuasions may have read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." It's a novel about, among other things, a reference book called "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." In the story, the Hitchhiker's Guide (the reference book) had a fairly simple cover with the words "Don't Panic" prominently displayed. This had a nice, calming effect, which is always helpful if you suddenly find yourself a space-transient because your planet has just been vaporized. Good advice, I say--Don't Panic.

I still worked for the government during the 2004 election. All but one of us college co-ops voted for President Bush, and the one who didn't was very strong in her convictions and was very sad at the outcome. She actually cried a little bit, right there at work. She was that sad. I was very proud of my fellow co-ops...every single person responded to her with compassion. I really don't remember what we said, even. Nothing remarkable, I'm sure. But I watched everyone convey friendship. Regardless of our different values, outlooks, and bents...we were all "for" our friend and even though we were so happy, we understood the pain of losing something. We might've all gone out to lunch together...we were always looking for reasons to go out to lunch. Because lunch is awesome. My point is, we gave her the space to grieve her loss.

To my friend's credit, her response was gracious as well. There was no begrudging us for our happiness, or berating our reasons for voting the way we did. The election was one part of life, but not all of life. We went on in our jobs, I moved to Massachusetts, and life continued in general.

So be nice, share, and play well with others. Celebrate if you're happy, and grieve if you're not.

But most of all, Don't Panic...

150...

...beats per minute. That was the heartrate at my prenatal appointment today.

I guess there really is a kiddo in there...

Turn Around, Bright Eyes...

Things might be starting to turn around.

I'm not saying I like Cheyenne yet. But I don't think I hate it. Eh--"hate" is such a strong word. Poor Cheyenne never did anything to me. It's not Cheyenne's fault this is where the AF decided to send the Cat Daddy (BTW I'm fully aware that God is fully aware of where the AF sends the Cat Daddy, and don't think that I haven't talked to Him about it).

Anyway, a list of good things about Cheyenne (however short)--

--The Cheyenne Greenway--a network of parks, walking paths, and the like throughout the city. Some are connected and some aren't, but all provide a nice path for walking, biking, etc., and plenty of grass & greenery to admire. There's a sizeable chunk of greenway within jogging distance of the house, and His Highness and I have already been up several times. They have a frisbee-golf course and a rolling creek, stream-like thing throughout, which has cool little footbridges should one wish to cross. The best thing about the greenway, in my opinion, is the multitude of places to seek a geocache. Just remember the bug repellant. The best thing about the jog TO the greenway--the goat farm off the dirt road. Baaaaaaa!

--The medical clinic on base might be starting to redeem itself. Due to insurance and other issues, I got a really bad first impression of the clinic. In my harsher moments I figured the place was being run by untrained monkeys who had not read the benefits manual. After much searching and a little bashing my head against the wall I managed to find some very kind and competent people to help me out. Then I actually met with a doctor in person, and found that he was very competent, and he listened to me, and took my philosophies seriously, even though they didn't quite align with his.

One fantastic side effect of all the frustration here was that I didn't care anymore about carefully framing my views or trying to be agreeable. Suddenly I was saying what I thought, simply and concisely. Even with the doc I ended up going "look, I'm a nervous-type, and here's my health in a nutshell," intermingled with my residual surfer-vibe and growing cowboy twang. I really should do that more often. It's much easier to just say what I want.

I didn't really care about being polite either, but on that one I talked it over with myself and decided that common courtesy and respect were still in order. I'm glad I did.

--Sonic, Barnes & Noble, Safeway, and King Soopers (aka Kroger, aka Fry's)

--Sunshine--they've got a lotta wind here. A lotta wind. But they also have a lotta sun. Beautiful, bright, sunny sun. Good for the disposition, I always say.

Yee-haw...

They Say It's My Birthday...

...and it's true. I turned 31 today. Yee-haw.

Let me recommend to all you ladies who will have the opportunity, to time your pregnancies so that you are not going thru first-trimester queasies on your birthday. Totally gets in the way of choosing a fantastic dinner, and can make cake outright impossible.

Sonic wasn't my original choice, but due to some extenuating toddler circumstances, that's where we ended up. Which is fine; just not as good as Applebees would have been if an Oriental Chicken Salad didn't sound completely repulsive to me at this moment. I knew that I would probably regret having dessert, but come on, I had to have something. So I ordered the Junior Banana Split. Awesome. It was so good that I plan to go back in a couple months and have a full sized one. We lamented the fact that Mrs. Bee wasn't with us to enjoy the goods--she'd have been pleased.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Got to talk to several family members and feel all special and stuff. Went shopping with the Cat Daddy in the afternoon. Blah blah blah. All around, a nice day. Other than the queasy parts...

I Remember. Oh Yes I Do...

Sept 11, 2001--The Cat Daddy and I had just moved to Ohio to begin his first assignment. He had to go to work while I moved our pets and most basic belongings (we'd sent most everything with the movers) into our little apartment behind Wright State University.

As I was taking in the first load of stuff a college student came up to me and said, "Dude, did you hear?" and I said "What?" and he said "A plane just crashed into the pentagon," and I gave him a quizzical look, because I thought he looked like he might've been smoking the fancy cigarettes, and I just didn't know what to make of what he was saying. And he said "Just go turn on the TV."

Well, I didn't have a TV right then, so once I unloaded our little pickup truck I plugged in the clock-radio and the dog, cat, and I plopped ourselves on the living room floor and listened there. To be honest, I was just numb--I already felt displaced, and adding a national crisis on top of that was completely discombobulating.

I didn't have a cell phone at the time, but thankfully our land line had been hooked up and to his great credit the Cat Daddy called to keep me posted about how things were going on his end. At that point the base had been completely locked down, so we couldn't have gotten to each other if we'd tried.

And then of course I checked in with the fam (or maybe they checked in with me), because here's my husband, brand-new to the military, and we just didn't know what that looked like yet--so it was mostly a quick "yeah we're fine" and definitely "I love you."

Then I went to McDonalds because I needed lunch anyway, and they had TVs to watch. After hearing about it on the radio, actually seeing the footage was stunning. The mood everywhere was somber, and even a little eerie. Because the gravity of the situation was just so massive, and the situation itself was more than a little eerie.

The Cat Daddy made it home mid-afternoon, and we called our sponsors--now our good friends--the Bees, and they let us come over for the evening. I think we ate, and we talked, and we sat there in disbelief. Ohio was also where there were some loud bangs in the sky that day, which of course freaked us out all the more. I'm not sure that we ever found out exactly what happened, but the accepted story is that it was a couple of sonic booms from some AF planes taking off (possibly to help with Air Force One security). Where normally they'd have waited longer before going supersonic, they were probably in a hurry, intentionally or not.

Then we all went to find some ice cream. The initial plan was to go to Friendly's, but they were closed. As was most everyone else. McDonalds was still open, but believe it or not I think they were flat out of ice cream. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that we ended up with any ice cream at all that night. And I never made it back to Friendly's until several years later, when we were all living in Mass and I finally partook of the goodness with Mrs. Bee.

So that's where I was and how I remember the day...

Deep Breaths and Lotsa Water...

So, altitude. It's very high here (heh heh--high). We're just over 6,000 feet, which is higher than Denver, the mile-high city. So the air is thinner, which means there's less oxygen, blah blah blah. From what I've heard in about 2 months our bodies will be making more red blood cells--enough to compensate--and we won't feel like taking a nap all the time. In the meantime I'm trying to drink lots of water and not over-exert myself. "Oh, Cat Daddy, I can't unpack that box; it's the altitude. I'd better take a snooze instead"...

...When I came here for househunting in June I caught a familiar vibe, similar to how things were in Dayton. Similar to a Midwestern vibe--down home, laid-back, sensible, and friendly. But with cowboys. A couple weeks after I was here they held their annual Frontier Days, which is loosely based around a giant rodeo. I think. And the state license plate has a little rodeo cowboy on it, so one should expect to see a lot of Wranglers around town. Throw in a military base, an oil refinery, and you come up with friendly, hardworking and/or blue collar folks with just a hint of "Aww, shoot." Kind of an interesting mix, but not at all incompatible with itself.

This means that, where I had a subtle surfer-dude vibe in Lompoc, here I picked up a mild twang within minutes. It's one of my quirks--picking up bits & pieces of the local accent. I'm not sure if it makes me appear more hip on the local feel or just plain silly, but thus far I've been unsuccessful in stopping myself. And I don't care enough to really, really try. And no one else seems to care all that much either, so that's that...

...So you've got Dell Range Blvd, the main drag. Here you will find the mall and many of the major chains, including big box retailers and restaurants. If it's not in Cheyenne, you can drive 45 minutes to Fort Collins & probably find it there. The Cat Daddy pointed out that we have not had such a readily-available opportunity to spend our money in close to 4 years. Oh we had stores in Mass, just not any within a half-hour of where we lived. Most people's kneejerk reaction is "I have to drive 30 minutes to Target??"--which was certainly my first thought. But over the long term we found ourselves saving a good bit of money because if we wanted something we'd first have to decide if it was worth driving to Franatickingham (Framingham & Natick--towns next to each other geographically--in one convenient fake name) to get it. Often it wasn't, or at the very least could wait until our roughly-monthly shopping trips. Inconvenient, perhaps, but fantastic for the checkbook.

But now we live about three miles off of Dell Range Blvd, and consequently within about 6 miles of pretty much anywhere we'd want to go on a regular basis. The other day we went to Olive Garden, where we hadn't eaten probably since sometime in 2004. In Dayton. The Cat Daddy said "Hey let's eat at Olive Garden." I said, "OK, but I thought you didn't like Olive Garden." He said "Oh I like it fine, I just got tired of it when we lived in Dayton," to which I replied, "And I can pretty much guarantee that you will grow tired of it again."

Whole wheat pasta--eh. Not bad for a healthier choice, but definitely not as good as the refined, white stuff. Mmmmmm, refined white stuff...

...When we drove into our neighborhood we found a profusion of multifarious trailers. RV's, horse trailers, boats, personal watercraft, some sort of racing apparatus (dirtbikes?), and so on. And 4-wheelers. Some demonstrated great affluence and/or a weekend-leisure-warrior vibe, while others fairly screamed something on the order of "urban hick." Or something. The Cat Daddy asked if I'd noticed all of this before and I swear, when I was here the trailers were almost entirely absent. A strange phenomenon. Not at all a dealbreaker, or even necessarily a negative thing. Just something we noticed...

...The Cat Daddy has XM. He acquired it when he bought his car last year, and kept up the subscription anticipating a great lack of decent radio stations in Cheyenne. I have not yet caved to satellite radio, so I have been doing the "seek" and "scan" functions while driving along. I seem to have found a fairly palatable station which sometimes seems along the lines of Oldies, which is good as far as I'm concerned, but other times leans toward a mix-type of thing. Either way, it seems to be halfway decent. Surprisingly more funk than one would expect from the land of cowboys and country. But hey, I'll take it...

...As for the house, it's all we dreamed and more. The best part is by far the basement, with its wall of built-in shelves glistening in white and the cable/internet up & running. It feels luxuriously cavernous down there (here, actually--we put the office down here too), but probably the main reason for this is that there's very little down there yet. When the Cat Daddy and Mr. Z unloaded the truck yesterday they put all the boxes in the garage as a staging area. Now our job is to wade thru everything and figure out placement in the house and/or yard sale box(es).

I'm no slug, mind you--I wrangled a certain little toddler and did various food runs & sundry errands. And we found that our dryer outlet was set up for four-prong plugs, while our dryer cord had three prongs. First I bought a three-pronged outlet to put in the four-pronged outlet's place. Upon some confusion about what to do with the extra wire, however, I consulted with my dad, who suggested keeping the outlet and replacing the dryer cord, so as to prevent the necessity of future outlet replacements. So I put back the four-pronged outlet and exchanged the three-pronged outlet for a four-pronged dryer cord, which was more expensive but should be more effective in the long run. What did I do with the extra wire? My understanding is that the extra wire is a ground so per Dad's instructions I threw it in next to the white wire and called it good. I should know what the white wire is for, but I don't. Then I turned the power back on and started the dryer, and not only did it not explode, but it ran as normal. I am awesome...

...But the altitude is still presenting the highest learning curve for me. I haven't actually cooked yet, but I will need to be mindful of directions that may need changing to compensate. Today in the store I picked up some yogurt and was leery at first because the foil toppers were bulging a bit. I'd always thought one is supposed to steer clear of bulging foil since it could indicate some bad yogurt, but darn it they were all bulge-y. Then I realized that they were probably packaged somewhere that isn't at 6,000 feet, and transporting the containers to the higher altitude would make them bulge. So I bought them. They taste fine...

The Cat Daddy is unloading a box so I'd better go find a place to snooze before he recruits me to help...

Take That, Snakes...

The Cat Daddy is waiting in the other room for me to finish up so he can pack up the computer, and thus disable our internet access. Tomorrow we pack up the van and Friday we begin our journey to scenic Cheyenne. I've decided that a "yee-haw" is almost certainly mandatory when mentioning Cheyenne. Yee-haw.

I shall try to post from the road. Wish us luck/pray for our travels if you are so inclined. If you pray for 'traveling mercies,' it will make me fondly giggle a little inside.

One more thing before I go. I would like to annouce that after several months of physical therapy, my butt feels fantastic. Here's hoping it stays that way for a while...

Curse You, MySpace & Facebook...

It's interesting to me the overall process with starting something new and online. It could be the same way with most anything in life, but the online stuff is where I've noticed it the most. No wait, I changed my mind--I also notice this when we start out in a new place. And it's the easiest to explain; even better.

I arrive to a new place awash in a slew of emotions. A part of me is totally freaked out by all the newness and not knowing anyone, or where anything is, but another part of me is a little bit excited and anticipates several months down the road by which time I'll know where things are (eg Target), and hopefully will have made a friend or two.

My personality is such, though, that I don't like to rush out and glom onto everyone I meet, running up & saying "Hey, I'm new, will you be my friend!?" Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's just not me.

But over time and for one reason or another we do start to meet people, and before I know it we have a full calendar, and I'm telling the Cat Daddy things like, "I just really need to be home this evening and not do anything."

So within the past several months I have joined the rest of humanity and gotten sucked into both MySpace and Facebook. Mostly I blame Mrs. Bee. She has had a MySpace account for a couple years now, I think, and was having such fun getting in contact with old friends, and would always talk about how kick-a$$ her updated page was, and all, and eventually I succumbed and made my own. But by that time she also had Facebook, as did another friend of ours, and they would sit and debate the merits of both, so I did Facebook too. I got them both all set up, fully prepared for them to sit in oblivion, save those few friends in my more immediate circles who(m?) I already knew had pages.

Which was the case for a while...in fact up until probably a month or so ago. I've been slowly accumulating a friend here & there, but all of a sudden some switch has been flipped, and I have about a billion friends between the two. I'm awash in popularity, I tell you. So much so that I decided I really need to post a few pics on my pages, so people can see my lovely little family. So now that's about fifteenth on my list of things to be done. The "problem," if you can call it such, is that I only log on once or twice per week, so it may be a while. But whatever.

The really trippy thing is the many of my previous lives from where people are popping up. Between schools and churches alone I have, like, 7 different lives, and I feel so far removed from most of them that it's strange to go back in my mind. I can't possibly be the only person who feels this way; I'm sure most everyone relates somehow. But still--it messes with my head. Especially when it comes to times I don't remember as my favorite (middle school, anyone?) and I have to take a moment and focus on the present, and say "I'm not there anymore. I'm not that person anymore." Hmmm, this can only get harder to explain. Moving on...

If I had more time they would probably be more of a time-suck. But as I've been prioritizing the have-to's, they are not far up on the list. They're on the list, just not very high.

Speaking of which, I'm supposed to be working on the budget (and doing my back exercises, among other things), so I'm just gonna go now...

Note To Self...

The tongs have been in the dog's water and the gladware has been in the trash. Need to wash both. Need to wash them well...

NQR--Not Quite Right...

I don't think there's anything magical about the age of 30, but there is something in me that, sometime in the past couple years, has "crossed over." Maybe it's having my own kiddo, I dunno. I used to think of myself as "one down" to pretty much everyone. Meaning I would defer to them because I thought of myself as younger, less experienced, or less-something. My pattern was to default to their judgement on pretty much everything, whether I asked for direction/advice or not.

But these days I am more my own person, and can think of myself as equal to most people. I'm better at distinguishing between a person having more knowledge/experience/wisdom in a given area(s) of life, rather than a person being "better" than I am in general. Consequently I'm that much braver when it comes to sticking up for myself.

It might be that I've known enough people in high positions to realize that most everyone is indeed just a regular person, but it also has to do with gaining some experience of my own and finding myself in a few situations over the years where I was the expert. Truth be told, it can be a little uncomfortable knowing that I'm in charge, weaknesses and all. But the really unnerving part is realizing that everyone I've ever looked to has also had limitations and weaknesses. Kinda puts a new perspective on...a lot of things.

The one on my mind lately--which I've realized before but somehow I always try to deny it—is knowing that no matter how much experience any sort of doctor or health professional has, I am the one who knows my own body the best. I am in charge, weaknesses and all. During the years when I didn't know what was wrong with my back I was sent thru numerous tests to find whatever it is that was wrong. X-rays, bone scans, MRI's, the works; and each time the verdict was that there was nothing wrong with me beyond some common quirks that shouldn't cause as much discomfort as I was having. So then there was the underlying burden of wondering if I was making it out to be more than it was or, worse, if I was a plain old hypochondriac.

The doc who eventually diagnosed the sacral shear said it best—there’s a fundamental difference between "there's nothing wrong" and "I can't find what’s wrong." I knew something wasn't right; I just didn't know what it was. And it turns out that SI Joint Dysfunction can be very subtle—usually not detectable by any of the standard diagnostic tests. All the previous docs did what they knew to do from their experience; but it took someone who had a specific expertise to know what was going on behind my symptoms.

That’s all to say that this week it was only slightly alarming when I saw the doctor for my SI Joint Dysfunction and--after explaining what was wrong with me, and that I've been dealing with it for years, and his doing his darnedest to help me out and give me good advice--coming to the conclusion that he did not know how to fix the problem.

I was highly annoyed at first. I thought "why can't you just listen to my description and do what needs to be done!" I had to remind myself that it took many, many doctors and over 9 years before I found one who knew how to help me. I also had to remind myself that I still get pretty fearful because, while I know what's wrong and what needs to be done about it, I am unable to fix it myself. And it’s scary when you have to start the search all over again, not knowing when you’ll find yet another person who can help in this very specific way. So a lot of my annoyance was actually frustration and fear that it will never. get. fixed.

Plus I pretty much suck at explaining it in the proper terminology, so God bless him for trying as much as he did.

To my credit, I didn't defer and go home to "wait & see;" I said something to the effect of “it still doesn’t feel right.” And to his credit, he very willingly referred me out for some PT, explaining that he deals with spinal/manipulation stuff maybe a few times per day, as opposed to someone who works with it day in & day out, and will have many more things in his/her bag of tricks. I really appreciated that.

And I hope he’s right, ‘cuz this is a royal (and literal) pain in the arse…

SI Joint Dysfunction (or, My Arse Is Outta Whack)...

It's hard to find stuff about SI Joint Dysfunction (or specifically in my case, sacral shear) on the internet, but today I found a couple of sites and even a book. What I didn't find were which (if any) PTs in the area do work on this sort of abnormality...but that's just a matter of calling around and maybe seeing the doc to see if (s)he knows.

But boy was I grateful to find the info I did. More grateful than even I realized, because I sort of cried a little bit in relief. Sensitive soul that he is, the Cat Daddy laughed at me...but he didn't balk when I immediately ordered the book, so I'll grant him some leeway.

Stupid SI Joint Dysfunction...

We Made It...

Yep, we made it safely. I'm in Starbucks handling the online necessities, but I won't have time to really write until the cable's hooked up Tuesday (at earliest).

In a nutshell, we arrived Friday, the house is great and Lompoc rocks.

Stay tuned...

Guilty Pleasures...

• Butter mints
• Stained Glass Candy--Hot Cinnamon!
• Coke Classic
• FreeCell
• Juliet Lloyd (she's really more of a not-so-guilty pleasure)