Stupid Medical Benefits!

WARNING: I use the word "fuck" many times in this post.

Yes, it's those stupid, horribly expensive medical benefits that keep me tethered to my desk.

Yesterday Ms. *** (she doesn't have a blogging nickname) came to my house and we sewed handbags. Well, I mostly cut out patterns. Babies need fed. After she left, I continued to fuck up my bag in between completing basic family duties, sewing a Right side to a Wrong side TWICE and having to rip out.

Yet even with these devastating setbacks, I caught myself thinking--many times--"How the fuck do I manage to turn staying at home into a profit deal and quit my soulless corporate job?"

This morning I woke up at 3 a.m. to feed Marky. Stevie was sleeping next to us. He's trying to make it through the night without peeing all over himself. I checked him to see if he was dry so I could get his totally cute 5 year-old zombie body to the potty. He wasn't. But knowing that I had to get up in a few hours and haul myself to work, I just covered him up and went back to sleep. If I could stay home, I would have changed him and cleaned him up and moved him to his own, dry, plastic-protected bed. Because I could sleep in a bit.

As it was, the alarm jarred me awake at 5:45 and made Marky squirm. His head was tucked up into my upper arm, his body all snug against my side. He has gained control over his neck and seems to really enjoy quickly turning it from one side to the other. How fucking cute is that?

And yet here I am, positively joyless, about to start on a task that I don't care about for people who don't love me as they should. Another mommy is at my house with my kids, and I fucking hate it.

Happy Monday, everyone!

In the Highways, In the Hedges . . .

. . . I'll be somewhere, a workin' for my Lord.

I saw a Ford Excursion last night on my way home from work. It was black and clean. The back window, as large and sweeping as a Montana plain, was tinted black. The license plate said:

SUPRSZE

I must give the owner props. He or she has managed to symbolize just about everything repugnant about the American lifestyle with just seven little letters and one $40,000 rolling monster of death.

The Ford Excursion boasts a V10 with "sequential multi-port electronic fuel injection" and a whole bunch of other mysterious stuff that you can read about on Ford's web site. However, you can sift and sift through all of this highly-detailed information and still not find the stats on "Exhaust" and "Fuel Economy*". Those numbers are "N/A". To further tantalate, the Fuel Economy is followed by an *, but there is no other * on the page to guide the dear reader.

Intrigued, I Googled "Fuel Economy Excursion" and didn't find much at all. Car dealers would list a lot of information about them but then there'd be this: "mph city/NA; mph highway/NA". I could find it for other cars, but not for the King of the SUVs.

The personal virtue environmentalists had something--they said that a guy from Harper's drove around a city in the Excursion and was getting a whopping 3.7 mph. By his reckoning, over its bloated lifetime the Excursion will spew 134 tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, which is nearly 3X as much as a car that gets about 27 mph. All for a base price of $38,350! Wow!

Some car magazine's web site had comments about the Excursion from Excursion owners (read: toady climbers at Ford) that raved about the Excursion's average of 15.5 mph, or 17.2 mph, or 16 mph. One commenter boasted, "The Excursion is the biggest SUV you can buy without a trucker's license, and while some compact car drivers may give you a nasty stare, it still fits the American highway lifestyle perfectly."

That's right, buddy, way to stick it to those tweedy little sniveling compact car drivers! Fuck them! REAL Americans have a highway lifestyle to enjoy! Actual soldiers--I knew one!--fought and DIED to give us the right to plug up the roads and our arteries--to SUPRSZE!!!

(Must go to happy place now. Soft path. Gentle wind through leaves. Sun shining on blue, blue water. . . . Ahhhhhhh.)

We Have Mice

I keep all of my thread for quilting in these pretty little canvas covered boxes. Very Real Simple. I label the fronts "pretty thread" and "variegated thread" and "100% cotton", etc. These boxes are neatly stored on the shelves above my washer and dryer.

Side story: Our washer quit on us yesterday. It had been making a weird whining sound and then, yesterday, just went kerplunk. Kevin contemplated fixing it himself, but to do so would require a library book and a bunch of work and so he called an actual repairman. The repairman came ($54.00 for the 30-minute round trip) and removed a teeny little baby sock from the pump (17.50, labor). Awwwww. That's the cutest little $72.00 we'll ever spend.

Yesterday afternoon I left work early so I could go to my little hometown quilting store and take advantage of my birthday discount of 30%. I decided to buy more thread. While putting it away (in the "variegated" and "pretty" boxes), I pulled down the boxes and discovered a single mouse turd on the top of my variegated thread box!

Now, I hate mice. I think I've even written a post on that topic before. And we've been relatively mouse-free for months now. Despite my hatred, all I said was "Ewwww. There's a mouse turd on my pretty thread box" and tipped the box so the offensive offal would disappear into the food bits from a previous day's dinner preparation that were still lingering on the floor. I loaded the new thread into the boxes. While doing so, I hear a "Can I see?" from the living room. It was Stevie.

Stevie likes fabric and art and all that so, pleased, I once again removed the top of the box and held the box down at the level of the approaching 5-year old so he could look at all of my pretty new thread and dream with me of future Lord of the Rings-themed quilts. How wonderful that he is taking an interest in this artistic enterprise! How awesome that he is busting out of gender stereotypes and/or hasn't learned yet that quilting is for girls! He rounded the corner into the kitchen, peered down into the box full of glorious colors, and pondered . . .

"Where's the mouse turd?"

Breastfeeding: This is GRAPHIC!

OK, Burb couldn't make this picture bigger (total incompetence!) and I was going to provide a link to a larger image but even THAT was too cumbersome and the address was splitting and going all over this sacred space so screw it, man! if you want to see a bigger picture, Google Image "breastfeeding" and there you go. Of course, we're all going to get zapped by the Corporate Master Internet Tonton Macoutes, but oh well, it was a nice ride and you got a lot of free pens.

So this is Lucy Lawless. New Zealand megastar. Public service heroine. Faux-lesbian icon. Tres chic office worker. Nerd masturbation fodder. Breastfeeder.

The spirit is there, and I appreciate it. Breastfeeders Unite! Take Back the Bite!

In all seriousness, breastfeeding is still just so weird to some people, and there are still laws preventing women from doing it in public, and so those of us who feel that breasts are there for a slightly more natural purpose than being squished by $50 bras into a gelatinous mass for the viewing pleasure of those super-special, "I-go-for-the-wings" Hooters patrons have to stick together and make posters of ourselves breastfeeding . . . with heels on. Our impossibly long legs properly crossed. On the EDGE of a chair.

Mmm-hmm.

My breasts are calling to me, daring me to tell the truth! Seriously, they are. Excuse me while I go pump.

Aaahhh . . . better! This here is the First Truth of Breastfeeding: Full boobs bad. Empty boobs good! (My apologies to George Orwell.)

I must admit to not knowing much about breastfeeding before I became a breastfeeder. Was there milk in there all the time? Did big-breasted women make more milk (real question: Would my babies starve?) After I started, I discovered a whole new world of feminine mysteries. Mysteries like waking up a few days after giving birth and finding large, smooth, plastic-y Barbie boobs where your old boobs used to be! Sure, they were pretty--big, round, and firm. But they were what the medical community calls "engorged". This is not good. There will not be an "Engorged Boob Barbie" anytime soon.

The feeling is peculiar. Sorta like what I imagine a bad boob job feels like. In a regular breast, there's some malleability. You can take hold of a breast and move it around a bit--if you squeeze it, it conforms to that shape. And the nipple can move, too. In an engorged breast . . . well, first of all, don't touch! Ouchy. Second, you can't cup it and squeeze it because all the little alveoli are filled with milk and it feels like some ill-mannered child has managed to place a full water balloon inside your breast and it's hanging there, heavily. Third, when breasts are filled like this, the nipple can't be compressed. This means that the baby, whose gums are needed to press down on the sinuses behind the areola and get that milk out! now! can't even really press--it's like trying to latch onto a bowling ball. With your gums.

It can be frustrating.

Still, engorgement can be remedied. Women are trees; we can bend (and read breastfeeding manuals). But then there are the nipples. Those same manuals will say things like "nipples can get sore at first . . . " Uh-huh. Nipples are sensitive. We all know that. That's why many of us cringe when we imagine a nipple piercing, or nipple clamps, or even nipples that become chafed as a result of wearing a denim shirt. Now imagine nipples that are forced to undergo sustained sucking and gum-gnawing for hours and hours every day! They get red, they get cracked, they even form scabs. And, yet, baby must feed! Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat!!! That will soon seem like all those little bastards do! They cry; you cringe, knowing that yep, it's gonna hurt. In fact, dear reader, at first it hurts so bad that at times I would actually cry out "YOooooW!" and once I even grabbed a pillow and threw my leg up in the air at the same time! But I didn't drop baby! (Hooray for Lulu!)

Once, while reading a more truthful manual, I was comforted to learn that yes, you can feed baby even if your nipples are bleeding. The blood is OK for baby! My Lord, what we do to avoid buying formula.

Before the La Leche League comes storming in here to take me to Breastfeeder Jail (complete with lactation rooms, no doubt), I will say that engorgement and nipple trauma and all that other stuff, well, it doesn't have to be that way. There are plenty of lactation resources available. Most of the trouble comes from 1. being anal and trying to put baby on a schedule. Nix that idea. and 2. improper latch-on. The latter is well-known to me. Breastfeeding is definitely a learned skill, and baby can't just grab on and go. Lips have to be splayed out ("like a fish") and the mouth should cover as much of the areola as possible (they breathe through the sides of their nostrils--don't worry, baby IS alive!) and if baby isn't optimally plugged in then break the suction by sticking a finger in the side of her mouth and between her razor-sharp gums--DON'T PULL HER OFF--and try, try again.

After awhile, mommy and baby work it out. In fact, the whole relationship gets very cool and psychic. Many times my milk will "let down" (move from the alveoli into the sinuses) just BEFORE the baby starts to fuss. For me, letting down is a slightly uncomfortable, tingly feeling, akin to a limb waking up after being "asleep". At work, I've called the house when my milk let down just to see if Marky was crying/hungry and sure enough! When mommy and baby are together as nature intended, the breasts provide just the right amount of milk for baby--no engorgement, no problems. The baby latches on "naturally", eats, and looks just so darn cute as he drifts off to sleep, belly full of warm, fatty milk. This I will remember--fondly.

That's one of the best things about breastfeeding--bonding. But it's not always the picture that Gerber puts out in the world. Sure, there are many times when mommy and baby smile at each other, make lots of eye contact, coo, and all that crap. But let me tell you about last night.

Yesterday afternoon at work was so busy and deadline-y that I didn't get a chance to pump! I usually pump twice while at work; yesterday I could not. By the time I got home, I had two full, hard breasts and only one baby mouth to help me. While Mark latched on to the larger bowling ball, I was trying to finagle the breast pump funnel onto the other. I was just like Lucy Lawless! I was still in my business clothes! The comparison ends there. I was sitting IN the chair, mostly holding baby with one arm while trying to fit my other breast--one-handed--into a plastic contraption and adjust the intensity of the vacuum-pumping action so as not to sacrifice my nipple to The Machine. Shirt raised above my breasts, bra pulled below, milk spurting, hair askew . . . I did not look like Lucy. I was bonding with baby if you count cussing at the breast pump to be meaningful mommy/baby time. And then I made Stevie drop what he was doing to hand me the remote ("put it RIGHT in my hand, pleeeease.") so I could quickly decide that I didn't want to watch TV because nothing is on and Stevie is too short to reach the DVD shelf. I gritted my teeth and rode it out. If Mark ever gives me any crap, I will send him straight to this post. While my cold lingers for weeks, he is full of top-notch immune-boosters!

So what about pumping? For those of us who must work outside the home and want to continue breastfeeding and don't have a servant to deliver our babies into our arms twice a day, pumping is necessary. Otherwise, your boobs (an ill term, seeing as how they're actually very smart) will think "no baby suckling, no milk needed", dry up, and that's all, little folks. Just know this about pumping: If someone ever walked in the "comfort room" and saw me, sans shirt and shoes, lounging on the pleather chaise holding two funnel-topped bottles to my breasts, nipples being pulled and released, pulled and released, pulled and released . . . well, I'm no drama queen, but I might actually wither away and die.

Still, we breastfeed on. The good so outweighs the bad. And once you're over the mighty hill at the beginning, just get a box of breast pads to soak up the leaks and keep on truckin'. And though I can't wait to stop (I'll go at least 6 months--my goal is a year), I will miss it when it's all over. I really will.

An Ode to Wood Smoke

(Note: Most of this was written in early December, 2005. I was interrupted.)

The first sound I heard this morning was the crackling of the fire in the wood stove. This is one of the advantages of getting up later than your spouse in a house that relies on a wood stove for heat--the first one up stokes the stove. The lazy ass soaks in the warmth.

As I slowly came to life, I thought of the odd little dream I had had at some point during the night. I was driving my old Toyota truck through a small cemetery. The caretaker had cut several problem trees down and to get around the pieces I had to stop and load some into the truck. So I did. And I lusted for more. The tree trunks and limbs were cut into perfect sized chunks and many were remarkably, freakishly round and I thought "those would be perfect to cut on a lathe. I need to get those for Kevin." Odd.

But as I pondered, the dream became less odd because, oddly enough, I am always eyeballing fallen trees and wood piles and the strips of trees between fields, wishing that I had a pick-up truck and a chainsaw so I could load it up and take it home. (I have both of these things, but I drive the sedan, don't you know.) I really get this urge when I drive through towns that have recently trimmed trees to make way for power lines. The forelorn piles sit beneath these star-crossed maples, oaks, and beeches, waiting for some city truck with loud equipment to come and pulverize it into mulch--and that's in the progressive towns. Most of the houses sitting behind these piles have no wood stoves and, so, won't use the wood.

Deep in the forests, Ents fume.

Why do the Ents not fume for me? Because contrary to the image of a woodswoman going out and chopping down a tree to cut into firewood, I've never cut down a live tree to get firewood. When I lived in my cabin, every last piece of wood I burned came from trees that had already fallen, courtesy of a local beaver with substandard planning skills or one hell of a snowstorm (see first picture) or maybe a fungus of some sort. That's one of the beautiful things about heating with wood--there is enough laying on the ground, or cut up in the name of progress, to go around quite nicely. The only fuel that need be involved is that used in a chainsaw, in a logsplitter (if you eschew the Zen hand-splitting), and in the truck to haul it home.

By the way, the pictures were taken during my time in the cabin. Remember that big ice storm/blizzard in 1993? Out in my neck of the woods, SIXTY trees fell over the 1.5 miles of road I had to drive to get to the first paved road. Because we were the only residents on our driveway-like road, the crews, um, took a while to get there. Like, a week. If it hadn't been for diligent hand-splitting (see picture #2) and my little stove (lovingly drawn but embarrassingly misspelled in picture #3), well, I shiver to think about it. In blizzards (again, see first picture), when power gets knocked out and people start to die of the cold (or of carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to heat with gas cooking stoves), people with wood stoves and dry wood live. Comfortably.

But what about start-up costs? Many wood stoves are really cheap. Kevin and I got our big, solid, used, cast iron monster for about $300. A lot of people will give them to you if "you haul". That's how we got the monster in our workshop. Really high end, efficient, and pretty stoves can cost a lot more. Stove pipe and supplies set us back another $50. We got two cords of firewood for $150. We'll need at least another cord, maybe two, which may mean another $200. Keep in mind that some folks spend hundreds each month. Of course, we could go to the woods and get it for free, but firewood needs to dry. If we're smart, we'll start early next year and put up our own cords for the cost of some premium gas and a few weekends of pleasant, sweat-inducing work in the woods. All-in-all, it's a really cheap way to heat a house, and--as I've said a million times--it's WARM. I grew up in a small house with lots of creaks and cracks and the thinnest-paned windows in the world. My bedroom was in the northeast corner. Ice would form on the inside of my windows, melting down into the slowly rotting (read: leaking) sills. It was chilly.

Perhaps those are the experiences that led to my obsession with enveloping heat and R-values, and my love of small, open, wood stove-friendly homes. When I think of my dream home, I first think of energy efficiency, of radiant floor heat and tight wood stoves and a plentiful supply of oak, hickory, sugar maple, yellow birch, and apple wood. A cord of any of these woods, densely packed with stored solar energy, replaces about 250-300 gallons of fuel oil. Why is nature so good to us?

Lastly, a dormant wood stove makes a hell of an imaginary Balrog for a five-year old "elf" wielding suction-tipped arrows.