Twilight Irony

When I went to buy the second book in the Twilight series for my book group, this is what I found on the display. Leave it to a "lost" book to explain the meaning of vampire metaphors.

Patron Saint Cake

I may have to name all of my children after saints who also have their own brand of liquor. Al Capone* is being Christened this weekend and we are having a party. Every good party needs desert. Enter St. Brendan's Irish Creme Cake. We discussed using the bottle as a baloon weight, but decided that might be a little much.

Our first child will grow up with a Patron Saint Cake.

1 (18.255 ounce) box butter cake mix

1 (3.4 ounce) box instant vanilla pudding mix.

4 eggs

½ c. vegetable oil

¾ c. Saint Brendan's® Irish Cream Liqueur

1 (18.255 ounce) box chocolate cake mix

1 (3.4 ounce) box instant chocolate pudding mix.

4 eggs

½ c. vegetable oil

¾ c. Saint Brendan's® Irish Cream Liqueur

Frosting:

2 cans cream cheese frosting.

4 Tbs. St. Brendan's Irish Cream

Combine with electric mixer

Preheat oven to 350˚.

NOTE: Prepare each cake mix recipe sepatately

In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs and oil. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed. Add Saint Brendan’s®. Spoon into 9 inch round cake pans. Bake 25-30 minutes or until top is golden and sides pull away. Cool on wire rack.

Alternate layers of chocolate and butter cake mixes and frost with cream cheese frosting.

*To learn more about Al Capone click here. I promise I didn't really name my child Al Capone.

Not my Hero...

Last night was our last childbirth class, and the last hour was supposed to be devoted to teaching relaxation techniques. I'm actually a fan of relaxation, but last night wasn't exactly what I would call relaxing. Here's why...

Having very pregnant women lay on a concrete floor (okay, I realize this can't exactly be helped) is never really the pinnacle of relaxation. To make it a little more awkward, the substance abuse meeting across the hall decided that watching childbirth class through the door was more entertaining than anything else they could do on their break. I'll admit that by this point I was seriously questioning my ability to pretend that I was completely relaxed and lying on a beach somewhere.

The true deal breaker, however, was not the floor or the rehab audience, but when the instructor talked about music and then turned on Mariah Carey's Hero, I was done. It didn't help that we'd just finished a cheesy 80s Lamaze video that featured the dad changing into a muscle shirt for the delivery, but I'm pretty sure if their had been a exam, Greg and I would have failed. Here's to hoping that Michael J. Fox (circa 1980s with lots of hair gel and a muscle shirt), Mariah Carey, and local substance abuse support groups stay far far away from my hospital room.

Boots

Another reason it shouldn't snow in April...I'm stuck wearing my snow boots. It was icy this morning and it seemed like a really good idea to just wear my snow boots for extra traction. Um, I can't get my snow boots off now. So I sit on the couch grading watching tv and wearing my red snow boots. I forgot that I had be able to pull my boots off at the end of the day and that that would require being able to reach the bottom of my feet. I'm glad it didn't snow on Friday when Rakicy was out of town or I might of had to sleep in my snow boots.

Banned for Doping

According to Google, I am currently ineligible to participate in the Olympics (or any other professional sport) because of doping.

I'd admittedly really bad at "staying off my feet" and since I don't watch soap operas, I tend to only manage to follow these instructions if I can surf the internet.* Yesterday, I got put on Terbutaline to stop my contractions and when I was googling this drug, I was amused that articles about the this substance being banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency** routinely include the factoid that it is used to stop labor as well.

Given that Terbutaline isn't even usually prescribed until the third trimester of pregnancy, I'm wondering if this is a case of Wikipedia providing a little too many random bits of information for newspaper reporters or if there is a large number of women who are 7 and 8 months pregnant and also competing in professional supports. Clearly this news means that my plans of becoming an Olympic gymnast must be put on hold until I receive my Theraputic Use Exception.


*In December I had to stay on my left side for about a week which was extremely inconvenient for web surfing even on a laptop.
**It's primarily an asthma drug that increases your lung capacity by relaxing the smooth muscles in the lungs.

Superheros

I'm a little disturbed that this guy just happened to have a Spiderman costume on hand, but this is a very cool story.

Keys

I'm really glad that no one measures fitness to be a parent by the ability to keep track of one's car keys and/or not lock one's self out of the house/car/office/all of the above.*

This morning I lost my car keys, then found my car keys, then 15 minutes later walked out the back door and shut the door (which was locked) with my keys in their new "safe" spot. B was on her way to come get me, when I remembered that I had been messing with the egress window that morning and likely did not lock it back. So I broke in my house, got the keys, and hurried to school.

Both of my classes were working on activities today that didn't require me to provide any materials, so I decided to leave everything in my office while I taught 170. Um, my office door locks automatically. Repeat above situation, this time with college secretary.

Is it wrong that while I was walking through Meijer this afternoon, I saw one of those pacifier attachers and instantly thought that maybe next fall, I will leave my keys attached to the baby? I mean, theoretically, I shouldn't lose my keys and the baby.


*Actually, there is a really good reason this story is appearing on this blog and not elsewhere. :)

FSOT

For Sale or Trade:
One set of seriously defunct sinuses and lungs. Introductory supply of Tylenol, Sudafed, Robitussen, and Kleenex provided at no additional charge.

Adsense Irony

Today, I've had a really crappy day. I went to bed annoyed because I am trying to find a reasonably priced, safe, and gender neutral car seat and Target doesn't seem to want to keep any in stock or be helpful at all. So I literally spent hours researching whether or not I could use a convertible infant-toddler car seat and finally gave up and went to bed frustrated after I read numerous website/message boards which all told me I was a bad parent for thinking of skipping the infant carrier and being a parent isn't about trying to save money.*

I woke up in a bad mood and then discovered that the grad forum event that I am in charge of planning for tomorrow seems to be unraveling at lightening speed because the university email system arbitrarily eats emails. Since I didn't know what kind of mood my advisor was in and didn't think I could handle getting in trouble for anything, I sat on the couch and sobbed for a good 15 minutes while contemplating career changes.

Rather than deal with university drama, I decided that hunting down the car seat we were looking for would give me a sense of accomplishment.** Long story short, I called Target. They were rude. I asked to speak to someone else who suggested that I was overreacting and that the car seat was scheduled to be back in stock by June 1 which shouldn't be a problem since first babies are usually late.***

By the time, I wrote the weekly update for the baby blog, I had moved from overwhelmed to pissed and instead of talking about the baby's development this week, I basically vented about Target's incompetence. When I went to check my Google Reader a little while ago, this is what I saw. Please note the sponsor of today's blog post...

*Actually, I think it is about being responsible. Do I really need to spend $300 on an Eddie Bauer car seat. Wouldn't an investment in a college fund be a much more beneficial use of the money?
**Because Google can find anything right? Wrong there are some things that Google cannot make appear in stock and I do know that you aren't supposed to buy used car seats, so Ebay is out. BTW if any of you happen to see a Graco Stylus Morocco Travel System, will you please buy it. I will send you a check.
***I'll give him that I probably overreacted to the email situation this morning, but considering that I'm due May 24th (probably about to be a week sooner), I don't think it's really unreasonable to want a car seat before I have the baby, especially considering that I can't leave the hospital with the baby is we don't have one. As much fun as it would be to send Rakicy or M to the store to find one on the excitement plan, I don't think that trying to avoid that situation makes me unreasonable or irrational.

Lost Post-It

Someone left their post-it note To-Do list on the floor of my classroom today. It made me laugh way harder than it should have:

1. Read Research
2. Go to library
3. Do laundry
   
4. Stay awake during Calc

News Overload

I'll admit that I enjoy being able to follow every step of the election and inauguration as it happens, but this might be a sign that the news outlets are running out of things to talk about.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I'm not sure which is more disturbing that MSNBC reported this as actual news or that there is a college professor out there who specializes in port-o-potties.

Campus Health Irony

After being in school forever, I have resigned myself to the fact that a visit to a campus clinic for any reason (pneumonia, broken ankle, etc) is likely to involve a lengthy conversation about whether or not I was pregnant. (Since pregnancy is clearly the leading cause of broken bones.)

Who knew that if you are actually pregnant, student health services doesn't actually have any interest in treating you?

Trip one to get a flu shot went something like this:

Them: Oh, you're pregnant.
Me: Yep.
Them: You can't have a flu shot.
Me: The CDC says all pregnant women should get a flu shot.
Them: We can't give it to you without a doctor okaying it.
Me: Okay

(insert lengthy conversation about how they don't have an OB on staff, but can refer me to one. My attempt to explain that I had my own doctor who just wasn't affiliated with SHS (Thank God) was met with a lecture about the dangers of not seeking prenatal care and an offer to test me for other STDs all in the waiting room that happens to contain one of my students.)

I leave with the understanding that I can bring a note from my OB and they will give me the flu shot.

Flu Shot Trip #2
Them: Oh, you're pregnant.
Me: Yes, I have the letter from my OB that you asked for last time.
Them: I don't think that we're supposed to give you the flu shot if you're pregnant.
Me: Last week, you said as long as I brought this letter, you could give it to me.
Them: Yes, but the form contains a box that we have to check that says you're not pregnant.
Me: Can't you write a note next to it an attach this letter.
Them: Oh, I guess we could do that, but I have to call medical records first.

The nurses leave

Them: Medical records suggest that we reschedule your appointment while we figure out what to do.
Me: You've had ten days to figure out what to do. I'd really like my flu shot today.
Them: We just don't generally treat pregnant women for anything.
Me: Every time I'm in here, you're trying to get me to take a pregnancy test, but you won't actually treat me if I'm pregnant.
Them: If you're pregnant we refer you to someone else. We just offer the tests.
Me: Well, you sent out an email saying anyone who fit these criteria should get a flu shot and pregnant women are on there. So, maybe you should take that off, since even with a letter from my OB, you won't give me a flu shot.
Them: We listed as okay in the email?
Me: Yep, it's even on that form.
Them: In that case, I guess it will be okay.

Among my other complaints with campus health, I am very disturbed by the fact that while they won't follow a letter from a doctor, they will treat you, if you can't point out an email as justification.

Dreams

Apparently pregnant women dream more than normal people. While normally my dreams are not interesting enough tell you all, I had to make an exception since this one involved a large number of my readers and was exceptionally bizarre.

M, cfa, jcampbell, B, and I are all sitting in Chilli's in Washington, DC (where we all apparently now live) discussing what cfa is going to do next year. Somewhere in the midst of this conversation M tries to convince cfa that before she leaves MHS, she needs to pass out M's leftover Obama stickers as prizes. After a lenghty discussion about whether or not stickers are appropriate for highschoolers*, cfa casually says, "I really think it might be weird since the Obama girls are coming to MHS next year and they might think that stickers are weird."

B asks cfa why she is leaving the same year that the Obama girls are coming. Cfa says "it's too much paperwork."

While M and I try and convince cfa that she must stay at MHS, jcampbell stops texting, causually looks up and says "have you thought about applying for the secret service job. They are required to have a least one agent that is certified in education."

Cfa then gives up her day job as an English teacher to become the secret service education liason.

*To clarify this conversation had nothing to do with the political content of the stickers, but was strickly about the age appropriateness of stickers in general.

Casual Friday?

Three packets of yellow dye later and he's one his way to work as Paulie Bleeker!

Creepy Dolls

Last night Greg and I got totally enthralled in a very weird show. BBC America's My Fake Baby is a documentary about women who buy dolls made to look like real babies. At first, I was thinking that life like dolls were a little creepy in general, but as the documentary revealed this to be a creepier trend then what I could have imagined. The women who buy these dolls often treat them as "real" babies. They buy them clothes, push them through stores and parks in "prams," and transport them in carseats. The dolls can be ordered to custom size and weight and many feature breathing, heartbeat, and "wiggle" mechanisms.

The women who make the dolls consider themselves artists, and I can support that. The majority of the dolls featured look incredibly life like. In many ways these artists are no different than artists who create sculptures or wax figures. That said, their "art" seems to be fueled by consumers (only women in the documentary) who probably would be better off spending the thousands of dollars on addressing the bigger issues in their lives. One woman had an doll made to look like her grandson who had moved to New Zealand with his mother. Throughout the documentary, the grandmother cites her motivation for getting the doll as "no one can take this baby away from me." For most of the documentary, the grandmother talks as though her grandson had died, rather than being alive and well in another country.

More disturbing to me than the woman with attachment issues is the other woman who is featured. This woman cited her love of the dolls as a replacement for her own children because she would be unable to handle the "noise" of a real baby. This woman flew from London to Washington DC for the "delivery" of her 4th baby. Besides the very weird notion that bringing home the doll is equivalent to giving birth, this woman spends two days in the hotel room "bonding" with her baby before she discovers a defect in the doll and then declares that the doll has to be returned because she can't have a "baby who isn't perfect." Okay, so maybe it's not a bad thing that this this woman doesn't have a real baby. I'm still not comfortable with her attachment to the doll, but the more I saw of this woman, the more I was glad that she wasn't rejecting an actual baby.

While all of the women featured in the documentary were British, according to this Today's Show report, the trend is now becoming popular in the US. I'm seriously thinking of teaching a "living doll" book in 170 next semester, just so I can talk about this show.

Bingo!

I saw references to Palin Bingo in several people's status messages today and decided that researching that was a better use of my time than grading. Currently this site has 4 different bingo cards to choose from and a blank card if you want to make your own. If you are interested in a more bi-partisian bingo game, you can find a set of cards for both Biden and Palin here.

Frat Party in Suburbia

This is what I saw when I got home from work this afternoon...

From Blogger Pictures

And in case you couldn't tell exactly what you are looking at, yes, that is 5 full bottles of Miller Genuine Draft in the middle of the road. If I had gotten home a few minutes earlier it would have been 5 bottles of beer, a school bus, and about 12 kids all in one picture. I'm not really sure who is partying in the street on Wednesday afternoons, but clearly one of our neighbors isn't nearly as Leave it to Beaver-esque as we thought.

From Blogger Pictures

Road Trip: The Musical(s)

R told me about NPR's segment "9 Minute Road Trip" this morning. While Stephen Thompson gives you nine minutes worth of music that makes up for the fact that gas prices don't allow for longer road trips at the moment, I would also encourage you to listen to the five minute description of the nine minute road trip. I can't figure out how to embedded everything in this post, but you can listen to the story and the five songs here. It turns out that NPR has been taking musical road trips all summer.

Library Fines

I'm glad that I don't live in Grafton, OH. Two overdue notices apparently equals a court date. Just another reason for me to stick to Paperback Swap and avoid the library if at all possible.

"Kevin's" First Day

Last semester might have been my most memorable first day of classes ever. I had a student, I'll call him Kevin, who spent the first day passed out in the fetal position under the desk at the front of the room. Really, to be fair he came in class about 20 minutes late looking like he hadn't showered or slept in days and announced "I'm Kevin." He then semi-passed out in his chair and shortly after that fell out of his chair, rolled in a ball and stayed under the table. This was a very awkward first day for me, mostly because the other students seemed not to mind that Kevin was unconscious and looked like he'd been strung out on multiple things for several days. Kevin amazingly passed that class, although he spent a great deal of the semester mentally strung out, not showering, and looking for B.

I really curious what kind of first day this will be, but I'm really curious what kind of first Kevin will have this semester.