Recession-proof?

First of all, a clarification: I'm afraid I may have mistakenly given the impression in yesterday's post that we are trying to conceive. We aren't. In fact, we are actively Trying Not to Conceive, and will remain that way until, at a minimum, a year has passed since my surgery. I just did the pre-conception appointment because I was due for an annual exam, needed to find an OB/GYN here in Denver, and thought it would be a good way to see if I could find a practice I liked. So, don't hold your breath for any Big Announcements anytime soon. Sorry!

Now, onto other subjects. Because if I keep talking about babies I will drive myself certifiably insane over the fact that I can't have them right now, and I WANT THEM.

So, moving on, what is WITH the latest Lexus ad campaign? Have you all seen this? The cars with the giant red bows on top? And the voiceover about how your loved ones would really like a Lexus for Christmas? You've seen it, right?

So, you know, just for kicks, I popped over to the Lexus website and had a look at their prices. The cheapest Lexus starts at over $30,000. The most expensive starts at over $100k.

That's nice, right? I mean, here we are in a recession and most of my friends are totally planning to spend the cost of a down payment on holiday gifts. I have friends right, left, and center who are trying to figure out how on earth they'll spend their $50,000 gift budget this year. Thank god Lexus came along with this earth-shattering suggestion!

Also, I don't know about the rest of you but a car is a rare, Big Deal kind of purchase at our house, and not the kind of thing that I'd like Torsten to decide on without discussing with me. I mean, even if $50k were like pocket change to us (though I'm really not sure that $50k is like pocket change to anyone other than celebrities). I'd still want to talk about it and decide what was best for us, together.

And if you WERE rich enough to just buy a car, like that, as a gift, without consultation, as though it were nothing... wouldn't you be driving a Bentley or something?

ALSO, who teaches their kid to drive in a Lexus? Shouldn't you use some crappy old car for that? I mean, really.

My point is, I think Lexus is way off-base with this ad campaign, and it pisses me off every time I see another one of their commercials talking about how a luxury car is a great Christmas present because of the memories you'll have of it. THINK OF THE MEMORIES. You just can't GET memories like this in, I don't know, a Ford. Because you'll always remember, no matter what the memories are, that they didn't take place in a Lexus. And that will ruin the whole thing for you.

I'm just saying. The kind of memories that make me happy are the things like last night, when I watched The Devil Wears Prada with Torsten while he rubbed my back, even though he has zero interest in that movie and had a really long workday. It was so cozy and he is so sweet. That's the kind of memory that sticks. Even though our couch isn't even brand name.

So thankful for midwives

Warning: Female discussion topic ahead. Not that I have many male readers anyway.

On Friday I had my annual exam with a midwife, as decided months ago. On the advice of some of you, when I scheduled the appointment I also mentioned that I wanted to do a pre-conception consultation at the same time. This turned out to be an awesome idea, because the midwife actually spent over an hour just talking to me about various pregnancy- and health-related topics.

Seriously, she was AWESOME. She was supportive of my desire to have a natural childbirth without being too extreme about it. She was very knowledgeable and discussed some issues that hadn't occurred to me, such as genetic counseling (since Torsten and I are both European Caucasian, we're at higher risk for being carriers of cystic fibrosis), testing for rubella immunity (apparently some batches of the MMR vaccine weren't fully effective against rubella), and checking Torsten's blood type (I have a negative blood type, and if Torsten's is positive, it's possible that a baby's would be too, and then there would be concern about my body attacking the baby, which could be alleviated with a simple shot).

She listened to all my questions, and answered them thoughtfully and thoroughly. She was interesting. She didn't seem rushed AT ALL, and even sometimes took the time to go on tangents that were useful but not strictly necessary. We talked about doulas and water births and self-hypnosis and c-sections and risks and my thyroid and weight and lots of other things.

Background on the thyroid as it relates to pregnancy: apparently untreated or poorly-managed thyroid problems can lead to temporary infertility. So, before my thyroid was treated and before I went on the pill years ago, my period was quite irregular, and according to my endocrinologist, I probably wasn't ovulating.

Also, because apparently when you've been overweight your whole life you assume that everything is related to your weight, and because thyroid problems affect your weight, I assumed that the non-ovulation was related not just to my under-treated thyroid condition but also to my weight, because being overweight can be related to fertility issues. BUT, this midwife told me that the weight has absolutely nothing to do with thyroid-related non-ovulation. Since my condition is now well-controlled, there's no reason for me not to ovulate once I go off the pill, and if I'm not ovulating, it's irrelevant to my thyroid condition.

SO, yet another way that I've let my weight get to my head for no reason, huh? But good news that I don't have to freak out that I won't be ovulating. And since I didn't start treating my thyroid condition until well after I started the pill, I am sort of curious to see whether my period will be as irregular as it was now that my thyroid is under control.

She was just... she was supportive and aware and reasonable and understanding and non-judgmental and made me EXCITED not just to be pregnant but also to give birth. EXCITED. To squeeze a large baby through a very small passageway! Seriously.

So, let's see. Annual exam done, pre-conception questions addressed. I'll just keep taking my vitamins and folic acid and eating well and exercising and generally do everything I can to get myself in the best possible condition for pregnancy. We're going to meet with a genetic counselor and get tested and if we're both carriers of the same condition (which is unlikely, but possible) take steps to avoid passing the condition to our child.

And then... well, then the waiting game begins. And I try to avoid freaking out about potentially not being able to get pregnant. I try to limit my freakouts to worries that can actually be productive. We'll see how that goes.

THIS is how you want to kick off the week.

So, last night at about 3:30 in the morning, Torsten and I both woke up due to a strange, wet sort of noise coming from Montana's crate. We lay there for a minute, wondering what it was, and then heard her begin to lick herself vigorously, and assumed we'd solved the mystery. We looked over there and dimly saw her sitting up in her crate, licking herself, and went back to sleep.

And then just now, I got up for the day, walked by her crate on my way to the bathroom... and noticed the sizable pile of vomit on her crate mat. Oops.

So, we may make terrible parents, since apparently it turns out that in the middle of the night we rationalize away anything that might make us have to get out of bed? The poor dog, sleeping next to her own puke all night. But at least she's not the type of dog that eats vomit, right?

I can only assume (and hope) that the vomiting was due to the mass quantities of cookie dough she consumed off the floor while Torsten was baking this weekend, and not a virus or other more serious issue. Though I will certainly be keeping an eye on her today.

In the meantime, I'm headed back upstairs with a bottle of 409. I leave you with a video, shot yesterday, of Montana freaking out when she sees a cat in our driveway. (Note that this video is all about the audio.)



Here's hoping everyone (ourselves included) has a puke-free day!

Sometimes the weather is INTERESTING, okay?

So you know that cold front that's supposedly sweeping the country? Well, living in the west, we got ours before a lot of you got yours. It has not been above freezing since... the weekend? Maybe? The temperature has been in the MINUSES for the last few nights. But the storm seems to have broken? It's supposed to be 40 degrees today. Forty. That's ABOVE FREEZING.

When it started I had a small panic attack about how when we researched Denver before moving here, everything we saw and everyone we talked to told us that the winters here are actually fairly mild, and apparently THEY WERE ALL LYING. But, I have since drawn the conclusion that yes, it's cold, but it's abnormally cold EVERYWHERE right now and no, this isn't normal. And I can take the occasional frigid cold snap as long as I know this isn't STANDARD, you know?

Though apparently we're all hunkering down for a harsh winter this year. Something about an El Nino summer and some sort of almanac prediction? Really, I don't know. But at least Denver is sunny, even when it's cold. Still, I'd love some new windows. And maybe some more insulation in the attic. Because last night I was on the couch in the living room? And the heat was on and I was wearing long underwear under my jeans? And yet I was SHIVERING. Because the couch is in the bay window, and sometimes it feels like WHY BOTHER even HAVING a window?

In other words: BRRRR. Please please please let the mercury rise today. I would like to be able to leave the house again sometime soon.

How cold is it where you are?

Private details of a marriage

Last night I read an article from the New York Times Magazine called Married (Happily) With Issues. As I read it--the full thing, all 10 pages--I found myself almost involuntarily comparing my marriage with the author's. Not just in terms of length of marriage but also in terms of routines, affection, communication, sources of conflict. I found more differences than similarities. And yet like the author, I know that my marriage is very happy.

Only the people who are in a relationship can really know what's going on in that relationship (and sometimes even they don't know). Even if I sat here and wrote a blog post that spelled out every mundane detail, every little interaction and discussion and piece of our marriage, still nobody except Torsten and me could ever know what it's like or how it feels.

The author of this article walked us through some very intimate parts of her marriage, fights and sources of pain. She gave great detail. And as I read, I tried not to judge. Because even these things that she was describing, even the ones that sounded foreign and horrifying to me, even those things can't really be understood by anyone who wasn't a part of them. Because different things are sacred to different people. What is a horrible, cruel thing to say in one marriage is irrelevant and casual in another.

I'm reminded of a post that Slynnro wrote once (and that I now cannot find) about how she and her husband do not go grocery shopping together, and people judge them for it. I can see why some people's first reaction would be surprise, or even horror, if for them shopping is a big deal, and a source of intimacy or collaboration. But I think that's what people are really reacting to when they learn details of other people's marriages. It's not, "How can you be happy together if you can't even shop together?" (even if those are the words that are said); it's, "I interpret this detail to mean that you don't share intimacy, because I myself draw something important from this same detail in my own relationship."

This is why, even if I shared every detail of my marriage on my blog, my readers could still never really know exactly what it all means and how it all feels. Because ultimately, though of course we're capable of empathy, our reactions to other people are usually reflections of ourselves.

And still, even believing this to be true, I found myself judging some of the things the author described. For example, I was horrified when she detailed how her husband invoked divorce during a fight. For us, in our marriage, such a thing is unthinkable. If Torsten ever suggested anything about a divorce to me, I can't even imagine how I would react--it's just that unfathomable. I can't imagine any situation, ever, where I would say such a thing to him.

But that doesn't mean it's the same for all couples. And that doesn't mean that just because neither of us can even conceive of contemplating divorce in any context, our marriage is perfect. I will say that so far, we haven't had those struggles that people talk about when they say that being married is hard, and takes work. Of course, it does--I acknowledge that--and yet at the same time as I think about it, I don't think it's hard, and I don't think we work at it, exactly.

And maybe that's bad? Maybe we should be working at it. Or maybe we're just defining "work" differently--because we do take care of each other, and make a point to be thoughtful toward each other, and make compromises for each other, and make choices that we wouldn't make if we as individuals were the only factor in the equation. Maybe that's what other people call "work"? Or maybe we're missing something that is necessary for some couples to be happy together, but is not necessary for us.

Of course, we've only been married for a little over a year. We don't have kids and our lives are relatively stress-free. Perhaps what causes a marriage to require work is time, and distance, and competing priorities. Maybe right now our marriage doesn't feel like work because it's so easy and natural to focus on each other.

Certainly there are things we could do better, and this article, though the author's marriage seems quite different from my own, made me realize some of them. In some places in our marriage, I put myself first, and then I feel guilty about it. And in other places I put Torsten first without even realizing it, and to my own detriment, and in a way that isn't necessary. Maybe I feel that one balances out the other? And I'm pretty sure that the key to balancing this out without creating a competition, even if it's all in my head, is to talk to him about it and express my thoughts and needs.

The thing is that I'm so comfortable with him, and he's so easy to talk to, and we talk about so many different things, that I don't even really notice if there's something I'm not talking to him about. I don't notice that it's there or that it needs to be discussed. It isn't actively bothering me. My needs are met, as are my non-need-wants, and so are his. And so I don't even notice the little things that slip through the cracks sometimes. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't bring them up when I do notice them.

And maybe in other marriages these little things would be big things, huge problems. Or maybe they wouldn't be things at all. I can speculate about this, but I can't know. Because the only marriage I can really access and understand is my own.

Notes from prison

Note: I originally posted this on Tumblr the day Montana came home from boarding at the prison program, but almost a week later I still haven't gotten over how tragically sweet it is, so I'm reposting it here. Enjoy.

In the prison program, the dogs stay with the same handler the whole time. They sleep in their cells and they’re with them 24/7. The handlers keep extensive daily journals of the dog’s progress. When we first adopted Montana we loved reading her journal and learning more about her. This time when we got her back from boarding, reading the journal was equally enjoyable but in a different way—it was funny to see her handler observing things that we already know about our dog. And it was also very touching to see how much the handler obviously cared about the dog.

Some of my favorite notes:

• “While Montana and I were on our walk, she kept looking around, and at first, I couldn’t figure out why. Then it hit me… she’s scoping the area for bunnies!”

• “Montana trotted away and put her twitching nose to the ground. She had all kinds of fun cruising around sniffing all the new, interesting smells. I got her attention. Once she looked at me, I gave her the ‘come’ command, and to my surprise, she did!! She came right to me! I was so proud of her!!”

• “This morning was my first group training session with Montana and her first training session since she’s been back. Montana did very well! I was very glad to see that she still knows all of her obedience skills very well. You did a wonderful job keeping up with her training! My job is going to be pretty easy.”

• “I love just hanging out with her and spending time with her. She is so much fun to be around. You can’t help but be happy around her.”

• “Because of her cough, she gets the ‘princess bed’ with four blankets folded up just her size so it’s nice and comfy for her. She always kicks the other dogs off her princess bed, and she lays on it every chance she gets.”

• “Since she’s going home tomorrow I want her to look her best, so she got a bath today. She wasn’t very pleased with it, and she almost had a fit when I brought out the blow dryer.”

• “I’ve loved working with Montana. She’s one of the sweetest, most intelligent, and best behaved dogs I’ve ever had. Thank you for letting her come to visit, and tell her I love her and not to forget to write and send pictures. (She may need your help on that one.) I’ll miss you Montana!”

How do you procrastinate?

It's getting to be finals time for all of my friends who are still in school, so I've been hearing a lot about procrastination recently. It's made me think about ways that I always procrastinate. There are definitely a few fallbacks I have. Of course, it's not always so obvious, like oh, I don't feel like doing this, what can I do instead? It's more like, wow, I have to get this done, and yet suddenly I NEED to do this other thing, RIGHT THIS SECOND.

So, let's see. What do I do when I'm trying to avoid whatever needs to be done?

1. Surf the Internet. Obviously. I mean, this is so obvious that I hardly need to state it. Really, what were Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, NYTimes.com, Google Reader, and so many others even INVENTED for? But there are occasionally times when I feel like I've reached The End of the Internet, and that's what the rest of the items in this list are for. Luckily I went to college before wireless internet was commonplace, so when finals time came, I would take my computer away from my room and ethernet cable. It was the only way I could get stuff done.
   
2. Clean. Seriously, in college, the only time my dorm room was ever clean was when I had a big paper due. I would live in squalor all semester, and then suddenly when it came time to buckle down and get to work, I suddenly Could Not Take It One. More. Second. And would clean the room from top to bottom. Except the closet. That pretty much stayed messy year-round. Nowadays, our house is much cleaner and more organized, but still, there's always a dishwasher to unload or a dresser drawer to organize in a pinch.
   
3. Catch up on my correspondence. Nothing makes me remember un-returned emails like a looming deadline or unpleasant task. I don't care if a friend has been waiting a month for a response--if I don't answer them THAT SECOND, it means the end of the friendship. So OF COURSE it's worth delaying something else to prevent that from happening. Right?
4. Brush the dog, or similar. I don't exactly brush her every day, but if there's a task I have to take care of? Well, suddenly I can't STAND the shedding and have to deal with it, right then. Or, if she doesn't need a brushing, maybe she needs a quick wrestle on the floor, or a tug-of-war session in the yard. Or just lots of petting and tummy-scratching.
5. Run errands. Something tedious to be done at home? Maybe some weeding that needs to be done, or the bathroom needs a good scrubbing? Never fear... I'm sure there's SOMETHING you need to pick up at the store. Better head over there right now in case they run out!
   

What do you do when you want to put something off?