ChiKat

Ok, remember how I said I was over the whole baby thing? I lied to you! Yes! You knew that, didn't you?

People who know me in real life know that I don't let things go that easily. Because I am dedicated! Not because I am neurotic!

Anyway, like I said earlier, I read a book about evalutating my body's signs that I am fertile, but I decided I wasn't ready to assess mucus viscosity. Especially since they make handy ovulation kits! Yes! I pee on a stick and it tells me if I am fertile. It's a nice way for me to feel like I have a tiny bit more control over things, and it also tells me if I'm actually fertile at ANY POINT in the month. Not that I'm aggravated with my body or anything.

All I have to do is wait for two lines, toss on some slutty lingerie and then convince my husband that I'm wearing it because he is incredible sexy, rather than because my biologic clock is making me deaf (which is, not surprisingly, a mood killer for my husband).

Researched ketchup to-go trends (80% of Americans use ketchup with fries, but only 14% use ketchup with fries in the drive-thru)

Researched powdered drink trends (flavored creamers offer the most variety per product than any other item in the supermarket)

Spent three hours looking for images of ketchup (apparently, rather hard to make enticing in a photograph)

Spent another four hours looking for images of powdered drinks (God bless Google Images)

Researched the downward trend of using corks for wine (did you know that cork is actually hard to come by these days?) and the rise in new wine capping options

Wrote an article about the growing trend toward the "humanization" of pets in the dog food industry (one of the fastest growing segments in the supermarket)

Tried to get the courage to ask for a raise (failed to find the courage – will try again later)

Last Friday, we went to Greek town for dinner. It was a sea of white people. We were so comfortable in that sea.

A few black people in the neighborhood have mentioned to me that they hated living on the north side because it was so white, and they never felt like they fit in. I know what they mean. I'm much more comfortable on the north side than I am here. I'm probably more likely to get mugged on the north side than I am here, but I still feel safer there.

What does that say about me, about our society? We're a country that claims to be a melting pot, but I don't see a whole lot of melting going on.

This past weekend, we went to the suburbs to meet up with my parents and go to a wedding with them. My dad just bought a new mini-van, so he spent 10 minutes giving us a tour of the features. Then he spent another 10 minutes trying to program the GPS computer only to disagree with its directions.

Up until now, whenever I heard about DVD players in automobiles, I totally rolled my eyes. My dad's new van has a DVD player. It ROCKED! My husband and I sat in back like two five-year-olds and watched Air Force One, a movie that (a) wasn't very good and (b) we had already seen. We were SPELLBOUND. Because we were in a VAN watching a MOVIE. How cool was that?

After the wedding, my dad, my husband and I spent several hours watching political shows together. My husband and I have been trying (for several years) to make my dad a little less conservative. I think he's starting to weaken. Only a few more decades and we'll have him voting the straight Democratic ticket (assuming the Dems haven't self-imploded by then).

My husband was planning on hanging out with his buddies, but I decided to stay at my parents because we had a family party the next day and I wanted to be able to help my mom set up for the party. By our third political show, my husband still hadn't heard from his buddies. He mentioned that he would crash at my parents with me if he didn't hear from his buddies.

My heart stopped. You see, I don't have cable. My parents do. Which means they have access to the amazing, wonderful, charming, brilliant What Not to Wear. If my husband stayed, there was so way I could convince him to stay up until 4 AM watching Stacey and Clinton teach people how to shop. Instead, he would want to watch nature documentaries.

Nature documentaries. Instead of Stacey and Clinton. I'm all for continuing education, expanding the mind, and all that, but…it's Stacey and Clinton! Shopping! Clothes!

I am such a girl.

Thankfully, his buddies got in touch with my husband, so he spent a blissful evening getting drunk and I spent a blissful evening with cable, TiVo and hours of bad television. It was the perfect evening.

It's really why we moved back home. There were so many times in Seattle when my husband was either working late or out with friends. I didn't mind his hours or his social life, but I didn't have close friends of my own out there. That was mainly my fault because I didn't try to meet that many new people. But all those evenings when I was alone, all I wanted was to have the option to hang out with my girl friends or my family on my own.

This past weekend? Was perfect to me. I'm so happy to be back around the people I love. I love falling asleep on my parent's couch. I love waking up to my parents trying, but failing miserably, to be quiet so I can keep sleeping. And I love having strawberry waffles cooked in my honor because I am over for a visit.

During a press conference, Tony Snow said that President Bush doesn't want to fund stem cell research because the destruction of an embryo is murder.

His word: murder.

This is a huge deal. When a couple needs in vitro fertilization to have a baby, several eggs are removed from the woman. Those eggs are then fertilized using the husband's sperm. The resultant embryos are frozen (if they aren't frozen, without a womb the embryos will die).

The IVF couple and the doctor decide how many embryos to transfer into the woman. If all goes well, the couple will have a successful pregnancy. At that point, couples need to decide what to do with the remaining frozen embryos. They can donate them to science (although most scientists can't get funding to study them), discard them, or donate them to another couple.

There are over 400,000 frozen embryos waiting for couples to make a decision about them. Is Bush saying that discarding them is murder? If that is the case, will he stand idly by and watch 400,000 American's be murdered?

Bush's wording was completely inappropriate. The broader ramifications terrify me.



Updated to add: Guess Bush read this and agreed with me. Snow fell on his sword for his boss and back-tracked.

I've never heard any condo owner say that they loved their management company. But I am convinced our management company is particularly bad. The man doesn't have email, doesn't have a fax and rarely returns phone calls.

The one thing he is very good at is saying that he doesn't handle something and they we as an association need to handle it.

With the sale of the unit below us, the association has been asked to provide various documents and declarations. Since our building manager surfaced briefly to tell us that he doesn't handle that, I've been writing most of the letters even though we don't understand most of the terms.

Right of refusal? Sure, we'll grant that! Wait, you want us to waive that? Ok! No problem! Waived! Whatever! Just pay the monthly dues on time!

One of the things that surprises me about living in this neighborhood is seeing how often blacks treat whites better than other blacks. It certainly doesn't happen all the time, but it happens much more than I would have thought.

Let me give you an example. The other day, my (white) husband went to the cell phone store to switch his old number to a new phone. This was the conversation:

"Hi, I need to switch my old number to this new phone."
"What's you number?"
"xxx-xxx-xxxx"
"Are you xxxx?"
"Yes."
"Ok, here you go, sir."

The (black) woman waiting in line behind my husband went up to the same (black) clerk and asked the same thing:

"Hi, I need to switch my old number to this new phone."
"What's you number?"
"xxx-xxx-xxxx"
"Your name?"
"xxxx."
"I need you to verify your zip code, please."
"xxxxxx."
"Ok, I need you to verify your social security number and I need to see a driver's license or some other form of identification."

Sure, the woman's account could have been flagged for suspicious behavior. But this wasn't the first time we've been treated much better by black staff than other blacks.

Is it classism? There is a mix of the ghetto-fabulous and the middle-class in this area. The ghetto is primarily black, so it is reasonable to assume that the white people who live here are middle-class rather than ghetto*.

I desperately want to ask someone, but I can't think of an inoffensive way to ask why the white people are getting special treatment.


* That's not to say there aren't white people in the city who are ghetto-impoverished. I just haven't seen any in this area.

Have I mentioned that we are getting new neighbors? Someone made a bid of the unit below us. Our days of stomping around our condo without a care are over. We can no longer say, "Don't worry about the noise! No one lives below us!" are over.

The unit is missing cabinets, the walls are blood red and the washer/dryer was stolen. So the unit needs a bit of work. We're desperately hoping that the people who buy the unit want to live there rather than rent it out.

In other condo news, the owners across the hall from us who have been renting out their unit have decided to sell. They are asking an insanely high price, so I'm totally curious to see how things go for them. People say this neighborhood is up and coming, but I don't think it's that "up" yet.

I've been thinking about my post yesterday and I don't think I articulated my concerns clearly. I'm grappling with understanding what kind of person I am.

Before my brother was in the Marines, I didn't care as much about our involvement in military affairs. I certainly didn't want the military deployed, but I didn't stay up at night thinking about the men and women who serve during the times the military was deployed.

Now that my brother is serving, I think about it a lot more. To some degree, that's only natural. But what kind of person am I that only cares when it's someone I know?

Things in Lebanon are certainly heating up. I have to admit, now that my brother is serving in the Marines, I look at world events differently. Before, I would have watched the news and I would have been saddened by the events, but then I would have shut off the news and gone on with my day. Things wouldn't have weighed on me.

Now, with my brother in Iraq, I think about the events in Lebanon constantly. My brother is supposed to come home in a month and a half. Will he have to stay longer? Will he be re-routed to Lebanon?

I think the same way about North Korea. Every world event is weighed against my brother's safety.

Do politicians think like that? With so few of the upper-class serving in the military, I have to wonder how many politicians really know the kids serving in the military. Are they thinking about the numbers needed to defeat a country, or are they thinking of their sons and daughters? Are there real, tangible faces behind the numbers for the politicians?