It's fun bringing kittens into our home and watching them play w/ our young adult cats. They seem to like each other. Well, sometimes.

Gus is playful but only when he's in the mood. If he's into it then he and kittens have a lot of fun hiding in boxes and popping out at each other; sneaking up on and pouncing on each other from behind doors and generally participating in friendly, harmless rough-housing. However, sometimes Gus is just not a fan of the kitteh.

Here he is begging to be let outside and is being harassed (and groomed) by Tiffany.

And then there's Vespa. She who is very kitten-like herself. She'll participate in a good chase with the kittehs (sometimes at 4am grrr) until they're all pooped out but she's also got some mommy tendencies and she and they often can be found grooming each other, hugging each other and acting very mom and baby-like.

Here she is giving Tiffany a good cleaning. Or maybe it's Tiffany demanding a good cleaning from Vespa. Either way, cute.

As you can see in both of these videos, Tiffany is a really friendly kitty and she's still available for adoption. What a cutie.

[edited to add that oops I was supposed to edit out the Buffy background noise in the Vespa/kitten footage but I forgot...sorry Zoe!]

Just a quick check-in before the month ends. It's been a great month! I hired a personal trainer for a single session to help me set up a schedule for running and weight training (and to teach me how to not hurt myself). In doing so I managed to exercise 23 days in the month of June and many of those workouts were tough and more than an hour. This is a record for me. A few notes:

1. I ran my furthest run ever a few days ago! 6.5 miles. I strained my calf a little but nothing huge. I REALLY didn't want to hurt myself so I ran really slowly, averaging over 12 minutes/mile (I walked up the hill in Phinney so that messed up my pace a bit, too). The route* was pretty fun and I think I'd like to do it again especially since it covers my commute home.

*This is not exactly the route I took since I really started at my work and ran a few laps at the end around the block waiting to meet up with the husband for a jaunt off to beer land.

2. Remember my peeing problem? Have I not mentioned that? How I pee when I run but only sometimes? Like during a 5K? When my husband decides to abandon me and go to Starbucks so I have to stand around in wet icky shorts for 15 minutes waiting for his ass to return? Well, now you know. I used to think I'd be okay if I only ran in the mornings but that wasn't really the case. Then I thought all I needed to do was run more. My theory was that trying to hold it really gives my kegels a workout w/out me having to think about it. For a while there I thought my problem was solved. I almost, nearly dared run padless, even! Well, I guess I shouldn't have gotten all smug about it because last week I did some hill training, just 3 miles, and voila. Pee. Then I ran 6.5 miles this week after jugs of water and not a drip. I can't figure it out. I still plan on discussing this fancy procedure w/ my gynecologist in the fall. Sounds like a fun thing to do in the winter, right?

3. Barefoot running. Hm, not so much. I've only been out on 2 runs in my Vibrams this month. I'm so afraid of hurting myself still and the training schedule my personal trainer put me on involves too many hills and miles for a newbie barefooter. I do love it though. I should just try to get in a mile now and then on my non-training days. Earlier this week when I was out running I saw one barefoot runner (she wasn't even wearing Vibrams) and two Vibram Five Finger runners all within 10 minutes of each other. Pretty awesome. My personal trainer, who is training to be a physical therapist had this to say about them: "It's a FAD! YOU WILL HURT YOURSELF. Get over it." I said, "No."

4. Oh the places I've run. For my various runs I've made round trips around Ballard, through Discovery Park's trails, up and down (and up and down) Phinney Ridge, all around upper and lower Woodland Park, laps on Ballard High School's track (which oddly made my knees hurt). It's fun to run in places I so often only see from my car. I've learned a lot of lessons about where the sidewalk ends too. Also, where to NOT cross or else be killed. Oops.

5. As a reward for all my hard work I'm getting myself a deep tissue massage. Ah, nice. Now bring on July!

p.s. What's w/ all the "w/"s? I guess I've forgotten how to spell that word out.

Previously on Bitterkat I discussed finding my zen spot. Just after that post I lost it again. Of course.

May was both a disappointing AND amazing month so I hate to just skip it. I'll do a quick-ish recap (which of course means it will be long and drawn out because that's my style).

First, at the beginning of the month just when I was getting my running groove on I injured myself. I ran about 2 miles in a pair of Vibram five fingers and at the top of a hill both my Achilles exploded. Not really but they were in enough pain that I had to alternate running w/ walking 2 miles back home. Had I known how seriously they were injured I would simply have walked home or begged someone on the street to drive me home. I didn't ice them at all or do anything special but I was in a bit of pain. I figured I'd be good to go within a few days.

Pout, poor me. Injured and not running. Happens to a lot of people I'm sure.

But wait. Let's jump back a few days before that terrible run, shall we? Feeling all zen and inspired by trail runners in the hot desert I was eager to take advantage of my sister Tina's invitation to take a hiking trip to southern Utah. I booked a flight for Zoe and me to fly down there mid-May and I ordered a pair of Vibram KSO's. I started researching trail running in the desert and hiking in Vibrams or barefoot. I was very high on the idea of all the awesome things I might do once I got down there.

And then I hurt myself.

And even worse, a few days after the injury my ankles hurt worse than ever. I was so miserable I refrained from drinking my eleventy million bottles of water at work because I couldn't stand the thought of walking down the hall to the bathroom. About 5 days in I finally started icing and elevating. I was sucking down ibuprofin like it was candy, too. Nothing helped. All I could do was wait and hope that I was healed enough before the trip to Utah.

That didn't happen. I broke the news to my sister and she was awfully sweet about it but what a bummer. We still flew down and I pathetically limped around, photographing majestic scenery in Zion, Bryce and Grand Canyon National Parks while Tina, her daughter Marissa, and Zoe hiked. By then, my right Achilles was almost back to normal but my left ankle was ginormous and I was incapable of flexing my foot. At one point, when the rest of the group went on a 1.5 hour hike in Bryce Canyon, I decided to sit on a bench and read but the wind started blowing hard so I slowly hobbled back to the car (only to be passed up by a group of tourists on donkeys who teased me that I should get a donkey of my own). In the car, I opened a beer, took photos of my feet and read a book. A fine way to spend my time at a gorgeous national park, huh?

I will say, it was an amazing trip despite my not being able to hike. I visited w/ my family in northern Utah before heading south which was a treat. I got to take my mom and Randy out for a belated Mother's day lunch at The Garden Restaurant in Salt Lake City (where Zoe experienced her first up close and personal look at those strange and odd creatures: mormons en masse) and visited The Cathedral of the Madeleine (after which Zoe said she liked that Mormon church a lot, not realizing it was a Catholic church). We followed up our day in SLC with a visit to my brother's shop and a family barbecue where I got to meet my newest nephew and Zoe got to hang out with her young nieces. Afterward, the road trip down to southern Utah w/ the 4 girls was the best time ever! We stayed in Kanab at the Quail Park Lodge, ate delicious food at Rocking V Cafe (and at Oscars Cafe in Springdale), visited the Best Friend's Animal Sanctuary, and spent a lot of time cracking each other up. We had so much fun that we're going to make it an annual trip! Thanks Tina & Marissa for a fabulous weekend!

Here's a sample of the photos I took. I haven't even uploaded all of them yet. *sigh*
[click to embiggen]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Of course, as soon as I returned back to Seattle my ankle started getting better. I saw a doctor and was basically told what everyone else told me. Don't run until it's better. And don't run barefoot!

Whatever to them on the barefoot running. After the swelling went down I was finally able to wear my Vibram KSOs and I love LOVE them. 25 days post injury and I was finally able to run again and have been running since!

Finally, the month of May ended with a bang! We attended Stacey & Wyatt's wedding at Alderbrook Resort on the Hood Canal. It was a wonderful wedding and weekend -- really unforgettable! The location, the people, the food, the dancing, the hikes, the hanging out with good friends...all good! Congratulations to two of my favorite people!

***

I shouldn't leave out this important tidbit. Since I last wrote I met up with one of my favorite bloggers, Bossy! It was my first blogger event in the 6 years I've been blogging. I met super cool people and had a fun time*. Hopefully Bossy will swing back my way in a few years. I'll be there.

*scroll down Bossy's link above to see her fun photos of her visit to Seattle

There's this part of me lately that has been seeking a place all my own. Not a physical place really but a place where I can smile and feel good about myself. I'm working on two spaces right now and getting closer to what I was looking for.

Place #1:
The streets in my 'hood. I've been running a lot lately, thanks to this book* and these shoes. I started regularly running almost 2 years ago -- trudging along at the track and running the occasional lap around Greenlake -- always trying to go faster and/or not feel horrible. It was always a terrible bore and sometimes quite painful. Now though, running in my neighborhood (on a sunny morning especially but a rainy afternoon will do), in these shoes, is completely different. Something just clicked and it's sticking. I take it all in; gaze left to right, deep breaths, smile. I check out each house, note its uniqueness, it's charm, it's rough edges, the hidden people inside, the crouching porch kitties, the flowers, the trees. The smells range from blossoms to caramelized onions to bacon to fresh bread to marijuana. And it all happens in a rush. As soon as I perceive a sight or smell it's gone in a flash. As this is all happening I'm listening to my own breath, realizing that I'm not winded at all, but running like a fine tuned machine. I stop at a traffic light and realize I'm not even out of breath. Now I know the runner's secret. I hope it lasts. (Now don't get all excited. I have no plans to run a marathon or even a half marathon. I just like running now.)

*Here's a funny story about how I heard about this book. The internets are awesome. I follow suebob on twitter. Several months ago suebob twittered about a blogger she enjoyed reading. I clicked on the link and found mad organica, enjoyed her blog so added her to my rss feed. A few months later she posted a great entry about running (and peeing while running which I can totally relate to!) and in that entry she mentioned the book. It all started with a tweet.

Place #2:
My house. The people. The cats. The garden. The spaces. We just finished carpeting our basement office and I hope to make it my "special space". I started doing yoga in there and want to organize the shelves with my sewing and knitting stuff and I want to litter the walls with all my kids' artwork and photos. When I want to read a good book without Zoe wandering in to discuss her hair and its straightness or lack thereof I can go in the office, close the door, and lock it. Click.

Happy Place Photos

My garden on a rainy day makes me happy (plus Vespa**). I could do w/out the bird poop on my window, however.


**why yes, we DID adopt Vespa. I forgot to mention that. She's my first girl kitteh!

Our new walkway makes me immensely happy. (It used to look like this.) I also like the contrast of the new pavers and the mossy cracked driveway.

Office Space. Waiting for me.

And who's in love???

And this? I could do without. I woke up this morning to see this from my west facing bedroom window. The window that I don't have a blind for because there was no need. It looks like whoever buys this townhouse will enjoy quite a show from their 3rd floor.

Congrats to Sid who received an honorable mention in review writing at the 2010 Journalism Education Association's write-off competition in Portland last weekend! Way to represent BHS!

The group reviewed a performance by renowned ukulele player Brook Adams. Sid got marked off for not finishing. Not a surprise since he "can't write less than 900 word reviews, gosh!".

"He walks into the room, already holding his ukulele, takes a seat on the stool at the front and starts quietly tuning his four strings. After this quiet moment, he apologizes for being late (with a smile, no less) and jumps into his first song."

Dude, check out Brook Adam's Abbey Road.

I'm jealous that I missed out on all the cutesy technology available to mommy bloggers these days.

I doubt anyone will think these are cute NOW. (Also, lilypie totally needs to add a selection of surly teenagers for the slider choice.)

I apologize for the long post. I'd like to say I've been busy doing something useful (like going to college or crafting) but I've just not been blogging.

SHE'S STILL NIKI, IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING

I was thinking about Niki this morning. All her little quirks* and how often she nearly drives me batty. And what I realized is I ADORE HER and I'm simply amazed that she doesn't adore herself. She's witty and zany and pretty and artistic and kind. If she could only step back and see how wonderful she is then imagine how confident and happy she would become. I hope one day she figures it out.

*Quirks. Like the one time she put caterpillars on the side of the house and had them race up. Like how she comes up with crazy characters like Bald Wheel, Guy, and Tim the Slice of Bread. Like how she refuses to walk in the house w/out slippers. Like how determined she was to get her hair perfectly straight and even when I told her I had no idea how to straighten hair she asked again and again because I'm her mom and that's what moms do, they help. Like how she didn't dare go into the orthodontist's office the other day to get more wax because "that's embarrassing and what if people saw me". Like how she cannot be in the same room with her brother without reminding him how disgusting he is. Quirky.

PRIVACY PLEASE

I know I've written a lot of embarrassing things about my kids on my blog. I wish now that I'd made them more anonymous because OMG I want to continue writing stuff about them but the older they get the weirder it seems, you know? Plus I'm sure they don't like having their name associated w/ a blog about a woman who pees her pants.

Oh, and that part above about Niki? That's okay, because she's not known as Niki in the real world. Heh.

On the other hand there's The Boy. He's a private person. I've tried not to write very much about him lately. I know he's guarded about what he tells me and I hope it's not because he's worried that I'll blog about it (gulp, it probably is). Over the last year he's refused to give me real names for most of his friends. I'll ask who just called and he'll say "Jimmy". I'll ask who he went with after school and he'll say, "Jane". Fine. I get it. He doesn't want to share but when he told me he was going to take the bus to watch movies with a group of people at a friend's house, I demanded real names. I can't let him go off to Sally's house and hang out with Billy and Johnny. What would happen if he didn't come home? "Hello, 911? My son is missing. He went off to Magnolia to hang out with some made up people." I explained this to him and thankfully he understood my angst. He gave me real names.

BTW, Sally and The Boy text nonstop from time to time. Do they have a thing? Are they a thing? I may never know.

AND SPEAKING OF PRIVACY, TMI ALERT LEVEL LOOK AWAY! LOOK AWAY!

I have a plan for my female problems and I'm feeling optimistic about it for the first time! I saw a gynecologist and first up she did an endometrial biopsy. It HURT. She only told me it would hurt as she was doing it...I suppose not knowing in advance that someone is going to stick a tube in your cervix and suck material out w/out medication is a good thing. She also upped my birth control prescription from the 1-20mgs to the 1-30mgs. The biopsy came back negative (woo-hoo!) and if the pills don't do their thing I'll probably go in for an endometrial ablation. Kind of scary but I'm so up for it over hysterectomy. While she was checking me out and talking about my history of having huge babies she asked me if I ever had bladder issues.

ME, SUSPICIOUSLY: Why yes, what makes you ask? Is it obvious...DOWN THERE?

HER: A lot of women have that problem, it's very common and there's an easy fix if you're no longer having babies.

ME, ANGRILY: Why didn't I know about this easy fix 14 years ago?

HER: It hasn't been super common until recently plus it's only recommended for "older" women. It's a simple little procedure, a few clips here, a stitch there, a knot there, voila!

ME EXCITEDLY: bring it on!

So I might get this awesome sling procedure and then I can run and run and jump and jump and seriously, maybe I'll get a trampoline.

I'm glad I have a gynecologist again. I kind of have a crush on her, even.

I celebrated the good news by getting a cute little nose piercing. Ouch.

2010 EXPENSES

Last year I budgeted and cut out spending in order to pay off my debt. After the debt was paid off in October of 2009 I allowed myself a treat. A cashmere sweater. The plan then was to continue budgeting and cautiously spending and put away some cash. Only, you know what happens when you go a while (wow, a long while) being in debt and paying off debt? A lot of stuff that you should be spending on doesn't get spent on. Like broken appliances don't get replaced. Torn up landscaping doesn't get fixed. Sick cats don't get taken to the vet. The husband's pants get very, very old and fall apart. So rather than instantly save the extra cash I had on hand after debt pay-off I decided to dedicate that spare cash to playing catchup. (Oh, and I had to buy a couple of pairs of boots and what-not. Heh.)

And wow, are we EVER catching up. The cats have been poked and prodded (the humans, too). We replaced our washer/dryer this week. We just ordered the carpet for our basement office. We're working with a landscape designer to put in a walkway where the sewer guys tore out our old one. The husband may even buy new jeans this weekend! Lots of spending in a short amount of time.

There are a few other things I'd like to get but they aren't absolutely necessary (a 2nd car???). It's probably time to reign in the spending and just sit back and save a while.

CATS IN. CATS OUT.

That's been my fostering mantra. Care for them. Don't fall in love. Find them good homes. Carry on. Easy at pie. (Well, I have regrets about giving up Paul and Odin and I kind of stalk my other fosters online but I digress.)

And then there was Vespa. Initially, she didn't please me. Purrful and mreowy to the extreme. A sheddy mess. Also, wounded and picky. And let's not forget her weekend of being in extreme heat. But I liked that she was tiny, almost kitten tiny, and when she came up and curled next to me she'd put the tiniest bit of her chin weight on my lap as if to say, "I'll just have a sampling of that lap if that's okay with you and by all means, if you need to move I'll just scoot over a bit". She only scratches her scratchy pad. She doesn't use claws inappropriately. She has fluffy bum hair. She has tailitude*.

*A proud and fluffy tail that, if detached from said cat, could easily have its own hit tv show in Japan.

Really, I should have gotten her out of my life quicker but stuff happened. We got her in mid February straight from the street (actually first she made a pit stop at the vet for treatment of a deep bite wound that had abscessed). After giving her a total makeover (treat wound, fatten, spay) I started writing up her Petfinder profile in early March. But then one morning we found her licking her supposedly healed wound. Yuck, she had a re-abscess. Back to the vet she went and when she got out five days later she still had 2 weeks of healing and treatment so I put a hold on posting her profile. As of last Monday she was officially healed, stitches removed, off of antibiotics and completely fattened up. Now that she's finally 100% she's playful and fun in addition to all her other sweet mannerisms. She's an awesome buddy for Gus. Her shedding is minor (I think being free of a cage makes for a better groomed cat). She sleeps so sweetly and quietly between us at night. She looks me in the eyes and tells me she loves her HOME.

I guess what I'm trying to say is we might as well adopt her, right? She loves us, we love her. She fits with us and our life right now. We can't imagine not having her around.

Anyone who has hung out with me for more than a few hours knows that I love to talk about food. Usually, talking about food is a pleasant thing but I'm afraid once in a while I get carried away when a certain food item is mentioned. I'll start yammering on with, "Oh my god, I made that!" and then proceed to list off each ingredient, where I got it, how much the ingredients cost, how I prepped it, how long it took to make, how it tasted, etc... and ten minutes into this monologue I realize that the person I'm talking to has zoned me out and their eyes are glazed over. Only the die hard foodies will still be tuned in.

So, yes, I need to be careful about that in the future.

I can write about food all I want, however. Feel free to zone me out. Blah blah blah blah.

Have you heard of Spilled Milk? It's a podcast starring Molly Wizenberg (Orangette) and Matthew Amster-Burton (Roots & Grubs). They're funny and cute and silly and they always make me laugh and almost always make me hungry. I just listened to their "junk food" episode and even though I don't like sweets I kind of want to go out and buy a few twinkies and ding dongs.

(And remind me to ask Sid if he knows that twinkies have beef fat in them...because they do...something useful I learned on that podcast.)

Okay, so the first episode of Spilled Milk I ever listened to was their fried egg show. I love eggs, especially fried and sunny side up. And my favorite ever bowl-of-a-bunch-of-good-stuff is bibimbap because I love the way the egg yolk spills down into the rice. Mmmm.

Molly and Matt made kimchee fried rice (mmmm...egg yolk and rice and oh so much more) in the episode and I happened to be super hungry (and running at the track) at the time so I started scheming about how soon I could make it. (Heh, am I the only one who listens to food podcasts while exercising?)

Hm. Oh, here I go again with the silly details. Instead of just getting to the recipe and photos I'm telling you why I decided to make it. Where I was when I decided to make it. When I decided to make it (premiere night of the first episode of Lost's season 6 if you must know).

Okay. Without further ado, here's the recipe.

Kimchi Fried Rice

Adapted from Kye Soon Hong
Makes 2 hearty servings

4 cups cooked Japanese-style (calrose) rice, cooled and chilled in refrigerator
4 strips bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cups Napa cabbage kimchi, the riper the better, diced
1 tablespoon butter, plus more for frying eggs
2 teaspoons sesame oil
salt and pepper
sesame seeds, for garnish
sliced scallions, white and green parts, for garnish

4 eggs

1. Cook the bacon in a large skillet or wok over medium heat. Add the kimchi and cook several minutes.

2. Raise the heat to high, add the rice and stir-fry several minutes, until rice is beginning to brown.

3. Meanwhile, fry the eggs in butter, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Stir butter and sesame oil into fried rice. Season with salt to taste. Divide into two bowls and top each with two fried eggs. Garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.

I followed the recipe exactly except I only used 2 eggs (well, 3). Amazon Fresh delivered all the yummy goodness (although they only had one kind of kimchee but I was clearly too lazy to go out and shop around).

Just look at that hot mess:

Take a closer look. Hot. Mess.

I browned the bacon in the wok, and added the kimchee, then added the rice. I always get nervous when I add the rice because it's a day old, hard and breaky and really doesn't look appetizing at all. It always turns out fine, yet still I worry.

Meanwhile, while the rice cooked I got out my amazing cast iron skillet (thank you Bossy for your influence) and fried the eggs. I biffed it and broke a yoke so I added an extra egg to the buttery pan.

The photo above reminds me of two wishes I've had for a long time. 1) To be able to fry an egg all pretty like. This one I'm finally figuring out (with the exception of the particular eggs in this photo). For me, there needs to be some kind of fat involved and it has to be fried in my cast iron skillet. 2) A level stovetop. Sigh.

I finished up the rice by adding and stirring the oils and chopping the green onions. Bowls were filled and garnished.

Done. Chopsticks readied. Time to eat and watch the Losties.

Yum. Since then I've substituted the bacon for spam but bacon is so much better. I feel a little decadent using butter but I can always burn it off at the gym, right?

Oh, and now off to find a twinkie.

My last entry was all negative Nelly and woe is me. I gotta post something positive to push that old entry down.

Things that are happy:

1) I solved my pain problems temporarily* by (you guessed it) bleeding. I never thought I'd choose having a horrible period over anything but a few days of misery was well worth it. I can't tell you how much better I feel. Unfortunately (uh, oh, more woe is me) I got a nasty cold on the same day as the bleeding which was not fun but getting both things out of the way at the same time was the way to go I suppose because when I finally recovered from both things I felt super high and happy. I've kind of gone overboard on the smiling and exercising and being pleasant!

*I need to talk to my GYN a bit more but I see a Mirena IUD in my future...

2) I had a horny kitty. Have I mentioned our latest foster, Vespa? She was in heat for about 5 days. Wow. I felt so bad for her. If you've never seen a cat in heat you are a lucky person. I took her in to be spayed yesterday and now she's keeping her nether regions in their proper location instead of pointed in the direction of any breathing thing. She's cute, don't you think?

3) A friend and I hosted a baby shower last weekend and it was really enjoyable and turned out very well, I think! Maybe I can actually do these girly things after all. I'm not claiming to be a Martha Stewart type or anything (because she'd certainly not drink wine and more wine and more wine while hosting) but I think I could do this again without breaking a sweat. (Now I just need to get over my fear of hosting dinner parties.)

4) Zoe is exercising! She needs 225 hours of "P.E." before graduation and because her high school doesn't offer it she has to do it on her own. We've been pushing it all year and finally she's found something that she enjoys. Yoga.** Her goal is to be more flexible (she's not bendy like her mom) so this is a good one. She's going to add a few other things to her list soon (I hope) like rock climbing and weight training (after all she wants to fit into adult jeans so gaining a little muscle in the behind can't hurt).

I'm really happy with Zoe's attitude lately. I think a lot of it is due to Robert interacting more with her; helping her organize her school schedule and chatting with her every day while they go over things. He tends to be more pleasant than me and often, in the past, the majority of interacting he had with teen Zoe was after I'd had a fight with her and he'd come to intervene. Those interactions were rarely pleasant. 

**Strictly at home yoga but I'd love for us to eventually take a class together.

5) Sid has been invited to compete in review writing contests at the Journalism Education Association's state and national conventions. The only problem is getting him to actually go the competitions. He has many excuses including:

a) "My time is precious!"
b) "The rules state that my review has to be 350 words or less but all my reviews up to this point have been 900 words!"
c) "I don't know AP style rules!"
d) "I'm not taking journalism next year so who cares?"

He has time. He can condense. He knows AP style. College admissions (and I) care.

There are other reasons he doesn't want to go but hasn't mentioned them. I'm sure one reason is he's not super social and hanging out with 5 other teenagers for 3 days, attending dances, meet and greets and dinners ranks at the bottom of his "fun things to do" list.

The state competition (which is just over a week away) is a day long and near us so I can't think of a reason why he shouldn't give it a shot and it doesn't entail anything major on the social scale. The national competition is also conveniently located in Portland and with some fund raising and grouping of 3 boys to a room with a single queen bed (heh, heheheh) it'll only cost him $200 to go and it's not until mid-April. He will miss 2 days of school but I think participating in the seminars, the social events and just being away from us will be really good for him. As I always say (and god, I never thought I'd say these things) he'll thank me one day.

6) I hate to be bragging on Sid but I'm very impressed with all the mail he's been getting from very selective universities and colleges. I wish I had half his brains. He's picked his top 5 (all located in urban areas, mainly NYC) so now the fun part is to figure out how to get a scholarship. I'm sure I've mentioned that there is no college fund, right. Heheheheh. Heh. Hm.

We're looking at the various college admission requirements and he's on track academically. He's going to be busy his junior year:
AP language arts, AP US history, AP Spanish, pre-calculus honors, chemistry, swimming and photography. No room for journalism but he can get back into that senior year if he wants.

Now he just needs to keep up the good grades, test well, and work on his wow factor.

p.s. Just before publishing I found out that Sid talked with his journalism teacher about the conventions and will be attending both...and the bad attitude is gone. I think he figured that if his peers nominated him to go and very few of the newspaper staff were nominated then maybe it's worth going and trying to win something. Wow factor.

WARNING!!!!! TMI LEVEL RED

O-Lan, the sad wife in Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth occasionally let her husband know that something was not right with her, physically. Her complaint: "There's a fire in my vitals."

Poor O-Lan. I felt so bad for her.

And, well, lately I've been feeling bad for myself because I, too, have a fire in my vitals. No, it won't kill me and it's pretty mild as far as things that can go wrong with your body go but still, finding out recently that I have a golf ball size fibroid tumor wasn't a happy fun time for me (and usually I try to make happy fun times about everything).

Really, there are many good things about making this discovery (discovered by way of a super fun (no, really!) trans-vaginal ultrasound).

1) I know why I have horrible, REALLY HORRIBLE, periods.

2) I know I'm not infected by a giant parasite with large teeth. That's a relief. Turns out I just have a rebellious uterus (see bad thing #2 below).

3) I know that I don't have anything wrong with the other inside tubes and nothing horrible (besides the cute little fibroid) is growing abnormally in there.

4) I'm fortunate that I've had my children and I'm in my 40s (some women get fibroids at a much younger age which can cause infertility and years of pain and problems).

5) Here's a cool thing: now I know the size of my ovaries and my uterus!

But there are bad things:

1) Fibroids don't go away but they can get BIGGER. And MORE can grow.

2) I can no longer stack the pill (skip the sugars) and just skip my period. With the fibroid, skipping my period just causes my uterus to rebel, have a tantrum and spew pain in all directions (I even think it regularly forms a huddle with surrounding body parts to get them to join in the tantrum, thus I walk around with menstrual cramps (sans the menstrual), nausea, diarrhea, constipation, ligament pain, back pain, and GASSSS ALL AT THE SAME TIME...I AM NOT EXAGGERATING...NOPE).

3) Symptoms of doing nothing: Try not to become anemic, hide at home for several days a month, take lots of pain meds. Hope things don't get worse. Get angsty, whiny, and annoy everyone around me all the time.

Hey, at least I found more good than bad!

Treatment options include hormones (which cause menopause symptoms? no thanks), myomectomy (removal of the fibroid, eek, surgery), and hysterectomy (eek, MAJOR SURGERY).

I'm still doing some research and thinking about what I want to do next. It's too bad O-Lan didn't have those luxuries.

Stay tuned!