Monthly Archives: May 2019
too much TV
When I’m pregnant, I spend a great deal of time in bed watching Netflix / Amazon Prime. During the first trimester, I typically don’t even feel well enough to go downstairs and sit on the couch (prefer to be horizontal and too close to the kitchen and kitchen smells, and frankly, don’t really like being near other humans at this time.) A huge percentage of my lifetime television consumption must have occurred during pregnancy. It’s kind of ridiculous.
(For the record: 13 weeks 2 days – still not feeling better. Any day now, right?)
Anyway, I bought the first season of GOT and watched it, end to end. And . . . it’s OK. I mean, it’s not bad. It’s engaging. I like many of the characters. Overall, the acting is good. There’s clearly a lot of money that’s gone into it. A wee bit over-dramatic, well maybe more than a wee bit, but nothing ridiculous. But with all the hype lately, you’d think it was seriously the best. show. ever. Maybe it gets better? I enjoyed watching the first two series of Home Fires (love the BBC) considerably more. And that got canceled after two season! Two many female characters and womens’ plot lines, I presume? Not enough sex and murder?
I also enjoyed The Forest on Netflix and on Amazon Prime, The Snow Walker, Beverly Hills 90210 (original – first season), and Wonderland.
high five quilt
Since I’ve been feeling like crap, I haven’t been doing much crafting. I was determined to finish my cross stitch, but at I’m at probably 95% complete excluding edge stitching, and I need a break. I’ve managed to muster up enough energy the last few days to spend about 10 minutes making a few really easy quilt blocks. The intended recipient, obviously, is the new arrival. I had been thinking of doing a Friedlander pattern next, but i’m basically just not up for it right now. I need to do something easy. This pattern is technically out of Sunday Morning Quilts, and i bought the book, but I haven’t really looked at the formal pattern yet. My inspiration was Blue Elephant Stitches.
Anyway. Blocks so far. At this rate, it’ll take me a couple months to assemble enough for a baby quilt.
13 weeks 1 day today and still feeling lousy. Every day I hope to wake up feeling better, but it hasn’t happened yet.
swim swim swim
B: I don’t like it when you leave me home alone.
Me / H: When did we ever leave you alone?
B: When Daddy is working and Mommy is resting and L is having privacy.
Me / H: (laughing at the cuteness of her turn of phrase) You don’t like it L is having privacy?
B: It’s not fair when some people are having privacy and other people are bored.
Me / H: Don’t worry, when the new baby is here, you’ll always have some to play with.
.
L had her first swim team practice yesterday. Pro tip: In Washington, swimming pools, even outdoor ones, are always heated! The pool is actually quite balmy, even though it’s still in the 40s at night. I was quite pleased with the revelation. Anyway, I’m quite proud of L. She did great.
H attended the swim team parents’ meeting tonight (I’m still only marginally functional due to morning sickness, so he’s been basically single parenting the last seven weeks.) He was intimidated by how serious it was. “Everyone was like – swim, swim swim, my kid has been swimming for years, swim, swim, swim, everyone so obsessed with swimming.” What else would you expect at a swim team meeting? But I’m amused.
I think swimming is a great life skill, and I think after a couple summers of swim team, you’re a swimmer for life. You’ll always be confident in the water, even if you never swim competitively again.
a new addition
I’m 12 weeks, 5 days pregnant. Due date, 11/26. H and I decided to get on the merry-go-round one more time, and so we’ll be a family of five, with a third little girl joining us.
The first trimester has been its usual misery. Perhaps it’s easier when you know what you’re in for, but mainly it hasn’t been as severe this time as in past. Constant nausea, but no vomiting. I often feel OK for an hour or two in the morning, which gives me much needed mental relief. My last pregnancy, the vomiting was sufficiently severe that I took meds like Phenargen and Bonjesta during the day, both of which have fatigue as a side effect, which left me feeling like a miserable zombie. This time, the evenings have been brutal, the days hard, but the mornings are better. I’ve even been able to run in the mornings, albeit slowly for short distances, which has helped my mental state enormously.
It’s obviously been hard having this line up with taking a new job. I could have delayed switching jobs, or I could have delayed trying to get pregnant. But really, there’s never a good time. I’ve been working 30 to 35 hours a week, and hopefully I’ll feel better soon and be able to get up to 40 hours.
angst
I just accidentally heard a message from the insurance company informing me I was at fault in the car accident that totaled my car last year. I’d never heard it, or I would have called them back and am currently annoyed at my husband for not telling me about it.
But mostly just so annoyed. I could have plowed into car #3 when it spun in front of me. I honestly think that would have resulted in at least injury, possibly death, for the driver of that vehicle, and possibly injury or death for me, too. Had I done so, yes, it’s true car #5 wouldn’t have collided with me. (I pulled in front of car #5 to avoid car #3.) It just seems so unfair to have done what I think was right and to be penalized for it.
I feel like I went through the process in good faith and got screwed over. I wasn’t looking out for myself, just trying to honestly and transparently answer whatever I was asked by whomever. I did an interview with Car #5’s insurance company, which I shouldn’t have done, in hindsight. They lied to me during that conversation and said they wouldn’t go after me. Fuck them. I’m glad that I don’t tell lies for a living, whatever else my failings may be.
I keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter. We have plenty of money to pay the increased insurance, and what’s important is that no one was hurt. By paying attention and being a good driver, maybe I saved someone’s life or health. Or maybe I didn’t – we’ll never know.
But I’m still pissed. It’s the principle of the thing. If we hadn’t had that wedding in the Bahamas immediately afterwards and I hadn’t been dealing with the process of leaving my job and everything else, if maybe I had known about the message, maybe I could have contested it. Just grumpy about the whole thing. H pays our insurance, and I’m afraid to even ask about the cost.
Caster Semenya
I find the popular media Caster Semenya coverage horrifying. I wonder if most of the columnists are just firing off snap reactions without really understanding the situation or what. Reading the NYT, as an example, you’d think Semenya was just a woman who was being discriminated against because she happens to have higher than normal T and happens to look a bit butch.
Back to Semenya. She has XY chromosomes. This was acknowledged in the CAS report, and this is why they made the decision they did. IN FACT, the new rules apply ONLY to athletes with XY chromosomes. So if Caster was XX, it wouldn’t matter if she had elevated T.
It’s typical for female athletes to have elevated T, but there’s a range women fall in, and a range men fall in, and the two don’t overlap. It’s one of the fundamental differences between the sexes, which is why Semenya, with XY chromosomes, no ovaries, and testicles, has such high T. I actually think it’s generous and unfair to XX women that she be allowed to compete at all.
In the last Olympics, XX women were shut out of the medals in the 800 m. I think feminists sometimes get carried away in the “men and women are equal” mantra. Sadly, men and women are NOT equal. Women have the privilege and burden of being designed to carry children. This makes us vastly inferior athletically, especially in certain arenas. The 800 m happens to be one of these. An above average high school boys’ runner could win a gold medal in the Olympics. A high school runner! (High school girls do not compete in the Olympics in T&F, to be clear. This is not gymnastics. It does not reward child-like body shapes.) My brother was a fairly average runner at a small school. He never won anything of note, but he would have been national class had he elected to compete as a girl. In fact, he could have been national class at a number of events – the mile, the 800 m, the 5K, and so on.
Anyway. The incomplete coverage is making me crazy. But I am thankful that the playing field has been leveled again, and the XX women who have been shut out for the last decade will once again have a chance to compete.