It's a boy!!!

The husband and I just got back from the ultrasound today, and we're having a baby boy! The image seemed pretty clear to the tech, even though I thought it looked a little like a fish skeleton. She kept saying, "here's the heart, and here's the stomach, and here's a kidney..." and I was like, "we'll have to take your word for it!" There was one shot she was trying to get, but apparently either I or the baby were not in the right position. She pushed and mushed until I swear she was getting readings of the table below me. Then she tipped the table back so I was inverted in an attempt to get the baby to pull his head out of my a@@. She did manage to get a picture of his face (kind of) even though his little arms are trying to protect his little head from the attack of the sticky wand! The poor little guy looks traumatized!

We've known the sex for about three hours, and we've already been asked if we have a name picked out. In a word, no. The husband and I are terrible with boys' names! I like old fashioned names, like Nicholas, Alexander, or William. The husband likes caveman grunts, like Bill, Bob, Jim. (I tried to convince him that these are not names, but nicknames--shortened versions of longer names.) We both agree we don't want anything too "trendy", but we can't agree on what that may be! Well, we don't plan to officially "name" him until he's born, so we've got some time. (We don't want to tempt the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing!)

I think he looks a lot like the angel did in her ultrasound. And also, a little like my sister's kid, which must mean that chin is hereditary! We're just so happy to have him! Now, I'll have to make some kind of trade agreement to get rid of all the pink stuff in storage...

Solving the economic crisis

Okay, I am not an economist. Half the time I can't figure out how to balance my checkbook. And it appears I'm not alone. Huge companies aren't able to balance their checkbooks either! The 50 year old hippie lady next door has a wonderful bumper sticker on the back of her van that reads "The problems we face cannot be solved by those who created them." So why are we dumping huge chunks of money into failing companies? Not just huge, unfathomable chunks of money! 700 billion dollars? That's a 7 with 11 zeros!

The next big thing is the bailout of the auto industry. (BTW, I love the word "bailout", like they are some punk kids who had to call their dad after getting busted for something...) My gut says don't do it. My wallet says it had better happen. See, the husband works for a platinum mine. And one of the biggest uses for platinum is...(pause for dramatic effect) catalytic converters. That's right, the auto industry. So if they tank, there are going to be huge layoffs, which lead to numerous foreclosures as half the town will be out of work. We're talking shanty towns, just in time for winter! (Awesome.)

But I saw an email the other day that seemed to have the answer. Give us the money. 700 billion divided by 135 million taxpayers is roughly $5,000 a piece! If you're married, that's $10,000! What would you do with ten thousand dollars? Pay off some debt? Take a vacation? Maybe put a down payment on a new car? Even if all you did was put it in a savings account, that would dramatically increase your bank's working capital, making it possible for them to pay their loans and so on. Sounds win/win to me! The banks aren't failing because they don't have enough money. They're failing because we don't have enough money! Even if the auto industries get help and turn their production to hybrids and other fuel efficient cars, it's not going to make a lick of difference if no one is buying cars!

Huh. Maybe I should be an economist after all.

The forgotten holiday...

Here's to Thanks-giving, our often maligned and forgotten holiday. Today I finally got around to replacing the Halloween decorations with Thanksgiving ones. There aren't a lot to choose from. For Halloween we get spooky ghosts and spiders and orange and purple lights for the house. Don't get me started on all the Christmas decorations! (I fear I may need to add yet another plastic tub to my collection!) But what do we get for Thanksgiving? Turkeys. I've even seen some that sing and dance, but that's just annoying, not festive! My Thanksgiving decor consists of some window clings depicting pilgrims, American Indians, the "horn of plenty", and pretty maple leaves. I also have a couple leafy garlands left over from our wedding decor, (We got married in November. In fact, our anniversary is on Thanksgiving this year. 9 years!) some fake gourds and the Fisher Price Little People First Thanksgiving playset artfully displayed in the space we usually save for old magazines, junk mail and scented candles we can never light because they might start the junk mail on fire. But that's all. (And I have much more than most people!) I just bought a leafy pinecone wreath and some scarecrows for the outside of the house. Why, you may ask? (It's what the husband was asking!) Because Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays!

I, like many of my generation, did not study the "art" of cooking at my mother's arm. Not that she didn't try, of course, but I was simply not interested. Having grown up far from extended family, we created our own extended "family" of my parent's friends and their children, to whom I am still close, just as much as my own cousins. Our childhood Thanksgivings were hosted by one of these "aunties", so I never really saw all the work that was put into the meal. My family always brought the pumpkin pies and cranberry dish. (Except the year of the "bloody cranberries". For more details see my sister's blog!) As children grow and procreate, these events became too big, and have been subsequently discontinued. Time goes on.

But not to worry, I still have my husband's family, and they have a gathering every year. And a gathering it is, too! I know I have previously mentioned the size and scope of my husband's family, so suffice it to say that they do not have a sit-down dinner! It actually feels a little like eating at a soup kitchen, with the paper plate dripping gravy as you precariously balance it on one knee to avoid the children who insist on running through the house. (There are so many kids now, I'm not sure I even know all of their names!) Not really what I had in mind.

One year I decided we weren't going anywhere for dinner, but where going to stay home and cook it ourselves! (I think every young bride goes through a phase like that.) I got some great recipes off the internet and out of the BetterHomes cookbook. (The red and white checked one...my cooking bible!) I planned it out meticulously, every ingredient and exactly how much time everything needed. (For me, cooking is more like math than art, something to be carefully calculated!) And you know what? It was amazing! Seriously, I wasn't over stressed (mostly because we were eating mid-afternoon so I didn't have to rise at the butt-crack of dawn to get the turkey in the oven!), everything came out the way it was supposed to, or mostly anyway. We watched football and drank wine and ate on real china (my great-grandmother's) with real linens and candles and everything. We all loved it, and so I've been doing it ever since! I usually invite my parents and my brother (I would have my sister too, but she lives far, far away!), and every other year we have the stepsons around the table as well. This is a holiday devoted to family and food and being thankful for what you have. What a great idea! And I can't think of a better way to spend it than eating with my family in an environment where I can actually converse with them! (And not have the "thing that I'm thankful for" be that it's all over!)

I guess it's okay that I can't buy Thanksgiving lights to put up, or that the only movies for this holiday are the Peanuts' Thanksgiving ones. If it was more commercialized it might ruin some of the...romance, for lack of a better word. Besides, when the bird carcass is the trash and dishes are done, (and believe me, that could take a couple days!) it's time to put up the Christmas tree anyway! But until then...Happy Thanksgiving!

Do I know you?

Nothing says "small town" quite like election day. I know I bitch about small town life a lot, but there are some really great things about it too. One of the funniest, and most annoying, things is not how many people know you, but how many people think they know you!

My favorite election day tale happened when the husband and I had just moved back to this town after living out of state for awhile. Now, we both grew up here, went to school here, and even got married here. We'd moved away for about 4 years, but no one seemed to notice that we'd ever left. I approached my polling place, which in this county is the same as everyone else's. (Our county has 5, or maybe 6 precincts, and they all vote at one large community center. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that's entirely within the "law", but no one around here is worried about those pesky little details.) This was the first year they were requiring photo ID's, and the little old ladies who had been acting "election judges" since the election of Truman, were both flummoxed and militant about the ID thing. Since I still had a Michigan driver's licence (my Montana licence hadn't come yet) I chose to use my passport as photo ID instead. This was my first mistake. The first challenge was to get by the dragon at the gate, the one who determined if you were registered to vote. This woman lived next door to me the whole time I was living at home, and her son and I were close friends in high school. And yet...
"Hi there, sweetheart. Your ID please," she asked. I presented it to her. "We need a driver's licence, honey. Or some other form of government ID."
"Yes, I know. This is a passport." She stares at me as if I were speaking another language. "It's ID issued by the federal government, and there's my photo, right there."
"Well, let me check," she sighs, and checks her list of acceptable ID. Of course, it's right there at the top of the list. "Okay, then," and she flips through her tome of names in search of mine.
"Are you sure you're registered, April?" she asks me.
"Yes, and my name is Autumn."
"Oh, silly me! Let's see..." she continues to look. I notice she is looking in the "M" section, because my husband's last name starts with M. I, however, did not change my name when I got married, something difficult to explain to these women, some of whom may have been present for the delivery of the Gettysburg address. I inform her of my name, thinking all the while that she is still holding my passport, and the name is printed right on there! Seriously, if she wasn't even going to look, then why give me such grief over my choice of identification? I can feel the people behind me in line growing restless. How dare I try to use alternate ID! How dare I not take my husband's name! What was I trying to do here?

Finally able to pass the gate, I entered the auditorium and head for the table marked with my precinct. More trouble. You see, I grew up on the west side of town. The husband and I now lived on the east side of town. (Sigh)
"I think you want precinct 2, don't you?"
"No, I live on the east side of town now."
"Really? Are you sure? When did you move?" one lady asks me.
"Oh, no," offered another lady, "She and her husband just moved in down the street from us."
"Yeah," I said, all the while wondering if this gal hadn't vouched for me, (and how the hell does she know where I live? I don't know who she is!) how long would I have had to stand there and argue with these women before they simply checked the book? After I wore them down, they finally handed me a ballot and I went on about my business.

So, you can see that I can really feel for these people who stood in line for 4 hours to vote. I didn't stand in line at all and it still took almost a half hour to get a ballot, defending my life choices along the way.