Oof.

Chaperoned prom last night.  Dealt blackjack till… eleven?  twelve?  I don’t know, a watch didn’t go with my outfit.  Have had a splitting headache all day today.  And heartburn.  And the milk is bad.  So I’ll post tomorrow.  Including my splendiferous Mother’s Day post that is completely composed, but I’m too tired and heartburny and cranky to type.

Finally Reconnected

We finally got the DSL set up today.  Ten days of no internet at home… it gave my dad the chills just thinking about it.  I got the opportunity to show off my geek skills by fixing the new and already broken DSL this morning by switching the phone cord from one jack to the other.  So I feel I’ve lived up to my name today.

We briefly mooched off of someone with an open WiFi network last Tuesday, but all the rest of the local networks were secured.  Conscientious punks.

When the network connection was finally up and running, this little gem was waiting for me in my RSS feed.

(For the record, Ctrl-C seems to be an archaic ‘quit’ command, according to the GeekBrother.)

I love xkcd, even the ones I have to look up in Wikipedia before I get the joke.

Pretty soon we won’t be allowed to eat, period.

Everyone has a different, and highly vocal, opinion, on what I should and should not (especially should not) be eating, as a pregnant woman.

For instance, I love coffee.

Really good coffee, properly brewed and all that, I drink black.  Merely satisfactorily good coffee is supplemented with milk and sugar, on the principle that the milk is good for me.

The rest of the world:  OMG, u r drinking c0ff33 while pregnant!  R u insane?

Attention world, see this cup?  It is Decaf.  And the latest epidemiological study didn’t find any increase in negative outcomes from daily caffeine intake when it was less than 2 cups a day.  So piss off.

This is only one example.  I’ve gotten multiple lectures on coffee.  I’ve also been strictured on:

1. seafood (in general)
2. salmon (in particular)
3. salsa and/or pico de gallo
4. cheese (not even brie, etc, just in general)
5. beef/chicken/pork
6. chocolate (!!!)

Salmon because of mercury, later expanded into all seafood because ‘you can’t be too sure’.  Salsas because they’re too spicy and might cause me to miscarry (wtf?)  Cheese, because it’s made with bacteria (thank goodness they didn’t see me eating yogurt).  Meat, because meat is ‘bad’ (hello, iron?).  And chocolate, because it too has caffeine.  Sadly the chocolate-disser expired shortly thereafter of a mysteriously unknown causes.  In my imagination.

Pretty soon I won’t be allowed to eat anything except carrots.

Scratch that, too much vitamin A is also bad for the developing baby.

A Fascinating Sociological Experiment

We did the whole baby registry thing.  I hate registering for stuff, one, because it just makes me feel uncomfortably like I’m begging for stuff, and two, people are going to buy fun stuff they like (i.e. clothes and toys) anyway, so what’s the point?  The registry gun was malfunctioning, so even the fun bits of registering weren’t so fun.  But I understand people do want an idea of what you need/want/like, so I capitulated.

We were in Target (knowing Target to be, for our purposes, universally available), and it occurred to me…

This is a SuperTarget.

SuperTarget sells beer.

This just begs the question - can I register for a six-pack of Guinness with the baby registry gun?

The Husband said NO, so I didn’t get to find out.  But seriously, it’s a fascinating sociological experiment.  If I did, what would happen?  Would Target edit my registry, or let it slide?  What would the people viewing the registry think?  Who would say a well-intentioned (or otherwise) something to me?  And, most importantly, how much beer would show up as gifts?

I’m simply dying to find out.  

My money is on one of two reactions*.  One, they will think “oh her husband got ahold of the registry gun and snuck it on there, ha ha”  Two, they will be horrified, absolutely horrified.  Either response has the same essential implication, moms shouldn’t drink.

Never mind that alcohol levels in breastmilk are dependent on BAC, because breastmilk is made ‘on demand’ alcohol doesn’t accumulate in it.  Never mind that alcohol is listed by the AAP as a “Maternal Medication Usually Compatible with Breastfeeding”.  Never mind that I didn’t drink all that much before I was pregnant, haven’t touched a drop since, and am dying to be able to safely have the occasional beer again.  

And I won’t even touch the old wives tale about dark beers helping milk supply.  Not with a ten foot pole.

Now, I know this is really just one facet of the old prejudice.  That, once they’ve bred, women aren’t just people anymore, they’re held to higher standards than mere mortals.  Which, of course, makes me want to rub people’s noses in it even more.

But it would still be interesting to see the reactions I got.  Maybe I can talk The Husband into it, you know, from the scientific perspective.  But then he’ll want me to write it up in a paper too, and that’s work.

* The third, and best possible (but least likely) reaction, was provided by Deacon David, who just wanted to know why I would register for Guinness when there are so many other ‘better’ dark beers out there.

Disconnected

We had a lightening storm roll through on Friday night/Saturday morning.  Computers are fine, but the cable modem is fried and Comcast swears they can see it on the network, so they won’t fix it unless we pay for a site visit.  Here’s a hint, Comcast, when annoyed customers call because they haven’t had internet access all day and want to know if the storm damage is fixed yet, telling them their modem isn’t broken and so you won’t fix it, this is bad customer service.

So we’re waiting for a home phone line to get installed so OpLink can start providing us with DSL.  This will take about 10 days, unfortunately, and my only internet access will be via work.  Posting will be rare, new comment approvals will take time (sorry HBM), and my twitter frequency will be about the same, very slow because I’m still boring.

And Comcast… there are certain aspects of pregnancy that even I find noxious.  You can kiss’em.