After a few gaffs about not remembering who I've told, I've decided to make a major announcement online. Yes folks, I'm pregnant! I'm in the middle of week 14 (or 15, depending on how we're counting) and due around November 17.

It's been really weird about announcing this. One moment I've wanted to tell everyone, and I tell a few people, and then I feel like I've jinxed myself because I haven't been out of the 1st trimester until recently. Damn superstition-inducing hormones!

I've also been REALLY tired. Hence my lack of posting lately. Thank god I haven't had much morning sickness, but for someone who's used to being active, this is the pits. I've been lucky to go on a couple walks each week, let alone go to the gym. And May is Bike to Work month and I haven't had the energy to participate. Foo.

But this week I've been gradually getting my energy back. Did some work in the yard and actually made it to the gym a couple times. Maybe I'll be able to put in a couple bike rides next week. We'll see.

I'd write more, but it's back to work for me....

This is where I had lunch:

Kenny and Zuke's

Oh my good lord the reuben is amazing. Thick cuts of savory, cured and smoked meat slathered in a tangy mustardy sauce. (No lowly Thousand Island dressing used here!) And real rye bread with the caraway seeds. Num num num!

Can't make a regular of this because the sandwiches aren't cheap, but man are they a nice treat.

So after my little May Day glee, I got an awful comedown today.

I don't know how many of you know this, but Herr Doktor and I have had 6 chickens for the last month or so. They finally were big enough to go outside and have spent the last week outdoors in their chicken coop in the backyard. I never saw myself as finding chickens endearing, but they've kinda grown on me. They definitely have a flock mentality, and when one has it in its mind to go somewhere, the others follow en masse. It's both silly and adorable and the same time.

Beckey, one of our dogs, showed immediate interest in the chickens once they were outside and had room to run around. She would rush at the fenced coop and try to make them run, and once they got going, that would get her more excited, and this would make her even more hyper. HD thought he had cured her of this by popping her in the butt a couple times with a type of pellet gun. After that she pretty much stayed away from the coop. Or so we thought. Today I was, um, indisposed while the dogs were running around and I thought everything was fine. That is, until I heard squawking that sounded not only distressed but way too close to the bathroom.

"Damn, one of them is out!" is the first thing that came to mind. And then "Oh shit, the dogs are out there!" I wrapped things up in a hurry, ran around the side of the house...to find Beckey with a mouth full of one-month-old chicken. I was absolutely shocked. Got her to drop it though, and I was hoping she hadn't had a chance to do much damage, but no, she had pretty much disemboweled the poor bird, which was sitting there agonal and dying on me. Ugh, it was painful to watch. I wish I'd had a machete or something around just to dispatch it right then and there, but it had to fade on its own.

I walked over to the coop to see where the bird might have gotten out when I saw the rest of them: all of the other chickens were dead! Beckey had obviously gotten into the fence, but where? The way it's set up there's a wooden hutch that looks like a small house, with a fence that extends out from it, so the chickens could either have shelter or wander around (in what was supposed to be a safe enclosure) outside. I couldn't see any compromise of the fence, so I walked around behind the hutch and saw that she'd dug underneath. Damn wily bitch. She'd chosen a spot out of sight so she could do her dirty work and raid the coop.

So my exercise this afternoon consisted of digging a big hole to bury the chickens and then moving a heavy stump on top so that a critter with a sensitive nose would be deterred from digging it up. At the time I dealt with it ok, but when HD came home I had a good cry about it. It's not like I haven't seen dead animals before, and I've even gone hunting with HD before, but when one of your pets kills some of your other pets, it's really disturbing.

I've really come to enjoy working downtown because of all the colorful characters in the area where I work. Within 4 to 5 blocks of walking from my car to the office I have the possibility of crossing paths with construction workers, food cart vendors, designers, businesspeople, rehab folks, bike messengers, and culinary students. This might not be a big deal for any of you who've already been working in an urban environment for awhile, but for someone who's worked from home for the last 3 years (and in a suburban business box before that), I find the variety refreshing.

I got an extra dose of unusual people-watching today when I stepped out of the car in the parking garage. I heard a jingling akin to sleighbells, which immediately set me to thinking "What? Christmas in May?" but then I saw about 6 middle-aged guys in old English-style suits wearing ribbons and bells and sporting smudged faces. There was no way I was going to let them go without satisfying my curiosity, so I ran up to the last guy in line as they were descending the stairs and asked him what was up. Turns out that they're Morris dancers and they're reviving a dancing tradition that peasants used to enact for May Day. They were touring different schools and public parks/squares to help folks celebrate May Day. I'd never heard of such a thing--and I'm glad I did. Seeing them in their colorful attire and their cheerful attitudes put me in a great mood this morning, which lasted for the rest of the day.

I just got back from Live Wire this evening, where one of the featured guests was Ursula Le Guin. During a reply to a question about what it was like being a woman writing science fiction in the 1950s, she brought up a remark from Norman Mailer where he said that "it takes balls" to write. She got the most quizzical look on her face at that point and responded:

"But I don't *want* balls!"

Gotta love her.

I don't make a habit of reading eulogies--that is, unless they're disguised as a sex advice column by a witty gay man:

A Heartbreaking Work of Savage Genius

Sounds like you had an amazing mom, Dan. Hope you give her a wake that's worthy of her!

Courtesy of rimrunner

Where did you grow up:

First 2 years of my life - Memphis, Tennessee
Next 5 - San Jose, California
Nearly the rest - Seattle metro

I specify all these because I've heard that kids absorb quite a bit in terms of pronunciation the first couple years of their lives. I tend to pick up southern accents very easily when I travel, and I've always wondered if it's because of the early time I did in Memphis. *shrugs*

Another bit of info: Most of my older relatives are from the midwest, Minnesota and North Dakota, specifically, and my dad has been known to drop into "Fargoese" when he hangs around them. Seeing the movie Fargo marked a huge insight for me because I finally *got* why my dad's folks sounded so weird.

Not that this really makes a big difference to my answers. Just fun info I thought I'd share.


1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
Stream. (Stream is the first tier down from river. Then creek.)

2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.
Shopping cart.

3. A metal container to carry a meal in.
Lunch box.

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
Skillet.

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
Couch.

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
Gutter.

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
Porch in the front; patio or deck in the back.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Soda.

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
Pancake.

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
Sub. (Although that's only with the advent of Subway. I remember them being called Heroes when I was younger.)

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
Trunks.

12. Shoes worn for sports.
Sneaks or tennies.

13. Putting a room in order.
Cleaning up.

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
Firefly.

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.
Potato bug.

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
See-saw.

17. How do you eat your pizza?
Flat, with my hands. If it's soggy, I'll cut it up into pieces or fold it over and eat it like a sandwich. Depends on how messy it is.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
Garage sale.

19. What's the evening meal?
Dinner.

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
Basement.

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
Water fountain.

Since starting my new job, I'm realizing that I'm going to have to shop for some new business duds. Most of my closet consists of casual and sporty clothes and the smattering of office-worthy attire is a few years old. But for the moment I'm making due: I have a pair of black velvet hip huggers that I can pair a handful of passable shirts with.

However, when I wear my black boots, black pants, and then bundle my black parka over it when traveling from the parking garage to work, I have to admit that I probably look like death warmed over. Wearing all black is not my favorite get-up, unless it's in the form of a little black dress that I can accessorize with some color.

I guess I'm not the only one who noticed this. I was walking up behind a very dishevled old woman who looked like she might have been homeless. At the very least she had a bit of dementia, because she kept starting and looking at things that weren't there. So I made the effort to steer wide and clear of her. Not wide enough, apparently. When I passed her, she spun around and scrunched up her face in the most obnoxious grimace and yelled in a voice that probably carried several blocks: "That black doesn't suit you! Not everyone can wear black and you're not one of 'em!"

Imagine the old hag from Princess Bride showing up and yelling "Booooh! Boooooh!" to your face. That's the shock impact she had. She startled me so much that I had half a mind to turn around, rip open my parka to show my shirt and yell back "Look, you screwy broad. Orange. Or-ange." But immediately after getting over it, I just kept walking and laughed to myself. I have a job. That I like. And I'll wear whatever I please, fuck you very much.

Herr Doktor has been raising 2 young pigeons downstairs (different than the racing pigeons we have in a coop out back) so that they could be released back into the outdoors. When he got them, they were fledglings and couldn't fly; otherwise he would have done this much sooner. But now that they're full-grown we decided to release them in Laurelhurst Park, one of the larger parks in the heart of Portland. We figured there was plenty of food and shelter there and it's in a residential area, so not much traffic immediately nearby. Pretty safe, right?

Everything looked just fine to start with. Although he had to physically reach into the carrier to get them to leave, once they were out they flew up into the neighboring trees. We were really heartened by this since it showed that their wings hadn't atrophied too badly from being in a cage. However, as we were watching the smaller of the two fly from branch to branch, a reddish brown and black flurry came down and snatched it out of midair. All we could do was gape helplessly as a hawk flew off with the poor pigeon in its talons. It was awful. HD tried to console himself by saying that "well, pigeons are basically made to be eaten," but it really sucked to see after caring for them for so long.

I guess it's just a matter of perspective, though. A couple came jogging by about the same time and saw this happen. The woman looked at me with awe on her face and said "wow, did you see that?" And I don't blame her. If I had witnessed this randomly I probably would have been pretty impressed myself because I think birds of prey are beautifully powerful animals. It just hurt to see after having grown attached to those little guys.

I haven't figured out what I'm going to wear out to the KMRIA (Kiss My Royal Irish Ass) show tonight, but Herr Doktor has a jump on it. He's sporting this awesome Irish Yoga T-shirt--makes me giggle each time I look at it. I'm all too familiar with those positions.

I love the Latvian dental assistant who I see sometimes at the local dentist's office. She's the youngest in a large, close-knit family and is a great conversationalist. Well, she does most of the talking since I spend most of the time with something shoved in my mouth, but I love the stories she tells about traveling around Europe and visiting family. This time her conversation was a little more wistful--she expressed sadness over the fact that there are few job opportunities for Latvian women so many of them end up in the sex trade or marrying for material/opportunistic reasons. And chances are good that the guys they marry are involved with some form of economic corruption or another. Her final comment about all that was something like this: "I love living in America and the opportunities here. If someone is stressed out, they're doing something wrong."

That's a really glib statement, but I think it shows her priorities. Namely, as long as she's got a solid job and communal ties, she's happy. She also values the latter more than the former, and I think that's what's so sorely lacking here. It's challenging--especially for singles (remembering my days living on my own)--to find a real-time community here, and I think it's because it seems like such a daunting and scary thing to be vulnerable. I've encountered that in myself, but I've also discovered that the more walls I drop, the more connections I can make and the more similarities rather than differences I have with other people.

In putting together my writing portfolio yesterday, I came across a paper I wrote when I took a history of music course at the UW 6 years ago. Because I was a non-traditional student, the teacher allowed me to write a paper on any topic I chose. So this is the topic I came up with: "Getting the Axe: Women's Struggle for Recognition as Electric Guitarists."

I re-read it, and I have to admit: it's pretty well put together. I did get a 4.0 on it, but I like it because it reads easily and isn't as headily academic as some of my earlier college efforts.

I can't share the whole thing here--it's 12 pages--but I figured I'd include some of my favorite quotes from it in honor of International Women's Day:

"A guy once told my sister when she picked up his electric guitar that women were meant to play only folk guitar, like Joan Baez or Judy Collins, that electric guitars were unfeminine."
- rock critic Susan Hiwatt

"It never even occurred to me to plug in. It's not that I was told not to; it just didn't even cross my mind.... It wasn't something girls did. So I put away my guitar and became a girl singer."
- singer-songwriter Holly Near

"I never felt unequal to guys, I just hung around them. But now I notice that I must be a sort of rare case. Now that I've been exposed to more news, press, and different people's opinions, I notice people's inability to see women as equal. It's eye-opening, really, and every time my eyes get opened, I become more disgusted. I would like to believe I'm changing something, though."
- Kat Bjelland, lead singer and guitarist of Toys in Babeland

"Boys like the things they do to seem real hard, like it takes a lot of strength to control them. But I tell you, guitar-playing's not hard. I mean, they're just little strings! I don't know why guitar-playing is considered a masculine art, except it's just been appropriated that way.... In fact, it's sort of feminine. That's why I wish more women would play guitar, because then there'd be more variety in the sound of rock music."
- Ivy Rorschach, guitarist of the Cramps

And in keeping with this, here's a link to a great article in venuszine this month:

The Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time

One of the best discoveries for this cleanse has been the soup I have every night. It turns out to be a flavorful and excellent source of greens and fiber. A couple bowls of that and I actually feel pretty full. So I thought I'd share the recipe in case anyone else wants to try it. It's fine by itself as a veggie soup, but you could use it as a base and doctor it up with any meat or grains that interest you.

Ingredients:
(NOTE: You can put as much or as little of each of these as you want. It really is up to you because you blenderize everything anyway.)
green beans
cabbage
chard
brussel sprouts
zucchini
celery (not a lot of nutritional value, but good for flavor--I used 4 stalks)
any other greens
1 bunch cilantro (I wouldn't use more than this)
5 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp. fresh diced ginger root
2 Tbsp. fresh diced burdock (AKA gobo) root (check PCC/Wild Oats/Whole Foods/Uwajimaya. It's optional, but it's a pungent root that will add to the flavor)
2 tsp. tumeric powder
1/4 tsp. cayenne powder

Chop up green beans, brussel sprouts, cabbage, 1 small zucchini (you can use more if you want), chard, celery, 1 bunch cilantro (well rinsed), and any other greens. (NOTE: Does take some time to chop all this up.) Saute in the bottom of a soup pan very briefly using a small amount of olive oil and the 5 cloves of chopped garlic. Add the ginger, burdock, tumeric, and cayenne. Add enough water to just cover everything, and stir and simmer them until softening. (Putting a lid on this will speed up the process.) Remove from heat. Puree the soup in a blender. Be careful to only fill blender half full as the heat will cause the soup to burst out the top. (Or, if you have a powerful hand blender, you can blenderize it directly in the soup pot. That worked really well for me.) Should be about 3 days worth of soup for one person.

(Meant to post this yesterday, but then my wireless connection went el crappola on me.)

I'm on the last day of minimal eating and still doing ok. I'm mainly challenged whenever I do have my protein smoothie or start eating the veggie soup at night. Only then do I get triggered with the thought, "man, am I hungry!" I am thankful, though, that the soup is suprisingly filling. That does keep the cravings down a bit.

Last night was interesting: I was scheduled to lead a Chalice Circle (discussion group) and the first guy to arrive walked in with a chocolate glazed doughnut and a cup of coffee. Nice. My first thought was, "You did NOT just walk in there with that." I could even smell the cheap chocolate Safeway icing all the way across the room. However, after that initial response, as I kept smelling it I had a more steady reaction of, "actually, that's kinda gross. And now that I check in with myself, I really don't want a doughnut right now." Amazed the heck out of me. Normally I'm a sucker for anything sweet, but I guess this cleanse has reset some cravings in me. I think I've only really had trouble with seeing the small round of goat brie in the fridge that I bought last week. I do like me a nice bit o' cheese. And I don't crave wine on its own. I have a craving for the cheese and then I want a nice wine to set it off. Oh, and I have a new appreciation for why my friend wolffire does these regularly. I think my palate has gotten way more sensitive. When I get back to drinking again, I think I'll pick a really nice wine to celebrate and see how many flavors I can pick up.

Poor Herr Doktor has been so sweet. While he's not doing the cleanse with me, he did agree to lay off the booze all week. So he's been having a "mini-cleanse." I can't say he's been really enjoying it, but he did come to the realization that yeah, maybe he's been pulling on the keggerator downstairs more often than he's comfortable with and that moderating his drinking a bit more going forward would help him get back in shape for biking and canoeing season.

He's also chomping at the bit to start making nice things for me again. He had it all planned to create this celebration dinner on Sunday but I had to gently remind him that I have to gradually reintroduce food groups into the diet so I don't shock the system. So he has to settle with making me hash browns on Sunday. But let me tell you, the man makes some mighty fine hash browns!

I did it! I got up in front of about 15 strangers--some of who play and write music professionally--and played my guitar for the first time in years. And I didn't do too badly. Although I could tell that the guitar had gone a bit out of tune since I'd tuned it that afternoon, and it made me sweat thinking that everyone could hear it, when I commented it on it after the show, folks said it wasn't that noticeable.

The whole evening was just amazing. I don't think I've been at a concert where the vibe has been so enthusiastic. I think that's what happens when you get a bunch of musicians together as opposed to a broader mix of people. We all know what each other is going through so we know how to support each other.

There'll be another star party in August and I'm so amped up to do it now. I may just have one of my own pieces to unveil by then. After all, as one of the women so aptly pointed out: "The nice thing about introducing a new song to an audience is that they can't really tell when you screw up." So true, so true.

Oh, if you're curious, here's the song I performed. If I had a way to record my voice and post it, I'd do that, but I don't so you'll have to "settle" for the real deal from Gillian Welch. It's a tragically great song and has gotten me through some rough patches in the last couple months:



We lease twenty acres and one Ginny mule
From the Alabama trust
For half of the cotton, a third of the corn
You get a handful of dust

Chorus:
We can not have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why

I had a daughter called her Annabelle
She's the apple of my eye
Tried to give her something like I never had
Didn't want to ever hear her cry

Chorus

When I'm dead and buried I'll take a hard life of tears
For every day I've ever known
Anna's in the churchyard, she's got no life at all
She only got these words on a stone

I've had friends of mine tell me about various experiences they've had with "cleansing" diets, and I've meant to do this for quite some time, but kept putting it on the back burner for various reasons. However, my body's been feeling increasingly lethargic even with my exercise regimen and my depression under wraps, and I've been noticing an increase in break-outs again so I decided to hunker down and do it.

I'm glad I'm doing this when I'm not working full-time. Not only is it a pretty elaborate regimen, featuring epsom salt soaks, castor oil heating packs, and chinese teas, and other supplements, but I wouldn't want to be around a bunch of people who weren't on the same food track. (Really makes me feel for the folks who practice Ramadan and have to go to work among non-Muslims.) Speaking of having support for this, Herr Doktor isn't going to be doing it with me, but he'll be sensitive to it. He won't be drinking alcohol (and if he does, I don't want to know about it) and will be brewing individual coffee for himself in the morning so I don't have a pot of it around in the morning. And fixing simpler meals--he may even dine with me on some of the stuff I'm preparing. Lord knows he could use more veggies in his diet.

The caffeine bit is what I'm dreading the most. I know that the first few days of going without is going to give me a nasty headache. If I seem bitchy on my LJ next week, well, now you'll know why.

I'd hoped to start this earlier in the month, but I've had too many social events get in the way where I knew I'd want to either drink and/or eat "bad" food. Seems like this is good timing, though. My "star party" guitar rehearsal with Laura Veirs is tonight. I wouldn't want to try to concentrate on playing while spaced out on lack of food.

EDIT: This is different from the elimination diet I did for several months back in 2004. While it's even more limited in the number of things I can eat, it's only for a week, with another week of tapering back into a normal diet.

Ok, so I'm jumping the ball a bit with it being a month or so from spring equinox. It just felt soooo good to be outside for the second weekend in a row. I think I spent 3 hours digging and trimming and cleaning up stuff. There's still more to do, like actually planting things in the garden, but yay! I can't wait.

And my good mood was further punctuated by having this song show up on my iPod. I think I'm going to be considering it my anthem for 2008. I love its energetic optimism and the sense of letting go of control of more things. Something I have to remember--that life works a lot better for me if I take this attitude:



i remember when, when i first moved here,
a long time ago,
'cause i heard some song i used to hear back then,
a long time ago.
i remember when, even further back,
in another town,
'cause i saw something written i used to say back then,
hard to comprehend

and the question is, was i more alive
then than i am now?
i happily have to disagree;
i laugh more often now, i cry more often now,
i am more me.

but of course some days, i just lie around
and hardly exist,
and can't tell apart what i'm eating
from my hand or my wrist.
'cause flesh is flesh, flesh is flesh is flesh,
the difference is thin.
but life has a certian ability of breating new
life into me,
so i breathe it in.
it says here we are, and we all are here,
and you still can make sense,
if you just show up and present an honest face,
instead of that grin.

and the other day, this new friend of mine
said something to me
just because something starts differently,
doesn't mean it's worth less.
and i soaked it in, how i soaked it in,
how i soaked it in
and just as to prove how right he was,
then you came.
so i'm gonna give, yes i'm gonna give,
i'm gonna give you a try,
so i'm gonna give, yes i'm gonna give,
i'm gonna give you a try
--"Objects of My Affection"
Peter Bjorn and John

We just got a front door installed today and Herr Doktor is now staining it a pleasant, light russet color. I think the official name of the color is Cabernet. (Very appropriate, no?) It's looking very good so far (and I'll post photos when he's done) but yikes. The wood stain fumes are really getting to me. I think there's a reason why most folks do such a replacement in the summer--it's so you can keep the door open and air things out while it dries. Oh well. Live and learn.

Today I was going to put together my portfolio of clips after having lunch with my aunt. However, it's *gasp* not raining outside right now. So it's time to do some yard clean-up before the sun goes down. Can't get it all done in a couple hours, but I can make some headway.

Then it's nose to the grindstone paper pile.