Easter Bunny Day Massacre

We came home from work tonight to find the radio on in our bedroom. My husband went in and turned it off, and I followed behind. I immediately noticed that my easter bunnies were missing from the nightstand. I had placed them all around the clock radio, and only one was left, laying face down.

"Where's my bunnies?" I asked. Then I turned and looked down. The rest of the bunnies, including the infamous Cousin Ben, were left for dead on the rug. Their poor little bodies were strewn in a trail of sadness.

See for yourself.






































This morning I had found Cousin Ben in our hallway corner, behind the coat rack, so this bunny massacre is not very shocking. Just very sad.

One more...

"You don't look pregnant, you just look fat."

Weird comments I've received

"Janine's got a beeellllyyy...."

and

"You sure do look weird pregnant."

5 month mark

I've hit the first week of my fifth month of lugging little Zit around. I can't believe we only have 4 months to go and then Zit will be here and our lives will be forever changed.

I'm thinking our older cat Missy Sophia is finally realizing something weird is going on because she is acting out more and more and getting all nutty. We bought a new office chair to save my poor back from the pain of our piddly wooden chair, and Missy Sophia has decided it's her chew toy. We came home last night to find a chunk taken out of it and tons of pin holes across the top. For now I taped a blanket around the back part of the chair, and whenever Missy S is sitting in the chair, I run in there and yell at her. She's usually the good cat -- never does anything bad except bodily harm to us or to Zoe -- so I'm not sure what's going on with her. Maybe she has something against leather office chairs?

Miss S is also becoming more obnoxious at night. She is bringing in all the cat toys she can find into our room and screaming her head off. Eventually my husband has to get up and chase her down and lock her up with the leather chair (yes, I know that doesn't seem to make sense since she hates it so much, but 2 am in the morning is not the time to try to move furniture around). She's also becoming more aggressive towards me and Zoe. I was changing the sheets on our bed last night, and Zoe likes to get under each layer as I make the bed. Missy S kept jumping on top of her and biting her through the sheet or the blanket. Finally I got so fed up with her evilness, that I stuck Missy S under the blanket and let Zoe pounce on her. That brought her cat devil out and we all had to run for our lives.

So 4 more months to go! Which mean 4 more months of trying to protect ourselves from nutball Missy S....

Zit

Not only does my husband think Zit is already doing UFC moves in my uterus, but he just read about this little fellow and now hopes Zit is just as big. I think this is when men should start carrying babies around for 9 months.

What a great day for customer service experiences!

Our Cingular bill ended up being over a 100 bucks this past month. The extra charges were due to "data transfers," which means nothing to me since my husband and myself never access the internet on our cell phones. We're lucky if we can get a simple text message written let alone figure out how to check email and stuff.

So I called Cingular today to ask about the data transfers and to figure out what it means so we could stop doing it. The girl was rather pleasant from the beginning, and even though I suspect she thinks we're both big idiots because I said we never get on the internet or email pictures to people (na-uh! no way!), she never treated me as such. She offered to turn off the media service to both our phones (so the big dummies won't access the internet "accidentally"), and I said yes, please do that, thank you very much.

Maybe it's because I didn't call with a predetermined attitude in mind, or because she was having an exceptionally wonderful customer service call center day, but she offered to reverse the two big charges on our bill instead of making the dummy customer (me) pay for services I didn't even know how I accessed.

Whhhaaaaattt? I thought. Could this be true? I mean, if I was in the mood, I certainly would have spouted off with tons of attitude that I wasn't the dummy who was transferring data on my phone and it was Cingular's fault, not mine, but I was actually willing to chalk it up to a lesson learned, and since the media service was being turned off, we were going to be safe from extra charges from now on. But no -- this nice gal took the initiative and reversed said charges on her own.

I then decided I was going to leave Jamba Juice alone because not only was I two bucks richer in Jamba Juice cash, I now didn't have to pay 25 bucks on our cell phone bill.

I'm still waiting for the money to start floating from the sky and falling directly into my hands, but so far, no such luck. I think I'll take what I got and call it a day.

BART + Jamba Juice Card = one buck richer in life

So today was the "free Jamba juice" card day at BART (depending on which station you were at). My husband heard on the news that the cards were worth $1 up to $300, so we were pretty excited about getting our free Jamba Juice cards when we arrived at the Montgomery BART station.

We both got handed our free cards as soon as we hit the station lobby area. He was correct! We could very well have won ourselves $300 worth (or even just $5) of Jamba Juice. I suggested going to the Jamba Juice on New Montgomery to get our free drink, cause I just knew our cards were worth more than a buck, and my husband was afraid there would be a long line of others getting their free Jamba Juices, so we decided to see how busy they were.

When we got to it, there was no on inside. My husband went inside and asked the guy behind the counter if he could tell him how much his card was worth.

"Did you get that at the BART station?" the guy asked.

"Yeah," my husband said.

"They're only worth a dollar," he said.

"Oh," said my husband, rather sadly.

"What! They lie!" I said as we walked out the door.

So now I'm trying to decide if I wanted to complain to the Jamba Juice people about false advertisement since the cards were supposed to be loaded with different amounts (I say no, just be thankful for an extra $1 towards a Jamba Juice even though I've probably had one in the last 10 years; my husband says yes, it's false advertising and he thinks if I complain, I'll get $300 bucks in "hush" money). What to do, what to do.

Zit moves!

Today was the first day I can honestly say I felt Zit moving around inside of me. I thought I had felt it before, but now I'm sure I didn't. Zit's movements feels like popcorn popping. He's our little caramel popcorn!

The nightmare known as BART

Yesterday was my last time getting to work at 8am and leaving at 5pm. At first, when I started working these hours to match what my husband was doing, it was all a-okay due to a fabulous 10-car BART train that happened to run at 5:15pm and 5:30pm. Then one day it was an 8-car train. Then a 9-car train. And regardless of what time we got to the station, we always seemed to be at the end of the line, which means I don't get to sit down. Usually a seat would free up after a few stops, and I would maneuver my body into the empty spot before some man tried to sit down, but after last night, I decided I was done.

The train was a 9-car train and we were actually second in line to get onto the train, but there was only one empty seat, and some fat lady took it. My husband and I got settled in our usual spots when we have to stand up, and then all over a sudden this creaking sound came onto the train. I looked around my husband and saw the noise came from a man with an office chair. Not only was there no space for the 100 people trying to squeeze onto the train (and this was still at Montgomery -- we had one more stop to go before leaving SF), but now there was a man with an office chair sucking up all the space right in middle of where the doors are.

When we got to Fruitvale, people were trying to get off, but really couldn't because of the man with the chair blocking all directions. I, being in the pregnant state that I am in, refused to move out of my spot to ease up foot traffic, but I was willing to try to take up as little space as I could. My poor husband was sandwiched between me and the chair man, so when some nutty old lady was trying to get off, she screamed at my husband that he had to get out of the way (which, by the way, he was trying to do that as best he could) -- like it was totally his fault that there was no room to get out of the train.

My husband got off the train, yelled back at her that he had hear her, and then I yelled that it wasn't his fault, it was the guy with the chair. The guy with the chair turned around and looked at me and actually smiled. Snotty jerk with a chair.

As we hit each station, getting closer and closer to home, hardly anyone got off and hardly any seats became available. The man with the chair refused to move his chair to make room for people getting off up until the end, when he got off at Union City. And guess what? He had to get by me. And since UC was the first time there were free seats, but I had to wait until man with chair got off and others followed, I was pretty much stuck where I was. Man with chair tried to get by me, but the box he had sitting on the chair got stuck to my bag and almost fell off. He got an angry look on his face, and my husband gave him a dirty look, and I said I wasn't going to move for him since he didn't need to move for anyone else the whole ride, and somehow he got off with his chair and box still sitting on top of said chair. Then I finally got to sit down.

So I decided that I have to weigh the good with the bad, and if I faint while by myself on BART, I'll just call my husband when I wake up and tell him I've managed to stop the whole BART system cause I passed out. Because the bigger I get, the more annoyed I'm going to be that I can't get a seat on the train, when an hour earlier I would have plenty of choices. It's just not worth it, I say. I really don't want to stand for 60 or so minutes while young men and fat people are sitting down.

Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaa

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day!

EKG

Because of my recent feeling faint and woozy experiences that are occurring in the morning, I decided to e-mail my doctor to find out if this was something relatively normal or if I should be concerned. Now that I'm responsible for someone else's life, I'm more willing to seek help than when I was just responsible for my own, and e-mailing her was quite a step for me. Mostly because I figured she'd tell me it's normal, not to worry....unless I really do faint.

I got home the night I e-mailed her to find she already responded. She said dizziness is a side affect of pregnancy, but to be safe, she wanted me to get some blood work done. Oh, and by the way, get an EKG as well, she writes.

An EKG? Don't people who get EKGs have serious problems? Or they're old?

But I actually sucked it up, and I went yesterday to get it done.

I was waiting in the hallway for someone to come out and get me, when Doogie Howser opened the doorway and called me in. Surely he was only bringing me in, I thought. He wasn't going to be the one actually performing the EKG.

"You need to undress from waist up, but you can leave your bra on," he told me. "Put this on, open in the front."

Uh....okay....I thought. This guy looked like he was 18 years old! And he was going to get a look at my ginormous pregnant boobs and my granny bra! Okay, okay...I told myself. You've been through way worse things than this where you had to lose all your dignity, you can let this 18-year old Doogie look at your granny bra.

He came back in and briskly put the sensor things all over my body (including at my ankles, and I hate to admit this, but my feet are way stinky by the end of the day when I don't wear socks -- at least I got him back that way. You get to look at my granny bra and huge boobs, I get to torture you with my stinky skis!). He moved the paper vest thing I was wearing to put sensors down my left side. I was tempted to inform him that I was pregnant, not just a big fatty mcfatster, but then I realized he probably didn't care one way or another.

In fact, he probably has seen about 50 granny bras and boobs and who knows what else by the time I showed up. So when he told me to lay still and not move, I went into my safe place, where I was fully clothed and he wasn't there. One minute later, it was over.

Then he dismissed me. And I ran for the hills!

I caught a slight glimpse at my heart chart thing, but it didn't mean a thing to me.

Now I have to wait until my next doctor appointment to know if I have wacky heart. This is only the beginning of the things I will do for my little Zit.

Introducing...

ZIT!
















This is Zit, possibly a boy Zit, at 18 weeks, 6 days. I'm further along than I thought, unless the ultrasound tech was wrong.

Zit did a lot of showing off for us yesterday, with tons of arm waves and wiggles and jumps.

And we thought we bought this for ourselves

Yes, that line is where the wall meets the ceiling.

Where's Zoe?

We got home later than normal last night, and when I went inside our condo, Missy Sophia was sitting in the hallway, waiting for us. I loved her up and then started calling for Zoe.

Most of the time Zoe is out and about, usually in the bedroom, but yesterday she wasn't sitting on the rug, waiting for me. I kept calling her name, and then my husband was calling for her, and we both couldn't find her. I figured she was under the bed for some reason and she'd come out soon.

That's when Missy sat herself down in the hallway, near the bathroom, and stared up at my husband with imploring eyes. He kept talking to her, and she kept staring, and then for some reason my husband decided to open the bathroom door.

Out comes Zoe.

"She was locked in the bathroom!" he said to me.

Zoe ran out and ran to me with a frantic look on her little face. I picked her up and hugged and kissed her, and then took her in the other room so she could eat, drink or pee to her heart's desire. Instead of doing that, she just followed me around for a bit.

We're still not sure what happened -- either my husband locked her in when we left in the morning, or she went into the bathroom and closed the door on herself (it's been known to happen, just not for an extended period of time). Needless to say, after some food, water and litter box usage, Zoe had a lot of pent-up energy to expel, which consisted of a lot of running through the kitchen while meowing really loudly while I cooked dinner.

I hope this isn't a representation of what kind of parents we're going to be. Luckily Zoe is the bounce-back kitty of all times and didn't let it affect her. She just won't go in that bathroom anymore.

BART fun

I've slowly realized that I completely embarrass the heck out of my husband because of my Barting ways.

As I've mentioned a bazillion times before, I'm a stickler for line management at the BART station. The first incident where my husband wanted to push me into the oncoming train (okay, okay, not that bad) happened a few weeks ago. Everyone was sidled up against the wall instead of closer to the yellow strip, and it was annoying, so I stayed hanging out to the side, near the yellow strip. He kept grabbing me, trying to get me to conform (gasp!) to the other people in line, and I wasn't having it. He finally let me be, and, because of my crafty line business, I managed to get an empty bench while the people in line were still shuffling on board.

Yesterday we got to the station at 5:15, and, as you can imagine, the station was packed full of people trying to get home. Our train was a 10-car train, so we headed to the very first line since that car tends to be the emptiest. When I got to the line, I was very dismayed to see that there was only one line. All the other lines had two lines, like they should, but no one was brave enough to step up and start the second line with the first car. I mean, come on, people -- the single line was so long, it was almost at the edge of the other side of the station.

Perhaps I feel more gutsy because I have my husband with me, I don't know. All I know is it's really dumb to only have one line, and one long line fool of wimps at that, so I declared I was going to start the second line. My husband was in the single line (now curving), and when I turned around to look at him, he had that look of "I'm going to abandon you right now if you don't turn around and stand next to me." I told him to get in my line and as soon as he moved, a bunch of other people moved into my line as well. They all probably wanted to kill me for doing what I did and being the first in the second line, but oh well, not guts no glory.

I tried grabbing my husband by the arm and pulling him close to me, but he wasn't having it. I think he didn't want any part of the rebellion if someone tried to knock me down.

Blankedy blank blank blank

My husband helped me with dinner tonight. He was in charge of turkey burgers and I made bean and pasta salad. I told him he couldn't swear once while cooking. I got some dirty looks and smirks when I imitated his "Can I get an f---ing break? Just once?" saying (cause you know, when something goes wrong, it's always going wrong at the same time, every day).

I had pasta draining in a small colander, next to the sink and amongst some other dishes (we don't have much counter space, and what we did have, I was letting him have it). He reached over to grab something, and wham! there goes all my pasta shells.

Sigh...no worries. And...no swearing! Amazing. I just got another pot boiling to cook some more pasta.

Then he had a slight battle with hamburger buns -- trying to get them back into the freezer and to stay in said freezer. I did the swearing for him, adding my own little twist and inflections to his usual.

I had managed to throw away red onion slices that I cut for the burgers, so I cut some more. I had cleared off the table and put a glass of tea next to his plate. I was getting ready to put greens and the onions on the burgers when wham! he knocks the glass of tea over, all over the red onions and the table.

He let out all the swear words he refused to say just to prove me wrong because I told him he couldn't get through cooking without swearing.

He told me not to cut any more onions. I said I needed them to mask the turkey taste, so I was going to cut some more.

Then he asked if there was anything else he could break or knock over. I asked him to put the bottle of mayo back in the refrigerator. I also advised him not to trip while doing it. Or to step on the cat's tail.

I guess instead of bottling up the swearing (although Zit really doesn't appreciate it), it's got to come out some way, some how and at some time, otherwise he's a walking disaster. Zit's gotta get some really good ear muffs or he's got to learn to take it outside and swear at the bushes.

Yet another joy of...yes, that's right...pregnancy

I never had any morning sickness or nausea since I got pregnant, which I find to be my downfall as far as my weight gain goes. So I expected to never feel ill at all. Never. Ever. Just fine and dandy.

Well, I found out this week that that is just not the case.

For some reason, about when I get to S. Hayward while on BART, I start feeling like I'm either going to faint or I'm going to toss my cookies. Yesterday, I both lucked out and was cursed because I was feeling so bad that I almost got off the train just to get some fresh air. But right when I was seriously contemplating it, a set of doors on the train wouldn't close, and we all got kicked out. Phew, fresh air. Yikes, maybe no where to sit on the new train, I thought.

Did I want to be that lady who made it known that she was pregnant and forced someone to get up or did I want to silently suffer with my two tote bags, lunch bag and work bag plus my giant body and Zit in tow? I'm always willing to plop myself down on the ground when no seats are available and space permits -- but at this point, if I did that, I wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon. I have yet to learn how to steer this extraness in the middle of me without falling over easily or crying out for a helping hand from my husband. Or just crying. Yup, like in real tears.

Luckily, I managed to get stuck with the pull down handicap seat (that I almost couldn't pull down cause I'm a weakling, I tell you, and by darnit, no one was about to help me, so I gathered up my extra reserves of strength and somehow got the stupid thing down). Also luckily, my ill feelings were fading.

Then today I was thinking it wasn't going to happen again, but come S. Hayward, I started to feel ill again. I was with my husband today, and he realized I was huffing and fidgeting and leaning forward (okay, call it obvious that I was ready to pass out), and he kept asking me if I wanted to get off the train. I kept saying no. Then there was a point where I really thought I was going to throw up and so I imagined how that would have went and where I would have done it, but the feeling soon faded. I never did feel better -- not until I got to my office. And, of course, to add more to my pregnancy fun, the escalator was broken at the Montgomery station, so I had to carry up myself, Zit, work bag and lunch bag as quickly as I could so no one behind me would get mad at me and stream curses in my direction.

By the time I got to the street level, I could hardly breath, I still felt ill and all was not okay in the world.

And every time I have these pregnancy joys, I think of the few women I've talked about that just love, love, love being pregnant, and I want to punch them. At this point, I think they're lying and they only love the attention they were getting versus the actual pregnancy, especially the larger women who've told me how much they loved it. Cause if they really loved it, then that means they were just sitting on the couch, doing nothing. Or they're wonder pregnant woman. Cause this ain't the easiest, I tell you.

And it's only just started.

Baby stuff

We went to my sis's house yesterday to pick up a plethora of baby stuff and clothes that she's giving Zit. When my husband was carting some of the big, colorful stuff into our complex, a lady was leaving the elevator with her two daughters. She pointed to the stuff and said to her kids, "Oh, don't you remember that? Ahh..." like she was reliving the good ol' days of babies.

The littlest girl said very matter of factly, "But where's the baby?"

Thanks to my sis for all the stuff she's given me for the past months, and thanks to my mom for the stuff she bought my sister's kids (who, by the way, are sporting new haircuts and looking mighty cute) that is now trickling down to Zit.

If anything, Zit will never run out of clothes until it's about 12 months because I took all the really cute and practical clothes she had for newborns up to 6 or 9 months. What can I say, I'm a sucker for baby clothes.

Old Montreal Irish Pub

P1010077
Originally uploaded by jzarate12.

This is the only Irish pub we could find in Montreal (actually, there was another one a few doors down, but we didn't notice it until after going to this one), and it was one of the few places where they don't talk to you in French right off the bat. And most importantly to my husband, it was the only place that sold the beers he likes to drink. He was getting tired of trying Canadian beer after Canadian beer when all he wanted was a nice Newcastle or Smithwicks.

Montreal window possums

P1010066
Originally uploaded by jzarate12.

This is my favorite picture from our trip in Montreal. Then we went to Ikea, and they sell these possum critters for five bucks each. So simple, so cute, so....genuis.

Crazy brain strikes again

It's 3:40 am, I've been up since 2:30 am due to uncomfortableness and having to pee. I was dying of thirst, so I wandered into the kitchen to find Zoe hunkered down in front of the dishwasher. I asked her what was wrong, and she answered me by trying to crawl under the dishwasher, after some invisible critter that I'm hoping is not a mouse or a cockroach or some other icky critter, and is only a spider (although I don't really want to know that) or a fake mouse (probably the case).

I went back to bed to inform my husband of Zoe's activities, and he mumbled it wasn't a mouse, go back to sleep and why did I let the other one out (Sophia).

I couldn't go back to sleep because of my crazy brain running in circles about money and all the things we have to pay for in the upcoming months and how much Zit has cost us already (as the lady at the store said yesterday, it only gets worse as they get older....) and whether we're going to be able to pay for everything we need to pay for, including my biggest worry, property tax, and my second biggest worry, Christmas.

So I moved into the living room to watch "One Week To Save Your Marriage" and "Dateline" since I've already watched all the good shows that were recorded.

Then I start looking at random baby registries and I see that some girls have already put registries up for babies due in December, and I'm thinking maybe I should start my own? But who would look at it? Maybe it's just a good way to get a list together of what we need. Crazy brains like lists. Except my crazy brain likes to list in my head and not on paper. Which is why I'm up at 2:30 am whilst others are happily sleeping.

Perhaps all this uncomfortableness, crazy brain, thirst and worries is due to eating a tasty chicken sandwich with fries at Jacks a little too late in the evening and then coming home and eating a slice of apple pie with low fat cool whip (sugary chemicals), not getting a nap yesterday even though I was dead tired and so was Zit, and that we just bought baby furniture, which means Zit's arrival is coming faster than my crazy brain can process (spending that extra 30 bucks to have the delivery guy actually put together said baby furniture was the easiest decision I've ever made in my life -- even though it got a weird noise reaction from my husband, who, if anything, should be happy about it instead of insulted since he ends up hating whatever it is he's putting together and swearing at it like its killed his next of kin).

And now my battery is running out on my laptop and I don't want to go into the bedroom to get my A/C adapter, so bye bye fun internet company. Good night.