2008-07-13 - 1:39 a.m.
HOT & CRUSTY
Say, this weather is getting pretty crazy around here. The other night we started hearing tornado sirens and had to go down in our basement, making it the 3rd time that's happened in the last month. Get outta here, tornados!
Don't worry about us, though. Our basement is like a bunker. It's at least 10-15 feet underground and is reinforced by concrete, so I think we're pretty safe down there. We could probably survive a nuclear blast in that thing.
Still, my sweetums is in a fragile condition, she doesn't need this sort of stress. I mean, what if the worst happened and a tornado did come by and wipe out our house? Where would we go? Go stay at her mom's house with two little babies set to arrive in a few months? What if her mom's house got wiped out, too? Then where would we be? Up poop creek, that's where! These aren't things she needs to have on her mind.
Before this past month, the last time I remember sirens going off and having to go down to my basement was like 14-15 years ago. It was a Monday night and I remember it perfectly. You see, that night on WWF Monday Night Raw they were going to reveal the identity of Jerry Lawler's evil dentist who was out to injure Bret Hart. And I was really interested to see who it was.
It had been raining and thundering most of the night, but then right before they started the segment with Jerry Lawler at the dentist, the sirens started going off. My mom started yelling at me to hurry up and follow her to the basement, but I'm like damn, I gotta see this mystery dentist. What if a tornado hits our house and I die, do I want my last thoughts on this Earth to be "I wonder who the dentist was"? No, I surely do not.
The sad part was that it was really no big deal. They showed the dentist doing work on some patient, and I didn't really even recognize the guy. He wasn't a big-name star as I had been hoping. Yet another of the crushing disappointments I've had to deal with in my life. I was almost hoping for a tornado at that point, just to end my misery. My mom was like "I hope that was worth it" and, sadly, it was not.
You know, living in this house that we live in, I have learned two things about the previous owners. First, they really liked horses, hence all the stables and horse stuff that they built here. And two, they were really paranoid. Charity would actually say that we know three things, based on the fact that the shower in our master bathroom has no curtain or anything. It's surrounded by all this glass that you can see right through. Non-fog glass, in fact, so it doesn't get steamed up or anything.
Point being, when someone takes a shower you can totally see them naked if you happen to be in the bathroom. Charity has long suspected that the shower design reflects a certain amount of naughtiness on their part.
But I think it just goes back to the paranoia. True, somebody can see in and look at the person in the shower. But, ah-ha, the person in the shower can also see OUT. So there's not going to be any shower ambushes going on. No Norman Bates situations at my house. You might be thinking "Jake, who would be paranoid enough to design their shower so nobody could sneak up and murder them?", and I'd say the people who used to own this house, that's who.
Not only do we have this bunker-like basement, but there's a gate at the front of the property that you have buzz people in so that they can drive up to the house. We leave the gate open most of the time, so the people who keep their horses here can come in. But we close it around dinner time.
Then there's a whole big security system, with alarms and cameras and stuff everywhere. I might have talked about this before, but we have a little security room with monitors that shows what all the security cameras see and everything. Sometimes I sit in there when I can't sleep and just watch the monitors. Usually I do this at night, so it's dark, but the cameras still see pretty good in the dark. Everything is green, though. Sometimes I see deer and stuff walking around at the edges of the property. It's kinda cool.
I was just doing that a few minutes ago since I can't sleep at the moment. T-minus about 2 months until our lil' family doubles in size! This pregnancy business... this is come crazy business, friends and neighbors.
I don't really even know where to start talking about it. Charity put in her notice at her job teaching aerobics shortly after she found out. That's kind of a tough job to do when you're putting on weight and stuff. She tends to get winded a lot easier now. And that stuff aside, she definitely wanted to be home with the baby at first anyway.
When we first found out, we talked kinda just briefly about when she might look to go back to work again. But then we found out we were having TWO yes TWO babies. And that topic hasn't really come up since.
My own job has been quite supportive. My immediate supervisor is a woman and is the daughter of the guy who's basically like the big cheese. Like 2-3 months into the pregnancy, she came to talk to me and said she'd heard that my wife was pregnant and she wanted to hear all about it. And she said I'd totally get paternity leave, like 3 weeks or a month or whatever I wanted.
She's very... I can't think of a good word. Progressive, I suppose. And she said "is it a tough pregnancy?" and I was like "um... yes?". Cause what do I know? It's the first one I've ever been a part of, what do I have to compare it to? Well, actually, I guess it's the second pregnancy I've been part of. I was pretty instrumental in the one that produced me.
Anyway, long story short, I can't remember the last time I worked a whole week, because I'm allowed all sorts of free time and leeway because of this tough pregnancy Charity's having. Not that I work a regular 9-5 type schedule anyway, but still, some days I don't go in at all. Like Fridays, I haven't worked on Friday since probably March. And I'll get like a month of paid paternity leave, which is cool. And I have lots of vacation time I could take, too. And there's even talk of coming to our house and installing a setup so I could do a lot of work from home, which would be pretty sweet.
So that's where that stuff is. As for other pregnancy related stories, I believe I mentioned tales of large bellies and crazy food cravings and stuff like that. And, oh, do I have plenty of those.
Charity does indeed have a huge belly now. That's to be expected, of course. And as you might have surmised from previous references I've made, there have been two almost equally large changes just a bit north thereof. By which I mean her boobs are huge. You know, I bet the times before when I mentioned them, you were probably like "Oh, that Jake, what a typical guy, he likes boobs". And while that's certainly true, it's not why I'm bringing them up.
I bring up her boobs because Charity brings them up. ALL THE TIME. TO **EVERYONE SHE MEETS**.
Oh, it's so awful. I'm not a girl and I don't have boobs, so I'm not really aware of how girls think of them. But I've always been kinda under the impression that boobs tend to fall into that whole "private parts" type category. I realize they're a bit more public and noticeable than the private parts betwixt the legs. But still, they're private. You don't show them to just anybody on the street, and you don't talk about 'em with strangers in line at the grocery store.
Well, all that has flown right out the window. I didn't know this going in, but pregnant women attract attention, especially from other women. It doesn't help that Charity is just so pretty and cheerful, because even to total strangers she comes off as very approachable. So when she's out somewhere, women will come up to her and ask how far along she is and all that kind of thing. Which is fine.
But it inevitably turns into a discussion about physical things, especially if the other woman is a mother herself. It starts off with talk of sore backs and sore feet and eventually gets to swollen ankles and stretch marks. And then, boom, before I know it Charity's telling some woman about her boobs and how big they've gotten. And she's specific. She talks cup sizes. WITH STRANGERS.
Isn't this wrong? I mean, sure, boobs are an important part of pregnancy and motherhood. There's the breast-feeding and all that. But you know what else plays a key role in pregnancy? Vaginas! Do you often talk to complete strangers about your vagina? Or your wiener, as the case may be? No, I don't think you do.
Anyway. On the topic of physical changes, I think the most interesting thing to me is that, while Charity has the big belly and boobs now, those have really been the only parts of her that have changed. Otherwise, she looks exactly like the same old Charity, just with a basketball under her shirt and a stuffed bra. Her face, her arms, her legs, everything, it's all the exact same as before.
I know this for a fact because I have photographic evidence. One of the many zany ideas she came up with after learning about the pregnancy was that she wanted me to start taking pictures of her every few weeks -- NAKED pictures, wink wink -- so she could see all the ways her body was changing. Perhaps this was so she'd know exactly what problem areas she wanted to target when she starts losing the baby pounds, I dunno.
I had no problem with the idea, of course. These aren't the first naked pictures I've taken of her, but they are the first ones that I haven't posted on the internet without her knowledge. And she wanted pics from three angles, with her facing me, with her back to me, and a side view. Obviously the front and side views take into account the growing belly and boobs, but there is, quite literally, no change whatsoever to the back shots. I can take the very first back picture I took of her and lay it over the latest one and the only thing different about the two shots is the length of her hair.
I don't know why this surprises me like it does. I just figured that when you gain weight, as pregnant women naturally do, you're usually going to see it show up in different places. But it's almost like Charity isn't gaining any weight, she just happens to have a large belly because there's two babies inside it.
Meanwhile, my belly is getting bigger and I don't have any babies inside it. I've probably gained at least 10-15 pounds from partaking in all this food we've been eating lately. I always thought those stories about pregnancy food cravings, and wanting pickles and ice cream and all that, were like old wives tales. And what is with the tales of pickles and ice cream? Do they want pickles mixed in with their ice cream? How does that work?
Charity hasn't been craving ice cream, but she was pretty big on pickles for a while. It's because of the salt in them, or so I think I read. Every night I was making these pickle sandwiches, with nothing on the bread but pickles and mayo and occasionally cheese. Then finally one night I wised up and went to Subway and I ended up getting like 20 foot long turkey subs, half without turkey. So 10 of these subs were just pickles and mayo and cheese, and the other half had turkey on 'em. The lady working at Subway was this older lady, and I told her why I was ordering these pickle subs, and she understood and boy did she load 'em up with pickles.
This is one of many things I didn't know, but pregnant women are advised not to eat deli meats. So I ate the subs with turkey for lunch, and Charity would eat the pickle subs whenever she was on a crazy pickle bender, and it all worked out splendidly. I even went back to Subway a few more times for similar orders.
She's gotten out of the pickle phase now, though. What she has not outgrown... what continues to be the bane of my existence... are PIZZA CRUSTS. Yes, I said pizza crusts.
She's INSANE with the pizza crusts. Not pizza! Just the crusts. From like months 2-4, seeing or smelling the actual pizza would make her want to throw up. So I'd order all these pizzas and then I'd sit there in the kitchen, ripping the crusts off so that I could take them to her without her getting a whiff of pizza. And then I'd return to the kitchen, where I'd sit there and eat my crustless pizza like some pathetic wretch. Have you tried eating pizza without a crust to hold onto? It's not easy!
She's so nuts with the crusts that, for a while there, she insisted on only having the crusts from a certain specific pizza. It's been a while, and there's been so many pizzas that it's hard to keep track, but I think it all started when a buddy o' mine came over to watch the Royal Rumble on pay-per-view back in January and we ordered some Philly Cheesesteak pizzas from Dominos. If memory serves, it wasn't until later that week that Charity found out she was pregnant. So we didn't even know yet.
Anyway, sometimes when I eat pizza I'll leave a few crusts on my plate. And sometimes when I do that, Charity will come by and steal one of the crusts like a dirty thief. That is where the crust business began. So a couple weeks later when she said she wanted pizza crusts, I ended up ordering from Pizza Hut. But she was like -- this is after the pizzas had arrived, mind you -- "nooooo, I wanted the crusts from Dominos".
And, okay, that's a valid point. Some places have better crusts than others. So I thought, well, gee, okay. Something to store in the ol' memory banks there. Something to keep in mind for next time.
Oh, how naive I was. About 35 minutes later, a Dominos car arrived at our house. And when I opened those pizzas, Charity was aghast that I had not ordered the Philly Cheesesteak pizza. I think I'd gotten ham and pineapple and something else. I was like "They're from Dominos! It's the SAME crust!" But, as I have come to learn, there is no reasoning with a hungry pregnant woman. She wanted the crusts from the Philly Cheesesteak pizza.
I've eaten so many Philly cheesesteak pizzas that my stomach doesn't growl anymore, it boos. (That's a joke. Sports fans in Philly are known for booing, you see. Is this thing on?) I have made so many late-night calls to Dominos that they're probably thinking of building a location out by our house here.
I usually get the same delivery girl, who is much too young and much too cute to be delivering pizzas by herself at night. I think the second time she delivered to us, I didn't have the money ready and I invited her inside as opposed to having her stand there on the porch. This was around midnight and she was like "um... no thank you, I'll stay out here". I didn't really know why she said that and then I realized how that line of work might be kinda dangerous for someone like her. Now I worry about her.
But we've become rather good friends. Her name is Hayden. She comes inside now, she'll sit down and hang out. Our dog likes her. She goes to the high school that Charity and I went to. She wants to be a doctor one day. Or a teacher. She can't wait to come see the babies after they're born. And, yes, Charity has told her about her boobs.
Charity likes dipping the crusts into stuff, too. Mainly she likes ranch dressing. She's allllll about the raaaaaanch (yeah!). That line is what's known as a "callback", a reference to a previous post I made here. And it was quite a good callback, if I may say so.
But she'll dip 'em in anything. A friend of ours left this hot spicy mustard at our house, and Charity hates -- HATES -- hot spicy stuff. But she'll dip the crusts in that mustard, boy howdy. Like it's going out of style! Other things I've caught her dipping the crusts into: soda, strawberry milk, chocolate syrup, ice cream. What she will NOT dip the crusts in, however, is marinara sauce. Which seems odd.
She's also become a big fan of cole slaw. Or is it coleslaw? I don't know. I don't care. I hate cole slaw! UGH. I even hate typing it. This goes back to when we went to my parents' house to tell them the exciting baby news. They had gotten dinner from this local fried chicken place, which advertises the BEST CHICKEN ON EARTH (as if). And it comes with a bunch of sides and stuff, and cole slaw is one of them.
My mom was out getting the food when we got there, so we waited until she came home and then we told 'em the news. And shortly thereafter Charity was like "Gosh, I'm kind of hungry, would it be okay if I have some?". And, of course, they were like "of course". She could have eaten whatever she wanted anyway, nevermind the fact that she just told them she was pregnant. My mom practically shoveled the food right into Charity's mouth.
So she looked over the spread and got out the tub of cole slaw and scarfed down the whole thing. She was SO embarrassed, too. This was right at the beginning, before she'd started eating a lot, and she felt bad that she'd eaten all of it. It was like she didn't even notice how much she was eating. She was in THE ZONE!
Anyway, she had never been a cole slaw fan prior to that. But since that day I've made probably 20 trips to the chicken place just to get her more freakin' cole slaw. It's so gross.
As for other food stuff, we still go driving around at night like I talked about a post or two back. And even though she's spent most of her life as a health nazi who hated fast-food places, she's come to learn that the food at McDonalds isn't too bad at 2 in the morning. I think this is partly because those aforementioned nazi years make it seem like sneaking out late at night and going to a drive-thru is naughty. It's taboo. It's scandalous! And like with anything, it's always more fun if you aren't supposed to be doing it. Even though the "you shouldn't be doing it" thing exists only in her mind.
Mainly, though, she likes it because the food is really fresh at 2 am. It's not like during the day, when customers are constantly coming in. After midnight or so, the traffic slows to a crawl. So they can't make a big batch of fries and stuff and just wait for people to show up. You go to McDonalds early in the morning and you're gonna sit there a while and you're gonna get fresh food.
We did that just the other night, in fact, and for some reason I had a bunch of $1 bills in my wallet. So I'm counting them out and I says to the girl at the window, I says "Sorry, I've got a bunch of singles I want to get rid of", as I was apologizing for taking longer than normal. Not that there was absolutely anyone else there. I'm just polite that way.
And the girl says "Ooooh, I know where YOU'VE been!". Which, if you aren't hip to it, was a suggestion that I just came from a strip club, hence having a bunch of dollar bills on me. And I gotta say, that was pretty funny. It was even funnier considering that my pregnant wife was in the car with me. So you don't only get hot, fresh food at McDonalds at 2 am, you also get witty repartee with the drive-thru people.
I think that's a good place to stop. Hopefully I can squeeze in one more update before doomsday. See you then!
BYE
