So let's see, this is the end of the year post where everyone lists what they've done and what they plan on doing for the upcoming year, right?
What I've done:
Stuff.
Some of it was fun, some of it paid, some of it was a waste of time and energy.
Seriously, people with the lists of accomplishments? Knock it off already, you're giving me a complex. I don't tally my accomplishments, I like to just go with the assumption that I'm awesome and leave it at that. So when I read that some people have learned other languages or published a novel, I'm sitting here thinking "crap, I didn't do that... but I got out of bed this morning AND brushed my hair, DOUBLE WIN FOR ME!"
'Cause it is waaaaay too easy to list the things you didn't do this year. The things that left you disappointed. Isn't it?
I wanted to be graduated by the end of the year. Not that I made a resolution about it, because graduating resolutions are made at the beginning of every semester and I was becoming regularly accustomed to emailing the graduate school and saying "kidding, ya'll, I'm not graduated yet. LOL!" So when I told my department WAY BACK in April that Enough Was Enough and they were all Tru 'Dat I thought for sure I'd be stroking my degree by now.
But apparently it's harder to get off the chain-gang than it looks. I mean, the Warden is all "paroled!" and the Parole Board is all "Time Served!" but the idiot with the key is all "yeah, but see we only do scheduled releases during certain times of the year and the rest of the year we don't actually keep the paperwork around because that would give people the impression that there was a system and it's not a system, it's more of an organic process, so the paperwork will be available on-line in December, wait, did we say December, we meant January, and did we say on-line because I'm not sure if that's really possible, have you checked our web-site?"
Seriously Graduate School - don't you want students to, I dunno, GRADUATE?
I. Guess. Not.
So the one thing I wanted to get done this year: FAIL.
Whatever, at least the organic process, or whatever the hell it is, means I don't have to keep writing the bloody thing and I still qualify for "student membership" for the organizations I belong to. That's my silver-lined Purgatory! Whoot-whoot.
My resolutions for this year are:
Continue to not make resolutions!
I've been wicked good at keeping this resolution.
You could argue the logical fallacy of this argument, but do I look like the kind of girl who bows to logic? Logic?? I laugh in the face of logic! I put underpants on my head and dance around slapping my butt in the face of logic!
Instead of sitting down and making a list of things to do and making promises I'm only going to break spectacularly, I'm going to keep my cat inside tonight, watch the fireworks from my deck, and spend the next two weeks writing the wrong year on everything because I'm a little bit special like that. And I'm not going to dwell on my failure to end the year as Master of Archaeology, Art, and Other Stuff because it'll get done at some point not dependent on a calendrical division imposed by Julian or Gregory or whoever we have to blame for this particular temporal junction. And I'm going to keep on celebrating the little accomplishments of the day right along side the major ones - I started a fire in the fireplace, it took me two hours to get it going, but finally I made wood and paper BURN - I WIN!!
To you all, readers and friends, known and unknown:
I wish you the best of luck with your resolutions and may the new year bring you greater peace and prosperity, may we have all learned from the lessons of this year and may we not repeat the mistakes of the past, may there be more cookies and less boiled cabbage, may we all forgive and be forgiven, and may we all find our inner grace and beauty and find a way to share it with the world.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Blizzard of 2010
Okay, maybe it wasn't technically a blizzard on the 23rd of December, but we'd had a heap of snow and then a Very Strong Wind which took said snow and made landscapes of it.
Drifts were indeed drifting.
Drifting across roads.
To take up residence at bus stops and other sundry places where drifts hang out.
It was a white-out kinda day. A day where I was profoundly thankful that:
A) I had a Volvo
B) it was stick shift
C) it was black
Ever try to find a silver car in a white out? I'm sure I'll be kicking myself when I have to find my black car in the dark, but for now I am very grateful that I can find it in the snow, because I got a lot of snow. I have a lot of dark too, but rarely do I need to drive somewhere after dark these days. "These days" being here in DK where I am not really supposed to be driving but sometimes you have to bend the law in order to obtain a Christmas Duck.
The Christmas Duck is very important to Danish Christmas, unless you are eating pork for Christmas, in which case you don't need a Christmas Duck and driving out into a snow storm to get one is Incredibly Stupid.
I had just returned from the land where pork is Not Allowed and really would probably have been very happy to have a Christmas Pig, but I do like duck and I can do things with duck that you can't do with a side of pork - like stuff it, and make gravy from the giblets and drippings. And I'm really rather opposed to pork crackling.
Pork crackling is skin and fat that has gone crispy in the oven and it just stares up at me and says "Cardiac Infarction" and I don't like it when my food talks to me.
So anyway, The Duck. The Danish Boy had ordered a fancy-pants duck, I think it was free-range and organic, but at the very least it was Never Frozen, from the butcher's in the neighboring village (we don't have a butcher here, although according to the sign in one of our bars he does visit on Wednesdays, but whether that's to sell his wares or to get drunk we've never quite established, I mean, a sign saying "Butcher is here Wednesday 12-4" is rather vague, don't you agree?) to be picked up on the 23rd.
When we had a white out.
I'm fairly sure that the Danish Boy had not anticipated this turn of events and even if he had, I'm sure that he fully intended on being done with work in time to go get The Duck himself, but with the white out there was a surprising little amount of news for the newspaper because everyone stayed home and you can't really write a full news spread about how no one did anything because it was bloody awful out. So while my husband waited for someone's kitchen to catch fire (never did happen), I was left to sort out The Duck.
(At this point I should state that my MIL was completely panicking about the prospect of me out on the road and insisted that the DB would surely not wish me to do such a thing. I mollified her by calling the DB and telling him my plans and the DB, knowing his wife is freaking AMAZING was all "right, call me if there's a problem with the butcher.")
I loaded my BIL, his girlfriend, and my SIL into the car with two shovels and we drove off. Hey, I'm not stupid, if I got stuck in a drift I knew I couldn't dig myself out or push my car out of the snow - I'm freaking 6 months pregnant! I drove the entire way in 2nd gear, dropping into 1st to bring the car to a controlled stop. I did manage to get the car into 3rd when we were on our way to the supermarket in the other town on the island (hey, after a successful duck acquisition, it seemed prudent to go ahead and get the rest of the shopping done in case the snow got WORSE). I navigated by sign posts and trees, which generally mark the edges of the road, but I also had to try to remember where the road might be because in some cases the snow drifts gave the impression of bends where there were none. This would have been easier if I drove the roads regularly or hadn't been out of the country for the last 7 weeks, but I'd ridden shot-gun enough times to remember the way.
Apparently everyone else in the car was slightly terrified and very relieved when we made it home, but Spawn and I had a blast. We'd totally do it again! I'm thinking that I should be one of those rescue vehicle drivers because I think the "where is the road again" game is ACE!
We (and I use that term loosely, I kept the car going and the heat on for the others, I'm all heart like that) dug a Mercedes station wagon taxi out of the snow on our way to the butchers. We never got stuck. We never slid. We came home with a Christmas Duck and loads of other food, including more citrus fruit than I've ever had in my house at one time. If anyone manages to come down with scurvy in this house, it can only be through willful negligence. Or a surfeit of gingersnaps.
Drifts were indeed drifting.
Drifting across roads.
To take up residence at bus stops and other sundry places where drifts hang out.
It was a white-out kinda day. A day where I was profoundly thankful that:
A) I had a Volvo
B) it was stick shift
C) it was black
Ever try to find a silver car in a white out? I'm sure I'll be kicking myself when I have to find my black car in the dark, but for now I am very grateful that I can find it in the snow, because I got a lot of snow. I have a lot of dark too, but rarely do I need to drive somewhere after dark these days. "These days" being here in DK where I am not really supposed to be driving but sometimes you have to bend the law in order to obtain a Christmas Duck.
The Christmas Duck is very important to Danish Christmas, unless you are eating pork for Christmas, in which case you don't need a Christmas Duck and driving out into a snow storm to get one is Incredibly Stupid.
I had just returned from the land where pork is Not Allowed and really would probably have been very happy to have a Christmas Pig, but I do like duck and I can do things with duck that you can't do with a side of pork - like stuff it, and make gravy from the giblets and drippings. And I'm really rather opposed to pork crackling.
Pork crackling is skin and fat that has gone crispy in the oven and it just stares up at me and says "Cardiac Infarction" and I don't like it when my food talks to me.
So anyway, The Duck. The Danish Boy had ordered a fancy-pants duck, I think it was free-range and organic, but at the very least it was Never Frozen, from the butcher's in the neighboring village (we don't have a butcher here, although according to the sign in one of our bars he does visit on Wednesdays, but whether that's to sell his wares or to get drunk we've never quite established, I mean, a sign saying "Butcher is here Wednesday 12-4" is rather vague, don't you agree?) to be picked up on the 23rd.
When we had a white out.
I'm fairly sure that the Danish Boy had not anticipated this turn of events and even if he had, I'm sure that he fully intended on being done with work in time to go get The Duck himself, but with the white out there was a surprising little amount of news for the newspaper because everyone stayed home and you can't really write a full news spread about how no one did anything because it was bloody awful out. So while my husband waited for someone's kitchen to catch fire (never did happen), I was left to sort out The Duck.
(At this point I should state that my MIL was completely panicking about the prospect of me out on the road and insisted that the DB would surely not wish me to do such a thing. I mollified her by calling the DB and telling him my plans and the DB, knowing his wife is freaking AMAZING was all "right, call me if there's a problem with the butcher.")
I loaded my BIL, his girlfriend, and my SIL into the car with two shovels and we drove off. Hey, I'm not stupid, if I got stuck in a drift I knew I couldn't dig myself out or push my car out of the snow - I'm freaking 6 months pregnant! I drove the entire way in 2nd gear, dropping into 1st to bring the car to a controlled stop. I did manage to get the car into 3rd when we were on our way to the supermarket in the other town on the island (hey, after a successful duck acquisition, it seemed prudent to go ahead and get the rest of the shopping done in case the snow got WORSE). I navigated by sign posts and trees, which generally mark the edges of the road, but I also had to try to remember where the road might be because in some cases the snow drifts gave the impression of bends where there were none. This would have been easier if I drove the roads regularly or hadn't been out of the country for the last 7 weeks, but I'd ridden shot-gun enough times to remember the way.
Apparently everyone else in the car was slightly terrified and very relieved when we made it home, but Spawn and I had a blast. We'd totally do it again! I'm thinking that I should be one of those rescue vehicle drivers because I think the "where is the road again" game is ACE!
We (and I use that term loosely, I kept the car going and the heat on for the others, I'm all heart like that) dug a Mercedes station wagon taxi out of the snow on our way to the butchers. We never got stuck. We never slid. We came home with a Christmas Duck and loads of other food, including more citrus fruit than I've ever had in my house at one time. If anyone manages to come down with scurvy in this house, it can only be through willful negligence. Or a surfeit of gingersnaps.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
How to Become an Intolerant, Racist Asshole in One Easy Step
Step One: Work in Qatar.
I would make a joke about how tired my arms were after flying in from Doha, but I wouldn't be joking. It took almost three days after I landed in Denmark to stop feeling like I had just spent 48 hours on spin cycle.
I would make a joke about how tired my arms were after flying in from Doha, but I wouldn't be joking. It took almost three days after I landed in Denmark to stop feeling like I had just spent 48 hours on spin cycle.
I was due to fly out in the wee hours of the 20th, and the 19th was one of those days that will go down in infamy as "If It Can Go Horribly Wrong, It Will and the Timing Will Be Impeccable."
First, the internet went on holiday, which is why the resulting events of the day took 3 times as long.
We discovered late late late on the 18th/in the wee hours of the morning of the 19th that people needing to leave Qatar needed an exit visa. This can only be gotten via the Qatar Moron Authority's man-who-deals-with-visas-but-apparently-has-never-seen-one-before-in-his-life-which-is-why-we'd-all-been-issued-the-wrong-freaking-visas-even-though-he-was-in-charge-of-getting-us-visas-LAST-YEAR-so-how-could-it-be-a-completely-foreign-concept-to-him who ended up being on vacation IN SUDAN. Since it was a holiday in Qatar, just trying to figure out WHO needs to get us exit-visas, WHAT do we need to get an exit-visa, WHERE is the man who will get us exit-visas, and WHEN IS HE GETTING BACK took ALL DAY. Remember, myself and two others were getting on a plane at 2:55 AM, aka less than 24 hours from when all this was happening, so we were justifiably apprehensive. The poor guy who was supposed to be on a flight on the morning of the 19th who was not allowed to leave Qatar (and thus the reason we discovered about this exit visa thing) was LIVID. He's trying to get back to the UK for Christmas and as the airports were shutting one by one he was sitting in a hotel waiting to get his exit visa watching his chances of getting home vanish before his eyes.
We drove to Doha at 6 PM with the idea that maybe we might be able at some point to leave the country. We were then in a car accident, because what is better than having to deal with one bureaucratic nightmare than TWO! The Nissan Exterra was undamaged (well, we did get hit by a Ford Escort, which I know from experience are horrible little cars), we were only bumped, but we had to go to the police station and stand around for a while, during which the Qatari tried to blame us for being in the way when he crossed 3 lanes of traffic to exit the round about. Yes, you horrible fat man, so sorry for being in your way, I am SO AWARE my position in the pecking order is below you and that it is my job to improve your country without disturbing you in any way, especially by getting in your way when you drive your little crap car like it's the freaking Indy 500! My job was to look pregnant and American (HA HA! You need us to buy your gas and protect you from Iran, you fool, so don't piss off the hormonal chick in the maternity gear), which must have worked because we were let go without incident. We all wished we could go and get rip-roaring drunk at that point, but we couldn't. I was ready to get a pet pig, name it Mohammed, dress it in a burka and parade it through Doha before ritually sacrificing it to the God of Abraham, bathing in it's blood and having me a bacon sandwich. Hormones, remember?
So we went to the souk to eat Indian food. Just as our food came (at 10 PM because of the accident palaver), we got the call to go to the Qatar Moron Authority main building (newly finished, which means 50% of the building is non-functional, including some of the ladies' loos) because the vacationing visa man had come back to Qatar and was going to go into the office and get us exit visas. I have never eaten Indian so fast in my life. I had the worst acid reflux for hours afterwards. Pregnancy, Indian, and speed eating do not mix (you can have two of the three, but not all three). Eventually we made it to the airport in time with exit visas in hand. Because Al (the poor Brit) had to reschedule his flight, he still had several hours to wait while we got through with no problems. (He did make it back to England and had a lovely Christmas with family and friends.)
By the time the Danish Boy picked me up in the rental car, I'd been awake for 38 hours (I'd even worked a full day that day, moving finds crates and objects around the compound and had gotten no afternoon nap). I'd gotten some cat naps in on the flights, but I also needed to keep getting up to pee, keep the circulation in my legs going, eat, drink water, stretch, get off my bum so that I don't get hemorrhoids again (too much information? sorry), etc.
The DB took me back to his brother's Copenhagen apartment to sleep while he ran around delivering Christmas presents. I slept 8 hours, was woken for dinner, slept another 8 hours, was awoken to run out and buy a new old Volvo (more on that in a second). I then drove the new old Volvo in the snowy and icy conditions back to Ærø where I pretty much collapsed and slept another 8 hours, according to the DB I didn't move once I laid down. He even managed to vacuum and I didn't so much as budge. I remember none of this, being asleep at the time.
I got up on the 22nd and began to run around like a loon - I bought the DB's Christmas present, food (seriously, the man had eaten us out of everything in the house - but then again, he had been busy WREAKING THE CAR - see below), and made it to a midwife appointment before everyone (BIL and GF, SIL, MIL and MIL's dog) arrived for Christmas.
MEANWHILE IN DENMARK
Before I left Qatar, I got a call from the DB that began with "I'm fine. I'm not at all hurt. And I'm really sorry." He was driving back from an interview on Thursday, the 16th, when he lost control of the Volvo in the slush and ice and spun into a clump of trees. The Volvo did exactly what it was supposed to do and which is why we will never buy anything but Volvos ever again and he walked away without scratches or even bruises. Even the trees were fine. But the car was a total loss. It could have been fixed, but it would have cost far more than it was worth and almost as much as the cost of a newer Volvo station wagon in better condition. We know because we just bought one. The DB also pointed out that our old Volvo was due for a major re-haul this spring, which also would have cost more than the car (we were really not looking forward to that bill), so in the end the accident may have saved us some money. I don't particularly care - I'm just so thankful that the Volvo did what it was supposed to do and saved the father of my unborn child from harm. That's why we bough a Volvo (although HE insists it is the for the huge powerful engine), it's impeccable safety record. I would have been heartbroken to have to sell it for scrap just because we couldn't afford to overhaul the engine or something, but to have it go out in a blaze of glory and validate it's very purpose of being was a death anyone would be proud of.
So we drove out from Copenhagen yesterday to a farm where a mechanic who's got a degenerative bone disease was selling his Volvo (he couldn't get in or out of the car comfortably any more, but had kept his Volvo in pretty good condition for a 15 year old car). It's back to stick-shift, I'm afraid, but it's nice to know that we have a newer Volvo to protect us as we drive around Denmark.
It was very useful, for example, when I braved the Blizzard on the 23rd to pick up our free-range duck from the butchers. But that's a Christmas story for another post...
Friday, December 10, 2010
And all that was heard was the whine of the mosquitos
So you are possibly wondering what happened to me. No posts, no comments on your blog posts, heck, I'm not even showing up on your stats, obviously I've decided you are all horrible people and I'm never speaking to you again.
Kidding!
I have the world's most terrible internet connection. It's rarely strong enough to check email and when it is, all eight people living in my house jump onto the shared network to try to Skype home.
As you can imagine, it slows the connection down considerably.
[Insert pity-fiddle here]
Today most of them ran off to the big city and I stayed here because I'm a fat pregnant lady who can't bear to be parted from the refrigerator and it's goodies for longer than 1/2 hour. And look at this - INTERNET!!
I've got 10 more days in the land of camels and sand before returning to Planet Iceball, at which point I'll have internet on demand. I'm afraid this trip hasn't resulted in oodles of pictures. I haven't gone anywhere, so it's pretty much the house I'm staying in, which is a cement box with holes for mosquitos and cats to enter at will. Not photogenic. My work has mostly been the rebagging and retagging of numerous finds objects and cataloguing the odd find that makes it's way to my desk. I have filled my bedroom with boxes of finds, so at least I feel like I'm on an excavation. Otherwise it feels like I'm working in some sweatshop stuffing cards into dime bags along with little treats for rich spoiled men and women to gloat over in the comfort of their air conditioned offices. Oh, wait, that *is* what I'm doing.... drat.
I'm spending a lot more of this trip with my feet up - those swollen ankles finally arrived and I'm doing my best to keep them in line. This involves lying on the bed with my legs elevated, eating tubs of ice cream and watching Battlestar Galactica. (Don't tell me how it ends - I've never seen it before!!) When I get back home I'm going to have to organize some way of getting a sofa into the dining room so that I can keep an eye on the fire and keep my feet up at the same time. I'll then switch to copious amounts of hot chocolate. But I don't think the rocking chair is going to cut it any more.
So ladies and gentlemen, if you have a blog that I normally read, I haven't cut you out of my life - I just haven't had the bandwidth. And readers, I'll try to return you to your regularly scheduled program as soon as possible.
Hugs and kisses to you all!
Kidding!
I have the world's most terrible internet connection. It's rarely strong enough to check email and when it is, all eight people living in my house jump onto the shared network to try to Skype home.
As you can imagine, it slows the connection down considerably.
[Insert pity-fiddle here]
Today most of them ran off to the big city and I stayed here because I'm a fat pregnant lady who can't bear to be parted from the refrigerator and it's goodies for longer than 1/2 hour. And look at this - INTERNET!!
I've got 10 more days in the land of camels and sand before returning to Planet Iceball, at which point I'll have internet on demand. I'm afraid this trip hasn't resulted in oodles of pictures. I haven't gone anywhere, so it's pretty much the house I'm staying in, which is a cement box with holes for mosquitos and cats to enter at will. Not photogenic. My work has mostly been the rebagging and retagging of numerous finds objects and cataloguing the odd find that makes it's way to my desk. I have filled my bedroom with boxes of finds, so at least I feel like I'm on an excavation. Otherwise it feels like I'm working in some sweatshop stuffing cards into dime bags along with little treats for rich spoiled men and women to gloat over in the comfort of their air conditioned offices. Oh, wait, that *is* what I'm doing.... drat.
I'm spending a lot more of this trip with my feet up - those swollen ankles finally arrived and I'm doing my best to keep them in line. This involves lying on the bed with my legs elevated, eating tubs of ice cream and watching Battlestar Galactica. (Don't tell me how it ends - I've never seen it before!!) When I get back home I'm going to have to organize some way of getting a sofa into the dining room so that I can keep an eye on the fire and keep my feet up at the same time. I'll then switch to copious amounts of hot chocolate. But I don't think the rocking chair is going to cut it any more.
So ladies and gentlemen, if you have a blog that I normally read, I haven't cut you out of my life - I just haven't had the bandwidth. And readers, I'll try to return you to your regularly scheduled program as soon as possible.
Hugs and kisses to you all!
Monday, November 15, 2010
And suddenly after working only a week, we got a week's vacation
Uh, Eid Mubarak folks!
It's a holiday in Islam where you eat a lot of stuff. I think there's some religious reason behind it and I would TOTALLY wiki the crap out of it for you and maybe even give you a link, but the Archaeospawn is stretching in a weird way and at any moment I may leap from my bed into the bathroom to either pee, pass gas, or possibly have a nice sit on the toilet for no good reason whatsoever. Or I may get half way there and decide I need juice. Since I'm an adult, I can drink juice when I want juice.
It's nice being a grown up sometimes.
I mean, the upside to being an adult is that you get to do what you want most of the time, the downside is that sometimes you can actually do all the things that might possibly jump into your head to do and the only drawback is that you don't have enough hours in the day and some of the things you want to do are stupid, like peeing, and no one is proud of you any more for peeing in the toilet and not all over yourself, but then at the end of the day when people are like "what did you do today" and I say "I watched a couple of episodes of Supernatural, I made French Toast for something like 8 people (maybe more, they just kept coming and I was enjoying myself), I tried to catch up on the internets, but then I got bored, I peed a lot, I had some awesome gas, I poked the baby because THE BABY STARTED IT Y'ALL, and generally lolled about the house" and then people are all "dude that sounds so dull" and I'm all "It rocked! I did what I wanted to do!" and people are like "you wanted the awesome gas?" and I'm all "fo' shizzle" because it takes about 5 years for Denmark to get American pop culture references and I was never quick on the uptake.
But like I was saying, we only just started working and then Eid happened. And while last year we got treated to three days of gluttony and sloth, this year we got jack because we live in run-down cinder block houses that are apparently a step up from living in tents and so we don't deserve three days in a 5 star resort spa. I'd love to be back in a tent. I mean, I like only having to walk 10 steps to go to the toilet and I don't have any tourists oggling me or wandering into my tent, but it is really hot inside a cinder block house that absorbs the sun like a brick oven and what with the walls around the house we don't exactly get a cross breeze. I was originally supposed to be sharing a flat with a couple and their small daughter (age 3 or maybe 5 - who can tell, really, she's small and doesn't ever stop talking, not that I can understand her accent - where have her consonants gone to? she asked me "ca' oi 'ach a dee-eee-dee on 'or co'u'er?" and I was all "whut?" but at least I get her when she says "oor iz moi mum'ee?"- but no one gets my joke when I say "are you my mummy?" because we don't have serious Dr. Who fans this year - and I've suddenly had to child-proof my office which I wasn't planning on doing for a few years yet, but I may end up duct-taping her to the wall if she tries to help me work on my Mac again). The flat had high-speed internet and air conditioning and a separate bathroom all for me. So of course I begged to be moved to the cinder block palaces, with no AC, volunteered my computer to be the internet router, and said I would totally share space with anyone and everyone but please let me be in the house with my office space and near to all the folks from last year who are the main reason I wanted to come back here again and please don't make me commute, even a little bit. I got my way. Eight people and one toilet is not that bad, really. And I still got my own room, strangely enough.
Anyway, so suddenly I have this week of vacation because Eid falls in the middle of the week and it's a three day holiday and the workmen realized that if they took Thursday off they'd have a whole week to go home and visit their families (and by "home" I do mean Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, etc.) and had we all known this in advance, it's possible we could have gone home ourselves, or more likely, organized a mass trip to Oman or Dubai or Bahrain, since we don't get paid until the end of the month and can't really afford to fly all the way home. I could have gone to Cairo or Damascus! But instead I'm going to lounge around in my own sweat here. I am not exposing the unsuspecting expat community to my huge belly at the swimming pool (I don't care what anyone says, I'm totally grossed out by pregnant bellies and so I'm not going to show off to my veiny, hairy belly) and I can't really enjoy the expat bars, so there's not much point in me paying money to go stay in a hotel in Doha.
But honestly, lying here in my sweat? AWESOME! I love it. Baby loves it. We are enjoying not having numb bits or getting teary at the prospect of getting naked (I don't know if the spawn cries, but I'm sure spawn prefers Mommy *not* to be miserable). And if I'm awake in the middle of the night because Someone thinks midnight somersaults are The Win, I'm not trying to stuff my sausage legs into sweats and wool socks and piling on extra wool sweaters so I can huddle downstairs in a blanket, I'm turning on the lights and sprawling half nude on the bed and reading random books. And poking baby. Fair's fair. If it's exceptionally hot, I take myself out to the porch and lounge out there. So far being hot and pregnant is winning hands down over being cold and pregnant.
So you've all gathered then that the baby is moving? I mean, it MOVES. I went from going "is that it?" to "sweet Jesus, I'm trying to sleep here" in less than a week. And I can see baby moving under my skin. In a word: creepy. I swear to god on a stack of latinate bibles that I'm not having twins. But I may be having a gymnast or a marathon runner (Daddy is SO proud of his little powerhouse). It's not really interfering with work, although sometimes mid-sentence I make a random weird face because THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY BELLY (read that as Shatner's infamous line "there's something on the wing" and you'll enjoy the moment that much more).
Now I've got to toddle off and find me some more food. We've run out of gas (damn it, why do we have the funky contraption that means we need a special gas canister instead of what everyone else is using?) and so I've been taking ingredients 'round to the other houses looking for a place to cook. It's a good way for others to get fed, too, if I make more than I can eat, which is not really all that often, because sometimes I can really put the food away.
It's a holiday in Islam where you eat a lot of stuff. I think there's some religious reason behind it and I would TOTALLY wiki the crap out of it for you and maybe even give you a link, but the Archaeospawn is stretching in a weird way and at any moment I may leap from my bed into the bathroom to either pee, pass gas, or possibly have a nice sit on the toilet for no good reason whatsoever. Or I may get half way there and decide I need juice. Since I'm an adult, I can drink juice when I want juice.
It's nice being a grown up sometimes.
I mean, the upside to being an adult is that you get to do what you want most of the time, the downside is that sometimes you can actually do all the things that might possibly jump into your head to do and the only drawback is that you don't have enough hours in the day and some of the things you want to do are stupid, like peeing, and no one is proud of you any more for peeing in the toilet and not all over yourself, but then at the end of the day when people are like "what did you do today" and I say "I watched a couple of episodes of Supernatural, I made French Toast for something like 8 people (maybe more, they just kept coming and I was enjoying myself), I tried to catch up on the internets, but then I got bored, I peed a lot, I had some awesome gas, I poked the baby because THE BABY STARTED IT Y'ALL, and generally lolled about the house" and then people are all "dude that sounds so dull" and I'm all "It rocked! I did what I wanted to do!" and people are like "you wanted the awesome gas?" and I'm all "fo' shizzle" because it takes about 5 years for Denmark to get American pop culture references and I was never quick on the uptake.
But like I was saying, we only just started working and then Eid happened. And while last year we got treated to three days of gluttony and sloth, this year we got jack because we live in run-down cinder block houses that are apparently a step up from living in tents and so we don't deserve three days in a 5 star resort spa. I'd love to be back in a tent. I mean, I like only having to walk 10 steps to go to the toilet and I don't have any tourists oggling me or wandering into my tent, but it is really hot inside a cinder block house that absorbs the sun like a brick oven and what with the walls around the house we don't exactly get a cross breeze. I was originally supposed to be sharing a flat with a couple and their small daughter (age 3 or maybe 5 - who can tell, really, she's small and doesn't ever stop talking, not that I can understand her accent - where have her consonants gone to? she asked me "ca' oi 'ach a dee-eee-dee on 'or co'u'er?" and I was all "whut?" but at least I get her when she says "oor iz moi mum'ee?"- but no one gets my joke when I say "are you my mummy?" because we don't have serious Dr. Who fans this year - and I've suddenly had to child-proof my office which I wasn't planning on doing for a few years yet, but I may end up duct-taping her to the wall if she tries to help me work on my Mac again). The flat had high-speed internet and air conditioning and a separate bathroom all for me. So of course I begged to be moved to the cinder block palaces, with no AC, volunteered my computer to be the internet router, and said I would totally share space with anyone and everyone but please let me be in the house with my office space and near to all the folks from last year who are the main reason I wanted to come back here again and please don't make me commute, even a little bit. I got my way. Eight people and one toilet is not that bad, really. And I still got my own room, strangely enough.
Anyway, so suddenly I have this week of vacation because Eid falls in the middle of the week and it's a three day holiday and the workmen realized that if they took Thursday off they'd have a whole week to go home and visit their families (and by "home" I do mean Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, etc.) and had we all known this in advance, it's possible we could have gone home ourselves, or more likely, organized a mass trip to Oman or Dubai or Bahrain, since we don't get paid until the end of the month and can't really afford to fly all the way home. I could have gone to Cairo or Damascus! But instead I'm going to lounge around in my own sweat here. I am not exposing the unsuspecting expat community to my huge belly at the swimming pool (I don't care what anyone says, I'm totally grossed out by pregnant bellies and so I'm not going to show off to my veiny, hairy belly) and I can't really enjoy the expat bars, so there's not much point in me paying money to go stay in a hotel in Doha.
But honestly, lying here in my sweat? AWESOME! I love it. Baby loves it. We are enjoying not having numb bits or getting teary at the prospect of getting naked (I don't know if the spawn cries, but I'm sure spawn prefers Mommy *not* to be miserable). And if I'm awake in the middle of the night because Someone thinks midnight somersaults are The Win, I'm not trying to stuff my sausage legs into sweats and wool socks and piling on extra wool sweaters so I can huddle downstairs in a blanket, I'm turning on the lights and sprawling half nude on the bed and reading random books. And poking baby. Fair's fair. If it's exceptionally hot, I take myself out to the porch and lounge out there. So far being hot and pregnant is winning hands down over being cold and pregnant.
So you've all gathered then that the baby is moving? I mean, it MOVES. I went from going "is that it?" to "sweet Jesus, I'm trying to sleep here" in less than a week. And I can see baby moving under my skin. In a word: creepy. I swear to god on a stack of latinate bibles that I'm not having twins. But I may be having a gymnast or a marathon runner (Daddy is SO proud of his little powerhouse). It's not really interfering with work, although sometimes mid-sentence I make a random weird face because THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY BELLY (read that as Shatner's infamous line "there's something on the wing" and you'll enjoy the moment that much more).
Now I've got to toddle off and find me some more food. We've run out of gas (damn it, why do we have the funky contraption that means we need a special gas canister instead of what everyone else is using?) and so I've been taking ingredients 'round to the other houses looking for a place to cook. It's a good way for others to get fed, too, if I make more than I can eat, which is not really all that often, because sometimes I can really put the food away.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Boobs, Belly and Butt
I certainly can appreciate the boobs. Okay, I’m not sure what the rest of you endowed women do all day with the things, but I’m pleased-as-all-get-out to learn. As a long time member of the itty-bitty titty committee, I sure don’t have much room to complain about finally getting what I’ve asked for: puberty. But WHOA, ladies, do you find them as distracting as I do?
Not asking the menfolk, I already know they distract you. Just try to keep your eyes on my face. I know it’s hard. *Ahem* No pun intended.
So here’s a little TMI for you all. Because if I’m going to write about constipation and poop, you KNOW boobs are totally something I’ve got to mention. I started off this crazy breast adventure way back at the tender age of mumble-mumble and by graduation from college I was definitely a 34 B.
Men, this may sound like a perfectly reasonable size. It is. There are women who would kill to be 34 B. A 34 B should make any petite girl happy. Alas, it does not make long tall skinny ones with knobby knees happy. (Speaking of knees - they were bigger than my boobs.) Had I been six inches shorter, they would have been great boobs. As it was I was built like a runway model and moved like a cat coming out of anesthetic. I'm only slightly more graceful than my best friend. We both share a disturbing amount of pride in our coffee-table bruises, but I tend to not break bones when I fall down.
Flash forward a few years of hard archaeological activity. I gained back muscle, which was sorely needed, so that my backbone no longer stuck out further than anything else on my back (seriously, I had what I thought was permanent bruising on my back from sitting in chairs, it came as a total shock when I finally had enough padding to prevent my skin from being bruised just by sitting long hours in a class room chairs and the dark purple painful patch on my back up and went away) but that threw off my boob to chest ratio and I dropped from a 34 B to a 36 A. THIRTY-SIX A??? Oh hells no, I’m not going BACKWARDS! Especially since I’d invested so much in Victoria Secret over the years. I may have been particularly petite in the boob department, but they were some finely dressed boobs. A good bra helps a girl's self confidence level enormously when she isn’t, you know, enormous.
So I stopped wearing bras for a time. I mean, what was the point? By then I was dating my current husband, he seemed fine with the boob situation, I was a poor student and had better things to spend my money on (beer rather than bras). But I finally gave in and bought some cheap bras in the right size ("ish", because cheap bras fit like cheap bras and I’d gone and expanded my back muscles again) because at some point a girl has got to support the girls and I was getting chapped nipples from my shirts.
Yeah, laugh, it’s true. And I hate chapped nipples. It’s something I get to look forward to when I start nursing and I am *so* not looking forward to that.
Last year I took some of my hard earned cash and bought a few really really nice bras. Elle McPherson may be a fool of a model, but her bras are magnificent.
Right, so then came pregnancy. And BOOM cazungas!
Oh and weeks of pain.
Because boobs don’t just grow like they did when you were young (or maybe they do, seeing how I never did really get any before, I’m not sure how they are supposed to grow). It's not this gradual increasing in size that one stands before the mirror every day trying to figure out if they're really bigger or if you've washed your clothes at too hot a temperature... again. This is one day, no boobs, next day, engorged mammary glands. And glandular swelling is not pain-free. The closest I can come to comparison is the boob pain some women suffer right before their periods. Then there was the week I switched birth control pills and had the most amazingly sore boobs EVER where I couldn’t walk without them moving and hurting and so tip-toed to the bathroom for a week while carefully holding myself still with my hands. I switched pills the very next month and the doctors were all “well, hell yes you should switch pills, that was just awful and we’ll make a note in your file that we will never try to put you on those every again 'cause DAMN girl, that sucks.” (Only not quite like that, because the doctor was Danish and they tend not to speak in American patois.)
So it was that pain for about a month. I wore a sports bra to bed because them sliding off my chest when I rolled to one side was waking me up and causing me Great Sudden Pain Whilst Sleeping and I'm morally opposed to GSPWS.
Eventually they settled down.
And by settled down I mean, they completely and utterly outgrew my old bras.
I was warned that they’d keep growing (thank you ladies!) and so when we went out to purchase more maternity clothes, I picked up just a few cheap bras slightly larger than what I needed. Also we picked up some nice nursing bras that will happily expand and expand and expand about two or three boob sizes bigger than I currently weigh in at - and “weigh in at” is the right term, these suckers have got to weigh a pound each.
So here I am at a 38 B, which doesn’t sound like much until you hold the things up next to a 36 A. The smaller bra held my tightly clenched fist (hey, I have small hands - long fingers, but small little fists, okay?) and the larger one holds, like, my head. YES I HAVE A SMALL HEAD ARE WE GOING TO KEEP DISCUSSING MY SMALL BITS?? And you know what? I’m outgrowing these bras.
It’s like my boobs are watching my belly expand and are going “oh, no you don’t, Ms. Bellybutton - you think you can just wander off for a good time without us? We’re coming with YOU!”
I am the great expanding Northern Front and nothing can contain me!
This goes for my shirts.
Maternity shirts are great. They give you all this room for your belly and your boobs, but they are cut awfully low in the chest. What do pregnant women who were already well-endowed do? I’m constantly losing things down the front of my shirts. I have got to stop leaning over and talking to people (by whom I mean “men”) and I have got to stop looking down at myself and going “HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD THEY ARE HUGE!” Because that is on the list of things one should not shout out in supermarkets.
The belly and boobs are now big enough that they meet each other half way. Without a bra on, this is a very odd feeling, I assure you. (This is where the large cheasted women want to whack me, because of course this is what they feel every damn day, but for the IBTC girls, it’s crazy shit.)
So I’m a little front and top heavy. Surely I will gain some in the back to cantilever this action? Right??
The butt has gotten a bit bigger. After all, the 16 lbs that I’ve gained (at least, and it’s been over a week now since I’ve weighed myself, so it could be more) can’t have just gone to boobs and belly. But the butt is still nowhere near enough padded to handle the additional weight that is now thrusting downwards. My tailbone is Not Pleased by this turn of events. I’m pondering getting one of those hemorrhoid rings to sit on. My butt continually asks me Why Why Why I must constantly be on it - sitting and lying down, even lounging is always putting pressure somewhere on my toosh. So then I stand for a while and my feet start telling me to please put the backpack with the entire Oxford English Dictionary in it down, please, please, we asked nicely, what the hell are you carrying woman, this is just awful!
So here I am, lying in bed on my day off (ah, weekend, I do love you so). My boobs are trying to hide from each other by sliding off into my armpits, my butt is crying out in horror because I’m Still Putting Pressure On It and my belly is moving in all kinds of weird ways because we’ve gone from the Quickening to the Awakening to the Alien Presence That Will Claw Its Way Out of My Gut In the Next 48 Hours (only 19 weeks to go - whaddaya mean “it’s going to get bigger”??)
If you think this means I want smaller boobs… Are you freakin’ kidding me? They’re AWESOME! I just need to get used to them, learn to dress them properly (they need to pick a size first and then Oh Mercy Honey, we’re going SHOPPING!!) and stop being distracted by them (heeeeeey, look at this - BOOBS!). I could do without the pregnancy belly. But I suppose as that is where the baby goes (intelligent design would have given us all pouches, pouches are the way we should be doing this mad reproduction thing, I guarandamntee it), I’m sort of stuck with it for a while longer. But a bigger butt wouldn’t be amiss. I’m sure I’d hate it once I had it, bigger butts are harder to fit into pants and stuff, especially since I have a tiny waist (under all that baby), but to be able to sit comfortably for longer than 20 minutes… oh, that just sounds heavenly!
Friday, October 29, 2010
The wildlife 'round these parts is going to kill me dead
I was at the doctor today getting checked up before traveling. In DK you get multiple midwife appointments, but only a handful of doctor appointments, today was my second visit. He didn't really do anything that the midwife didn't do last week, except he used an old fashioned tube thing to listen to the baby rather than a fancy doppler-sonic thingamabob (it's official title, I'm fairly sure). We discovered that I've gained about 8 kg since I got pregnant (that'd be 16 lbs, my American friends, which is why we'll stick to kilos because 16 is A LOT OF POUNDS) and that I'm within the happy normal range for pregnant women in their 20th week. We also discussed why I am still in week 20, for like the third week in a row. See, according to my reckoning, after I Googled "when will I give birth" (and this reasoning was supported by the midwife), a girl starts counting from the first day of her last period and then you just count 40 weeks and figure you'll give birth in week 41 or 42. But then during the ultrasound the technician narrowed the due date down to a very specific time frame.
YOU WILL GIVE BIRTH ON THE 19TH OF MARCH 2011.
Oh, I said, sure thing. And I wondered if I could hold off until the 25th, which would be my husband's birthday because then I wouldn't ever have to buy him a birthday present ever again because LOOK AT OUR CHILD, THIS IS WHAT I GAVE YOU THAT DAY!
But then Because It Is Written, the doctor takes the date and subtracts back (the week of the 19th being now made week 40, although on the Danish calendar it is something like week 12 or some such nonsense) and tells me, no, NOW I'm just about STARTING week 20.
Dude, I have been 4.5 months pregnant for half a month now. I feel like someone stopped me halfway through a marathon and said, "now hold up there lady, KEEP JOGGING THIS IS NOT A BREAK, but we just have to hold you here for a bit FOR THE FUN OF IT."
I know this is completely irrational, but meanwhile, I'm gaining weight and I had to finally take out my belly button ring because it was starting to feel like someone was constantly tugging on it, but it was okay because I was half way there and now WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M NOT HALF WAY THERE YET??
Right. So, fat but healthy, I waddle my way home on foot because I am not crazy, y'all, I am not getting on a bicycle. And the sun is out and the seagulls are squawking and the wind, for once, is not trying to peel the skin off my face and I'm thinking, hey this is pretty nice and then suddenly from my left what I took to be a large bush was in fact a short bush topped by a pheasant and this pheasant decided I must be The Very Devil Himself and so leapt from his perch with this horrible noise that can only be described as "sheeeeeeeit" and flapped not a foot from my face before winging off into the sky.
And I screamed "Sweet Jesus, Holy Mary Mother Mother of God!"
Growing up, pheasants were something you saw stuffed on a wall or in a biology lab. I've seen a few in DK running around in fields and once pointed out one on the road, "honey, slow down, psycho bird in the road" and he was all "you mean the pheasant" and I was all "yeah, whatever, it's obviously suicidal, slow up a minute."
Poor thing probably just wanted to find some peace and quiet, not the paparazzi that greeted it upon arrival. Now had it launched itself at me, I may have had to rethink my position, but as the case may be, they seem to be mostly harmless.
Except it did mean that I was running around outside in only my slippers... I could have caught pneumonia or something. Or maybe it was trying to sneak up to the house when it was seen by my husband. Hmmmm, innocent hedgehog or cunning assassin? Well played, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, well played.
YOU WILL GIVE BIRTH ON THE 19TH OF MARCH 2011.
Oh, I said, sure thing. And I wondered if I could hold off until the 25th, which would be my husband's birthday because then I wouldn't ever have to buy him a birthday present ever again because LOOK AT OUR CHILD, THIS IS WHAT I GAVE YOU THAT DAY!
But then Because It Is Written, the doctor takes the date and subtracts back (the week of the 19th being now made week 40, although on the Danish calendar it is something like week 12 or some such nonsense) and tells me, no, NOW I'm just about STARTING week 20.
Dude, I have been 4.5 months pregnant for half a month now. I feel like someone stopped me halfway through a marathon and said, "now hold up there lady, KEEP JOGGING THIS IS NOT A BREAK, but we just have to hold you here for a bit FOR THE FUN OF IT."
I know this is completely irrational, but meanwhile, I'm gaining weight and I had to finally take out my belly button ring because it was starting to feel like someone was constantly tugging on it, but it was okay because I was half way there and now WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M NOT HALF WAY THERE YET??
Right. So, fat but healthy, I waddle my way home on foot because I am not crazy, y'all, I am not getting on a bicycle. And the sun is out and the seagulls are squawking and the wind, for once, is not trying to peel the skin off my face and I'm thinking, hey this is pretty nice and then suddenly from my left what I took to be a large bush was in fact a short bush topped by a pheasant and this pheasant decided I must be The Very Devil Himself and so leapt from his perch with this horrible noise that can only be described as "sheeeeeeeit" and flapped not a foot from my face before winging off into the sky.
Sorry, I didn't have a camera on me at the time and it was TRYING TO KILL ME
And I screamed "Sweet Jesus, Holy Mary Mother Mother of God!"
Growing up, pheasants were something you saw stuffed on a wall or in a biology lab. I've seen a few in DK running around in fields and once pointed out one on the road, "honey, slow down, psycho bird in the road" and he was all "you mean the pheasant" and I was all "yeah, whatever, it's obviously suicidal, slow up a minute."
Is this not the face of a psycho killer bird OF DOOM?
And here was one launching itself at me! No wonder you have to kill them, they're after us! They'll kill us all!
I had half a mind to turn around and go back to the doctor and say "I'm afraid I may have just suffered a major myocardial infarction, could I have an EKG and permission to toss back a whiskey?"
A few weeks ago we had a much nicer wild beast in the garden. A hedgehog. Again, growing up these were things you saw stuffed or in zoos or other controlled settings, not wandering around in the garden. I've seen hedgehogs a few times, in Israel (that was my first time seeing them in the wild and it was, well, surreal - that was also the night that we saw cows wandering through the banana fields and I wish I could tell you that we were doing some awesome drugs, but no, we were stone cold sober... and very confused), in Germany (usually flat on the road), and in DK, but never in my own yard.
The Danish Boy took this photo... about about 5 others,
just to capture that cute "I'm in yur garden, nomming yur grubs" look.
Except it did mean that I was running around outside in only my slippers... I could have caught pneumonia or something. Or maybe it was trying to sneak up to the house when it was seen by my husband. Hmmmm, innocent hedgehog or cunning assassin? Well played, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, well played.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
On the road again...
So in a week I'll be winging my way through the air back to the Q-Zone. That would be Qatar, for all of you who don't live in my brain and know all the shortcuts. I've managed to convince the dig director that I can work for seven weeks (I tried to convince him that I could work for longer but he seems to be very leery of the idea) and finally it looks like I'm just about on my way!
I lack dig maternity wear. I lack maternity wear that is appropriate for warm weather. I lack maternity wear that is light enough to be worn in warm weather, covers enough to be decent by Qatari standards, and is sturdy enough to handle finds processing which usually involves rusty nails, broken pottery, and a lot of dirt and crumbling plaster.
My camera is dead and so's the iPod.
I'm 4 and a half months pregnant, I can only touch my toes because I'm very bendy in certain spots. For example, that ability of mine to put my feet behind my head? It's because of talent like that that I can still clip my toenails. But I see the day in the not to distant future when I'm going to need help tying my shoes. Or I'll just switch to flip flops because I'll be living in the desert.
It's going to be AWESOME!!
There are those who wonder why on earth a pregnant woman would go off a do such a thing? I mean, shouldn't I be home taking care of myself? Shouldn't I be there to share with my husband the joys of every painful bowel movement and exciting gas bubble? I mean, it's not like I'm just working a 9-5 in an office - I don't get to go home to my husband at the end of the day.
For those who wonder, yes, my husband will miss me, but he would much rather that I go and do what I love to do than sit around not doing it. He knew what he got into when he took up with an archaeologist. He also knows that my last husband disapproved of me going off to digs without him and I left him and moved to another continent AND I'M NOT ABOVE DOING IT AGAIN.
Still a bit confused? Okay, although I know it is in no way similar, it might help to think about archaeology as kinda like the military. We aren't shot at (usually, but I've friends who excavate in Iraq and parts of Central America are really hairy), we aren't defending the innocent or freedom or democracy or our homeland, we don't risk death every day, and we are certainly not heroes. But we do often work far from home for extended periods of time and form strong team bonds that are really hard to explain to the layman. We also see our job as something more like a calling or vocation. You don't just do it from 9-5. You may only dig from 9-5 (or from 7-3), but you do paperwork for several hours and talk about what you did and plan for the next day right until you go to bed. "Bed" often happens to be on location. Yeah, of course we sit back and relax. But give us the opportunity and we'll often volunteer to work longer, harder, and on our days off. We're sick, we know.
So even though I'm pregnant, *not* going would be very upsetting. I'm rather frustrated that I have to leave after only 7 weeks. My team will still be in the field!!! These are not my co-workers I'm talking about, these are my comrades. Go ask someone in the military about their unit. I can't say archaeologists share the same strong bond, but it's sort of similar.
Alas, I'm sort of on track to give birth before they're out of the field... bad timing on my part.
Strangely, if I was in the military, I'd have a better chance at continuing my career even with maternity leave. Archaeology is really backwards in some ways. No one really wants to hire a pregnant woman, even for a short duration. Most archaeology jobs are currently short contract anyway, so there is no maternity leave. Get knocked up, get knocked out. And once you've given birth, there is a great amount of pressure to stay out of the field. I know only a very few female archaeologists who have had a child and then returned to fieldwork. They are far outnumbered by the women who "retired" to have families. Some female archaeologists have pointed out that they felt they had no choice but to give up the idea of having a family in order to have a career. I do expect to face a problem getting back to work. Women without children and, obviously, men will be chosen over me because there is less risk of them getting homesick or having to fly home for a family emergency (at least in the eyes of the director). But I'll persevere.
In the meantime, I'm going to waddle around the camp, eat enormous amounts of curry (there's a local Indian restaurant for the men who work the fishing trade and it's FANTASTIC), and continue to scare the living daylights out of any tourist (native or foreign) that sticks their head into my tent.
I lack dig maternity wear. I lack maternity wear that is appropriate for warm weather. I lack maternity wear that is light enough to be worn in warm weather, covers enough to be decent by Qatari standards, and is sturdy enough to handle finds processing which usually involves rusty nails, broken pottery, and a lot of dirt and crumbling plaster.
My camera is dead and so's the iPod.
I'm 4 and a half months pregnant, I can only touch my toes because I'm very bendy in certain spots. For example, that ability of mine to put my feet behind my head? It's because of talent like that that I can still clip my toenails. But I see the day in the not to distant future when I'm going to need help tying my shoes. Or I'll just switch to flip flops because I'll be living in the desert.
It's going to be AWESOME!!
There are those who wonder why on earth a pregnant woman would go off a do such a thing? I mean, shouldn't I be home taking care of myself? Shouldn't I be there to share with my husband the joys of every painful bowel movement and exciting gas bubble? I mean, it's not like I'm just working a 9-5 in an office - I don't get to go home to my husband at the end of the day.
For those who wonder, yes, my husband will miss me, but he would much rather that I go and do what I love to do than sit around not doing it. He knew what he got into when he took up with an archaeologist. He also knows that my last husband disapproved of me going off to digs without him and I left him and moved to another continent AND I'M NOT ABOVE DOING IT AGAIN.
Still a bit confused? Okay, although I know it is in no way similar, it might help to think about archaeology as kinda like the military. We aren't shot at (usually, but I've friends who excavate in Iraq and parts of Central America are really hairy), we aren't defending the innocent or freedom or democracy or our homeland, we don't risk death every day, and we are certainly not heroes. But we do often work far from home for extended periods of time and form strong team bonds that are really hard to explain to the layman. We also see our job as something more like a calling or vocation. You don't just do it from 9-5. You may only dig from 9-5 (or from 7-3), but you do paperwork for several hours and talk about what you did and plan for the next day right until you go to bed. "Bed" often happens to be on location. Yeah, of course we sit back and relax. But give us the opportunity and we'll often volunteer to work longer, harder, and on our days off. We're sick, we know.
So even though I'm pregnant, *not* going would be very upsetting. I'm rather frustrated that I have to leave after only 7 weeks. My team will still be in the field!!! These are not my co-workers I'm talking about, these are my comrades. Go ask someone in the military about their unit. I can't say archaeologists share the same strong bond, but it's sort of similar.
Alas, I'm sort of on track to give birth before they're out of the field... bad timing on my part.
Strangely, if I was in the military, I'd have a better chance at continuing my career even with maternity leave. Archaeology is really backwards in some ways. No one really wants to hire a pregnant woman, even for a short duration. Most archaeology jobs are currently short contract anyway, so there is no maternity leave. Get knocked up, get knocked out. And once you've given birth, there is a great amount of pressure to stay out of the field. I know only a very few female archaeologists who have had a child and then returned to fieldwork. They are far outnumbered by the women who "retired" to have families. Some female archaeologists have pointed out that they felt they had no choice but to give up the idea of having a family in order to have a career. I do expect to face a problem getting back to work. Women without children and, obviously, men will be chosen over me because there is less risk of them getting homesick or having to fly home for a family emergency (at least in the eyes of the director). But I'll persevere.
In the meantime, I'm going to waddle around the camp, eat enormous amounts of curry (there's a local Indian restaurant for the men who work the fishing trade and it's FANTASTIC), and continue to scare the living daylights out of any tourist (native or foreign) that sticks their head into my tent.
Monday, October 25, 2010
And I feel fine...
I read this blog post on a pregnancy website just now and I gotta say, "Amen, sister!" Then I read the comments. Sweet Jesus there are a lot of people out there without a sense of humor.
Here's the conversation I get from well-meaning people, who I know mean well, hence the "well-meaning" part of their title, but are one day going to get popped in the kisser by an angry pregnant woman.
Them: How are you feeeeeeling? *note: the word "feeling" is drawn out long, and hard and the head ALWAYS cocks to one side. Why is this?
Me: Fine. A bit tired.
Them: OooooO? *note: also pronounced O-uh! with the "uh" being higher pitched. Why?
Me: I guess I'm just not sleeping so well. *note: I mean, no shit Sherlock, I've got a freakin' melon here jutting out from my gut, it's not exactly a pillow, now is it?
Them: Ah. Well, it will only get worse once the baby's here! *note: Why is this always said in a chipper voice? Like this is supposed to comfort me? What I want to say in response is: OMG! You mean once the baby's born I'm not going to get 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep on my tummy? Holy crap, why didn't someone tell me this 5 months ago!?!
I've given a variety of responses to this. Once I said that was why I was going to drink lots of whiskey, so the baby would sleep better after nursing. Strangely this did not go over well. Then again, rereading the comments on the linked blog post, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Once you get pregnant you are no longer a real human being with feelings and emotions and wants and needs. You are a vessel for the growingspawn bundle of crying pooping joy and other people's expectations. You have no personal space, that belly is for other people to touch - so offer it up freely like the sacrificial goat. You have one job, and that is to enjoy the crap out of your pregnancy, never complain - remember, there are women out there who would kill to be in your place, KILL! - you are a symbol, a cypher, and so not important compared to that precious future serial killer Hitler bundle you are carrying!
Here's the conversation I get from well-meaning people, who I know mean well, hence the "well-meaning" part of their title, but are one day going to get popped in the kisser by an angry pregnant woman.
Them: How are you feeeeeeling? *note: the word "feeling" is drawn out long, and hard and the head ALWAYS cocks to one side. Why is this?
Me: Fine. A bit tired.
Them: OooooO? *note: also pronounced O-uh! with the "uh" being higher pitched. Why?
Me: I guess I'm just not sleeping so well. *note: I mean, no shit Sherlock, I've got a freakin' melon here jutting out from my gut, it's not exactly a pillow, now is it?
Them: Ah. Well, it will only get worse once the baby's here! *note: Why is this always said in a chipper voice? Like this is supposed to comfort me? What I want to say in response is: OMG! You mean once the baby's born I'm not going to get 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep on my tummy? Holy crap, why didn't someone tell me this 5 months ago!?!
I've given a variety of responses to this. Once I said that was why I was going to drink lots of whiskey, so the baby would sleep better after nursing. Strangely this did not go over well. Then again, rereading the comments on the linked blog post, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Once you get pregnant you are no longer a real human being with feelings and emotions and wants and needs. You are a vessel for the growing
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Vignettes with my husband
The AG Learns Why Moms Say Really Annoying Things Like "Did you look in [insert obvious location]?"
DB (in the bathroom): Do we have any eye drops?
AG (in bed, reading): Um, yeah, in my purse, downstairs in the plastic ziploc baggy in the main pocket.
Later, DB climbs into bed for AG to administer eye drops.
AG: So are we out of eye drops in the bathroom then?
DB: Oh, I don't know, I didn't check.
AG: You were in the bathroom and didn't bother to look in the medicine box?
DB: No, I figured it was easier to ask you if we had any.
AG: Arrgh!
The DB Has A Revelation
Alot: Meow.
DB: What? (Yes, he speaks to the cat in English.)
Alot: Meow.
DB: Do you want food?
Alot: Meow.
DB: You have food.
Alot: Meow.
DB: See, look here, in the bowl.
Alot: Meow.
DB: Do you want Daddy to do the trick?
Alot: Meow.
DB (picks up food bowl and stirs the food with a finger before setting it back down): There, look "new food!"
Alot: Meow.
DB: Argh! What do you want cat!?
Alot: Meow.
DB: Do you want to go out?
Alot: Meow.
DB (gets down closer to the cat and rubs the cat's head): What is it?!?
Alot (flops down on floor and presents belly to be scratched): Meow.
DB: You want to be rubbed? Is that it?
The DB rubs the cats belly vigoursly, Alot purrs and stretches with obvious contentment.
DB (to the AG): This is just like having a baby, you don't know what they want and they can't tell you and you just have to keep guessing until you get it right!
Yay, You Aren't Depressed
AG (over dinner): So I started my novel today.
DG: You did!
AG: Yup. I think I wrote over a thousand words.
DG: Drat, we finished drinking all the apple juice - um, well, there's a bit left. Cheers!
AG: Uh, oh, cheers.
DG: I am SO PROUD OF YOU!
AG: Why are you getting teary eyed?
DG: Oh, I am just so happy for you!
AG: Oooookaaaay.
DG: And I'm so glad that you aren't depressed!
And When We Run Out of Wood, We'll Just Burn Money
DG (having stuffed the stove with wood and set it alight): Now that's what I call a fire!
AG: Yup. Definitely a *big* fire.
DG (disgruntled): But you're always cold!?
AG (taking off her sweater because it's now reached the first circle of hell in terms of heat): I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it's a big fire.
DG: Harumph!
AG: I really appreciate it, I do! I'm just sayin', maybe we don't need such a big fire. I can wear sweaters! And maybe it will make the wood last longer.
DG (definitely grumpy): We're going to run out of wood.
AG: Yes, see, so maybe a smaller fire?...
DG (practically vibrating with dismay): It doesn't matter, we're going to run out of wood anyway, and I'll have to do something about it at some point, but at least you're WARM!
AG (flings arms around husband, extreme grumpiness is often cured by over-the-top displays of affection): Oh thank you, baby, thank you for keeping me so warm on these cold nights in this horribly cold country!
DG: *sniff* (hugs back)
One of These Days, He's Going to Get a Kick to The Head
At least once a day the following conversation is heard in the house -
DB: My god you're pregnant!
AG: Yeah, I know.
DB: But really, baby, WOW! You're huge!
AG: Thanks.
The Pellet with the Poison is in the Flagon with the Dragon
AG (opens the orange juice carton): Whew! Dear god almighty! I think the orange juice has gone bad.
DB: *sniff* Nah, it's just the stuff around the top.
AG: Eeeewwwww! Well I'm not drinking it!
DB: It's fine! I'll drink it. (Pours good sized glass and takes a large swig.) It's fine!
A little while later.
DB: Maybe I shouldn't have drunk that orange juice.
AG: Well if you die, don't come whining to me.
DB (in the bathroom): Do we have any eye drops?
AG (in bed, reading): Um, yeah, in my purse, downstairs in the plastic ziploc baggy in the main pocket.
Later, DB climbs into bed for AG to administer eye drops.
AG: So are we out of eye drops in the bathroom then?
DB: Oh, I don't know, I didn't check.
AG: You were in the bathroom and didn't bother to look in the medicine box?
DB: No, I figured it was easier to ask you if we had any.
AG: Arrgh!
The DB Has A Revelation
Alot: Meow.
DB: What? (Yes, he speaks to the cat in English.)
Alot: Meow.
DB: Do you want food?
Alot: Meow.
DB: You have food.
Alot: Meow.
DB: See, look here, in the bowl.
Alot: Meow.
DB: Do you want Daddy to do the trick?
Alot: Meow.
DB (picks up food bowl and stirs the food with a finger before setting it back down): There, look "new food!"
Alot: Meow.
DB: Argh! What do you want cat!?
Alot: Meow.
DB: Do you want to go out?
Alot: Meow.
DB (gets down closer to the cat and rubs the cat's head): What is it?!?
Alot (flops down on floor and presents belly to be scratched): Meow.
DB: You want to be rubbed? Is that it?
The DB rubs the cats belly vigoursly, Alot purrs and stretches with obvious contentment.
DB (to the AG): This is just like having a baby, you don't know what they want and they can't tell you and you just have to keep guessing until you get it right!
Yay, You Aren't Depressed
AG (over dinner): So I started my novel today.
DG: You did!
AG: Yup. I think I wrote over a thousand words.
DG: Drat, we finished drinking all the apple juice - um, well, there's a bit left. Cheers!
AG: Uh, oh, cheers.
DG: I am SO PROUD OF YOU!
AG: Why are you getting teary eyed?
DG: Oh, I am just so happy for you!
AG: Oooookaaaay.
DG: And I'm so glad that you aren't depressed!
And When We Run Out of Wood, We'll Just Burn Money
DG (having stuffed the stove with wood and set it alight): Now that's what I call a fire!
AG: Yup. Definitely a *big* fire.
DG (disgruntled): But you're always cold!?
AG (taking off her sweater because it's now reached the first circle of hell in terms of heat): I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it's a big fire.
DG: Harumph!
AG: I really appreciate it, I do! I'm just sayin', maybe we don't need such a big fire. I can wear sweaters! And maybe it will make the wood last longer.
DG (definitely grumpy): We're going to run out of wood.
AG: Yes, see, so maybe a smaller fire?...
DG (practically vibrating with dismay): It doesn't matter, we're going to run out of wood anyway, and I'll have to do something about it at some point, but at least you're WARM!
AG (flings arms around husband, extreme grumpiness is often cured by over-the-top displays of affection): Oh thank you, baby, thank you for keeping me so warm on these cold nights in this horribly cold country!
DG: *sniff* (hugs back)
One of These Days, He's Going to Get a Kick to The Head
At least once a day the following conversation is heard in the house -
DB: My god you're pregnant!
AG: Yeah, I know.
DB: But really, baby, WOW! You're huge!
AG: Thanks.
The Pellet with the Poison is in the Flagon with the Dragon
AG (opens the orange juice carton): Whew! Dear god almighty! I think the orange juice has gone bad.
DB: *sniff* Nah, it's just the stuff around the top.
AG: Eeeewwwww! Well I'm not drinking it!
DB: It's fine! I'll drink it. (Pours good sized glass and takes a large swig.) It's fine!
A little while later.
DB: Maybe I shouldn't have drunk that orange juice.
AG: Well if you die, don't come whining to me.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Trainspotting and tebirker
First of all, I just want to say Thanks to all the readers out there! You guys rock. Give yourselves a big ol' hug for me! Go on, no one's watching. Unless you are reading this at work, in which case, tell your boss you were just trying to get that itch on your back. Pesky itch.
So a couple days ago I had one of those mornings where you think you may have ended up in a montage of some badly written comedy. First of all, right after I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, I reached down, grabbed the body soap, poured a big ol' handful into the palm of my hand and slapped it onto my head. There was that moment of "wait, this motion feels mighty familiar!" Followed by "damn it, that was the SOAP!" I used my head to lather up the soap and wash myself. It's a rather expensive soap and I was not about to waste the suds. Then, while making my breakfast I put the peanut butter in the fridge and the butter in the cupboard. (What do you mean, you don't eat peanut butter and nutella sandwiches for breakfast? Yogurt is for yeast infections!) The good news is that it's pretty cold in my house, so when I discovered my error a little while later, nothing had happened to the butter. My brain was so out of it I ended up making myself a cup of coffee to compensate.
Big fat aside: I gave up coffee for the pregnancy because I drank A LOT of coffee. I would drink until my heart fluttered and my hands shook. I'd stop drinking it after three or so in the afternoon, because then I couldn't sleep at night, but, yeah, a lot of coffee. It took three days to get through the withdrawal. Worst three days of my life. Migraines like you couldn't believe. I could barely eat. And since I was new to this whole pregnancy thing, I didn't take a single pain killer or drink a watered down cup of coffee to ease my pain. It was cold turkey baby. Ever seen "Trainspotting"? If I could have opened my eyes, I bet I would have seen a baby crawling across the ceiling. It was horrible.
But on the up side, now if I need to jolt myself back into alertness, it only takes a small cup of weak coffee. Or a soda. Oooh, I let myself have a Sprite-like soda the other day and it was like POW! ZING! And a small coffee - it's amazing! And probably safer than me walking into a semi because I just didn't see it. But I'm still only drinking coffee when I absolutely have to, most of the time it's green tea or hot chocolate.
So now that I was ridiculously clean and had saved the butter and was oh-my-god-I'm-AWAKE alert, it was time to finally make the tebirker.
Tebirker - croissants that aren't quite croissants. Danes eat them for breakfast with butter and jam, or just butter, or nothing - the food fascists are probably freaking out right now "jam? She ate them with JAM!? Revoke her residency!" I got the recipe from Atherosclerosis, a fellow Californian and a total foodie.
Here's how the tebirker are supposed to look (photo nabbed from Atherosclerosis's tebirker post):
They tasted good. I mean, that's the main thing, right? Were they worth the effort to make? (The rolling! The never ending rolling!) Eeeeehhhh, that was A LOT of effort... and they make them up at the bakery with marzipan in the middle... I really like marzipan. I mean I *really* like marzipan. I probably could make mine with marzipan... *sobs* Don't make me roll any more tebirker! Rolling things with yeast is a [insert explicative of your choice]. They get all elasticky. You roll and it shrinks! Shrinks! When I worked at that pizza restaurant we had a rolly thingy to roll the pizza dough. If I was going to make tebirker again, I would demand my husband buy one of these things. I roll enough pizza dough by hand in this house. I am not going to roll out tebirker too. Pie crust is SO EASY compared to this. You roll pie crust out and it STAYS PUT.
[Explicative explicative] tebirker.
Positive side to this experiment, the DB said, "oh, so now when someone asks you what kind of bread you would like for breakfast, you can say tebirker."
Dude, wait, what?
He hates rundstykker, he knows I'm not a fan of rundstykker (buns with hard outside and soft inside, the crust tends to cut my gums, some people love them, but I am not a fan - give me regular old soft buns or biscuits PLEASE, but rundstykker are What One Eats for Breakfast In Denmark), he knows my love of pastry and yet NEVER MENTIONED THIS BEFORE??
Yeah, so positive: I now know what to ask for. Negative: apparently this has been an option for some time and I'm only just now hearing about it.
He then went on to say that I'm only supposed to ask for one tebirke, because to eat many tebriker is to be bad. Or not so much bad as we-will-look-at-you-with-condemnation-in-our-eyes-and-tell-you-it's-un-danish. He added "blah blah blah you shouldn't ask for tebirker and the pastry you really love, the spandauer, because then it's really bad blah blah blah."
Spandauer (or what we call in the US, a danish):
"WHAT!?" I hollered (pregnancy hormones now in full outrage - how dare some mealy mouth Danes stand between me and breakfasty goodness!), and it was a good "what," I rolled my H (thanks Danish, I can now roll just about every letter of the alphabet in the back of my throat), gave the A a good "aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh" and ended the T at a shriek.
I think my husband added "but of course I'll let you eat whatever you want, I'm just warning you what others will say" but it was hard to hear him over the steam whistle that was going off in my ears.
Food Tyranny!
I remember commenting once to my mother when we were at a restaurant and either my sister or my brother was busy smashing all of the food on their plate into one big pile of mush, that they would then happily eat, that this was "gross." My mother gave me that look that mother's get, that "we may not spank in this house any more missy, but I'd be willing to make an exception this once" and said "if [sibling in question] likes to eat [his/her] food that way, then there is no reason to make rude comments about it, now is there." You have to remember that we kids were a group of picky eaters - us eating (especially if it was even remotely healthy) was always more valued than the manner in which we ate it.
That's the rule in the AG/DB household too. So I will make sure my guests have access to yogurt and museli and cornflakes if they really want to pass up Sunday English Brunch (every Sunday I fry bacon, eggs, and tomatoes, boil up some baked beans and toast, er, toast). But if we are having a "Danish" breakfast (you'll see why it gets the quotes in a moment) expect it to be heavy on the danishes and light on the crispy buns - but the crispy buns are all for you, my dears. Eat up.
So a couple days ago I had one of those mornings where you think you may have ended up in a montage of some badly written comedy. First of all, right after I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, I reached down, grabbed the body soap, poured a big ol' handful into the palm of my hand and slapped it onto my head. There was that moment of "wait, this motion feels mighty familiar!" Followed by "damn it, that was the SOAP!" I used my head to lather up the soap and wash myself. It's a rather expensive soap and I was not about to waste the suds. Then, while making my breakfast I put the peanut butter in the fridge and the butter in the cupboard. (What do you mean, you don't eat peanut butter and nutella sandwiches for breakfast? Yogurt is for yeast infections!) The good news is that it's pretty cold in my house, so when I discovered my error a little while later, nothing had happened to the butter. My brain was so out of it I ended up making myself a cup of coffee to compensate.
Big fat aside: I gave up coffee for the pregnancy because I drank A LOT of coffee. I would drink until my heart fluttered and my hands shook. I'd stop drinking it after three or so in the afternoon, because then I couldn't sleep at night, but, yeah, a lot of coffee. It took three days to get through the withdrawal. Worst three days of my life. Migraines like you couldn't believe. I could barely eat. And since I was new to this whole pregnancy thing, I didn't take a single pain killer or drink a watered down cup of coffee to ease my pain. It was cold turkey baby. Ever seen "Trainspotting"? If I could have opened my eyes, I bet I would have seen a baby crawling across the ceiling. It was horrible.
But on the up side, now if I need to jolt myself back into alertness, it only takes a small cup of weak coffee. Or a soda. Oooh, I let myself have a Sprite-like soda the other day and it was like POW! ZING! And a small coffee - it's amazing! And probably safer than me walking into a semi because I just didn't see it. But I'm still only drinking coffee when I absolutely have to, most of the time it's green tea or hot chocolate.
So now that I was ridiculously clean and had saved the butter and was oh-my-god-I'm-AWAKE alert, it was time to finally make the tebirker.
Tebirker - croissants that aren't quite croissants. Danes eat them for breakfast with butter and jam, or just butter, or nothing - the food fascists are probably freaking out right now "jam? She ate them with JAM!? Revoke her residency!" I got the recipe from Atherosclerosis, a fellow Californian and a total foodie.
Here's how the tebirker are supposed to look (photo nabbed from Atherosclerosis's tebirker post):
And this is what mine looked like (note, I am NOT a food photographer):
They tasted good. I mean, that's the main thing, right? Were they worth the effort to make? (The rolling! The never ending rolling!) Eeeeehhhh, that was A LOT of effort... and they make them up at the bakery with marzipan in the middle... I really like marzipan. I mean I *really* like marzipan. I probably could make mine with marzipan... *sobs* Don't make me roll any more tebirker! Rolling things with yeast is a [insert explicative of your choice]. They get all elasticky. You roll and it shrinks! Shrinks! When I worked at that pizza restaurant we had a rolly thingy to roll the pizza dough. If I was going to make tebirker again, I would demand my husband buy one of these things. I roll enough pizza dough by hand in this house. I am not going to roll out tebirker too. Pie crust is SO EASY compared to this. You roll pie crust out and it STAYS PUT.
[Explicative explicative] tebirker.
Positive side to this experiment, the DB said, "oh, so now when someone asks you what kind of bread you would like for breakfast, you can say tebirker."
Dude, wait, what?
He hates rundstykker, he knows I'm not a fan of rundstykker (buns with hard outside and soft inside, the crust tends to cut my gums, some people love them, but I am not a fan - give me regular old soft buns or biscuits PLEASE, but rundstykker are What One Eats for Breakfast In Denmark), he knows my love of pastry and yet NEVER MENTIONED THIS BEFORE??
Yeah, so positive: I now know what to ask for. Negative: apparently this has been an option for some time and I'm only just now hearing about it.
He then went on to say that I'm only supposed to ask for one tebirke, because to eat many tebriker is to be bad. Or not so much bad as we-will-look-at-you-with-condemnation-in-our-eyes-and-tell-you-it's-un-danish. He added "blah blah blah you shouldn't ask for tebirker and the pastry you really love, the spandauer, because then it's really bad blah blah blah."
Spandauer (or what we call in the US, a danish):
"WHAT!?" I hollered (pregnancy hormones now in full outrage - how dare some mealy mouth Danes stand between me and breakfasty goodness!), and it was a good "what," I rolled my H (thanks Danish, I can now roll just about every letter of the alphabet in the back of my throat), gave the A a good "aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh" and ended the T at a shriek.
I think my husband added "but of course I'll let you eat whatever you want, I'm just warning you what others will say" but it was hard to hear him over the steam whistle that was going off in my ears.
Food Tyranny!
I remember commenting once to my mother when we were at a restaurant and either my sister or my brother was busy smashing all of the food on their plate into one big pile of mush, that they would then happily eat, that this was "gross." My mother gave me that look that mother's get, that "we may not spank in this house any more missy, but I'd be willing to make an exception this once" and said "if [sibling in question] likes to eat [his/her] food that way, then there is no reason to make rude comments about it, now is there." You have to remember that we kids were a group of picky eaters - us eating (especially if it was even remotely healthy) was always more valued than the manner in which we ate it.
That's the rule in the AG/DB household too. So I will make sure my guests have access to yogurt and museli and cornflakes if they really want to pass up Sunday English Brunch (every Sunday I fry bacon, eggs, and tomatoes, boil up some baked beans and toast, er, toast). But if we are having a "Danish" breakfast (you'll see why it gets the quotes in a moment) expect it to be heavy on the danishes and light on the crispy buns - but the crispy buns are all for you, my dears. Eat up.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Musings at 19 weeks
I swore I'd never wear leggings. But then I got pregnant and fat and couldn't wear my long underwear and since it was deemed that all pregnant women are always hot, there isn't any maternity long underwear in the land of cold-flesh-stripping-wind, so I succumbed to the next best thing. At least I'm not wearing them under sweaters and pretending they are the same thing as pants, because, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, they are SO NOT. Yes, chick on the bike with the floral panties, you may want to reconsider your fashion choices.
Anyway, in this post I want to take you back a few years, to a time when I was dedicated to the idea that I would never have children. I'm not a fan of kids. I can think of a few that I like, some quite a lot, but generally, they piss me off. And babies? Seriously, socks and duct tape were invented because of babies. I can think of 100 reasons to not have children. Many of which are very noble, like “there are too many people in the world, I should not add another mouth to it!” Others less noble but no less valid like “I really am grossed out by poop.” Standing in line behind a woman and her brood of snotty entitled brats, I'm the one usually thinking, "enforced sterilization, brilliant idea! We can put it in kool-aid!"
I still have those thoughts, by the way. Don't think the "joys" of impending motherhood have made me baby-crazy. I see a screaming child throwing himself on the floor of the supermarket while his mother begs him to stop and offers him chocolate and I'm thinking, "if I run you both down in the parking lot, Darwin will thank me. I'll get a motherf*cking medal!"
Years ago I didn’t even think I had what it took to be a mother. The culturally reinforced idea being that the “Perfect Mother” is patient and caring and loving and calm and, above all, happy to sacrifice every ounce of their soul to the care and nurture of their child. You hear these ideals all the time from mothers, don't you? The "I gave it all up for my child and it was the best thing that ever happened to us" "Once I knew I was going to be a mother, nothing else mattered" "You stop being selfish the moment you become a mother." Quick, quick, tell me more about how you gave up saving gorillas and a place at Harvard Law school for your child! I can totally match that. I gave up… heroin. Yeah. Actually, I was *going* to be a heroin junkie, but I gave up that dream for the sake of my child. The sacrifices I make, you wouldn’t even believe it! You also hear the scorn in their voices when they talk about women who put their children into daycare and rush off back to work (and who worse yet, are glad to talk to adults again), who, oh the horrors, dyed their hair while pregnant (it totally gives your kid autism, dontcha know), the women who hire nannies and then ship the spawn off the boarding schools. Okay, I'm totally with you on that one. Hiring an au pair so you can keep up with your book club-museum openings-Sex in the City-lifestyle? Why the hell did you bother to breed, you cow! And since I knew that I would not want to stop being an archaeologist and going to far off places, I just figured that children and I would just not mix.
But I've come to think about motherhood differently, obviously, before I got pregnant (so this is not the hormones talking, I thought this stuff out long and hard). I changed my mind and figured, hell yeah, I can totally do this, I have amazing genes and gifts that should be passed on to posterity! If other women can keep up with their careers and have grown up jobs, why is this denied to archaeologists? Why can’t I have it all? Why can’t I just try? Why, since I certainly don’t fit into anyone’s idea of a cultural norm, expect to fit into the über-narrow category of “Perfect Mother?” Why should I even try - the “Perfect Mother” usually turns up on Nanny 911 or Supernanny begging for help because she’s too patient and caring and has become nothing but a breeding doormat with a brood of future sociopaths!
This change in thinking is because I've been reading a lot of blogs over these last few years - written by women who may not necessarily fit the culturally accepted idea of the “Perfect Mother,” but who rock at parenthood all the same. Women like The Bloggess, as well as Dooce, the Pioneer Woman, and Aunt Becky (from Mommy wants Vodka), gave me the confidence I needed when I began to realize that I wanted to make little Archaeospawns with the Danish Boy. You don't need to have all the things that THEY tell you make a “Perfect Mother.” What you really need are balls.
Metaphorically speaking. Although the other kind do help with the conception bit of Mommyhood.
(And I do know of a number of individuals who have balls, who make excellent Mommies, although we call them Daddies, but I'm talking about the cultural ideal of "motherhood" to which I think many women feel the need to live up to. Fatherhood comes with it’s own set of problems.)
Dooce taught me that you can have severe post-partum depression, ending in a full on break-down, get hospitalized, and still be a great mom (no one's died - I say, SUCCESS!). Pioneer Woman taught me that you can end up living a life you never expected and you are quite possibly not qualified for but still successfully raise kids in circumstances you never imagined and that it's okay to not do laundry and miss sushi. Aunt Becky taught me that you can be full of compassion, patience and respect for people, and sometimes you can want to beat them with baseball bats, get uproariously drunk and dance on tables, and this is okay too. The Bloggess taught me that you can be off the wall, slightly nuts, and absolutely glorious and still be a mom.
Then there's all the real-life moms I know...
Actually, they intimidate me because they are totally grace under fire. Ladies, could you please bitch a bit more about your kids? The times you want to bop them on the head or run away and join the circus because at least then you'd get some peace and quiet? I mean, I get why you don't, because some nutjob (or ex-thing) will call child-protective services on you and trolls will leave nasty messages telling you how you have simply RUINED your child's life because don't you know EVERY CHILD IS A GIFT FROM GOD?
Despite having too many fantastic real-life roll-models that totally undermine my confidence levels, I realized that I have many excellent Mom qualities that are going to help me be an awesome mom. Ever seen the contents of my purse?
Half of that stuff is first aid stuff. The Tic-Tacs? Actually holds painkillers. The silver pill packet? Antihistamines. Ray Bans? 'Cause a girl has to look cool, you know. (Hey I had a lot more money last year. I worked in the desert, I needed sunglasses. I lived in a tent, I deserved Ray Bans.) I have eye drops and hand creams, lip balm, cuticle cream, iodine wipes and band-aids. Hair clips and bobby pins (I may need to pick a lock) and throat lozenges. I have a bus pass for Århus. I have scratch paper and pens because I need to write stuff down (ISBN numbers for books I want, addresses, things I need to buy or remember) and my husband is a journalist who never remembers to carry a pen and notepad of his own. I am PREPARED.
I may get distracted and put the peanut butter in the fridge and the butter in the pantry, but I know where almost all of my husband's belongings are at any given time. I have cat like reflexes - my husband came THIS CLOSE to grabbing the door of the wood stove, which was HOT, with his bare hand, and I reached out, grabbed his hand and yelled "NO!" I can also whip up a risotto out of whatever is in my kitchen. I'm a lot more patient than I thought I was (dig with a stark raving lunatic who can't find his ass with both hands and a map, if you manage not to kill him - or even lose your temper with him when he totally screws up, *and* successfully excavate a square despite his best efforts, you are WAY more patient than Job, who was actually really kinda whinny). And did I mention I have balls? I can say "no" and risk you hating me forever and ever and I know you totally mean it this time! I catch my kid eating dirt? Ah, well, it's full of minerals, how about next time we eat some carrots, m'kay? Skin your knee? Uh, oh, do you think we'll have to amputate? No? You think you're going to make it? Well aren't you brave! Let me just bind that up for you and you can be on your way then.
So thank you to all the moms out there who gave me insight into the workings of the mommy mind, those who blazed a trail for me to follow, those who tripped, fell, broke a limb and lived to tell me “dude, there is a serious pot-hole up ahead, watch your ass!” I say:
THANK YOU! I AM GOING TO TOTALLY ROCK THE SHIT OUT OF MOMMYHOOD!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Hair!
Take a moment and enjoy this brief musical interlude from the musical "Hair!" (You can keep reading while it plays, nothing happens on screen.)
"But on the plus side," said my mother, "you'll have the most beautiful head of hair!"
I'm growing out my hair because
a) it's something I do about every 10 years
b) I'm too lazy to go get it cut
c) the cost of getting a haircut in Denmark is about a weeks groceries for two adults without dietary restrictions
The beautiful hair I was expecting, however, was supposed to be on my head. This has not necessarily been the case.
I'm not just hairy here. I'm hairy here, there, and everywhere, momma! HAAAAIIIIIRRRRRR!
I am a naturally hairy person anyway. I trim my arm hair because it gets over 2 and a half inches long. That's like 10 centimeters, non-American folks. That's not arm hair, that's a freakin' pelt. My leg hair isn't a forest of earthly delight, it's the jungle. A bloody tropical rainforest. To wax I need to buy two waxing kits and expect to only some of the hair from the knees to the ankles. I tried an epilator once. Ever get your hair caught in the wrong end of your hair dryer? Yeah, it was like that. And that was before I got pregnant.
Pregnancy and it's hair giving hormones have really upped the ante. Whereas I had to pluck my eyebrows from time to time to keep them from becoming caterpillars, now I have to continually pluck to keep them from joining up with my hair line. Yes, my eyebrows and my head hair meet across my temples. Pull my hair back in a ponytail and I look like Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
I have dark belly hair that I do not even know what to do about, apart from the obvious "don't wear a bikini!" I really couldn't anyway, I've got so much Down There Hair that the razor burn would be noticeable from the other end of the swimming pool. Not that I can see over my belly to shave. I'd have to hand the blades to my husband.
It's not that I don't trust him. It's just on the list of things I am not particularly inclined to ask my husband to do for me. I much prefer to ask him to accept me for who I am, hairy beast and all, and demand he tell me that I'm sexy.
I have hobbit feet. The hair on my toes is curly. Typical. I always wanted curly hair. I obviously forgot to include "on my head, not my feet kthnx" when I was wishing on stars.
My underarm hair grows faster than the weeds in the back yard. And like the weeds, they seem to be spreading.
But, let's look on the bright side! It's all VERY SOFT HAIR. Dark, thick, and luxurious. Soft as velvet. And about as densely packed. I now have a "nap" or "pile" to use textile terms. There is a reason the cat likes to cuddle with me, I'm fuzzy. In fact, this is me:
Only I have dark hair.
THEY tell me it's all going to go away after birth. I'll suddenly start losing the hair on my head. Bald spots will appear and they might not go away. Be grateful for the hair you have now! Revel in it's... uh... soft and furriness! Baldness awaits you!
Fabulous! Doesn't pregnancy sound better every time I talk about? I should give motivational speeches at high schools.
Dear teenage girl thinking of getting pregnant so your boyfriend won't ever leave you - is it worth hemorrhoids, a hairy belly and bald spots?? Is it really?! 'Cause I haven't even gotten to discharge, varicose veins and stretch marks yet. And that's just while you are pregnant!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Speaking of growing up...
On Sunday we bought ourselves a little trailer. Putting all the garden rubbish into the back of the car to take to the recycling center/dump was slowly driving my husband insane. I think it dates back to when DB was younger and his dad did the same because he was too cheap to buy a trailer, instead he'd make 20 trips to the dump in an afternoon. The young DB would spend all day very carefully loading and unloading trash from the car, because his dad didn't want the interior of the car to get messed up. "Why don't we have a trailer?" I can imagine him asking in a high squeaky voice (my husband does not have a high squeaky voice now, but he looks like the kind of kid that probably did). "Be careful, now! We don't need to have a trailer, son. You are putting that in the wrong way! The car is plenty big enough. Watch out you are going to scratch the upholstery!" his father would reply. Now, watching my husband first lay out a cardboard base and then carefully pack boxes and bags of weeds and leaves into the car, you can see he's reliving prior traumas.
There is a sort of logic in using the car rather than buying a trailer. Trailers are not exactly cheap. Used trailers are available, but for some reason, most Danes selling them think that they don't depreciate in value. "For Sale - 1 trailer, 20 years old, 1 m x 2 m x 1/2 m (3 feet x 6 feet x 1.5 feet), some rust on the axel, undercarriage, wheel wells, wheels, and hitch. Wooden slats need replacing. But it still works, I just used it to take a full load to the dump on Saturday. 3,000 DKK/$600." Meanwhile the same trailer brand new is 5,000 DKK/$1000. (By the way, all price conversions are approximations. The dollar to kroner value fluctuates and since this isn't baking I don't need to be precise.)
But months of determined searching finally paid off. DB found a used trailer that was in fair condition for 600 DKK/$120, at a used trailer/caravan dealer he's familiar with. There we discovered that another new used trailer in better condition had just come in and the guy was willing to sell it to us for 700 DKK/$140. So we now have a trailer.
We also have a caravan and a huge family car.
"Oh my god," said my husband a few months ago when the trailer subject was first raised. "We've become Danes!"
Never mind that he actually is Danish, the last thing my husband wants to be is like every other Dane, driving the Volvo with the trailer full of garden clippings to the dump and then washing the caravan in the driveway.
"Don't be silly, baby," I said, likewise bristling at the accusation, "we've become my parents!"
My parents used to drive a minivan (now it's an extended cab truck, but it still seats 5 comfortably), have a HUGE trailer that my dad takes to the dump every 6 months (no trash pick up in the country, you shlep your own trash to the dump), and a tent trailer that we've used for family vacations for years.
"Yup, you're right," he paused. "Thank God!"
I'm not sure how many men thank their lucky stars they've become their in-laws. I can't imagine it's a large number.
On the way home Sunday night, my husband continued to muse on our encroaching ordinariness.
"Our kid is going to think we are so boring. We drive a Volvo, take the garden trash to the dump..."
"Sit and watch Barnaby (Midsomer Murders) on Saturday nights," I added.
"Yeah," he cried, "and only 5 years ago I was still going to clubs!"
"Five years ago? Heck, 8 months ago I was swinging around tent poles while ridiculously drunk, in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of fellow drunk archaeologists," I had to point out. "Besides, our child is also going to think it's completely normal for mom and dad to speak two completely different languages and eat lots of curry and garlic and jalapeños and for mom to every now and then go off into the desert, get really dirty, drink lots of beer, and find old stuff people threw away. Don't worry, our child's version of normal is not really going to be all that normal." I felt better, reiterating that we are still not normal.
He thought for a moment, "so wait, who was actually there to see you swinging around that pole?"
There is a sort of logic in using the car rather than buying a trailer. Trailers are not exactly cheap. Used trailers are available, but for some reason, most Danes selling them think that they don't depreciate in value. "For Sale - 1 trailer, 20 years old, 1 m x 2 m x 1/2 m (3 feet x 6 feet x 1.5 feet), some rust on the axel, undercarriage, wheel wells, wheels, and hitch. Wooden slats need replacing. But it still works, I just used it to take a full load to the dump on Saturday. 3,000 DKK/$600." Meanwhile the same trailer brand new is 5,000 DKK/$1000. (By the way, all price conversions are approximations. The dollar to kroner value fluctuates and since this isn't baking I don't need to be precise.)
But months of determined searching finally paid off. DB found a used trailer that was in fair condition for 600 DKK/$120, at a used trailer/caravan dealer he's familiar with. There we discovered that another new used trailer in better condition had just come in and the guy was willing to sell it to us for 700 DKK/$140. So we now have a trailer.
We also have a caravan and a huge family car.
"Oh my god," said my husband a few months ago when the trailer subject was first raised. "We've become Danes!"
Never mind that he actually is Danish, the last thing my husband wants to be is like every other Dane, driving the Volvo with the trailer full of garden clippings to the dump and then washing the caravan in the driveway.
"Don't be silly, baby," I said, likewise bristling at the accusation, "we've become my parents!"
My parents used to drive a minivan (now it's an extended cab truck, but it still seats 5 comfortably), have a HUGE trailer that my dad takes to the dump every 6 months (no trash pick up in the country, you shlep your own trash to the dump), and a tent trailer that we've used for family vacations for years.
"Yup, you're right," he paused. "Thank God!"
I'm not sure how many men thank their lucky stars they've become their in-laws. I can't imagine it's a large number.
On the way home Sunday night, my husband continued to muse on our encroaching ordinariness.
"Our kid is going to think we are so boring. We drive a Volvo, take the garden trash to the dump..."
"Sit and watch Barnaby (Midsomer Murders) on Saturday nights," I added.
"Yeah," he cried, "and only 5 years ago I was still going to clubs!"
"Five years ago? Heck, 8 months ago I was swinging around tent poles while ridiculously drunk, in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of fellow drunk archaeologists," I had to point out. "Besides, our child is also going to think it's completely normal for mom and dad to speak two completely different languages and eat lots of curry and garlic and jalapeños and for mom to every now and then go off into the desert, get really dirty, drink lots of beer, and find old stuff people threw away. Don't worry, our child's version of normal is not really going to be all that normal." I felt better, reiterating that we are still not normal.
He thought for a moment, "so wait, who was actually there to see you swinging around that pole?"
Monday, October 11, 2010
When I grow up I'm going to eat cake for breakfast!
Actually, I do eat cake for breakfast. But I always make sure I have a large piece or two of cheese as a side dish.
No, that is not a pregnancy thing, this is something that was agreed upon with my mother when my sister and I were younger - we could have a piece of cake for breakfast as long as we had something with calcium in it. Or something. So a piece of cheese and a glass of milk were somehow decided as enough "good" food to counteract the sugar we were happily stuffing into our little faces. (Despite this, I've only had one cavity.)
I think the poor woman was just glad we'd eat something. My sister and I were amazingly picky eaters and very difficult to get off to school. We liked learning, but we hated that we needed to do it so early in the morning.
Anyway, I am now an adult so I *could* leave the cheese out. But I love cheese and eat it with everything. If it's not part of whatever I'm eating then I have it on the side. Cheese is an especially good side "dish" when you are eating something very sweet. Like pie. Or, as in this case, cake.
The cake I made over the weekend was Carrot Cake. I love carrot cake. I do not understand why Danes insist on having layer cake (not what you are thinking people who do not live in DK, I'll explain later) for birthdays when there is carrot cake in the world. My first wedding cake was carrot cake. It was marvelously good. For my second time atbat the altar I went with layer cake because 1) you are not going to get a good non-layer cake in DK and 2) always get the best cake you can have wherever you are.
(Number one is slightly incorrect, I've had some good homemade cakes from a few proper domestic goddesses who were Danish, so it can happen. However, only one of them has made a wedding cake before and it was such a trial she swore she'd never do it again. I don't blame her.)
So what is a Danish layer cake? Well first you go to the store and buy these cheap thin sponge cakes, usually three come in a pack. You also buy whipped cream in a spray can, strawberries and bananas (no matter what season it is - buy frozen if you must), butter and coco powder.
***If I ever have to make this cake, I am going to make it from scratch. There is no call for the use of the nasty pre-made plasticky sponge rounds that they call "kage." I understand that there are some childhood loves that defy reason as you age - like my deep and abiding love for Kraft Mac n' Cheese, despite it's horribleness - but honestly, this is a crime against nature. (With any luck I will never have to make a layer cake from scratch. Sponge cake is a nightmare.)***
You melt butter with some coco power to make a chocolate glaze. Some sugar may be involved but I'm not always sure. Cut up strawberries and bananas. Now assemble thus: one round of sponge cake, pour a bit of chocolate glaze over it. Layer of strawberries and bananas. Next round of sponge cake. More chocolate glaze, fruit, and final layer of sponge cake. More coco glaze. Now use whipped cream to coat the side so you can't see the layers and for any decoration you may wish on the top.
Nine times out of ten it's as bland as boiled rice. That last special time is probably when the cake has been made from scratch with fresh ingredients. Then it's actually really good and you wonder why you keep getting stuck going to birthday parties with sub-standard layer cakes. This is a mystery of the universe. You will never receive the answer. A word to the wise - do not ask your Danish host/hostess for cheese to eat along side your layer cake, they get weird about it. But if you have layer cake sitting in your fridge, eat a slice of cheddar with it. It will make it all so much better.
So back to my carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (see, sometimes you CAN put cheese on cake). I had a variety of recipes to choose from and so I took a little from here and a little from there. I am thrilled with the cake, but the frosting was WAY too sweet and I cut the sugar significantly. I'll probably also up the amount of cream cheese because I like my cream cheese frosting to be, well, cream cheese frosting, duh. But for your sake I give you the recipe as I made it. Danish equivalents in parentheses.
Ingredients:
No, that is not a pregnancy thing, this is something that was agreed upon with my mother when my sister and I were younger - we could have a piece of cake for breakfast as long as we had something with calcium in it. Or something. So a piece of cheese and a glass of milk were somehow decided as enough "good" food to counteract the sugar we were happily stuffing into our little faces. (Despite this, I've only had one cavity.)
I think the poor woman was just glad we'd eat something. My sister and I were amazingly picky eaters and very difficult to get off to school. We liked learning, but we hated that we needed to do it so early in the morning.
Anyway, I am now an adult so I *could* leave the cheese out. But I love cheese and eat it with everything. If it's not part of whatever I'm eating then I have it on the side. Cheese is an especially good side "dish" when you are eating something very sweet. Like pie. Or, as in this case, cake.
The cake I made over the weekend was Carrot Cake. I love carrot cake. I do not understand why Danes insist on having layer cake (not what you are thinking people who do not live in DK, I'll explain later) for birthdays when there is carrot cake in the world. My first wedding cake was carrot cake. It was marvelously good. For my second time at
(Number one is slightly incorrect, I've had some good homemade cakes from a few proper domestic goddesses who were Danish, so it can happen. However, only one of them has made a wedding cake before and it was such a trial she swore she'd never do it again. I don't blame her.)
So what is a Danish layer cake? Well first you go to the store and buy these cheap thin sponge cakes, usually three come in a pack. You also buy whipped cream in a spray can, strawberries and bananas (no matter what season it is - buy frozen if you must), butter and coco powder.
***If I ever have to make this cake, I am going to make it from scratch. There is no call for the use of the nasty pre-made plasticky sponge rounds that they call "kage." I understand that there are some childhood loves that defy reason as you age - like my deep and abiding love for Kraft Mac n' Cheese, despite it's horribleness - but honestly, this is a crime against nature. (With any luck I will never have to make a layer cake from scratch. Sponge cake is a nightmare.)***
You melt butter with some coco power to make a chocolate glaze. Some sugar may be involved but I'm not always sure. Cut up strawberries and bananas. Now assemble thus: one round of sponge cake, pour a bit of chocolate glaze over it. Layer of strawberries and bananas. Next round of sponge cake. More chocolate glaze, fruit, and final layer of sponge cake. More coco glaze. Now use whipped cream to coat the side so you can't see the layers and for any decoration you may wish on the top.
Nine times out of ten it's as bland as boiled rice. That last special time is probably when the cake has been made from scratch with fresh ingredients. Then it's actually really good and you wonder why you keep getting stuck going to birthday parties with sub-standard layer cakes. This is a mystery of the universe. You will never receive the answer. A word to the wise - do not ask your Danish host/hostess for cheese to eat along side your layer cake, they get weird about it. But if you have layer cake sitting in your fridge, eat a slice of cheddar with it. It will make it all so much better.
So back to my carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (see, sometimes you CAN put cheese on cake). I had a variety of recipes to choose from and so I took a little from here and a little from there. I am thrilled with the cake, but the frosting was WAY too sweet and I cut the sugar significantly. I'll probably also up the amount of cream cheese because I like my cream cheese frosting to be, well, cream cheese frosting, duh. But for your sake I give you the recipe as I made it. Danish equivalents in parentheses.
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/4 cups (300 ml) vegetable oil (rapsolie worked fine)
- 2 cups (475 ml) white sugar
- 2 tsps (10 ml) vanilla extract
- 2 cups (475 ml) all purpose flour
- 2 tsps (10 ml) baking soda (bicarbonate or natron, I believe it is in Danish)
- 2 tsps (10 ml) baking powder
- 1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) salt
- 1 1/2 tsps (7.5 ml) ground cinnamon
- pinch of ground cloves
- pinch of nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) ground ginger
- 3 generous cups (700 to 900 ml is fine) of grated carrots
- 1 cup (250 ml) chopped pecans or walnuts if you wish
For frosting
- 1/2 cup (118 g) butter, softened
- 8 ounces (225 g) cream cheese, softened
- 2 cups (475 ml) powdered sugar*
- 1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (250 ml) chopped pecans or walnuts if you wish
*Originally the recipe asked for 4 cups, I used 3. I suggest you start with 1 cup (250 ml) and work your way up as needed. Just so you know, Jamie Oliver's recipe uses one cup, which is why I make this suggestion. Somewhere there is a middle ground.
Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease and flour a 9x13 pan (22 cm x 33 cm? I don't know the measurements of pans in DK - I just go by looks, call me shallow, and my pan looked like a 9x13).
- In a large bowl beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 tsps (10 ml) vanilla extract. Mix in flour. baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger. Stir in carrots. Fold in nuts if using. Pour into prepared pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.* Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.**
- To make frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and 1 tsp (5 ml) of vanilla extract. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Frost the cooled cake. Sprinkle with nuts if using.
*The more carrot you add, the more liquid the cake and thus the longer it will take to bake. Mine took just over 50 minutes.
**I lack wire racks and I don't have a plate big enough to hold a sheet cake. I usually ignore this part of any recipe unless I'm making an American style layer cake and need to cut the cake in half to make 2 equal sized layers. Because I don't have two pans of any shape that are the same size.
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