Salty

I've been craving salty things more this pregnancy which makes me think this baby is a boy. But we'll find out soon enough one way or the other.

Anyway here are some of the other things I'm salty about :

• my house not having air conditioning because it's builder grade and the builders were dipshits with shoddy workmanship and didn't give a damn about actual living conditions
• the darling furnace growing in me tossing around all it's bony parts and causing general uncomfortablness  
• my allergies acting up and not being able to take a damn bit of the good drugs
• my husband not having to get a TDap shot for either of my pregnancies. (I'm really salty about that one)
• the mommy wars
• seeing all the Woodford Reserve at the Derby and knowing I can't have any for a while
• having the pee all the time
• the patriarchy
• racism
• sexism
• being thirsty all the time and so totally bored with water
• the hypocrisy of the GOP
• people not using their turn signals
• internalized misogyny  
• autocorrect 
• autotune and theses not singing just stupidly talking which is not singing on popular radio
• people (gleefully - I might add) telling me I'm getting bigger
• anyone invading my personal bubble
• my body being up for public discussion
• toxic masculinity
• being hungry all the time and not wanting any of snacks I brought
• bending
• people assuming I'm an invalid and incapable of doing anything because I'm pregnant
• people not helping me even though I'm pregnant - I want to sit and don't make me run around 

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!

Just like with Little Turkey, dr soc and I are going to find out the sex of Little Lion when they are born. So it either amuses me or annoys me when people have a negative opinion on not knowing the sex of our child. And yeah, driving people nuts is part of the fun. But this pregnancy I'm less amused and much more annoyed at those opinions. Probably because that opinion is usually accompanied with the additional opinion of what the opinioner wants (or assumes what we want) the sex to be.

Because we honestly don't care. We've never really cared what the sex of our children would be. Little Turkey it didn't matter because, well, that's just a privilege of being the first born. But we don't have a preference with Lion either. I'm one of 2 girls and dr soc is one of 2 boys (and we all turned out pretty good), so it's not like we think two of the same is a bad thing. 

So it upsets me a little bit when people say they want or assume we want one or the other (usually a boy). I mean, do people think we'll be disappointed one way or the other? Do they think dr soc wouldn't love another little girl as much as a boy? That I would love a little boy less because of my own sex?

I mean, it's a little human, one who will make our world a better place just for being in it. You don't need to have a specific sex for that. 

Voter fraud

Three weeks plus post doomsday the election the governorship of North Carolina has yet to be decided. Because not only is the loser incumbent governor refusing to concede, he's stalling like hell challenging the validity of all the votes before even officially requesting the recount. And the validity of the votes is in question because you know, all the voter fraud. ←Insert eye roll here.

I mean really. First, let me tell you how easy it was to vote early in NC. Since I'm registered to vote I went to whatever county voting location I wanted and told a complete stranger poll worker my name, verified my address and was given a ballot. That was it. But if I hadn't been registered to vote I would  have to do an extra step of registering and voting the same day.  Seriously.*

*as an aside I don't understand how anyone doesn't vote with easy access like that. Yet half of the population eligible to vote doesn't (PS: cork it if you didn't, you have no right to complain).

So let's hint to the possibility of fraud, not enough to have to prove anything but enough to stall, because you don't have to show any proof of who you are. Because by insisting you don't have to show ID (I was told several times to put mine away) means the state is not completely laced with bigotry the "surgical precision" gerrymandering and HB2 makes us out to be. All because the white lady with her baby wasn't offended by being asked to show ID.

And now to add insult to injury to this horrible, terrible, no good, rotten election season, the aforementioned bigotry laced tactics means NC has to redraw the lines again, and then have a special election in those new districts in 2017 and go through all of this again. ← Insert face palm here.

Teachable Moment

I can get annoyed like anyone else. And like most people, there are things that annoy me more so than others. Like: college students and people who think music is the end all be all are two things that annoy me easily. So the other day when a college student felt the need to enlighten me about his music preference superiority, my annoyance tolerance was shot to hell from the second the kid opens his mouth.

student: I would like to donate a book to you guys that I have because you don't have it.
me: Well we have a policy actually of not accepting book donations. But someone at the center desk over there can tell you who to talk to about collection development.
student: It's a biography. You guys have several other books on this subject, several copies of a few of them, but you don't have this particular one. This one is really important and you guys should have it.

I was only slightly annoyed that he didn't listen to me, but that's pretty much what happens all the time with the college students I see at work, so I wasn't going to get all bent out of shape over this. He was more offend that I didn't want his book than I was by him not listening. But then he kept talking and tried to explain to me why we needed to have this book

student: It's a biography on Duke Ellington. Like the most important jazz musician of all time. You guys really need this book, and I want to to give it to you because it's so important. Music is life, you know? It's my passion, the most important thing.

So here's where I went from slightly annoyed to completely annoyed. Because as we all know, I have heard, dealt with, and left the music is my passion and most important thing ever dude. I probably heard those words verbatim or close enough before. And music? Not the most important thing ever. I was in choir and marching band, I used to know how to read music and I definitely think music classes should remain in schools, but "having a passion" for music is a far cry from "making a living" off this nonsense. While I know there are professional musicians who do make a living from music, and I respect the time and talent it takes to get to that tier, it's still not the most important thing ever. And besides, just because you think something is the most important thing, doesn't make the rest of the world agree with you. And you certainly shouldn't be foisting your opinions on me or anyone for that matter. (Impartiality is part of being a librarian, and the ability to providing equal access to all sides of something. (OK, well a public library, I guess if I worked in a special library I could be a lot more judicious in what kind of access people get to particular subjects))

I know this student had no idea what he stepped into with that comment or that my particular background with another "music is my passion" would annoy the crap out of me. But I still wanted him to just go away and to take his opinions with him. But I realized I could make this a teachable moment and said:

me: Well, I think unicorns are important. And we don't have a lot of books on those here either.
student: Uh....but this is Duke Ellington. You know who he is right? That this is important!?
me: I've heard of him. Now, the center desk over there can tell you who to discuss collection development with. Have a good day.

OK, not the best teachable moment and the kid probably thinks I'm a kook. But at least it was a little snarky. I count that as a win.

Vocab

We have laptops for people (students, staff and faculty) to check out for 24 hours at my academic library. Awesome right? Well not always, because sometimes all we have left are the older, slower computers and college kids can be so incredibly whiny.

A freshman turns in an older slower laptop, but before he turns it in he first asks if we have any macs. You have to wait 4 hours between laptop check ins and outs, so even if we did have any macs in he wouldn't have been able to have it at the moment anyway.  Instead of understanding the rules and just leaving it at that, he wanted to make it clear to me that macs are a far superior computer. So he says: Mac's aren't slow. Dells are though. This dell was abysmally slow.

I just shrugged my shoulders and said: Oh well.
But what I wanted to say was: Look at you using your SAT words like a big boy!

Late Night Phone Calls

My home phone rang at 11:50 pm last night. And at my age you answer the call form a number you don't recognize because you just hope that it's not an emergency.

It was not an emergency. It was giggly, sloppy drunk dial from the Raleigh/Chapel Hill area, jabbering something about frank and an order.

Relief that it' not an emergency quickly transitions into annoyance. But I told them they had the wrong number and got ready to hang up. But drunk and disorderly on the line doesn't understand and tries to dispute that with a "are you shhhhuuul you're not Frank? Like, really sure?"

Yeah. I'm sure. So that I responded with a groan and a why am even I talking to you you idiot? and hung up.

My guess is they were probably going to call back and tell me off, but then they passed out since my phone didn't ring again. I just hope that kid's hangover tomorrow is hell.

Think It Through

So I'm listening in on a conversation between three ladies before my Zumba class. (Oh, whatever.  It wasn't like they were huddled in the corner whispering and having a private conversation.)  One of the ladies is going to Australia (or somewhere on that side of the word) for a long time, either for work or her husband's job or a kid's over there, something.  It's either a move or a long enough trip that things here need to be put in order.  Well, one of the things to put in order was the family dog.  I don't know what they were actually doing, giving it to a family member for some time, giving it away completely, but I do know that they weren't taking him (I guess) with them, even though it broke their heart to be away for that long.
    
This didn't sit well with one of the ladies not going on the trip.  She kept badgering the woman about looking into other options, saying stuff like "are you sure you can't take him with you? And "how hard is it to do this..." and so forth.  And the lady going over seas had an answer for everything.  The dog would have to be cleared by the vet here first.  Then once they arrive at their destination, the dog would have to remain in quarantine for a few months. Months.  By the time the dog was cleared to live in Australia, it would almost be time to start the whole thing over again to come back to the States.  Not to mention, the flight alone from LA to Sydney is 14 hours, and this dog would have to be in a crate in the checked baggage section of the plane, which is not temperature controlled.  Maybe this dog was small enough to fit in a carrier under a seat, but still, 14 hour flight.  (I'll save my it's not fair that little dogs wearing a diaper are allowed in the passenger part but but bigger dogs like my Bailey (who is midsized (and a horrible traveler so I wouldn't take her anyway but that's so not my point)) have to be in a crate in luggage part rant for another day). 

The point? The traveling woman had thought about it, looked into it, and realized the best thing for everyone, though upsetting, was to leave the dog here.   And it really annoyed me that this woman had to defend her choice of doing the best thing. 

I felt that I received a lot of questioning a few years ago when I was struggling with the complete upheaval of my life. (No one in particular, just a lot of questions)  Believe me, I thought everything back and forth inside out upside down and backwards before I came to or announced a decision.  So when someone questions you, it feels like they are dismissing your thought process.  I know often times most people are just trying to help.  But stop trying to do so when you can see the person has  thought it through, but just didn't let you be privy to their entire thought process.  

Birds are Gross

From when I was living at home, but I still find this relevant enough to post. scene:
Kitchen table with my mom, my coffee not having woken me up quite yet. There's this chirping/scratching noise coming form somewhere and it's irritating the bejezus out of me.
me: What is that scritchy noise?
mom: I think it's birds trying to nest in the kitchen vent.
me: Well, they should stop. It's driving the dog nuts. (and me too, but Bailey was whining at the noise and adding to it, thus making me even more irritable)
mom: They nest in the bathroom vent all the time. They picked through the opening.
me: Um, no. God, I hate birds. All of them, birds are just disgusting. ::pause:: Unless it's poultry. Those are ok.

Beep Beep

Everything in my kitchen beeps. Which honestly wouldn't be that bad if whatever appliance that has it's feeling hurt because you aren't paying proper attention to it at the moment didn't continuously beeping in an bratty pay attention to me way. And lets face it, I can get distracted easily, which is the reason I use kitchen times in the first place. And I don't have the desire to babysit them all.

But it's not just the timer when done beeping, everything beeps as it's being set too. Seriously. The oven beeps when you hit a function button on it. Bake, warm, broil, oven light on/off, time, any button press = beep. It beeps as you set the oven temperature up or down. And if heaven forbid you set the temperature but don't press the "start" button, how is the oven going to know that you really meant that? OMG! Panic! I'm set to 425 but I don't know if they mean that! AHH!! Frantic beep! I don't know if you mean that! Press start! However, it's conjoined sibling the high maintenance induction cook top doesn't beep at all, even if you forget to turn off the burner with an empty pot on it and walk away. Safety first and all that. Maybe if figures that the oven makes enough noise for the both of them. Which it does. But still.

The microwave is similar to it's friend the oven in that it beeps if you press any button thing. But I always press start on the microwave so I don't know if it has the same OMG no press start style freak out like the oven. However, if you don't hit cancel or open the door of the microwave when it is done, it beeps to remind you. I prefer to think of it in a pestering little sibling* way, more of an excuse me, but um, I'm done. Excuse me! I'm done here! Hey!

*I'm referencing little siblings in general, not any one little sibling in particular.

But let's go back to the timers portion. Both the microwave and oven are the same way if you don't hit the cancel button (which beeps when pressed. Of course it does) after it's done timing. Which, ok, that one I understand some because you don't always hear the initial time's up noise. But quite often, I do whatever needs to be done when the timer goes off, so I don't reset/stop the timer right away. And the timers get angry at me so they beep beep beep at random intervals to annoy me. (also in a pestering little sibling way)

Not to be left out of the appliance action adventure club, my coffee maker beeps as well. I'm serious. When it's done brewing my morning life blood, it jumps into the fray with 5 rapid high pitched meeps, similar to what a bomb sounds like in the movies. Or, what an angry kitten sounds like. (At least, I'm assuming that's what an angry kitten would sound like)

While I love having my own kitchen, it can be a really noisy place. With all the beeping and upset appliances and the spaztastic dog sisters doing spaztastic things, you know. My solution for this was to buy an old fashioned egg timer. Yes, it adds a constant ticking to the symphony know as dinner cooking, but it makes one loud obnoxious ring when it's done and then shuts up. It's beautiful. And also? It's shaped like a pear, which amuse me highly.

OMG, I h8 that.

I hate text talk. It's one of my (many) pet peeves, I usually just find it annoying. Some of my friends do it, but as they are my friends and I don't judge them for it.

I do shorten when I need to and abbreviate for twitter, so I don't spell out every single thing. And I do use btw, wtf, occasionally lol, and fyi in some text messages as well. But fyi was an acronym before it was a text thing in my defense. I also use lol speak on occasion, but that's just funny and amuses me.

The bane of my text existence is: what r u up 2 2nite? It just makes me gag a little bit.

And can I say how much I love that dr soc also hates text talk? OMG, it's so nice to get a message with no acronyms. It's something we discovered about each other early on and we were both pretty happy that the other one wasn't a culprit of a pet peeve. We may text some long messages, but everything is spelled out and the there are no 2s, 2nite, 4, b, b4, 4ever, r, h8 or u. God, how we h8 the u for you.

Hi, Pot? It's Kettle!

Fake Blond 1: ohmygod, can you, like, concentrate when there are other people talking around you?
Fake Blond 2: No! Like when I go to the library and there are people there just, hanging out and stuff. Omg, there were these two girls in the cubby behind me like totally planning their cruise together! Ech, I was like, god, go somewhere else you know?FB 1: Oh I know, it's so rude!

This was the conversation going on behind me in my social theory class while were were breaking into small discussion groups. Apparently, it totally bugs them and they can't concentrate when someone around them is having a completely different conversation.
So then what do these two girls proceed to do? Talk the rest of class about everything else except social theory. (you know, the class we're in)

FB 1: Yeah, I used to go to ASU. There's a pool like every other house, even the dorms have them (um, duh, it's Arizona). And you know, I'm from Wisconsin, so I was like whoa! when I saw how small everyone's clothes were.
FB 2: God, I could not go there then, I would have such a bad body image! FB 1: It's not that bad really. It's a different type of pretty there. It's sorta skanky actually. It's like a fake kind of pretty (says the girl with an inch of roots in her blond hair).

At that point I stopped trying to ignore them and just gave in to my annoyance. I was going to be of no use to my discussion group at that rate. It seems that I can't concentrate either when there's a set of cast iron behind me.

Are you a Camel?

I'm walking to the bus stop the other day and I hear the boy walking behind me hock a loogie.
And I wanted to turn around, hands on my hips and in full sass mode and ask him: "why is spitting such a gross boy habit? I mean, are you part camel?"

Seriously, it's such a crass thing to do. You ever see a well dressed man spit on the sidewalk? No, you don't, because anyone with an ounce of class in them isn't going spit like an animal whenever they feel like it.

Well anyway, I have the why is spiting such a boy habit conversation with my girlfriends and one of them asks, "what's with a girl spitting? What do you call that?"
My response was: "it's plain unladylike, that's what it is!"

But the very next day, as I'm walking home from the bus, I'm eating a bag of cherries. And what do I do? Spit the seeds out along the way, where ever I felt like it. And I didn't care. But at least I wasn't making any caveman like grunts, so no one will compare me to a camel.

I win! I win!

So the kid behind me in math class is a mouth breather, and it annoys me. I've mentioned this before. And it is gross when you feel a complete stranger breath on your neck (the only time I ever want to feel anyone breathing on my neck is if we're snuggling FYI - And I don't snuggle with strangers either).

I get to class 20-15 minutes before start time, so I take my regular seat because, well, that's what I do. But on the days I catch the later bus and get to class a few minutes late, I move up a seat because mouth breather is sitting in his regular seat. Its my passive aggressive way of saying - respect my personal area you ass clown. I didn't want to change seats because I get there first, and since he annoys me, he should be the one to move.

But I couldn't take it anymore. The weather is warming up and at some point I probably will wear a tank top to class, and I am not going to feel mouth breathing on my shoulders/back. There would be throat punching involved if I did. And we're legal adults so that constitutes as "assault." So I changed seats. I moved up to the front row, and he took his regular seat, the one right behind where I use to sit.

So I win! I win! (sorta) Now if I could only get him to stop breathing so freaking loud too...

15 on a good day

Yesterday my parent's and I went to the home and garden show (so boring, remind me to never to go to one of those things again) and one of the thanks-for-coming-things was a free wine tasting at one of the new stores in the area. Now I do not care about landscaping, windows, blinds, sun rooms or cabinets, because I do not have a home of my own to do any of those things too. Frankly, I found the whole thing depressing. So I needed the wine tasting. Why did I go in the first place you ask? Dinner was promised at the end of it- and I respond well to food bribes.

Anyway we go to the store, but before the guy ask me what I would like to try, he asks for my ID. And it royally pissed me off. Well, no, it wasn't him and the actual id-ing that pissed me off. It was the supervisor coming back from the store room 2 seconds after putting my ID away who freaked out when she saw me with a wine sample in my hand and furiously (and loudly) asked if he id-ed me. Sheesh lady, you didn't have to make a scene and embarrass the clerk and myself.

I know I look young, so I'm a good sport about being Id-ed. It's just someone doing their job, and I've been in their shoes before. And once they check my Id, all I need to hear is "ok, thanks," I don't need to hear "oh wow, you're insert-current-age-here?! Because that just makes me bristle with indignation. And while I'm glad that I don't look well past my years, I wouldn't mind looking my actual age. Because hearing you look six-f*cking-teen when you are 26, is insulting, and it hurts my feelings to be honest. I am highly annoyed by teen agers, the last thing I want to hear is that I still look like one. And you know what doesn't make anything any better? Saying "you'll appreciate when you're older." No sh*t Sherlock, like I've never heard that before. Because you know what that does for me right now? Not a damn thing. Perhaps I have a warped sense of reality and should not be pissed off about this, but it's just something I can't stand.