Oh the conventions you'll go...

This last weekend was the Republican District Convention. We foolishly made it a family affair, as Dad, Uncle Dean, David, and I were all delegates. Carpool! We spent the car ride up discussing the platform. I am more or less indifferent on the platform, as when I am not a delegate or voting in the caucus, I tend to not be a Republican.

I'm just waiting until this delegate business is over and I'm switching my registration back to NP. I think that means No Party, but I could be wrong. It's whatever party you get when you say you aren't part of a party.

Could I be part of the Libertarian Party? Well, yes, but I think libertarian ideals and philosophy stand by themselves, and having a party subscribes to their version of it and I don't always agree. If the party ever gets big enough to be a threat to our two-party system, maybe I'll reconsider.

The convention was at a high school. I always look around to take in the foreign sights. High schools look just like the movies!

Anyway. The guy credentialing us, or giving us our name tags, whatever, commented jokingly, "If you go into labor, do it quietly." I stammered that I had no intention of going into labor. Apparently, sometimes when people don't know what to say, words still come out. Also, that makes second person who knew without asking I was pregnant. I really must be showing these days.

We had folding chairs this time. A downgrade from the cozy theater seats from the county convention. Also unfortunate is that apparently some people from the last convention were also delegates.

One guy in particular. He's the guy who proposed in the county convention to replace the party platform with the junior delegate platform. We thought it was a joke, but actually had debate about it, I think because a bunch of us wanted to forgo the platform discussion. But the discussion on that took way too long for what most of us considered a joke.

So anyway, this guy had his moustache waxed into points and was wearing a suit. But he's the type who talks out loud, loudly, talks to and looks for approval in anyone who will listen to him, and argues points of rules just to win, not because he cares. Kind of reminds me of that guy from The Island who tried to calculate the lottery winnings. This guy also would not pay attention, and then assume that he didn't know something because it wasn't said, not because he missed it.

And then, in a move that made pretty much all of Story County facepalm, he recommended we replace our platform with the junior delegate platform.

A bright spot in the day was the chairman, Matt Windschitl, apparently a state representative. He had this great deep voice, efficient command, and enduring sarcasm. "Is that a serious motion?" He asked. "You seriously want to replace the entire platform with the junior delegate platform?"

Some bozo seconded it, but thankfully, nobody spoke for it. It was voted down with a resounding no.

Moustache guy was heard saying loudly something about how the junior delegates were the future of the party and we should honor them. David tried to talk him down, telling him it was an admirable sentiment, but probably not the right move. Unfortunately, moustache guy now knows our faces.

Another highlight was clickers, those little electronic remotes that can record and post responses from a lot of people in a matter of minutes. We only had to take one paper ballot, which took us like an hour and had the ballot counters threatening the county heads that they would have to read their own county's handwriting next time.

Moustache guy asked loudly what amendment we were voting on, and was about to call "point of order" to ask. The woman the row behind us was trying to get his attention to explain and when he started talking, she audibly smacked one hand on the other. I think the rest of Story County was losing patience as well, with one gentleman commenting to moustache guy's neighbor that he needed to "reign in his dog."

I got to see what Trump supporters looked like. Oddly enough, they look like Trump. Or act like him. The guy selling t-shirts gave off a used car salesman vibe, and one of the women running for delegate yelled "Trump Trump Trump!" while pumping both fists into the air at the end of her speech.

Someone called the people voting for Cruz supporters (informed by text messages) sheeple... Look, I'm not here for democracy, I'm not here to "represent the district, " I'm here to win. I think anybody following Trump is a sheeple. So just tell me who to vote for to get Cruz. I can't soundly vet everyone in a two minute speech, so I rely on someone else who supports Cruz to do it.

And that's another highlight: I think we won this round.

Shows Me

You know how you always see how other people manage their pregnancy/finances/children/spouse/lives/etc and say to yourself, "Pft, I'd never do that." "That's silly."

I wonder if that makes God laugh or He's bored of that one yet.

I have a few to add just from being pregnant.

Pregnant girl at deli while placing order: Well, I'm pregnant, so...
Me thinking: Pft. What does being pregnant have to do with delis? I'm not going to be so particular when I get pregnant.

Turns out, listeria. Apparently pregnant women are more likely to contract listeria and it can have harmful effects on the baby. I found this out after I mentioned that I asked my mother-in-law to bring a bottle of merlot to the hospital and another woman said she asked for a Jimmy John's sandwich.

"What? Why Jimmy John's?"

She hadn't eaten deli for nine months.

Me later: And, could I get my sandwich extra hot?

I just finally explained it to the deli guys (who had heard of it before) that I wasn't just being really picky/weird. They hadn't known I was pregnant because there's a wall between us that comes up to my chin.

By the way, heating pre-cooked meat until steaming makes it safe.


Pregnant girl: After the glucose test, I couldn't get him to calm down!
Me thinking: Pft. What are you going to do to calm down an unborn baby? Sing to him? Rock him?

And then, some other time, you find me rocking my hips, singing "Rock me mama like a wagon wheel..." to my belly. Or wrapping an arm around it because Genevieve doesn't understand the idea behind bedtime and I can't sleep.


Pregnant girl: Usually, it only takes me ten minutes to get ten kicks on my kick counter, but one day it took closer to an hour. I was worried, but thankfully we had an appointment that day.
Me thinking: Pft. He's moving, isn't he? Clearly still alive.

Me a month later: Ginny hasn't been very active today. I mean, she has the hiccups right now, but she hasn't been moving as much as the day before. I hope everything is all right...


Pregnant girl: My baby loves my yoga practice, I can feel him kicking and moving with me.
Me thinking: Why does him pummeling the sides of your internal organs indicate a preference for yoga? Maybe he's moving because he hates yoga... Seems silly to assign preference to someone who can only express in unseen flailing.

Me later: She stops moving when I sing. Maybe it calms her down. Maybe she likes it?


Maybe being pregnant has finally crept up and infected my brain?

Ouch

I'm afraid I may actually have to stop jogging.

The part that keeps me up is the question, "If I had jogged more often during the winter, would I be in better shape and able to jog now?"

Currently, I am insanely out of shape. Or something. Last year, I didn't jog much during the winter (rule is it has to be at least 40 degrees or jogging is just no fun), and I started jogging again in the spring and surprised myself with how easy it was. Oh, I was still out of shape, but I thought I'd have to start from near-scratch and I was able to go 5k right away.

Maybe I also just expected myself to be able to do that again this year, but I basically did the same thing over the winter. I jogged until decently late last year, and then it got cold and I would go a full month without jogging. I tried to pick it up again this spring. Oh, I can still go a half hour without stopping, but it is a slow pace and I feel like I'm fighting my body the whole way.

Mental fortitude.

I know the ability to jog doesn't take that long to lose and I wanted to keep doing it because it's really good for stamina and someone mentioned once that might be helpful for childbirth.

Anyway, it seemed to be getting harder or more uncomfortable every time I jogged, which seems like the opposite of getting in shape. It could be because I am getting further in the pregnancy as time goes on, but the medical people said I could jog until it was uncomfortable and I figured running is uncomfortable, so I ignored it. I wanted to be one of those people who jogged all the way to the end, so this kind of breaks my heart.

I went out jogging on Tuesday and it was hard, as usual, but whatever. Around twenty minutes in, I had to detour back to the house. I noticed then that the tendons at the tops of both legs hurt. A lot. But I only had like seven minutes left on my Zombies, Run! mission, so I went back out and finished it.

I about cried during my cooldown walk. I was literally talking to myself, trying to motivate myself to get across the kitchen, telling myself, "You can do this." I don't know how I made it to work later. I know I was mentally singing the song from Santa Claus is Coming to Town that goes, "Put one foot in front of the other... and soon you'll be walking across the floor..." I caved and asked David to pick me up because I was having trouble coping with going across the office, much less walking all the way home. I did manage to limp all the way out to the car. I couldn't walk normal, or even fake it, I was in so much pain. It was quite possibly the most sustained pain I have ever been through. Obviously, hitting your head on something sharp can probably hurt more, but that usually fades pretty quick.

I've never broken a bone, thank God, so I can't compare.

Now, a few days later, I still can't really walk normal, but much of the pain has gone away. My brother said it was my hip flexor, and hip pain is pretty common during pregnancy. But what I really can't get is that this happened from just running. I was jogging. That's all. I've done it before, many a time. I think I went jogging last week.

A nurse told me that the third trimester tends to be when your body gives you muscle and tendon relaxants to allow the hips to spread in preparation for childbirth and it could be the addition of that stuff is what caused my normally fine-but-slow runs to all of a sudden contain a time-bomb of pain.

Maybe I could jog fifteen minutes? Or maybe, if the potential recovery time is going to be in days, it simply isn't worth the risk anymore.

My mental fortitude is crying.

Driveby shame

Scrolling through Facebook (I know, a colossal waste of time) I tripped over an image that a guy I knew in driver's ed like 12 years ago liked that was shared by another person from one of those pages that is a cause, not a person. It was titled "casually racist whites bingo."

I'm guessing you could figure out what sort of stuff was on it, from alllivesmatter to reverse racism to "I don't have white privilege because I'm poor." It's an interesting rhetorical method where they don't even have to address any of the arguments, they can just group them up and shame them all together by inclusion.

One of the squares that tripped me up was the one that said "has 'dreadlocks' or defends whites with dreads." I'm Caucasian. I have dreadlocks. Not "dreadlocks" thank you very much.

So, am I being casually racist? I guess I don't even know. I try not to write about racism because in reading about it, it seems like there is no place to stand and discuss any of it without somehow being offensive to someone, save abject apology for white privilege or whatever.

But dreadlocks? I know we consider them as having come from Africa and being part of that culture, especially related to Rastafarianism, but historically, they're multicultural. There is evidence for dreads from ancient Greece, Islam, Hinduism, and Africa. Obviously some hair types work better than others.

I get mixed reactions to my dreads. A lot of people, of differing backgrounds, say they love them. Some just stare, or seem disbelieving.

So how am I being racist by how I do my hair? I didn't weave in fake dreads, it is my real hair and it really is locked. Is it just seen as co-opting someone else's culture without knowledge or respect for it? Like wearing traditional African or Indian clothes without the matching heritage? I guess some people might find that offensive, but I feel trying to put a total lockdown on a style is potentially overreach, especially if it isn't done in a mocking or offensive manner.

And trying to claim a multicultural hairstyle that really anyone can wear (albeit with some effort) as a baseline racist thing seems like casual overreach of this bingo game. Or is it arguing that just because I'm "white" and not Greek, Muslim, Hindu, or African, I can't wear dreads. Multicultural except for my background?

All in all, it's a hair style. And I did it because I thought it looked cool and didn't want to pay for haircuts anymore, or brush and style my hair. As far as I can tell, I did it without stealing from anyone or demeaning anyone else, but that's where all this gets tricky, right? So many times this argument is framed entirely in the eye of the beholder. But I hardly owe it to a bingo game meme.

My Impending Unemployment

I always figured I'd be a stay-at-home mom when the time came. The reasons range: Mom did it for us and I'll eternally appreciate it. Daycare costs money. Kids are only young once and why would I want to spend the time they're growing up attempting to eke out a career?

On that last one, it might have been at least tempting if I had like a good job that I actually liked, but I've had a lot of bad experiences. I've had jobs that pay decent and were awful, and jobs that were fun, but didn't have the hours to make them full-time/sustainable for daycare, and I've had jobs that weren't fun and didn't pay much.

I always figured I'd settle down and start my writing career from home or something.

But now with the little one doing yoga or something somewhere in my abdomen, I am pretty aware that come June, I probably won't have the time or flexibility to do much in the way of work. As far as my current job as a production assistant, I could probably arrange for a few hours here and there, but that would not make me the most reliable employee ever. For practical reasons, I gave my nine-month notice a long while ago and asked to be replaced by an intern.

Either that, or Ginny might help edit from time to time.

As a side note, I really hope this baby takes well to being flexible, and my random spontaneity.

What I'm getting at is that I don't make much because of hours and I'm about to make even less. David always says that it's fine, he'll provide (and if he won't, God will), and not to worry. I just don't like the decrease in income and while I know I won't be able to go out and do what I want or really hold any steady job, I will most likely have some free time somewhere in there. I think. I'm pretty new to this kid thing.

So what's left?

I found this blog while Googling "ways to make money from home" called The Penny Hoarder.

It's weird and has articles from all sorts of topics covering really odd jobs, hobbies, spending statistics, savings loopholes, store super-sales, etc. And while most of it might not apply to me, such as Boston being the cheapest city to buy groceries, it stretches my mind. So I can't hold a nine-to-five or an hourly part-time? The Penny Hoarder has all sorts of ideas to earn a spare cent or two.

This new-found financial fervor also is a side-effect of taking Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University in connection group. I'm a spendthrift and miser by nature, but I also hate budgets because budgets constrict freedom. I'm the "free spirit" in Dave Ramsey's terminology. In normal life, this plays out by me wanting to be able to eat out or buy that little thing or whatever without thinking about it, but if someone costs more than $40, there is pretty much no way I'll buy it. Maybe with someone else's money... which seemed like all the rest of "our" money that wasn't in my account.

FPU had the beneficial effect of making me view the budget and all as more of a partnership and group quest than that random law that decided to rear it's ugly head every time I wanted to get pizza.

Don't mess with the pizza.

So now, looking at the budget, I can see a map, a strategy, for getting us both where we want to go. And I'm trying to devise ways to still contribute, or get us there faster.

All of a sudden I'm looking at coupons to see what's on sale. We're considering what things lying around we've had or won at company picnics or whatever that we don't use and might be worth a buck. And I'm trying to find ways to make money from home.

I'll let you know how that goes.

And no, pregnant women can't donate plasma.

Eyes Wide Open

Originally, I laughed at Trump. Then I started to get annoyed with him. I was wrong. Now I'm scared. And not so much of Trump, but of what he spawned.



WORLD Media Player

PSA: Cold vs Flu vs Stomach Flu

Since becoming pregnant, I have felt an overwhelming urge to look up any and all symptoms of pretty much anything in What to Expect When You're Expecting. As a result, I have discovered that I didn't actually know the difference between the flu (influenza) and the stomach flu. And more surprising, I discovered that most other people don't either.

It started with my boss's family contracting the stomach flu, that 1-3 day thing that involves nausea, vomiting, and general misery. As a concerned pregnant woman knowing that the flu was bad to get when expecting, I ran to my book to see what the exact problem was. And my book told me that stomach flu was basically just miserable for me, not my baby. A relief, I suppose. I didn't get it, probably at least partially because my boss warned me away for at least a day after he had it. He told me not to come in to work. Also, I believe in vitamin D.

Now, in my book, there is also a section on telling colds from the flu, and the flu vaccine. Unrelated to the so-called stomach flu.

I know what a cold is. Sore throat, stuffy or runny nose, coughing, and usually no days missed work. I get about one a year and proceed to pop vitamin C drops and drink tea. But the book actually had to differentiate between a cold and a flu.

Which is how I figured David probably had the flu when he started feeling bad on Monday, and then was down and out for the next four days.

Apparently, influenza is like a super awful cold. It involves sore throat, coughing, muscle pain, fever, fatigue, and can last a week to two weeks. It can include nausea and vomiting, but usually not in adults. Exactly what David had. But when I mentioned to people that David had the flu, they all thought that meant he was throwing up. Confusing it with the stomach flu.

Which utterly baffles me because a majority of Americans get the flu shot every year. And apparently don't even know what it is they're trying to avoid.

Not that I would recognize measles or smallpox or polio... but I'm not getting yearly shots for those. I'm not hearing advertising every year about how you need to go and get your flu shot. We're constantly being told the flu is bad, and I guess we're willing to just take that at face value because we don't even know when we have it.

So this is my public service announcement. Go forth and be educated.

Cause now I feel like I have to explain the difference to everyone when talking about it, which gets pretty tiresome.