That's 'pregnancy glow', dang it!

If I could give one bit of advice, gleaned from my years of having babies, one little nugget among all others to give to those Trying To Concieve or those who are pregnant it would be this: DON’T blow your nose into you toilet paper prior to wiping. You could scare yourself to death having a peek afterwards.

So here I am, placidly huge and phlegmatically awaiting next Monday (not this coming Monday … Monday next). I’m swelling, aching, belching, grunting and waddling. Behold the luminous glow of the woman in late pregnancy! That look in her eyes is one of benevolent love not I’m-going-to-tear-the-head-off-the-next-sucker-who-speaks-to-me! Really!

I got to guffaw politely though one of my least fave old saws yesterday: "OMG, are you sure there’s just one in there???” Grit Teeth. Smile. “Har, har, har, no after four ultrasounds and listening to the heartbeat on Doppler the past 25 weeks we’re just not sure!”

No I didn’t really say that. I did know the lady quite well though and got up the nerve to say laughingly: “you’re just jealous!” At which point she startled me by saying “yeah, I guess I am”. Turns out that the daughter she brings up when I visit , when we’re doing the happy mom thing and comparing notes, will be her only.

“My husband said no more. He only wants one”

I was taken aback and sad for her. Not that I feel like a big family is for everyone but she confessed to wanting 3. Now she’s ‘stuck’ having only one because of a decree from on high by her spouse – who originally said ‘whatever you want dear’ before they were married. She’s a nice person, a nurse who put herself though college and who works 60+ hours a week, she just bought herself a car (with her money) and contributes half the payments on their mobile home and lot.

But someone else gets to tell her how many children she can have.

That just bugs me.

Ballooning Blue

At last! I have something exciting to blog about!

Ok, ok, not that bloody exciting but interesting at least.

I read several good pregnancy/ mommy blogs and they always seem to have something of passing interest to talk about: one of the children, a doctor’s visit, a particualrly good deal on baby stuff (always warms my little Ferengi heart) but mine is so boring pregnancy-wise. I mean, nothing happens. Literally.

But then there was Wednesday.

Let me backtrack a bit. About a week and a half ago I began to swell – badly. Remember how Harry inflated his aunt in the second Harry Potter book/film? Well, that was me. Not just my feet – I’m used to that in the last month of pregnancy – but my hands and arms as well. I had to remove my wedding ring on the 3rd day (with a vaseline assist) and by last week my extremities were painful and gross by 9 in the morning.

This information galvanized Dr Young Dark and Handsome who is worried that I’m in for pre-eclamsia (pregnancy hypertension). Fortunately my blood pressure is still good but he’s nervous that it will shoot up with all this edema showing up so suddenly.

So now I’m reading every label, sussing out sodium content, I’ve doubled my water intake (which has the added result of increasing my exercise since I’m jumping up to wee every 15 minutes) and I’m wearing these horrid old-lady compression hose. And I’m really grumpy.

I guess I feel resentful about the whole thing: my blood pressure has always been perfect – though admittedly with no help from me – but still. I guess a slender and athletic woman gets the same stab of unfairness when diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes.

On my visit Wednesday I had that very experience, actually. I was showing the lab tech my blood sugar levels on Darling Hubby’s machine (I don’t let them do it – they use the exact same machine and charge me $40). Right across from me a skinny young mom-to-be got her results from the tech: mine was 119, hers 210. She shot several glaring looks at my vast bulk as she angrily questioned the tech on the details of GD.

I guess lifes not fair, huh? And it could certainly be worse. I do admit to feeling better – a bit more mobile and chipper – even though I’m not able to comply with the last admonition: “Take it easy! Sit down whenever you can and elevate your feet.”

Yeah … right.

-----

And now for the White Trash Report …

(No, not her, thank goodness, this was a spotting at the Bi-Lo yesterday):

I was standing at the dairy case contemplating the cheese. It was Bitty Girl’s turn to go out with me and she was happily mauling a bag of dates (and threatening to toss them on the floor – just to keep me on my toes, you understand). Well, I was right at the end of the case and so the cart was actually out in front of the next case, which contained the beer.

I was just weighing the relative merits of Colby –vs- mild Cheddar when I realized that my cart (and my baby daughter) was surrounded by people. And not just any people but some high quality top-of-the-line white trash. There were six of them. A woman aproximately my age with the classic greasy Fem-Mullet (long and straight in the back and elabourately layered bangs teased up real big in the front). A (I’m guessing) 13-14 year old girl who called her ‘mom’. Another middle aged lady and teen girl, and the coup de grace: a teen couple. The boy, scrawny and stunted in a dirty camo tee, hair buzzed, pawing all over the girl who was in filthy capris and flip flops (It was a chilly rainy day) and had grotesque purple sucker marks all over her neck.

No one had a basket or cart, none of the women had handbags, and they all crowded excitedly around the beer case. It takes six people to buy some beer?

It was at this point that it dawned on me that ‘mom’ was buying this alcohol and that – aside from the other adult in the crowd, who seemed a bit dim – none of the others was older than 18. Tops.

I pulled my cart back out of their way and tried not to gawp rudely as they had a tense, low convo about which brand to get. Everyone participated including the daughter who said that she "wann-ed summa them wine coolers".

What the heck? What was this? The legal drinking age in SC is 21. Would a person - a mother - actually purchase alcohol for a crowd of teenagers, including her own child?? All my mind could come up with was a graduation party (no doubt greatly enhanced by that 12 pack of Milwaukee's Cheapest and 4 margatrita flavoured wine coolers). But still ... certainly not.

I mean, I'm no tight-ass and I want to celebrate my kids when I can, but I don't care if little Timmy's just been rescued from a well, I'm not gonna buy him a beer.

Bad dreams, better days?

Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves walkin' around with no one else. *

I had a strange dream last night.

Well, a really strange dream as all of my dreams are freakin' bizarre. Anyway, I went into the hospital all alone in the middle of the night for my c-section.

In my dream, I was standing in the eerie darkness of a well-scrubbed hallway listening to the quiet hum of machines and wondering where the heck everybody was. No hospital is ever empty. I mean, even if you can't see the patients, there are people: family members who are staying round the clock with loved ones, staff moving quietly between nurses stations, somebody.

It was very dark and spooky and I was in a waiting room type place with a glass elevator. Behind another frosted glass wall was an OR. Along the dark hallway was more frosted glass and I finally saw some movement - someone passed by, sillouhetted behind the glass. Figuring it was the nurses station, I hurried down the corridor until I found a doorway. I was startled to find that it opened out into an enormous warren-like room of open plan cubicles (like in an office). I finally found a nurse.

She seemed to be leaving for the day, packing up her stuff distractedly. I told her that I was here for my c-section and she said that she'd "try to find someone to do it" and disappeared in the maze of cubicles. I remember not being particualrly upset by this except for thinking: "Oh please don't let it be Dr Arrogant Bully"

Finally a very young female doctor appeared and told me that she'd do my c-section just as soon as she found an assistant. Moments later a very young male orderly showed up in disheveled green scrubs and we went into the OR.

Soon I'm sitting up on the table, fully clothed, and holding a tiny kitten (there's an obvious baby reference there) and the orderly is trying to get an IV in it's little forearm. I'm nervously asking him if he's ever inserted an IV on a kitten and the doc is bustling around finding surgical instruments in the drawers.

The dream became confused after that as I started getting more and more agitated. The young doctor was trying to make me lie down and the kitten was crying. I don't remember the rest.

I guess it's normal to have scary dreams as one gets close to delivery. I clearly have a fear that something will happen to (or be wrong with) my baby. I'm amazed at how I was much more concerned that the doctor was female than with the fact that she was going to perform major abdominal surgery on me with just an orderly's help. Obviously I'm not worried about myself too much.

Well, on that note, I'm off to my 36 week appointment (with Dr Young Dark and Handsome assuming he's not called away). I've shaved the ole cootchie and everything, just in case. Less than 3 weeks to go ...

Due to a busy week and bad week-end I've not gotten a chance to read all of my fave blogs. I'll try to catch up tomorrow. I read a few yesterday and it seems I'm not the only one who's been having a crap time. Grrl's beloved cat is ill (plus she has rats as well!) , Bugs's gran is not expected to make it, and one of my very fave bloggers, Soper, is taking a bit of time off due to family issues. Since she's closed her comments all I can do is say it here: Soper, I will really miss your words until you feel like coming back.

In better news, Karry (who apparently has some primo Whisky Tango neighbours of her own) seems to have gotten the Bus Stop Fiasco sorted, and Pazel has brought little Jack HOME!

There is some good in the world. OK ... off to my appointment.


*copyright 1963 Bob Dylan - Talkin' World War III Blues

Crappy week-end? Not as much as I'd like.

Ugh. What a bad week-end! I normally don't have anything much to bitch about during pregnancy but this week-end was a bear.

I think Bitty Boy may have engaged in my pelvis. I see your puzzled looks, lol. Yep at 36 weeks 1 day he actually should have at least flipped by now. But, you see, I've never had a baby flip before 38 weeks (Boy flipped at 40 weeks - in the middle of the night, waking me - OUCH!). I've also never had a baby engage. I've never gotten to experience the lovely 'lightening' which is supposed to ease breathing and heartburn.

Nope, when I say I have 'failure to progress', I ain't jokin'.

But Sunday I started feeling really weird. Weird and bad. I had this horrible pressure in my gut. I was also getting random, painful, Braxton Hicks. All of this combined with unexplained constipation, which made me feel as if I had 2 or 3 standard red bricks nestled pointedly in my pelvis underneath and behind the baby, made just existing excruciating.

I was having nasty lower back pain and trouble walking. I felt the urge to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes but nothing would happen. The contractions were taking my breath away - and I have a VERY high threshhold for pain.

So I hobbled around the house, feeling truely miserable for the first time in 4 pregnancies. I laid on the couch looking remarkably like Gardulla the Hutt (minus the slime), drank waaay too much diet soda, and grunted irritably. I was awful. I noticed I had a mouse in my Family Room which made me even more cross. I alternately snapped at my children or answered them vaguely. I pretty much ignored my poor, long-suffering Darling Hubby (who made his delicious hamburgers last night, bless him).

Ugh.

Good news is that I feel much better today. My constipation bricks have ... erm, moved on. I haven't had a contraction all morning although I'm still feeling lots of pressure. Bitty Boy is blithely thrashing about in there like it's a normal day and I actually got his carseat base in the van to my satisfaction (requirement #1: seat must not be able to be moved more than 1 inch in any direction by The Hulk on a bad day).

I still haven't gotten that damned mouse, though ...

On how NOT to be a farmer

It’s cool enough still to open the back door in the mornings, something I do whenever possible. I love the fresh air, the smells of flowers and damp grass, the sounds of the birds.

This morning one of my idiot dogs started barking and I stepped out the back door to have a look see.

“We have a pig,” I said mildly, wiping my hands off.
“What?” Said Darling Hubby without looking up from his magazine.
Psycho idiot dog was joined by our other outside idiot dog at this point and the barking rose to a fevered pitch.
“We have a pig out here.”
I heard the magazine hit the floor, “WHAT?!”

A few minutes later we’d walked up to the sheds and I pointed out the little pig (Darling Hubby can’t see anything without his glasses). It was a little potbellied pig and she was checking out our rather alarmed pony who is tied out in the lush grass. It only took a second to herd her into our vacant sickbay - she was very hungry - and, aside from being a bit thin and having a bloody stub where something chewed her tail off, she seems OK

Yep – if you haven’t guessed already – we have another stray. *sigh*

Our neighbourhood, though rural, is quite posh. You see, we’re within spitting distance of the lake. There’s loads of retirees, summer homes, big money. Wealthy ex-suburbanites/ city folk love the area becaue it’s ‘in the country’ but reassuringly close to civilization. The local snooty little town, Chapin, has long been considered just a wealthy suburb of Columbia. You can’t spit without hitting an SUV towing two immaculate jetskis.

All of this is well and fine – hey, good on ya for being obedient little consumers - but some of these types get Bad Ideas.

See, they get out here, they become intoxicated by the wide open spaces, the vast expanse of green, the sheer earthy one-ness with Mother Nature … and they decide to get some livestock. Oh, bloody hell.

It’s bad enough that they hit the country and immediately let their dogs run loose. “We’re in the country now!” they sigh with proprietary delight, “we can let Vladimir, our uncastrated male Kuvasz whom we paid $2000 for when we could’ve gotten a perfectly good stray from the pound, run free as nature intended!” So Vladimir and dozens like him roam the back roads killing chickens and ducks, running horses, traumatizing goats, breeding indescriminately, stirring up the neighbourhood dogs, and being killed needlessly in the road.

Wow, who knew that keeping a dog could be so easy and fun?

So they upgrade to livestock.

They start small, usually, and since they have absolutely no intentions of using these animals for their intended purposes (that would be food, BTW. But then you’d have to kill stuff – Waaah! – and I wouldn’t eat it then – Yucky! – and besides, there’s a Winn Dixie in Chapin, DUR!) they gravitate toward the novelty livestock breeds. Miniature goats, potbellied pigs, paint donkeys, etc.

There’s just one hitch, though, dang it all. Raising livestock requires WORK. With Vladimir you just feed him when he wanders home, take him to the vet when he shows up with rat shot in his arse (that would be compliments of me *waves*), and barring any nasty lawsuits which you’d win anyway because you can afford to hire a slick lawyer, it’s simple.

Not so with all the mini pigs, goats, horses, etc that you’ve collected. They require special feed and housing, a lot of vets don’t handle livestock, and they’re not a cuddly as you previously imagined. So you start to cut corners. Pigs eat dogfood, right? And everything can go into the same pen, surely. Aww, hell, so what if they get out? You’ve blithely apologized to your neighbours before, havent you? Heck, that pregnant lady down the road with all the kids has goats and stuff doesn’t she? What’s one or two more animals on her place? I think she’s a Mormon or Amish or something anyway, they know all about that stuff…

Did I say: *SIGH*?

Not soy good?

Everything in the world is bad for you, apparently. *sigh* Here's something else that has been touted as soooooo very good for us but, now, maybe, not so much.

"Because isoflavones behave like estrogen, in certain situations, they could stimulate the growth of estrogen-dependent tumors."

"Some physicians caution breast cancer patients against eating too much soy for fear it could promote tumor growth in women whose disease is sensitive to estrogen."

(Note: I'm not saying I believe or disbelieve or am pro-soy or anti-soy. Just wanted to throw it out for discussion. The words 'growth' and 'tumor' are a bad combo in my book.)

I personally think that maybe we should go back to hunting mastadons and gathering seeds and berries. Hmmm ... of course, I think that life expectancy back then was, oh, 29.

----

On another subject, I got this little snippet over on Lady Mac's blog:

Apparently www.salary.com did an estimate of what a full-time mom should be making:


Day Care Center teacher 26, 891
Van Driver 30, 762
Housekeeper 18, 750
Cook 31, 099
CEO 612, 623
Nurse 56, 113
General Maint. Worker 29, 656
-------------------------------------------------------
Base pay (40 hrs) 43, 461
Overtime (60hrs) 88, 009
-------------------------------------------------------
Mom’s salary 131, 471


Hmmm. Having been a work-ouside-the-home mom and a full-time mom I appreciate the sentiment but I'd do the math a bit differently.

I'd toss out CEO, for one. Seems a bit pretentious. I'd also base the hours on a normal day (in my case: 5:30 - 9:00 , 15 1/2 hours per day, 7 days a week) without overtime. I mean, yes, I'd get paid overtime if I worked in a company, but I don't.

If you average the hourly wages of everyone except the CEO it's a bit more than $15/hour. Considering the 5642 hours per year that I'm 'actively' mom-ing, I get almost 87k.

Did I say 'Hmmmmm'? Hell, I'd just settle for some folding money and some NAPS!

-----

Oh I realized that I'd promised to bore you with pics of Tall Girl's birthday and I never did, well you don't get off the hook! Bwahahahahahah!



The birthday girl. The cake. The messy house in the background.

The older brother. The sucky new haircut.

The baby sister. The icing moustache.

Sometimes the simplest (non-soy?) things are the best.

Money makes the world go *GAK*

My baby stood by herself today!!!

14 months old and the plump little snot decided she would stand alone today. She was standing in the dining room, holding on to a chair and then just ... let go. I was dumbfounded. And she was smiling her weird little teeth-baring grin all proud and stuff. Of course, the camera was in the other room.

I can't believe my baby is almost walking! (For those of you who's babes walked at, like, 10 months - bite me. No, no, I'm just kidding! All of my plump lumps walk late it seems.) Here's a pic of Bitty at her brother's birthday party. She somehow managed to get hold of the play money that I'd bought him ...

Is that birthday cake in her mouth you ask? Nope. Roughly $7.69 in plastic coins. Baby Trump! She's gonna be a Thriftychik like her momma.

----

So, speaking of money ... has anyone been following this?

So this lady agrees to be a surrogate for a 63 year old math professor and his 60 year old girl friend. They obtain eggs from a donor in Texas, fertilise them with the Prof's sperm, and transfer (it's transfer, not 'implant' o' ye Morons in the Media!) them into the surrogate.

She has the triplets in November whereupon the intended parents visit once ... and don't come back. The hospital begins proceedings to put the 3 boys up for foster care when the surrogate says that she'll take them home.

NOW Mr. Professor claims that it was all a misunderstanding and is suing for full custody and claiming - get this - that his $136,000 income should be the deciding factor in his getting the kids.

Hmmmm.

To complicate things, the egg donor in Texas now wants her parental rights. I am so against this. As far as I'm concerned (and I have seriously considered being an egg donor but I don't think I qualify because of age), I feel like you should comprehend that you have no control over the person your eggs (or sperm or donated blood, for that matter) goes to. If you have an iota of a problem with that, then you shouldn't donate. You can't let folks start going back in retrospect and saying: "Oh this person's not good enough for my eggs (sperm/blood/organs)". Besides, you got paid for those eggs. Pull on your big girl knickers and deal.

As for the absent minded professor, his girlfriend, and his whopping salary, I say that they should get told to sod off. Let him pay child support and get visitation. But custody? No way.

They make smart, funny, and good people like Karen, Soper, Jen, and Amyesq jump through hoops, bend over backwards, and fart on key before they can adopt. I hope to all that's good in the universe that they'd never even consider letting this man - who abandoned his three newborns in the hospital for over a week - get custody of them.

Code name: Whisky Tango

I hate my neighbour.

Now before you think to yourselves (too late) : "Geez what a misanthropic cuss is Blue", lemme explain.

I live waaaay out in the country. I can only see one of my neighbours houses. I love it.

No one comes down out dirt road except for the postman, the UPS guy, and two dozen or so freaking idiots from the local trailer park who can't read a speed limit sign on their way to the bait shop/beer stop down the road.

So I was trimming my shrubs one day last year and was startled when this person walked up the road, shoving a stroller over the gravelly surface. She had very very bad teeth, worse hair, barely understandable english, and a cigarette hanging out of her face. This was Wal Mart Weirdo material here.

She struck up a conversation despite my trying very hard to ignore her.

Turns out she was married to the son of the person who owns the land accross the road, a pastoral meadow with a pond. You can damn well guarentee that the old man's carcass won't be cold before that gorgeous pasture is sold off to developers and I get wall-to-wall $400,000 homes, SUVs, and loud teenagers opposite my 120 year old Victorian and an untimely death to my quiet road.

I thought I had discouraged her, but apparently there's nothing good on Oprah right now because the other day she walked 50 feet onto my property, past two big Beware of Dogs signs, to let her now two-year-old "see the doggies". The doggies in question - my guard dogs - were hurling themselves at the fence, the child, the woman, and barking themselves into a frenzy.

I was very proud of myself for not pointing out the obvious 1) that she was trespassing, and 2) that she's a bloody idiot. What sort of person allows her child to toddle up to a fence with angry dogs throwing themselves against the other side? Of course, I didn't really get a chance. I was trying to hang on to my dogs and talk above the snarling.

"These dogs bite!"
"Oh he jus' wanted to see the puppies"
"That's why I have signs up. That's why they're way back here."
"yew pregnant agin?!"
"Uh ... yes, and I need to get back in the house ... my other children ..."
"How many's this?"
"(None of your fucking business) Four ... and the others are in the house so I'll talk to you later" "yeah ... he loves puppies ... FOUR? Ain't you had enough? I had another one, y'know ..."
"How nice, well, see ya!"

So you can imagine my reaction yesterday when I heard my dogs start up again. I cringed. If they kept up they would wake my children (who were only half way though their naps).

Yep, there was someone out there. I could hear him/her shouting.

Shouting? What the hell? I heard Bitty Girl wake up and start crying. By the time I stepped, cursing into the hall, Tall Girl was awake as well. From my foyer/hall I could see straight through the parlour and out the front door (which was open - it was a gorgeous day) and there - sure as nature made pinheads who speed on dirt roads - was my neighbour.

She was standing in the middle of the road with a wagon containing her two small children and was YELLING my name at my house:

"Blee-ew! BLEE-EW!" (If you're not from the south, just try to imagine this one. If you are ... well then you know the one I'm trying for here.)

I just stood, gaping in the cool darkness of my foyer, hoping (belatedly) that she couldn't see me. No such luck.

"HEY!" she screams, "I dint mean t'wake you up!"

(You didn't wake me up, you genetically challenged moron, you woke up all of my children!)

Apparently the sheer spectacle of my being pregnant again prompted her to think that I'd be interested in cooing over her own latest spawn (a "bad surprise" according to her). What followed was a terse convo and an obligatory quick peek at her children (the two year old was listlessly sucking a bottle and the baby was filthy and grumpy in the sun). I have no idea if I managed to deter her, but I doubt it.

See, I don't even have to go to the Wal Mart. The weirdos come to me.

Something nasty in the woodshed

Did you know that the Wal Mart is full of weirdos? And I’m not counting myself here! I mean, I have seen some real gems. Tall girl and I had a Close Encounter of the Disturbing Kind just yesterday.

But first a bit about why she and I were out all by ourselves.

I like to take individual members of the hoard out, uh, individually so as to give us some one on one time. This works well with Boy who, in addition to being a more manageable 3 year old, was (albeit briefly) an only child. He used to go everywhere with me – to work, everything.

So took Tall Girl yesterday, as it was her turn, and she set about with great resolve to remind me that she is two. Continuously. Without ceasing.

Our errands began at the Tractor Supply where I walked around the store trailed by this very excited, piping, monologue:

“Whas dat? Whas dat, momma? Momma? Whas dat? What dat right dere, momma? Whas dat? Whas dat, momma? Right dere? Whas dat right dere, momma? Momma?"

As she picked up, fondled, handled, lifted, dragged and otherwise made physical contact with every single damned thing smaller than herself on all lower shelves.

I turned around at one point and she was struggling to lift a 20” chain saw down from the hooks it was on.

By the time we got through our next stop – the Dollar Tree – I was teetering on the brink of sanity and I’m convinced that my fellow shoppers were about to lynch me.

The Wal Mart was a good deal easier as I could plonk her in a cart. Except for a quick, harried trip to the loo (Whas dat momma? It’s toilet paper. Whas dat? It’s the toilet paper holder. Whas dat, momma, right dere? It’s my belly button - actually already knowing what a thing is has never hampered her questioning tirade) we were fine.

Then we spotted the weirdos.

There were the standard compliment of brainless twinkies in their night attire or clothing that didn’t fit them. I’ve even bitched about it to Danny over at Dad Gone Mad and will, frankly, never understand it. I mean, we saw two little girls ... well, 'little' is a misnomer ... I mean girls who were probably in the 9 to 11 year old range, just starting to look womanly, who were grossly overweight and stuffed into clothing that would shame Janet Jackson.

Where were their mothers?

Blobs of fat hanging out of skimpy tank tops and bursting zippers on miniskirts aren't attractive on adults but on pre-adolescent children? I wanted to gag.

Then I'm pretty sure we spotted an extra from The Grudge.

I was looking for Tylenol (2-pack Equate brand, thankyouverymuch) and this ... creature rounded the corner. She was bone thin, sallow skinned, and walked kind of hunched with this weird, scary smile on her pinched face. She looked like Gollum in clothing, clothing so filthy it looked greasy. Except she had hair. Lank, long, black hair that seemed to have been either combed through with Vaseline or not washed in, oh, Tall Girl's lifetime.

She was studying the cold remedies with great absorption and I actually had to snatch my cart out of her way or she would've just stumbled into it. She gave no indication that she'd seen me at all.

She's not the oddest I've spotted though.

The babies and I were awaiting Darling Hubby (he was perusing the new DVDs) and standing by the infant section one day over at the Posh Wal Mart in town. I saw this woman go by, though the baby clothes racks, and thought there was something weird about her. She looked perfectly normal: nice hair, slender, sundress type thing on, etc. But she kept stumbling into things. As I watched she ran into a rack, bounced off, owlishly studied another rackfull of clothes, then took off at an angle. She bumbled around the entire section like a slo-mo pinball , this strange, sad smile on her face, seemingly intent on buying something for a baby.

Who was she? Was she drunk? On drugs? I fretted to Darling Hubby when he arrived that maybe she actually had a baby, god, and I hoped had not left it in the car. Had she lost a baby? That made me very sad. Or had she just come back from a 3 martini lunch and was simply trying to pick up an obligatory baby shower gift for a co-worker?

I'll never know. I just hope she made it home OK.

As for Gollum Girl, I just hope I don't see her again. Or if I do, that she's had a bit of a scrub.

I seriously wonder if people go home and blog about having seen me?!