Mary Scarlet

Thank goodness for a sense of humor

Email exchange with husband:

From: Mary Scarlet
To: Mr. Scarlet
Subject: omg

two more pregnancy ambush announcements today
what the eff?
that's three in two days

-M.S.

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From: Mr. Scarlet
To: Mary Scarlet
Subject: RE: omg

I guess this a bad time to tell you that I'm pregnant.

-Mr.S

------

[no getting mad at Mr. S. for this ... i laughed out loud. seriously, by the time i had the third announcement, which was from someone whose wife is barely 2 mos. pg, I was mentally rolling my eyes so hard that I was able to analyze my brain wrinkles. and the other two were from work people that i really like and thank goodness no pangs with those. but seriously ... fertility just seems so alien, eh?]

When you have nothing to say pictures will do as well

Last year it was so dry here that nothing grew well. The yield from our pear tree was low; the few that did get near full size were poached by squirrels.

This year, everything has been lush and green. We've had more rain, but I can't help feeling that last year's drought had something to do with this explosion of life. Energy was stored up, or something. I was sitting in the yard yesterday while light wind brought down spent pear blossoms and propeller seeds from the maple next door. When I got up close to the pear tree I was amazed. It is covered in pearlets. I don't remember seeing them at this stage in development, not long after fertilization, flower stems thickening and fruit beginning to swell at the end.  It is glorious. The tree does not seem capable of it. The pear tree is one of the reasons we bought this house--I was so enchanted to find it--but we've been waiting for it to give up the ghost. Scarred and burnt-looking branches, and it just looks so spent and tired.

The lilies of the valley and phlox and peonies are also bursting out this week.

We are starting to plan our big vacation in August. We have just under two weeks and will drive west. I want to see Glacier National Park, he wants to visit the Badlands, and there's also Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore. A little too much for that amount of time without rushing so we're trying to narrow it down. Both of us grew up taking our summer vacations by car; he to California in a VW with six siblings and me repeatedly to both coasts in a van with five. Somehow neither one of us has ever been to Montana and I'm dying to go. We're not great campers but it seems blasphemous to go there and stay in motels. We are late making our plans, I know.

The biggest problem will probably be what to do with our four cats for that long. Unbelievable that anyone could resist these guys, but they won't be quite as tiny and adorable by August.

I am either going to have to move our adoption discussion to a more concrete place or stop calling this an infertility blog or something. I can't write about our cats forever. Work talk is forbidden, and I am enough out of touch with my family and several of my friends that there isn't really much I can say on those topics either. I am running out of excuses for not taking a long hard look. It is a scary thing to face.

I forgot ...

...to mention that we had our fourth wedding anniversary this week, on Thursday. Ticking that one off along with another Mother's Day didn't feel too great. But not awful either. Which surprised me (I'm talking about MD here, sorry).  I just tried not to think about it much, got through mass with mum and a very nice, low-key dinner with the family. The meat took twice as long to cook as planned so we all got (unintentionally) slightly plastered and it was a fun, giggly time.

I wanted to mark this anniversary by going a bit more in-depth about my husband's feelings towards children. Not that I think you're all dying of curiosity, but I feel it would probably help me to spend some time thinking about that very intensely, going back over our history and writing it down, so that I can stand aside from it and really see it. And think hard. And hope that it will bring clarity. Right now things are still murky and mucky on that front, and we are carefully avoiding the topic altogether.

But I'm ovulating today (fucking ovulating!??!) and I'm pretty sore and don't feel like writing much. As soon as the guy doing our bushes leaves, I'm off to the lay in bed and let small kittens walk all over me.

As much as we loved "Whisky and Scotch" (thanks to Spanglish) we couldn't convince ourselves that people wouldn't worry about our drinking, so the striped cat is still without a name. The black one looks like a bear to me, so we are naming her "Ted." Thanks for the lovely, admiring comments, everyone. I am going to enjoy these few weeks as much as possible and I know they will grow up too fast.

Arrival

Kittens have arrived, and oh my God this is the most fun ever. They seem to be in great health and I'm glad we took them both as they spend hours chasing each other, wrestling, and playing ferocious. It's cat television, 24-7. I'm sure it will get old eventually, but if I wasn't falling asleep into my computer I could stay up all night watching.

Have a look.

Try not to look at the horribly tacky stick-on "parquet" floor that needs replacing and is dirty.

(apropos of absolutely nothing ...

Does anyone who watches HGTV not think this guy is the devil incarnate? I was doing the surfing/blogging/one-eye-on-tv thing this morning when the half-hour changed and he came on. I tell you, the scramble for the remote and the hands-quaking smashing of buttons were the longest and most painful 30 seconds of my life so far. Why is he still on television? Someone must be watching and I want to know who it is.

I have been a Mac user for 17 years and was an Apple II plus user before that, but I still cannot keep the control key, the alt/option key, and the command key straight. I not only have to look every time, but I have to stop and think about what each one is for. Since I'm a very fast touch-typer, I think this is kind of weird. However, I also cannot accurately type numbers without looking.)

"Not the billing, the bill"

Guess what arrived in the mail today? You'll never guess.

A bill for the first and only OB appointment I ever had. 8 MONTHS AGO.

Since this appointment was followed a week later by a failed karotype for the miscarried embryo, I am fully expecting to get a bill for that in a few days. Bets, any bets?

I'm filing this one right up there with the superfun iVillage incident.

Jerks.

It was only a $5 bill. Underpaid the copay, no doubt. How much in administrative overhead, repeat bills and threats do you think I can sweat them for? I figure they have to blow about $20-$25 in postage, paper and toner, and staff time before I'll feel good about paying the $5. They don't know who they're dealing with. I and my barfly ovaries laugh at their puny bills.

Two it is

It's too late to avoid being weird cat people, so we've decided to go for two. Thanks to everyone for the advice, it seems to be unanimous that the kittens will be happiest if they stay together. One week from tomorrow we should be welcoming a small black and a small dark striped kitten to our home. Of course there will be pictures! Thanks to T for the awesome name suggestions -- my husband is very, very amused and in favor.

It's gorgeous here today, a little chilly at 50 degrees but full, cloudless sun and a beautiful spring day for gardening. Or sitting in the yard looking at the garden, nursing coffee until the decent hour to switch to beer. I have to finish "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" today, and there's a big stack of other books, a few New Yorkers, two days worth of newspaper, a full ipod. I also have yet to make any good (writing) progress on the book. This is the first weekend in about a month that I have no obligations and I am very happy about doing nothing much.

Infertility is the dark spot in my eye, my speck, my almost imperceivable defect. It is so hard to admit that you are untreatably infertile.  We've started looking for single family homes. We are currently occupying both floors of our two flat, which is gorgeous but gives us two kitchens, two living rooms, two dining rooms, etc. instead of nice big bedrooms. Real estate is silly expensive on the north shore. I'm in a weird limbo of wanting a house with several bedrooms but not sure that they will ever be needed or used. And of course it's one of the first questions a realtor will ask: how many of you are there? How many will be living in the house? How large is your family? Any children? Maybe I should print up some business cards to give to them before they ask:

Mr. and Mrs. Scarlet
Infertile, please don't ask
Weird Cat People

Just what is the decent hour to begin drinking?

-Mary Scarlet
Listening to Fall Out Boy and a little ashamed about that

p.s. this bitch totally honked her horn at me yesterday as I was crossing AT THE CROSSWALK on my speedy bike. Some drivers just hate bikers. Please don't be that driver. If you are driving, all you have to do is move your stupid foot from one pedal to the other and then push. Petroleum products do the rest! Bikers have to stop all the way, then downshift, then balance while they wait for your ugly ass car to pass, then use nothing other than an inadequate but fibrous breakfast to power the bike back up and across the street before you impatient assholes try to run us down again. I still drive sometimes when I read blogs too late in the morning and have to rush to work, and I am not a militant bike person (yet) but really, it's not my fault that you are paying an additional $.003 in gas now to wait the 2 seconds at the FOUR WAY STOP while I cross.  Plus you look like a jerk talking on your cell phone while you drive. Stupidhead jerk. And I did stop all the way and yell "asshole" when she did it. If I'd had anything in my hands at the time, I would have thrown it at her, even if it would have overbalanced me and made me fall down. Then I could have filed an accident report against her.

Cat people: please advise

Remember back when we were talking about getting a dog? After I finally made the decision that I could live with it, my husband spent some time researching, looking into it, talking about it, but ultimately decided that we should get another cat instead of a dog. Too much work for dogs, and we're both pretty busy just now. We've got two dysfunctional 10 year old cats, who are not littermates. We decided to get another young cat, and this past weekend, we found out that my sister-in-law's cat had five kittens, and they'll be ready to leave their mother next weekend. SOOO, what we need advice about is: should we take one or two? How much difference is there between three cats in the house and four in terms of smell, maintenance, etc.? I'm also looking for suggestions for cat names. None of that froofroo cutesy kitty stuff, though. Mustard. Junkyard. Stinky. Knuckles. That kind of name is OK.

I got my period yesterday, so I am once again focusing on my reproductive system. 26 day cycle. Headaches and crankiness seem to me much worse now, and cramps less bothersome. I'm taking these as signs that I am sliding, sliding. It bothers me that I'm even focused on this. That I even took note of the approach of my period. That I even wondered whether it could be, might be ... you know. I don't know what I would say if I had to answer that question about whether or not I had mourned the biological child we'll never have. Yes, I did. I had a miscarriage. I spent days, weeks, months crying and mourning that and all our failed cycles. But there is a teeny tiny glimmer there in the back of my head every month, still. Even though it is far more likely I'd have an ectopic or another miscarriage than anything else.

Things are very peaceful and loving between my husband and I this week, since Saturday. We are closer, since the blowup did force us to talk more about ourselves, and the way we feel about each other than we have in a long time. I am glad for that, but I still feel how long this road is before us. And that's just to even get to a point where we can really talk about adoption.

So, for now, cats. What say you?

Well, shit

Once again, a milestone (of sorts) that DEFINITELY did not leave singing birdies and gumdrops in its wake.

My husband was cranky and pissy on the way to the seminar, but this is normal, nervous behavior for him. I thought the meeting itself was great. No group activities, no forced meeting of staff or other couples, no excessive lovey-dovey stuff. Plenty of basic info, not much I didn't have a general sense of beforehand, but we now know exactly how they structure their domestic program (open) and which are their big countries for international.

But apparently my tactic to use this as a jumping off point for discussion with my husband backfired in the worst possible way. The torrent of anger and confusion he unleashed on me as we were leaving was, frankly, shocking. I was completely taken aback. I had no idea, based on our last substantive discussion (very shortly after the last IVF failed), that he was ready to throw the towel in entirely. In fact, there's no way I could have known since he very clearly said to me during that conversation that he definitely wants children. I have always known that he would have been able to choose a childfree life but I didn't know that he was still tending towards that choice over others.

It was a very long, angry, tearful conversation. He does not believe that I would choose a life with him if it came down to children or him. I am very, very confused. I did not know we were still in this place, I thought we had left it behind long ago.

We did not come to any kind of a resolution about adoption, though we did end the day on a positive and loving note. Right now, our entire relationship needs to be reexamined. That will take time. I DO need to get that help. And we probably need to seek help together unless we can find a way to break this down and talk about it more rationally.

Another stroke of genius

I had an idea yesterday and my husband thinks I'm a genius. So let me just say patent pending patent pending patent pending because he said I had to.

Don't you think there should be such a thing as "Hair School"? For normal girls so that we can learn how to care for our unruly, unsatisfying hair? I've read so much lately from people, like me, who have never quite got the knack of making the damn stuff behave on a daily basis. Any fool can to go a salon for a cut and blow dry, but what do you do the next day? There could be "Wavy, Coarse Hair School" and "Flat, Lank Hair School" and even "Triangle Head Hair School."

I would totally go to Hair School. Does anyone know of such a thing already existing?

Also, I would like to bid a fond welcome to the two searchers who were looking for "queefing during yoga" and "boob falling out accidentally." You are my heroes because clearly you have hilarious lives during which embarassing things happen.

(Adoption seminar tomorrow! I will post toute suite!)

Growth

The three hydrangeas I planted last fall have survived, and are throwing out shoots. I am so happy to see them, they are my garden friends, I say hello each time I pass.

The bulbs in the pots out front are being assaulted by the neighborhood squirrels. Yesterday 5 were uprooted with small nibbles out of them, and today another 2, one completely chewed down and another missing entirely. Fuckers. You know how I feel about the varmints.

I was very very close to an encore public humiliation yesterday. There I was, hair spritzed, camera out, scissors in hand, and I decided to do a quick web search before I cut myself some nice sideswept bangs. I would have posted the pictures even if I mangled it, but I chickened out at the last minute.  Sorry. I'll make it up to you. Future humiliations cannot be far off.

Adoption seminar this weekend. I'm nervous. My husband and I have spoken very little about it. I'll let you know how it goes. Oh shit, wait, it's only freaking Tuesday.

I had steak, frites, chocolate mousse, and delicious wine at a wonderful bistro with my faboo SIL this evening. Starting to feel a bit more human again.

Wall climbing geeks really annoy me. Sorry to all the wall climbers out there, but the crowd at my club chaps my hide, and they're impossible to avoid due to the placement of the equipment.

Oh my god is this a boring post.

-Mary
listening to Portishead, "Wandering Stars"

Oh oh oh! I forgot! Did you see that The Electric Company is now out on DVD?!!? How exciting is this?!