I find myself perpetually angry lately. Maybe it's all the extra mom hormones getting me ready to be a mamabear, maybe it's just society in general pissing me off as per usual.
We went to the Micanopy fall festival on Halloween. It was great fun! We walked around, said "wow this stuff is hokey", ate gyros, and bought some kettle corn. It was hilarious to see the dead little town filled with so many people. On that particular day Josh and I were just another set of heads down the bustling street, where every other day for many months before we had been the only souls in sight- apart from a few wandering elderlys drifing in and out of the equally elderly antique stores.
One thing made me endlessly upset that day that continues to make me upset. Pregnancy is a vulnerable time, leading up to a lifetime of expected infallible strength. If there was ever a time to help a woman out it would be during her pregnancy or shortly after. Apparently everyone at the Micanopy church is so decrepit they can't remember their childbearing years and thus they denied a pregnant woman use of their restroom. I'm sure Jesus up in heaven winced and put his palm to his face when those old folks on the front porch told me "there are plenty of porto-potties up the street and we only let church members use our bathroom, it's an old thing." That doesn't even make any sense. Also I guess you didn't know that pregnant women have a stronger sense of smell than normal people and you have basically told me to go piss myself and banished me to an hour long vomit-fiesta by denying me use of your facilities. That's very kind and christian-like of you to turn away someone in need. Oh wait it's not.
Now when you're all sitting up in the church on Sunday morning spouting hallelujahs and amens, the whole world, the good Lord, the Blessed Virgin, the Holy Son, Buddha, Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Rama, Kali, Muhammed, Abraham, Moses, Joseph Smith, Yahweh, The Great Mother and the Horned God, Tom Cruise, and the Pastafarian deity the Flying Spaghetti Monster (in his name we pray) all know that you ARE WASTING YOUR TIME AND LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH.
Ugh. You guys are so rude.
Anyway now that I got some of that anger off my chest I suppose I can give you a real update.
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I don't remember where I left you all hanging when it comes to the goings-on of our general life. But we have moved out of Bruce's house and into our own apartment. I am finally the stay at home woman of the house and I think I do a pretty good job of making a mess and generally hanging out all day until the last 30 minutes before I have to go pick up Joshua when I clean really really well then go "ohhh myyy god I was tidying all dayyyy" :(
My belly hurts a lot from being giant. Most everyone I meet says "wow you look so tiny to be that far into pregnancy" what they don't understand is that I am a petite and typically semi-athletic person so comparatively, on my frame, yes this is HUGE. If I'm only in my underwear and turn sideways I can see where the curve of my incubation chamber ends and my normal body shape begins. Under this layer of baby, I'm mostly the same.
I still get around quite well and have small trouble getting up and down and bending over. I'm also still quite active (when I want to be) occasionally walking to the park, doing quick squats and workouts on my yoga ball, and cleaning and tidying up like crazy. The biggest drawback is that I am often tired in the middle of the day and wide awake late at night after only an hour of sleep. Luckily for me as little as a 30 minute nap quickly remedies this.
I'm gonna take a nap right now actually. ~12:55 PM
Ok now I'll finish typing ~3:27
Guess it was more than 30 minutes....
It's really nice to have our own place again, we're really finally mostly set up. We still need a couple of large or semi pricey items to have things just right but it's functional thanks to my parents who bought us a nice futon which is surprisingly super comfy as a couch and a bed. My parents justified this gift as claiming they were tired of sitting on the floor when they came over, ha ha. I have one piece of furniture still in Micanopy, my beautiful display clock, one of my most favorite things, but we will need to borrow a truck to get it over here and things are functional without it. However I sure do miss seeing my favorite trinkets.
If you've ever been to any of my apartments you know that they usually resemble something between a zoo and a museum. Things hang on the wall and line the shelves and tables that have no real relation to anything else int he room save that they represent a time or place. A couple of antiques or old mugs and glasses given as gifts or saved from childhood, numerous paintings done by me or family, arrowheads, wooden boxes, strings of fake flowers, photos, wine bottles, clay figurines, vending machine toys, and several mementos from our time living on the road; all things that remind me of a certain moment in time. Small moments which would have vanished entirely if not for the solid reminders that house them, all coming out of boxes once again to be places lovingly in view.
While the museum aspect beckons us (I'm sure it only creates a sense of "wtf is all this shit" to strangers and visitors) into the past, the zoo parts urge you to be mindful of the present as all over this house small lifeforms are living their small lives day to day. Water burbles from 4 tanks housing fish or amphibians, crickets chirp from their box unknowing their only purpose here is a nutritional one, cats creep along the furniture, small eyes watch your movements, and tiny lungs pump or filter air.
Have you ever been in an empty house? A house with no other humans and no pets? It feels awful to be the only living thing in an enclosed area, like a literal dead zone, no chirping, no burbling, and no other lifeforms around to justify any sudden thump or creak. To me, it's really scary and I'm likely to rather stand outside than be there alone. At my house, there is always something watching, something living, something moving and breathing, something crawling, creeping, or swimming, something to talk to, and something to make you laugh. Most importantly, at my house you are never alone. Even if you were to wake up at an ungodly hour and creep down the stairs for a drink of water, when you turn on the living room light you'll find some small soul awake and sharing the lonely hour.
Our newest addition is a siren that we have names Simon. I'm really unsure if it's a greater or lesser siren because he didn't come with any identification or care guides. Actually, like many of my pets Simon came by chance.
I've always firmly believed that if you are bored you should go outside as often as possible because it's the only way to increase your odds of something interesting happening. Your house is for the most part (not counting freak accidents) a neutral ground where nothing will happen unless you let it happen, nothing comes in unless you open the door, and nothing changes unless by aging or your hand. By going outside you put yourself in an uncontrolled environment and anything could happen.
By increasing our probability of something unexpected happening, we found Simon.
What we needed was a large piece of driftwood for the fast-paced aquarium upstairs. Something to provide a hiding place for the couple of speedy, nocturnal pictus catfish. Yes you can buy pre-treated sinkable driftwood at aquarium stores but usually it's very expensive like around $60. For a soggy old branch? No thanks. Instead we find our own driftwood and treat it at home by boiling it for several hours to kill any harmful microorganisms and leech out any remaining tannins that may turn your water into a shade of dark tea. It costs nothing but a little bit of time. We found and treated the driftwood in our gourami tank so we set out to Newnan's lake to find another. After a quick walk around the lake shore we were able to find 2 nice pieces of wood. One more of a long branch we plan to mount bromeliads on and the other a wet, partially decomposed bit of log. Joshua being the clever guy he is brought a trash bag to put wet wood in so we wouldn't have to just let it soak into the trunk. We bagged up our prize and headed out to run some errands. When we returned home we opened the trunk and found something black and slimy resembling an eel squiggling around in my trunk. At first it appeared like it could've been a snake, but it was slimy and my careful noting of animals at pet stores helped me identify it as some type of siren. Gills, no back legs, eel like tail. Somehow this little thing was up inside the wood (which really didn't seem to have any holes in it) and managed to make it's way out of the wood and out of the trash bag into clear view. Since we had been driving around for awhile and sirens, though capable of being out of water for quite awhile, are fully aquatic amphibians we put him into a little bucket of treated water.
Here's where having lots of tiny pets came into play. We already have everything to safely house him temporarily. Water treatment for amphibians, amphibian food, reverse osmosis water, a small tank, large river stones, and a chunk broken off the wood we found him in. We set him in a little betta tank and watch him curiously, soon discovering he is missing a front leg. You know how it goes when you find a hurt animal, you can't just release it now. Well we could because sirens, like other critters in the newt and salamander family, can regrow missing limbs buuuut being that I have seen sirens in reptiles stores and read up a little about them, finding them to be hardy and interesting pets we decide we will just keep him. Besides we already have aquarium sand and a 10 gallon tank! So we make a few small purchases, a filter, a light, and some $1.00 anacharis and he is swimming about comfortably and eating salmon pellets. We also learn that he would enjoy a cricket every now and then and we have plenty of those. So now Simon is here.
Dixie will have a lot of interesting friends once she gets here and I hope being exposed to so many small pets gives her a great curiosity for the world and a deep love and sense of compassion for all lives.
Except ants and mosquitoes and cockroaches, fuck them, they can die.
