Ode to the Tamarind

This is awesome. Of all the people I've insulted over the years, this is certainly the most ridiculous. Some of you may recall a post of mine back in April about the time my husband dragged me to the Aldi when we were first living together.

This morning as I was enjoying my morning coffee (with caffeine, I don't care what you say about me) I looked in my email and found that some offended Spanish person had commented on this post.

"Offended Spanish Person said...
Typical white people. spicy latin foods make you instinctively go yuck!

Tamarind is a fruit. It is grown in pods, similar ot beans, and is popular in latin areas liek the carribbean and central/south america and southeast asia.

It's amazing how something can be popular in more than half the globe and white people have no idea it exists,now you know how we feel about bland, flavorless foods like wonderbread that you people seem to LOVE.

P.S. If you had been less lazy and maybe read the packaging you wouldn't have bought them. How hard is it to notice in big letters FRUTAS ENCHILADAS: aka fruits IN CHILIS!""

Yes, that's me. Just your typical Wonder Bread eating white person. My mother might have an aneurysm if she read that. Call her a progressive hippie tree hugger, but don't ever say she fed her children Wonder Bread. She would sooner die than feed us bread that was softer than a paving stone!

So I would like to respond to this poor offended Spanish person.

Dear Offended Spanish Person,
Please accept my heartfelt apologies. I in no way intended to offend the tamarind fruit or the culinary palate of "half the globe". I can certainly commiserate with your disdain for Wonder Bread. Perhaps you should also put Marshmallow Fluff and hydrogenated peanut butter on that list of bad food of the white man. Hell, I might also suggest adding - Hamburger Helper, Kraft Mac-N-Cheese and a helping of SPAM for good measure.

Indeed, it appears I was a bit lazy in not carefully inspecting the packaging. Certainly this product was in it's primary market. (I'm certain that neighborhood consumes tamarind by the truckload.) Clearly it was an error on my part to assume that I would find sugary sweet delight in the Jolly Rancher bag.

And finally, I must apologize for my lack of sarcasm and poor writing skills in the aforementioned post. Quiet honestly I could give a shit about the Tamarind or the chili lollipops. The real intention was to poke fun of my husband and his love of all things German. Clearly I missed the mark. I am shamed to admit that my humor must have been overcome by my vicious "instinctive white people hate" of Latin food.

Hallelujah! It's like uncovering childhood abuse through hypnotic therapy. Who knew I had such a fondness for squishy delightful white bread. Your comment on my post has opened up a whole new world to me. I think I'll go make myself a fluffer nutter right now.

I do hope you can forgive me and I think I speak on behalf of all white people everywhere when I tell you that we mean no harm to your "fuit, grown in pods, similar to beans". We just can't help ourselves, we're culturally stunted by consumer products and our oppressive parents.

Sincerely,
An Enlightened White Person

Classes with the Huddled Masses

With me forgetting everything these days I didn't mention the most retarded thing that happened all week. As I said previously, I'm now in planner mode. So I emailed the hospital about an updated list of birth classes. Apparently I will be a bad parent unless I sign myself and husband up for some classes.

I honestly believe these classes are for the truly stupid and inept so I asked around the office to see what the general opinion was. One co-worker said, "you won't learn anything but at least you'll get to laugh at all the stupid people around you." Fantastic - 8 hours with people who shouldn't be allowed to walk on the streets let alone birth children. Totally my idea of a fun Saturday.

Regardless, I signed up for most of the classes they offered (to the tune of several hundred dollars. Have I mentioned that I need to get into the baby business in some way, shape or form? This crap is a worse rip off than the bridal industry...). So throughout the month of November, we will be learning about our pain management choices, touring the hospital, getting a CD of soothing sounds, learning to breastfeed and I will be re-learning infant CPR. I did pass on the remedial diapering class. Even I have my limits...

So back to my original point - I got a confirmation email from this woman in the hospital who runs the programs and her closing read, "Have a nice Labor Day weekend and happy gestating!".

Happy gestating indeed....freak.

We're off to enjoy the needle strewn shore of New Jersey this weekend. Have a great Labor Day and remember, if you're gestating, be happy.

What do my Child and Buffalo Bill have in Common?

It's a lazy Friday before a holiday weekend and I'm presently enjoying my couch.  I realized last weekend that this whole baby thing is moving much more quickly than I anticipated.  It's really quite unfair.  Basically I spent the first 16-20 weeks feeling sick.  Then I finally started to feel human again and all I wanted to do was go back to my life.  So I did and after a few weeks I started to realize that I have about 8 weeks of feeling human before I start to feel like the Goodyear blimp.  I think I'm in my 23rd week and I'm still pretty small.  Although I'm not lucky, so I suspect this reprieve is short lived.  So I resigned myself to the fact that I needed to get my ass in gear and actually plan for this poor baby girl/boy.

(btw - with all the modern technology available, they still couldn't really tell me for sure if this child is a boy or a girl.  The kid wouldn't give up the goods during the anatomy scan so while it looks "girl-ish" it could be a boy pulling a Silence of the Lambs Buffalo Bill kind of thing.  Fast forward to 3:00 if you're cinematically stunted.  And no, I'm not suggesting our child will be a transvestite with body piercings.  Did anyone else realize this chick is the one on ER now?  I digress...)

Well, I'm nothing if not a planner.  So I've started hitting up my friends at a frenetic pace. Anyone that has birthed a child in the last 2 years has gotten a phone call.  As a female we all talk about things that would probably horrify most men however pregnancy brings out a special brand of gross conversation.  For instance, my college roommate and I had an entire conversation about the merits of the hooter hider and something called Soothies which are apparently little silicon things you put on your nipples.  (In case you're wondering, I have decided we were significantly cooler when we used to get drunk in the shower before parties, stay out all night and then sleep all day.)  

Then a similar conversation with my old co-worker about breast pumps and under stroller baskets .  (Again....much cooler when we got drunk and went swimming half naked in a hotel pool.)

Last weekend and a few late nights this week produced a registry.  (PS - My wedding registry was about 1 million times more fun than this.  Selecting cookware is far cooler than organic onesies.) The resident expert, aka my mother, has decided that everything I've selected is far too expensive.  Apparently many people have experienced a similar phenomena.  

One of my co-workers tells me that his mother also came out of her time warp from the 70's to tell him that he and his wife were spending too much money and tried to sell them on the merits of an old umbrella stroller.  I sincerely believe my mother thinks I should be able to raise this child with an old playpen, a few onesies and a wooden spoon to beat them with when they get out of line.   She talks a good game but I see where this is going.  You see, it won't matter how much things cost when she's the one buying them for her grandchild.  I suspect this is only the start of a double standard that applies to grandparents the world over.

 

Today my big plan is to find a crib that will probably cost too much and visit a daycare that likely doesn't have space for our little Buffalo Bill... wish me luck.

Baby Stores Stink

Yesterday, for lack of anything better to do, we made the trip to Babies R Us.  At the end of the day I will end up deciding on all this crap and registering without ever setting foot in a store.  However, husband likes to have a say in all this stuff so I figured I could take him to the store, have him push a few strollers around and then we would go home.  In classic fashion he got there and ran away.  I found him standing in the baby monitor aisle.  He was looking glassy eyed at something called Baby TV. I reminded him that we have 1,100 square feet.

He didn't like any of the strollers. Mainly because none of them were European with a hefty price tag.  We moved to the pack and play aisle.  He looked around a little bit and then declared these were ugly and that everything was the color of poop.  I really couldn't argue since everything was in varying shades of brown.

On to cribs.  Husband disappeared again.  I peed for the 4,265th time that day.  I wander around the store to find him in the diaper bag aisle.  The wailing of children is increasing around us.  He says, "Can we please leave?". I say, "Yes, I hate it here."

We drove to Ikea.  Believe it or not, all the Ikea cribs got an A rating in our little book.  I trust those Swedes won't kill our child.  Problem solved.

My Boobs are up Here...

As a female we spend our lives having men stare at our boobs. It's expected that this will happen at least several times a day. Yes, even when you're like me and covered up like a nun.  Lately, despite the fact that my boobs are now huge, people do not stare at them.  All eyes go straight to my mid section.  

I feel weird about people staring at my belly button. 

Please put your eyes back where they belong!

A post about nothing...

I'm aware, I suck.  However, the blame for my lackluster blogging can be squarely laid on my unborn child.  Apparently pregnancy shrinks your brain by 6-8% depending on which website you read.  See!  It's not just me forgetting things, it's a medical condition.

PS: I want to smack the people who told me this was fun.  It's not fun. It sucks.  Not only am I fat now, but apparently becoming more stupid as the days go by.

My lack of creativity means all I can manage is a pile of random crap.  Sorry, that's just how it goes.

I like to watch TV while I eat breakfast.  Before I was "in the family way", I would alternate between news programs.  I have now discovered that reruns of Saved by the Bell are on.  I prefer to watch this.  I think it's an appropriate amount of entertainment for my smaller brain. (You can't really expect me to consume and retain all the fancy informations on BBC World News?)

Speaking of Saved by the Bell...Mark-Paul Gosselaar. New series this fall.  Seriously, I can't be expected to not watch courtroom dramas.  In fact, there are quite a few garbage series this fall that yours truly will be adding to the DVR.  Hello? Christian Slater playing a psychotic - love it. It's sort of like a schizophrenic Dexter.  And a shameful admission - Debra Messing in the Starter Wife series.  Yes, I watched the mini series - shut up.

To take a step lower (and you thought it wasn't possible), I actually went out to YouTube to listen to Miley Cyrus music.  How on earth did I end up at that point you ask?  It all started innocently enough.  I was reading a blog by this psychiatrist who was all worked up over Katy Perry and I thought to myself - "who the hell is Katy Perry?".  (I also thought "Oh dear god, I'm getting old. Why don't I know about this person??")  I read, I listened and I purchased on iTunes. What can I say, it's a catchy little tune.  I still can't understand why everyone is worked up over this chick - didn't Jill Sobule sing about being bi-curious in the 90's?  

Then I started following links to other crap and I ended up wondering what Miley Cyrus actually sounded like. I've heard her speak and she sounds like she lives under a rock somewhere in the deep south. I had high hopes for her music.  (As I mentioned, I am capable of deep thought these days) As it turns out, she kinds of sounds like a man and not in a good way.  If you dare - it may make your ears bleed.

Then I noticed that that the crappy trio known as the Jonas Brothers are the #1 song on iTunes.  Who is out there buying this crap? 12 year olds?  Do they have credit cards? 

I have to go clean my house now.  Thankfully my boss gave me a half day the other day so I'm halfway there.  It's curious, my best hours are between 9-5 these days.  That doesn't bode well for my domestic duties.  So the house is a bon-a-fide disaster and I can't seem to give a crap.  Lucky for me the other half wouldn't notice if he was standing in 3 feet of garbage anyway.