Laundry or blogging?

You win people. I have been a crappy lazy blogger lately, but there is laundry to be done before I leave for NYC tomorrow morning. So clearly, I need to update my blog. Right. Now. (Dora, if you do meet up with me and I look homeless it's because I never moved my clothes into the dryer and I had to patch together fuchsia leggings and neon green cardigans from my goodwill bag. Please don't run away.)(Actually, on second thought I think I want to keep those fuchsia leggings.)

Last weekend was really great. One of those weekends that just makes you feel *content*. A and I went to Pittsburgh to visit my friend E who moved back there last year. (She's the one whose asshole boyfriend dumped her when she was diagnosed with cancer.) I was kind of dreading going because I had somehow decided that it was an eight hour drive. When I realized it was only six and a half, suddenly that seemed totally reasonable!

We left Friday morning and somehow despite my getting us completely lost, made it in time for dinner. E's dad is classic Pittsburgh. He took us all to dinner at the original Primanti Bros. They bring your sandwich out on wax paper and the fries are on the sandwich. Hard to get your mouth around, but once you do...oh lordy. De-freaking-licious.

After we ate we went to a STLCardinals game. Right, they were playing the Pirates, but we were there for the Cards, as it is the family religion. (My mother is a heathen though - Cubs fan.) E's parents have great season tickets in the first row right above the third base line.
I got to see the Pirate Parrot:
The Pierogi(is that the plural too?), as they lined up to race around the field :
And most importantly, my boyfriend Yadier Molina:

The weather was fantastic, there was a breeze, I got to drink Yuengling. The Cardinals won, though considering the Pirates, that's not saying much. Sorry Pirates fans. But it's like how I have to admit that the Pacers make me cry. Or would if I really cared about basketball.

After the game there was a concert by O.A.R.
I didn't know them, but E was kind of a fan and they had a great fireworks show too. The lead singer lost his voice and the band really stepped up to try and put on a great show anyways. (As far as I am concerned, but then I have never been to an actual concert concert. Unless you count the symphony playing Led Zepplin.) Afterwards the band came over to where we were and met fans. They were all extremely gracious, to the point I am thinking I may buy one of their CDs just because of how the sax player stepped it up and because they all signed E's shirt for her.

We got back to E's parents house (she lives with her parents right now) at 1am and enjoyed chocolate milk (I brought Oberweis as requested. Mmm.) and beef bbq sandwiches.

The next morning A and I slept in then had coffee with the family's St. Bernard (so freaking sweet) while everyone else went to E's twin nieces' baptism. After church everyone came back to the house - by everyone I mean E's brothers, their kids, their knocked up girlfriends, their friends, and their friend's knocked up girlfriends. E's dad gave me the "watch out, babies are catching" nudge. Doh.
We had a huge brunch then A and I drove back to Indy in a sugar coma. I do not know how he drove because I was loopy with bacon and cherry pancakes and baptism cake. Maybe it was because he doesn't eat bacon.

We got home and although far too much of the weekend was spent in the car, it was just a really fantastic weekend.

This week was work, which is always fun. The scary house on stilts next door? Is now resting on our gutter. See? My office is on the left, certain death is on the right and all that is protecting me is an aluminum gutter.
I really should go work on my laundry...

But I still have more to ramble on about!

Really!

Um.

I am leaving for New York in the morning and I am really excited for my yearly trip. I usually go alone to visit my best friend. (Except for the year that A surprised me - I didn't get it until I was physically kicked out of the car at the airport by a friend who I thought was taking me to breakfast. I thought he had *accidentally* turned into the airport. I'm not the brightest.)

I'd tell you all about my exciting plans but I don't have any, just a vague idea I might meet up with a couple people and that I need to go the drama store. Gotta buy me some more drama. I'm starting coaching speech next week and I need to find some interp material. I somehow was really surprised today when my boss called to talk about next week because omyfuckingcheescake WHERE did August GO? I'm still living in July.

Laundry. Right.

I don't know why it takes me so long and such a desire to avoid laundry, but I am feeling sort of reluctant to talk about IF. For a supposed infertility blogger, I am pretty good at avoiding anything more detailed than pithy comments about how everyone has a child and I have nothing and woe is me.

A and I had a discussion on our long car drive to Pittsburgh and back. We've not really discussed the whole IVF thing for a while. With him being jobless for a year, it wasn't something that was anywhere within reach so what was the point? Our savings dwindled and he was depressed and I was bitchy. But now that he has a job and is practicing law and our credit cards are paid off, I am feeling itchy again. Not that I don't spend money, but every time A went to play golf or ate lunch out (I bring my lunch every day) I felt myself getting a little more resentful that he wasn't putting every damn dime towards saving. Not that we had talked about it in more than general terms that next spring looked good. I just thought he should KNOW. I mean, I feel crappy enough about this that I have a damn infertility blog!

Something incredible actually happened that made me finally restart the conversation seriously. The incredible Calliope got an email from L who had some, er, "stuff" to donate to somebody who was going to do IVF. And she connected us and A and I now will have a little less to save up. It makes me want to weep with gratitude. (And if you have any mind powers, L's first ultrasound is on the 18th, so send her good wishes.)

So after we talked about where we are, where we need to be, and how we are going to get there, it looks like the beginning of 2010 (barring any crap, which would make me tear my hair out and claw my eyes) is what we are shooting for in terms of IVF. It's going to suck and we are really going to have to be frugal (after this weekend - I reserve the right to spend a couple hundred bucks in NYC), but I plan on having some real shit to bitch about soon. I want to comment on the irony of taking birth control pills and I want shitty lupron side effects and I want to post the obligatory "holy shit, look at all these drugs and syringes" picture.
I'm starting to think I may be slightly masochistic.

Better punish myself by finishing the laundry.

Still alive, kicking

I'm going to try and type quickly before my computer dies. I broke off the power dealio and A swears that I broke the second power cord over a year ago. Ergh. Not good. But I'm hopeful that the massive tangle of cords that A wouldn't let me throw away has an extra power cord hiding in there somewhere.
----

After promising to tell you all about my super exciting time at BlogHer, I was struck down by an evildoer who smeared flu germs all over my bag. At least, Lollipop Goldstein says that's what she did. And I believe her, because I was deathly ill all week. A few days of seventeen hours of sleep and not eating and I am six pounds lighter and still not feeling totally rested.
But before my week that got sucked into the blackhole of sickness, I had an awesome weekend. My old college roommate moved to town a few weeks ago to start law school. (And oh my goodness, tonight she posted on facebook a picture from junior year of us with our other roommate and how young were we!

-------------------
DOH. My computer died last night before I got very far. Glad I have a work laptop I can use for a few days until the magic that is ebay sends me a new cord.

I'm not sure where I was going with my old roomie, other than to say that it's exciting to have her in town. A friend of ours who lived across the hall from us freshman year (we were randomly assigned and then had an apartment junior year) came into town because she associate produced a film that showed in the Indy Film Fest, so we all got together and talked about being adults.

The day after we discussed how mature we were I drove up to Chicago where I could be completely immature and act like a teenager seeing sparkly vampires or something. By which I mean I got to meet Emily, Becky, and Melissa, the Stirrup Queen herself!
All three of them are exactly like what you would think meeting them online and it was so exciting to get to meet them in real life. Meeting Emily was like meeting an old friend. Becky was caustic and funny. And Mel is just like her writing - smart and thoughtful and humble. She let me follow her around like a lost puppy and hero worship her, which was very kind. I'm watching for the restraining order in the mail any day now.
Becky had spent the first day at Bl0gHer and was (rightly so) named the funniest damn blogger ever (or something like that) and received this beautiful massive ruby.
She had been invited to some swanky party with a guest list but while she dropped in, Emily and I got to stand out of the rain in the real VIP section. Let me tell you, not just anybody could get past that caution tape. You had to be somebody pretty special to climb over it.

Becky decided not to stay for the second day of the conference and
---
Ahem. If you are from the corporate arm of Bl0gHer the rest of this is made up since I don't know if it's kosher
---
so I got to take her pass and be her fan club president and pass out her cards the next day! Not only this, but in clearing out her hotel room, she was going to leave behind this guy:

That's right. A Robert Osborne bobblehead. Who's Robert Osborne, you ask? Why, he's the host of Turner Classic Movies. Of course. That's my finger on his shoulder, because we are the best of friends. And I know I look slightly insane, but I was just so happy to be there. Plus, I may be slightly insane.
Who else is good friends with him? Why, Mel is!
That's right, he came to dinner with us. (Though this first picture was actually taken in the bar we went into before realizing that there was nothing we wanted to eat. The waitress was very nice when we decided to leave after drinking our waters.)
Rob hung out with us all night.
---
Saturday I met up with Mel again and went to a few of the sessions. A lot of it was over my head or not relevant to me (I don't really care about growing my readership - in fact, who the hell are you people? Mom, are you reading this?! Ack!), but it was interesting to see all these women who feel as passionately about their community as we do about ours. And amusing to see the look of horror when I told the woman next to me that I.have.no.twitter. Gasp.
Of course, it was also sad to sit in a discussion about community and hear somebody say that she was miffed somebody had told her the way to get readers was to comment on other people's blogs. Why should she do that, she wondered.
And I got to go downstairs to get all the silly swag that booth people were handing out. No more Robert Osbornes, but I giddily grabbed everything else I found as though I needed baby food and brown lip gloss.
---
Then I went home and was sick for almost a week. I will spare you details.
---
This Sunday I had my birthday. We were originally going to have a bbq with friends, but having been sick all week I didn't feel up to it so I just stayed in my pjs all day.

Hmm...what else, what else...

It rained it's ass off today and as I sat in my office with the electricity flickering I was slightly worried about this:
This would be the view from my office porch of the house about five feet away from my office. Perhaps you can't tell what's under that plastic sheeting...

Nothing. Nothing at all. They are renovating the house, which was built in the 1800s, and the foundation work includes lifting the house into the air on two steel beams that are resting on pieces of wood. That are resting in the dirt. That is now mud.

So yeah, no collapse, but I was staying on the far side of my office all day just in case...

----
There is a church down the street from me and the new congregation/pastor/whoever fixed it up, which is good, but every time I pass it there are these happy smiley people outside. It's so happy it's starting to creep me out.
----
I'm going to NYC in a week and a half. Anyone out there want to hang out? I'll cry and hug you and post pictures of you with Robert Osborne.
----

Okay, that's all the random totally late updating I have in me for today. There may be developments in me robbing a bank or something coming up though, so stay tuned.