This weekend we went to LB’s best friend’s second birthday party. It was wonderful. Friends, family, and LB and JB growing up together. *tear* Ahem. It was lovely, this is, until the husband’s dad’s girlfriend, from not-here, asked when I was due. “er.. Due?” I stammered. “What are you having?” she asks. “Having? For dinner?” “A girl or a boy?” “Oh, no, not right now. We’re.. uh.. not yet…” I try my best to hide both emerassment and wanting to run upstairs immediately to tell Traci what just happened. My mind raced with “What the hell? Does she read my blog? No, no way. .. then what.. the.. hell…”

I excused myself and went to the restroom. I walked in and at first glace in the mirror I regretted wearing the new empire waist GAP shirt I found for 5 bucks at the outlet. I also regretted not making a hair appointment last week. Then I noticed something. My boobs. Holy lord, those boobs were not my small 34 ‘B’s, they were “I’m ovulating and my LH surge hit yesterday!” boobs. I mean, I looked tired, bloated, fat and busting with cleavage. I’d probably have asked myself when I was due, too.

So I go find Traci upstairs in JB’s new room showing off the colors and lovely decor for the big girl bed. I blurt out (in front of her lifetime friend, Di) “So, that bitch asked when I’m due? WTF! Don’t tell me I already look pregnant. If I’m LUCKY the sperm is just now hittin’ eggland. Serously? This is hangover baby belly. Gawd. The nerve!” Traci turns to me and says, “uh, Leslie? The monitor is on.” She’s right. Now, not only does husband’s dad’s girlfriend (from not-here) think I’m prego, her entire family thinks I’m a snotty hag-fish, which I am, and now everyone, including old Rush Limbaugh Grandpa knows we’re having sex like rabbits.

Lovely.

Tell me this would happen to you. Please? And while you’re at it, telling me stories of your own stupidity and frank bitchiness, tell me I look pregnant. Because after seeing this picture, I’ve decided to take it as a premonition, not as an insult.

Oh, and make me a hair appointment STAT. Before the “What not to do your hair like” comes to find me. Thanks.
Smooch.

I’m a huge fan of women kicking ass. I think that’s why I love being in computer science. I’m all about women as a minority and rising above the stereotypes. I’m all about listening to some rockin’ song while I work out and pretending I’m GI Jane doing my one arm push-ups like any other man. I like being “the tough one” when I fall off my mountain bike (as I’m wont to do) and take a bump like it ain’t nothin’.

I’m also very very much faking it most of the time.

My Mom, Grandma and I were in Scotland on 9/11. You’d think I knew someone in New York with the way I carried about. I was terrified. I was horrified. I fell to pieces like a little girl losing her balloon. I seriously flipped out. I think this is the single most tragic event I’ve lived through and it really hit me hard. Even if I wasn’t in the country at the time, or ever been to New York, or even knew anyone there. I flipped.

My Grandma, on the other hand, lived through Pearl Harbor, WWII, the depression, and a ton of other such political angst. My Grandma stayed married to a man she hooked up with because “he was nice enough” and “eventually you just hung in there because he was your husband. It wasn’t like it is nowadays.” The woman was a rock. She raised four children, worked, took care of a grumpy husband and did her makeup until she passed away at 79. I gave up makeup at 15. Already I’m 64 years behind.

I have friends who triumph over all kinds of bad things, both big and small. They juggle their career, they go back to work, they fight MS and degenerative diseases. They deal with loss, with being an only parent, with moving to nowhere to support their husband, and raising kids when the husband is deployed or support their kids even if they make horrible mistakes. In my life, I’ve been more than fortunate. I’ve been blessed. I’m fully aware of this. You know how some people say, “God will give you only as much as you can bear?” Then God must know I’m a huge pussy. 

Is there a woman in your life you’d like to give a holla to? Someone who is a beacon in times of turmoil? Or triumphed in some way? We have mother’s day for the moms, we have father’s day for dads, where’s heroine day for people who beat the odds? Who wake up every morning and go to a shitty job because their child depends on them? Who fight to do the right thing?

Today I’m declaring heroine day. (Not the drug, silly.) Here’s to all those women kicking ass and not needing a video game to do it.

Lemme get this straight. One egg. Per month. 24 hour window. Per month. If you have a long cycle (like yours truly) then we’re talking one chance per 50 days, roughly. And the time you THINK you’re ovulating, which you have no clue, the mister works until 1am every day. Bone tired. NO nookie. I’ve gone so far as to explain that all I need is man juice, no Big O. Don’t worry about me, I’ve said. Just YOU have fun. He, and I quote, said, “HHmmppphhhhhh” and proceeded to talk about bridges and steel plates and some other nobby thing I couldn’t exactly grasp.

It’s time to pull out all the stops.

Currently making a list of things I need to make the sex muffins (recipe below). I also went and purchased, for the first time ever, the KY warming jelly per my great comments in the post about how I never have sex, especially after fake tanner. I actually sought out a girl checker and buried the jelly under about ten cliff bars. I turned red as she scanned it, placed it oh so discretely in a plastic bag, a white, mostly CLEAR plastic bag, and handed it to the 14 year old bag boy to place in the cart. Hi, I wanted to say, I have a toddler. And no natural lubrication. Nice to meet you.

Remember that time R*belle and I made up that sex challenge? And remember how Mr. Flinger and I failed miserably at it? Having sex every day for a week? Really? Well, I’m pretty sure this baby ain’t happening any time soon. Unless by an act of God. Which is what it’ll take.  You want to know the real irony? Mr. Flinger was begging me in High School to put out. I was all, “no no, must wait until we’re married.”

Damn. Karma really is a bitch. Now I’m the one begging and he’s saying, “Don’t we have to pay bills and stuff? And not when the kid is still awake.” Isn’t that what Elmo is for? Sheesus.

Mr. Flinger knew I hated cooking when he married me. He was OK with this. Maybe I was alluring him with my pre-marital sex. Maybe it was my witty ways and good looks. (snort) Maybe it was my ability to separate darks from whites when doing the laundry. Whatever. He knew I ate bagels, cream cheese and an apple every day for lunch for three years. He married me anyway.

Now I’m all “grown up” and feeding your guests rice with a garden burger patty on it (with a side of salsa) just isn’t acceptable. Apparently, as a mom and a wife you’re supposed to cook? Did anyone else get the manual on this? Here’s a hint: My toaster is broken. My oven over heats and the stove top is tilted. I would rather not eat than cook. I’ll sit, as I am right now, starving and pretty much fading into nothingness (don’t judge my size 10-ish ass. I’m fading, damnit!) and be a grump because I refuse to actually fix food. I’ve had a luna bar, grapes, two coffees, and an english muffin (not toasted per damn toaster).  You might think this is my quest to “Get Skinny! 2006!” when reality is I’ve long since given up on the area formerly known as my abs and now known as “stretch mark village” in the country Flab. This is no diet. It’s laziness.

If only being food-lazy actually did make one skinny. I’d be trim! Instead, it makes me feed my child all these wonderful things, from a can, like cold green beans, olives, and peas and watch her thinking, “We really should heat those up for you.” And she has no idea that she’ll be cooking for herself in ten years because her mom doesn’t know where the kitchen is, but she can point to the hidden chocolate any day of the week.

I’m begging you, Internet, on behalf of my child and my husband, what great cooking sites do you go to? I need Light, Quick, and “Special Needs in the Kitchen” cooking. The Domestic Diva is always a lovely resource, but if you have a fave, please fill me in.

My child (and all subsequent children) and husband thank you. (I, on the other hand, am holding out judgement to see what kind of half baked sites you send. But I’d like to think I thank you. Indeed, if there are no special meats that I have to travel to Australia for, or spices I’ve never heard of, which most are, I’ll be happy to send you great cooking karma back.)

And, P.S. A big ol’ Shout Out to Amalah on Club Mom for the fantastic writeup about ye ol’ blog. Really? I almost wet myself. (Oh, wait, my comment said I peed a little. Fine, it’s a technicailty.) At any rate, the other flingers I live with were just as overjoyed as I was. In their own way, mind you. After I told LB, “Yo mamma done won a John Cougar Mellencamp Hurt So Good Blog Award of Excellence!” she spit out her peas and threw her yogurt on the floor. “Clean it up, beyotch.” (I swear she muttered this under her breath.) Mr. Flinger, on the other hand, passively said, “uh. is this a blog thing? And what does it have to do with tuna melts for dinner?”

Well, my fifteen minutes was just wonderful to me. So thank you, Colleen and Amy. And thanks to all the new reads I get to check out. YIPEE! More blogging. Less cooking. Amen.

We’re not just sex and farts here on Mrs. Flinger. We’re also about depth, and faith, and trying to get The Big Picture while cleaning cheerios off the kitchen floor spilt seconds before having to run to work. We have it all. So excuse the drastic topic change, but we’ve been talking about a few things…

Mr. Flinger and I have been contemplating harmony. It seems a topic we landed on a few days back and can’t seem to put our finger on exactly what we want to say to each other. We both understand one another without having to speak actual words, but being the verbal person I am, I struggle without the vocabulary to express my feelings. So I turn to my blog to hash it out in public among friends, new and old, IRL and IBL (in bloglnad) to see if y’all have The Big Answers. You know, if you have harmony.

Some time back I used to be, I don’t want to say “Religious” because that sounds pios. I don’t want to say “Spiritual” because that sounds too new age.  I don’t want to say “Brainwashed” because that’s too condescending. So I used to be… someone who sat at coffee shops, read her bible, wrote in her journal and thought long and hard about the Big Topics and Self Proclamation and Fulfillment. As I grew older, I found Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden Pond” to be more of an inspiration than my bible. I found myself relating to quotes such as, “I carry less religion to the table, ask no blessing; not because I am wiser than I was, but, I am obliged to confess, because, however much it is to be regretted, with years I have grown more coarse and indifferent.”  I marked passage after passage about living simply and finding joy in the small things keeping “my affairs to a minimum”.

Years later, I find myself a mom, a wife of five years, a teacher of the virtual kind. There are very few tangents in my life. I have love, I have happiness, I have joy, a job, an outlet. I no longer write on paper, my work is online, my friends are online. I think about my visions as a young 22 year old graduating with her bachelors and the goals and dreams I had are far from where I am today. I’m ok with that, mostly. The one piece I’m sad to have let go so far is my contemplating of The Big Picture. I’ve let go of a hope in Something Bigger than myself and I’ve struggled to regain control in a world I can not control.

Mr. Flinger comes from a drastically different, and very scientific, background. This is what I love about him. Logic rules our house. I am a logically person, really. Aside from the “I’m pregnant” once a month regardless of the fact that we did NOTHING to produce said child that month. Pretty much at that point, I’d be the virgin marry. Sordda. But I’m back to sex and I told you this wasn’t about sex for once. So, back to logic,  I’ve always had a math brain and Mr Flinger, being a civil engineer, pretty much let’s his brain rule all. Poor LB is destined for major nerdome. But we’re happy to pass along this gene hoping to inspire some major wise girl who can help us in our old age when our retirement piddles away at 60.

Logic and fath are not always synonymous, however. Faith in something or Someone bigger than yourself defies logic. It isn’t logic to have fath in something you don’t see. Logic says we don’t fall off the planet because some old guy called it gravity. Does it take faith to believe in gravity? Or do you see the effects of gravity and call it logic?

We were discussing this very thing and decided we believe in Harmony. How New Age does that sound? See, this is why it’s difficult to grasp this concept without the right words. People have a flow, or a harmony about them. Some people have flow, and others just.. don’t. How do you put your finger on this? What is it? I don’t think it’s isolated to only a specific religion of people with Flow. I have a Buddhist friend with Flow. I know some Christians with flow and some without it. There are non-religious types with flow and some super-religious onse that spew disharmony all over the place. So where is it? What’s the missing piece? Observation? Understanding? Empathy? Wisdom?

Regardless, after we had this discussion, I opened an email from someone I’d like to work for and found at the bottom of his email he signed it, “In Harmony.” I don’t know if you believe in signs or not, and to be honest I’m not sure if I do or not myself, but if I did, I’d be willing to bet it’s something. It just takes faith to know what.

I’ve never had to “TRY” before. You know, the actual “hey, it’s going to take some effort to do the horizontal mambo” or “now, honey, now! Let’s go! Turn off the TV and come do me!” A part of me refuses to do the testing and the charting and the .. you know.. details and all that. I mean, how do thousands of people get knocked up and not even try? What are they doing? Ok, I *know* what they’re doing. But obviously they didn’t take their temp or chart their periods or grab their husband and drunk-him-up-good to get laid. That’s all I’m sayin’.

So we’re trying to make a concerted effort to actually get the job done more than once a month. Seeing as how I have no friggin’ clue about my cycle nor am I one to pay attention to details, I’m pretty much screwed in terms of family planning. And, given my spastic nature, there’s even less of a change of getting any. ‘Cause really? This is a true story.

So, the other night we’re :: fill in totally TMI details that even I won’t blog about. yaknow, yadda yadda ::  and whatnot. I’m naked. I run, because what else do you do when sex is eminent and you’re naked, and go to jump on the bed. I hit the protruding metal portion of the bed frame with the tender top of my foot. Right on the ligament. Instantly a bloated bruise forms and a hole in the top of my foot leaks blood. I’m cussing under my breath and rolling on the bed like a whale in labor. At least, this is how I feel. Mr. Flinger comes in to the room (it’s dark) totally unaware that I’m even in pain. He thinks I’m playing. But I’m rolled up in the fetal position yelling “FUDGE! FUDGE!” (Only I didn’t say fudge) I start crying and he thinks it’s the biggest sex nightmare of his life. Instead, I tell him to turn on the light, cover me, because my god anyone naked in the fetal position can not be pretty, and check my foot because I think I’m dying from a fatal foot injury.  He gets me some ice and props my foot on a pillow. He asks if we can count that as a sex injury. I say it’s a stretch, but sure. Why not? But taking care of your whale-ish woman’s foot doesn’t make babies.

So that’s how we tried for number two. And didn’t get it.

You know how people always ask you what book you’d take on a desert island? You know how there’s always some jackass that says, “I’d take how to survive on a desert island.” You know how you’ll never-ever-ever have this possibility so you say something like, “Charles Dickens!” or “Ralph Waldo Emerson!” and you know you never have to actually follow through? Well, I had to make that choice, sordda, and I chose wrong. Very. Very. Wrong.

We’re now living in our “temporary housing” which means it’s way too small, costs way too much and can’t hold crap. We’re in between homes. We’re living the summer o’fun! Renting a townhouse in a town we’d never afford in real life and enjoying every damn renter-dwelling minute.

Minus the part where we pay an additional 100 bucks a month (GASP, I know I know) in a storage unit. Our current home is about 400 square feet smaller than our previous one. This means we had to make choices. I had to decide what to keep out for our 6 month lease and what can be packed away in to the storage unit until we find out permant

trailer later. It was a tough call, really. Because if I would choose to save anything in a fire (ok, aside from LB and her photos and her blanket and monkey) it would be my books. I write in my books. I make notes. I dog-ear my pages. I love my books hard. I love my books very “Velveteen Rabbit” like. I do.

So it was a tough decision when we packed the book shelf. I had to pick out a few books to keep with me for the next six months. I chose books I wanted to read and only one or two old loves. The thing I didn’t realize is how much I refer back to my books when I’m thinking of something, or needing inspiration, or just wanting to cuddle up with characters I already know. I didn’t realize how often my library comes in to my life and my head and my writing. I’ve been looking for a specific passage from this book, or maybe that one. And I remember wanting to re-read this. Or that. And suddenly I have never wanted my books more than I do right now. And all I have here is a starbucks, a thriftway, and the “Nanny Diaries” which is lovely, but not exactly right.

Now I know the answer to the question. I would take the books I love the most, not the ones I have not read yet. What would you take?

We’ve been searching for a new home. Lately we’ve gone from “Ohh! hardwood floors! A Jacuzi tub!” to “Well, you can’t really see the seam if you don’t look too closely.” It’s not that I have too much pride to live in a double-wide, it’s just that, well, it’s a DOUBLE-WIDE. The thought of purchasing a home that some trucker guy had to pull over the side of the road with to take a leak does nothing for me.  Mr. Flinger was looking at one such home when I said, “Yea, but it faces the wrong direction. No sun.” “Uh, it’s a double-wide, hon. We just pick it up and move it.” Like that’s a selling point or something.

I know what you’re saying. That Mrs. Flinger, she sure is snotty. That Mrs. Flinger, she’d rather waste away her daughters college on Starbucks and iTunes music. That Mrs. Flinger, she’s one hot bitch. Well, that last one you’d throw in just to please me. But really, you’d be a little right. I *am* a little snotty. I mean, look, I happen to not want to own a house with wheels, seams, or fake wood paneling. I just don’t. Also, the Starbucks/iTunes thing? I have a plan. I work at a college, see, and my children will get cheap college. See? It’s ok. Really. I’ve thought this all through.

The thing I didn’t think through is the ammount a mortgage will cost in one of the “bubble? what bubble?” cities. Apparently, the bubble is not topping out here in the next ten years. So even if you sell your home at 40% more than you purchased 2 years ago, you will not be able to afford a house even with that equity, savings, prostitution, or selling your child on ebay.

That trailer is starting to look pretty damn good. I believe our couch would look lovely on that porch.

LB isn’t sleeping well tonight. This is a relative sentence as she is a pretty good sleeper for the most part. When she was new, I swore she was doing herself no favors for a sibling because the child didn’t like naps, didn’t like sleeping period. I was dizzy from sleep deprivation and going more than a little nuts. I thought of pulling my ovaries out myself to prevent some freakish “ooops” accident (which I realize can’t happen unless you actually have sex so in reality, there was little worry. Little sleep also does nothing for the libido).

As I was saying, she isn’t sleeping well. She’s been up a few times, if only for a few minutes, but it’s just enough that I can’t go back to sleep. I have this “once I’m up, I’m up” thing going. I was like this when she was little. I could never go back to sleep if I knew she’d be up soon anyway. Or if I actually got my white pasty ass out of bed. My ass has an affinity for bed but once it’s up, it’s up.

This is how I came to be blogging at 3AM today. After I got LB comfortable again, I came downstairs to “relax” and have some down time. An hour and a half later I’m thinking horror stories of how tired I am going to be tomorrow and how this is just the smallest taste of having a newborn. It’s like this but only worse, people. Remember? Neither did I. Until this morning.

In a way, I’m glad to have the archives from my daughter’s infancy. I’m glad I can look back in those first three months and see that she was tiny, she had no neck control and she drooled. A lot. But on the other hand, I think it might be the best “er.. I’m good” medicine ever. Because if I read one more entry about how many times I got up each night and stayed up and slept an hour a day? There might be no number 2.

I should just stop reading and go to bed. If we’re ever going to try again, that’s my only hope. Blissful ignorance. Mother Nature was brilliant with that mommy-amnesia. Let’s not ruin that.

LB and I had a pretty good day. I joked once that naps are like mini-exorcisms. Yesterday Mr Flinger informs me that he’s so thankful for the ol’ Aunt Flo (isn’t that just the dumbest thing to call a menstrual cycle? seriously? But I do it, too. Oh, and I have a hayhay, thankyouverymuch. I’m mature like that.)  Like I was saying, so thankful for the ol’ Aunt Flo because it’s an exorcism of sorts for the wifey. That psycho PMS bitch? GONE!! I quote, “Every day I’m praying for the MS portion of the PMS.”

Well, there you have it.

So there has been napping and hormonal recovering in the home which means the girls are doing pretty dang well in our family. So, I decided to take charge of this, ahem, baby weight :: cough cough:: and go to the gym today. I got LB dressed, put on her sunblock (because we were outside a total of ten minutes and my god! The skin cancer! The UV rays!) and headed to the gym. We get to the play area and the pretty, young, skinny, makeup girl signs up LB to be in day care. She laughs, “Well I know who picked out HER clothes today.”

Uh, Excuse me?

“HA! I have a nephew that insist on dressing himself. He refuses to let my sister dress him. He always has on some plaid shirt with striped shorts. It’s horrible.”

Well, now, see *I* dressed LB in a cute little polka-dotted shirt and a cute little flower skirt that MATCH. Ok, not in the obvious way. But they do match in the “they both have brown and pink” and “they were both purchased by Auntie Paige” kind of a way. I’m aware nobody else would realize that latter portion but the pink and brown should be a dead give away.

So this is how I learned I have no taste. Thing is, it runs in the family. My poor LB is screwed. She’ll be telling me what the cool kids are wearing when she’s 12 and I’ll be making her wear pigtails and cat sweatshirts because I’m that out of touch. But they MATCH.