Newsy bits

There really is nothing dignified about carrying a gallon of your own urine down the street.

I tried to dress it up a bit, put it in a brown paper bag, but really it is still piss. And I am still very pregnant, lumbering even, while carrying a load of it. I am sort of keeping my fingers and toes crossed that there is no protein. There hasn't been any on any of the times I have had my pee dipped, but still, I found my heart beating wildly as I entered the midwife's office. "Please let everything be fine. Please do not send me to PETU again. Breathe deeply, Ang, you are making your blood pressure go crazy."

My follow-up blood pressure check was fine-120/70, which is where it normally is when I am wearing the correctly sized blood pressure cuff. I asked them to put me in the bigger cuff, because you know, my guns cannot be contained in the petite cuff. Bench pressing a two and a half year old does that, as well as just being a brute force to be reckoned with. We are constantly putting on gun shows in this house, showing off our wares, flexing our sexiness. Beatrice's refrain right now is, "I'm going to be strong like my daddy." And of course, indignantly, I say, "What about strong like your Mama? Check out those muscles. Go on touch the arm. Don't hurt yourself, kid."

Still, let's face it--I am a woman of advanced size. Or parts of me are. Us Estrada women have large arms. It is who we are. No need to protect my delicate ego with a smaller cuff. It is like women who I see alking through the summer with their heels hanging off the end of their slingbacks. "You are a size 10, dude." I own the arms and shoulders. They are mine. They are large, and let's face it, they make me in charge. I can lift more than your average bear, well, okay not a bear, but woman of my height.

Proving the point, we spent the day rearranging our house yesterday and transforming our office/television/book room into a craft and art studio (with computer) for Beatrice and me. I sent my booklist to a local used bookstore and the owner wrote back that he was interested in quite a few books and would email me a list in a few days. It is really happening. I am really shedding the books. I feel giddy and scared all at the same time. I sold some Ikea book shelves on c-list. Sam has gotten drunk on the craigslist selling power and wants to sell our matching black leather chairs now too. They have always been a bit too small for him, but just right for me and Beatrice.We usually spend our Spring Cleaning time rearranging the furniture in our house. It gives us two less options, but I am in a purge phase. And I am tempted to go through my basement, and my clothes, but I imagine I will have three outfits left.

Today I have been colorizing* (That word is for you, Jen!) Bea's paints, and markers, and organizing everything into neat bins as I make the room our very own. Pulling up the rug after a rather unfortunate accident involving a falling and twirling jar of magenta paint, I sustained my first art room related injury. I got a 1.5 foot splinter into my foot to the hilt. It dropped me. And I yelped, and Bea sort of ran back and forth quickly like a trapped mouse. I asked her to go into the bathroom, get the basket with bathroom crap in it, and we searched for a tweezer. No luck, so I scooched into the light and pulled it out with my rather blunt and manish fingernails. It happens to only FEEL like 1.5 feet. Perhaps it is more like a half inch, but still OWIE. I am still limping and complaining. Not to mention, I seem to have a rather fierce sore throat, cough and runny nose. My splinter injury trumped the cold, but now I have two possible bitch focuses for the day. Awesome.

Does one get sick when one goes to hospital? I mean, I was there for eight hours perfectly healthy on Thursday, and now, I seem to be developing what is clearly ebola, evinced by the fact that I am still surfing the net and arranging construction paper all while singing the alphabet song.

*sigh*

I have other things. Larger things. Painful things. But for now, this is what I got--a bit of goofiness and sick eyes while immersed in art supplies. There are worse things.


* By colorizing, of course I mean, putting them in the correct color order according to the color spectrum of ROY G. BIV, my favorite imaginary dude besides Santa.