It ain't all pizzas and cream

Milepost

As many of you know from reading Cecily's blog, tomorrow, March 1, would have marked the first birthday for our twin boys, Nick and Zack.  And as you also know, tomorrow also marks the exact point in this pregnancy where the last pregancy ended.  22 and a half weeks.

So, as mileposts go, it's huge.

Today we were both a little crazed.  We listed for an extra-long time to the baby's heartbeat on the Doppler.  Twice.  Cecily worried all day that there wasn't enough movement (the baby's been flipping like a pancake in there lately).   I suggested we check in with our doctors.  Which we didn't. Because the reality is that there's really nothing to do, except wait it out.  So far, all the canaries in the coal mine are still alive...  BP, blood sugar, ketone tests, baby's heartbeat, all have been basically good.

Cecily tends to handle these things with more grace than I.  Rather than seeking lessons from loss, I go looking for a fight. Pain is pain.  For me, there is no kindly watchmaker in the big blue to pat us on the head and sing us a lullabye.   I think perhaps the poet Robinson Jeffers was right.   That if there is a deity at all, it is indifferent as a granite outcrop, merciful as the hawk to the mouse, enduring and beautiful as the sea's assault on the cliffs. 

And our dear boys....they are not lost.  But rather two cups of water scooped briefly from the sea and too soon returned to it.   

Terror (and Hope) by the Numbers

Well, most of you already know the struggles that Cecily and I have endured in our efforts to start a family.  If not, click on her name and be prepared to do some catching up.

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For those who are already up to speed....just a few words from the perspective of a dad-to-be: 

After the loss of our dear boys, and Cecily's near-fatal brush with preeclampsia, we've been walking thru a minefield of fear, escorted by healthcare professionals of varying rank, and with great support from our friends. It is interesting to note how differently men and women, speaking here in broad strokes, deal with these sorts of things.  Cecily has shared generously on her blog about her feelings, her hopes, her flashes of clairvoyance. 

I, on the other hand, as keeper of the worry beads and balancer of the checkbook, crunch numbers.  Men do this, especially in times of stress.  We count.  We measure.  We calculate angles.  Think of it like a poolplayer planning his next shot.  Or better, a horseplayer planning his next wager. 

So many things are out of our control, that I must latch on to those few things that are within it.  So each morning I quiz Cecily about her blood pressure and her blood sugar...listen to the baby's heartbeat and time it with a pocket watch...ask about the status of the ketone (urine protein) strip.  Then try to compare all the qualitative measures, like how she's feeling today versus the way she was  feeling at this time during the last pregnancy.  Then calculate how many more weeks, days, hours until viability.  I'm about a hair's breadth away from charts and graphs.

As if any of this confers a measure of control.  Of course, the only thing of which we can be only marginally certain is that preeclampsia won't jump out from behind a building and slam us with a custard pie.  All these numbers make it hard for the disorder to sneak up on us unnoticed.

Then there's the numerology (read as: voodoo).  The boys would have been a year old on March 1.  Cecily was forced to end the pregnancy ar 22.5 weeks.  In this pregnancy, we will reach 22.5 weeks on March 1.  Then, if we clear that, March 26th will be 26 weeks.   There are probably more, but I'll need those charts and graphs to find them.

But so far, so good.  Nothing to do but watch, wait, worry.  Like singing our way thru a dark alley.  And every morning, that little heartbeat.  Buppeta-buppeta-buppeta.  Like a train along the jointed rail of some grassy branch line.  Moving closer and closer to the big open sky of the world.

Safety Tip: Don't Hunt with Dick

Sorry, couldn't resist this story.

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Others you may remember:
    1969's "Don't Ride with Ted".
    1981's "Don't Stand So Close to Ronny."

Remember, getting too close to powerful political figures can be bad for the health.

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A footnote... it now seems as if some of the birdshot has migrated to the victim's heart, resulting in a minor heart attack. 

This is what happens when you give grumpy old men guns.

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A few notes on the victim, Harry Whittington:
- Well known Austin TX attorney, real estate magnate, and Republican party supporter.
- Served on TX Board of Corrections but has opposed the use of the death penalty for mentally retarded defendants.
- Has opposed eminent domain (at least when it comes to his own land, one lot of which was seized by the city of Austin for a parking garage).

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Not since Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel has a sitting United States Vice President shot anyone.  I guess we were due.

Sports gambling...why do we care?

Well, that last post was a huge dud. 
So we move on...

I'm not a huge sports fan, and only a small-time gambler (at the racetrack), but am a little confused as to why the nation gets so upset when we find that athletes engage in sports gambling.  Afterall, nearly everone gambles in one way or another, whether it's in the stock market, in a card game, at a casino, or church bingo.  In 99 out of 100 sports gambling cases, we're not talking about fixing games.  And most athletes who gamble do not bet on their own sport.  Even Pete Rose (who did bet on his own sport) never bet on Reds games, fixed games, or changed his play to affect the outcome of a game.  Nonetheless, he was blackballed from the Hall of Fame.

So why do we care if Wayne Gretsky's wife bets on football?  Is it that pro athletes (and apparently  their families) are to be held to some peculiar moral standard ?   I thought the whole "athletes as role models" thing would have been killed off by Mike Tyson's rape conviction, or Darrel Strawberry's repeated drug busts, or the whole Mark McGuire -Jose Conseco steroids thing.

So after all this, we're supposed to get upset when hockey stars bet on football.  Maybe someone can explain this one to me.  Or at least keep me awake through the news coverage.

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Slang of the day: to splice the main brace: to drink whiskey.

I've Been Out-Curmudgeoned!

I think I've actually found someone crankier than myself...

According to this story, a Long Island ship's captain set five bottles adrift, each containing a note, from his boat in New York.  Well, this week he got an answer.  And the answer was: Bugger off!   Seems that the bottle's finder, Mr. Henry Biggelsworth, was none too amused--neither by the quaint trans-Atlantic gesture, which he reffered to as "litter," nor by the fact it originated in the US (reflected by his comment that "you Americans don't seem to be happy unless you're mucking about somewhere"). 

But for a moment, let's turn back the hands of time... Remember when the whole 'message in a bottle' thing was romantic and mysterious?  As a kid, I remember sending a few downriver from my grandparents' trailer home, in hopes that my words would reach across the sea.  I even tried sending a few via helium balloon, to see if I'd get a response from some far off place.  I never got an answer, and certainly never imagined that anyone would say "fuck you." 

Nonetheless, here we are.

This is likely a reflection on either a spectacularly unsuccessful US foreign policy or a spectacularly indifferent environmental policy, tho I suspect that on the day he found the bottle, Mr. Biggelsworth was in none too good a humor to begin with.  But I can't help but wonder: what if the message had originated in, say, Honduras?  Would his response have been as venomous?  "You blasted Hondurans and your banana boats!"  Probably not. 

The songwriter and humorist Tom Lehrer once wrote in his song "Send the Marines"...

"Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war,
They’d rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
O we hate that expression.
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the marines!"

Bear in mind that these lines (the last 3 being my favorites) were penned during the Johnson Administration, tho they could have been written last week. 

But when the day is done, I do have to take my hat off to Biggelsworth.  It takes a special man to waste a postage stamp to send a big "fuck you" to a complete stranger in another country.  So thank you, sir...and from one crank to another...a hearty FUCK YOU to you too.

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P.S.  Isn't "Mr.Biggelsworth" the name of Dr. Evil's cat in the Austin Powers movies?  Oh there's GOT to be a joke in there somewhere!

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Slang of the day: slush pump: trombone.

Frozen in time...no longer

After 63 years and 3 months, Airman Mustonen is coming home.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this...and this.

This story has fascinated me for months.  Briefly: During WW2, US Army Air Corps training flights in the Sierra Mountains were common.  It was also not so rare that one of these flights would go down.  And given the harsh weather conditions of the region and the limited technology of the time, rescue and recovery missions were often unsuccessful.  So the crews of these ill-fated flights were regarded as missing and presumed dead.   

At least until last October, when unusual snow melt revealed the body of a man in military gear, somewhat preserved by the normally frigid temperatures.  In his pockets, a few articles: a plastic comb, some coins, two weathered address books.   But it wasn't until today that advanced DNA testing (with cooperation from several families of missing airmen) revealed the identity of the mystery airman as Mustonen. 

Reading today's article, I was struck immediately by two things.  First, that any surviving family members may now have the closure that has edulded them for over 60 years, and perhaps take some small comfort in the coroner's  belief that death was likely an instantaneous result of impact.  And second, the realization that for 20 years longer than I've been alive, this man's body waited like a strange clock, a time capsule in the mountainside snowdrift, awaiting discovery. 

When Mustonen's plane crashed, FDR was President.  The Cardinals had beaten the Yankees to win the World Series.  A stamp cost 3 cents.  James Cagney was on his way to a Best Actor award for Yankee Doodle Dandy (awarded the next year).  And Bing Crosby's White Christmas was a huge No.1 hit song.   Mustonen was 22.  He was planning to be an engineer.  He hadn't yet married.   

I imagine him in a world of dance halls and nickel beers.  Maybe he liked the Andrews Sisters, hot dogs with baked beans, Camel cigarettes.  Maybe he read his Bible each night before bed.  The names in those two address books, we'll never know.  His crewmates, and those of other doomed flights, are still out there.  What world will find them, and bring them home?

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Slang of the day: fly chaser: an outfielder in baseball