Let's see: Posting has been a little wierd because Blogger has been a little wierd. I can post to the blog from Flickr, though. I really should upgrade my Flickr account because I am really starting to take a lot of pics.

Last weekend the drop zone had an Easter Boogie (boogie is the skydiver term for event. No, I don't know why). We offered discounted jumps, plus we had a big party on Saturday. Thanks to the weather folks predicting all Hell breaking loose on Saturday, I don't think we were as busy as we should have been, but there were enough folks there to keep things moving. Incidentally, we had blue skies and sun all frickin' day. We didn't get any rain until much later that night and it was pretty gentle. I strongly suspect, since the weather folks are predicting a beautiful, sunny weekend, that we will have a blizzard this Saturday and Sunday.

But anyway; one of the things that made the boogie a success was a small group of jumpers from Tennessee whose drop zone is unfortunately closed at the moment. This included one fellow named John who had a wierd obsession with bacon. Anyway they were a lot of fun. And he's right; everything *does* taste better with bacon.

The Saturday party was a lot of fun; I surprised myself by having a good time and actually lasting past midnight (then the drunken karaoke started so I went to bed). At one point two women, Sandy (Jeff's daughter) and Rhonda of the Shattered Heel (definitely I need to take more pics) talked a nurse, Chris, into going to get his stethoscope out of his truck so we could listen to the baby's heartbeat. We retreated to Jeff's motor home to find a quiet place, but I had no luck locating his heartbeat. Brenden was nice enough to get a good case of hiccups, so both women got a good look and feel of the baby's movements. Sandy, Rhonda and Chris were all hammered, by the way. Hell, everyone but me was hammered. I had fun watching the silliness.

Rhonda at one point was feeling bad because she felt out of place. She said she felt like she should wait at home until she was fully healed. I can sympathize. Sometimes I feel the same way.

This week the most interesting thing I did was walk to the park on Wednesday night with Jon where we watched some baseball games. I was amused by the kid's obvious knowledge of the game while at the same time their bodies just haven't mastered all the basic skills. I'm talking about the kids covering the proper bases when the ball is hit, and the runners trying to force throws so that they can take advantage of errors in case they are made. I miss watching baseball; maybe Brenden will like or play the game so I can be a soccer baseball mom. Speaking of, all the parents there were real supportive of their kids. If any of them got overzealous, I didn't see it.

I am so glad we live in a good neighborhood in a well-to-do small town that has money to maintain such a decent park/sports area. The schools are reputed to be good plus we live close enough to two big cities that I'm not worried about good medical care being available. We could do a lot worse for ourselves.

I found this story to be pretty funny: birth story Hat tip toAnn Althouse. I hope the baby will be okay.

And last I wanted to recipe blog for the hell of it:

Pasta Salad

1 box Rottini pasta. I love the type that has white/whole wheat/spinach pasta because it's colorful. But any Rottini will do.
1 red bell pepper (or green for color)
1 small onion (red adds more color)
1 zucchini
2 stalks of celery
10 mushrooms (baby bella are my fave)
1 small can sliced black olives
1/4 cup rice vinegar

Cook the pasta with plenty of salt for taste. While this is going on, dice the onion first, and put it in a small bowl with the vinegar. Add a little water until the onion is covered. This will remove the sharp taste of the onion plus add a nice soft acidic tang. Other vinegars can be pretty harsh so you might want to lessen the amount you use. Dice all the other veggies into small bits.

1/2 cup salad dressing - I am a hyoooge fan of Paul Newman's italian dressings and I recommend experimenting with them. You can make a creamy version of anything by adding an equal amound of Mayonnaise, but beware of mayophobic guests.
1 teaspoon garlic powder - I usually don't use powder but in this case the fresh stuff can be overpowering if you don't cook it first.
Chopped handful of parsley

Whisk everything together and let it rest a while so that the garlic can hydrate.

Once the pasta is done drain it and rinse in cold water until the pasta is cold. Drain well then add to a big bowl. Dump all your diced veggies on top; drain off the onions first. Dump in dressing mixture and gently mix everything. You may need to break out some more salad dressing if you aren't happy with the consistency. Also taste and add a little salt if needed ( more added to the pasta water helps, but be careful). This is one of the recipes where I can really tell the difference between table salt and kosher salt. Top with fresh grated parmesan if you like, or more chopped parsely or both.

Obviously you can vary the veggies, fresh herbs, and the dressings all you want. Some leftover chicken meat is a favorite addition as well. I once had some daikon radish in the fridge and that gave it an interesting crunch. I strongly suspect a Jicama would do the same.

home

home
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

This trailer is our home away from home when we're at the dz. What is fun is we are located quite close to the Air Evac landing pad. Fortunately, I am a heavy sleeper. Unfortunately, Jon is not.

air evac

airevac
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Here is the Air Evac helicopter stationed at the airport. It's nice to have qualified medical help nearby in case of a busted leg/behind/ankle/whatever.

beerlight

beerlight
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

After the sun goes down, the beer light goes on. I need to snap more photos of the people at the DZ. The beer guzzler is Jeff, who has been my friend for about 7 years. We met in Tennessee back when we both had maybe 100 - 200 jumps. Next to him with her back turned is Rhonda of the Shattered Heel. Check out the nifty light effects from the flash on Steve's jumpsuit (he's sitting down).

dz sunset

dzsunset
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Despite the weatherman's prediction of a horrible nasty day, Saturday was beautiful and clear. This photo was taken shortly after the last load landed.

Week 29

I actually have a bunch to write about, plus a few photos from Flickr I want to put up, but I am plagued right now with perpetual sleepiness. I feel better than I did yesterday, but I am still dog-tired. Other than that, Brendan Brenden and I are doing good.

Jonmedad

Jonmedad
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Ileana took this photo last Sunday. That's Jon, me and my dad. The leashes he's holding belong to Caboose and Pepper, their two dogs.

cute kitty

cutekitty
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Hooray! I have a camera again. Here are a few obligatory cat pics. Here Big Fat Kitty is keeping my poor sick husband warm (he has bronchitis and a sinus infection).

possessive kitty

posskitty
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Hey, back off, you can't have this lap! My dad! Mine!

Belleh

belleh
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Lookit mah belleh! 29 weeks of baby in there!

Spring is sprung
The grass is ris
I wonder where the flowers is?

The three hour glucose screening goes like this:
First you have to fast for at least 8 hours. I fasted for about 14. Once you go into the doc's office, they test your blood sugar to make sure it's below 100. 100 what I forget. Then they make you gulp down this sickly sweet drink that tastes like flat Orange Crush.

Then every hour for three hours they test your blood sugar. My initial reading was 97, then 126, 124, and 89. I have no idea why my numbers were so whacked out the first test. I followed their instructions to the letter (in the initial test the doc wants to see a number around 300; mine came in at 780).

I'm still going to try to be more concientious about what I eat, but still that Sprite I had for dinner was mighty tasty.

This is the first season of 24 I have watched while the season was ongoing. Don't worry; Nancy. I'll avoid spoilers. All I can say is so far, this season is closest to matching the first season as the most exciting. At first I was missing some characters, but they're back on now. Dang it, but [bleep] and [bleep] are hot together!

Jon and I are still watching American Idol. I'm still rooting for my homeboy, Bo. I think the final 4 are going to be Bo, Constantine, Carrie, and Anwar. I have a feeling Mikaylah (sp?) will be the next to leave.

Jon and I had another counseling session yesterday. I thought it went well. The counselor is good at getting through circuitous talk and making us say exactly what we mean. I was really surprised at what she pulled out of Jon, which I won't go into. Let's just say now it's obvious to me that's what he wanted, looking back at past actions and conversations, but it never occured to me that's what he wanted. Sheesh!

Vague political post of the month: Here. For the most part I don't really care about this activity, but there is one brief paragraph in here that made me blink a few times. A flat Orange Crush to the first person to correctly spot it.

Fun with phonemes: we have decided we like Brendan (still subject to change). Jon, though, brought up the issue of spelling. He thinks it should be spelled "BrendEn", and I said more often than not it's spelled "BrendAn". But he said it's pronounced "BrendEn", which it's not, it's pronounced "Brenduhn" with a schwa. Many unstressed vowels in the English language are really schwas (upside-down e's).

I didn't tell Jon that - but I did tell him that since my name has a 'j' sound in it, why isn't it spelled 'Sanjra'? He had a fit, insisting it doesn't. I was amused, but kept my linguistics lecture to a minimum. And actually, it should be spelled 'Sandzhruh' which is just stupid. Brenden it is.

Hooray! I passed the glucose test with flying colors! Breyer's chocolate chip ice cream, here I come!

Week 28
Bleah. Didn't feel good Sunday night and this morning. I think it was because I got to see my dad and Ileana (and their two dogs and Ralph, a cat that rivals Big Fat Kitty in size). It was great seeing them again; they got to see the ultrasound video and the baby's room (which they furnished), and we had lunch and talked. But I got into a funk because I was lonely. I miss my family (sniff).

Hey! I wuz on the teevee! Discovery Health had a show on surviving impact which included a skydiver who got hurt at our drop zone. The show only had a little b.s. about skydiving, which was nice. This guy had a camera helmet on and made some mistakes and managed to blow out a vertabrae. Fortunately he lived to skydive again - and made a jump at our d.z. 9 months later after the incident (which I was on). Not a big fan of the sensationalistic crap that tv usually puts on about skydiving, but the show didn't do too bad a job.

I have my 3 hour glucose tolerance test tomorrow morning. What fun!

I have my first entry into the World's Worst Mother Contest because of my diet and exercise. Yes, I'm talking about when I failed the glucose tolerance test.

Hey, I eat a wide range of foods, and I take my prenatal vitamins religiously. But I quit exercising when I was hit with athsma, and I've been eating a lot of junk food as well as my normal meals. I'm such a bad mom. Bad, bad, bad! Heh, nothing like a good round of self-flagellation. Isn't that a great word? Flagellation. Sounds made up.

Anyway I've decided that even if next Tuesday's test results are negative, from here on in I will watch what I eat. Steel-cut oats, here I come! And I'm going to start walking every day, dammit!

Nancy emailed me for some clarification on skydiving and drinking. The girl who injured her hand was *not* skydiving at the time. We and all other drop zones highly discourage drinking during hours of operation. Not only does drinking rob your brain of oxygen, but so does flying around in an unpressurized airplane at 14,000ft. The net effect is if you have had one beer on the ground, it will feel like 4 beers at altitude. No way will we willingly allow someone to drink and jump.

We have grounded people for alcohol and drug-related incidents and have even had to chase people off permanently. Go kill yourself someplace else, thank you.

However, when the wheels of the last load of they day leave the tarmac, the beer starts a flowin'. She was injured staggering around the campfire well after jumping was done. Hey, we're crazy, not stupid. I think.

Jon and I watched a Sci-Fi Network original movie Thursday night: Alien Siege. Aliens show up and demand 8 million people or else. Apparently they have a sickness that will only be cured by human blood. A small band of people resist as America holds a damn lottery instead of handing over rapists, murderers, child molesters and politicians. To top it all off, if all they needed was blood, wouldn't a ginormous blood drive have served their purpose?

Whoo this movie sucked bad. The aliens are humanoid, and you can tell they are aliens because their eyebrows have been dyed white and they have cell phones implanted in their cheeks. The resistance inlcuded the idealistic black guy who of course is murdered, and the tough-as-nails chick who kicks everyone's ass (unconvincingly). The hero is a widower whose daughter is picked in the lottery, and he and the T.A.N. chick out of the blue kiss near the end of the movie despite having shown no interest in each other earlier. Gods, how this movie reeked! Stay away from SciFi original movies, unless you happen to like bad movies like this.

Speaking of, Spring Break Shark Attack is on CBS this Sunday. Imagine a huge school of sharks attacking a bunch of college students on spring break in Florida. Aaaaah, what a delightful fantasy!

One of the not-so-fun things about skydiving is the injuries. We normally have about three or four injuries a year that require a trip to the hospital. I would say most of them go about this time of year, and this phenomenon is caused by strong and gusty winds.

Other than Steve's kidney stones, we have had two nasty injuries allready this year because of these conditions. I should explain: it's more than gusty winds that hurt these people. When people get hurt or killed in skydiving, it's not usually because of one mistake. It's a series of mistakes that usually gets them in trouble. One injury was a crushed heel. And I do mean crushed! We were oohing and aaahing over the pictures of poor Rhonda's CAT-scan because her heel looked like a jigsaw puzzle. She also dislocated her hip.

What happened? First she does not have a lot of jumps and she didn't pay attention to what the winds were doing before she got on the plane (mistake #1). She got close to the runway when trying to get back to the drop zone (mistake #2), panicked, (mistake #3), and did not flare her canopy and came down hard on the asphalt (mistake #4). She wants to jump again, and most likely will. I'm sure she will be more vigilant about the weather conditions.

The other skydiver, also an inexperienced woman, made the same mistake #1 as Rhonda did by not being aware of what was happening before she entered the aircraft. Alecia too got too close to the runway and panicked (#2 and #3), turned downwind to get away from the tarmac (#4) and did not flare (#5) when she landed against the side of the hill. Oh yeah: neither of these women did a Parachute Landing Fall (a procedure we teach people to minimize injuries if the landing is hard). Alecia fractured a femur.

Panicking, or freezing up, when you are in marginal conditions and you HAVE to do your best is what hurt them the most, I think. I made the same exact mistake they made once. I was too frickin' busy trying to get myself down in one piece to panic. Could this be a training issue? I think so. I had a busy checklist of things I was doing, like not worrying about making it back to the airport but more importantly finding a big-assed soft FIELD that I could land in. I sure as hell flared and PLF'd. I now wonder if they had a plan, or maybe they thought they couldn't handle it and just let it happen.

I hope this doesn't sound too sanctimonious: I tend to not jump in marginal conditions, and I'm always gratified when skydivers, especially male skydivers, come up to me and ask me my opinion on the conditions. I'm really gratified when they listen to me. If the wind conditions might be okay, I tell the inexperienced ones to watch at least one load coming down and pay attention to how hard the skydivers are working their canopies. In gusty winds the parachutes sometimes look like they're doing the hula and that's a really good indicator to go sit on your rig until the winds die down.

To quote an old adage: Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.

Oh! And a skydiving joke courtesy Jessica:

What's the difference between a bad golfer and a bad skydiver?

A bad golfer goes *WHACK* "dammit!"

A bad skydiver goes "dammit!" *WHACK*

About yesterday's posting of the baby's estimated weight. He is 2 pounds, 13 ounces (not 30). Damn fat fingers...

Just got back from an ultrasound. My, the kid has filled out! He has these cute fat little cheeks. He was hiding somewhat so we only got a left side profile. He was moving around pretty good, but we could never convince him to look straight at us. He's estimated to be 2 pounds 30 ounces. Holy crap, he has about 5 pounds to go!! I look like I swallowed a basketball as it is.

I made a comment earlier about how parents acclimatize their children to spicier foods - especially when they live in a culture where foods tend to be more spicy. Well, I got a mini-lesson on that last weekend.

I have mentioned Jason, Jessica and their almost-two toddler Summer before. Summer is the child that made friends with Vasquez while they were over at our house. Jason is a fulltime employee of the Army Reserves and Jessica stays at home with Summer. Jason is a skydiver and Jessica comes out often to be with her husband. I love it when she brings Summer because everytime I see her she has developed more and more an individual personality.

Anyway, they are from Mississipi, are not exactly rich, and both have noticable Cajun roots. While we were all at the Mexican restaurant Saturday, I was fascinated by Summer's ability to eat Salsa. She was really packing it away. Her mom told me about Summer's grandma making Cajun shrimp and how Summer just packed them away. Apparently it's just what you're used to.

I like watching them and their kid because Jessica doesn't seem to be burdened by that need to be a perfect mama. Summer is energetic to the point of being rambunctious, but she is not a hellspawn because her parents won't let her cross certain lines. Poor Jessica gets worn out trying to wear Summer out but still she won't let the kid get away with murder. Neither will Jason.

Jessica did get hit by a drive-by mom Saturday: she was noticably upset when a wife of a skydiver made a rather nasty comment about something not worth mentioning (and something that in no way endangered Summer!). I really wanted to bitch-slap that mom (so did most of us at the dz). Jessica is a wonderful mom and is doing a good job. I can only hope I'll be that good.

In similar thought, I am wondering if I should make my own baby food. Not because of the perfect mommy syndrome, but because it could be cheaper plus it will have a bit more flavor than the Gerber stuff. If Jon and I are eating something not too outrageously spicy, how hard would it be to put some in the Cuisinart and puree it? Just a thought - I must do some research.


Happy St. Paddy's day! In the immortal words of John Belushi:

Well it's come that time again, St. Patrick's Day has come and gone and well the sons of Ireland are basking in the glow. When I think of Ireland I think a lot of colorful Irish expressions like, "Top of the morning to ya," "Kiss the barney stone," "May the road rise to meet ya," "May you be in heaven an hour before the devil knows you're dead," "I'd like to smash you in the face with my shilelagh" "Danny-boy," "Bhagora," "Wail of the banshee," and "Whiskey for the leprechauns, whisky for the leprechauns." But the expression I think most people identify with the Irish, is, of course, the luck of the Irish.

The luck of the Irish. Sure. Let's say you're in a pub somewhere in Ireland, oh, anywhere in Ireland, some guy comes up to you and says, "Hey is that a bomb on you I hear ticking?" And then BAM!!! Your small intestines are on the ceiling and your brains are on your car across the street. That's the luck of the Irish for ya, who's kidding who, okay?

Let's talk about the bad luck of the Irish, all right? How about this, POTATO FAMINE!! How about that? It scares them, doesn't it? Well it should. That's why they came here in the first place. So they wouldn't have to work in the potato fields. That's why they became politicians, priests, and cops. Luck? Gimme a break...

Argh I want a Guinness!!

Some books list Week 26 as the start of the third trimester, some list week 27. I'm going to pretend it's week 28, simply because I now have only 3 lunar months left. Woo-hoo! 12 Weeks!

I forgot to mention Steve, another skydiving friend, also helped Jon and Jeff set up the baby's room. Steve holds the distinction of having to go to the hospital from the dz because of a non-skydiving problem - kidney stones. (One other person had to go to the emergency room once because she was drunk and fell and managed to cut her hand up pretty good but I consider that to be nominally skydiving related).

Anyways, I followed the guy taking Steve to the emergency room so he could go back to the DZ to jump. I sat with Steve, who was in tremendous amounts of pain. The nurses gave him an IV and something for the pain, so he was zoning in and out. In the meantime we listened to this old lady across the room who sounded like she was trying to cough up both her lungs. We waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually Steve got up and passed a stone and started immediately feeling better. The doctor said he wanted him to have a CAT scan to make sure he didn't have any other stones forming. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

The Emergency room was getting filled up, and we heard the ER doc comment to the nurses that everyone had the flu(!). Steve was getting extremely restless, so he pulled out his IV, got dressed, and we casually strolled out of the ER. I didn't protest because I was all of a sudden really kicking myself for being pregnant and hanging around in an emergency room. I should have broken into the sharps container and played pick-up stiks with the used syringes; it would have been about as smart.

I'm not sure how I dodged that bullet; I was unable to get vaccinated this year and usually I attract bugs like a magnet goes after refrigerators. Of course, the season isn't over yet.

Well frack. Frack frack frack frack frack!
I took the glucose tolerance test at the ob/gyn and I failed miserably. Which means next tuesday I have to go back for a 3 hour glucose tolerance test. Oh, what fun; I may have gestational diabetes. Which means the party is over; I must control my diet now. Bah!

I was pleasantly surprised when I got home today: Jon and our friend Jeff not only cleaned out the baby's room, they set it up! Crib, chest of drawers, everything! Dang, guys; I'm so verklempt right now *sniff*! Jon flew to Atlanta to pick something up so I can't slobber all over him until he gets home later.

I have been having vivid dreams now for a while during the pregnancy; some have been hyper-wierd but none pornographic. Many are based around the last thing I watched on TV before going to bed, which means I had Battlestar Galactica dreams Sunday night and 24 dreams Monday night. Fortunately (or unfortunately, if that's what floats your boat) the 24 stuff did NOT involve Jack Bauer tying me up and shooting me in the thigh or torturing me with electric current and demanding to know where the terrorists are.

Saaaaaaay.... maybe I ought to have a Band of Brothers marathon!

Week 27

Didn't write much last week because it was such a boring week. I didn't have a single doc's appointment. The most intelligent conversation I had was with Big Fat Kitty, who I found standing on the kitchen counter last Wednesday.

Me: Kitty, why are you on the counter?
BFK: Meow (walks over to the sink, looks at it)
Me: Let me guess. Your water dish is empty?
BFK: Meow! (leaps of counter, scampers into laundry room. I follow him)
BFK: (standing next to his water dish) Meow, meow meow!
Me: There's water in it! What are you whining about (closer look) oh. Icky. Ok, I'll change it.
Me: (Goes to sink - drain drain, scrub scrub scrub, fill fill fill)
Kitty (from laundry room) MEOW!
Me: Hold your horses! (goes to laundry room and places dish of clean water next to impatient cat)
Me: Damn, what did you do to your water? It looked like you soaked your dry food in it. Bleah!
Kitty: Lap lap lap lap lap lap lap lap lap....

And no, I am not exaggerating this exchange. Cats may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but they *can* communicate quite effectively when they want to.

I realize I forgot to tell you the amount of chicken to use in the Arroz con Pollo recipe. It normally calls for a whole chicken cut up, but I used 4 legs and 4 thighs. I much prefer dark meat.

As to the rest of the week, all I did was eat arroz con pollo for lunch and dinner. I still have some left over! For breakfast I had cornbread, of course.

I realized something quite interesting Thursday. I had one of my little "moments" and while I was crying miserably on my slightly miffed cat's belly, part of me stood back and just really listened to what was going on in my head. I now know exactly what is causing my moods: stress. Yeah, I know; no shit sherlock. Hey, YOU may have been able to see it, but I didn't.

One thing I got out of that book on introverts is how overwhelmed we get when we look at the big picture of anything. The stress that sets off these crying jags is caused by how overwhelmed I am at well, everything. The pregnancy was the cherry on top (and one can view the progesterone overdose as the chocolate syrup). This stress is caused by worrying about my marriage, this pregnancy, what I'm going to have to do when the baby arrives, trying to take care of the kid and my husband, will I ever skydive again, will my pregnancy interfere with my job, etc etc etc etc until: meltdown.

Right now when I'm feeling nice and happy and calm, I know I just have to take everything one step at a time, and just concentrate on one tree or two in front of me and not the whole frackin' forest.

Speaking of my pregnancy, same old same old. I am getting HUGE. I can tell a difference between me this week and last. Baby is getting more active; matter of fact Saturday at a Mexican restaurant, the kid was kicking the heck out of me and Jon got to feel it. I couldn't decide whether baby was saying "send more salsa!" or "Ow, mom, that's too picante!"

I'm starting to have difficulty sleeping (mainly because I have to take a piss every 15 minutes). I am putting a pillow between my legs and it does help me sleep on my side, but every time I wake up I am drenched in sweat and I'm worrying about how icky my pillow is getting. I'm definitely feeling the kicked up metabolism, which is great now that it's starting to get warmer. Bleah.

It's good to have my honey home. He is now a Master Rigger, and to celebrate we're buying him a sewing machine off Ebay. I teased him I'm going to buy patterns and cloth and he can practice by making baby clothes. Still, that would be a good skill to have. I'll have to have him show me how to use the machine once we get it.

He flew into Birmingham and was picked up by a skydiver. We met at the dz Friday evening. Every March we hold a 'Safety Day' where we entice skydivers to show up and are given refresher courses in airplane procedures, canopy control, and equipment maintenence among other things. The skydivers who show up get as much beer and pizza as they can stomach, plus they are eligible for cheap jumps on Saturday and Sunday.

Both Saturday and Sunday were windy, but we managed to have a pretty busy weekend. I taught a ground school on Saturday and part of one on Sunday. I made it a point on both days to take naps in the afternoon. It helped me a great deal to tolerate being around so many people for so long.

Jeez I'm in a yakky mood. I better stop now or I won't have anything to talk about the rest of the week.

I made enough arroz con pollo to feed half the Caribbean. Therefore I doubt I will be making anything for dinner tonight. Well, maybe some more cornbread. I have enough cornmeal and buttermilk for that.

Arroz con Pollo:

1 Onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
2 small sweet green peppers (forget the name) diced
2 slices of ham, diced
Olive oil

Brown chicken in a little olive oil a few pieces at a time. Take out of the pot (big heavy dutch oven is best). Saute all of the ingredients above until softened.

1 can Ro-tel diced tomatoes and peppers, drained (save liquid)
4 cups liquid (including ro-tel). Water or chicken stock or combo
2 cups long grain rice (most caribbean recipes use a medium grain but I like long grain. The water proportions are different take note)
2 packets sazon Goya (or 1 tablespoon of cumin and turmeric)
(Optional) 1 small can of tomato sauce

Add rice and stir a bit to coat grains. Then add chicken back, the can of Ro-Tel, and the liquid. Stir just a little, then bring to a boil.

Once boiling clamp lid on, put fire to low, wait 15 minutes. Open lid, gently turn rice from bottom to top, clamp lid on again for another 15 minutes. Then take off heat, add some green olives, and leave alone for yet another 10 minutes. Some people like to add capers and peas here, too; I don't.

That's it. And it is not arroz con pollo according to gospel! This is my recipe that I have adapted over a long time! So there.

American Idol is boring without someone to watch it with (namely my honey). You need someone to share snarky comments. I'm still rooting for Bo, by the way.

The chicken is marinating. I'm marinating it in the Puerto Rican version of adobo, which is this:

For every pound of meat:
1 garlic clove
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Oregano
2 peppercorns
1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil.

You mash all the dry stuff into a paste and mix in the wet stuff and slather it all over the meat. Refrigerate it for 24 hours or (horrors!) leave it on the counter for 2-3 hours. If you refrigerate it, take it out about an hour before cooking to get it to room temp. For mashing, I love the pilon my dad's wife Ileana bought for me. It's basically a wooden mortar and pestle. I use it to mash just about any garlic used for any recipe. You know what really smells good? Mashing up garlic and fresh ginger. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

I think I've said this before but it bears repeating: I use this adobo recipe on a pork picnic shoulder occasionally. Once you start roasting it, everyone in a 5 square mile radius will spontaneously start to drool.

So what did I eat for dinner? I had an odd hankering for country cooking. First off I made cornbread:

2 cups cornbread
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 tbsp oil
1 egg
2 slices of bacon

Heat oven to 450 degrees; in a medium cast iron skillet cook the bacon. Meanwhile combine all the dry ingredients and mix well, then combine all the wet ingredients and mix well. Do not combine wet and dry yet!

Drain bacon on paper towels and drain off bacon grease but leave about a tablespoon in the skillet. Crumble the bacon back into the skillet and spread pieces evenly(some people dice the bacon first before cooking and that works fine). Now combine all the ingredients and stir just enough to combine. Lumps are okay; you do not want to overwork the batter. Pour into skillet then pop it into the oven for 18-20 minutes. You will know it's done when the cornbread pulls away from the sides. Flip it over on a plate. Not a good idea to slam the iron skillet on the plate. Just shake it out.

I also had blackeye peas and collard greens. Here's the recipe: 1 can of blackeye peas and 1 can of collard greens. Heat. Eat.

Blasphemy, you say? Nonsense! They taste perfectly yummy out of a can (I like Bush's peas and Southern collard greens) especiallly if you spice them up with a little of that leftover bacon grease. I can feel my arteries harden as I type. Mmmmmmmmmm!

PS: I suppose you could add sugar to this cornbread if that's what floats your boat (bleah!). I can't tell you how much, but I can tell you when doing the separate mixing you add it to the wet ingredients. It's the one exception to the rule of quickbread recipes.

In other news, Jon seems to be really enjoying his course. He's learning a great deal about sewing and the guy teaching the course is a nice fellow who is letting Jon stay at his place for the week. It's a nice break for him, getting away from the same old routine. He's also planning to go get his airframe and power plant mechanic's ticket before the baby arrives; that's a 12 day course. I think it's a great idea for him to go do these things before d-day; not just to get them out of the way, but to relax and recharge before he's up to his elbows in used diapers.

Also I had a pregnancy-induced moment of sheer stupidity yesterday afternoon. I had gone to the bank to deposit some checks; on the way back at a stoplight, I waited for the light to turn then I went right through a red light. The light had only given a green arrow to turn left. I scared myself pretty bad. Fortunately I didn't get into an accident.

I say pregnancy induced because I have noticed increased absent-mindedness and clumsiness, which is common in pregnancy. I have been fairly successful in combatting the clumsiness by moving a hell of a lot slower than I normally do. I still drop things and stumble a lot. How do I combat absent-mindedness, especially when I drive? Scary crap! I could have gotten into an accident, and gotten hurt and what if I hurt or killed the baby? Yeek! My hair is turning grayer as I type. I need to be vigilant.

Last but not least, this review is dedicated to Helly and Alan: Sing along! Who lives in a pinapple under the sea? Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!!

Week 26

I had the blues on Friday, and Saturday morning I was crying again so I went home from the drop zone to collect myself. Besides the standard Fur Therapy, I also watched 4 episodes of "SpongeBob SquarePants". I highly recommend SpongeBob Therapy; that cartoon is so silly and absurd I can't help but laugh my ass off.

I slept a little and went back to the DZ in the afternoon and I was feeling MUCH better.

I've watched a few SpongeBob episodes, but now I have TiVo set to record as many as possible. What got me in a SquarePants mood? I had to review The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and I spent the entire time just howling. I'll post a link to the review as soon as it gets posted. My favorite character on the show is of course Plankton, a tiny plankton who wants to rule the world. You know me and characters who aspire to be Evil Overlords! That scene where SpongeBob tries to scrape Plankton off his shoe was so hysterical I had to rewind and watch it 3 times. I'm sure my kid thought he was on some kind of crazy carnival ride.

Speaking of, the kid didn't move much on Saturday. On Sunday, when I was in a MUCH happier mood, he was practicing his gymnastics routines again. I wonder if my moods and his activities are correlated? I shall have to pay attention to that.

Sunday morning I drove Jon the the Birmingham airport, because he had a plane to catch to Las Vegas. He is there getting his Master Rigger's ticket. A senior rigger can pack reserve parachutes and make minor alterations to parachute gear. A master rigger can do major alterations and repairs, including manufacturing gear. So that begs the question: what am I going to do this week?

COOK!

I have a couple of recipes I haven't made since I married Jon because he didn't particularly like them, like my beloved Puerto Rican arroz con pollo. I'm going to make that Tuesday ( tonight I have to make the chicken marinade). Not sure what I'm going to make the rest of the week but I have a strong feeling I'm going to be recipe blogging a couple of days here.

Speaking of cooking, I'm not sure I mentioned it here before: I am very curious as to what kind of food people in poorer countries feed their children after weaning them. I'm saying that because I'd like my kid to have an appreciation of a wide range of foods, including the spicy types. Now I'm not going to feed him ground-up habaneros but I still wonder how parents acclimatize their children to spices? I sense a fun websearch in my future.

Also, during my third trimester (which starts technically in a few days) I'm going to work on not eating so many sweet things and eating a larger variety of foodstuffs. I don't know if this idea is so much hoo-hah, but there's a theory that kids tend to have their food preferences shaped by what their mothers eat because they can taste what mom is tasting.

Then again, there's that Urban Legend that if you eat a lot of spicy foods your child will have a fiery temperment. If true, I will be giving birth to a Tasmanian Devil. Heh.

Yesterday I went to the Saturn dealership in Huntsville to have the front end of my car realigned. The day before I replaced the 2 front tires which were wearing unevenly so Jon thought it would be a good idea. I had some time to kill so I went to a nearby bookstore and wandered a bit.

I found the book the counselor suggested. I have all ready ordered it from Amazon, but I went ahead and ripped through it at the book store. Many things in "The Introvert Advantage" were quite interesting, and I was surprised by the amount of things I read that applied to me. I get exhausted if I'm around people all day (like at the drop zone) and that is a big indicator of introverts. What I didn't know is that introverts work off of their long term memory and have problems coming up with snap answers to anything immediately because it takes them longer to access the information they need. I thought I just had a problem communicating. God knows Jon gets frustrated when he asks me a question and I don't say anything for a while.

Introverts tend to be able to express themselves clearer when writing as opposed to speaking. Ha! They tend to have meltdown in high pressure situations around a lot of people and sometimes go completely blank. Ho! And of course, introverts need "me time" or they get really cranky. Hee!

It had a section about people involved in high-risk activities, like skydiving. According to statistics, extroverts outnumber introverts 3 to 1. In skydiving I'd say it's more like 20 to 1. I can't remember exactly why, but it involves brain chemistry.

My car was ready to go before I could really absorb any of the advice the book had on coping with the extrovert world, but I did realize how much I tried to work against my own nature, thinking something was wrong with me.

In other news, a few weeks ago Jon became upset because he has gained a good deal of weight since I became pregnant. Many dads-to-be do, of course. I don't think it's caused by any sympathetic or mystical connection - moms tend to cook, mom is eating like a horse so makes a buttload of food, dad eats whatever's in front of him.

So I promised to help him, by setting him up on a fairly simple don't-eat-so-much diet. I make all of his food, and he consults me when he has to eat out. Of course I think he should know what a sensible choice is by now, but I realize it's easier for him when he has someone else making most of his eating decisions for him.

Today he realized he's all ready lost 6 pounds, which put him in a good mood. Having him in a good mood is so worth the extra work. He tends to forget that when I met him and fell in love with him he weighed more than he does now (hi, honey!), but I want him to be happy with himself.

I figure I can help him drop at least 20 pounds before the baby arrives, then after a month or so of chaos I'll be jumping on the bandwagon to lose this incredible ass I've gained. And I'll probably weigh as much as he does!

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright, sun shiny day

I had an appointment with my psychiatrist this morning. She's happy with the results of taking Zoloft, and so am I. I described it to her as being able to think clearly again. Or perhaps the best way to put it was I had all these voices drowning the real me out and now I can hear myself think again.

Look at the ticker at the top of the page. Double digits, woo-hoo! Last night I woke up about 2:30 and hit the head. Came back and Mini-Jon insisted on practicing his gymnastics routine for about 20 minutes. Hey, I don't mind. Yet.

After feeling guilty numerous times about some of the choices I've made concerning the baby (namely not breast feeding), I started web-surfing for information and observations from other folks. One interesting shit storm was started by an article that appeared in Newsweek. The article was basically about women trying to do everything. Three bloggers I read made comments on it. One was by James Lileks, where as a stay-at-home dad he doesn't sweat the same things women do and Fisks the article pretty hard. Of course, some other SAH dad(I forget where I read it) observed that he could "feed my kids Cheetos and Jack Daniels, and let them play with hypodermic syringes in the middle of the street" and people would still tell him he was doing a great job. On A Small Victory, a woman blogger talks about the Cult of Motherhood and how many mothers tend to be judgemental towards other mothers, probably because they are trying to justify their overworked behavior.

Which led me to this fascinating blog: Chez Miscarriage. She has several absorbing entries about drive-by mommies ("other mothers frequently say crappy things about other mothers"). The comments section is eye-opening.

Incedentally, her blog is a remarkable journal about infertility and well worth perusing.

But I learned some things from all of these articles. A: I'm not worrying so much about all the choices I need to make. B: I won't be so judgemental about other people's choices. If I have said anything here that was a drive-by, feel free to smack me if you ever see me. I have to say I have not been hit yet by anybody or maybe I simply didn't take offense. I've certainly gotten a lot of interesting advice.

Oh! Some people have touched my belly. Funny, I didn't take offense by that either. First off they were all friends; second they all did it with such reverence it was funny.

Week 25

Sorry I didn't update yesterday. Jon and I went to our first counseling session and I was too nervous to write. I won't go into detail about the session except to say I think it went well. Jon likes the counselor, too, so we'll be going back to her.

I will tell you about one thing that made me smile: the counselor asked me if we knew about the Myers-Briggs Personality types. I smiled, nodded, and said "INTP". She described herself as "%100 I" and so am I. Jon had never heard of the types so she gave him a brief rundown. Jon hasn't taken any tests, but I'd bet money he's an ENFP. Anyways, she explained some things to Jon about being an introvert, putting it into words like I've never been able to do, and suggested to me to read a book The Introvert Advantage, which she recommended for learning how to handle living in an extrovert world better.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I'm doing just fine, baby is doing just fine. We're both growing - that's just about it. I'm still not tired of feeling him move. We may have decided on a name - Brendan - but we still have maybe 3 months+ before having to commit. I'll still refer to him as Mini-Jon for now.

Next week I actually have NO doctor's appointments. That's a switch. I have an ultrasound and a routine test for diabetes the week following.

I like Nancy's pantryblogging. Too bad I don't have a damn pantry. Boo! I keep meaning to buy some shelving to put in the laundry room to use as one.