autumn leaves

the falling leaves drift past my window
the autumn leaves of red and gold
i see your lips, the summer kisses
the sun-burned hands I used to hold






since you went away the days grow long
and soon I'll hear old winter's song
but I miss you most of all my darling
when autumn leaves start to fall



C’est une chanson, qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m’aimais et je t'aimais
Nous vivions tous, les deux ensemble
Toi que m’aimais moi qui t'aimais









Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit
Et la mer efface sur le sable les pas des amants désunis




photos by T.

seven months

ok, so it's been a minute since i've posted. i've been meaning to put out a blog during month 6th but between one thing and another (mostly work and the decompressing afterwards) i havent gotten around to it.

around 24 weeks, i became visibly pregnant. not the "is she, isn't she, maybe i shouldn't assume, could be an all-you-can-eat buffet meal" kind of pregnant, but the "whoa nelly, where-the-heck-did-that-come-from?" kind of pregnant. no complaints. i've actually been enjoying it. in spite of the anti-reproduction/population control misanthropes out there, there's a great deal of social benefit to being visibly pregnant. i get doors opened for me; i've gone to the head of bathroom lines; i don't have to carry anything; i get good seating, a lot of smiles, eye contact, compliments. in other words, courtesy & consideration. behavior that is generally missing in daily social interactions at large.

now i do get the "you're so big" comments from folks i haven't seen in a while and even from folks i see everyday. curiously enough, though i have my own vanities & hang ups, that comment doesn't bother me. mainly because i am big and i am just as amazed as they are. its absolutely marvellous. there is a little Being inside of me growing day-by-day. i can feel lekkle paws testing the boundaries of his/her known world, responding to my voice, to T's voice, to our hands, to whatever i consume, to life itself. in a misogynistic culture where a woman's body is gauged by comparison to a man's body and found lacking, how can i be anything but pleased at the innate capability of my body to nurture this spark of life and love?

for whatever reason, whatever vibe i put out into the world, i haven't gotten the random strangers (or even friends) touching my belly. and the folks that have touched my belly have been in a familiar (as in they feel like family), non-threatening way. and baby usually gives them an exhibition of his/her shyness/kicking power.

i have to cut this post short because i worked 11 days straight on work deadlines and yesterday we had a full day at the farmer's market, walked halfway around Lake Merritt, had our prenatal appointment, and then off to the city to see The Color Purple at the Orpheum with free tickets that our neighbors Pablo & Suzette gave us since they weren't able to attend themselves. (like the movie & novel, it was amazingly good, powerful, moving, emotional without being sentimental, cliche or trite, and characters with depth and nuance (even the "mister" character). i loved the movie as a kid and i cried through the whole musical. it was even better than the movie... and it was nice to have a real date rather than our usual hot fri/saturday Tarzhay date. inevitably on date night, we find ourselves at Target.)

anyways, after so much activity & work (plus T's been painting the bedroom so there's been all that commotion & related chores), and the nutmeg OD, over the last week, i've been increasingly been having more & more braxton-hicks contractions so i'm kinda on bedrest now. midwife's orders. they're not painful, just uterus toning rock hard to prepare for labor & birth. yesterday mornin, i had 6 braxtons before getting out of bed at 10am and that's not counting the ones i had in my sleep. normally, you have less than six a day at this stage. in the short amount of time after we got off the Fruitvale BART and walked the 30 yards to the car near midnight, i had 4 braxtons back-to-back each one progressively slowing me down. so i'm mostly obeying. no early labor for us. luckily i was planning on taking comptime on monday (and some on tuesday) anyways so i kept my schedule clear of meetings. and what with the holidays and all, i'm mostly working 3-4 day weeks until i go on maternity leave on February 1st. so that's better, more sane.

good news, we're back on track with baby growth. measuring exactly 28 weeks as i should.* a month ago we had a blip where i was measuring 26 weeks when i should have been 24. so, this means (and we already knew intuitively and just by daily palpation), no twins. sigh. slightly disappointed, though relieved that i can have a homebirth after all. and this also means baby is not growing too fast.

ooh. here comes another braxton. i'm out.

oh one last thing, try the dark chocolate sea salt caramels at Trader Joes. i don't normally like caramel because of its cloying sweetness, but they are divine!

*midwife trick of the trade is that your uterus grows 1 cm for every week past 20 weeks so you measure from the pubic bone to the fundus and provided that you & baby are growing normally, it matches with your dates one-to-one exactly! 28 weeks = 28 centimeters. yet another reason why the inches/feet system makes no rational sense.

some get a kick from cocaine...

i'm sure that if I took even one sniff
that would bore me terrific'ly too
yet I get a kick out of you.
-Cole Porter

i ate a croissant bun. it was a bad idea.

first because i cant tolerate wheat so much; its about on par with lactose-intolerance. and this is my third day of indulging in wheat pastries so there is a build up factor. (sorry T. we can leave the windows open tonight).

and second, because it was loaded with nutmeg.

nutmeg. a seemingly innocuous cupboard spice from exotic southeast asia & the pacific islands. one of the key products of the spice trade and in the motivation to discover a new route to India.
nutmeg has hallucinogenic properties. malcolm X used to smoke it back in the days when he was a lumpen nicknamed "Detroit Red" doin' time and lacked access to the real stuff. nutmeg is considered a uterine stimulant; in large enough quantity, an abortifacient/emmenagogue along with cinnamon and other seemingly harmless spices and is to be avoided in large doses during a pregnancy.

perhaps its the application of liquid heat that releases the essential oil, but even small quantities of nutmeg sprinkled on my latte have been know to get me a little.... stimulated above & beyond the caffeine. so i generally avoid the liberal use of nutmeg by itself.

i ate most of the bun before the realization & aftereffects set in. in addition to feeling a little light-headed, a little high, and cottonmouth/very parched, the baby is simultaneously kicking & punching me really hard right now, a little harder than his/her usual. i've just had a quart of water to try & flush it out. and now, all's quiet on the western front... though my head is still buzzin'.

just goes to show, food is medicinal. in modern day life, we are so divorced from the natural world and that understanding... its pathetic that it takes pharmeceutical corporate testing to re-discover that for us.

social benefits of pregnancy

though the online world is filled with vituperative rhetoric against the humanitarian ills of breeding (i.e. the pro-population control cabal--nevermind the global inequitable distribution of resources), i'm thoroughly enjoying the beingness of pregnancy.

our first halloween

this is the first halloween we haven't lived in a locked gate apartment building (Oakland norm) and we're finally experiencing hallow's eve revelers. though our street gets alot of pedestrian activity in general since its up the block from the Laurel shopping district, we got less than two dozen kids (assumably cuz the single family homes in the Hills have better loot than the apartment dense Flats and the elementary schools hold safe halloween parties on campus). and we got the good candy reese's peanut butter cups, kit-kats, snickers, butterfingers...

so there were a handful cute little kindergartners & babies in full zip up costumes accompanied by their parents--and don't think the parents didn't try to hustle for their fair share--they got three pieces.

then there were the middle school kids who are starting to be a little too cool for costumes, so they rocked their urban stylishness, trendy tops, cropped jeans oh and a mask that they carried in their hand and would only don by request. we got some backtalk, but mostly they were sweet. saccharine sweet. they got two pieces.

then there were the packs of high schoolers or as i like to call them roving teenage bandits. these young'uns didn't even bother with costumes. they just roll up on your doorstep, do a a quarter turn when you answer the door so you could put the bribe--i mean treats--in their backpacks.
RTB: "trick or treat!"
me: "what are you dressed as?"
RTB: "oh. mahself." all sassy attitude.
me: "uh-huh. nice try." give two pieces of candy anyway because at this point, it's extortion.
RTB: "Happy Halloween!"
five of them at time. then roll out. and one of them threw their candy wrapper on our lawn. roll eyes.

Halloween sucks. is it just the new millenium and the culture of violence & depravity that have sucked all the fun out of this childhood ritual?

we watched the highly promoted reality show live Halloween special Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel. six hours in a haunted abandoned sanitorium. yawn. we get suckered by this show every week by teasers that promise spectral thrills and all we get is temperature fluctuations, boring conversations between investigators as they while away the wee hours, and then anti-climactic electronic voice phenomenon (eery voices on a tape recorder. anything remotely exciting (like the blankets that mysteriously got pulled off the feet in the middle of the night) they go out of their way to debunk in that WASPy new england empirical way.) and yet like a sucker, i will watch the reveal next wednesday anyways.

the most exciting thing that happened is that all the commotion at the door freaked out our "special needs" cat rồngtý and he started obsessively licking his elbow raw again. so we double dosed him with rescue remedy and let him nurse tiêntý for comfort. hey, who are we to impose our human morals on other beings? we took their reproductive organs and this is how they get their rocks off. it's the rare time that they actually purr for more than 30 seconds.

da pregnancy cravings code

so i learned some things in our childbirth prep class

when you crave...

• sweets/sugars (donuts, cookies, candy, etc.)
  

what your body really wants is energy. sugar is the quickest and most empty form of energy that we resort to when when we're desperate. empty calories is the primary reason americans are morbidly obese.

it's better to have protein which is a more durable source of energy.

• chocolate
  what your body really wants is iron.

best of all, don't get ravenous in the first place. if you're keeping your blood sugar levels up with nutritious meals.

kitty fix for the day

tiên tý pretty kitty

rồng tý special needs kitty

20 weeks

i feel pregnant.

um, no duh, right? somewhere in the last few weeks the whole enterprise became real to me. maybe it was the baby quickening or the way my belly doubled in size between week 16 and now (i've gained 3 inches on my bust & hips and 7 inches on my waist since B.P. hubba hubba) or the lack of any of the "typical" signs of pregnancy (no vomiting, nausea, or bizarre midnite cravings). somewhere along the way, it became real. the baby became real.

did i mention the sleep deprivation? oh yes, prolly cuz i have back issues to begin with, i have increasingly gotten less and less restful sleep as the nighttime peeing has not abated and as the pressure on my spine made it impossible to sleep on my back (my favored position since slipping down some stairs years ago. twice.) nor on my side. the sense of my center of gravity being pulled forward and the tendency to swayback & slouch has me all off kilter. let me not underplay this, my spine hurts. my leftside nerves are literally fried. if you have ever had spinal/nerve injuries you understand the agony. i spent all of sunday on the couch just to recuperate from the lack of sleep the rest of the week (in addition to recovering from working overtime).

formerly pregnant women (aka mothers) talk about pillows. so many pillows your partner is exiled to sleep on the couch. mythical pillows. i tried every position, arrangement and pillow in the house--the bradley method (yes, there's a bradley method of sleeping. bradley is a husband coached natural childbirth method. not the same thing as Lamaze which is designed to facilitate the hospital staff's process of birth and has a 80-90% incidence of medicated birth.), pillows under my side & head and between the legs; i tried a pregnancy wedge, sofa throw pilllows. to no avail. i understand now why some pregnant women drop some serious cash on these ginormous pregnancy pillows (what do they do in VN where the wood "dining" table is the bed?). it steadily got worse over the last couple of weeks til i was reduced to tears of exhaustion. and even pregnant, i still don't cry easily. in that state if any mother said boo to me about pillows i prolly would have snarled and gone for the jugular. so it was a good thing i wasnt around any that particular meltdown day. though i won't vouchsafe for T. or my co-workers' post-L. stress disorder.

and then, oh joy! i discovered the magical pillow configuration (cue the paradise music). since i found the squashy couch immanently more comfortable (and 10's pillowtop guest bed in Sac) it stood to reason i needed more give (we have an extra firm organic rubber mattress with a wool mattress pad primarily so we can avoid the toxic off-gassing of most american beds. euro beds for reasons established elsewhere do not contain toxic chemicals.) so we doubled up a thick comforter and last night a down comforter as well on my side of the bed which is now raised above T.'s side six inches and that--plus a folded towel under my side and the pregnancy wedge pillow jammed in the small of my back for anti-tipping (any comments about cow-tipping will earn you stinkeye, a knuckle sandwich and The Finger)--did it. i'm still test-sleeping the diameter of the leg pillow also called gối ôm|hugging pillow in vinamese though for obvious reasons i call them phallic pillows.

so why am i up at 4am? the other pregnancy thing. i'm hungry. waiting for my hardboiled egg to cook. (my genius tip for peeling hardboiled eggs: using a teaspoon crack the wide end of the egg where the air pocket is. peel off just the air pocket. dip the spoon in the water and then slip in between the egg & membrane. circle the egg as you work your way towards the small end. the shell should peel off whole or in a long strip. this doesn't work as well with soft-boiled eggs because the membrane clings a little harder to the egg but still is easier than manual peeling.)

btw we heard bé's heartbeat at our prenatal on saturday. we gave in to the doppler. T. was more assured by hearing it than me, but then i have bé to keep me acrobatic company all day & night. still haven't conclusively ruled twins out. belly growth in next few weeks will really be diagnostic.

my grandmother whups đít

you ever feel like scientists/researchers lack common sense? and maybe some home-training by their grandmothers? as my bà ngoại likes to say "đá cho mày mà đá bây giờ!|i'm gonna kick your ass!"

anthropologist researchers "discover" that grandmothers are productive members of society and have a social-evolutionary role that prolongs longevity & survival in non-industrialized societies. whether its childrearing or economic production, grandmothers the world over hold their own and keep families alive. grandmothers are powerful.

it's a sad commentary on the patriarchal nuclearization of the modern american household in the industrial capitalist era that somehow that piece of info should be revelatory. elders are denied dignity and a social role in this society. i have only to visit the nursing home where my bà ngoại is staying until she's well enough to have the feeding tube taken out to get depressed & indignant about how this society treats its elders. or as i learned in high school with the few non-immigrant schoolmates (and in that area of town, they were white trash and/or military brats), the kids would get kicked out or forced to pay rent at 18 and then they in turn would stick their parents in nursing homes as soon as they got the chance. karmic payback.

we need a council of grandmothers in government. maybe they could make sense of the billions of dollars spent on the war machine, profiteers, and cutthroat mercenaries and straighten out our nonsensical health care system, public education and social security/elder care.

the quickening

no, the quickening is not when the lifeforce of one beheaded Immortal is released into another. yet another violent metaphoric co-optation of birth. (and unbelievably, T. has yet to see The Highlander. where was he in the 80s?! he never heard Sean Connery say in his thick scottish brogue "there can only be one!" what a deprived childhood. i sense Highlander film fest!)

the Quickening is the moment when the baby's movement is intuited by the mother. by pre-technology/pre-20th century standards, it is the beginning of Life.

now the darling pregnancy books all say that it starts after 16 weeks when the bones begin to harden (most primaparous/firsttime mothers feel it around 20 weeks) and that it feels like butterflies or fluttering. how precious.

so not what i am feeling. i thought the gurgling, twinges and uterine cramp-stretching i've been feeling over the last two weeks was gas or uterine growth or ligaments adjusting to the prenatal chiro. and then as trung lay his palm over my abdomen a few nights ago and felt the erratic pulsing himself, it dawned on us, that's bé and s/he is seriously punching me! now it makes sense why a few weeks ago (at 16.5 weeks), i woke T. up in the middle of the night hollering in my sleep "STOP POKING ME!" i wish i could say it's precious being kicked in the cojones by tiny paws. it rather feels like kittens in one's sweater--squirming into a toasty position and then a rumpus when rồngtý picks a fight with tiêntý's tail and then they squirm into a new cozy position. bé likes to use my bladder as a gas pedal "đi mao len đi má!|go, mommy go!"

it is rather endearing though. we still haven't heard the bé's heartbeat on the fetascope, but we can *hear* bé moving--rather, elbowing me womb, must be T.'s karate genes--with the fetascope. (is there two? how can bé move so fast from one end of my uterus to the other?) i like that our first proof of Life is a shared, sensory/sensual experience, both our hands on my belly, and not from some device.

i swear it's just eating very well at 10 & 11's wedding weekend, but i didn't flatten out the next morning. lots of good food (and a wee bit of caffeine). major overnight growth spurt. i could hardly sleep for all the womb-commotion. we're in official baby bump territory.

the transformation to motherhood is a trip. your skin stretches, your womb expands, your heart grows, your soul unfolds.

irreverend L.

weo, i officiated my first wedding ceremony for my friends 10 and 11.

it was a magical and lovely wedding weekend in the "Hamptons" of the bay area--aka Stinsons Beach. i feel very honored and blessed to have shared such an intimate heartfelt experience. there is something very special about being the celebrant and guiding a couple through that sacred rite of passage. maybe i was born to be a priestess--albeit a pagan one. and i conducted the ceremony barefoot & pregnant. hah. the bride was lovely and stunning in a red and white floral summery halter top. and the groom was fine in his white linen suit and red pinstripe button-up (although i do feel wierd saying that about a man i consider my cousin).

to prepare 10 & 11, eons ago i shared a wedding ceremony template borrowed from my neighbor, a native elder & spiritual leader, for my own commitment ceremony and had them answer questions about marriage, their relationship, challenges, why they love each other. deep stuff and humorous. (T. and i are considering photocopying their answers and distributing them at this weekend's reception.) they gave me feedback on what they wanted to see in their ceremony, meaningful cultural rituals, and then gave me their responses and the beginnings of their vows (which like every other couple planning a wedding they didn't finish til the last minute). i had wrote much of the ceremony months ago--one of the few things in life i didn't procrastinate on. i've been waiting for this day practically since i've known 10 nine years ago. Love is a great motivator.

folks enjoyed the ceremony. like 10 & 11, it was generous, tender, inclusive, loving and irreverent. just to give an idea, their commitment was sealed with diamond-encrusted gold horseshoe rings inherited from 11's parents from the 1970s and their vows included things like "fried chicken" and "lactose intolerance" amongst all the soul-deep love.

i was requested to share my "sermon." so here it is, minus the stuff that doesn't belong to me (readings, vows, etc).

WELCOME

Greetings and blessings, kindred. We are gathered today in Community and Love to rejoice in the union of two giving and compassionate Souls, 10 and 11.

All of us here have shared in the long journey of their relationship as it has ebbed and flowed over many moons and many years of their lives. And through it all, all the sea of heartaches and all the oceans of joy, they have held each other in their hearts, closer than breath, more precious than water. 11, you were always the constant ocean to her moon. 10, you always gave him the universe to be his whole self. The changes and growth you have experienced in your times apart have ultimately drawn you back together. That is truly a rare and precious gift.

We as your family, your friends, your community, we have collectively supported you both as individuals and as a couple in embarking on this path together. And today, we share in this blessing of your marriage, and with Heaven and Earth, bear witness to your spiritual commitment to one another.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

Our tears today are tears of Joy; tears that taste like Love itself. In Vietnamese we say, Uống nước nhớ nguồn. As you drink water, remember its source. As we drink in the Love and Joy, let us take a communal moment of spiritual reflection to remember, to breathe deeply, to invoke ancestors and loved ones who cannot be here with us today, to feel their Presence and Love surrounding, guiding, and blessing this union.

PAUSE

MESSAGE

10 and 11 prepared for this moment, this ceremony—you might say they’ve been preparing for it nearly half their lives—to infuse it with their understandings and beliefs, personality & humor. To 11 and 10, marriage means a lifelong spiritual commitment to share in life’s journey as two strong individuals building an even stronger relationship because of all the challenges they’ve faced as a couple over the last 15 years. This is a union based on shared values & political principles, balancing individual identities, shared responsibility, expectations, limitations and boundaries.

10, 11, this spiritual connection shared with each another you have inscribed with your own secret map and legend written by your shared memories, matured communication, constant laughter, support, love and hopes for your shared future. The pathway to Love's communion reflects your continual struggle and growth as a couple, as future parents, and as members of this community. Through this union you will gain patience and your two families--the B's and the T's--will forever be joined through you.

Visionary bell hooks speaks of Love as a choice. It is a choice that is transformative, centered in sharing and mutuality, and built through Justice.

She writes, “When we commit to true love, we are committed to Being Changed, to being acted upon by the Beloved in a way that enables us to be more fully self-actualized. This [mutual] commitment to change is Chosen. . . True love is unconditional, but to truly flourish it requires an ongoing commitment to constructive struggle and change. The Heartbeat of True Love is the willingness to reflect on one’s actions, and to process and communicate this reflection with the loved one.”

Like many meaningful life-passages, your union today is for us, what hooks calls “the fabulous moment of Pause where we begin to contemplate the true Meaning of Love in our lives. We begin to see clearly how much love matters, not the old patriarchal versions of ‘love’ but a deeper understanding of LOVE AS A TRANSFORMATIONAL FORCE demanding of each individual Accountability and Responsibility for nurturing our spiritual growth.”

11 and 10, in your old life before this day you were two friends, two sometime lovers; henceforth you become one Family and we all bear witness to the birth of your Union in Love. As your kindred and community, we are bound with our presence to support your choice to commit to each other, to ground you, and be an active presence in the endurance of your relationship. So as you embark on this new life together as a family, you both have a sacred responsibility to each other, to your united families and your community, a commitment to struggle and change, a willingness to love and through that love, be transformed.

Two lovely readings from an Ilocano poem and Kahlil Gibran & an original song by I-80.

VOWS OF INTENT

This day of uniting and commitment is sanctified by the deepest yearnings of our souls for unity, communion with the spiritual, and for the chance to transform ourselves.

10 and 11, from the depths of your souls, speak now the vows you have written for each other.

the vows were classically them.

RING EXCHANGE

The ring is a symbol of the cycles of renewal and life, một lời vâng tạc đá-vàng thủy-chung, a vow of constancy etched in stone and gold. Auspicious horseshoe rings.

very lovely ring exchange vows.

COMMUNITY BLESSING

When two souls come together in spiritual communion, we rejoice in Love and Hope.

11 and 10 wholeheartedly believe in the joining of their families, friends, and community as part of their commitment to one another. They welcome you, their guests, to lift your voices in short and simple blessings on this day. If the spirit moves you, please share a blessing now.

lots of "Gazebos!"

PRONOUNCEMENT

10 and 11,

As you made your decision to commit to this union based on Love,

Let Love be the guiding force in your marriage;

May Love soften the edges of anger and melt away selfishness;

Let Love give you the patience, the grace and the strength to change together.

As your kin & community, We now pronounce you life partners. Blessed be.

KISS. Duh.

CLOSING

Community please blow kisses to 10 & 11.

maternity sweatshop

T's 70-year-old, diabetic, partially deaf mợ 2|aunty #2 has been industriously sewing me a new bà bầu wardrobe pulling all nighters this week out of concern for my seeming lack of pregnancy-appropriate attire. i guess she missed the elastic waistband demonstrations or didn't think it was adequate.

it's one thing when it's malnourished brown orphans deprived of childhood and limbs industriously producing one's wardrobe piecemeal for pennies because there is the global economy, multinational corporations, layers of manufacturing subcontracting, clever marketing ploys, shiny store displays and discount store prices to buffer and inure me from the human consequences of my first world decadence.

it's a whole nother thing when it's your kin. and its heartfelt concern. and its muumuus. and they are made from love.

maybe like the golden garments of love that Ariel learned to spin from the depths of her heart for the wraiths in the fantasy novel DarkAngel, the muumuus will wear less burdensome than garb made from coercion, loathing and pain, and will wear lightly filled with the grace of compassion and the gift of sisterhood.

stupid power tridux

so i have realized my other stupid power.* i have the distinct ability to make multiple analogies or metaphors relating to any given situation to accentuate, clarify, elucidate and obfuscate my intended communicative meaning. T. would say "the hyperbolic ability", but i think he is exaggerating. for the most part, this stupid power only manifests its ad infinitum extent in T.'s presence. prolly cuz i talk with him the most--in the morning as soon as i wake up (sometimes after he wakes up), in the car on the way to work (we work on the same block), during lunch, on the way to the parking garage, on the ride home, over dinner. we're nauseatingly cute lik dat. you get the idea.

example:
we are having homemade bún thịt bò xả|lemongrass beef noodles for our daily lunch together. i point out the blemish on the remaining half of the cucumber as T. is poised to slice. rather than divot out the spot, he cuts off the blemish and approximately 1/4 of the cucumber lengthwise. thus, wasting cucumber (a precious resource) and exposing the inner portion of the unused cucumber to dry out in the air (that will later have to be cut off before consumption).

me: that's like getting a papercut and cutting off the whole hand.
t (half chokes on his food, indignant but knows its true): not it's not.
me: now what are you going to do with the rest of the arm, dude? its hemorrhaging.
t (spluttering): it's not hemorrhaging.
me: that [unused] piece will dry out--
t: just cut the dry part off before you eat it.
me: so what ya gonna cut it off to the elbow? so wasteful.
to spite me, he eats the amputated portion of the cucumber around the blemish and the rest of the cucumber reserved for another meal.

really, when you think about it, my 2nd stupid power is an extension of this metaphoric ability on a historical, cultural, societal, literary, and infinitely tangential scale.

*a stupid power is a) useless though entertaining, at least to me, and b) could, potentially, under the right circumstances, at the last minute, under great duress, defeat Evil and Save The Day.

profundity

there are two valuable lessons i have learned over the decades upon entering the real contradictory grown-up world that requires one to wear non-wrinkled clothing and simultaneously textiles that encourage wrinkles. so i thought i would share them for your enlightenment.

1. Don't iron naked.

2. Don't iron clothes while you are wearing them.

there are other rules doubtless like "don't iron on the $1.99/sf cheap carpeting" (it melts). but these above are far more significant.

and if you do ever happen to ignore those rules, Traumeel homeopathic cream will heal without blistering.

robotech is dead

nonono! they are bringing 80s classic anime Robotech to the silver screen as a live action flick. starring Tobey Maguire. so sorry, this is not a joke. the Rick Hunter-Minmei-Lisa Hayes love triangle will be played out by (unpudgified and unsexy) Tobey, an underage overly sexualized barbie ingenue and a overly serious and sexually repressed brunette starlet.

Another winter day
Another grey reminder that what used to be
Has gone away.
It's really hard to see
How long we have to live with our insanity.

We have to pay for all we use,
We never think before we light the fuse.

Look up! Look up! Look up!
The sky is falling.
Look up! There's something that
You have to do.
Before you try to go outside
To take in the view,
Look up because the sky
Could fall on you.

resistance is futile

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1998/08/14584

fifteen

i was a trifle disconcerted last month by the idea, but discussing with our midwife Selena my moon cycle journal, LMP, spin, factoring in my bà ngoại's stroke, the womb blessing, my emotional/spiritual state at the probable times of ovulation & conception, and the location of my fundus (top of the uterus), i'm not as far along as previously thought. it had thrown me for a loop earlier because i had gotten so invested in the progressive week-by-week pregnancy/baby descriptions. i surprised myself how much of the pregnancy i was still externalizing to some western "authoritative" scientific text in spite of eschewing at least some of the unnecessary interventions of technology. shows you how much we internalize the western production of knowledge and the cartesian body-mind binary. i do have a cerebral tendency. earlier this year, i saw my sister's acupuncturist-chiropractor Dr. Dawn and she diagnosed my pulse and told me that i live in my head too much. she also surmised that i was the youngest child, and independent/headstrong/slightly rebellious. that wasn't from my pulse though, that was from the tattoos.

so now we collectively estimate that i'm 15 weeks along, making our due date March 1st. (this means Liz, that i wasn't pregnant yet when we saw you at Yan's 100 days.) Selena suggested i consider continuing hypnotherapy with Nancy (herself a former midwife) since emotional state profoundly influences birth and Anabelle's anniversary may jumpstart or stall labor. but between my out-of-pocket costs--prenatal bellydancing, tai chi class, going to chiro, childbirth preparation class, baby CPR certification, acupuncture co-pays, maternity clothes (!) and compensating the midwife (who is worth so much more than we can afford)--we can't afford it.

though my Uterus has obligingly cooperated by moving to the center of my abdomen, off of my herniated disk/sciatic nerve, she still is tilted way back. Selena palpated and faintly heard/felt bé's heartbeat with a fetascope. i couldn't hear it for my own pulse and T. thought he might have heard/felt it too. so Selena lent us the fetascope to try at home til we hear it since i don't want to use the doppler (a smaller portable ultrasound device).

we met Sarah, our midwife's assistant and our childbirth prep instructor, and her 6 month old daughter Samaya and her husband Daoud (sp?), who is Cham Vietnamese. as it turns out, his sister works for a sister-organization of mine. small small world. have i mentioned how loving our midwife is? our birth team is coming together and it's comforting to feel the relationship is grounded in community.

last night, we hung out with T's family (ba mẹ mợ 2 má 4--just got here from VN again--anh chị họ) and i was happy to confirm that chị Trinh, his cousin Hoàng's spouse, is very close to me in pregnancy. yay! somemama to share with! she's 17 weeks along and her due date is mid-February. we traded some pregnancy stories. they recently moved from Union City to down the block from Trung's parents. in addition to having more family in walking distance, it helps to normalize pregnancy with his parents. there haven't been many babies in this generation just yet, just T's mini-me who is 10 now. so it was a happy time. and i got to hear lots of T. & siblings' babyhood stories and discovered the origins of his affiinity for thịt kho chuối chín|pork stew with ripe bananas. and má 4 kept squeezing my forearm in the way vinamese female elders do she was so happy. we introduced the idea that we have a doctor (sorta) and a bà đỡ đễ or bà mụ|midwife (also means the Goddess believed to give shape to and protect babies. cool!). we haven't decided yet how much to reveal, though i'd like to avoid more anxiety on their part, i'm disinclined to lie. at least, so far my má who will be there for the homebirth has been accepting of all our decisions especially b/c i take care to ground them in our cultural-historical context and her own experience with natural birth (bro & sis) and medicated birth (me)--though she did scoff a little about going diaperless at least in the US context. it seems that his parents would be receptive and their thinking isn't all that far off from our own, but doctors have a social significance and it may be hard for them to accept that we aren't going that route... we'll see.

apparently the acceptable mốt|môde for Vinamese pregnancies is the muumuu or the empire-waisted muumuu that btw is hella not flattering and makes you look far larger (which is what chị Trinh was wearing, so she looked way bigger than me for all that she is only 2 weeks ahead). and it makes sense that in the tropics you would want to wear something very loose fitting since you are generating your own thermal nuclear source of heat. but we're not in the tropics and the weather has turned cool at night. and, i don't own any muumuus except for the A-line housedress my mama just gave me. [ i recently tried it on for the first time. it's a muumuu. sigh.] so everyone except mợ 2 & má 4 commented on my fitted tshirt & pants. (fitted clothes have the optical illusion of making you seem smaller than the empire waisted loose waist ones.) so i had to show each one of them the elastic waistband to convince them that it was maternity and comfortable. and still they felt i should really be wearing a muumuu. later chị Trinh asked me where i got my pants. so at least the other bà bầu doesn't think muumuus are de rigeur.

i know. this blog has become less sardonic, ironic, pop culture-tinged commentary and more pregnancy journal. at least i'm still sardonic & ironic about the whole thing.

salt fiend

it's my kryptonite.

for those of you who met my brother in 200X you already know that i used to drink soy sauce. more accurately, Maggi. the saltier french version. used to swig it straight from the bottle.

the color of grief

colorless filament in solitude
enigmatic wellspring depths
ombre crossover among the ebon
coarsened through time

plastic morals

i'm utterly scandalized by the series of Mattel recalls.

now, they are doing it voluntarily. is it because they care about children's health? nope. it's because they are afraid of the liability--the lawsuits & backlash that will be generated from the scandal mongering publicity.

it's quite easy to point the finger at China for shoddy manufacturing standards. and yes, it is shady on China's part and it's also the case that the US loves to scapegoat China for economic ills since the 1700s. however let's look a little deeper. Mattel is recalling voluntary while the government remains curiously silent (let's contrast this govt response to the E. Coli breakout in processed spinach or other contagious diseases like mad cow, hoof & mouth, drug-resistant TB...). we could also ask how could our government allow this to happen?

after all 85% of the world's toys are made in China and not one of the European and other industrialized countries are issuing recalls. huh? why the disparity? weo, our government does not have strict regulations on importing toxins in manufactured products because of the powerful chemical industry lobby. The European Union, Korea, Taiwan, among others have evidence-based (from American scientists btw) strict bans on lead, endocrine-disrupters (phthlates), carcinogens and other toxins in children's toys. the US ignores the same evidence (or are bribed by the chemical industry to ignore) and allows toxins in all plastic products. the same Chinese manufacturer which is producing a toxin-free toy for export to Europe is also manufacturing the identical toxin-laden toy for US export.

now it's easy to compartmentalize this as an issue of children's health or of pet health as the case may be, but it's a human health issue, an ecological issue. these phthlates, carcinogens, toxic chemicals are present in most (if not all) plastics and many common consumer products, mattresses & furniture, cleaning products, cosmetics/nail polish, etc. it's almost completely unregulated--except of course what little consumer products the US manufactures for export, since most of that is regulated by other countries' standards to exclude toxic chemicals. in fact the European Union dumps all the toxic toys (and other consumer products) they don't allow in their countries to the US market. ironic right?

magic powers

so i hung out with my mom and Bà Tiến yesterday who my mom tricked into going up to North County and having dinner with my sister for the whole afternoon and evening. Like most Vinamese people, she prefers the xe máy|moped to the xe hơi|auto as a form of transportation. at least she doesn't get sooo carsick that she's vomiting all the time like most Vinamese people. she's here visiting my Bà Ngoại from Thử Đức, outside Sài Gòn. she has the same country accent as Bà Ngoại; says an emphatic không with that voiceless nasal release at the end that makes many people think that most vinamese words end in a p/b because the lips come together and the sound is unvoiced, and retroflexes all her voiced alveolar fricatives. so dì|maternal aunty sounds almost like rì and dễ thương|cute, loveable sounds like rễ thương.

so in addition to Bà Tiến giving me a nickname based on my condition Bầu (the equivalent of calling me "Preggie". oh, this is where i get that reductive nickname tendency from!*) she also said i have healing powers. so vinamese folks believe a first-time pregnant mom has the ability to heal people by massaging or squeezing or pressing the painful area according to how many vitalities they have (men have 7; women have 9). so she had me acupressure a spot at the top of her head where she had previously given herself a goose-egg/concussion. what could i do but comply. i don't know if her head pain has gone. my mom and dad who don't "believe" nevertheless had me squeeze their painful elbow, wrist as well as Bà Ngoại's more paralyzed right arm. who knows if it'll work. i mean if i can generate Life cell-by-cell, then it stands to reason. what can't i do?

i have healing powers. cool.

oh, and how happy am i that Henry's (the local more natural grocery store now operated by Wild Oats) has bulk mexican candies? i can have my tejocote and be lead-free... mom is under strict orders to memorize the location & serpentina candy appearance so she can keep me well-supplied. i'm already running out and am awaiting my next shipment along with my maternity áo dài.

*it could also be that she finds my Hawaiian name a pain to pronounce since its three syllables. remember its a monosyllabic language.

rất là ngon!

i've been waiting, patiently (more because i don't have a choice than desire), for food to be delicious during this pregnancy. it's been okay. but, there's always a but; it's too béo|fatty-oily, too bland, too repetitive, too not fresh, too unexciting, always something missing. i thought, maybe i'm just missing home cooking (i can't say mom's cooking, because dad does most of the cooking) because even vinamese food leaves me unenthusiastic whether homemade or restaurant (too much MSG!). so i came home with loads of requests.

last night at dinner, i was a wee disappointed with my dad's hủ tiếu. i added chanh|lemon and thought maybe if i added nước mấm, that might fix it (to my dad's horror; i realized when i was finishing for second dinner how salty it was as a result.) so i resignedly thought maybe food was just going to be blah for the rest of the pregnancy. so sad.

then, mama took the leftovers and made the secret sauce dad forgot to make last night (probably because i was HUNGRY! and he wanted to feed me right away). and there, it was for breakfast--hủ tiếu Bà Năm Sà Đẹc. now if you've been fortunate enough to venture out of phở territory (but please don't do it at a phở restaurant. phở is their specialty, don't wander to the other 25 items on the menu. it won't be good and won't do your tastebuds or the dish justice) most likely in San Jo unless you've been to a friend's mom's house, you may be acquainted with hủ tiếu|pork & seafood noodle soup. i lack words to describe the difference now; prolly the foodbuzz kickin in. look here for more verbiage later XXXX. (um, mom just cursed me and my ancestors|tiên sư mày because i'm back in here typing instead of eating. but i'm full already and am saving the rest for later. i do small meals. if i eat too much, i get indigestion and i look like i'm 7 months pregnant because my stomach & intestines are all topside.)

hủ tiếu Bà Năm Sà Đẹc is a specialty dish created by Bà Năm|Mrs. Five (chinese numbering influence here) of the town Sà Đẹc in the Mê-Kông Đelta. yes, it was so damn good, the dish is hereafter named after her. it's still pork & seafood. it's still glass noodles *except* it's served dry with the secret sauce and the pork broth on the side. the secret sauce is what makes the dish. i had heretofore thought that the sauce was a form of riêu (crab or shrimp roe blended with spices and used to make bún riêu). but it's not. it's dried shrimp--the dense flavorful meaty vinamese kind. accept no substitutes--soaked, strained, pan fried (no oil) to re-dry, finely minced with shallots, garlic & tomato paste. it's better than ketchup, and that's saying alot. this was exactly what was missing last night! dollops of the Bà Năm Sà Đẹc sauce, a little chanh. my tastebuds rejoice! even though 2 times in a row is my max for any dish, i may have to eat more for second breakfast.

ah, and some freshly homemade sửa đậu nành lá dứa|soybean juice flavored with pandan. life is good.

in the words of my friend Tuyền, rất là ngon!

body-mind connection

it's the sad nature of modern living that we exist mostly in our heads. our bodies are an afterthought. hence the bodily afflictions that ail most of us--migraines, sciataca, the dreaded RSI, -itis, muscular tension, aches and pains, menstrual cycles.

my youngest aunty conceived best while drunk (as the family story goes. at least my version of it). drunk as heo on her wedding. and vacation drunk while trying to get over the depression that the doctor's diagnosis of early menopause (at 40!) and infertility had induced. i hope she fired her doctor who was wrongwrongwrong!

my sister conceived Anabelle after goodbye sex while on a sister's trip visiting me in Oakland over the july 4th weekend.

i have a friend who conceived while celebrating the fact that her artist husband finally finished art school and got a job!

where's the silent majority?

hmm... i was watching Sai-Gon TV earlier today and saw that there was yet another anti-comm!e protest in OC. this time outside the office of OC vinamese periodical VietWeekly. Vinamese newspapers are rarely controversial given the high rate of mortality for Vinamese American journalists--Chauncey Bailey's assasinat!on is not an uncommon occurrence in Viettown; it's an occupational hazard of journalism in our community--so, this is noteworthy and commonplace all at the same time.

i don't have anything substantial to blog. as yet. (mom is reminding me not to sit in front of computer too long since i did work from home on my vacation all pm so... it's almost time for second dinner. hủ tiếu|pork & seafood glass noodle soup. mmm. i pity those whose only experience of vinamese noodle soup is phở. so let's do a san jose trip & revive our eat-around-the-world monthly dates.)

here are the articles:

A History of Violence: A brief history of anti-comm!e attacks
Red scare in Lil Sai-Gon
Waiting with red-baited breath

this is the kind of black-and-white manichean binary as Fanon outs it, that we still have yet to evolve from and that keeps locked in a cycle of violence on a global scale. it's all to easy to deny your opposition/opponent/adversary/competitor their humanity and cast them as the (plug in a derogatory fearmongering -ist adjective of choice: commie, capitalist, socialst, racist, separatist etc.) enemy and to employ the same dirty tactics as you accuse the other side of engaging in.

is freedom of speech really only an ideological tool of the Nation-State that only upper-/middle-class white americans purport to enjoy?

preggie snacks

though i don't snack so much as have a small meal (hence second breakfast and second lunch, i do on occasion snack. patics when there is no fridge/kitchen/restaurant in sight). ergo, the best pregnancy snacks ever:

• seaweed--contains iron, folic acid and loads of minerals similar in composition to the human body and it flushes out lead & mercury! i love the toasted korean kind with sesame oil & salt. my favorite brand "Well-being" is sprinkled with black sesame. and y'know, the darker the berry, the more nutritious the juice. the toasting kills some nutrients, but it's still tasty.
  
• bananas with almond butter and maybe some honey drizzled over--some protein, carbs & fiber to get me through the night. that elvis knew a thing about it. and this month he is sposedly 30 years dead.
  
• broiled bananas--it's like fried bananas without the fried, add some coconut sorbet and mmm! who needs to make a run to the Thai restaurant. or some grated dark chocolate spinkled over. yumyum!
  
• macadamia nuts--protein & iron to tide you over in between the second breakfast and the first lunch. i'm over walnuts right now. i first trimestered them into untastiness. no macadamia i will never tire of. i used to pick macadamia from the bush on the side of the house on Piikoi crack'em open with rocks and eat 'em raw. i so missed the flavor that my mom once pulled over and asked a random neighbor if she could pick their macadamias for me. yup, i love being the baby of the family.
  
• mangoes--preferably green with nước mấm đường|fish sauce & sugar OR muối ớt|salt & fresh chile. if they're ripe, then eaten godzilla-style: with skin on, slice mangoes parallel to seed. leave skin on and cut the flesh into cubes without breaking the skin (like an avocado). the victorious sibling gets to eat the best part, the seed. take the cubed slice in the skin and flip it inside out and eat them like godzilla eating all the buildings in downtown Tokyo. reminds me of my childhood on Piikoi Street picking all the green mangoes to my parents perpetual dismay since they preferred it ripe.
• almond butter & raspberry preserves on rudy's organic multi-grain spelt bread--i'm on this wheat & dairy-free diet for my allergies (it's been great! no allergies this spring). and this brand and kind of spelt bread is the only thing that doesnt taste like sawdust or uber-healthy brick bread. peanuts actually being ground legumes absorb soil toxins like a sponge, so almonds are better for you in addition to being good for you. this is my there's nothing in the fridge i want to eat and yet i'm hungry option. i haven't gotten tired of it yet thankfully.
  
• coconut juice--what's there to say? it's like a sports drink only au naturel choc full of calcium & iron and minerals. keep an eye on this as the next new natural health trend.
  
• tamarind--this was our favorite movie snack. forget popcorn. crack open the thin shell, peel the fibers and it's mouthwateringly tart and only slightly sweet. only chile could make this better. this is why i love mexican candy.
  
• dandelion tea/infusion--this pretty weed has loads of calcium folic acid & iron (more than spinach!) and it helps to flush your liver (dee pehl eez in dee rirver). infusion is more concentrated than tea. it's easy to do and its a damn sight cheaper to buy in bulk than to buy pre-bagged tea.
  
• raspberry leaf tea/infusion--tones your uterus and iron galore! hmm, shall we say pussy galore?
  

little musings

today was rough.

i was vomiting bile from the time i got up and couldn't keep anything down. midwife thinks its morning sickness. i'm a little disgruntled and grumpy by the idea that somehow morning sickness could skip over the entire first trimester and pimp-slap me in my 4th month. i now appreciate how easy i had it and how it could make a woman reconsider having another child.

since it was my last day in the office before my mini-break to see family in San Diego, i had to drag myself in and do payroll (i hope staff appreciates their paycheck!) and all the time-sensitive tasks for the 30th Anniversary Gala at my social justice day-job of which i am the chair having been nominated & voted in by default of being the only non-busy person at the time and virtue of the fact that i had recently put together my wedding (a fulltime job in and of itself), and am the first to volunteer to plan all the office parties, and was therefore the "ideal event planner". i have to fundraise $60K gross. we're about $4k along with less than two months to go. i'm only slightly nervous.

so i held it together for the first hour of a morning program staff meeting i had forgotten about and then passed out on the sofa nearby, absorbing the rest of the meeting via osmosis. i managed to get most everything followed up & in motion with a slurry of emails and headed home early afternoon.

i think either it was the lack of vegetables this weekend since i was at 2 BBQs and hooters (who knew it was so family-friendly. the kids practically outnumbered the adults!). or perhaps its the psycho-somatic thing i've heard about, how emotional well-being impacts your health particularly when you are so pregnant-sensitive and is particularly connected with morning sickness.

today was also my dad's solar death anniversary. twenty years.

it just sorrows me that he'll know know his grandchild in this life. never hứng or cuddle or mock bite or gently tease til bé shrieks with delight. of course my stepdad will be there for bé
and be all those things for her/him. he loves babies unreservedly. and he is a responsible, kind, loving and generous person. they only time i didnt get along with him was those rebellious teenage years. if anything T. is similar to him, a Southerner, though T's a light-skinded one. what they say about marrying your father... my sis and i both married Snakes, like our stepdad. i don't lack for loving Asian men in my life and i'm not playing out my father issues in my relationships unlike say AmyTan kinds of Asian-American women.

and still... i miss Ba, his voice, the distinctive malarial timbre of his cough, the raspiness of his facial hair and how he would tickle me with it, the sound of his laughter, his genuine amusement at my small defiances, his smell, his hugs and kisses soothing me. all the ephemeralia that i can no longer recall, dimmed by time's passage.

here comes the bile again
fallin on my head like a memory
raining on my head like a new emotion

whatta man, whatta man, whatta man

what a mighty good man

T. says if i'm going to tell people about all his funny messups then i have to balance out with how good he is to me. so without further ado, my man is the best cuz

• today, i woke up at 3am to pee & eat, and woke him up because our door hinges squeak. (yeh, we need some beeswax) we lay restlessly awake for an hour and half. and then he gave me a massage so i could fall back asleep.
• he always knows when i'm thirsty and gets water for me before i even ask
• he always gets food & heats it up for me when i'm hungry and lazy
• he cooks when i don't want to touch or smell food and is always willing to walk over to Lucky and get whatever veggie/meat i feel like eating
  
• he does the yard work (it's a quarter acre. this is significant.)
• he is never disappointed or judgemental when i have coffee
  
• he downloads all the episodes of my fave shows and burns them on a DVD
• he understands my lazy non-verbal vocalizations (mostly)
  
• he thinks my baby bump is hot (even when its mostly gas)
• he carries heavy things so i don't hurt my back again
• he talks to the baby in vinamese
  
• he chiều-s me (this isn't quite translatable. closest is indulge.)
  
• the way he hứng me (if you don't know what this is, i don't have the heart to tell you what you're missin out on)
  

You know he has my heart
He is my shining star
My girls, they understand
I'm talking about my man

hot dadda

because T. deserves to be celebrated too

paletas deliciosas

LA Times just did a food piece on paletas (mexican fresh fruit popsicles. are they quiescently frozen?). now, when i was a young'un coasting about in San D, Tijuana and Cuernavaca, tamarindo was my favorite so i never did try the other flavors so much.

paleta de mango con chile sounds really really good right now. as does piña con chamoy. mmm chamoy. even thought they have lead i them, i miss mexican candy. pulpa rago de chamoy, chaca chaca, lucas, vero elotes, pulpitas, pulparindo, pelucas, pelon... funnily enough, it's similar flavors as VN food--sour, sweet & spicy all at the same time.

the land of maternity

i've gained approx 5 lbs and 2 inches on my bust, waist & hips. va-va-va-voom. i need to eat every 2-3 hours and i still have to pee a whole lot. oh and i'm mental toast by 9.30pm. i still fight it like i am 7 trying to finish a book under the covers with a flashlight waaayyy after bedtime, but i'm mentally useless. let's not even bring up what's going on downtown.

though i look relatively un-pregnant in the mornings (in my own estimation since everyone else seems to think they can tell. maybe its me knitting baby booties that's the dead giveaway? or is it just my "glow"?), by day's end through the effluvia of digestion, anatomical positionality of my intestines, and the gassiness that accompanies pregnancy (no one tells you about the gassiness!), i look like a very pregnant lima bean and waddle a wee bit. in other words, everything is still functioning like it did B.P.|Before Pregnant. i spose i could suck it in, but i'm pregnant and my ego has allowed me to let go of that particular vanity. but don't think i haven't noticed all the random strangers staring at my belly. or at least it seems that way.

i've been able to get away with the rubberband trick of wearing my jeans unbuttoned and partially unzipped with only a rubberband to hold it up, with a maternity band or a long tank as cover. but it's getting to that unsightly, uncomfortable point. we're talking muffin top and pressure on the bladder/womb. plus it's summer. i spose i could just wear sweatpants to work, but it's summer. i did get some great hand-me-downs from Lily, but they're mostly fall-winter clothes and it's y'know, summer.

so this saturday T&i ventured maternity clothes shopping. harder than it sounds. apparently all the maternity stores are in Marin or Walnut Creek well over 25 minutes away (may not sound like much to non-Bay Area folks, but that's a different county, the post-meltdown MacArthur Maze & the San Rafael toll bridge *or* the Caldecott tunnel in traffic so add on an additional 30 minutes!). y'know, the burbs where apparently people actually procreate. so we ended up in the small way way back section surrounded by newborn clothes at a local ghetto Old Navy which has dirt cheap sweatshop maternity clothes that are relatively stylish on this side of the millenia (meaning it's not above the belly farmer pants). because why would i pay more than $20 for something i'm only going to wear for a few months?

okay, so maternity clothes suck. you can either look like you are trying to hide your belly like a modern version of some victorian shame (or in my adolescent reality, the highschool cheerleader in denial. i knew a lot of those. my high school if we had not already established, was 'tween the barrio & the base and a third the girls were knocked up by senior year.) or you can look like you are trying to show off your belly like you're any number of knocked-up blond celebrity.

and at this stage (i'm between 13 to 15 weeks depending), you're a little screwed. you're not showing enough to wear the huge belly accomodating maternity clothes and you're not fitting into non-pregnant clothes. factor into account, seasonal needs, undergarments, and you get the complicated idea. oh, and somemommy please explain to me what a maternity bra is and what is the modern miraculous feat of adjustable engineering that will enable me to wear this for the next 5 months without chafing? (no one tells you about the chafing!)

and what's with all the ruching? maternity clothes are ruched up the yin-yang. i didn't like ruching B.P. (does nothing for my curves but make me look stocky), so why the heo, would i like it now?

so i got some khaki cargo capris that are only somewhat odd fitting (Old Navy is anything but consistent) with an underside-of-the-belly, wide elastic waistband (great for those multiple pee breaks. great invention that elastic.). but i spose i'll "grow" into it and long tanks still provide great coverage as per usual. and also some narrow elastic, below-the-belly "double waistband" brown pants that fit great on my hiney, are not bootleg (does anyone do straight leg any more?) and are only a little snug on my thighs (my perpetual dilemna since i got thick peasant legs but i'm used to that by now).

it's great to take your babydaddy maternity shopping btw. when i asked his opinion, T peered at my thighs close up and very helpfully said "weo, hopefully your thighs won't get any bigger."

no, i didn't not kick him, though he was well within range and deserved it. he got an amused, incredulous look and when he realized what he said, he tried to smother me with kisses and hugs and "beautiful-mother-of-my-child" platitudes. he's a regular babydaddy comedy routine. so i promised/threatened to broadcast his faux pas to all my girlfriends and let the ladies have at him. boys, shake your heads in disbelief and vow never to say such things when your babymomma is having a my-clothes-don't-fit-me-and-maternity-clothes-make-me-look-ginormous moment.

i just need to figure out how to milk this for all its worth.

so, this is my exciting life as a petry dish for procreation. ooh, time for second breakfast.

life lessons... with a breakbeat

have you ever had to sing "the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.. (from the top)" or "we just got a letter, we just got a letter, we just got a letter, wonder who its from?" or "hot dog hot dog hot diggety dog hot dog hot dog hot diggety dog!" or "We're gonna do the monkey (oh oh ah ah oh oh ah ah), Do the monkey (oh oh ah ah oh oh ah ah), Monkey, Monkey (oh oh ah ah oh oh ah ah), That's alright" or heaven forbid, the barney song?

you ever notice the only way to dance to those folksy songs is to rock from side to side or do the knee bend squats and maybe, if the kid is coordinated enough, clap in unison. odd pre-eminem white people dances that don't involve the hips, the shoulders, fluidity, sensuality (in its least erotic sense). without a rump-shaking bassline, how's a kid sposed to get any sense of rhythm and learn to dance? i've wondered. in white bread SD north county-burbia, i've seen the product of those breakbeat-less songs--i had to sit though Ms. Jamie's dance studio recital in may just to see Lily boss the other girls and yell-sing doing their little butterfly ballet performance for three minutes, and i witnessed Ms. Jamie's teen kids breakdance and weo,... they have timing, but they ain't got rhythm. the other product of those bassline-less songs is the noodle dance (no relation to the chicken noodle soup dance) usually performed by a barefoot white girl with fake-dreadlocks, multiple piercings, midriff baring halter top, and a gypsy skirt (african or indian), which involves pseudo-tribal writhing hips shoulders arms and a lack of sense about personal space. give wide berth to the flailing body parts. it really is an under-studied phenomenon; they congregate at Burning Man.

then i meandered across this new kids show with a breakbeat, Yo Gabba Gabba! clearly it was created by someone who grew up in the 80s. (click on Foofa, the pink flower bubble to check out the videos). okay so the characters cant breakdance worth shit (or even do a credible version of the cabbage patch or the running man or the snake--and why cant Plex the robot actually do The Robot?--but then they are wearing bulky fuzzy costumes that render subtlety a moot exercise in futility. i'm not sure what DJ Lance's excuse is), but then neither can a 2 year old. i guess it's a good thing they aren't introducing downrock, headspinning, butterfly kicks or other power moves to your toddler b-boy/b-girl -in-training. now, the lyrics are still silly kid-friendly with a moral, but at least the beats are fresh & tight.

check out biz's beat of the day. learn to beatbox kids!

i am a big fan of saving money over proprietary licensed merchandise because paying over $25 for a onesie is outrageous (though i do secretly want a Baron Davis baby jersey) so i like that they have DIY YGG! iron-ons.

i like free even better than bootleg.

prenatals

we had our first medical prenatal yesterday. the experience was very different from our previous prenatal with our midwife.

WAITING ROOM
Selena, midwife--couch, play area for kids, water cooler, birth artwork
Dr. Chan, ob/gyn--chairs, magazines, pee on demand in a sterile cup, lovely baby & mama b&w glamor shots

WAIT TIME
midwife--5 minutes
ob--1.5 hours (approx one hour spent naked in a hospital gown and a tissue paper sheet.) medical assistant takes blood pressure and weighs me. i've gained about 5 pounds.

INITIAL CONSULTATION
midwife--2+hours: big hugs, trung next to me on the couch or bed, conversation about medical history, emotional process, experiences, parenting approach, cultural expectations, nutritional counseling (and some negotiation on getting optimal nutrients from food), expectations of the midwife's role, family involvement, snacks & water for the hungry pregnant lady, something to put my feet up on, pee when i need to in a dixie cup, assessment of our bé|baby's golden-orange aura & spirit, journalling assignments, drawing birth visualization exercise, lie on a bed fully clothed, blood pressure & heartrate, fetascope and gentle palpation on my abdomen, more big hugs, lots of reassurance of normality. no internal exams til 36 weeks.
ob--30 minutes: succinct clinical monotone apology for being one and a half hours late, made trung move his chair 3 feet away from me to make room for the ultrasound equipment, medical history intake, breast exam, crazy transformer dental chair that converts to spread eagled prone position with stirrups and my ass hanging over the edge (the less engagement from patients the better huh? keep 'em passive. though i was mind-numbed from the wait time, at least i wasn't strapped down), pap smear (yugh! do you know how sensitive my cervix is right now? she bleeds if you just look at her sideways), explanation of the practice while conducting an ambush bimanual internal exam (no warning! why do doctors think ambush & distraction is the best policy for unpleasant procedures?), ghost ultrasound and some hokey measurement, mentioning all the ways bé can have birth defects and the standard tests i can take with no explanation of risks, insistence on prenatal vitamins regardless of diet (i can already see her classifying me as non-compliant), no snacks or water (did i mention how hungry i was after 1.5 hours of mindless waiting?), handshake. not cold, but not warm. weo, neither were we.

anyways so after explaining to me that ultrasounds after the first trimester are not accurate in dating me being in the 14th week and all, she plops jelly on my belly and ultrasounds me on the pap smear chair-cum-table (seat came back up) with no where to put my feet. despite having seen my cervix and bimanually felt me up, she still had no idea where my uterus was and kept the device in the middle to no avail. so i finally had to tell her um, my uterus is on the left. and boom, there was the ghost of our bé (ok, maybe not like boom, all we saw were grey & black blurs. and its all grey and grainy like something out of The Ring, but not freaky scary. not bathed in golden light. just grey and ghostly. okay, so on the one hand, here's confirmation that bé has a head, arms & legs and a little chirping heart. a little more real. not just a figment of our imaginations. on the other hand, it's a ghost on a grey-black monitor being controlled, measured and assessed by some stranger who is insisting that according to her admittedly inaccurate ultrasound measurement, baby is only 11 weeks 5 days along and that therefore my due date is in March. and that just does not sound right to me. but then again, the delicate choreograph of menstruation, ovulation and conception responsive to mood, mentality and moon is not exactly science. and flying down to San D that last week of May thinking bà ngoại wasn't gonna make it, maybe that disturbed my biorhythm more than i thought. and maybe that post-bday womb blessing loosened up more than i thought. we'll see...

Dr. Chan didnt seem to believe me when i mentioned that we'll know dates for sure at 20 weeks because the fundus (top of my uterus) will be at navel level (a midwife truism and a universal for all pregnant women). and i forgot to point out that she herself said that ultrasounds were not accurate for dates after the 12th week. i refused the vaginal ultrasound. i don't need a phallic device emitting ultrasonic cellular mutation in or around my already scraped up cervix.

already this medical prenatal had T. worried about folic acid, birth defects, and the normalcy of our bé. bé would let me know if anything was wrong. and though i'm generally a bit of a worrier with some hypochondriac tendencies, i feel content and a sense of well-being. no worries. so T. said he would trust me and bé and not let the doctor/medical establishment control our experience or deny us our rights through manipulating our ignorance.

in this life, this society, either you make informed choices or someone else, someone in a position of power, makes them for you. of course, most of the vaunted "freedom of choice" boils down to consumer decisions like about whether to support government-subsidized, eco-cidal, genetically-modified, irradiating, toxin polluting industrial agriculture corporation or pay the real cost of producing food to a small organic family farmer while trying to balance your own precarious budget. because in this society, money = power. we're trying our best to be engaged and not give our power away without exuding smug about it. it's a thin line. at least we won't be mistaken for those angry hippies in Berkeley Bowl. they need to take another bongh!t or drop a lil more acid cuz their mellow groove has become rude, entitled smuginess.

so on our journey to becoming parents we make the first of many parenting decisions... we're minimizing tetragenic exposure to alcohol, drugs, synthetic/toxic chemicals and ultrasounds. we prioritize good nutrition as the most important factor for the health of our bé. and along with that, we're not doing any of the genetic testing. we oppose eugenicism as a system of oppression, domination & genocide and we're not going to be tricked into it by medical prenatal propaganda about knowing the baby's health.

previously, we received a week-by-week glossy of a baby's development process in 4D. and it just seemed freaky invasive, exploitative and really just pornographic to me like those old National Geographics (or colonial postcards) with exotic naked natives and no captions about who they were, their family, no names, no context, no humanity. what's up with the patriarchal desire for panopticon omniscience and the need to know (and control) the mystery of creation?

so we didnt keep a printout of the ultrasound. i prefer to look within and commune with our bé bathed in the golden light of its spirit and our love, not bond with some externally-generated technology-produced paparazzi ghost image adulated object. we choose to walk the spiritual route, not the material.

smug check! weo, at least we don't drive a hybrid. yet.

still waiting on the hybrid minivan to make its way here from Japan where it's been on the market since 2001. as TLC puts it, "It takes courage to drive a mini-van."

Stupid Power redux

okay, i still cant remember my pre-G7 SanD revelation (alas that has gone the way of the Hottentot Venus. obscured in the annals of HIStory, but her disembodied vulva floats in a prurient jar of formaldehyde on a forgotten shelf in an musty Museum of Man only to be found by Stephan J. Gould and revived in an essay about race, gender & western eugenics.) but i came up with another one.

i think my stupid power would have to be the ability to write long convoluted emails using obscure literary, historical and pop culture references.

ms. kyung jin (or Lady K--her airwave ego) adds "and to turn the obscure references into a long diatribe fully equipped with a plethora of tangents that eventually relate to the initial obscure reference."

i think we can all agree that it's a) useless though entertaining, at least to me, and b) could, potentially, under the right circumstances, at the last minute, under great duress, defeat Evil and Save The Day.

one day i will post some of them so you can fully comprehend my deep thoughts around topics ranging from porkism to klingonaase.

speaking of stupid powers, T got me the first five episodes of season 1 of Stan Lee's reality show Who wants to be a Superhero? because laughing at other people's follies makes me feel better about myself.

DIY baby hammock

who invented hammocks? no one knows for sure, but it was folks in the tropics, caribbean, latin america. all i know is that it is ingenious.

in VN, there is just about a hammock for every adult. every household has at least 4 steel screw hooks bolted into the studs for an instant midday siesta. even government offices close down to beat the tropical heat for lunch & a siesta. though i wonder if they too have hammock hooks tucked in the back. socialist bureaucrats need to snooze off the heat too. indeed the modern vinamese american household has an ancestral altar, a large flat screen TV, karaoke, and a made-in-vietnam steel-framed hammock (and usually some elder firmly ensconced while watchin the newest Pa-Ri Bai Nai|Paris By Night variety show spectacle or phim chưởng|chinese period serial martial art soap opera or cải lương|southern vinamese melodic storytelling). growing up in honolulu, i was lulled to sleep in hammocks from the time i was born. and i was so glad when my mom *finally* found the hammock she got for me in VN in 2001 buried in the depths of the garage which the two older kids use as free storage. (and before you siblings protest the unfairness of that generalization, all i know is that all my stuff was in the shed that exploded and burned down in dad's "shed incident." the only stuff i have in the garage is what mom has been stockpiling for years in the anticipation of another grandchild.) we lugged that hammock shit up from SanD posthaste. and believe me, it wasn't easy.

now that t&i are at that procreating time, we're trying to evade the consumer mentality manufactured by the billion dollar baby product industry, and society at large. looking to expand its market and profit margin and led by multi-culty parents, the baby product industry is beginning to embrace and commodify the "natural" ways the rest of the non-industrial world has raised billions of babies. co-sleeping, baby carriers/slings, attachment parenting, elimination communication, practices & crafts/artifacts the world over are are making their way in the mainstream, being trademarked, branded and packaged as a westernized consumer product.

i'm predicting that hammocks are the next big baby thing. there is one american brand complete with a frame and padded hammock. aussie & kiwi's are getting in it too. why? because hammocks mimic the natural rhythm of in utero, they ergonomically conform to the baby's shape (unlike stiff flat mattresses), they are self-propelled (amazingly, a baby soothing product that doesn't require batteries. yet.) and, most importantly, unlike cribs they don't cost an arm and a leg. in the global context, it's important to remember that hammocks are safe to use because the baby is never left alone. there is always a caretaker whether parent, grandparent, extended family within ear's reach and unlike america, no one anywhere else in the world ignores a baby's cry believing that promotes independence rather than abandonment issues and SIDS.

when i was a kid i used to sit and draw blueprints for playhouses. really detailed blueprint of a playhouse with sunroof, down to the lumber sizes, number of nails, reinforcing beams, crossbeam supported foundation, weather-proofing, etc. i get this from ông ngoại|maternal grandfather who as a self-sufficient peasant could grow rice & produce, raise & train waterbuffalo, make bánh tết & banh chưng|new years sticky rice, pork & mung bean cake and kẹo mè|sesame candy from scratch, build a house from scrap lumber & palm tree fronds, and invent a flapping angel-wing harness for the christmas pageant. nowadays they call a person like him a "renaissance man"--though i'm fairly certain self-sufficiency pre-exists the renaissance & capitalism--i just call him ông ngoại.

so rather than pay $200 for some bourgie plastic & polyester version manufactured in some sweatshop in China that will offgas neural disrupters horribly and break apart or be recalled due to shoddy workmanship, i decide to DIY and make my own. who knows maybe i will make a business plan out of this. may as well make some money off of this. maybe i can market it as phong thuỷ|feng shui hammocks. no one has niche marketed oriental metaphysicism and baby products yet.

disclaimer: this is still under product development, so experiment at your own risk.

PORTABLE BABY HAMMOCK
can be installed anywhere there is a door frame or lintel

• begin with 2 iron industrial C-clamps (6-8 in width) these have a carrying load of 1200 lbs+ each so it can handle a baby no worries.

• circular rubber or silicon pads (glue to the clamp faces to prevent damage to the surface)

• 2.5-3 yards of heavy cotton, 8mm+ habotai silk (also called parachute silk because it is used for parachutes and also for portable hammocks. load of up to 400 lbs.) or sling suitable fabric (36-48 width). the bonus with using natural materials is that they wick away moisture and regulate temperature.
  

• folded up baby blanket or towel approx the size of the baby.
  

on both ends of the fabric, hem the fabric with a double or triple seam (can also interlock) leaving about 1-1.5" hem loop. thread each end of the looped hem over each of the C-clamps.

clamp the padded C-clamps above the door frame about 1.5' - 2' apart. this will give you a loose parabola.

place the folded baby blanket parallel to the 48" width of the fabric at the vertex of the parabola. this is very important! the baby will lay on top of the blanket. babies should not be placed in this hammock the way an adult would lay for this particular hammock. the legs of the parabola (which are around 48" wide) will prevent the baby from rolling out of the hammock.

lay a bunch of pillows & padding underneath the hammock just in case and test it with some phonebooks (or cats as the case may be) before putting your baby in.

as in all things, use common sense.

PERMANENT INSTALLATION (under construction)

1 steel heavy duty eye screw or screw hook (carrying load of 400+ lbs each)
2' dowel
whipping rope technique
carbiner or quick link
2.5-3 yards

..to be continued...

i started this on 7.5.07 but waited to post so i wouldn't let the cat out of the bag. will finish at some other date.

p.s. the C-Clamps don't work over the lintel. Back to the drawing board. Am considering the Miyo clamp but it's $50 and I'd have to import it from NZ...