Crab Station
I'm feeling pretty good physically lately, but mentally, I'm at my Crab Station.
WARNING: SERIOUS BITCHING FOLLOWS
This weekend I just tried to do too much and didn't have enough downtime for myself.
Saturday we drove up to Bonny Doon Winery for the Deranged Vendange harvest festival with John and Lonnie. It was a long drive and we got lost along the way. I thought it would be a great idea to take Bugs and go for a walk in the woods with him once we were there, but he ended up unable to sit still for a second in the car and he drove everyone crazy. Once we got there it was packed and the wines were good, but no one bought anything. When the men were all done tasting wine, they went outside for some sausages, but the sausage man had up and left. There was nowhere to walk Bugs, since it was that typical Santa Cruz Mountain situation of nothing but highway and dense woods, and it was cold and rainy out.
So we piled back in the car and Lonnie said he was dying of hunger. I was trying to think of where we could eat. It was only 4:15pm and I was kind of pissed that he hadn't eaten more of the spinach/venison lasagna that I was serving before we left. No one else was really hungry. Bugs was still full of energy. I really just wanted to go home and chill out, but I suggested that we could go to Ben Lomond and check out "Ciao Bella". We did so, and waited until they opened at 5:00pm, but they were already completely booked up, so we went to the Tyrolean Inn instead, which was cozy, warm, and had much better food.
Dan and I were supposed to be checking out Lonnie and I noticed that at dinner he was like, "What IS German food? What should I get? Tell me what to order.", even though everything on the menu was explained clearly without mystery. Pork sausages with potatoes and sauerkraut. Breaded cutlet of veal with potatoes and red cabbage. It wasn't like we were ordering from an all-Chinese menu or anything. And then he didn't know what beer to get, didn't know what beer he liked. He wanted John to pick it all out for him, which annoyed me and I knew would annoy John as well.
The hefeweizen was outstanding. God, I can't wait to drink a whole beer in my birthing beer tub when I go into labor! Ever since Veronica told me that she recommends a nice cold beer in a hot bathtub for her laboring moms-to-me I've been so thrilled by the idea.
When we came out it was pouring rain all the way home. We came home and I was still kind of hoping for a chill-out period to myself, but then everyone got into the idea of playing Cranium, so we stopped by John's to pick up the game. It was really fun. I like that game a lot. Dan and I were partners and Lonnie and John were partners. Dan was surprisingly not very CJ and Lonnie surprisingly was very CJ, including a few times when he told John that he had blown it. Sure enough, John was mad all night and into the next morning.
It stormed all night long that night, with real thunder and lightning even...such a rarity in California!
I had a TERRIBLE dream that was a variation on the execution dream that I had previously a few months ago. I had screwed up a big deal in some way for the gang or whatever that I was part of, and lots of my associates had been executed already, including Mimi from work (who is out on her maternity leave...we pregnant chicks always screw things up, I guess!)
So now it was my turn to pay the price, and the boss was coming to rub me out. I was on some kind of sailboat out in the ocean. He showed up with gun in hand, told me that I would have to die for my transgressions (whatever they were, it was never very clear in either dream), and told me to lay down on the floor, which I did. He put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger, but the gun just clicked. It was out of bullets, or had malfunctioned somehow. He went in the other room and meanwhile I completely freaked out. I had been like a passive sheep up until this point, but when I heard the gun malfunction I was suddenly terrified of dying. I ran for the bathroom and locked myself in, then climbed out of a hatch in the ceiling ( I was on a sailboat) only to find myself in a train station all of a sudden! The sailboat had turned into a train, apparently? I was still trying to figure it out and decide what to do. If I climbed out, I didn't have my passport or money or anything with me, and I was in a foreign country of some sort.
At this point I woke up because I had to pee, and a moment later there was the huge flash of lightning. I didn't know what it was at first, it looked like someone was taking flash photos through the blinds outside on the veranda. Then I figured out it was lightning , and heard the big peal of thunder right afterwards. Bugs lifted his head and then went back to sleep. I was going to do so as well, but decided to get up and pee, because why the hell would I want to go back to that dream to get shot in the head? Fuck that!
I peed and climbed back into bed, arranged myself in the pillows, and went right back to the dream. But now I knew it was a dream and could control it. So this time my choice was obvious...don't go back and get shot (duh!), run for help! I hightailed it out of the hatch and flagged down a train station cop and told him that there was a guy who had been trying to shoot me in the head inside the train/sailboat or whatever it was. Then I had several different versions replay where first the cops hauled him off to jail, then I decided that that wasn't a safe enough outcome, so I had them kill him in a shootout. Happy ending! No more executioner/mob boss, and I could go right back and get my passport and money. It's strange how the scariest dreams can be fun once you realize that you are in control and can create any outcome you want.
I woke up the next morning and was excited to get to work on Bob's site, post up the fixes that I had made, accomplish a bunch of things on my list. I get really motivated laying in bed in the morning, funny how that works ;-)
Well, I ate some breakfast and then did a bunch of posting on the iVillage pregnancy boards, didn't get anything done for Bob's site. Then Dan asked me if I wanted to take Bugs out for a walk while the sun was out, before it rained again.
While we were walking Bugs on the overpass, a man and woman were walking towards us the woman with a stroller and the man with an evil, wolfish-looking dog on a leash. I steered Bugs toward the far right, as I usually do, but instead of the man steering his dog to the other side of the path, he headed right for Bugs, like he wanted the dogs to sniff one another.
The dog was way bigger than Bugs, and he didn't look friendly at all, so I was backing off and saying, "That's not a good idea". Sure enough, the fucking hellhound snarls at Bugs and starts to go after him, and the guy just stands there looking at his dog like an idiot. I asked him to pull his dog away and he still stood there like a moron. I walked ahead and told Dan to bring Bugs through past the dog, and at that point the woman stops her stroller right in line with the dog and steps into the middle of the path, so now Dan and Bugs can't get through. It was so retarded. I stepped into the tiny space between the snarling evil wolf and the stupid woman, grabbed Bugs' harness, and pulled him through on the far side of me, away from the evil wolf's gnashing teeth. Those people were such idiotic fucks, like "Isn't this great? Let's just stop and chat, shall we?" while the evil wolf tears Bugs apart. The guy even stepped towards me again with his dog as I was walking away. Moron! I told him to back off. So it must have been hormones, but I was pissed off at those idiots for the rest of the walk. Bugs got all triggered by having the evil wolf snarl at him and scare the shit out of him, so he was Black Snapper the rest of the walk.
Dan mentioned that he wanted to sell his Rado watch on eBay to help pay for the new AC/heating unit that we need to buy. So I spent a few hours creating an ad for his watch and didn't do any of my own stuff.
Then A came over with the Peg Perego care seat and bases, which was great, but their kid threw up on our couch and A sprayed about a gallon of soap on the couch and scrubbed it to death. I told her to cut it out, I would take care of it, but she just kept spraying soap all over. The puke was just a little milky baby puke, it wasn't even bad. I was really concerned about all the soap!
Then she started in about how Dan didn't need to read any baby books and it was a mistake to read too much beforehand, why did I decide on Dr. Sears, wasn't he the one who was all set on cosleeping, etc. I said that I had read all *different* kinds of books, some on sleeping through the night, some on infant toilet training, different aspects. Then she went off on infant toilet training and how that was a crazy idea.
I was already feeling annoyed, and none of this was helping my mood. She kept saying little stuff about the baby shower and what were we going to do about that, and that she had talked to S and E about throwing one for me. I can't imagine anything more horrible than having a forced baby shower thrown for me! God forbid, what horrendous torture. Not only some stiff, formal baby shower thing, but with the added bonus of guilt and no one *wanting* to throw it for me!
So I just told her to please forget the whole idea, I would hold a combined birthday party/baby party, and she should just not worry about it at all....she had enough on her plate. I tried to sound gracious, but I was ready to strangle her at that point. She sounded horrified when I said my birthday was December 13th and she said "I can't possibly throw together a shower in four weeks!" and I had to reiterate that I would do something low-key *myself* and she should NOT WORRY ABOUT IT AT ALL.
Goddammit! Oh, and Bugs was flipping out all afternoon, jumping up on my already sore lower abdomen, crying and whining nonstop, being a complete pain in the ass, like he had been locked in the house all day and hadn't had a perfectly nice, long walk earlier that day. So I was fucking pissed off with him, too. Goddamn dog, goddamn morons all around me! Aargh!
As soon as they left I went back to my computer and finished putting up Dan's watch. I did a hell of a job too, because remarkably, it sold two hours after I posted it. I was just getting ready to take a leisurely shower and work on Bob's site a little when Dan said I had to get ready to go over to his parents' house for dinner. LAST thing on earth I was in the mood for. I told him I was in my Crab Station, and why, and I was sorry about it, I wasn't mad at him, but I hoped there wouldn't be any drama to deal with over there, because I was just in the mood to chill out and do my own thing, and I felt all put upon, my patience was used up.
We went over there and it was pretty chill, except that my brother-in-law told me he could tell that I was pregnant because my breasts were a lot bigger now. I just said, "That's great, thanks." Fucking newsflash. I've been a D for about five months now. Nice dinner conversation. Grrr.
