st. louis adventure!

Before I begin, I have 2 Big Announcements: (1) We found out we are having a girl, and (2) miracle of all miracles, we were able to (quickly) agree on a name: Melissa Alexandra. Number 2 is important because I was really worried Charles was going to insist on some weird
baseball-like name such as Sammy Sosa, or some obscure fishing lure name, like Pink Cricket...so his pick of Melissa was both a pleasant surprise AND a relief. And so I quickly negotiated for Alexandra as the middle name...because, when you live with a person who negotiates corporate contracts for a living, you quickly learn: Life isn't about luck and fate...it's about negotiating your terms, and negotiating your terms swiftly, with cutthroat precision.

And now for my St. Louis adventure, which was very similar to Lewis and Clark's only no Sacagawea to guide our way:

Last Thursday, Charles and I left for St. Louis to help his dad celebrate birthday no. 80. I would have announced that here before leaving, but quite frankly I didn't want the world to know my house would be empty for 4 days...with a very ferocious watchcat inside who will totally leave dainty little bite marks in your ankles if you try to mess with our stuff, yes...but still: totally empty house. And remember: we DO have deer and rabbit gangs.

While traveling to and from St. Louis and in the city vicinity, I had several thoughts and adventures (and adventurous thoughts). I share them with you now:

1-Around Clarksville, Tennessee, Charles was sleeping and I was driving when I saw the most horrific sight: some person (and I do use the term "person" loosely) had left 2 dogs by the side of busy Interstate 24. One was clearly dead (or almost there), and the other had been hurt and was limping. They were both Golden Retrievers, which everyone and God knows are only the sweetest dogs ever genetically manipulated into being by humanity. The limping one was also panting, possibly in great pain.

The whole thing just shocked me, and I felt terribly helpless and had no idea what to do. If I pulled over, I didn't know what mental state I'd encounter--both the dog's and Charles's, who tends to frown at the idea of pulling off a busy interstate in a mountainous area to help loose animals that might attack us, particularly when we are on a tight schedule. So I kept driving, but with tears running down my face for about 3 miles. And hatred--yes, hatred--in my heart for whoever did this horrible thing.

Later, on our way back home, both dogs were gone and so I deeply hope someone stopped and helped them, or knew a phone number to call for help.

Also, I hope whoever dropped those dogs off gets bitten by a rabid animal and dies a slow, painful death. There are a lot of strange, crazy people out there in the world, but you have to be a special type of demented to abandon animals and other helpless beings on the sides of roads. And, while I do not have a direct phone line to God or Jesus or Buddha, I feel strongly that all three of those guys totally agree with me on this.

2-I will admit, openly and honestly here, that I'm a tad uncomfortable in certain places in America as one half of an interracial couple. Particularly around the Southern parts of America, and particularly particularly in SMALL areas of the Southern parts of America. Usually, 350 days out of any given year, I don't think about my relationship in terms of black and white--we go through what every couple goes through and race rarely comes up (unless it is brought up by various outsiders...i.e., the US media, or strangers we don't even know and therefore don't give a rat's ass WHAT they think--good lord, as if what they think about what ANYbody does is really going to make or break that person's world) (and typically, racial discussions get brought up due to the media...the US media is totally whack, y'all. In case you didn't already know).

I only felt comfortable in these places/rest break stops along the way: Atlanta, Georgia...Nashville, Tennessee...Metropolis, Illinois...and St. Louis, Missouri. And that was it. Of those 4 friendly areas, the smallest one was Metropolis, Illinois which borders Illinois and Kentucky. All the other small places we stopped at just freaked me out: I try (really, I do) not to be judgmental, but the fat men in dirty overalls spitting tobacco juice outside of McDonald's make me so nervous and the greasy truckers trying to start conversations ("Whut kand uh pop you got a hankering for today, young lady?") in run down gas stations just sent all 300 of my internal stranger danger red warning flags waving sky high, full mast.

I would like to point out here that Metropolis, Illinois is home to Superman. I'm pretty sure that's why they're so liberal there.

Also, I would like to send some St. Louis Adventure Shout Outs:

3-To the 2 gas station cashier ladies and the male customer in Tennessee bitching about Spanish speaking immigrants taking up too much room in America as well as all the Indians answering their customer service calls in English Americans can't possibly understand (like we don't have natives here who can't form a coherent sentence in an understandable accent....helloooo, George W. Bush, anyone?) who were really nice to me and Charles (separately) but then glared at both of us as we got into the car together:

All 3 of you racist pigs can suck it.

4-To the four trashy-looking girls (missing teeth, no less) loitering around the cashier counter at the ancient 7-eleven right outside Missouri glaring at Charles, me, and my pregnant stomach:

That's right. We all know you want what I got. Go get your own, we're all full up here.

5-Fortunately, we arrived in Missouri intact, though as you can clearly see: our journey was fraught with peril, left and right. But as soon as we arrived in Missouri, I breathed easily again. Because I am always struck by how polite and friendly most people are in the Midwest. People from the Midwest don't know how polite and friendly they are, compared to other places. Particularly other places that are big cities. But it's true: you Midwesterners are nice people. Not all of you (see number 3), but the vast majority of you. And that's refreshing.

6-While in St. Louis, I did the following things:

*got really, really swollen feet and ankles. I mean, I've had swollen feet and ankles before since being gifted with a zygote now smallish humanoid inside of me, but not like THIS, people. This was like...like, when we got to the hotel at the end of the day, I put my feet up on the bed and said, "Holy moly god bless america! Look at my feet! Look at my ankles! They look like elephant feet and ankles! I've never seen anything like it." They are now back to normal size. For now.

*stood under the St. Louis arch going, "Wow. Now THAT'S pretty dang high up there." People tried to encourage me to go up to the top, but I knew: there are certain things in life I simply cannot do. Among these things are riding amusement park rides that take you up 80 feet and then drop you back to the ground in 3 seconds or less with little to no warning...and standing 1000 feet up at the top of an arched piece of metal that sways in the wind.

Nooo thank you. I'll take my chances back at the gas station with those 4 trashy, greasy chicks.

*indulged my husband's nerdy love of St. Louis (see picture evidence below). On St. Louis arch day, we also trekked over to Busch Stadium, home of his beloved St. Louis Cardinals, so he could have me take pictures of him under the scoreboard. Only, I didn't understand how seriously very important the scoreboard actually was to the pictures, and so my pictures focused on the PEOPLE in the picture, not the THINGS.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! So the following day, we drove back downtown so I could do it right. And also we got some more pictures of statues of baseball players I've never heard of, but who are apparently--at this very moment--sitting on the side of God not currently occupied by Jesus.

*got stalked by a 3 year old. I have come to the conclusion that small children AND animals can sense when they are around pregnant people, and this makes them either very, very jealous or very, very clingy. Or both. I have come to this conclusion because my cat--who usually likes to be around people, but at a safe distance--cannot seem to get enough of me lately, and insists that the best place in the WORLD to take a nap is right on top of me. And Kaylis, my 3 year old great nephew decided he was in love with me during our visit. I mean, I told him my name over and over, but it didn't matter. I was just "honey" to Kaylis for the whole weekend. For example. After I fell asleep on the sofa after St. Louis arch day, Kaylis walked around for 2 hours letting everyone know: "My honey sleeping. My honey sleeping on the sofa." And when we sat down to eat pizza, Kaylis patted the seat next to him, "Sit down, honey. Honey, sit down."

Further evidence children have a 6th pregnancy sense: Kaylis appears to get this way around pregnant women a lot. Much like Tasha my cat, Kaylis also likes to sit on laps and eventually fall asleep on them. It got to the point Kaylis's mom had to find ways to distract him so *I* could take a nap/read a book/not have a 3 year old's knees digging into every part of my body. And he is fascinated by boobs--his aunt recently had a baby and he cannot tear his eyes away from the breast feeding process...and also likes to suggest which breast will be the best one to use for the newest feeding.

Toward the end of the visit, Charles's half-sister remarked, "That Kaylis is going to be a boob man. AND into those light skinned girls." Family. If you can't say it out loud around them, who CAN you say it out loud to??

*Kaylis has a 5 year old brother named Kieran who USED to be a cool kid by having a crush on me, when he was 3. But he's FIVE now, and too BIG for crushes. Now, all he wants to do is have conversations. Looooong conversations, that never seem to end. About things 5 year old boys love, and 36 year old girls just don't know anything about. But there IS a bright spot for Kieran: Uncle Charles is super relieved Kieran's body has finally caught up to his large head, and now he doesn't have to worry about having a big water-head kid in the family.

I did remind Charles about how both karma and God like to mess around with people who make fun of little water-head kids...usually by sending them their own water-head kid, probably when their water-head kid gets born in October.

Now for the fun part--pictures! I picked the most fascinating, because being fascinating is very, very important in Blogland:

The arch! The arch! Everything around it was flooded, but not the arch. That's because the arch is too cool for flooding:



This is Kieran and Kaylis. Kieran USED to be my boyfriend when he was, like, 3. But now he just likes video games and Spiderman. Fortunately, Kaylis digs me. He followed me everywhere except the bathroom:

See that little kid holding my hand, over to the left? I was his favorite, for the whole weekend, and that was A-Okay with his mom, who encouraged me to stick him in our trunk and take him home with us:

Charles and me...and Kaylis at the bottom, refusing to get out of the picture because he NEEDED to hold my hand:



Charles and me at the arch entryway, and Kaylis, holding both our hands...but you can't see him (because we made him stand behind the sign and get out of the picture):



Here I am again...Kaylis still holding onto me (behind the sign):



The whole St. Louis family (with one obsessive 3 year old, holding my hand):



My favorite family picture. Note Joshua, our nephew, holding rabbit ears over Charles's head. This is what life with Charles is like, all the time, and clearly it's a genetic thing. I have this type of behavior in my own family, via my brother. Our child is doomed to a life of pictures of weird faces and hand puppets:



Okay. Now for the funster nerdy stuff. I love my husband, and 340 days out of the year he's a very logical, normal, super cool, trend-setting guy...until fishing season rolls around again and he has to masturbate over all of his fishing lures. Or the UCLA Bruins basketball team may win the finals and I am forced to say nothing--NOTHING!!--about anything UCLA or basketball. In case I jinx something. Or St. Louis comes up in conversation, or the St. Louis Cardinals are on TV. And everything has to be in red, black, and white because those are St. Louis colors...I did manage to convince Charles to buy mostly pink and gray Cardinals baby clothes, though. That's 1 for Amy, 1 for Melissa.

I present exhibits A-D, below:

Exhibit A: Charles next to some statue of some baseball player named Gibson. Who I've never heard of, and is not in any history book I've ever read, but is apparently quite important to the advancement of modern man. Also, when Charles saw they had tons of famous baseball players, he said (0ut loud): "Oh my god! I think I just got wood!" and when he realized I'd gotten a picture of him with Gibson AND the arch in the background, it brought tears to his eyes. And I'm not even making that last part up:



Exhibit B:



Exhibit C, which I didn't do it right, because I totally didn't even put in the SCOREBOARD, hello!



Exhibit D, in which we had to go back the next morning so I could do it right:



And last, but not least, the best part of the trip, which you can't see very well because it was taken from the 6th floor window of our Marriott hotel. You know you're staying in swank digs when--if you really need to, in the middle of the night, you can run right across the street to the Hustler Hollywood, for all your sleazy lingerie (and other item) needs: