Realizations

I have decided to try and find a doula. What the heck is a doula you may ask, especially if you haven't been involved in a baby's birth in the last 5 or so years. Well, I am interviewing one on Wednesday and hope to have a better idea, but basically what I want is someone to mother me while I am laboring.

I am conflicted about paying for this service. Am I buying a best girl-friend? Am I buying a mother for a day (hopefully less than a day)? And why am I not wanting my own mother, stepmother, mother-in-law there? Heck, this child will have 5 grandmothers; seems like I have a good pool of available maternal options. Not to mention the 6 sisters/sister-in-laws. Well, I don't know, or rather I know I didn't want other family members there. Mostly because then I will feel compelled to worry about how they are coping. Initially I saw this as something Rick and I could do-on-our-own-god-damnit. And here I am at 153 pounds thinking that I am not sure I can do this, and I am certain I don't want Rick shouldered with the responsibility of dealing with me when I completely loose it. Hence, our doula search.

Summer classes start today! Man I loved having the last two weeks off and have almost no motivation to study.

Prognostication By Dry Scalp and In Bruges

I continue to have vivid and fascinating dreams I believe are brought on by my ever increasing hormone levels. Saturday night I was walking down a path through a dense wood. In the dream (and also in reality) my scalp was itchy and I started scratching a la Ally Sheedy in Breakfast Club. The dry scalp flakes were shaped like alphabet soup letters and I could read them and they told me something I can't remember now. Was a very pleasant dream except it does make me want to buy some Selson Blue.

Rick and I went to dinner and movie with a friend last night and saw In Bruges which I totally recommend if you would be interested in the love child of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Limey, and Killing Zoe. Violent, and funny with lovely cinematography. I do really love the actor Brendan Gleeson who I recognized from The General but hadn't realized how many movies I have seen with him until I read his imdb page.

On a less happy note my OB gave me a weight-gain warning at my appointment this morning. Apparently gaining 9 pounds in 5 weeks isn't a recommended practice during pregnancy. It did make me choose an apple instead of a half bar of Scharffenberger's Milk Chocolate which I have eaten every day for the last 2 weeks. Hmm.

Volcanoes

While on my morning dog walk I said "good morning" to a elderly gentleman with a 5 foot walking stick. He wasn't Gandolf; which I knew because he didn't have a beard and was wearing a Life Is Good baseball cap and a golf course polo shirt. He said "good morning" in return and then said "I'd like to tell you about something I have been reading up on." Hmm, Osa wasn't barking at him, so I stayed on my side of the road and he on his and he proceeded to tell me all about the volcanoes underneath Yellowstone National Park. How they formed not from tectonic plate grinding but from a "hot spot" which he described as a weakness in the Earth's mantle and crust. He then told me that the same weakness travels from Yellowstone to New Orleans, then to Charlottesville, then to Bermuda, a volcanic island.

I told him about the large caldera just north of Los Alamos, and the hot springs I frequented when I lived there.

We ended our conversation with him saying "The Earth is not solid."