Checking things off.

I scratched 'eat a wild animal' off of my life list tonight, although the elk that I ate was almost certainly not wild.  I would still like to eat something that was, you know, shot the other day, but this was a tasty start.

Crows are the bats of the bird family.

Back when I used to do zumba (so, last week.  I think I am probably done now) I would meet Alicia at the gas station and we would drive out to Surrey for class, and I was always one bus early to meet her because I am COMPULSIVELY PUNCTUAL so I always have ten minutes or so to wait and it would always be right at Crow Time.

I couldn't even begin to capture how many crows, because I would just keep showing you the same photo over and over and being like, and this is ten seconds later, and this is ten seconds after that.

It seriously looks like this from the time I get there to the time I leave.  It isn't even a murder, it's a MURDER of murders.  THOUSANDS of crows, I can't even.  Where are they going?

It's secretly kind of awesome.

Loan saga.

I FILED AWAY my Repaying Student Loans file yesterday because I have been APPROVED for not making any payments out of our non-income for the next six months.  VICTOIRE!

But.  So you can't apply for repayment assistance until you have signed your loan consolidation form, but even though I went online and changed our address last summer WELL before we moved, they still sent the loan consolidation form to Victoria.  When I phoned in September to see where it was, I changed my address again with the girl on the phone, and they re-sent the form.

To Victoria again.

I phoned a few weeks later to see where it was, and changed my address AGAIN, and then phoned back two days later to make sure it had been sent to the right address.  MEANWHILE.  I filled out the application form for repayment assistance, wrote the required letter explaining how I live on no income, and FAXED these things in along with a void cheque.

The void cheque is important, because the application was first and the void cheque was last and the letter was IN THE MIDDLE, but when I phoned a few days later to check on the status of my application (I became an extremely diligent phoner) they were all, We just need a letter explaining how you live on no income.  And I was like, DUDES I SENT IT.  And I can see losing the tail end of something or the first page of something but you think the stuff in the middle is safe.

Anywert, I faxed it off again, received my loan consolidation form, mailed that PRIORITY because by now it was late October and my repayment period began in November, and tracked it.  I sent it on a Monday, CanadaPost marked it as having arrived on the Wednesday, I phoned in on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to see if it had arrived.

On Friday she was still telling me that a form takes two business days to make it into my file, and that even though almost three full business days had elapsed, I should phone back on Monday.  Monday arrived, NO FORM!  So I talked to a supervisor and he gave me a fax number and I faxed in the duplicate copy I had been sent for my files, waited two days, and phoned in again.

FOR THE FIRST TIME I talked to a gal who is like, No, neither of your forms are here, and that is weird.  Damn right it's weird.  Because I MAILED one and FAXED one and STOP LOSING MY STUFF THIS IS IMPORTANT.  My payments are $700/month, and (needless to say) without an income I cannot make them.

So the helpful gal acquired me a new supervisor who was like, This has been happening to a few people.  But here, fax it to THIS fax number RIGHT NOW, and I will go STAND BY THE MACHINE and when it comes through I will mark it as received in your file, and then forward it on to the appropriate parties.

So I DID and the next day I phoned in and ALL THE PARTS OF MY APPLICATION WERE THERE.  I did a hooting dance and sat down to wait the five business days for it to process, which expired YESTERDAY at which point I received a letter informing me that I will not have to make any payments until April, at which point I can feel free to perform the whole song and dance again.

I will take it, and gladly.

She is ruining my hilarious old-people time.

Ok so I've been doing Aqua-fit because LOLZ and also because I like cookies + not being fat, which ultimately = exercise.

ANYway.  My pool is closing for three weeks, which is a side-complaint and not the point, and today was my last class before the closure, and it was taught by THAT GIRL THAT I DON'T LIKE.  Because there's the ONE girl who teaches every day at 9:30, so whichever days I decide to go I go in that time slot because she is excellent.

And then last Friday because of the holiday but also THIS Friday because WHO KNOWS that OTHER girl was teaching, and ok.  The one girl trusts me to not over-exert myself, and will be like, You can do this or to make things harder you can do this.  The other girl will be like, If you aren't feeling up to it today, or if you are pregnant, you can do this.  Otherwise, do this.

And the things she assumes I can't do are weirdly things that I can TOTALLY do, like frog-jumps (you...uh...you jump?  And bring your legs up to either side like a frog?  You basically leap-frog the water).  Frog-jumps were custom-made for the bellied, because your legs go to the sides where your belly is not.  But then during the ab work, she says to me, If this is too difficult for you then you can just lie back and bring your knees into your chest when HAHA CLEARLY I CANNOT.  That is, in fact, one thing I can't do.  Your eyes should be able to tell you that.

Which, ok, aqua-fit is what they tell you do to when you are pregnant.  ERGO, part of the training probably has to do with How To Deal With The Pregnant.  My first class with the girl I like, she comes to me beforehand and is like, When we're doing this you can do it this way or that way, and here's how you can work around your belly, and make sure you stay in the deeper water to cushion your girth, etc.  But this OTHER girl has no idea what to do with this Pregnant Thing in her class (I think I stress her out a little), and also does not understand basic physics.

But when she looks right at me and is like, If you are pregnant don't do this, I feel bad being like, I know better than you, child.  Which is how I would feel if I just did the thing anyways, so I usually do squats or whatever she tells me to do, even though doing squats in the water is the NEXT CLOSEST THING TO DOING NOTHING.  And I must give her A Look because today she's like, After you have that baby you can do all the frog-jumps you want.

ALSO her routines are super-boring, because she only has, like, six moves and we just do them over and over, AND she's not loud enough to be heard over the music, AND she doesn't shout motivationally at us, AND she doesn't wear a sports bra under her bathing suit so I sort of feel bad for her boobs whenever she's demonstrating things out of the water.  But mostly its the squats I hate.

Six weeks and counting.

When I get my body back (and not, like, my sexy body, but the body of which I am the sole inhabitant) I will:

- drink a beer
- dye my hair
- do a sit-up
- eat all manner of dubious street-meats
- and what else?

I am doing terribly at this.

Yesterday we did All The Things and then today we had All The People over to watch the footballs.  Also, I MADE footballs.

They were filled with oreo.  And cream cheese.

You wish.

Still good!

Sneaking in with an eleventh-hour post!  Look at me nablopomo.  Except that I have nothing really to tell you.  Um.  Oh yes, I am WINNING at LIFE.  I will tell you about my student loan saga another day when I'm not so sleepy, but so the dishwasher was leaking for REASONS UNKNOWN and the threat of hand-washing loomed LARGE but I fixed it.  And by 'fixed it' I mean my dad figured out the problem, and the problem was me, and I am MUCH MORE EASILY FIXED than a dishwasher.

I will carry on being reckless with the number of forks I use.

I cannot handle the TINY-NESS of these things.

On Sunday my mom threw the fetus a party, and my aunties and my cousins came, and my in-laws and my sister and her in-laws, and my neighbor and her daughter and my Robyn (between two night shifts) and my Laura (who drove all the way from Abbotsford) and now the fetus has enough party dresses to last her at least a year.

Gifts ranged from the practical

to the delightfully impractical

and if she ends up accidentally being a he, he is going to have nothing to wear.  Except maybe this leopard-print number.

There's something about tiny hats and tiny shoes, because people can't not buy them.  I now have loads of both, and I will not complain because AIEEE SO TINY.  Also, I want to roll around in a heap of swaddling blankets.

Mum asked the internet what our babies would look like, and the internet spat out THIS, which is why you never ask the internet anything.

I was looking at these pictures later with Joel, and I was like, Holy cats, I am so pregnant.  Because I can't usually see myself except top-down, and from up here my belly is overshadowed by my ridiculous breasts.  But lo, I am pregnant indeed.

7 more weeks(ish), yo.

NaBloPoMo Redux

Hee hee, oh my.  THAT lasted a whopping day before I fell off the wagon.

And now it's late and I am a-sleepy, but I will have an actual post for you tomorrow. For now, rest easy in the knowledge that deep-fried pickles are not just a gimmick

but are, in fact

ridiculicious.

(This is not just the pregnancy talking, as even the girl who doesn't like pickles liked the deep-fried pickles.  The smoked-jalapeno ranch probably helped.)

A week late, a dollar short.

Remember, remember in past Novembers when the NaNoWriMo people have written a novel in a month and we NaBloPoMo people have contented ourselves with blog-posting every day for a month?  I had sort of forgotten about that until just right now, but!  Let's give it a go, yes?

It balances out all the mini-Oh Henry!s I have eaten/am about to eat.

I have been doing Zumba with a girlfriend for the past four weeks or so, since right around the time when I had to stop running, and it. is. hilarious.  It's mostly made up of very sexy dance moves, or straight-up aerobic moves scuttled to look like very sexy dance moves (at one point Alicia and I turn to each other and are like, We are not fooled.  These are just jumping jacks).

And any chance I had of being uncomfortable doing sexy dance moves in a well-lit, highly-mirrored room on a Tuesday morning is eradicated by the company I keep (several older Asian women, occasionally one dude in his late 40s who obviously comes with his wife, two East Indian women who have got to be in their 50s) and by my hilarious belly.  I have added at least a quarter of my former self ONTO myself and am splendidly large.  It makes my boob-shimmy highly effective.

ALL THAT TO SAY Alicia works Tuesdays now, and while I could feasibly bus my way out to Surrey for Zumba, I am much more likely to hit up the Aqua-fit just up the road.  AQUA-FIT!  I used to aqua-size with a girlfriend when I went to UBC, and we would laugh about having the corner on the young, able-bodied, non-pregnant market.  NO MORE.  Now it's just seniors and the slightly infirm and my fat self.

And everyone says that being in water when you are massively pregnant (seriously.  Massive.  I have two more months bigger to get HOW IS THIS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE) helps take the strain off your back and they are not wrong.  I am buoyant.  However.  No one mentions the sudden and debilitating resurgence of gravity when you get out of the pool.  I have never felt so heavy in my life.