Eating for about 7...

I have been told that, contrary to the standard wisdom of "eating for two" (or, I guess, three), a pregnant woman is not supposed to eat twice as much;-) A healthy diet is something like 500 extra calories per day, with obviously a focus on high-nutrient foods.

Well, let's just say that I am good for a couple of weeks now. I ate my extra 500 calories for yesterday, today, tomorrow and several days after that! There was turkey, of course, and stuffing and potatoes and squash and corn bread and vegetable casserole and sweet potatoes and gravy and cranberry sauce and apple pie and chocolate cake and cheesecake. Oh my!!! My foreign guests were thoroughly impressed with the brilliance of Thanksgiving, and they even contributed a traditional Venezuelan corn bread and cheese thing that was a valuable addition to the lineup:-)

Today I find myself in a very unique position...with absolutely nothing at all to do all day...and it feels wonderful! There is absolutely no chance on earth that I would go anywhere near a store today, and I have no school work and really nothing much else to do at all. I may take out some of the Christmas decorations to see what kind of shape they are in...or, I may curl up under a blanket and read all day, or maybe I will just watch stupid TV. The world is my oyster!!!

The Boy has a sort of unofficial college reunion tonight which I may or may not go to. I certainly won't stay out nearly as late as the rest of them, but it might be fun...especially if I have all day to nap in preparation:-). Munchkin is also not feeling great, so I may just stay in with her and do girly stuff...for now, I am just going to appreciate the complete lack of responsibility for the day!

Tomorrow...more Thanksgiving;-) The Boy's family has their traditional T-Day+2 get together...more Turkey!!!

Possibly the best thing about America...?

There is a whole lot to like about America, and I think we can probably all agree on that. By no means do I think we are perfect, but we get a whole lot of stuff right, and we have a history of improving ourselves.

For a variety of reasons, the United States has been the source of much of the great technological invention of the last 150 years or so. [To briefly get off on an almost political tangent...I would like my left wing readers to recognize that one of the the two biggest reasons is our version of capitalism, and I would like my right wing readers to recognize that the other of the two biggest reasons is our history of encouraging immigrants. OK, off my soapbox]

The steam engine, the cotton gin, the thresher, the combustion engine. They weren't all necessarily invented here (or exclusively here) but they certainly came to fame here. Mass production, oil refining, steel making...again, none of it was invented here, but it was all perfected here and the world is a better place because of it. How about the airplane? The electric light could be the single most important invention ever (OK Germans, the printing press is right there). The world would look a whole lot different without the silicon chip or the Internet, too.

A huge portion of the world's great medical breakthroughs have come from our Universities and Hospitals. Many of the great materials and chemicals science comes from American labs and school as well. We even invented the business school (eh...no comment on that).

But...you know what could well be the single greatest American Invention ever? Thanksgiving!!! Seriously, it is an entire day devoted to eating and watching football...what could possibly be more American than that? Also, it is a four and a half day weekend with no expectation of shopping or tree-trimming or any of the other pressure of Christmas. Just a day to hang out with family, eat turkey and think about how lucky you are.

I will be spending the weekend with a small portion of my actual family (Munchkin), along with my newly acquired family (The Boy's) and then my pretend one (Smoking Hot Roommate, et al). In addition, a Venezuelan girl from school and her husband are coming along to learn why we have a random five day break in the middle of the year. Boy are they in for a treat!!!

So, in case I don't get to post before then...everyone have a great holiday! And try and give thanks for living in a country cool enough to invent a holiday like this:-)

Pictures...finally (some of them)

I am rapidly becoming the worst blogger ever. Several weeks late, here are the best images from my last ultrasound. Not nearly as good as the 3-D images I got last time, but this will have to do...at least until December 1, when we get to find out the sexes:-)






They refer to them as the "presenting" one and the "non-presenting" one, although I don't know why...I generally call them "top and bottom", "frick and frack" or some other random combination of two names. Regardless, that is one picture of each of them...hey, they look a lot like twins:-)

So...geez...what am I up to now. I got some responses to my federal deficit questions, but I don't really have the energy to respond. At least I don't have the energy to really respond, since I will get totally wound up and ramble for hours. Short version...Obama's budget chief, Peter Orszag, says the deficit next year will be bigger than this year, and his motivation would be to under-estimate it right now. Obama's own projections from march (which they have already scrapped as too optimistic) call for a 10 year plan where the deficit is never smaller than it was in the year before last. The Obama and Bush administrations have spent a trillion dollars in the last year and no one can give me one tangible piece of evidence that it has had even a tiny positive effect.

(By the way...some simply math tells us that, for $700 billion, you could hire all 7,000,000 people that have lost their jobs for $100,000 a year...just nibble on that for a second). I am not looking for people to perform miracles....just balance the fucking budget. Or at least pretend you are gonna try! And don't even get me started on health care...the system is broken, so our solution is to make it bigger? How does that make sense?

OK, there I go...totally wound up. I should stop now...but I do hope someday to have a job where all of my problems can so easily be blamed on my predecessor:-)


Anywho...busy busy busy around here, but I am feeling better and not quite so tired all the time, which is good. Some fun stuff up for the weekend, I hope, include a practice Thanksgiving dinner:-) Because no one should go to Turkey Day unprepared;-)

News

I have an open challenge:

In 2009, the Federal deficit is going to be $1.45 Trillion.
In 2010, the Federal deficit is expected to rise to $1.5o Trillion.

Someone tell me why this is even remotely acceptable?

Also, George W Bush currently holds the unofficial title as "Least fiscally responsible President ever", based on 8 years of huge deficits, culminating in a record-breaking 2008 deficit of $1.0 Trillion.

So...how is Obama not way, way, way worse?

Visitors

Happy Thursday everyone...I have once again been a terrible blogger this week, which I apologize profusely for. I have been super busy with school stuff, and have been doing a little bit of work on the side (including most all day yesterday) for my dear former (and likely future) employer. Actually, kind of a nice way to pick up some extra dough;-) Should be pretty calm for the next few days, though, which is good.

I got an invite to a dinner thing tonight with a Big Name Investment Bank where they are recruiting interns for next summer, and then presumable employees for a year and a half from now. They went through the resume book, picked out people who's background matches what they want, and then invited us to dinner and then to interview formally tomorrow. Dinner is at a notoriously swanky place in Cambridge (overrated, but that is neither here nor there) and they seemed totally shocked that I declined. But seriously...I doubt I would ever work for them, and I would way rather have chicken fingers!!!

I am going to interview, though, even if I don't want the job (since this is technically only for summer internships, it is for a job in New York next summer...you can probably guess what the odds are of me taking that;-)). You never know what may come up later on in life, so I would like to at least meet them and get the chance to talk to them. It never hurts to work on the personal network:-)...and I wouldn't completely rule out the chances of working for them after school. OK...those chances are like 1%, maybe...but there is a chance...

Moving on...we are getting two very important visitors for Christmas. Well, one before and one after, to be specific. Frenchie is going to come for about a week before Christmas (December 17-23, or something thereabouts). Actually, his last day of school is supposed to be the 18th, and he and Munchkin originally proposed that he come from the 19th until the 26th, but his Mom nixed the idea of him actually being here for Christmas...their compromise was that he would skip the last two days of school before the break and therefore get about a whole week in before the holiday.

This is a big deal, since it is the first time that one of them has travelled by his or herself to see the other. The last two times they have seen each other were when his father brought him here and when I brought her there. I'll have to have a talk with her about some ground rules before then, but that shouldn't be a huge issue.

Then, I am doing my annual child-swap right after Christmas...Munchkin is going away with her friend's family again (Let's recap...2006 - sailing in the Caribbean, 2007 - Aruba, 2008, St. Maarten, and now in 2009 - St. John. I really kinda hate her sometimes:-P). But I will survive because Tinkerbelle is coming to visit again:-). That should be all kinds of fun, and I am really excited about it...this is a couple years now where she has come at Christmas, and come for a while in the summer and I get back there to see her a couple times a year, too. Obviously, I would love to see her more, but we have been pretty good about seeing each other a pretty good amount.

So, that is about it for now...I haven't forgotten that I owe you ultrasound pictures, and will get those up soon. You know...like just in time to have my next one on December 1:-P.