A visit to the dark side

The discussion yesterday of the mother of 14 kids got me thinking, and it occurred to me that train of thought was best driven at Question Everything. There's a new post at QE for the first time in donkey's years. If you'd like to debate the ethics of repro rights, click the link on the sidebar.

Is she a woman, or a guppy???

Is anyone else at all distressed that a mother of 6 children (ages 2-7, which means she didn't get her period for 5 years) felt the need to have fertility treatment? Am I the only one who thinks that's crazy?

1. I SERIOUSLY hope her health insurance didn't pay for that fertility treatment
2. What on earth makes her think she's capable of looking after 6 kids AND 8 infants at the same time, while her husband is on duty in Iraq no less???
3. Why would anyone want that many kids? I can understand having 14 kids in the grand old days before birth control. You either had to accept that you'll be a baby machine or give up having sex with your husband for the rest of your life. I know what I would have chosen. But this is the 21st century people! You no longer have to make that choice. Wake up and smell The Pill!

8 babies. That's not a family, it's a LITTER. It's dangerous (for the mother and the kids), it's irresponsible and puts an unfair drain on social service programs and the medical system (at the end of the day, whether she's on medicare and wellfare or and employed adult with health coverage, it's still the rest of us who are picking up the tab for this woman's personal attempt to populate the planet with her own spawn), and it's not fair on the rest of her kids, who will now be completely ignored until the 8 babies are all out of diapers.

Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?

HONEY, I'M HOOOOOOOOOME!!!!

Well thank fuck for that. I got on a plane in Detroit, Michigan on Saturday and Pirate met me at the airport in Bristol on Sunday morning. He was 45 minutes late, mind you, so there was none of that walking out of baggage collection and into his waiting arms. Instead there was a lot of sitting around and looking at my watch, but he got there in the end and that's what matters.

The flights over weren't too bad, either. I managed to score exit-row seats on both planes. AND wound up sitting next to the male lead of Riverdance, who are beginning a new UK tour. He offered to get me comps to the show when they're in Plymouth. So all in all not a bad trip.

God it's good to be home. I missed my Pirate. I missed his voice and his laugh, his smell, the smell of the house, the feel of the sheets, my own kitchen with all my stuff exactly where it should be, Pirate's ginaggerous shlong, the birds in the garden, the fishies in the tank (Counselor Paul, our algae-eater, has gotten HUGE, as has Garlic, the snail), my cacti collection and african violets, and all the little things that make the house our home (mostly each other).

*inhales deeply*

Ahhhh. Life is good.

Homeward Bound

I'm here to bring you the Good News. The Second Coming is imminent. The End (of my American imprisonment) is nigh!

We just heard from the honorary British Consul, and he says that my visa will arrive in the next couple of days and that i can book my plane ticket for Friday week. I don't know how he got a 10 week process shortened to less than 3, but I'm not looking a gift-bulldog in the mouth.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is not a train. Life is good.

A Memo from the desk of Too Much Information

Me: sorry for sleeping so late. I put the sheepy sheets* on my bed last night and it was so snuggly in there i couldn't bring myself to get up. It was like a uterus. Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day eagerly awaiting bed time, just so i can get back in it.

Mom: Why don't you go back to bed now?

Me: I'm wide awake. What would I do there.
*pauses*
Don't answer that.

Mom:** You know what they say: sex is like bridge... if you've got a good hand, you don't need a partner.

Me: ...




*We're having a cold snap. The temperature was below zero last night. That's zero Farenheit. So I put the flannel sheets on my bed. My flannel sheets have little cartoon sheeps all over them. They are seriously cute.

** Mom runs a twice-weekly, ACBL-sanctioned bridge game for a bunch of nearly-dead local residents. I shudder to think where she heard this.

Back at "GO"

Today is my 30th birthday.

30 is one of those landmark birthdays where you sit back and look at your life as it is and compare with where you thought you'd be at this point. Let's take a look, shall we?

A. Where I thought I'd be:
Happily married, at home with my Pirate, having some people to dinner to celebrate.

B. Where I actually am:
At my parents' home in the USA, back where I started, feeling old and wondering when I'll see my Pirate again.


Now before you panic let me assure you this has nothing to do with any kind of marital issues. Pirate and I are still madly in love and horny as hell and all that gross newlywed stuff. The problem is immigration issues. I'm stuck here, waiting on my spousal visa, without which I cannot return to the UK. They said it could be as long as 10 weeks.

My aunt knows the Honorary British Consulate for the Detroit area, who is a very nice man and is trying to push things along for me and shorten that 10 week estimate. Meanwhile the Pirates-in-Law have contacted their MP to push things along from that side. With any luck if they both push hard enough they'll meet somewhere in the middle and I can get the fuck out of here.

So here I sit, in my parents' house, feeling old, wondering how I ended up back here again. I feel rather like I've been playing a board game, and drew a bum card or landed on a crappy square that sent me back to "GO" while everyone else is playing on, now half a board ahead of me.

Oh yeah, and I gained 6 pounds over the holidays. 2009 is off to a great start.