Quit Calling Me!

Apparently my number is floating around. As in, my cell phone number.

When I first got the phone, there were a fair amount of calls for a Major Bryant. This seemed usual, since pretty much everything around Minot is related to people being in the military (I think the town would deflate like a dead balloon if the base was closed), and we've had that a lot with various phone number changes.

Well, that stopped about 4 months ago, thank goodness. It's always awkward getting wrong number calls, because I don't understand the ettiquete. Do you say thanks for calling or just a plain good-bye, or do you hang up on them?

My mom once had a wrong number call that turned into a really interesting call. Apparently some guy was asking for "father's first and last name". She said they were divorced. Some how the call went on to how was this the same "name" that had a brother named "Uncle"? And that he had twin daughters? It ended up NOT being my dad. How funny is that? The guy had the same name, a brother with the same name (and kids), and it wasn't the right one? That's just weird.

Anyway, so I turn my phone off at night because I'm not the type who likes to get phone calls at strange hours, and with friends and family across the country, it just seems the thing to do to avoid late-night calls. This morning I had an interesting voice mail waiting. Some guy named "something that really sounded like Tick, so I'm assuming Rick" was just calling to say that he was ready to pick the truck up.... Hmmm. Well, considering he had to listen through my personalized voice mail, it's kind of strange that he went ahead and left a message anyway.

Then, just now, another guy called looking for a guy named Randy. Hmm. No. I put my phone back down and go back to Warcraft (Sully's napping, and it's that or clean up the living room... hmmm..) when the same guy calls back. I didn't answer it that time. Seriously. He apparently has the right number... So, this makes me wonder who is giving my number out? I think there are maybe 3 people in Minot who have it (not including Pizza Hut, medical offices, Victorias Secret and like all the vets in town). Everyone else is family and a few friends in various other states. it's not likely to be anyone I know.

Seriously. I'm the person you HATE to have in your phone book. I will change my phone number at the drop of a hat if I need to (I think we've had 5 phone numbers in the 3 years we've lived here...) Last time it was because of abusive telemarketers. Sometimes having a number that is restricted to folks living on the base is irritating. So if these random people don't stop calling and asking for other people, I will have to see what I can do to stop this. Grr. I should be a darn hermit.

And now, back to my previously scheduled game of Wow, in which I was running across Redridge Mountains as a ghost. Because the darn murlocs killed me. Poo.

Poing

I hunted down the old online comic that I used to read. It's called Sluggy Freelance and is really funny (once you get into it, anyway). In order to find it, I had to hunt around through my old livejournal posts... which in the end were totally useless and I found it by checking out my old interests. However, I got a chance to peek through some of my old writing. Most of it was awful (and the majority of it revolved around some guy that I was utterly obsessed with, blech), but it did remind me of things. Like how little sleep I used to get. I'm not sure how I used to function. And it reminded me that I used to be all ::poing poing:: style. As in, there was lots of the poinging. That comes from Kiki and Bun-Bun from Sluggy, but it also came from a guy named Eli, who had ferrets when I had my ferret... and every time we would talk, it would be about ferrets, and usually involved great amounts of the word "Poing!" Ha. I was so weird.

I wish I had some pictures of my old carpet shark, just for sharing value. He was darn cute! I got him in Las Vegas and had to smuggle him back in to CA, since they are illegal there. Not that that stops anyone, or stops vets from treating ferrets... I named him Olliver, but it took so long to think of his name, that I had already gotten used to calling him Ferret. I think the name was just so in conversation I wasn't calling him Ferret to other people. He was funny. Spent a lot of time making mad dashes at things from heights, or stealing the odd food things that I had in my room (this was when I was renting a room from a friend)... I lost a lot of boxes of pop-tarts to that bugger. He was let out of my room when Caayn and I moved in with my aunt and uncle, and they always had the front door open... I searched for him for a really long time, but never found any traces of him. Poor thing.

Anyway! Read Sluggy. It's funny. And Kiki is the cutest ferret EVER. Go here to start at the very first strip... beware though, the strip started in August of 1997 and I think its still going. You'll have a lot of reading ahead. The funnier stuff happens after like the first year.

Stuff including a trip to the midwife

I'm back from my first midwife appt. It went well. She seems like a really good lady, and we have very similar thoughts about pregnancy and labor/delivery. She's for me trying a VBAC like I want, and is pulling my old records from the other doctor. Apparently she thinks they were sort of full of crap in regards to the c-section... Which is good, because I feel the same way. I also heard the heart beat, faintly, and it was pulling a good 169! Yipee!

Also, she said I'm looking so much bigger because my stomach muscles never got tight again after Sully. So poop. Tummy tuck, here I come. And when asked about my umbilical hernia correction, she said if they didn't put in a shield thingy (which I don't think they did) that there is a possibility of it happening again. (And that she was surprised they did it in the first place, that its normal procedure to wait until a woman is done having children to correct it.) OH. And that she will try and sneak in a 20 week ultrasound with the excuse of having had a prior c-section, so that I can see the gender... Tricare is such a craphead regarding ultrasounds. They will refuse any that are not medically necessary--which is dumb, because it generally IS medically necessary. They can be used to see which way the baby is facing, etc, which is handy for labor... Besides, all drs who deal with Tricare will make up a medical excuse so women can get one. Seriously.

Anyway, enough baby talk. I was talking to a cousin who I hadn't talked to in ages (due to distance and never really having a way to contact her), and she mentioned a rumor that she had heard about how my uncle (her dad) could possibly have a twin. How bizarre!! Now I'm like all, whooo thinking about it. I love my uncle very much. He's the father I wish I had and just the all-around greatest, most human man alive. The thought that there is a man related to him, that has the same genes, is just mind boggling. I can't really even express my thoughts on this, so I'll just stop there, lol.

It was good talking with Talia. She's so hysterical. Growing up, there were a total of 6 grandkids (my brother, my two cousins, myself and then two other grandkids who were of a different age and lived in a different town.) The four of us were pretty tight knit, because we were together. My brother and Talia were born a year apart, I believe, and then Savannah and I are a year about (our birthdays are both in November, mine at the beginning hers at the end). We did all sorts of weird things and it was a lot of fun. I'll always remember things like how Talia had this laugh that was so infectious that you just couldn't help but laugh too. And how when I would visit them in Wyoming she would always be willing to do 'makeovers' on me, which was fun.

Family is fun. There's nothing quite like it. I hope Sully has good memories like this too.

And to mix things up, a little more about WoW. I think we need a new video card. Our game keeps running funny, and everyone from just regular players to the tech support for the game keeps telling me this. Boo. But its still fun.

My MIL got a puppy yesterday!! I would have posted sooner, but I wasn't sure if any of the in-laws read this and would have hated to ruin the surprise. It's an English Mastiff puppy, and she has wanted one for a long time. It is SO adorable. By the time we get to see it, it'll probably be as big or bigger than Achilles. (And when I say big, I mean height-wise, since all dogs are bigger in mass than the greyhound, but only a few breeds really top him in height.) They named him Zeke. Yipee! I've been so exited about this ever since Mike (her fiance) told us he was getting it for her birthday... She called us like the day before asking for hints as to what he was getting her. Pfft. Like we'd tell!

One more thing, then I'm wrapping this up. Sully is terrified of any kind of pop-up butterfly thing. We had a book about catepillars (whatever I can't spell that word apparently) that at the end, a giant butterfly popped out. Well, he would shriek and throw the book as far as he could, so we had to tear it out.... Now he has a really cute book with the little flaps he lifts. One page is about moths, which are just as good as butterflies to him. But now he leaves the book open specifically to that page, runs over and squats near it, and starts yelling. Then runs away. What a dork! The book is basically just dead to him now, except for that bit of weirdness. Oh the joys of having a son, LOL.

Thats all for now, folks!

Blah blah blah

Just a few things real quick...

First, I am sick. God damn. I hate being sick. It attacked out of nowhere yesterday. Luckily its just a head cold, so basically only my head feels really ill. It stops right above my upper lip. From there down, my body has no clue its sick. Whatever. And its totally lame because when you're pregnant, like every good drug is not for you. Poop.

Second, Caayn is stuck doing 12 hour days. 6 to 6. They're doing something called a generation, but don't ask me what that means... I *think* its like an inspection, or maybe its a practice drill thingy? I don't know. He tells me every single time (usually multiple times) but my brain is like a sieve when it comes to military talk and I hardly ever remember anything relating to it. Which is annoying. Anyway, what it means is he leaves an hour earlier, doesn't get to come home for lunch and will come home an hour and a half before Sully's bedtime. Boy, Sully is going to HATE me. This morning, he woke up saying, "Hello Daddy! Daddy, come here!" Which was fine, since its Sunday... except Caayn is at work.

Third, I did find a minor use for MySpace. I found Kristin! YAHOOO! I'm so excited, so is she. Apparently she has been trying to find me too but couldn't remember my last name. (Seriously, I wouldn't have remembered hers either, except I have her old drivers license, lol.) And even my last name wouldn't have done her any good, because I got married not long after I lost contact with her. But anyway, its really awesome. Now I regret not getting on MySpace sooner, because if I had, I could have gone to see her when we went to PA in March. God damn. Again. It'll be awesome when we move out there though. She'll be like 3 or 4 hours from the town we'll be living in, but that won't matter, because seriously thats not far at all. I'd visit every week. :D

Fourth, we are so addicted to World of Warcraft now. We ran out and bought the game/expansion set so that we could have a full account. Very fun. However, I'm totally boggled about the rules. So to have an account, you have to have the verification key that says you bought the game. Each account is $14.99 a month. For every single account, you need a BRAND NEW key. So if Caayn and I want to have seperate accounts (which the rules say you have to, only 1 adult is allowed per account), we'd have to buy a whole second set of games. Which is an extra $60 on top of the $60 we already paid. The thing that confuses me is, people lend computer games to friends all the time, or sell them too. What happens if you lent the game to a friend and they used the same key? How would that work? Would everyone get in trouble? Seriously, thats such a dumb rule. (I wonder what a large family would do if every single one of their, say 12, children wanted to play WoW. They would have to buy -12- games!) WoW should just have a place on their website where you can straight out buy a code for like $5 bucks.

Thats it!

World of Warcraft

Yesterday we were at the BX buying AAA batteries and various stripey things for a new BDU top for Caayn, when I finally caved to the little $1.99 copy of World of Warcraft, that was basically a 14 day free trial.

All excited, I promptly come home (well, after making a pitstop at the dry cleaners to drop off said shirt, and hunting for pink lemonade which the BX stopped selling and so did the shopette, which pissed me off because all I wanted was some damn pink lemonade!!) and popped the disc in. It took forever to download, like an hour maybe? I could be exaggerating. So then I get the prompt to make an acct name. Joy! Done. What's this? I now have to download the actual game from the website? 3.16 GBs? It took probably around 8 hours to download, maybe longer. I started it at 6ish, and by the time I collapsed into bed, it was 11pm and only 50% done. It was doing 400MBs per hour. Caayn said that was fast, I said SLOW.

And just now, I was going to start poking around before Sully is up, and it said I needed to download something else (a patch, I assume). It was 465MBs, and finished in about 20 minutes. Hmm. Looks like I was right, it was going way slow.

So, yep. I'm hoping this is fun. We tried EverQuest like ages ago, and we never did figure out what the heck the point of that game was. I wish we had geeky friends who could help us out with this. The community center on base hosts LAN parties, for UT apparently, I was telling Caayn they should host a WOW party... I think way more folks play it.

One more thing that has me confused. I read terms and conditions very thoroughly (thanks Neopets, the conniving freaks with about 100 special loopholes in their T&C), and I noticed it said you can only have 1 account. On the account you can create various characters, but only 1 person should access it (well, and 1 minor child if the person is a parent or guardian of said child)... what about big families? Do they each have to have their own comps? Caayn and I will share this account... are we going to be breaking the rules? We only have one comp that is game-worthy... his laptop is strictly for his writing, it has bare bones for anything else. Boo.

Seasonal Sayings

I don't think North Dakota has heard some of the more popular seasonal sayings.

"March goes in like a lion and out like a lamb."
"April showers bring May flowers."

Let's see. At the beginning to middle of March, we went to PA. Apparently there was some really nice weather out here. Towards the end of March, the weather started turning really cold and nasty again. So, I'm thinking more along the lines of, "March goes in like a lamb and out like a lion..."

And then I was wondering. Do April snowshowers bring May flowers? Because we've been having stupid snow. Yesterday I think it was, it snowed the whole day, and only amounted to like maybe 3 inches? (I base this off the snow in my backyard. There was probably less accumlative snowfall. Backyards always seem to have either more snow or less snow than anywhere else.)

I made Sully hunt easter eggs in 30 degree weather. Luckily the snow held off until the next day or so. However, I made the mistake of using real hardboiled eggs. By the end of the day they were all crushed and yucky. He's since been upset with me, asking where the eggs went and whether or not he could go outside and find more. Oops. Apparently plastic eggs are the way to go when you have tiny kids with big grips.

A Story About My Bro

(This is me and Rob at my reception, the day after my wedding... The second picture is me and him at his wedding.. and it may be one of my fave pics of us--not sure how it came out being scanned into the comp...)

I have a brother named Robert. He's 6 years older than me, and probably my most best friend. When I was little, we hated each other. I'm sure most of it was the whole 'little sister' thing, because I know that I liked him... at least, I always wanted to hang out in his room, which had the coolest comics and steelies and all sorts of cool things that boys have. He listened to rock n roll and metal, I listened to country. I thought his friends were the coolest guys on the planet (especially Blaine and his uber awesome shiny red bike with all kinds of cool gadgets)...

When I was 12 I think, he got married. I've spoken before about his wife. I hung out with them sometimes, and I babysat my niece almost everyday for a long time while my sister-in-law finished school. They moved 2 hours away, so I saw them whenever one of his friends would give me hitch out there.

When I was 15ish (this is that dread time period of 1999-2003 that I spoke of in my last post, where time is wonky and I'm not really sure of dates and ages and stuff), my brother's marriage went crazy and he moved back home. We became very close. We hung out all the time, we partied, we went to Pappys (a truck stop back home) where I got a very yummy brownie sundae all the time...

I miss that. Talking on the phone just isn't quite the same. Whenever we hung out, we were always doing something cool. Cruising around Pismo or hitting San Luis, once we drove out to Guadalupe for no other reason than we were talking and having a good time and it was something to do. Now he's doing these things without me, since he's still back home in those places. I wonder if he misses hanging out with his little sister.

So anyway, what this boils down to is he apparently joined MySpace. That's right. My dreaded archenemy. I hate MySpace. It's like the cesspool of the internet. Thinking about it makes me shudder. And he told me to join so that we could keep in contact more often than on the phone....so I did. (And I have to say, I'm glad I did, just because I finally saw a recent picture of him, and was flat-out shocked... his hair is long, long like it hasn't been since he was in high school... so that was pretty shocking, needless to say, lol. Also, I got to see his tattoo, which I haven't been able to see. It's surprising that seeing him in a picture after 3 years of having not seen him makes my heart hurt! I miss that guy!)

And this is a long way of saying, if anyone wants to friend me or something, this is where you can find me. Don't expect anything cool, since well, I'm not cool. I won't do any blogs, since I blog here... and I currently don't have a picture up because I have no good pictures of my face. Well, Caayn took a crapload of awesome pics back in like 2004, but I've managed to find that they are NOT in our drawer of pictures, which means they are probably packed in a box somewhere... so yeah...

Hello Poop!

Sully has learned about Mickey Mouse. It started at his birthday party, when one of his presents came in a Mickey bag, which spoke whenever you lifted the flap. He was thrilled by this!

Yesterday I went hunting through the assorted Disney channels we have, trying to find something with Mickey. Apparently he isn't as cool as he was when I was little, because there are only two shows and both blow. One is CGI and the other has the Disney characters all modernized... which is a little creepy. So we watched one. He was like, whatever. After the show went off, the New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh came on. I watched that up until I was like in junior high, for several reasons (most having to do with the fact that I just plain like cartoons and kid shows). Anyway, so they play the theme song, which embarrassingly enough I still remembered the words to, and then cut directly to a commerical break. After having NEVER seen anything Pooh related, Sully cheerfully says, "Bye Poop!"

I about died laughing. That was the funniest thing I've heard him say in a long time. When the show came back on, he cheerfully said, "Hi Poop!" And thats apparently how he is going to refer to him. It's hysterical.

Unfortunately for Sully, there is about to be a rash of bad programming that he will be submitted to. I am so flat out exhausted that I can't hardly drag myself off the couch or even open my eyes. Luckily Sully is good at entertaining himself, so he doesn't mind... but it definitely makes me feel rotten. I can't wait to get out of the tired phase. When I was pregnant with Sully, we lived downtown in this tiny red house... and Caayn didn't come home for lunch. I think I lived on the couch from 6am when he left for work until 4pm, just before he came home, lol. However, I was pregnant the whole winter, so that didn't help. This time I've got all of spring and summer ahead of me. Now, if the weather would just cooperate and be nice. When we had that like week of really nice weather, Sully got so excited to be outside. Now he's always asking to go out, and I don't like trudging around in 30degree weather. So... warm up!