In Yo Face!

Ok, so I share an office with a few other folks and we are all separated from each other by our "quadrant of cubicles." It's not as bad as one would image, although I think I would go bananas in a work environment like 'Office Space.' It's pretty quiet and when anyone needs anyone else, we just shout out to the land of cubes and hope an answer returns. As it so happens, my cube is furthest from the door and therefore in a nice little secluded corner. No one comes back there unless they need me, personally. Where as everyone else must deal with constant comings and goings of various doctors, students, and the occasional lost hospital visitor; I do not have be subject to such things.


The woman who occupies the cubicle attached to mine has developed somewhat of a routine. She is a new mother and therefore must "pump" every few hours to store milk for her infant son. Now our building does have a designated "milking room" (or whatever it's called), but it is 12 floors below ours and is therefore apparently cumbersome for most. Cube-Matey is now in the habit of asking if we can switch desks a few times a day, so she can have the corner and save time. Like the nice person that I am, I smile and agree. All goes well usually (aside from having to shut my documents down, save them to a jump drive, close email, move folders, take water bottle, take briefcase, take phone, and other things, and switch them over to her desk...as well as act as "Pump Guard" and turn everyone away who has a remote chance of going over to talk to her or grab a chart). A little while ago, she said she was done. OK. Fine. "Can we switch back now?" I asked. "Oh, ya. I'm all set!" she replied. She came out, brought her things, I waited a few minutes, and then made the switch. I was not prepared for what was waiting for me on the other side. On my desk, looking right at me, were 2 electric breast pump thingys, with the "mounting hardware" still attached. Like 2 enormous saucer-like eyes, they stared me down. I didn't know where to look. I stood there for a second, and then sat down. (hey, work must go on, right?) I'm not sure where she ended up going but these 2 new "buddies" of mine were left in my care for about 10 more minutes. In the meantime, our male clinic coordinator DID need me and came back to my cube to ask a question. When he arrived at my desk, he was in the middle of asking his question and then totally lost his thought when he saw the bottles filled with milk, attached to oversized suction cups. He looked at me, puzzled...I just shrugged my shoulders and pointed to Cube-Matey's cube. He nodded, but still couldn't regain his thought. Eventually, it came back to him, but he was so uncomfortable that he just kept looking at the ceiling the whole time he was talking. Poor guy.



As I prepare for motherhood and the awkward moments it may bring, I will recall this story and hopefully learn from it. :)

Richmond's Finest

Walking to my car from work, I often run into various types of people...homeless, tourists, colleagues, patients, etc. The other day, I was near the colliseum when I spotted an older Black gentleman standing near the edge of the overpass. He was doing what appeared to be Karate moves to an invisible opponent. As I got closer, he started facing me and doing his Karate chops and kicks. He looked obviously homeless. He motioned to me to smile and then started acting like a mime, yes, a mime. His miming was not nearly as impressive as his fake Karate, but I just smiled as I neared. Hey I'm a nice person... When I got up to him, he put his hand out (palm and fingers extended), so I did what came natural to me....likely not the right thing and I'm not sure what possessed me, but I reached out and slapped him 5 as I walked by. Was this wrong? Perhaps. But I honestly didn't realize it until I had gone past and he started yelling at me. It finally dawned on me that MAYBE he was asking for money or a handout, not an enthusiastic hi-five from a preggie...

The Baker's Dozen

OK, so it's a been a while....a real long while, since I've blogged. And I apologize....however, blogging is a privilege to me, not a right. Therefore, when life gets busy or priorities happen, blogging stops. The list of items that have required my attention:

1) Pregnancy- we are expecting our beautiful little girl in January

2)Boards- for those followers, the boards have consumed me for years and are FINALLY done

3)Kevin- he is both in school for his MSW and works full time, so therefore I must be domestic...

4)Neo and Nala- as usual, they take precedence over most things in our life

5)Work- being a genetic counselor AND pregnant is no small task!....talk about anxiety!

Anyway, here is a pictorial display through the wonderful technology of ultrasound of our daughter beginning at 6 weeks. I have included the best 13 photos....as to spare you from having to look at the entire set of 50 or 60!



Our little blob at 6 wks...



The blob became a bean at 8 wks...

Face shot! Do you see her 2 little eyes staring at you??? I think she looks like some sort of transformer here at 12 weeks..

Now that's a pretty baby!!!!

Here she is at about 16 wks laying face down on her cushy placenta bed

"Oh, the drama!" See her hand on her forehead? If this is a sign of things to come, then boy are we in trouble!

"Put up your dukes!" Wow...she's feisty



Holy Sasquatch Batman! Check out the size of that foot!

Looking calm and peaceful at 22 weeks..

At 26 weeks, her nose looks squished, but really it was the ultrasound wand smashing her little face in...

Ahhh, that's better. "What a perky nose, she has", stated the doctor. Is that an official medical term? Perky?

26 1/2 weeks putting her hands up by her face again

Uh Oh...the hand is creeping in more..."No more pictures!", she replies.

The Unimpressed Constituent

Everyday I walk to work. I walk about a half a mile from my car to my "office." Part of my walk is around the Richmond Coliseum, a huge spaceship shaped building with windows all around. Some may say that it's a little crazy to park that far away, but hey...this is Richmond, and to get 2 blocks closer would cost an additional $20 per month in garage fees (on top of the 65 I already pay). I myself, enjoy the walk. I have met many types of people along the way, and let me tell you- it's the homeless that are always the nicest. Trust me- it never hurts to have people on your side. Suits walk by me, look at my badge, and keep walking. Women walk by me, look at my shoes, and keep walking also. (No matter what I wear for clothes, I always walk to work in flip-flops, so it must look a little strange- FYI- DO NOT wear flip-flops in the rain. You will inevitably fall down some concrete steps in front of the Social Services building and all those waiting for food stamps and the bus, break 2 toes, and bruise your knee. Oh wait, that only happens to me.)

Anyway, I was walking to work the other day and I noticed something a little different. As I approached the coliseum, I saw that in ALL grassy areas (not many in Richmond), there were these signs. Political signs. Spaced about an inch apart from each other. There were probably over a hundred. 'What a waste' I thought. As I got closer and closer, I was assaulted by dozens of more signs in the windows of the coliseum. I couldn't escape. There was nowhere else to look....I was forced against my will to read them. So apparently Bolling and Bob McDonnell are running for something and "Bob's 4 Jobs." There were tons of different types of signs- Women for McDonnell, Vets for McDonnell, even Sportsmen for McDonnell. Funny, I didn't any "environmentalists for McDonnell" as I am sure they, as I do, disapprove of using trees for something so stupid. I digress. View the pics and see for yourself.

I am also not too sure about the people who came out for such a rally that day and it scares me that they are voting. Multiple people came up to me and asked where the doors were. You see, the coliseum, as stated before, is shaped like a giant spaceship, so it's ROUND. A great big CIRCLE. So I would tell people, just keep walking and it'll be on your right....and they were so pleased....go figure.


I wonder whose job it was to remove the folks who use this grassy area as a bed.





I also wonder if it was some lowly interns whose job it was to post all of these into the ground.

Then again, maybe it was a woman...or a veteran....or a sportsman!

Very creative guys, was this sheer boredom or is there actually scientific proof that putting signs on a slant will get the younger crowd to vote?

The group who arranged these signs were slightly more conservative...

And these guys are as straight as they come!

Things That Make you Go Hmmmmmm

It has been a while since I have been able to blog about life. Mainly because life has been hectic, crazy, and just plain exhausting. Last Saturday, Kevin and I went to meet a man who was buying something from my craigslist posting (Don't worry, it wasn't the Carigslist killer...just a man who wanted our Playstation 1) Anyway, we were pretty early so we decided to stop at Lowe's and buy a light bulb. That's right, just a bulb. After finding the teeny tiny bulb, we notice that the lines at the registers are getting quite long. Being our efficient selves, we split up to find the shortest register and call the other person to come to THAT register. OK, I go to lawn and garden and spot the mecca of all registers. It is a girl who is just about to open her lane. I dash to the register and about the same time, a woman pushing a cart of patio furniture approaches. I decide to do the "Christian" thing and let her go first. ( actually that is a lie. a blatent lie. Kevin had the bulb, so I would have been up there paying for nothing.) Anyways, she goes in front of me and I place the call to Kevin. "Hurry! Hurry!" I say. "there's only one lady in front of me. Bring the bulb!!!" About 10 seconds later Kevin arrives, bulb in hand. Just as he slows down, he notices something very odd about the transaction occurring in front of us. I look over after hearing the cashier say "That'll be 395.50, ma'am" What I see, appauls me. What I see, would only happen to us...as we are in a hurry. The woman in front of us proceeded to remove from her purse, large rubber-banded wads of one dollar bills. Uuuuuuhhhhhh, What? One dollar bills? I kid you not. There were so many wads, the bills were so curly, the cashier was so mortified,....that this called for a Kodak moment. Thank You Blackberry :)

The woman would count out 50 ones and hand them to the cashier, who then recounted those ones.....allllllllllthe way to 400$. At this point, I have nothing left to do but wait. So as I wait, I try to conjecture about how this woman attained all of these dollar bills. Let's examine the facts: She is attractive (so maybe a local exotic dancer), she is handling the money very quickly (maybe she is a server somewhere...perhaps at a local exotic dance club), and lastly, she appears to have stored the money for a long period of time (maybe to hide from a pimp or controlling boyfriend-that she met at a local exotic dance club). I have decided to myself, that whatever her occupation or means to get these one dollar bills, if she needs to pay for a 400$ patio set with 1$ bills, then she should probably not be buying a patio set at all. For example, she could buy a wallet. A wallet that would hold a debit card which could be linked to a bank containing all of her 1$ bills. Call me crazy.....

As I finally get up to the register, the poor cashier is left holding an 8 inch thick stack of 1$ bills. She has nowhere to put them. I offer to take them home with me, so she could have room in her register (hey, it was the least I could do). Unfortunately, she doesn't go for it. She just spreads them all over under the register and now it won't close. By now, the Playstaion guy has called Kevin and we have explain that we are stuck at Lowe's...behind monstrous stacks of cash.....

First Day Fires

Mmmmm. Where do I begin? My first day at VCU. Yes, Monday was my first day and it was definitely a memorable one. It began with some rain and a 15 minute walk from the car to work....and a forgotten umbrella. It ended with rain and the same walk and the same lack of umbrella. What happened in between would ONLY happen to me.

I am filling in as a genetic counselor for a woman who is going out on maternity leave soon (and I stress the "soon" part). I was praying very hard that she would be there Monday to orient me at least for one whole day to the job that she has been doing for years and to the job that I haven't been doing for over a year. For anonymity sake, let's call her Bambi....don't ask why...maybe it's her doe-eyes. Anyway, I was elated to see her Monday still looking very pregnant. As we sat down and went over ALL that I will be doing for the next 13 weeks, a frightening sound was heard. It was, inevitably, the ever pleasant, ear piercing, "are you awake now?" sound of the fire alarm. The fire alarm?? Are you effing kidding me? For real? As you can clearly read, I am upset. Let's examine why....first, we are on the 11th story of the building, next- we are not allowed to take the elevators, and lastly- Bambi is like a thousand months pregnant will likely now give birth in a smokey stairwell. Naturally I forget about the possibility of burning or becoming a midwife, and immediately think selfish thoughts....like...Great! Now I have no one to show me the ropes and I will have to flounder for my first 2 weeks here!!!.....I know. I know. I'm awful. At least I accept that.

Poor Bambi has to pee to top it all off and is huffing an puffing down to the ground level. We make it out of the building, and then are quickly told we can go back in. After a quick pitstop to the ladies room, Bambi is with me again and we hail the elevator. Life goes as planned up on the 11th floor for another hour, until..............

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppppppp. What the? Another effing fire drill? This has got to be some sort of cruel joke. Off we go. At this point I have accepted the fact that I will likely have to catch Bambi's newborn son as the constant bouncing from the stairs sends her staright into labor. I keep checking on her as I hear her breathing picking up pace....oh wait, that was MY breathing. Wow, I'm out of shape. OK. Focus....Bambi. We make it down the 11 or so stories and Bambi decides she needs to go straight to clinic to see her patients. I am comforted that at least she is IN or NEAR the main hospital should anything happen.

Nothing DID happen, but before we left for the evening, she did give me a hug in case I didn't see her again and she delivered that night.

On a random note, as I look at Bambi and how it appears as if she has swallowed a VolksWagon, I cannot help but wonder....What on Earth are all these shows on Discovery Health that are about the countless women who do not realize they are pregnant unitl they are delivering a baby or two? I mean, I just don't get it....

Snow Beasts

mmmmmm snow. We haven't had any this season, but we definitely made up for that this weekend. Sunday and Monday were filled with fluffy white greatness and no one loves snow more than I. At least that's what I thought. Behold...Nala....snow enthusiast...



Here's a video of Neo and Nala's first encounter with a shovel. Obviously foreign to them, Nala immediately goes on the attack and Neo decided that it was a really big toy...



The last video (if you can stand any more of these) is of our poor poor cedar trees in our backyard. Shocked by the snow, they seemed to have just given up...or maybe they're taking a nap...who knows

Just Plain Wrong

Today is my birthday and to celebrate in true baker-fashion, I made myself a cake last night. It is my all-time favorite kind of cake in whole wide, wide world....cookie cake! I took time to decorate it and arrange it and then thought I would do something nice and share my cookie cake with my co-workers. At 7:30am, I brought the cookie masterpiece to the building's cafeteria and set it down as I have always done with ALL of my cakes. I planned to cut it during lunch and pass it around to everyone. Some people saw it and complimented me (but failed to say "happy birthday" even though the cake read- "happy birthday to me"...hmmmm) Anyway, around 10:15am, Heather asked me if I wanted to take a short break in the caf...I think we both needed a break from the lab. Naturally, I said OK and we went down the hall to cut my cake. Upon arriving, I noticed something strange, something shocking, and something awful....my birthday cake was already hacked into (crookedly, might I add). Who does that? Shouldn't the birthday girl get to cut her own cake? What kind of person says to themselves "hmmmm, here is a birthday cake for someone else...let me just cut into it, eat it, and leave." Grrrrrr. I give them angry eyes! Let this be a life-lesson to all those reading this blog. Never, ever, under any circumstances, cut into MY birthday cake before I do. Below is a picture of my poor cake post-thievery...

Help! I've married a 31 year-old Boy Scout!

Happy New Year to all. How do you celebrate the new year? Any resolutions? Well, we didn't have any specific resolutions or celebratory habits, but we did decide that NOW would be the best time of year to take up a new hobby. Which hobby? Well, camping of course! We do live in the South and are slowly but surely acclimating to southern life, so naturally our next step was to expand our outdoor sport repertoire.

Off to Dick's Sporting Goods we went. They seem to have a large selection of tents, good prices and...oh, who am I kidding, Anthropologie was in the same plaza and I had a gift card...Anyway, we shop around and find a great 4 person tent by Field and Stream. (It doesn't get much more southern than Field and Stream) There was only one left and the box was slightly beat up, so of course I finagled 10% off. This made Kevin extremely happy and opened his eyes to incredible power of asking cashiers for money off. It seems everywhere we went that day, he asked for 10% off...and got it most of the time :)

Fast forward to later that day, where Kevin just HAD to set up this tent. Quick quiz: If you wanted to set up a recently purchased LARGE tent, where would you do it? Now, take your time when answering this, it's tricky. Answer: Outside.......unless your name is Kevin, then it must be set up in the front foyer/living room of your home.

mmmmm, what a splendid addition to any home entrance...

The pups seemed very interested in our new purchase..

Nala thought this tent was like a giant crate for the whole family and therefore loved it equally.

Hail Mary, Full of Cars

Ok. Here is a relatively simple question with a not so simple answer. Ready? Where would one park their car if they needed to go to the emergency room? Hmmmm. Let me think? At the hospital? At the actual emergency room entrance? Nearby? On the same street? If you said yes to any of these questions, you, my friend, are WRONG. If you need to go to the emergency room at St. Mary's hospital, you must park at least a quarter mile away. I believe this is a relatively new policy instituted to encourage patients (and patients' chauffeurs) to get much needed exercise. Or maybe the economy is to blame. Perhaps St. Mary's figures that 10% of all patients will either give up, get better, or get lost on the way to the ER and so staffing can be cut. Whatever the reason, I found out the hard way today. I took a friend to the ER and let me tell you, it's a damn good thing she didn't have a broken leg...or else we would have been in the 10% (we would've had to give up- I'm not trying to be a superhero and strap her to my back.) So, a quarter mile, we trekked.

Upon arrival, we were greeted with the ever pleasant sounds and smells of a variety of ailments....there were flues, colds, a twisted knee (probably from walking to her car), some fallen elderly, and a depressed woman. Heather was triaged quickly and taken back behind the double doors where the "real" wait began. I accompanied her and attempted to entertain her and keep her spirits up. You see, poor Heather has being experiencing a plethora of symptoms worthy enough of TLC's Mystery Diagnosis. It ranges from acute headaches to joint stiffness, to some type of peripheral neuropathy where she can't feel her hands or feet. She's been getting the brush off from her family doctor (don't get me started on those) and when she woke up today not being able to open her right eye fully due to muscle weakness, I said "TO THE E.R.!!!!" So off we went, straight from work, which is slightly humorous because when anyone leaves our workplace to go anywhere, everybody seems to weigh in on where they went, how long they were gone, etc. etc. etc...and rumors are born.

I will now bypass the entire escapade within the Catholic hospital (whose motto is "thanks for doing business with us"...excuse me??) and instead move to the hysterical portion of the day involving the return to work.

We returned 5 hours later and were instantly separated and questioned about Heather's current state of health. I didn't want to divulge poor Heather's HIPPA protected information, but needed to address a few "concerns." And by concerns, I mean diagnoses that were assigned to Heather by our co-workers after we left.....below is a compilation list and the accompanying code name of the individual

"A virus that won't go away"- Macadamia nut

"A lack of sleep"- Peanut

"Multiple Sclerosis"-Peanut again

"The long term effects of having a child....15 months ago."- Macadamia AND peanut

"GYN problems"- Meow

"Some muscle disease that will take forever to diagnose"- Cashew

"Autoimmune something"- Mr. Burns

I'll say that Mr. Burns is closest to having an actual real thought, but I'm pretty sure it's because Heather and I said something about possible Lupus. His first incling was to take her blood pressure. (which was slightly elevated- typical of the workplace to induce stress.)

Now for the best part. Here are the suggestions of our dear co-workers as to what Heather should do to combat her symptoms of impending doom...

"Get some rest"

"See my 85-year-old mother's neurologist...he's the best"

"Stop worrying"

"Get some more tests"

and my personal favorite....

"get pregnant...because pregnancy is like a "switch" that can turn on and off crazy symptoms and allergies."

Hmmmmmmmm. wow. That's all I can say. wow.

Get better Heather and if you need reminding of our fun-filled adventure of St. Mary's and the loud man with prostatitis....here are a few pics.

Woo Hoo! Looks like fun? Perhaps not fun, but still better than being at work!

Check out those vitals!!!!!! This silly thing would go off every 5 seconds.

The world's coolest vending machine. Just use a magic wireless button and you can get anything you want...trachs, gauze, ambu bags...you name it!

This is me looking sad that Heather is in the ER. The curtain behind me was shrouding the loud man with prostatitis.

This is a picture of the security camera taking a picture of me taking a picture of their supply cabinet. Bizzare but funny.