I had a bed that moved; like, when I twitched, it twitched back. I thought it was the morphine at first, but it wasn't. Bizarre.

Maybe that was just the cyst, coming back to haunt you!

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Congrats on a successful surgery, Erin.

Once my sister had a cyst removed and her best friend sent her a "condolences on your loss" card. Inside it said, "we shall all miss the cyst."

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Who replaced Matilda with a big girl? She was a baby last time I checked.

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It was weird. I had a a bed that moved; like, when I twitched, it twitched back. I thought it was the morphine at first, but it wasn't. Bizarre.

I had one of those in the hospital last week! Really weird. I'm so glad that you're home and doing all right, hon. So much recovery~ma to you. Keep taking the good drugs.

vw, I'm sorry your job is stressing you out on top of having health issues. Please be good to yourself and go to the hospital if you need to.

{{{Jilli}}} Knowing it's coming doesn't make it any less difficult. Hang in there, love.

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Hi Erin! I missed your return call because I went for a swim. Yay for finally being home. If I had a big ole ovary eating cyst removed the first thing I would do when I got home would be to weight myself. Hey, it's a plus.

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Erin, I'm glad you're home!

Thanks for the solace, folks.

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I would never want a hypothetical transgender kid of mine to get beaten up for being transgender, but even MORE, I would never, EVER want to give my child the impression that his/her core identity is unacceptable. If your *parents* don't accept who you are, starting at age 3, that's just about the ultimate negation.

I'm currently reading Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman (he also wrote Why Marriages Succeed or Fail). It's very much about allowing kids to trust that their feelings are genuine, valid and acceptable, (and distinguishing between feeling sad, hurt or angry, and choosing how to act appropriately on those feelings). His findings (he studied a large number of families over an extended period of time) was that trivialising or dismissing (or worse, punishing) a child's hurt feelings was damaging to their identity, not to mention self-reliance and self-discipline. This whole transgender thing has to be orders of magnitude worse.

Meanwhile, work-is-my-antidrug moment: peer reviewed a document, the following exchange now appears in the comments:

Work Bod: Should we be using a different name for [Billytea's team]?
Me: Yes - refer to us as "The Lords of Kobol".

I am pursuing a degree in Secondary Education - Language Arts major. Haven't really chosen a minor yet.

My mother got similar comments regarding her insistence on studying Latin in her teaching degree. She still got a job. Oh! And they put her in charge of the library, told her it had been neglected recently and could she improve the book selection a bit, but forgot to set any limits on how much she could spend. They get a great library and no budget for sporting equipment for two years.

And we know he’s not gay, since you’re gettin’ it regular ;)

Huh. I thought a certain degree of irregularity was kind of a goal here.

Also, dang. I thought I was the only stepmother on b.org. It's good to be not alone on that weird little step-island.

You can form a club! You could step out together!

Who replaced Matilda with a big girl? She was a baby last time I checked.

I think when I saw her she was going through a pupal stage where she was cocooned in a pumpkin.

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Dear Macy's,

It's not a One-Day Sale if there's a "preview" day the day before.

Duh!

-vw

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Thanks for checking in, Erin. I was hoping everything went okay. I'm sorry it was more involved. Was it the size of a grapefruit? It seems like giant cysts or tumors are always the size of a grapefruit, just like hail is either the size of a golf ball or a softball.

I have spent practically the whole damn day on the phone. My mother would not get off the phone, plus she depressed me by saying her congestive heart failure is getting worse. (Yes, it is all about me. I was mainly irritated because we both said closing phrases like "I'd better get some work done," but then the call went on and on.) Then my neighbor with the tumor that now may or may not be cancer was very upset about the fact that she needs to see her pcp again before her surgery, but the scheduling people were saying things to her like, "Well, there's an opening on May 21." I went through the same kind of nonsense myself, and under those circumstances, you're in no mental shape to deal with it. I cried a lot, but knowing my neighbor, she is going to raise hell you can hear in California. There should be some kind of ombudsman to deal with this stuff for people with serious diagnoses.

Sorry you're having such a stressful week plus extra added not breathing, vw. My allergies have been killing me because I'm allergic to the tiny flowers on shrubs like boxwood, which all seem to have come into bloom in the last week.

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Oh, Erin! Please get better soon.

Cindy! Have you seen the latest Matilda pictures? It turns out that the cute and loveable don't go away as they get bigger; they just increase. Imagine that!

Oh JZ, that's no baby! Matilda is beautiful. I can't believe how big she is. Oh and she has a Nilly! Look E, too. He's also just so big. How are you all doing?

We move on the 16th, and we're really not packed.

It's the most stressful thing, isn't it sj? You'll get there. It always feels like it's an insurmountable task, but it always gets done, somehow.

I know for a fact that that isn't true. You might feel like that's what you're doing, but you're actually a delightful conversationalist.

Tell me more, tell me more.

Cashmere, are you around? Is your inspection tomorrow?

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