My baby’s first word is going to be “poutine!”

Tags

carbs wonderful carbs, food, pregnancy, weight problems

This stupid delicate stomach is ruining all my plans of eating amazingly healthily and dropping pounds to become a beaming beacon of health. While I have only thrown up a couple of times, and feel okay most of the time, I can’t handle anything heavy. That means I’m avoiding even the leanest of meats in favour of a small bowl of spaghetti and cheese, or a grilled cheese sandwich. I haven’t touched a burger in I don’t know how long, which is good, but I also haven’t had any healthy meals, either. Pasta, sandwiches, fries.

I’m guzzling juice, which is technically healthy but also full of sugar. I’m also eating tons of fruit, which is full of vitaminy goodness.  But I really feel like the simple carbs are unhelpful… except that it’s all I seem to eat, plus the occasional blob of cheese for protein.

I don’t want to eat junk, but when it’s all you feel you can eat…

I’m gaining weight.

And don’t tell me that you’re supposed to gain weight in pregnancy, because I’m only eight weeks along. The Babby is about the size of one of the large raspberries that I drop into the blender when making a smoothie. This is NOT baby weight. This is a food baby.

…My Babby’s gonna be fat.

FEED ME

Tags

carbs wonderful carbs, dogs, Perfect Husband, weight problems

I’m off carbs because if I don’t go back to dieting I will become smothered in my own blubber, which would only compound my feelings of despair and hopelessness.

…But it makes me want to kill things. Poor Perfect Husband is resolutely making us large salads, liberally splashed with tomatoes and cheese and my favourite dressing, which I reluctantly eat in the most ungrateful manner imaginable.

I’m such a delight to live with.

In other news, my service dog houseguest of the week smells like skunk.

Because she got sprayed by a skunk.

But at least she is grateful when one feeds her, which is MORE THAN ANYONE CAN SAY ABOUT ME, UNLESS THEY COME BEARING MCDONALD’S.

I love the smell of rejection in the morning.

Tags

carbs wonderful carbs, depression, whining

So, since that first counsellor never called me back, my husband’s benefits people set me up with another counsellor, who called me a couple of weeks ago to set up an appointment. She said she was going on vacation, but could see me when she got back, on the fourth. So I made an appointment for eleven o clock.

That was this morning.

After leaving in a rush from work (having taken the blood of five released dogs to help the genetics testing people find the gene causing one of our inherited health problems) I managed to find the place, circle around the block to go BACK to it after I passed it, and pay for parking. Then I went into two different buildings until I found the right one (all with the same address) and arrived, sweating slightly, just barely on time. I went to the reception desk and gave the name of the counsellor.

“Oh, she’s not here today,” said the girl behind the counter, surprised.

“She’s… not? Are… you sure?” I asked. She nodded, and her nearly identical counterpart nodded confirmation.

“Did you have an appointment?” one of the twins asked dubiously.

“Yes,” I said, “for eleven! She booked it with me just before she went on vacation.”

The girl flipped uselessly through a book in front of her. “Well, she called us last week and said she wouldn’t be in today.”

“Oh…” I said, “well… okay…”

“Maybe you could call her cell phone number,” she suggested. I wasn’t ready for voice-on-voice action with the newest in the line of professionals to reject me yet, though, so I just turned to leave.  One of the teeny boppers opened a bag of chips and, forgetting me already, they bent their giggling heads over a magazine as I waited for the elevator to take me back downstairs, so I could go to my car, so I could find the nearest New York Fries, and smother my rejection in poutine with extra cheese curds.

Damn you, West Coast, and Your Excessive Lettuce, Too

Tags

birthday, carbs wonderful carbs, food, Halifax, Perfect Husband, Vancouver

Perfect Husband’s birthday was last week. After weeks and weeks of me trying to convince him that he should get to pick his own birthday activities on his birthday, rather than just sit around the house like we always do, he finally chose to go to a BC Lions (that’s football, apparently) game and then walk across the street to try the Atlantic Trap and Grill. As he pointed out to me, I got to go home (ever so briefly) but he hasn’t been home since we got married. On his birthday, he deserves a Halifax Donair. If you look up Halifax donairs on Google (and I suggest you do so if you like schadenfreude, since the wingeing of ex-pat Maritimers is pathetic to witness), this place in Vancouver apparently serves decent Halifax fare.

We both suffered through the game (which was a loss so blatant and humiliating that the stands basically emptied themselves long before the end of the last quarter) and then we walked over to the Atlantic Trap and Grill. It had just moved locations to directly across from the football place thingy. It also had a sign outside that said “Enjoy Our New Menu.” That should have been a warning to us. But we were put off our guard. Drunkards were wrestling each other outside, and there was an Alexander Keith’s sandwich board outside. So far, so good. So we walk in, and there’s a big mat on the floor saying “Welcome to the East Coast.” It was loud, and had wooden barrels and lots of drunkards. Seemed authentic enough.

It was crowded and loud. We didn’t care. We perched ourselves on stools in the corner, like naughty children, near an advertisement for Kokanee, the BC beer that no one outside of British Columbia will even consider drinking. That should have been another hint. When we ordered garlic fingers and donairs from the server (wearing a football jersey which read “Russel Beers”) our blatantly Haligonian order made him pause awkwardly.

“Uh… just so you know… the donairs don’t come in pitas. They… they come in tortilla wraps” he said. We blinked owlishly at him for a moment.
“Ooh… kay…” We weren’t sure how to respond to that. Imagine if you ordered a burger, and were told “okay, but just so you know, they come in crepes.”

I wondered how many angry Genuine Maritimers had explained the pita vs wrap thing to our server. Clearly enough that he felt he had to warn us. We should have taken the hint, and left. When the garlic fingers arrived, we looked at them in confusion. They were served (get this, Maritimers) in a basket. That’s right. Like garlic bread. Not on a platter or pan, the way pizza should be served. And yes, it did appear to be cooked on pizza dough, but when we picked them up, they drooped impotently in our hands, and radiated that certain warm moistness that pizza gets when you warm it over in the microwave. They weren’t even garlicky.

The “authentic” Halifax donair sauce with which we were served was thick, and when you dipped your finger in it and lifted the finger towards your mouth, it left a trailing drip leading back down to the cup, much the way honey does. Oh, and by the way, it tasted like honey. Donair sauce is not supposed to taste like honey, since there is no honey in the ingredients.

“What the FUCK?” was my husband’s appraisal, “there’s LETTUCE under the garlic fingers.”

But maybe the donair… wraps… would be better. I had abandoned all hope, but my husband, clinging to the last moments of his birthday, clung to optimism.

Soon, more baskets arrived. In each, was a snug, red little tortilla wrap, bristling with healthful-looking lettuce and tomato. A hint of red onion peeped out from the leafy fronds charmingly.

“What the FUCK??” said Perfect Husband, “There’s FRIES. Everyone knows that the only appropriate side order to a donair is MORE DONAIRS.
… and WHY IS IT RED??”

We began eating glumly. Not only could you pick these up and take dainty bites out of them, but your fingers stayed relatively clean. This is wrong. A Halifax donair only has the pita bread to help absorb the worst of the sauce and grease. You eat them with knife and fork. After a few mouthfuls of crunching though salad vegetables, a hint of meat appeared within the red tortilla. Further in, the cloying honey taste of their “donair sauce” was also detectable. It was bizarre. It was like going to a movie “inspired by” your favourite book. You recognize bits of it, but this is not the same thing.

Seriously, how hard is it to make a decent Halifax donair? Crappy, dirty, two-bit corner places serve them all over frigging Nova Scotia. You can’t tell me that the Maritime cuisine is impossible to duplicate. I feel like calling up King of Donair and tattling on these people and their false advertising. Presumably KOD would come flying down to Vancouver to start a good ole’ Halifax knife fight with the restaurant owner, for daring to call this… this… healthy travesty a “Halifax donair”.

What gets me is that if a Vancouverite moved East, and went to a sushi restaurant, and ordered a BC Roll, and was served a salmon-head (eyes still staring) covered in rice and roe, with a seaweed salad served on the side, they’d be pretty annoyed. But it seems to be perfectly ok in Vancouver to take a delicious East Coast dish, then cover it with LETTUCE and healthy red tortilla.

Welcome to the East Coast, my ass. I feel the way that Chinese people must feel when they walk into a “Chinese” restaurant and see people eating Chicken Balls and Fortune Cookies.

You know your country is big when you miss the culture from your side of the continent.

I’ve got the No Can Has Blues

Tags

babies, bosses, carbs wonderful carbs, coworkers, depression, doctor, life, parents, Perfect Husband, tears, weight problems, whining

I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of these blues. There didn’t seem to be any logical catalyst for them. After all, I have a Perfect Husband, a Dream Job, a Beloved Dog and an Inexplicably Loved Cat. I am about to move into a new house, which I get to redecorate thanks to the Generous Father Grant (Perfect Husband talked him down to half of the original offered amount, so we have pride AND money!) and I live in a city which is overflowing with beautiful views. I can’t wait to have a baby and my husband has promised that we can start trying as soon as I cheer up a bit.

So why do I find making it through the day so very nearly unbearable?

I think I’ve got it figured out.

Allow me to post a small timeline.

Fall 2008 – I am generally happy, and plan to have a baby some time in the next year. I reason that I should be going up a level in my apprenticeship in February, leading to increased pay, benefits (which all full time employees at my work are entitled to, except lowly level one apprentices who apparently don’t count), and general rainbows and sunshine. I picture myself showing up in Nova Scotia for my friend’s wedding with a belly just starting to swell with something other than poutine and garlic bread.

Christmas 2008 – when my boss is annoyed with my coworker, he decides to drastically change the requirements to move upwards in our apprenticeship, now making a promotion even within the next year uncertain, let alone in February. The Big Big Boss disapproves of this step, and countermands the order. My boss chooses to ignore the countermand, and neither I nor my coworker have any chance of moving upwards in our apprenticeship.

January 2009 – Since the Powers That Be cannot agree on whether or not the new requirements are above and beyond the call of ridiculousness, any potential for moving upwards in my apprenticeship is permanently stalled. Despite being told that the new requirements definitely do not apply, neither do the old ones seem to, either. I begin to accept the fact that I may be an apprentice until I am old and grey.

Promotion? NO CAN HAS.

At the end of the month, I turn 27, and my coworker gives birth to her second son. I hold the baby in my arms on my birthday and something in my heart squeezes so hard that I walk around in sorrowful despair for the rest of the day.

April 2009 – I decide that since there’s no point waiting around for a promotion that will never come. I have now passed the point where I could be adorably expecting in time for my visit home, and my stress over the last few months has led me to eat like a heifer. I am the heaviest weight I have ever been. I decide to seriously cut all carbs out of my diet, planning to be thin in time for my friend’s wedding. I reason that since I’m going to gain 20 pounds during pregnancy anyway, I might as well lose it first, so i don’t end up 20 pounds heavier than THIS. My reward for eschewing all carbohydrates? A baby.

May 2009 – 12 pounds lighter, I am pleased with my progress. My work situation still depresses me, but I look forward to buying a house, and having a baby. Perfect Husband and I even pick up a copy of What To Expect from Value Village (hey, it was three dollars) and I read it cover to cover. It moves into the bathroom, from which Perfect Husband emerges periodically saying things like “Oh my gawd, I feel so sorry for you”. I spend a lot of time looking for in-the-womb photos of fetuses in development, and researching things like pre-natal stimulation and watching YouTube videos of nine month old babies who can recognise short words. I study baby sign and teach myself how to fold a cloth diaper (thank you, YouTube).

Then my coworker moves, and feeds me pizza and un-diet coke. Given a new rush of sugar of which it had been deprived for over a month, my addictions return in full rage. I spend the next couple of weeks trying to avoid carbs, but then succumbing and stuffing my face anyway. I begin to gain the weight back. I am frustrated with myself, and my body. I loathe it, and I loathe myself for being unable to resist the desire to eat. I am no closer to having my baby, and I begin to accept the fact that it might be baby… or body. But if I wait for body, I might never have a baby.

Thin body? NO CAN HAS.

June 2009 – My husband and I celebrate our wedding anniversary, and begin to neglect condoms. This is followed very shortly after by The Great House Breakdown. Perfect Husband realizes how much the hopelessness of work and unsuccessful dieting is weighing on me. He is used to my having bouts of depression, usually in winter, but this is worse than usual. Unfortunately, he’s read that damn What To Expect and has seen what effects depression can have on the fetus. He requires me to get fixed up with a doctor before we start trying for a baby.

Baby? NO CAN HAS.

Okay, I think. After all, his reasoning is sound. I know he’s right, because he’s always right, damn his hide, which is all part of his perfection. I’ll get help. I’ll be happy and THEN have a baby. It sounds good. Until I promised my husband to get help, I didn’t fully realize how much my misery had been weighing me down. It was like a birth defect or something – something which hinders me occasionally, but which I’ve always managed to work around and which I’ve stopped really thinking about. But soon I’ll be free – getting help! Maybe taking a pill which might restore my lost energy, lost libido, lost ability to sleep soundly, and which may remove my intense carbohydrate cravings, thus also reducing my weight. I could be thin, and sexy, and pregnant, all at once! Sure, I’d still be underpaid and unappreciated in my job, but what of that?

July 2009 – I go home to Nova Scotia, spend far too little time with my family and friends, whom I realize I have missed terribly. My friends out West are still getting to know me, and faced with the new, gloomy, quiet and hermit-like Carol, they have backed off. When I lose control and cry at work, they don’t know how to help. They argue against me, instead of commiserating. They try and cheer me up by telling me that it’s not so bad, that I’m overreacting, when really what I need is support and validation. My loved ones are too far away to be there when I need them. I live more and more on the internet, because it is my fastest portal to the people who have known me for over a decade. The trip flies by far too quickly. My hopes rise and fall with the Late Period Panic. And then… the infamous doctor re-visiting.

Help for your depression? NO CAN HAS.

Now, I understand that one can’t just plunge into a spoiled funk when things don’t go one’s way. The depression isn’t because of these things, but simply fed by them, like a monster under the bed who eats your singleton socks. I feel powerless. I feel invalidated. I feel denied. And the more I mourn the baby that never was, the further I take myself from finally holding the baby that someday will be. The more I withdraw from the life that seems too much, the further I push my tentative new friends. It seems like the most useless, hopeless cycle.

I’ll Portion Control YOU

Tags

carbs wonderful carbs, Inanity abounds, weight problems

Can I just say that I hate it when people who don’t have eating problems act like those of us who do are simply being lazy/greedy/stupid?

Things I am tired of hearing:

• “Have you tried exercising?”
• “Have you tried just eating healthier, instead of dieting?”*
• “Can’t you just eat less?”

*people are vague about what constitutes “healthier” but they’re pretty sure that it means whatever they are eating for lunch that day, which I am not.

It’s that last one that gets me the most. Like, I’m looking up depression and carb cravings on Web MD, and a helpful little link promises to tell me “How to Stop Overeating.”

So I’m like “YES. I NEED THIS.”

I click on it.

It tells me:

“Want to lose weight — or maintain a healthy weight? Practicing portion control will ensure you don’t supersize your servings and help you control the amount of food you eat… “

…followed by a series of pictures of tiny portions of delicious looking fish sticks, french fries, and macaroni and cheese with breaded chicken breast, thus clearly indicating that I can have all the carbs I want, as long as I stop being such a greedy hog.

So… the way to stop overeating is to not overeat? IN WHAT WORLD IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE HELPFUL? Thanks for NOTHING.

I could write articles like this, too. Look:

How to Avoid Cancer

Worried you might develop breast cancer and die after a mastectomy followed by excruciating chemotherapy? The answer is to not develop neoplastic cells in the first place. These cells are the root to all cancers, so by avoiding the development of neoplastic cells (particularly of the metastatic variety) you will ensure a long and cancer-free existence!

How Not To Drown At Sea

Worried that you will drown should you fall off the side of a cruise ship – or simply nervous of the swimming pool? When you find yourself sinking in an endless ocean of roiling waves, be sure to start swimming as soon as possible. By swimming, the motion of your arms and legs will use water resistance to keep your head close to the precious oxygen that your body so desperately needs.

How To Stop Biting Your Nails

Are your fingernails pinkish stubs, and do your hangnails take the attention away from your Flock of Seagulls hairstyle? Try taking your fingers out of your mouth, you orally fixated freak! By not putting your fingers in your mouth, you not only avoid appearing as if you stopped developing emotionally at the age of five, but you prevent accidentally ingesting contagious diseases, and your manicure technician will not want to curl up in the fetal position, weeping, upon viewing the workload you have placed before her.

…I hope the writers of articles like these get a taste of their own medicine some day.

That’s right. I’m willing to wish uncontrollable carb cravings onto other people out of a misdirected desire for retribution. I’m BADASS.

My own, personal, Kobayashi Maru

Tags

carbs wonderful carbs, depression, weight problems

It would appear I have two choices in life:

1. Be miserable. Eat nothing but cheeses, lettuce, and spicy meats. Lose some weight. Weep. Plateau. Sob brokenly. Lose a little more. Feel good about self. Feel hollow and hopeless inside.

2. Eat carbs. Feel happy. Feel fat. Feel guilty and dirty inside. Eat more carbs to smother feelings of self disgust. Feel happy. Feel fat. Feel guilty and dirty inside. Develop desire to hide burgeoning stomach and wobbling layers of fatty corpuscle from outside world. Sit in bath and eat guiltily and incessantly. Loathe body. Be miserable.

No house for you, the revenge.

Tags

carbs wonderful carbs, house, life

So, after sitting on the market for 60 days, this place suddenly became popular. Someone else put in an offer too. Of course, we didn’t know what the offer was, so we upped ours to our maximum, just in case. Theirs must still have been better, because the seller went with the other offer.

Back to the drawing board!

Luckily my Perfect Husband has been feeding me almost non-stop carbs to alleviate my stress (and consequently his) and I’m disappointed, but philosophical about it.