I will never respond to Shawty.

I once found myself at the student health services building while attending the University of Missouri. I don’t remember why I was there and I don’t remember why they would have measured me, but I DO remember that I rang in at 5’7″. I remember feeling very proud about my height, because I had recently read an article (probably in Sassy magazine) that said something like “The minimum height for a model is 5’7″.” Don’t get me wrong. I never thought that I was fit to be a model. BUT, I liked thinking that if the world turned upside down and “socially awkward pear-shaped girls who stare at the floor and fall down a lot” became The Thing, my height would work in my favor.

This Proves How Strange I Am: After measuring in at 5’7″, if anyone ever asked my height (at doctor’s offices or pizza joints or on the streets, et cetera), I would answer with 5’6″. It felt like I was bragging if I admitted to being the minimum height for a model. “I liked The Communards before they were popular. I just forfeited a piano scholarship because 7:40 is entirely too early for me to drag myself to a composition class. I’m the minimum height for modeling.”

Last week I had to have a bunch of pre-op blood drawn. Before they stuck me, they measured me.

Nurse: 5 feet, 5 1/4 inches.

Me: No. 5 feet, 6 inches. (But really 5 feet, 7 inches. Because I’m the minimum height for modeling.)

Nurse: No, it’s 5 feet, 5 1/4 inches.

Me: Write down what you want, but I won’t accept that as truth.

The normal size of a uterus is said to be 8cm x 6cm x 4cm. This means I’m going to be even shorter next week.

At this rate, I’ll probably be 4 feet tall in about 3 years. And that’s why I need to start wearing heels. And that’s why I just added these shoes to my list of wishes.

Supposedly, Michael J. Fox is 5’5″.

Supposedly, Shakira is 4’11”.

Everything is going to be alright.

EDITED TO ADD: Except everything is NOT going to be alright. Because I cannot figure out how to get my single quotation marks to go proper for measurement purposes. And this will keep me awake tonight. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

9 + 11 = 20. Combined, my daughters are almost old enough to drink.

I just looked into our kitchen trash can and saw a paper towel that had been employed to wipe pizza off of a face before it was crumpled up until it looked EXACTLY like Dwight D. Eisenhower. I thought about taking a photo of it, but that seemed all weird and bloggy which made me think Weird and Bloggy, so I decided to Kum Bah Yah.

Tomorrow morning at approximately 9:20, Harper will be nine years old.

She used to look like this:

No-Kneed Crawling

And now she looks like this:

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(We had a little party at Krueger Pottery over the weekend. Such an amazing place. If you’re local? Go there.)

Harper is currently finishing the second Harry Potter book. Her favorite color is orange and her favorite meal is homemade crazy bowls—hamburger, corn, and black beans thrown on top of rice. She is a pianist, she is a writer, she is very good at math, and she is a second place winner at the school’s science fair. She loves Minecraft, and she makes really fun videos of her stuffed animals having adventures. Best of all, she is funny, creative, patient, and kind.

On Tuesday morning at approximately 2:03, Meredith will be eleven years old.

All of her baby photos were lost when our computer crashed in 2004. BUT, here is a glimpse of Meredith during The Early Years.

It's a hard habit to break

And here we are now.

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(How funny am I?! That’s NOT REALLY MEREDITH! (It’s Henry.))

Okay. Here we are now.

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I know you can’t really see her face in that shot, but look at those spaghetti arms! She’s almost as tall as me and she wears lady shoes! Meredith loves music and she’s really itching to read the Divergent series and if I didn’t put a limit on it, she would spend hours each day texting with her friends. (The Current Rule: 15 minutes per day, and use them wisely. I know.) Meredith is also a great pianist and a talented videographer. She is her school’s spelling bee champion. She’s creative, smart, and WISE, and she’s a very patient friend.

These kids of mine? They are gems. And they’re growing up awfully fast. And so am I. (I found weird new veins on my ankles this evening. It was very distressing. BUT, this is not about me.)

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Happy Birthday, Harper Rose. (And Happy Birthday, Harper Lee.)
Happy Birthday, Meredith Claire. (And Happy Birthday, Uma Thurman.)
(I don’t think I’ve ever typed Uma Thurman’s name before. April is a month for trying new things.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I’ll light the fire. You place the flowers in the vase that you bought today.

I just spent nearly fifteen minutes typing out a paragraph full of things that I need to accomplish in the next twelve days. It was terribly boring, as it contained phrases like “write script for field trip” and “recycling event” and “dog vacation?”. Anyway, after reading through that 3,293 word paragraph and barely being able to stay awake, I decided to triple click and delete. Your time matters to me.

Why twelve days? In twelve days, a local man will be slicing into me (like one would slice into an Easter ham, except no spiral slicing—just three one-inch-wide gashes, so nothing like an Easter ham at all, really) and pulling out my uterus and my right ovary. He also said something about stitches in my vagina, but I’m not sure how he finished that thought because I was too busy rocking back and forth in my paper gown and screaming out the lyrics to Madeleine.

Anyway. Surgery. Two weeks from today. I’ll be in the hospital overnight, and I’ve heard the recovery goes anywhere from two to four weeks, but a lot of it depends on the amount of endometriosis, and there’s so much stuff to do between now and then, and hardly any of it involves eating good food and laughing about good times. (And by Good Times, I didn’t mean the show, but after typing it, I now have the theme song in my head. And you can have it, too.)

Quick thought: Because we’re hoping to move, we decided to not take piano lessons this summer. Writing that e-mail made me feel sad. I’ve had to write four sad e-mails in the past few days, and sad e-mails they say so much, Elton John.

We went to six open houses last weekend. I really need to stop looking for the perfect house, because the rest of my family is starting to become a bit discouraged with my habit of barely walking through the front door of a house before inhaling deeply and saying, “No. This is not our house.”

I’ve said, “This could be our house.” only two times in the past month. The first house was the house I told you about a few weeks ago. (It’s actually still on the market and I look at it every single day.) The second house was one we saw last weekend. The current owner is a builder of guitars and tables and all sorts of other wooden things and the house was incredible, except for the fact that a highway is being built less than 500 feet away from the back yard fence.

Walking through houses where people are currently living is such a weird thing. Last Sunday we met a dog named Mike, we almost lifted the lid from a slow cooker to stir the little smokies, we cringed at the sight of dirty toothbrushes, and we screamed and ran for our lives when we came across this face in a master bedroom.

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We’ll be meeting with a realtor this week to see what we need to do to get our house ready. I’m really hoping she doesn’t mention the word that starts with a P and ends with Aint, because the thought of that makes me want to just say, “This could be our house. Forever.” ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

The Differences

As we pack up our house, we sometimes find ourselves sitting criss-cross apple sauce (it is no longer called Indian style) on the basement floor and visiting the memories that spark us as we uncover our forgotten treasures.

Jeff: Wait a second. Isn’t that the swimsuit Meredith wore when she took baby swim lessons?

Me: It is. Check it out. This is the wool jacket I wore to that idiot girl’s farewell happy hour. Do you remember her?

Jeff: I do. Do you use these Pyrex lids?

Me: No. Donate them. I remember you actually LIKED the idiot girl, but I saw her as someone who probably had bugs swarming around her privates. Also, she pronounced your one-syllable name as two syllables, and I’ll never forgive her for that.

Jeff: Okay. Here’s a bag of make-up that looks really old. And sticky.

Me: Old and sticky like that vermin habitat of an idiot girl! Toss it. I hold in my hand three letters from friends. Two of the friends have passed away, and the other drove a really bright purple truck and adopted a great dog named Patty Fla-Fla. What does it MEAN?!

Jeff: Do we need all of these plastic glitter pumpkins?

Me: Can they be recycled? LONDON AIMEE MANN CONCERT TICKETS FROM 2002! We ate curry that night and I drank my first and final Red Bull!

We found many things in the basement, but these are noteworthy: Two of my favorite cardigans from the early 90s (I’m keeping them, even though I haven’t worn them in over 11 years.), a bunch of dried up baby bottle nipples (My kids never drank from bottles. Little weirdos. Why do I have so many nipples? Heh.), 84,922 strands of Christmas lights that no longer work (The Christmas spirit makes me feel hopeful. Perhaps someday I’ll plug them in and they’ll work. Like Carol Brady when she was able to sing on Christmas morning after not being able to use her voice for DAYS!), cold medicine that expired in 1998 (We moved here in 2003. That cold medicine should never have entered this house. Also, sometime I’ll tell you the story about how I met a potential meth addict last night.), and Meredith’s basket of soap and candles that she carried when she was two (She enjoyed sharing smells with us. Tone soap was her favorite.).

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We did not find any money. And that’s a bummer, because buying a house is EXPENSIVE, Dave Ramsey. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Downing the Daily Doughnut

Something huge happened last night at Fluid Pudding.

After thinking about it for a few weeks, I decided to remove the ads from my sidebar. I believe I started running ads in something like 2007, and of course I made that date up, but it may or may not be correct. It seems correct. Anyway: No more. For now. (I tend to make all of my decisions on a For Now basis. It allows me room to wiggle.)

Announcement: Please know that I contacted Birkenstock a few years back and told them that I would have their logo tattooed onto my thigh if they would give me a lifetime supply of shoes. Being that I’m still wearing the Birkenstock sandals that I bought back in 1999, a lifetime of Birkenstocks is probably just four or five pairs. (I refuse to live forever.) They thought the idea was funny, but then the crickets began to chirp. In other words, you do NOT have to be afraid that I’m going to start belching up a bunch of sponsored posts, because I really have no idea how to sell myself.

Doughnut Mom in the pick-up line says what?

“Hi there. My name is Angela Pudding and I really love doughnuts and I volunteer to teach the world how to stay healthy yet eat a lot of doughnuts if you give me a fresh doughnut every day for the next five years.”

See what I mean? I’m not good at this.

Also, my last name isn’t really Pudding. It’s Downing. And unless we’re friends on Facebook, you didn’t know that. When I started this website back in 2001, privacy was a huge deal. Now that I’m ditching the ads and packing up boxes and having my lady parts ripped out through my belly button, I no longer feel the need to keep a bag over my head. All bras into the fire. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

All of this, plus rice pudding for lunch.

So, today I met with a new gynecologist.

If there are any boys in the room, please know that I’m keeping this clean, and by “keeping this clean” I am not referring to any of my parts. “Keeping this clean” means that you will be able to read the following words without wincing. Hopefully. Because, come on. We are adults here.

Brief history: The gynecologist I had seen for nearly 20 years hinted that we reached an impasse last October when I refused to let her shoot drugs into my system that would throw me into a chemically-induced menopause. The new gynecologist I met with in November refuses to see me (despite my crazy ovulation pain), and has done nothing more than toss Vicodin prescription paper airplanes into my face when I call to ask for an appointment.

My general practitioner listened to all of my woes, scheduled a colonoscopy for kicks, and said, “I think you should meet my friend Dr. Patty.”

(Please know that her name isn’t really Patty. BUT, I used to have a neighbor named Patty who had a daughter who shares a name with my doctor’s friend. I’m asking YOU who’s on first. That’s the man’s name. That’s who’s name? YES.)

Anyway, Dr. Patty’s first appointment was six weeks out, so I waited fairly patiently. Today was the day.

After taking my blood pressure (120/70!) and establishing that I’m sane, the nurse told me to keep my clothes on for Dr. Patty. I was very relieved to hear this, because I had forgotten to pack socks in my bag. (That’s a thing with me. Always carry socks when you’re going to the doctor. Nobody wants to see your feet. Not even yours.)

Dr. Patty entered the room and I immediately liked her the way that I immediately liked my migraine doctor. She’s calm. Nice. Probably does yoga, but I really have no idea.

After pulling out my crazy 3 x 5 card onto which I had written every single detail about the past 12 months,* Dr. Patty said the words I’ve been waiting to hear.

“Okay. You’re a skinny white girl who doesn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. Your vital signs are all normal. In other words, there’s really no need for me to say, ‘Why don’t you try X, Y, or Z and see if that helps?’. I think you have endometriosis and what you’re describing to me points toward you having endometriosis spread out in weird places.”

She then went on to say this:

“We can throw more pills at you, but people have been throwing pills at you for over a year now. I normally don’t jump to this, but, have you considered any surgical options?”

Me: I love you.

Dr. Patty: Excuse me?

Me: My sister had the same stuff going on a few years back, and she had a hysterectomy. She said it’s the best decision she’s ever made.**

Dr. Patty: Perfect. Even more of a reason to consider it. If someone genetically similar to you had a similar issue and it was fixed, I’m leaning toward a repeat.

She then went on to say that although she knows that she’s a very good surgeon, she would like for my surgery to be performed by someone who specializes in endometriosis.

Dr. Patty: If I get in there and things look really bad, I’m obviously going to do my best to clear it up. If he gets in there and things are really bad, it’s just another day in the life for him.

(She then had me take off my pants, and I didn’t want to because I FORGOT MY SOCKS. And she said, “Every day of my life is filled with periods and feet. Don’t even think about it.”)

All of this to say: I have a consultation with an endometrial specialist next week, and I couldn’t be happier. (Please know that I’ve been through more than you know in the past year when it comes to gynecologic issues. In other words, I’m turning off comments on this one.)

*When I say that I wrote every detail about the past 12 months on a 3×5 card, please know that I’m just referring to my lady part details. There’s nothing on that card about me choosing a favorite ink color for my fountain pen (ochre!). Also, it says nothing about how I’ve been practicing different spinning techniques (like from the fold!).

**When I say that a hysterectomy is the best decision my sister has ever made, please know that I’m once again speaking gynecologically. My sister is pretty much full of outstanding decisions.

Had I remembered to take socks this morning, I would have taken these. I finished the first one SIX YEARS AGO. I finished the second one last week.

Anniversary Socks

(Yes. I just put those socks up to clear your head of everything else we just talked about. SOCKS! Blue ones!) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Radiohead and Fuzzy Coping Vests

This morning I dropped the kids off at school and then realized that I didn’t want to go back home. I drove around for nearly an hour just listening to my iPod and staring at the stripes on the road and eating a doughnut. (There are four grocery stores with fresh baked doughnuts on the street where I was driving, and although I was able to drive past #1 and #2 while feeling strongly about my doughnut-free stance, by the time I got to #3 I was feeling the long john monkey tingling on my back. I caved at #4.)

When I returned to my car, I decided to make a right instead of a left out of the parking lot, which put me on a road I don’t remember ever being on (it’s called Mason, locals), and my favorite cover of Creep came on. I tried to sing along, and pretty soon my eyes were watering. (Part of it may have been because I can’t hit the high notes. The other part may be something else entirely.)

It wasn’t long before I déjà vu’d myself back to a Target parking lot in Nashville, Tennessee. I had driven to the Target back in 2000 to purchase an electric griddle for pancakes, but Radiohead’s OK Computer was playing and “Exit Music (For a Film)” came on and it was snowing and perfect and instead of going in for my griddle, I sat in my little green Nissan and sobbed until I looked like Alice Cooper.

You know me better than most people know me. (And that’s weird, because most of you really have no idea what I smell like. Here. I’ll tell you. Toast! I smell like toast. More wheat than white.) I’ve always been upfront with the fact that I share only 17% of my stuff at Fluid Pudding. I’m now going to give you a 3% gift. That’s right. I’m going to open up a bit more so that you’re in on 20% of my business.

What did you just say? Oh. You’re welcome.

3%: In the past three years, three different doctors have tried to prescribe (at least) three different daily medications that call themselves things like anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety agents and/or muscle relaxers. When I pick up the prescription, here is what I do: I take one of the pills, and if it makes me feel weird or off, I immediately throw the rest away. Because these things aren’t needed for me to LIVE, they’re just needed for me to apply a bit of coping fuzz. BUT, I don’t need permanent fuzz. I need REMOVABLE fuzz. Like a coping fuzz vest. (Two nights ago I found myself at a restaurant with a delicate and fragile (perhaps birdlike?) woman who was wearing a black feather vest. I don’t think the decision to wear that vest had anything to do with her inability to cope without the aid of feathers. I think it had everything to do with wanting to look a little more like Elton John. And for that, I suppose I salute her.)

When I was going to school in Columbia, Missouri, my coping fuzz vest came in the form of My Bloody Valentine.

(That song? I could listen to that song 24 hours each day forever.)

I have 80 reasons for needing a coping fuzz vest right now. (These 80 reasons are part of the 80% that I’ll keep in my pocket.) The good news? I’m seeing a new doctor on Monday. (When your regular doctor makes a habit of throwing Vicodin your way, you know it’s time to find a new doctor. Unless you like Vicodin! No hate to the Vicodin fans! I’m not here to hurt anyone’s feelings.) Anyway, the following line items appear on my list of conversation points:

1. Mittelschmerz

2. Hysterectomy

3. Migraine food triggers (warm bread, alcohol, red foods, chocolate)

4. Fuzzy coping vest

Always End On A Happy Note: I spoke to our new realtor this afternoon, and she is amazing and I’ve been packing boxes. (Oddly enough, I’m wearing a fleece vest right now. Not quite fuzzy enough, but it’ll do.)

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A chair is not a house. And ceci n’est pas une pipe.

On Sunday morning, I cleaned the kitchen. I wiped down every surface and put everything in its place and threw a bunch of stuff away and took old cookbooks downstairs, and suddenly our kitchen looked (and smelled) really good.

Meanwhile, Jeff and the girls bagged up shoes that no longer fit and clothing that no longer works and stuffed animals that always seem to take up too much space, and suddenly we were able to see parts of the floor that we haven’t seen in years.

At 1:00, Jeff announced that he knew of a few open houses that he thought we should look at. (At which he thought we should look.)

When we moved into our house (exactly eleven years ago), we promised ourselves that we would stay for five years. Two years later, Harper moved in. And then five years passed and Meredith was in kindergarten and Harp was in preschool and let’s watch TV instead of packing stuff up. Six MORE years have passed, and we’re cramped. Our house isn’t a bad house, but the girls would love to have their own rooms and I would love to have a table in the kitchen and although we really like a few of our neighbors, we wouldn’t miss the others.

We’ve spent the past year lazily looking at open houses, and none of them sparked us. Ah, but then Sunday came around and we drove to a house on a street that has Winter in the name. (You know that winter is my favorite, right?) We pulled up to the house and I said, “Oh, wow. This is our house.”

When we walked in, the realtor introduced herself to us, and asked us to either take off our shoes or put on the booties. I was so excited that I took off my shoes AND put on booties and then I tripped on the bootie elastic and lost my balance and tried to look cooler than I am but failed, so I started laughing like an awkward lady because that’s EXACTLY WHAT I AM.

When we first walked into our current house (about eleven years and a month ago), we said, “This will do.”

When we walked into the winter house, we fell in love. (Honestly, the only thing missing is a fenced-in back yard.) It’s weird, because it’s in our price range, has FOUR bedrooms plus a finished basement and room for a table in the kitchen along with a bar where I can have meaningful talks with the girls as I cook amazing dinners and they snack on fresh veggie sticks. It has an office for Jeff. It has space where I can sit at my spinning wheel and look out the window. It has something called a Florida room where Jeff and I can read the paper and talk about smart people things like science and indie films.

This is an actual photograph taken after I hugged the tree in the yard and said something like, “That bathtub in the master bathroom is where I want to take a bath. Tonight.”

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I spent the rest of the evening on Sunday eating dump cake and burrito bowls and singing love songs to the house.

Yesterday afternoon I met a friend for lunch. Because I’m sort of unpredictable and not the best at managing time, I ended up being an hour early. (The restaurant is less than a half hour away from my house. I have no idea why I do the things I do.) Anyway, as I sat in my car and listened to the radio, I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. It was the winter house realtor. She could tell that I loved the house and she wants to come over to OUR house and I’m not even going to worry about punctuation right now because the whole conversation went just this quickly and the house we live in needs to be ready for her to see in less than two weeks and we’re meeting with a lender soon and I’ve made arrangements to get boxes and this weekend we’re going to rent a storage facility and yesterday I told our principal that I won’t be signing up for committees next year because: We’re moving.

Let me be clear: The house we fell in love with (also known as the house with which we fell in love) will sell very quickly, and most likely not to us. BUT, we’re finally taking the steps. And there WILL be other houses that are hopefully just as perfect for us.

I’m taking pictures off of the walls and boxing up everything that we don’t use on a daily basis and we’re hoping to be in a new place before the next school year starts. This is no longer just a thing we talk about before we change the channel over to The Amazing Race. This has become a verb. Stay tuned. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>