It has been over a week and I am still mortified. I have been trying to conceive for 17 cycles, just one cycle short of what it took to become pregnant with our son. But this time I have a diagnosis of unexplained infertility which is more frustrating because there is nothing that can be "fixed" like there was last time. I had been debating whether or not I should skip this month so that my potential due date would not fall between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I worry about a child's birthday competing with the holidays. But when one is this infertile it just doesn't make sense to put off trying for something as seemingly insignificant as a birth date. Beggar moms can't be chooser moms! After reassurance from the ladies on thebump.com I accepted the logic to try to get pregnant this month. And then I realized the dilemma with my chart. My potential ovulation window would fall during Hot Dog: The Bachelor Party. Of course it would, we are seldom apart from each other overnight, Murphy's Law would dictate that the dates would coincide.
So how would this work out? Mr. W originally suggested that we meet up half way in Hood River so that I could avoid driving up to the mountain during inclement weather. This seemed logical, but the more I thought about it I wondered did he expect us to find a rent by the hour motel in Hood River? Or that I'd be so desperate after 17 cycles that I'd be willing to conceive our child in the back seat of the Sentra? And one would have to take into account that I'd be entertaining Ms. H so she and our son would have to come with me. Do we send them out for a walk around the block while we take care of things? No options were appealing to me.
Hot Dog: The Bachelor Party arrived and the men folk headed up to the mountain. By this point Mr. W decided that it made the most sense for me to come up to the HD: TBP. I crossed my fingers that I would be late to ovulate this month. I have been going through acupuncture treatments to regulate my cycle and they have been quite successful, but if ever I was to have an abnormal cycle, this would be it.
Around 5 o'clock on day two of HD: TBP I received a call from Mr. W. He was eager to hear if I had tested positive that day. Frankly, I was having such a good time
eating my way across the city with Ms. H that it hadn't occurred to me to test yet that day. I told him I'd call him back. Wouldn't you know it, but the opk turned up a big smiley face right away. Normally I get very excited about positives, but that evening I was filled with dread. I'd have to go up the mountain to meet my husband. We'd try to make a baby. We'd be in the middle of a bachelor party. I called him to let him know the results and I could tell he was pleased; he was
really enjoying the idea of a martial booty call. We loaded ourselves into the car, called around to my friend canceling dinner plans with the thought that we could maybe have drinks at my house later. I figured it would be about 2 hrs round trip. This was naive. I'd quickly find that nothing would go according to "plan."
1) It was Friday night around 5:30 pm and we found ourselves in the middle of rush hour traffic. When we finally got through Gresham and onto the Mt. Hood highway I had Ms H call him to let him know where we were.
2) The littlest W had not napped yet that day and I was convinced he'd sleep on the ride up. Of course he didn't! I spent a good part of the drive singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Not exactly mood music.
3) I don't drive up to the mountain often so I'm not familiar with the roads, and it was dark, so I wasn't driving fast. I was making horrible time.
4) He'd given me directions to Falcon Crest, the house they had rented. When we finally found it, and I managed to find a spot in the crowded driveway, Mr. M came out and asked me to move my car because he needed to get out to go on a beer run. The fact that he was completely nonchalant about seeing me in the driveway of HD:TBP confirmed my fear that he, and
everyone else knew exactly why I was there. So embarrassing!!!! I imagine my face was bright red.
5) It turned out that they had tapped the keg on the first night so the guys wanted Mr. W to have me stop and pick up another keg for them along the way. He was smart enough to not ask me to do this when Ms. H called him earlier to give him our location.
6) Mr. W came out to meet me with the silliest grin ever. He was very pleased with the situation. I on the other hand, wanted to crawl into a hole. We went inside and set up H&G with all the toys I had brought to keep the littlest W entertained while we occupied ourselves in the next room. We were staying on the ground floor because I wanted to remain as discrete as possible. The fewer guys I ran into, the better. As I walked away our son started shrieking at the top of his lungs. This was not going to help set the mood either.
7) Mr. W was gleefully swinging a sock around like a tassel. He was having way too much fun with this. The sock was for the door knob because it is guy code for don't come in the room 'cause I'm getting busy. Was that really necessary I asked. Yes, because there was no lock on the door. Awesome.
8) I was curious how obvious our situation was, I needed him to give me reassurance first that I wasn't a laughing stock. Did everyone know? Apparently yes because he was talking up his booty call while he was in the hot tub. And good thing he was talking about it he told me, because everyone yelled at him that he better get out of the hot tub fast and go sit outside in the snow to cool things down. How helpful.
9) Miraculously we had no problems taking care of what needed to be done. I was not too keen on waiting the allotted number of minutes before I moved. I decided I was willing to risk interrupting the swimmers so I could get the heck out of there. There was a bathroom within the bedroom, but there was no door and the wall above the whirlpool tub was open to the rest of the room. While I was in there putting myself back together there was a knock at the door. We froze. Mr. W cracked the door to see Mr. N who had recently arrived and was the only one who didn't know what was going on. I could tell from his voice that he was instantly suspicious.
"What's going on?"
"Uh, nothing, what do you want?"
"Uh, I need to get my bag"
"I'll get it for you!"
"Oooo-kay"
10) I was so ready to get out of there! We went to get the boy and Ms H and I was ready to leave. Did I want a tour of Falcon Crest? No, I did not! The longer we stood in the hallway, the more guys happened to pass by. I was quite over being the entertainment for the night! We headed back to Portland. Surprisingly the littlest W still didn't fall asleep in the car until we were nearly home. It had been 5 hours!
The next day when we met Mrs. F for lunch I learned that already the gossip of the booty call was spreading, and HD:TBP wasn't even over yet! And since the rental house is Falcon Crest in the town of Government Camp, there are already tons of potential baby names that people are suggesting for us. How thoughtful.
Dear Lord, I'd really like to have another baby and I kind of think I've earned it this month. I hope you agree.
The bell is quite nice.
The lanterns would be moved but not their pedestals I'd imagine.
Lantern with the new Civic condominium Tower in the background.
The fountain, designed by E.F. Tucker and Paul Philipe Cret and built in 1927.
Bronze work by Avard Fairbanks
The other unfinished project was a baby album. I am hesitant to use the word scrapbook as it has become something totally crazy in the last decade or so. When I was a child Mrs. Y, the mother my best friend since 3rd grade, made scrapbooks for us. She saved everything and used her own "scraps". Nothing was store bought. Now scrapbook has become a verb rather than a noun. I am working on a scrapbook, I am not scrapbooking!
That is as far as I got with the project. Most of our photos are digital which I had been organizing on our website (thank goodness!) A few weeks before Ash Wednesday I went through all the old photos so I could place an order for prints. It was bittersweet; I miss the baby experience and long to do it again!
In April of 2008 a representative from Portland Parks and Recreation came to a SNA meeting to inform us of their plan to combat the toxic algae bloom at Firwood Lake, the pond in Laurelhurst Park. The pond was developed in the teens when the neighborhood was being constructed. It was originally ~20 feet deep. So much sediment has grown during the last 8+ decades that the pond is as shallow as 18" in some areas. The Parks plan was to use microbes to eat up the organic matter in the hopes that they could avoid dredging the pond which would disrupt the eco- system, in addition to being costly. While that sounds like an ideal approach, my initial reaction was that since the pond had never been dredged since its inception, it wasn't unreasonable to have the pond dredged once in 80 years. It still seems like low maintenance considering we have nearly a century of moldy white bread and duck droppings creating such a thick layer of sediment. They estimated that there would be about 2000 cubic yards that would need to be removed. 
When the sun is shining you can see how neon green the waters are.
The boys don't seem to mind though, any opportunity to go duck watching is exciting for them.
We NEVER take human food to feed to the ducks. While Franz bread may be good for us, it is a horrible diet for water fowl; I beleive there is an analogy of it being similar to feeding them cake. Human food being throw into the pond to feed the birds contributes to our toxic algae problem. It is my hope that once the pond has been restored, Portlanders heed the warning signs requesting that people refrain from feeding the ducks.
It has been spring in our garden for for a few weeks now. I thought I'd practice using the new zoom lens Mr. W ordered for his fancy new camera. It's fun, but as you can see on this crocus, I still have some kinks to work out.
I don't remember having hellebores when I was growing up, but several years ago I saw Martha do a feature on them and she said that they were also called Lenten Roses. I liked that idea right away! It seems that so many flowers were given a religious name if they were in bloom around the time of a feast day. What better way to decorate for a feast day than to be able to bring in cuttings from your own yard? So I have been gradually building my Scripture Garden. It needs a lot of work, but so does everything in an old house.
I have several varieties. I used my Christmas money to buy 6 of them 4 years ago. I have lost two since then.
Recently my mother bought me two more that are beautiful!
Primrose, or Lady's frills, will winter over in Portland. I put in a few of these annuals 2 years ago and they have come back each year since.
While February in Portland is a month for crocus, camelia, forsythia, and hellebores, March has always meant daffodils. Yellow is not my favorite color, but daffodills are such a cheery flower! I have been adding different varieties to our garden. I'm hoping they naturalize a little bit more so that I can have some cuttings to bring into the house. Since I took these photos in February, this was the first daffodil to erupt, his outer petals hadn't emerged yet so he was all trumpet. 
These little guys were just beginning to open, they are a fun pom pom shape rather than the traditional trumpet.
The ranunculus I planted last year returned!
The Alibi is really a perfect match when you think about it, combining both the love of tiki and love of karaoke. Fruity drinks with umbrellas were drunk. Kenny Rogers, The Rolling Stones, and Showtunes were sung. Although we arrived to a full room, we closed the place down.
She was in heaven considering they have both savory and sweet sandwiches. She had the special of the day and followed it up with a nuttela, grilled banana on cinnamon raisin bread sandwich to go. I had the Jalapenos Popper which has roasted jalapenos, cheddar, cream cheese and corn chips. They offer optional grilled ham on it and why wouldn't you?
While the Littlest W loves grilled cheese sandwiches, on both visits thus far he starts out his meal stealing and devouring everyone's pickle spears. Friday evening did not turn out the way I'd planned (more on that later perhaps) so we satisfied ourselves with a take out dinner from Laughing Planet.
Another child free night was in order so this time he went to his Grammy's. We did a little shopping in the Pearl and then went home to change. One of our sorority sisters, Ms. Mc lives within walking distance so we met up with her and bussed back to the Pearl for Ladies' Night. Our first stop was Vault Martini Lounge. Their martini menu is extensive, but we never made it past the first page: The Deadly Sins! We all picked our personal favorite sin which gave us Sloth, Gluttony, and Greed.
We would have liked more, but we had dinner reservations at Blue Hour. We'd read reviews online touting the bacon wrapped scallops, and for good reason! That bacon is sliced so thin it literally melts in your mouth without giving you any fatty bacon texture. Mr. W has been making sure I acquire a taste for scallops. I think it is safe to say that he has been successful in that endeavor. I did not care for my carrot soup at all; it tasted of the root cellar, but not of carrots. On the other hand it is such a bland, boring broth that it makes for a perfect Lenten food! And then there were the truffles! I had the truffle gnocchi, Ms. Mc the risotto and Ms H the fried risotto cakes with truffle salad. We were pleased.
Ms. H has heard of VooDoo Donuts, but we've never had the opportunity to take her there before. Since we were in walking distance we headed over. On our walk down Burnside some 20- something, skater punks declared us MILFs. I didn't hear it, but considered it flattering. Since neither of my friends are mothers they were not pleased. At all. The line for VooDoo Donuts was outrageous so we grabbed a cab and headed home, pleased with our old ass selves for staying our so late.
