The Martini Glass

Dear Belindy,

Yes, Belindy was our code name for you, a portmanteau of your father and my names. And the following is a little early story of you.

We were planning for your conception towards the end of 2011. I, your mom, was an avid advocate of basal body temperature method (along with some other symptomps) to pin point my fertile time of the cycle. This way we can hopefully, God willing, time your arrival when the right time comes for all of us to start a family.

As an engineer, I believe in measured quantity and in interpreting data. The past three months before your conception, though, your father and I were renegades. I was not recording my temperature as dilligently as can be observed on the two data point (some times one point) charts. Your father, bless his heart, straight up believed my words that we were "safe" just based on my historical data from last year.

Early June 2011, we had bought tickets to a two back-to-back weekends wine tasting festival up in the Santa Cruz mountain. By that Thursday, I still did not get my period and were not observing that it will start anytime soon. What a long cycle, I thought, which I had attributed to stress at work and travelling. FYI, we were just got back from Texas that second week of May for your father's PhD graduation.

Being responsible people, your father and I went to get a home pregnancy test. If we were pregnant, we did not want to poison a developing embryo. As I am not a trained aimer, I opted to collect my urine sample in a clean cup. The problem was that we did not have any clean cup for this purpose except for the two extra disposable martini glasses we had for our New Year Eve 2011 at Lake Tahoe. By the way, your crazy bubbly Aunt Antonia was there celebrating the New Year evening with us. If you happened to be a girl, you were going to be named after her.

I was not drinking a lot of fluid that morning except for my 16 oz french press coffee. It was not surprising that my urine was in dark yellow hue and "thick". Your father upon seeing this filled martini glass pronounced that we were pregnant with you (and that I should drink more water). The next five seconds and three minutes were not necessarily the longest three minutes of our lives. Your father then lifted the aluminum cover that he used to cover the test stick. And there it was with two strong pink lines and the word pregnant we were full of mixed emotion. Your father kissed me and said "Congratulations, Mommy."

Darling, it was not sinked in on us for the next few days that we were going to have you. Part of the reasons it that we were worried because we thought it was not the perfect time to start a family yet. Ultimately, we believe in God and everything is going to be okay.

We were not officially announcing to the world about your impending coming. We wanted to pass the 12 weeks mark or after we observed your heart beats. Only a handfull of our closest friends and immediate family knew of this development. You have to read the next story I have for you to see why.

Stranger with a Strange Heart

Really, one should easily accept that music is influential and ubiqutious as a meliflous background to one's everyday life. I, on the other hand, can go for months not listening specifically to anything. Forget about work these days, there's never enough time to listen to the internet while I am too busy moving and thinking. Then, you would think that time at home affords you the chance and the entertainment. But save for watching occasional VH1 reminiscing countdown shows with Hubbostrich (and clicking on links from friends to "one hit wonders" on Yo*t*be), it's pretty much a barren desert of music in my world.

In the car, though, while talk radios occupy 90% of my ten minute driving each way to and back from the work place, I occasionally scan the radio and usually ended up at one psychedelic channel that is Stanford radio KZSU. This morning, I heard this song for the first time there and have been playing it over and over with a smile in my face. I do believe there's no more tricks up my sleeve and although the good old days have passed, the good times are definitely coming.

20 years of schooling, I just never learned the math
That 1 and 1 don't equal 2, they often equal half
While I've tried to live the high life, the best that I know how
And I bought my share of debonair, parlayin' it on the crowd

Oh I, I do believe that there's no more tricks up my sleeve
Oh, the good old days have passed and the dip turns after that
And slowly I've become undone, a stranger with a stranger heart

Well, I plan to hit the bottom, the bottle then the top
And I pray that something quits me before I got to stop
'Cause the masquerade is over but I was barely there
The masks come off the gilded clock, yet I'm just barely here

Oh, and I, I do believe that there's no more tricks up my sleeve
Oh, the good old days have passed and the good times after that
And slowly I've become undone, a stranger with a stranger heart

Oh I, I do believe that there's no more tricks up my sleeve
Oh, the good old days have passed and the good times after that
And slowly I've become undone, a stranger with a stranger heart

I do believe that there's no more tricks up my sleeve
Oh, the good old days have passed and the good times after that
And slowly I've become undone, a stranger with a stranger heart

I do believe that there's no more tricks up my sleeve
Oh, the good old days have passed and the good times after that
And slowly I've become undone, a stranger with a stranger heart

--"Stranger" by Dr. Dog from the album Shame, Shame (2010)