Seriously, Universe, if you have something to say, just say it already.

On Monday, I got in my car and headed out to pick up my kids at camp. As I sat in the garage, I forwarded a text to Mr. WG highlighting the babysitter's availability for the week and asking him to choose an evening. Then I left.

About four minutes later, the car in front of me stopped abruptly, for no apparent reason. I slammed on the brakes and stopped. The car behind me hit me.

The car in front of me then made a u-turn and drove away. I sat very still, processing the fact that I had been hit from behind. I am, you may recall, nine months pregnant. Slowly, I pulled my car out of traffic and got out.

I walked over to the other car, the car that hit me, and a 17-year-old girl got out. "Why'd you stop?" she screeched.

"I stopped to avoid hitting the car in front of me," I said, hand on my large belly.

"I just got this effing car," she shouted.

"Is that your baby in the back?" I gestured to the 2-year-old sitting in a car seat.

"My baby brother," she said, barely glancing at him.

I called Mr. WG. He did not answer. I continued to call him every 15 seconds for the next 10 minutes or so until he did finally call me back and I could tell him that I had been rear-ended. In the meantime, I copied down the girl's insurance information. She didn't have her driver's license with her. She was extremely unconcerned about the fact that she had hit a pregnant woman, although the guy she had in the front passenger seat -- maybe 18 or so -- did ask if I was OK.

My most pressing concern was that I needed to pick up the kids at camp. Why it did not occur to me to ask someone else to do this is beyond me, but whatever.

When Mr. WG called, his most pressing concern was my health and safety. I kept telling him I was fine and repeating that I had to get the kids. He reminded me that I was pregnant. I allowed as that was true, but I still had to pick up the kids, and was there any other information I should get from this girl?

Eventually, I got back in the car and drove to camp, got my kids and the carpool kids, and drove home. I called the midwife and left a message for her. The instant I got home, I reminded Mr. WG that he had to take the girls for an eye exam. He left, somewhat reluctantly.

From the road, he called USAA and began reporting the claim. D. and J. decided to make life easy for me by screaming hysterically and wanting all kinds of things -- apple juice, ice cream, cereal, whatever. All things that required me to continually get up and get stuff.

USAA called to get my recorded statement.

Mr. WG texted to tell me that S. needs glasses.

My boys continued screaming.

The midwife didn't call back.

I paged the midwife.

Nothing.

I paged again.

Nothing.

I called. No answer. Repeat.

And then -- a phone call! Right as Mr. WG called to say he was on the way home, the midwife called.

After some conversation, we determined that she had received my pages but had not noticed her pager go off, and she was horrified to discover this. (The next morning she told me it had been on vibrate, and she is now obsessively checking it. Also, she gave me her schedule for the next few weeks and how to reach her in different places.) We also determined that since I could feel the baby, I had no spotting, no bruising, everything seemed fine, whatever, it had already been a few hours, that we could forgo the 5-hour monitoring the hospital would do.

Blah blah, ok, fine. I went to bed.

The next morning, we finished filing the insurance claim, and Mr. WG went to drop off the car and pick up the rental. He came home with a sedan. It seats five. We are a family of six. Soon to be seven. And we drive carpool. So this whole five-seater is slightly inconvenient, but we are managing. Not well, but we are managing.

And everyone I talk to has a story about a car crash in the ninth month that threw them into labor. And yet, here I am, still pregnant. Not in labor.

Thank God, nothing serious happened. But really, don't you think the universe could cut me a break now and then?

Yes. Just... YES.

What she said.

Infuriating

The world is frequently an infuriating place. Take Thursday, for example. I took D. to OT; we got there a few minutes early and sat in the waiting room.

A minute or so after we entered, another mother and her daughter entered. The speech therapist who we see came out to greet them. It was obviously their first time, and the speech therapist asked the woman, "You're BeautifulGirl's mom?"

"Yes," said the woman, and from her speech it was immediately obvious that she was Deaf.

"OK," said the speech therapist. "So, I'm going to take her back, and in about 25 minutes I'll call you back to observe the last few minutes of the session and to talk to you about what we did."

The mother asked a few questions, the therapist answered, and then the mother signed and spoke to her daughter to tell her that this is the speech therapist, and you're going with her, see you soon.

A few minutes later, D. went with the OT to his session, and the woman and I were left alone in the waiting room. She had seen me sign with D -- we use basic signs, like "Sit in chair" and "Stop," and a handful of others.

"Do you speak sign language?" she asked aloud and signed.

"Only a little," I told her. "I studied a little a while back, but I've forgotten a lot."

"No, you're very good!" she told me. Liar. But that's not the infuriating part.

The receptionist called the woman over and said, "So you're the mom? I spoke to your mother on the phone."

"Yes," said the woman. "She makes my calls for me, because it's very difficult for me to use the phone."

"Whatever," said the receptionist. "Look, you need to pay $10 today, and then we're billing your insurance. So they'll mail you an EOB. Watch for it in the mail, and let us know when you get it."

Except that when she said all that, she was looking down at her pile of papers, thereby making it very difficult for the Deaf woman to read her lips. So the woman said, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you."

Whereupon the receptionist sighed and began speaking as one might to a three-year-old. Which I found infuriating.

I told the OT afterwards, and I have a call in to the owner of the clinic, because, dude? NOT COOL.

And if you didn't find that infuriating enough, how about this? Unlawful discrimination rears its ugly head at Abercrombie & Fitch, home of clothes for kids who want to look like pimps and tramps. Anemployee in their London store was banished to the stockroom because her prosthetic arm violates their Look Policy.

Seriously, doesn't that just make you want to scream and throw things?

I Share Because I Care

This evening was pizza night chez WG. As you may know, Mr. WG doesn't eat dairy. Well, that's not quite true. Chocolate, ice cream -- these he eats. But milk, cheese, yogurt -- not only does he not eat these, but he goes ON AND ON about how disgusting they are and how they stink and he hates them and how can we eat it and why am I cooking it -- you get the picture.

Anyway. Pizza night. So, I made two pizzas for normal people (tomato sauce, garden-fresh basil, and cheese), and one smaller pizza for Mr. WG. Sometimes I make individual pizzas for everyone, and then mine can be full of things like avocado and red onion and pesto and stuff. But sometimes I am not enormously pregnant. So, whatever.

Mr. WG's pizza looked sad, with only tomato sauce and fresh basil. So I took some garden fresh peppers. But they are regular peppers, not spicy. But I had some weird peppers in my fridge, so I took those, too. And a small container with some diced jalapeno peppers from a jar, that Mr. WG says are not at all spicy. So I made him 3-pepper pizza.

Then I blew my nose. And .000003 seconds later, I discovered that the strange peppers in my fridge were GOING TO KILL ME.

Peeps, my nose was ON FIRE. So I went to the Internet and started looking up "Hot pepper in my nose" and variations on that theme. And then, to the great amusement of my family, I poured a glass of milk and stuck my nose in it for 10 minutes.

Once my nose was not burning anymore, I washed and scrubbed my hands for a while. And then, like half an hour later, I rubbed my eye. And apparently my handwashing was insufficient, because all of a sudden MY EYE WAS IN FLAMES.

So I refilled the glass of milk, soaked a washcloth, and held it to my poor eye, convinced I would lose my vision.

I seem to be surviving now. Barely.

And I am NEVER making Mr. WG his own pizza again.

Almost Exciting.

I really hope I'm not the only mom who cries when she realizes there is AN ENTIRE WEEK between the end of school and the start of day camp.

Anyway, I have big plans for this week, among them: teaching my children French, improving their handwriting, creating a variety of arts and crafts projects from popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners not killing anyone.

I actually made up a very nice plan for cleaning one room of the house each day, using my children as slave labor helpers. And after that, we're going to fix the global economy and create peace and harmony in the Middle East.

OK, so far today, I've managed to screw up my schedule and miss D's OT appointment, and it's only 9:07 am. I just rescheduled it for 11:15. The best part is that his OT is actually a good friend, so it's totally not awkward that I'm a loser moron who can't remember to show up.

Also, as I type this post, I am constantly switching windows to chat with my new virtual assistant in India. Yes, really. I hired this company last week, and today is our first day working together. I will be taking copious notes on the process and how it goes, because that's what I do.

So, here's to the last of my sanity, and I hope to survive this week.

Beyond Interlude and into Totally Random

There's a truly disturbing video on the Internet of some Jewish American kids in Jerusalem spewing racist expletives about President Obama. Now, I don't care whether you like Obama or not. I don't actually know if I like him or not -- I didn't vote for him, for my own reasons. But these kids, these drunk kids, are freaking morons. And I hope, I really hope that the Jewish world is working actively to identify them and kick them out of whatever program they are on. Because they don't deserve to be there.

And no, I'm not linking to the video, but you can find it if you really want to hear drunk American teens using four letter words as every possible part of speech.

Interlude

I have a lot of real stuff to blog about, but these are crazy times:

D. finished school on May 27 and has been home every day since. About 7 of those days he spent sick.

Mr. WG also got sick.

So did J.

And S.

Good times, peeps, good times. In the midst of all the fun, I have been trying to maintain some semblance of order in our home and in my work life. I would say I am failing miserably on both counts. Oh, well.

I do have some happy news to report, however. Thanks to careful shopping, coupons, and gift cards for transferring prescriptions, I spent $1.78 at CVS yesterday for 2 bottles of shampoo, 1 bottle of conditioner, 1 bodywash (all Dove), 1 package of Charmin toilet paper (16 double rolls), 4 12-packs of Coke, and I'm pretty certain there was something else I bought, but I can't remember.

Then I hit the grocery stores for the real food. Our meals for the week:

Sunday: Chicken fajitas
Monday: Meatballs and rice
Tuesday: BBQ at my daughter's school
Wednesday: Pizza
Thursday: Sloppy joes
Friday: Shabbat dinner -- chicken, burrekas/sauce, rice, soup,
Shabbat lunch: cholent

I spent a total of $95 at two stores, and that includes what I spent on two packages of kosher chicken, overpriced shredded kosher cheese, 6 boxes of brand name cereal, and so on. I am finally getting the hang of this couponing thing, and I am quite pleased with the results.

Of course, after my successful shopping trips, I took my daughter to Target to buy a bike that we've owed her for several months, and for the first time in MONTHS I spent more than $100 at Target. But $80+ tax was the bike and the helmet. The rest was specialty batteries, toilet paper, and waffles. Not terrible, but still a damper on my otherwise great deal day.

This morning, I have already: put in two loads of laundry, had coffee and oatmeal, had two large glasses of water, invoiced several clients, posted per contractual obligation to the site where I do that, taken D. to CVS to get in on the diaper deal (btw, I personally called corporate CS and verified that the deal is legitimate, and I requested that the cashier manually print my ECBs, which she did. Now the question is if I go back and do it again when it's actually in their computers, since the 3 packs I bought today won't officially be listed as reaching the offer limit. Ah, morals.), and conspicuously avoided working on the large work project that has been on my to-do list for a month. I have GOT to make progress on the damn thing so I can GET PAID.

Look for fairly boring ramblings from me until the kids start camp, when I'll resume my regularly scheduled brilliance. Until I have a baby.