June, 2002

Another quarter, another round of slacker time from me. Yes, I haven't reviewed many comics this quarter either. I have, however, started reading my huge six month pile o' comics.

Time for another hot Oklahoma summer and we're officially ready for it since Mike got the ac window units put in. I'm still too cheap to run the things at night so we stick to rotating fans then. Ah, for central air conditioning!

But, we do have the prospect of next summer with central ac. Yes, that means we actually found a house. It's in the school district we wanted and was reasonably inexpensive. Of course, the inexpensive part was due to the fact that it was HUD home (read foreclosure). We looked at a few HUD homes in our search and all of them had deliberately been damaged in some way. Surprisingly this one hadn't. The problems with it arise from neglect and a need for updating. We're looking at hopefully getting in by the time the new Hodge arrives but I'm not too sure we'll pull it off.

Mike spent three weeks in Austin, TX at a Microsoft school (came home on the weekends) so we haven't gotten much done on the house beyond fixing the leaky washing machine hook-up and replacing the insides of one of the toilets. My mother, grandmother, Duncan and I went over a few days and started removing wallpaper but I caught the nasty cold Mike had all three weeks he was in Austin and started feeling too crappy to even work at the house. Hence, we haven't gotten very far. But Mike is finished with training and I'm on the mend so I guess things will start picking up.

Right now plans are to remove wallpaper, paint, rip up and replace the carpet (except for the kitchen-hate carpet in kitchens), gut the kitchen and then, hopefully, move in. There are other things we need to do to the house but we figure all of that can be done while we're in the place. It sure makes things easier to be able to live where we are with no set deadline for vacating. I will miss that central ac in August though. Go to www.flooby.com/house.htm to see some pics of the new Hodge Lodge.

The pregnancy is proceeding well. The doctor was concerned for a few months because rather than gaining weight I was losing it but I'm picking up speed now and slowly packing on the pounds. I can tell though that it's purely baby weight. I have had to start wearing maternity jeans but I can still get away with Large t-shirts. I think I only really look pregnant when I've got one of my few maternity shirts on. Otherwise I fear I look strangely fat-kinda like a chick with a beer belly. My mother assures me I look pregnant but I think she's biased. If I went around naked there'd be no doubt but clothes tend to obscure the pregnant belly.

The only crappy thing to arise from this pregnancy is I might have to deal with gestational diabetes. I had the short test and came back with "abnormal" readings. Went for the three hour test and got the same result. As a result I get to meet with a dietician and have my blood checked twice a week. Hooray.

I went through this with Duncan but I "passed" the three hour glucose tolerance test. Maybe it's my age, maybe it's because both times I took the damn tests I was sick with this steenkin' cold and hadn't been eating well at all. Kinda hard to have an appetite when your snot is draining into your stomach.
Anyway, we'll see what the dietician says. I'm betting I'll get a bunch of pamphlets about "eating right" and maybe have to write down every little bit of food I eat each day. And, truthfully, it's not that I eat bad. It's just that with this pregnancy my appetite has been up and down. Most of the time I just don't have one and it's hard to come up with the energy to cook when you don't want to eat anything. I'm sure the guilt factor of having to account for my food intake will force that food down my gullet. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I mentioned last quarter I was dissatisfied with my position as an officer in STAR OKC. Well, a straw that broke the camel's back situation occurred and I resigned. I feel really relieved. I haven't been to a STAR meeting since and figure I won't start back until after the kid is born. It's been nice not having to deal with any of that shit.

Mike, in turn, still hasn't formally resigned from the SF convention steering committee he was a part of but he did cause a big old stink when he sent an e-mail saying he felt the current con chair should be replaced. Man, oh man, did he get some nasty replies to that. But you know, if you ask for opinions, which the current con chair did, you've got to expect to get back more than the usual kiss ass replies. Well you should expect that when Mike and I are involved anyway.

Duncan had his annual end-of-the-year recital for his dance class. Last year he was one of two boys in the school and this year he's the only boy. He's still having a good time though and says he wants to do it next year so he can get that three year trophy.

He's also started t-ball. We decided to try t-ball at the Ione YWCA this year rather than the Bethany YMCA and I must say I like it better. His coach is really good and I like the fact that they keep track of outs and actually place the kids at positions rather than just placing them in a horseshoe formation around the field. There's still no official score. Participation is the key but I think he's going to learn more this year when it comes to the basics. Now if I could just convince him to run as fast during team sports as he does when playing tag with his friends.

Mike and I haven't had time to see many movies this quarter. We mostly keep an eye on the indy films that come to one of the mega theaters in town. They usually don't stay more than a couple of weeks but we've gotten to some films that don't appear in wide release. We did see Spider-Man and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's nice to see Marvel putting out good films based on their characters. Now if DC could just get back to that. They seem to be having more success on the small screen these days. I still haven't seen Attack of the Clones. We're going to get around to it but after the disappointment of The Phantom Menace I certainly wasn't itching to be in line opening day.

That's about it for this quarter. I guess the next installment will be to tell you how the ordeal of childbirth went. Wish me luck!

Tamara J. Hodge
June, 2002