A Whole Lot of Nothin’

So, Beyonce’s pregnant. Good for her. I’m actually quite happy for Mr. & Mrs. Jay-Z because I’ve seen some horrible tweets and gossip rag items rumoring they were infertile. And that’s just mean.

Hearing the news that Hilary Duff is pregnant however, makes me want to punch her in the face. Okay, perhaps I shouldn’t say that about a pregnant lady. But that’s because I just can’t stand Hilary Duff.

It all evens out, I suppose.

. . .

Irene came and went yesterday. It went from Hurricane to Tropical Storm to, by the time it reached Salem, Lame-icane, as I referred to it for the rest of the day.

We never lost power and nothing was damaged, thank goodness. We got a whole lot of nothin’.

We woke up Sunday morning at about 7:30am to a singular, slightly atomic-sounding boom of a huge thunderbolt that hit less than a mile away. The rain began heavily overnight, but by that morning, it was mostly wind. There were lots of warnings for the coastal areas as high tide came in, but for the most part, only a few places flooded and typically do during heavy rains.

By noon, it felt just like another rainy day. After watching The Rite that morning and nearly downing a box of Cheez-Its in the process, we decided to don our rain jackets and take a walk around Salem. It was a ghost town: lots of tree limbs down, only a few really big ones.

We went to the Salem Maritime site, home of the Friendship (a reconstructed mid-19th century sailing ship), where we saw lots of white caps on the water. Even though the tide was technically going out at that point, the water was still pretty high.

The wind off the ocean was pretty intense too:

When the wind and rain started to pick up, we headed back to the house. Larry and I spent the rest of the day lazing around: we watched Source Code and I napped. My shingles are clearing up pretty well: I still have a couple of patches on my face and chin that are scabbing over now. All but maybe one or two blisters remain in my mouth.

Since we never lost power, we realized that we had bought a ton of “hurricane stash” food that would probably get lost in the pantry forever, so we cracked open the canned beans, corn, chopped up an onion, sauteed some thinly sliced beef and drowned it all in our dutch oven with some Sam Adams Octoberfest, beef broth, some Old Bay and a dash of allspice.

Our “Hurricane Stew” as we dubbed it, was out of this world. I’m looking forward to leftovers for lunch today.

At about 10pm, the rain had stopped by the wind was the strongest it had been all day. We left our french doors open in the dining room and let the wind fill the house, airing it out from being cooped up all weekend in preparation for the big storm that never was.

As the wind howled, we began hearing familiar deep popping sounds, as tree branches snapped like carrots. Outside the french doors: darkness, the roar of the wind, the briny smell of the ocean, and snapping tree limbs like punctuation as Mother Nature poured her heart out before skipping town.

. . .

So, I’m not pregnant. (Shocker.)

And I don’t think I ovulated either, as I mentioned in my last post. The period I thought I was getting was really just a day of spotting, most likely left over endometrial tissue from withdrawal bleeding two weeks ago.

So in one way, I can stop feeling guilty about having the shingles and having missed my one and only Big O. But in others, it’s just a reminder of how broken things are below my belly button.

A reminder that I’ve got a whole lot of nothin’ going on in my lady bits.

And like all the hype for Irene, I think I hyped and hoped a little too much about Ol’ Rightey cranking out one last good egg.

Infertility is some serious bullshit sometimes.