Its time to deal with the elephant in the room. No, I am not referring to my pregnant wife or any other pregnant woman. I would never call a pregnant woman an elephant, (at least not to her face). I wouldn't even call a pregnant elephant an elephant. You can imagine why.
I also wouldn't call a pregnant woman a cow. So for all of you who are wondering about how I get away with a blog about pregnant women that refers to cows in the title, here is the story. Apparently, according to some hippies, mooing is good for the baby. A little while ago my wife informed me that one of her hippie birthing books suggested that women in labor should not scream, yell, or bear their pain in silence, but rather they should make mooing sounds. Like cows. I found this ironic, since these same hippies swear that cow's milk is killing babies.
I also found this hysterical, which was the wrong response. NEVER laugh at a pregnant woman. Ever. A foolish, (admittedly foolish on my part), argument ensued, which ended when I finally yelled, "fine, when you are in labor moo all you want! Moo, hippie moo!" This my wife found hilarious. I was so relieved that I survived this encounter alive and intact, Moo Hippie, Moo became the title of my blog.
Later that evening I did some research. If I was going to support my mooing wife, I was going to need solid evidence backing this practice. I will quote what I found directly, to make you believe that I am not in any way taking anything out of context. I would never do that for the sake of a blog. We bloggers have more integrity than that. Ahem. The hippie author explained as follows,
"In labor, it's as though a cervix has something to say about its incredible stretching and opening: perhaps 'ouch, o o u u c h, O o o u u u u u u u H!"
Eureka, I thought to myself. This was great. It was all the evidence I needed. Labor wasn't about women at all, it was about cervixes! The author continued,
" ...sometimes the sound is a deep, long moaning: 'Aa A A A A A H H H .... O O O O O O O O W W."
I was sold. This was definitely the way to handle pain. I could even relate. I once slipped off my bike seat and smashed my testicles on the cross bar. As I lay curled up on the grass, I made the same noise. Only it wasn't my cervix talking. And I also threw up.
Further down the page the author parted with one last golden nugget. When referring to women in labor and recommending mooing techniques, she wrote,
"Another may talk to her cervix, saying: 'Cervix open, open, open, O O O O O O O O O O P E N, open cervix open open."
This is an actual quote.
What did I learn from all this?
One, aside from hippies and pregnant women, cows know best.
Two, it is impossible to know what will anger pregnant women and what will make them laugh. But if by some chance they find something funny, turn it into a blog.
Three, for some reason Moo Hippie, Moo is an acceptable title for a blog about pregnant women.
Four, I am going to have to explain to the neighbors why it sounds like there is livestock in my apartment.
And five, one must always speak to their cervix in a low, moo-like tone. Otherwise they risk angering the cervix. And as we all know, like cow's milk, cleaning products, and capitalists, angry cervixes will kill your baby.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Lean, Green and... Mean?
Fellow blogger Wally, (his hilarious blog Free Refills and Why I love America can be found Here), sent me an article from the UK Guardian a couple of days ago. The article in this newspaper of newspapers, to summarize, states that all environmentalists/greenies are assholes. Apparently, these ethical consumers engage in "moral balancing." They feel that since they are being good to the environment, they can now be assholes to people. Somehow they have come to the logical conclusion that by buying organic baby food and free-range carrots, they have a right to steal your wallet and punch you in the face. Makes perfect sense to me.
When I read this article I became sad. I thought, "great, it was bad enough that I am now a default greenie through the hippification of my pregnant wife. Now it turns out that I am also an asshole." I ruminated on this for a while, and then something wonderful occurred to me that instantly cheered me up, (something my friends probably figured out immediately). I am already pretty much an asshole. I have been an asshole for most of my life. Now, however, I have an excuse. No, not an excuse, but a RIGHT, to be an asshole. This article changed my life forever. When people say to me, "Dov, stop being an asshole!", I no longer have to try to defend myself, or go out of my way to do them favors. When I don't offer my seat to old women on the subway, I no longer have to pretend I am sleeping. I can confidently look them in they eye, say "good day, ma'am", and continue to block the aisle with my perfectly healthy stretched out legs. When I make right turns from the left lane while driving and cut people off, I can proudly roll down my window, stick both middle fingers in the air, and holler as loud as I can, "Its OK, I am an environmentalist!"
So, in a departure from the usual tone of my posts, I declare to the world - Thank you fundamentalist hippie birthing coaches! Thank you for eliminating guilt from my life! Thank you for giving me a reason to steal, lie, cheat, be selfish, and pick fights with small children! And most of all, thank you for allowing me to be me!
You can find the Guardian article Here.
When I read this article I became sad. I thought, "great, it was bad enough that I am now a default greenie through the hippification of my pregnant wife. Now it turns out that I am also an asshole." I ruminated on this for a while, and then something wonderful occurred to me that instantly cheered me up, (something my friends probably figured out immediately). I am already pretty much an asshole. I have been an asshole for most of my life. Now, however, I have an excuse. No, not an excuse, but a RIGHT, to be an asshole. This article changed my life forever. When people say to me, "Dov, stop being an asshole!", I no longer have to try to defend myself, or go out of my way to do them favors. When I don't offer my seat to old women on the subway, I no longer have to pretend I am sleeping. I can confidently look them in they eye, say "good day, ma'am", and continue to block the aisle with my perfectly healthy stretched out legs. When I make right turns from the left lane while driving and cut people off, I can proudly roll down my window, stick both middle fingers in the air, and holler as loud as I can, "Its OK, I am an environmentalist!"
So, in a departure from the usual tone of my posts, I declare to the world - Thank you fundamentalist hippie birthing coaches! Thank you for eliminating guilt from my life! Thank you for giving me a reason to steal, lie, cheat, be selfish, and pick fights with small children! And most of all, thank you for allowing me to be me!
You can find the Guardian article Here.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Hippies Stole My Ethylene-based Glycol Ethers Cleaning Supplies
One morning, about three months into the pregnancy, I woke up and noticed that all the household cleaners were gone. That’s right, gone. Everything from the toilet bowl cleaner to dishwashing soap to the spray that poorly attempts to mask bathroom odors had disappeared sometime during the night. Not being a morning person, my first thought was that I was in the wrong house. After a few seconds of panic, I realized I was being ridiculous, and had a second thought. We'd been robbed. I couldn't believe it. I had purposely rented the top floor of a Brownstown so that if robbers did break in, they would rob our downstairs neighbors first. Their hands filled with goods from the first apartment, they would be unable to then rob us. It was the cheapest form of rental insurance I could find. This is not a joke. I literally brag about this strategy to my friends. How could I have been so wrong? Then it occurred to me, we'd been robbed by hippies. Hippies came in and stole our cleaning supplies, thinking they were bad for the environment. I then came to my senses and had a third thought - I should get a gun. Keeping that thought in mind I did the next most sensible thing and checked the freezer. All my meat was still there. That ruled out hippies. There was only one possibility left. I called my wife, who was already at work in the city. (That's right, hippies, I work from home so I wake up when I want.) Our phone conversation went as follows:
Her: Hi!
Me: How am I supposed to eat breakfast?
Her: What?
Me: There are no clean bowls, how am I supposed to eat breakfast?
Her: I am busy, why are you calling me about this. Just wash a bowl.
Me: AHA!!!
Her: What?
Me: I CAN’T wash a bowl, there is no dish washing soap! And while we are on the subject, where are all the rest of the cleaning supplies?
Her: Oh, (in the same tone of voice one would use when not disclosing something crazy), I got rid of them.
Me: What, why?
Her: That book I am reading (see previous post) told me to go to some websites about cleaning supplies, and they said that our cleaning supplies are killing our baby.
Me: What? Killing our baby? You don’t even use the cleaning supplies, how could they be killing the baby? (Ever since I started working from home, a symptom of being laid off from my finance job back in Nov 08', I have taken over cleaning duties, hence the perpetually full sink of dishes.)
Her: I don't want them in the house around the baby. I am going to buy safe cleaning supplies on my way home. And by the way, we need to get a steam mop. I don’t have time to do the research, so can you find a good one and buy it?
Me: What?
Her: I have to go, I am busy. Bye.
Click.
I stood in the kitchen in my boxers unsure of what to do next. On the one hand, I was angry. I had spent a long time collecting my large and varied collection of cleaning supplies. I had two half used bottles of Windex. I had grand plans of one day using that Windex to clean the smudges off the inside of my car windshield. I had various other lemon and orange scented cleaners that made the house smell like, well, oranges and lemons. How could that be bad? Also, I am thrifty. I hate throwing things away, poisonous or not, and the thought of buying all new cleaning supplies made me mad.
On the other hand, I was hungry. Crying over lost cleaning supplies was not going to get me breakfast any sooner, so I made oatmeal in a mug. It was like college. I loved it.
Later, I went to the websites that had informed my wife that we were killing our fetus by cleaning our toilets. As I suspected, they made all sorts of claims about chemicals that are used in cleaning supplies. They blamed the government. They blamed corporate greed. They recommended we replace all our cleaning supplies with coconut-based cleaners from Duane Reade. I hate to admit it, but they might have been right. More on this below.
When my wife came home that evening she had a large bag of new cleaning supplies, which of course cost three times as much as the stuff we had been using in the past. She had about six different items, all from a ridiculous neo-hipster brand named 'apt 5 goes green'. I want to shoot a hippie just thinking about the name. Each bottle had a bright green label and bragged in large type that its contents were biodegradable and nontoxic. I have them in from of me. They all claim to have a different purpose, yet they all have the SAME EXACT ingredients in them; water, coconut-based cleaning agent, and corn-based ethanol. So, basically, they are tricking hippie consumers into buying several different types of cleaning agents, even though they are basically all the same thing. Who are the corporate greed-motivated blood suckers now?
She also bought new dish soap, which does nothing to actually clean dishes. I now have to spend an extra 15 minutes washing dishes to get them clean. At a gallon a minute, that is 15 gallons of water wasted. So much for being environmentally friendly... If any of you have ever used 'green' dishwashing soap you know what I mean. We tried several, and almost none of them work. We finally settled on one brand that does the job, after my wife promised that the active ingredients in the $6 'green' soap were the same as in the $1 generic soap. If the ingredients are the same, then what makes it more 'green', you might ask. I would respond, "It is more green, because it is certified by hippies. And everyone knows that hippies always know what they are talking about. Also, pregnant women always know what they are talking about.”
The moral of this unnecessarily long story is, I really was robbed by hippies. Hippies that write books and publish nonsense websites and fill pregnant women's heads with fear and terror. They robbed me of my beloved cleaning supplies, and they robbed my wife of her sanity. All the third floor apartments, rental insurance companies and guns in the world cant protect you from this kind of theft. Beware.
P.S. As much as I hate to admit it, cleaning toilets is slightly less annoying with the new cleaning supplies, since I no longer choke on chemical fumes. But, its the fumes that let you know its working, right?
Her: Hi!
Me: How am I supposed to eat breakfast?
Her: What?
Me: There are no clean bowls, how am I supposed to eat breakfast?
Her: I am busy, why are you calling me about this. Just wash a bowl.
Me: AHA!!!
Her: What?
Me: I CAN’T wash a bowl, there is no dish washing soap! And while we are on the subject, where are all the rest of the cleaning supplies?
Her: Oh, (in the same tone of voice one would use when not disclosing something crazy), I got rid of them.
Me: What, why?
Her: That book I am reading (see previous post) told me to go to some websites about cleaning supplies, and they said that our cleaning supplies are killing our baby.
Me: What? Killing our baby? You don’t even use the cleaning supplies, how could they be killing the baby? (Ever since I started working from home, a symptom of being laid off from my finance job back in Nov 08', I have taken over cleaning duties, hence the perpetually full sink of dishes.)
Her: I don't want them in the house around the baby. I am going to buy safe cleaning supplies on my way home. And by the way, we need to get a steam mop. I don’t have time to do the research, so can you find a good one and buy it?
Me: What?
Her: I have to go, I am busy. Bye.
Click.
I stood in the kitchen in my boxers unsure of what to do next. On the one hand, I was angry. I had spent a long time collecting my large and varied collection of cleaning supplies. I had two half used bottles of Windex. I had grand plans of one day using that Windex to clean the smudges off the inside of my car windshield. I had various other lemon and orange scented cleaners that made the house smell like, well, oranges and lemons. How could that be bad? Also, I am thrifty. I hate throwing things away, poisonous or not, and the thought of buying all new cleaning supplies made me mad.
On the other hand, I was hungry. Crying over lost cleaning supplies was not going to get me breakfast any sooner, so I made oatmeal in a mug. It was like college. I loved it.
Later, I went to the websites that had informed my wife that we were killing our fetus by cleaning our toilets. As I suspected, they made all sorts of claims about chemicals that are used in cleaning supplies. They blamed the government. They blamed corporate greed. They recommended we replace all our cleaning supplies with coconut-based cleaners from Duane Reade. I hate to admit it, but they might have been right. More on this below.
When my wife came home that evening she had a large bag of new cleaning supplies, which of course cost three times as much as the stuff we had been using in the past. She had about six different items, all from a ridiculous neo-hipster brand named 'apt 5 goes green'. I want to shoot a hippie just thinking about the name. Each bottle had a bright green label and bragged in large type that its contents were biodegradable and nontoxic. I have them in from of me. They all claim to have a different purpose, yet they all have the SAME EXACT ingredients in them; water, coconut-based cleaning agent, and corn-based ethanol. So, basically, they are tricking hippie consumers into buying several different types of cleaning agents, even though they are basically all the same thing. Who are the corporate greed-motivated blood suckers now?
She also bought new dish soap, which does nothing to actually clean dishes. I now have to spend an extra 15 minutes washing dishes to get them clean. At a gallon a minute, that is 15 gallons of water wasted. So much for being environmentally friendly... If any of you have ever used 'green' dishwashing soap you know what I mean. We tried several, and almost none of them work. We finally settled on one brand that does the job, after my wife promised that the active ingredients in the $6 'green' soap were the same as in the $1 generic soap. If the ingredients are the same, then what makes it more 'green', you might ask. I would respond, "It is more green, because it is certified by hippies. And everyone knows that hippies always know what they are talking about. Also, pregnant women always know what they are talking about.”
The moral of this unnecessarily long story is, I really was robbed by hippies. Hippies that write books and publish nonsense websites and fill pregnant women's heads with fear and terror. They robbed me of my beloved cleaning supplies, and they robbed my wife of her sanity. All the third floor apartments, rental insurance companies and guns in the world cant protect you from this kind of theft. Beware.
P.S. As much as I hate to admit it, cleaning toilets is slightly less annoying with the new cleaning supplies, since I no longer choke on chemical fumes. But, its the fumes that let you know its working, right?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Hippie Resource Books 101
Early in the pregnancy my partner purchased and read many books written by hippie birthing practitioners. My attempts to avoid reading any of them were quickly overwhelmed by my much more 'persuasive' wife. Resigned to my fate, I spent many hours reading terrifying personal accounts of fundamentalist hippie birth experiences, and their 'practical' how-to advice. The writing styles in the books were strikingly similar, from the less than perfect prose to the wild fear-mongering, inappropriately detailed descriptions of the author's genitalia, and complete dismissal of almost all things convenient and modern. This included hospitals, modern medicine, disposable diapers, most cleaning products, and general sanity.
I now understood why my wife was losing her mind.
In my non-scientific, far from complete survey of hippie birthing books, (ok, I only read half of one book), I feel confident in telling you they all share the same following style:
1. Describe in alarming, yet beautiful, detail the amazingly complex, intricate and delicate biological processes involved in fetus formation. Hint at all the things that can go wrong with this process that lead to horrible fetal defects and diseases, both real and imagined.
2. Discuss historical cases of various man-made products and mistakes that led to above mentioned defects, none of which are relevant in today's modern society. Manipulate studies and statistics to link historical problems to today. Generally malign capitalists, industry, the western world, and non-hippie men as nefarious, profit motivated baby-killers.
3. Now that the reader is thoroughly alarmed and afraid to breath, eat, and sleep for fear of killing or maiming the fetus, hammer home the virtues of 'clean' hippy living by methodically listing every product in American homes and describing in clear, un-sourced detail how it will kill you, your baby, puppies, bunnies, and turtles. Then, avoiding all evidence and FDA studies, describe how modern medicine is a deadly sham produced by mega pharmaceutical companies and controlled by drug lobbies, produced for the sole purpose of interfering with natural, healthy living. Ignore all life-saving benefits of modern medicine.
4. End the book on a high note, by suggesting that pregnant women can save themselves and their babies by donning hazmat suits and throwing out everything that is not made from hemp, coconut oil by-products, bamboo, tofu, or 100 percent organic cotton. (Much more on this in future posts.) Neglect to point out that these 'natural', hippie approved items cost several orders of magnitude more than conventional items, have not been tested for safety or FDA approval, and must be ordered from questionable internet websites or old Chinese ladies.
5. For good measure, proclaim Walmart sucks and is destroying the world.
That, my friends, is basically the layout of every hippie birthing book. For those of you just starting out, I hope this post has saved you some money and time. For the rest of you, I share your pain.
I now understood why my wife was losing her mind.
In my non-scientific, far from complete survey of hippie birthing books, (ok, I only read half of one book), I feel confident in telling you they all share the same following style:
1. Describe in alarming, yet beautiful, detail the amazingly complex, intricate and delicate biological processes involved in fetus formation. Hint at all the things that can go wrong with this process that lead to horrible fetal defects and diseases, both real and imagined.
2. Discuss historical cases of various man-made products and mistakes that led to above mentioned defects, none of which are relevant in today's modern society. Manipulate studies and statistics to link historical problems to today. Generally malign capitalists, industry, the western world, and non-hippie men as nefarious, profit motivated baby-killers.
3. Now that the reader is thoroughly alarmed and afraid to breath, eat, and sleep for fear of killing or maiming the fetus, hammer home the virtues of 'clean' hippy living by methodically listing every product in American homes and describing in clear, un-sourced detail how it will kill you, your baby, puppies, bunnies, and turtles. Then, avoiding all evidence and FDA studies, describe how modern medicine is a deadly sham produced by mega pharmaceutical companies and controlled by drug lobbies, produced for the sole purpose of interfering with natural, healthy living. Ignore all life-saving benefits of modern medicine.
4. End the book on a high note, by suggesting that pregnant women can save themselves and their babies by donning hazmat suits and throwing out everything that is not made from hemp, coconut oil by-products, bamboo, tofu, or 100 percent organic cotton. (Much more on this in future posts.) Neglect to point out that these 'natural', hippie approved items cost several orders of magnitude more than conventional items, have not been tested for safety or FDA approval, and must be ordered from questionable internet websites or old Chinese ladies.
5. For good measure, proclaim Walmart sucks and is destroying the world.
That, my friends, is basically the layout of every hippie birthing book. For those of you just starting out, I hope this post has saved you some money and time. For the rest of you, I share your pain.
There should be a warning label...
After four years of marriage, my wife and I decided to have a kid. I knew that pregnancy led to strange changes in women, and that I would be forced to set aside my ego and become a meek Yes-Man for 9-10 months. But, really, she should have come with a warning label, like the kind handed out with bottles of prescription medicine. You see, like any medical condition, pregnancy has strange and unfortunate side effects. Everyone knows about food cravings and swollen ankles. What we don't know about, and hence the need for a warning label, are the more obscure symptoms. One such side effect, and the subject of this blog, is a predilection for pregnant women to take advice from environmentalist, hippie, homeopathic, dubiously certified birthing fundamentalists.
There are more of these fundamentalists out there than you imagine and your wife/partner, when pregnant, will find them and against all rationale and reason, will listen to them. Let this blog serve as a warning.
There are more of these fundamentalists out there than you imagine and your wife/partner, when pregnant, will find them and against all rationale and reason, will listen to them. Let this blog serve as a warning.
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