The Empress is dead. Long live the Empress!

I am declaring myself officially dead. I am no longer among the living. Pulse: 0. Blood pressure: 0 over 0. Brain activity: Hah!

I am deceased, departed, passed away, no more, kaput.

I'd think up more adjectives but the hubby cleaned the office and I can't find my thesaurus. I'd ask him where he put it, but he's in Norway right now and it's 4 a.m. there. 

He's there because I wanted a vacation. I begged him. Please let's go away before the baby comes. A four-day weekend, anything. I need the rest. I badly need the rest.

So of course this means he should go to Norway for a full bloody week and meander through 16th-century neighborhoods and a maritime museum, see a real Viking ship, sample rheindeer meat and sip cognac with a few dozen of his best friends.

Then it's off to London, where he'll be looking up a college friend of mine and touring the antique silver vaults at an auction house, which is just the sort of thing I love to do. 

He's at a geek conference for the software he's an expert in, the one so esoteric that no one else will hire him because his skills don't translate, the software that keeps us imprisoned in a dilapidated house in an overlooked suburb. The one that also guarantees he has a job for life, because no one else can figure out how the hell to use it. 

I am very happy for him.

No, really.

It's just that somehow I never seem to get things right. How is it he gets to go to Europe and I am home feeling fat, pregnant and weary?

Mom-in-law is here to help, but she hasn't exactly volunteered to carry Mugwort the remaining 2 months for me. It's all she can do to keep Minitaur amused, which I appreciate.

So who's here to keep me amused?

Nobody.

I may as well be dead. This way, I have a good excuse to lie around and do nothing.

But don't worry about the baby. She'll be fine. Because I'm going to reincarnate myself, and she can come with, so long as she doesn't take up so much space and stops spinning pirouettes on my bladder.

I want to be reincarnated as someone much luckier. Someone with winning lottery tickets, perfect skin and one of those eat-anything metabolisms. Someone graceful, who doesn't succumb to sciatica in the middle of Kids R Us and need to plop down on the floor, right then and there, surrounded by packages of Buzz Lightyear underwear.

I am going to be beautiful and svelte or at least have access to free plastic surgery. I'm going to have all the energy of a dozen meth addicts, no weird allergies and a bowel that doesn't continually exclaim -- noisily and noxiously -- its unhappiness with my diet.

When my husband comes home, I'll ask him how he enjoyed the silver vaults and he will hand me round-trip tickets to Paris or Prague or Maui or the Great Barrier Reef.

I must be dreaming, I'll say.

No, you're dead, remember? He'll say. And this is heaven.

Sigh.

Comments

[Kitty]

Sooooo... you're not pining, you've passed on. You are no more! You have ceased to be. You've expired and gone to meet your maker. YOu are a late empress. You're a stiff. Bereft of life, you rest in peace. If you hadn't been nailed to your keyboard you would be pushing up the daisies. You've rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. You are an ex-empress.

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist. You should ask Plosh to bring you back a Norwegian Blue.

Just in case you don't have a clue what that's all about go here ==> http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode08.htm do a find on page for Norwegian Blue and read :)

[chip]

see I knew you could do it! Pithy and witty as always.

On this: So who's here to keep me amused?. Isn't that what blogs are for?

I'm gonna keep my wife away from your blog. She hasn't been out of the country for ten years now while I've managed to get away at least once a year -- though it is on business, not any fun at all ...

[plosh]

Uh-oh. Ummm. Welll. Ummm. I sense Jewish guilt trip coming on...

[Anne]

Kitty: Thanks for the laugh, I remember the skit well.

Chip: Sure, maybe your wife believes that. We know the truth ...

Plosh: Sorry, honey, just venting a little. Miss you tons. :-(

[Ontario Emperor]

Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. Please do not bop our dear Empress' head on a wooden table with excessive force.

For me, the Dead Parrot sketch has lost its luster. (Lustre. Whatever.) It's one thing to have it in the middle of a Python episode, with its bizarre changes from item X to item 2, but something just rubs me wrong when someone announces, "OK, ye all sitteth down whilst Cleese and Palin perform the always-loved Dead Parrot sketch."

Too bad Graham Chapman wasn't in it. Then it would be REALLY fun to re-enact it right about now.

And Empress, remember that Plosh is cold and they speak funny over there. He can't wait to get back to the Inland Empire. Poor guy. (Didn't help, but I thought I'd try.)

As for me, my next business trip is to Dallas. In August. My wife is not jealous.

[Kitty]

Never fear, I have no intention of repeatedly bashing the glorious empressess head on any hard object. It was just with her saying that she had expired and then Plosh actually being in Norway...

I am weak :)

[Anne]

Whoops! I get in a grumpy mood and everybody joins in. OE, sweetie, you should know by now that Monty Python is Britain's national religion and therefore off-limits to us cranky Yankees.

Kitty, not to worry, I got a good chuckle out of it. My hubby has left Norway and is wandering about your capitol city tonight and enjoying the unusually warm weather. He loved the silver vaults at Christie's but alas didn't see fit to pocket any souvenirs for me.

Stay cool, everybody -- me included.

[psychotoddler]

The cad!

Anyway, you're not dead. You're just shagged out after a long squawk.

[Ontario Emperor]

This is an ex-empress?

[Anne]

Oh no, Kitty. Look what you started. Next they'll be singing the Lumberjack song.

[R]

Whew - what a relief re no pocketing the silver... speaking as the girl whose company vault it was! If it helps your fans any to know we were thinking of you, I did drag your man to Fortnum's to SHOP for you and he put up absolutely no resistance... in fact far from it... very commendable! - so if mysterious chic pale green bags filled with goodies don't appear shortly, it won't be for lack of trying...
PS I accidentally posted my first post here under the wrong date. shows what I know. xx

[plosh]

You will all be happy to know that I pocketed some silver for the new Empress from the Portobello Market in London. It's small, but she turned the silver Jewish Star of David into a beautiful necklace in about 10 minutes.

I also brought back for the Empress, in the following order:
Chocolate
Tea
Chocolate
Tea
Chocolate
Tea
Chocolate
Tea.

The gifts guarantee my marriage for at least another year. ... I think.

But after reading you comments, I foisted the Norwegian Blue on my officemates, who will be none the wiser unless they have been reading my wife's site again.

[Ontario Emperor]

Now I'm thinking of Olson's Standard Book of British Birds...the expurgated version.

Better than wearing high heels, I guess.

[Anne]

R: Hello! I already sent you an email before I read this. Not to worry, there's no such thing as posting a comment under the wrong date. They're all listed for a time to the right, making it easy for anyone to look up. Plus I can look it up on the editing screens that only I see.

Thanks again for taking care of the hubby in London. And in case anyone doesn't know, R is the genius who evaluates and auctions antique silver for a famous auction house. Very cool. Still too bad you can't spare a souvenir teaspoon or two, but I'll have to settle for the gorgeous auction catalog you sent along.

Cheers.

[psychotoddler]

Beautiful plumage, the Norwegian Blue.

[Ontario Emperor]

Argh, Kitty. I just talked about a blog that is about to be removed from the blogosphere, and mentioned that that blog is not yet "pining for the fjords."

And it's not even a Norwegian blog. It was created by someone in Los Angeles.