Thursday, August 17, 2006

Tall and infertile!

So for those of you who read my blog regularly (or hang out with me regularly) you know that I really don't like to be reminded repeatedly that I am 6'3". In addition, I really don't need to be reminded repeatedly that I am currently fertility-challenged.

But, alas, I still get comments about my height or about our infertility here and there.

Last night I got a double whammy. For the first time I got a tall AND infertile whammy.

There are Thai restaurants EVERYWHERE here. I mean seriously, on one stretch, we may pass three or four in a half mile. Yesterday, JB asked one of the residents he works with which one was his favorite, and we headed to Fort Walton.

At the conclusion of our meal, we are checking out at the cash register, and there are two older Thai women standing there talking. Now, let me preface this by saying they were very sweet -- kind of the female version (as JB remarked later) of the old men in one of our favorite movies Return to Me -- just sitting around after hours, shooting the breeze.

So here is the way the conversation went down.

Woman #1: "You two look like you could be brother and sister."
John: "We aren't. We are married."
Woman #2: "Woah, both same height. She is very tall."
Woman #1: "Yes. Perfect couple. Same height."
Woman #2: "You have children?"
Wendi: "No."
Woman #2: "How long you been married?"
Wendi: "Eight years."
Woman #1: "Woah, and no babies?'
Wendi: "No. No babies."
Woman #2: "Good thing. They would be very tall."

We laughed, and I really handled it well, and wasn't that bothered. They were nice woman, and I have mentioned before, sometimes the language barrier causes comments to be a little more "brusk" than they would be if said by someone who spoke English as their first language.

Point to highlight right now. If we do ever get pregnant, please don't tell me my kids will be tall. Let's just consider that an "understood". I won't tell a short woman her's will be short or an overweight woman her's would be chunky, so let me just get that out right now. I know if we do get pregnant, our kids will probably be tall. I am okay with that. :)

Anyways, okay, enough infertile/tall stories. Right now, I am sitting under a tree at 8:15 a.m. outside a building that has wireless. Oh how we take wireless internet for granted. So fast and so easy. I am in heaven. Going to do some work for RLSF and just relax until JB gets off this evening.

Ray and Gabbi come in tomorrow! I cannot wait! I can't wait to see all of them and especially to hug my little Gracie. I really miss her. She has started preschool. Man am I old or are Ray and Gabbi old. Okay, I guess we are all aging equally but they are the parents.

I'll definitely have pictures from our weekend with the fam. I also leave Monday. I don't want Monday to come! I also took my last two pills of progeseterone last night and gave myself my shot without JB there this morning. Hurrah for me!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You handle things with such grace and dignity! You're not alone...read about this guy...
To make a long story short:
Dave Rasmussen is 7 feet 3 inches tall.
To put that in perspective:
Go stand in a doorway. Look up. The average doorway is 6 feet 8 inches. Dave Rasmussen is 7 inches taller than that.
When Rasmussen needs a new sheet for his 8-foot-long bed, he has to buy two sheets, cut one by a third and add that third to the standard length sheet. Before he got his 8-footer, Rasmussen always wore socks to bed.
When Rasmussen, who is 40 and works in the technical support department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (his desk is propped up on cubes of 4-by-4s), finds a good deal on size 15 shoes, he buys half a dozen pairs at a time. He's learned that the JC Penney outlet store is an excellent source for shirts with 41-inch sleeves.
His own car is modified, but renting a car is an adventure. On a recent trip to Phoenix for a Tall Clubs International convention, Rasmussen discovered that he did not fit into a Ford Ranger. He was upgraded to a more comfortable Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Rasmussen is the tallest person in Tall Clubs International. Men have to be at least 6-foot-2 to join. Women have to be 5-foot-10. TCI has about 4,000 members in the United States and Canada; the Milwaukee Tall Club has about 70 members. Even though Rasmussen tends toward shyness, he is the local club's director of public relations.
Rasmussen considers it his civic duty to help little old ladies fetch things down from high places, but being asked by average-sized people to change their light bulbs, paint their ceilings and pull their kites out of trees makes him weary.
Standing in line at a grocery store, Rasmussen can get so tired of telling strangers how tall he is that he'll wish that the store's management would simply broadcast it, like a public service announcement, over the intercom.
"Sometimes, I'll just pretend I'm deaf," he says. "Sometimes, I tell people I'm 5 feet 27 inches."

Anonymous said...

Josh says...

Tell me about it. I'm so sick and tired of people looking at me and going, "Good God JOSH, how much do you weigh?"

It bothers me