Notes from the PMS Trenches

PMS episode #:  342

Dear Diary,

I can tell I'm about to get my period because I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon with my head inside my pantry. 

First, I grazed on chocolate, then cookies, then tortilla chips.  Then I tried to be good and ate a nectarine, an apple with peanut butter, and then I went back to chocolate.  After that, I drank chamomile tea to settle my stomach.

I thought I'd start off fresh today.  Have a healthy breakfast, one that would keep me full and ward off the munchies until I could eat a healthy lunch. 

After dropping my car off to be serviced, I walked to Wilshire Boulevard to get some breakfast.  There is no shortage of restaurants on this part of the Wilshire strip;  three Jewish delicatessens, a health food/yogurt cafe, Subway (ugh, as far as breakfast is concerned), Krispy Kreme...you get the picture, Diary. 

Stangely enough, I found myself walking past all these places.  It was as if my body had a will of it's own,  like it was my own personal ouija indicator, guiding me toward some mysterious culinary secret.

Well, never underestimate the power of PMS, it has excellent taste.  Here is where it led me:

Huckleberry is a small cafe that serves breakfast and lunch.  It's only a few months old and is run by the pastry chef of a well-known eatery a few doors away.

Run by a pastry chef.

Diary, how am I supposed to resist that?  PMS or no, but especially with PMS.  Gah!

After ordering my fried eggs atop roasted asparagus, dusted in a fine parmesan reggiano, I was supposed to move forward to let others order while I moved on to the cashier.  Instead,  I remained in place, ogling these:

and these:

and these:

Fresh berry tarts the size of my kitchen sink, vahlrona-filled croissants so big you need to nap or throw up afterward, chocolate truffle pudding, jelly-filled donuts sugar dusted to perfection, just baked country sourdough loaves, cupcakes, tea breads, and more, so much more.  

And all in one place!   I could get the nutrients my body needed, eggs, asparagus, cheese, and then chow down on all the carbs and sugar my body could tolerate.  They even had potato chips to satisfy my salt craving.

I found myself standing in the PMS pantry from heaven thinking all menstruating women should experience this manna.   

It was a morning I'll never forget.  

Today, I was a lucky girl.  A bit nauseous, and bloated, but a very lucky girl.

Until next month,

Your friend forever,

merlotmom

Stick Me With A Fork - I'm Soooooo Done

Here I sit, a bloated whale, stuffing my face with crackers when what I really want is wine and chocolate. (Is it bad to start drinking at 11am?) I'm typing v-e-r-r-r-y s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y because my hands are happier scrounging the bag of salty snacks than they are tapping this freaking keyboard.

I'm clearly, CLEARLY, in self-destructive mode at this point.

My friend, "Flo" (you remember her, you met her in 5th grade health education class) has not yet arrived though all her party guests have settled in comfortably: Zitty Zoe, Short Temper Stacy, Screamer Sally, Binge Eater Betty, Compulsive Bather Cindy, Lethargic Lucy, Procrastinator Polly, Fretter Frannie, and, the star guest, the caterer of this miserable, masochistic affair, the generous to an overflowing fault ... Muffin Top Molly!

Wait...we interrupt your regular whiny programming for this important rant...

A telemarketer just called. Is it me or are they working overtime now? I must have had 20 calls a day in the last week. Next one, I'm going to reach through the phone, twist and tear their intrusive tongue right out of their opportunistic mouth and feed it to my dog. (Even OTR, I have standards.) So watch out, this mama's jeans are pushing and poking her flabby stomach and she is looking for anyone, ANYONE, to take her anger out on!!!

Rooooooooaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!

Now back to our regular programming...

Painters, fumes, and a general mess, have me running from my house. My computer is still having mysterious, intermittent, drive-me-craaaazy connection problems. I'm homeless, technologically challenged, and a-big-fat-grouchy-whale.

When trying to induce labor, doctors advised me to walk uphill, have sex, stimulate my nipples (ewwww!). Is there anything, ANYTHING, I can do to help get this peri-menopausal, MoFo Flo party started?!

I dare anyone to suggest stimulating my nipples. I dare you. Grrrrrrrrrr.

I Graze, I Scream, I Ignore: A Day in the Life Of a PMS Mom

First of all, I know I celebrated my 100th post a week or two ago but I was mistaken. No excuses, just that I'm a major MORON and counted ALL my posts - drafts, published, and otherwise- rather than just the published ones. Now I see the error of my idiotic ways and, in fact, this is should be is my 100th post.

Tip your glass to me. Apparently I've already tipped a few too many for myself.

In celebration of my 100th post, I have had the worst day evah! Painters are working in my house and the entire contents of my son's room is in my work area (an upstairs hallway). Dirt and leaf fragments from the painters' shoes leave a trail on the narrow carpet path. I go downstairs with my laptop, old, slow, and usually reliable but today the damn thing decided to slam it's doors to the internet so I can't get online for mail or anything! Makes no sense because my upstairs computer connects to the w.w.w., but I really don't want to go there because IT'S A FREAKIN' MESS!

I choke on my Felix Unger tendencies and situate myself amongst footprints and piles of my son's crap precious possessions: numerous crates filled with webkins, plastic dinosaurs of every size and species, "collections" of used scraps of paper, and much, much more. I settle in ready to get some work done and then...yes...you can probably guess, my two month old, shiny, new IMAC crashes. Can you feel the tension? When all else has failed in the past, I cozy up to my Iphone. Today, she too, is cold and unresponsive.

What have I done to deserve this bevy of bitches? I am technologically S-C-R-E-W-E-D not to mention becoming psychologically S-C-R-E-W-Y?

This on top of the fact that the numerous sub-facial bumps on my chin tell me it's encroaching upon THAT time of the month. What do I do to help myself through this hormonal upheaval??? I eat tons and tons of Trader Joe's dark chocolate non-pareils, what else? While shoving them into my mouth two and three at a time, my friend stops by because she was feeling depressed and to help herself through her downward spiral she went bathing suit shopping! Can you count T-W-O M-O-R-O-N-S? I shoved a handful of non-pareils at her, misery loves company.

Going back to the female, hormonal rant, I am so freaking bloated that last night I actually got nervous that I was one of those ignorant, teenage girls who walks around for months not realizing that she's pregnant. I tried to suck in the bloat which usually works but, this time, no matter how hard I squeezed, I couldn't bury a bump the size of a nerf football. I looked like an older, paistier, color-treated version of the Sally Struther's "starving kids.

A day, a bag of corn chips, and way too many non-pareils later, I feel fat, greasy, irritable and cut-off from my social life the blogosphere.

It's almost 6:30 and my kids have not eaten, my house is a pig-sty, and I'm dreading dealing with all of it. All I want to do is shower, dive into a glass of merlot, a vile of ativan, and a PEOPLE magazine.

Pffffffft! Sure, and tomorrow I'm going to wake up looking like Heidi Klum.

Like I said, MORON.