I’m done with speaking too soon. All that happy sappy chatter about feeling amazing – I blame that. Because day 4 of week 6 was the beginning of a special little development that I will call “Everything is Disgusting and This is Bullshit”.

Getting to Mexico was smooth sailing, in regards to feeling good. Our trip down even included a full on sprint through the Houston airport in our winter jackets to literally slip through the gate to make our flight  as they were closing it and it was all smiles and loving glances through the sweat dripping down our faces. We shared a breakfast sandwich and granola bars. We sipped coffee. I had an out of body experience when the flight attendants handed out a delicious and foreign treat called Stroopwafel, and I spent the rest of the flight plotting ways to swipe other passenger’s little dutch magical snacks because they were so darn delicious and my fertile body was loving and accepting of all things edible.

It was a trick. We stepped off the plane into a gorgeous, breezy, 90 degree paradise and my body betrayed me. All of a sudden I literally couldn’t even have my brain get a little whiff of a thought about food without my stomach flipping and that telltale saliva sensation warning me of imminent danger. I didn’t realize what was happening at first, since I had just had an awakening with the Stroopwafel situation, so I kept trying to get my body to behave appropriately by reminding it of things such as guacamole, fresh seafood, teeny sips of margaritas on the rocks, etc… but the more I tried to remind myself how appetizing and amazing the world of food is, the worse I felt. And then my brain took off on its own and started playing an extremely graphic reel on repeat of foods that previously tickled my taste buds that now apparently literally and instantly caused an uncontrollable dry heave. Things I still can’t believe are doing this to me. Things like: chicken, cottage cheese, almonds, the inside of ravioli, bacon, potatoes, steak, butter – well here actually, a list is more fun to read:

YES! Foods That Don’t Make Me Gag:

1. Oikos Strawberry Greek Yogurt
2. Ramen noodles
3. Cheetos
4. Stroopwafel

OMG HELL NO! DANGER Foods:

1. Any other brand, flavor, or type of yogurt
2. Every other food in the world
3. Including beer

I didn’t even know who I was anymore! All of a sudden I couldn’t even smooch Gates after he had a few sips of beer without choking back down half-digested Stroopwafel. I did know that I was determined not to let my rude brain and all of its taunting about foods that have now betrayed me ruin this trip for me, so I made the most of everything, and didn’t dwell on the fact that some of my meals made it down the hatch, and some didn’t make the long journey through my digestive tract. Despite this little disruption to my eating habits and general comfort level, we had an absolute blast on the trip. We laid in the sun. We snorkeled. We swam in the ocean, we frolicked in the pool. I read 10 books. We got our toes sandy and our skin bronzed. It was definitely the most relaxing we’ve been able to do in a long time, and it felt amazing. Oh, and we picked out baby names.

My non-alcoholic drink experimentation plans were mostly benched due to the vomitous  nature that everything but water seemed to have on me, but I did try a virgin daiquiri at a restaurant one night. And we did stumble upon the most random N/A beer while we were shopping for groceries in the town! Sadly, I couldn’t even choke down a sip of this little taste of home so I have no report as to flavor.

The high of the trip was freckling in the sun with the love of my life, and the low of the trip was parting ways with an Austrian goulash in a dirty public restroom as a homeless Mexican dog stopped cleaning himself to watch me. And on the flight home, even though I was still feeling like hot, wet, sunburnt, disgusting, vomit smelling garbage, I took out my earbuds during the climatic part of the movie Spotlight and fixated my eyes on the beverage cart and the flight attendants, sending them clear signals with my eyes that, despite my nauseated state, I was still going to have myself a Stroopwafel or two and force myself to enjoy it. And you know what they gave us for our snack? Zesty Ranch Nibblets. Not a Stroopwafel in sight. Absolute, unbelievable, unadulterated BS. Also, I should reconsider using the word “climatic” to describe any aspect of the movie Spotlight.

Back home in the comfort of my own toilet bowl, life went back to normal. Work, sleep, pick flaking sunburnt skin off of each other, work, sleep, etc. We told our siblings about their promotion to aunts and uncles, which went exactly as expected: a delightful mix of enthusiasm, joy, excitement, delayed responses, and emotionless acceptance. Here is my favorite response:

Check out that look of pure exuberance! Fred did say that she only had that facial expression because she “doesn’t like puns”, but that is obviously not the truth because who doesn’t appreciated a well-placed pun?

I also came back to the major bummer news that my application for short term disability insurance was denied, despite the appeal my MD made on my behalf. Boys and girls, do not, in any circumstance, develop an eating disorder as a teenager and recover from it in your early 20’s with no long term complications because this will cause you to be denied coverage for short term disability and long term disability, and have a huge increase in your cost of your life insurance policy for inexplicable reasons. This may mean that your “maternity leave” will consist of up to 12 weeks of completely unpaid time. Which is nonsense. But don’t fret, I’d imagine that most of you who care about maternity leave are family oriented and are jumping at the change to elect a president this year who stands by family values! Try to match these quotes with the candidates to see who most represents your expectations on the value of family.

Quotes

1. “I think maternity leave and paternity leave are wonderful things. I support them personally, but I don’t think the federal government should be in the business of mandating them”.
2. “The United States is the only developed nation in the world without guaranteed, paid parental leave. A civilized society should guarantee these benefits for the working families and middle class of our country, and that’s why I support 12 weeks of paid family leave”.
3. “I think, eventually it should be mandated, but I don’t think politically, we could get it now”.
4. “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
5. “The one thing we need to do for working women is to give them the flexibility to be able to work at home online … The reason why that’s important is, when women take maternity leave or time to be with the children, then what happens is they fall behind on the experience level, which means that the pay becomes a differential”