I was going to write a whole post about this nightmare I had last night where this RE (who was not actually my RE. Sort of like one of those dreams where you know the other person in the dream is your husband, but he doesn't look like your real husband) told me that I needed to start Follistim tonight and I couldn't use the normal gauge of needles. I needed to use those motherfuckers that come attached to the syringe to use for drawing up the medication (before you switch to the smaller sub-cue needle).

I'm a nightmare-y sort of girl so it's not that I'm surprised that I had one or need to unpack this dream to discover its deeper meaning. I think what is surprising me is how long it is sticking with me this morning. I feel panicked. I feel like I'm gearing up to start stimming this evening. I feel like I'm watching a clock and counting down to something. And none of these things are actually true. So why is the dream bothering me?

Instead, to kick off Bea's FET cycle Down Under (she flies from Singapore back to her embryos in Australia tonight...or tomorrow...damn these time changes), I will counter her heartwarming story of a woman determined to fold a paper crane and feed a child with my less heartwarming story of a woman who fed someone a potato through a series of mishaps...

When I was 21, I was in Israel visiting family with one of my cousins when we went across the country to a small town named Safad to spend New Year's Eve. We met up with a friend of mine from the U.S. who happened to be in Israel too at the time and we all toured the small-artist-colony-of-a-town. We were looking at a menu posted outside a restaurant when a man approached and asked if we had any money we could spare. I gave him whatever I had in my pocket at the time--a few shekels.

We were eating lunch and he came back to the table and asked again. I apologized and told him I gave him all that I had in my pocket and he responded, "aaah, well, you gave once so I thought you might give again." He left and returned many times throughout the day. It's a small town. He must have asked us again between fifteen and twenty times. Every time we'd bump into him in another spot, he would ask and remind us that we gave once so the chances were better that we'd give again.

Come nightfall, we couldn't find a hostel that would allow us to share a room (we were two girls and one boy) so we caught a bus down the mountain to the resort town of Tiberias below. First, when we arrived, there was discarded backpack leaning against a street sign when we were standing on a corner, waiting to cross the street. The street was relatively deserted and because we noticed it, we felt this obligation over reporting the "hafetz hashud" (it may seem silly wherever you are living, but since bombers sometimes leave explosives in these unattended "suspicious objects" you're under obligation to call the police), which took a bit of time and turned out to be just that--a discarded backpack.

Tiberias and tourism in general was hit hard in the months following the death of Rabin and a spate of bus bombs so restaurant owners were standing outside their restaurants as we walked down the promenade, trying to get customers to enter. We went into one where the owner was especially convincing and where it felt particularly sad--there were no other customers at any other table. We sat down and I ordered a potato boureka. The waiter brought me a baked potato. When I said, "but this wasn't what I ordered" he admitted that he had given me the next best thing. They did not have potato bourekas at this moment in time and they had pared back the menu to its bare bones in order to keep the restaurant afloat.

When I explained that in America, the waiter would have told the customer this while they were ordering so they could order something actually on the menu, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "you're not in America." Which was true. But it felt like one of those rules that should be in place internationally. The international code of restaurants. He told me that regardless, since I had ordered and they had made the baked potato, I needed to pay for it and he was charging the same price as the potato boureka.

I followed him back into the kitchen, still arguing with him. I was not going to pay for a potato boureka that I never received and I didn't want to eat a baked potato. The waiter and I finally haggled it down to this: I would pay half the price of the potato boureka and he would package my baked potato. He asked what I was going to do with it and I said that I would give it to someone hungry on the street.

When I sat back down at the table, my friend and cousin asked what had happened and I explained the plan. My cousin commented that it was too bad that this happened down the mountain because if it had happened in Safad, we could have given the potato to the man who had asked us for money throughout the day. We spent some time speaking about this man and by the time we left the table, we were considering the worth of going back up the mountain with this potato just to have a good New Year's Eve story to tell in the future.

We stepped outside and who is standing there but the man from Safad. I ran over to him and threw my arms around him, saying, "we've been thinking about you all evening and please, take this potato. And I have more money now, so take this as well." At that point, I hear my friend mutter, "aaah, Melissa?" and I step back to see that our man is currently surrounded by twelve police officers that I somehow hadn't noticed because I was so happy to see the man. The police officers opened the "to-go" package, poked at the potato, shrugged their shoulders, and handed it back to the man. He smiled apologetically and tucked himself into a waiting police car. The police drove off with our man and the potato.

But at least he had dinner in the cell?

But...er...the blog roundup is sort of about the blogs...

So, a good trip, Bea. May it be an easy transfer and a successful cycle.

A from a Somewhat Ordinary Life turned 30 this week and had a post of how she pictured herself at 30 when she was 20. This paragraph deeply touched me: "Now I wish I could go back and tell that niave girl barely out of her teens to stop putting so much stock into planning out her life. To stop putting time frames and milestones on life events. I would tell her that sometimes circumstances beyond your control will rattle your plans and there isn't anything you can do. I would tell her she needs to learn to be at peace with the great things she has so that the things she doesn't don't hurt so much. Life throws you curve balls sometimes and things don't happen the way you expected them to. They don't even come close sometimes." I think we all wish we could go back in time and tell our younger selves something that would prepare us for the place we're in now. Click here to read the whole post (no, really, click there because I'm only giving you a small taste of the greatness of this post).

Dianne at Flutter of Hope had a cycle end this week and the anger and sadness in these two posts (here and here) are emotions with which many will relate. I think for me, my feeling in those times is literally wanting to crawl out of my skin and leave my whole body behind for a few days. It's not just the reproductive organs--it's everything. It's my heart wanting it so badly, my brain telling me about late implantation stories, my eyes seeing pregnant women. I wish I could grant you this wish, Dianne--just for a day so you could get back on your feet. Head over there and give your support.

K77 at Scarred Bellybutton had one of the greatest lines in her post called "He Said": "For once I am crying because of GOOD news!" What is the good new, you ask? Well, you'll just have to head over to the post to find out... Click here to read the whole post.

Elizabeth at My No Baby Blues has a recount of her interactions with that damn bitch, Hope, this month. She acts like your best friend and she convinces you that you may be pregnant. As Elizabeth writes: "I feel foolish. But then, hope pointed out that it might be a little early to test. It's not that early, I told her, and all my symptoms have vanished. She's still whispering in my ear. And I can't quite block her out. So I am feeling (1) not pregnant, (2) hopeful that I might be anyway, and (3) stupid for clinging to that hope." She's gotten all of at one point or another. It's a fantastic post--read the whole post here.

Lut C at Things Get Iffy had a successful transfer this week (and even has an embryo to freeze!). She also left a lovely wish to all of us at the end of her most recent post. Go over to read it and receive your wish as well as offer her congratulations... Click here.

Happy reading (no, really, go over and read the whole post and leave a comment) and a wonderful weekend. When I get a moment, I will put up the cookie recipe I made up yesterday morning that the twins have named "Golden Gamonkey Cookies." What's a Gamonkey, you ask? Seriously, you have to ask? I mean, doesn't everyone know about gamonkeys?