I logged in to the game to find that an object I had coded a few hours earlier was no longer working, due to some unexpected changes to the game code. This object is going to be needed for use in a roleplaying plot tomorrow, and it made me nervous that the code upon which it depended kept breaking. Standing together in a virtual room, I bitched about it to Pär. He wasn't the one who'd made these code changes; one of his coding minions was. However, the minion wasn't around in the game at that moment for me to ask him about it directly, so Pär got to catch my ire.

Pär has a reasonable but finite amount of tolerance for listening to me bitch about buggy code, and I had already used up most of it earlier this morning. When it quickly became clear to both of us that I was unable to do this work without a lot of frustration, and unable to be that frustrated without bitching about it, I logged out and walked away from the computer.

I do get very frustrated over bugs, but that wasn't the main thing on my mind. I had been planning to drive to the lab and take my blood sugar test, which I was supposed to have done in my 7th month of pregnancy. It's a standard test to check glucose levels and make sure I'm not diabetic or anything. It's not a big deal, but it requires a certain amount of time -- you have to be there for over an hour -- and I just hadn't gotten around to making the time for it. I had decided to finally get it done it this afternoon, but... the day wasn't working out that way.

Pär must have sensed it was more than the code that was bothering me. A few minutes after I quit the game, I got a phone call from him.

"What's up? Why are you so crabby?"

"I just called UniLab and they said I'm supposed to come in an hour after I've eaten, which I knew, but then they told me that once I get there, they give me some liquid glucose stuff to drink. Then I have to sit and wait for another hour, before they draw my blood. And during that time I can't eat anything either."

"So what's the problem?"

Muffled sobbing on my end of the line. "Oh man, I'm crying. Why am I crying? What the hell is wrong with me?"

His voice softened. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're pregnant."

"I know, but... jeez, you'd think I could overcome it!"

"So. Why are you crying?"

"It's so embarassing."

"What is it, honey?"

"...I don't think I can wait another hour to eat."

A burst of laughter from both ends of the line, mixed with sobs on my end.

"I was all set to go to the lab an hour ago, but then my mother called..."

"Oh dear. Difficult conversation?"

"It was... very brief. But confusing, and it left me kind of miserable. The problem is that within twenty seconds of talking to her, I started to get really bad lava tum." ("Lava tum" is our name for the heartburn I've been getting since my third trimester began.)

"Oh no."

"Yeah, it was hard to take, and as soon as I got off the phone, I had to go eat a yogurt right away to calm down my stomach. So then I had to wait another hour. And now it's an hour later, and I still have lava tum, and it hurts, and I need some food to settle it down, and, and... I'm hungry, and I don't want to sit for another hour without putting something in my stomach."

"Just go take the test on Monday instead."

"I'm already a month late in taking this damn test. I have an appointment with our doctor on Monday morning. She's going to be mad at me."

"She won't be mad at you."

"She really wants the test results."

"Well... tell her it's a dumb test and you don't want to take it!"

"Yeah, that strategy always worked well for me in college."

"You're not getting graded on this test. It's no big deal, let it go for today. You can take it on Monday."

I took a deep breath, let it out. "Okay. I will take it on Monday." Just saying the words, I felt better.

"And I'll go in with you."

"Sweetheart. That's a wasted couple of hours for you, there's no need."

"I'll go with you!"

"You'd just be sitting there, waiting. This test isn't scary or anything, it's only going to be boring."

"We'll sit there together. It'll be fun."

"No, really, you're such a darling but this isn't one of those times when I feel like I need support; there's no sense in us both wasting an afternoon on it."

"All right then, you'll go by yourself on Monday. And now you can relax and not worry about having to take care of it today."

"Yes. I've been stressing about work all day, trying to get stuff done so I could have time for the test. It's a relief to let that pressure go."

"Good. You should indulge yourself. Drink milk, eat yummy foods, and relax. You can watch some Blake's 7 episodes!"

(A friend has loaned us his collection of this delightful old TV series on videotape, and we're working our way through the first season.)

"But," Pär added, "you have to promise to remember everything that happens, so you can summarize them for me afterwards."

Renewed muffled sobbing on my end of the line.

"Oh, Karen..."

"Now I'm crying because you're so kind."

I could hear his smile. "It'll be okay, honey."