Factoids: Fart Edition

Due to the overwhelming positive response to my claim that I am, quite possibly, the new Internet fart expert (three comments is an overwhelming positive response, right?  Right?), I thought I should take my "PhD farts" more seriously and regale you with all that is flatulence.  Perhaps my husband's penchant for "bathroom humor" has desensitized me, because I never really talked about farts too much until that one post.  Man, this is a big day.  Breaking down walls and whatnot.  


Plus, I wrote another "Factoids" post 58 bazillion years ago thinking I could make it a regular feature, and look at that.  Here we are.  Full circle.  Two editions = regular feature.  Look it up.


Put on your learning caps, folks.


The word "fart" comes from the Old English word "feortan," and is likely echoic in origin, meaning the word was chosen to sound like the object named.


The major components of a fart are Nitrogen, Hydrogen, Carbon Dioxide, Oxygen, and (sometimes) Methane.


There are two kinds of farters: Producers and Non-producers.  Only about 2/3 of people produce Methane in their gas.  If both parents are producers, their offspring has a 95% chance of being a producer.

Contrary to popular belief in the elementary-school crowd, a fart is not just a burp that comes out the other end.  A burp not only emerges from the stomach, but has a different chemical composition than a fart.  Farts have less atmospheric gas content and more bacterial gas content than burps.


 Farts have been clocked at a speed of 10 feet per second. 

Termite farts (which contain massive amounts of methane) are believed to be major contributors to global warming.


Farting up in space would propel you forward.

Cats and dogs (and people on the Atkins diet) produce extra-rank farts because of their protein-rich diets.  Protein contains a lot of sulfur, which fuels the pungent fires.

A person produces about half a liter of farts a day. 

Ben Franklin wrote an essay called "Fart Proudly" to mock academic societies in Europe.

Founding Father.  Author.  Inventor.  Fart Aficionado.

And finally, last but not least ...


Available for purchase: Farty Pants underwear.  Designed to mask the smell of flatulence (and, clearly, to discourage intimacy)

I'm too sexy for my underwear with the activated carbon filter covering my butthole


THE END.
(Get it?  The END?  See images above.)

[courtesy of Facts on Farts, 10 Things You Didn't Need to Know About Farts, Fun With Farts: All the Things You Never Needed to Know, and Fart Proudly: Wikipedia]

You Had Me at "Rescue Dogs"

OK Go, the boys who stole my heart with their infamous treadmill video (Go ahead -- say you don't love it too.  I'll call you a liar.) discovered a way to make me love them even more.  Their new video?  OMG.  I "sqeee"ed so much when I heard about it that I thought I wouldn't have any left for when I watched it.  I was wrong.  I had plenty of squeals left in me.


OK Go's new video features ... (wait for it) ... RESCUE DOGS DOING TRICKS!!!!  Get ready for heart-melting amazingness:



They did the video in one take (no cuts or edits!) to highlight the professionalism and awesomeness of the dogs.  They are also using the video to raise money for the ASPCA (*SWOON*).  If you head over to their website, you can buy their video, with all proceeds helping rescue dogs who haven't found their homes yet.


And, okay, maybe my rescue dog can't do tricks like that, but she can sit (about 85% of the times you ask her) ...

Amazing!

AND she helps soothe the baby by giving Josephine her favorite dog toy when she cries.

This actually happened.  For reals.

And my rescue cat?  Well ... he steals the dog's bed and adds a certain level of sass to the household.  Just the way I like it.

If you ever want to bring an animal into your life, consider ADOPTION.  You won't regret it!  In the meantime, watch the video and swoon away.

I would never let a monkey make a monkey out of me. It's like you don't even KNOW me.

I like to think I am SLIGHTLY hip.  I mean, I have a Twitter account, people. Never you mind that I only log on once a month, send a flurry of twits (you call them tweets, I call them twits, Kathy Griffin calls them twats -- to each her own), forget Twitter exists for about a month, then start the cycle all over again.

So when I started blogging, I really wanted to do all the cool things other bloggers did.  However, after taking three solid hours to figure out how to get a Twitter widget on my blog AND have it go to my account when you click on it ... well, it was then that I realized I will likely not be on the cutting edge of technology.  Whatevs.

But I DID finally figure out how all those other clever bloggers were able to see what keyword searches led people to their blogs.  It took me months. Unfortunately, that is not an exaggeration.  I got all excited and proud of myself, read the list, laughed, and then (you guessed it) forgot about it for a few months.

However, today while I was wondering which direction this next post should take after I pissed off a Christian Scientist (he/she could not tell by the rest of my blog that I make "the jokes"), I remembered Google Analytics.  I am coming up in response to some pretty exciting search terms.  Get ready to be jealous:

"annoying orange" (←which is weird, because I write exclusively about non-annoying blue)

"chonkie movie (the toy baby that kill)"  (←this one took me a while to figure out)

"awesome possum lemon blossom" (←this one is pretty fantastic, actually)

"chunky monkey boobs" (←thanks for noticing my fine rack)

"veronica addicted to pooping (←it's like they have a window into my soul)

"chunky monkeys sat on my face" (←oh dear ... this is taking a bad turn)

"chunky munky nude grils" (←yep, this is bad -- I never condone grilling in the nude.  That is DANGEROUS, folks!)

"monkey attack dog trying to attack on the small baby" (←ummm ... what?)

And my favorite: "are you gonna let a monkey make a monkey out of you?" (←NEVER)

All this is great, but what I was completely unaware of is the fact that I have become somewhat of an expert on farting because of that one ... experience.  Here are the top fart searches that led people to my blog:

fart at night

fart attack 

fart awake

farting at night

farting uterus

farts throughout night

my husband farts in his sleep

how much of your farting is done at night?

is it ok to feel like farting at night?

its two nights that im farting always ... am i pregnant?

why my son farts in his bed

vitamin D makes me fart

farting monkeys farting bad romance

phd farts

So what have we learned here?  Clearly, I need re-focus my efforts and become the preeminent fart scholar on the Internet.  Send me your fart questions, people.  I am happy to oblige.  And I might just have "PhD farts." You'll never know.

I Am Starting to Understand Those Christian Scientists. Go Figure.

Okay, some of you know about this. Most of you don't. Here it is: the details of my baby girl's harrowing medical traumas and my ensuing HATRED for the medical community 


(Sorry readers who are members of the medical community. You probably don't suck, but 
some of your peers do. Seriously. Like, they suck A LOT.)


Reminder: We had a beautiful baby girl on 8/9/10 (And my dad was super-pissed that she was born at 2:33 and asked me to LIE on her birth certificate and say she was born at 2:34. I could not make this stuff up.). I was on the fence about the whole hospital/doctor vs. midwifery stuff, but in the end realized I could not give up on the idea of that magical-sounding super-drug: The epidural. I cannot complain much about the labor and delivery itself except having a blood pressure cuff on my arm during the entire labor that went off EVERY FIVE MINUTES and I still had bruises from two weeks later. But other than that, the docs were not up in my biz and they didn't cause me to threaten them with bodily harm. In fact, the labor and delivery was actually ENJOYABLE.


Then, a few hours after my little Josephine was born, they whisked her away and a pediatrician sat us down and said she could just have some amniotic fluid in her lungs or she could be DYING IMMEDIATELY and they would go ahead with 58,000 aggressive interventions in order to save the life of our little miracle.  


I SWORE I would not be that mother who was like, "OH!  A doctor said it? It is law! All else be damned!" and I would ask questions, do research, and not ignore my gut instincts. However, when presented with this situation, my husband and are were like, "DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!!" and didn't ask any questions. One hour later, the results of the test came back, and oh, what do you know? She just had a little amniotic fluid in her lungs after all! She will be fine in an hour or so. Too bad we already hooked her up to all those machines and started her on those antibiotics, because now she has to stay there for two days!


And so began the needless suffering of my daughter. She came home two days later with bruises, multiple pin pricks, and a red face from where they ripped tape off when she was finally off oxygen.  


Two weeks later, the diarrhea began. I went to the doctor and informed them that my daughter had about 20 diarrhea diapers a day and was not feeding well. For the next TWO WEEKS, I was in the doctor's office about three days a week because the all the doctors' best advice was to "keep an eye on her and bring her in a few times a week for weight checks to make sure she is still gaining weight." And I did.  And day after day I repeated her symptoms and told them she cried about 20 hours a day, didn't sleep, struggled to eat, and our house was slowly being overtaken by diarrhea.  


I finally saw a new doctor at the same practice, and she finally decided to check and see if there was blood in her stool. When there was, she sent us straight to the hospital and said we would be there for a minimum of two days.


There, we saw horrible things, like the baby cage ...

(I held her in my arms all night instead of locking her up in THAT)

... an "IV specialist" who spent and HOUR AND A HALF torturing our baby because she couldn't find a vein (even though the nurses at the hospital where she was born could do it while making small talk with us), and nurses who would have given my baby incorrect medication and food down her feeding tube had I not inquired as to their intentions.


When we finally left the hospital, the gastroenterologist had decided she probably had milk protein allergy induced colitis, and the only foods I could eat for the next 6 months were fruit and vegetables (minus tomatoes and citrus), meat (except red meat) and potatoes.


Two weeks later, this miracle diet had done NOTHING to help my child. When we went to see said gastroenterologist again, I said it seemed like it was not the milk protein allergy. He said, "You're right. It looks like it isn't" while he wrote down on her paperwork: "diagnosis: milk protein allergy."


So he gave up and said we should just get used to our daughter being in agony.


Then, my mother-in-law suggested I read about milk oversupply. Hmmm. Look at that. Josephine has EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM listed. I called a lactation consultant, and she about lost her shit when I told her how many ounces I could pump in five minutes.  My breasts were what the La Leche League called "overly enthusiastic about their job." It turns out my little lady was only getting foremilk, which is all carbs and making her gassy, and without the fat from the hindmilk, she couldn't break down all the lactose, which built up in her intestines and led to a crummy tummy.


Two days later, with a little boob training, we were seeing results. After I gave the medical community a MONTH of our lives and I lost thousands of joyous moments with my new baby, blamed myself, and probably scared the crap out of my husband with all the times I sat and cried while I held our crying baby.


So now, what do I do? I have no trust, and a lot of anger. I need options here besides doctors.  Plus, my daughter developed her first cold and starting cutting her first tooth in the past few days.


Let's take the edge off of this rant-y post. Here are my three favorite options for replacing Western medicine:


1.  Magics. Come on, I've read the Harry Potter books enough to know that all I need are some Latin phrases and concentration. Plus, my dad has an authentic Harry Potter wand. He would totally lend it to me if he knew it were for the benefit of his granddaughter.


2.  The Interwebs. Everyone knows all problems can be solved with a short Google session. And you can totally tell who is credible based on the prettiness level of their web page. That's why I would take medical advice from The Bloggess before WebMD any day.


3.  Positive Vibrations. I'm not a pray-er. But I DO send out positive vibes for people. And I like to think that my super-powerful brain sends out extra-powerful vibes. I am likely responsible for many friends getting jobs, securing a second date, and getting good grades. I'm just THAT GOOD. So why not focus that energy on my baby? I'm pretty sure my genius brain could combat pertussis or pneumonia. What CAN'T it do, really?


Let the voting commence! Write-in candidates are also acceptable.

Funny Stuff My Husband Says, Vol. VI

And now, faithful friends, I bring you the long-anticipated "Dad Edition" of Funny Stuff My Husband Says.  I've got a doozy for ya, folks.  To see past episodes, click here.

Jeremy:  [Looks at baby] Oh, cute outfit, Josephine!  You have little giraffes on your shirt!

Veronica:  Umm, excuse me?

Jeremy:  What?

Veronica:  Those aren't giraffes.  Not even a little.

Jeremy:  Horses?

Veronica:  Closer.

Jeremy:  Fancy horses?

Veronica:  Dear god ...

"Umm, Dad?  Have you ever been to a zoo?"

Veronica:  Yes, they are those fancy white horses that have black stripes. See you after work.

Jeremy:  What?