Updated at the Bottom

The utensils-up-utensils-down question that Blanche threw out there is so interesting because I’ve never considered putting the utensils with the tines of the fork facing down and had no clue that others did this.  Also, the reasons why people don’t leave their utensils facing up mostly don’t apply in our situation.  (1) Our basket is shallow enough that I never touch the top of the utensil as I grab out the bouquet of forks — I can grab the handle.  (2) There are no dogs or small children who come anywhere near the dishwasher that could impale their hand or tongue on the tip of a butter knife.  (3) I wash all of our utensils before I place them in the dishwasher, therefore, I also don’t get my hands dirty dropping in dirty forks, heads up.

Yes, I wash all of our dishes before I wash all of our dishes (and Blanche told me to tell all of you that because it goes right along with my bleach obsession.)

I hand wash pots and pans and place those in the drying rack.  And I hand wash sharp knives.  But everything else gets hand washed and then placed in the dishwasher.  There is not one drop of food left on the plates before they enter the dishwasher itself, hence why our dishwasher is also spotless inside.  I also sometimes bleach the inside of the dishwasher, but that is a different story.

I know that most of you are reading this and thinking, “that is incredibly wasteful.”  But there will also be some of you reading this who say, “I do the exact same thing.”  And you people understand why I inexplicably wash the dishes before I wash the dishes.  That to not do so feels all kinds of wrong.

There must be more people out there who wash their dishes before they wash their dishes.

I should add that our dishwasher is a “dairy” dishwasher, meaning, we have two separate sets of dishes, utensils, pots and pans: one for meat and one for dairy.  And we only use the dishwasher for dairy dishes and utensils.  All meat dishes and utensils get washed by hand and then dried.  We eat “dairy” meals — meaning any meal sans meat — more often than meat meals.

Our kitchen is very very complicated.  But it totally makes sense inside my head.  And there are ribbons on the cabinets to let visitors know if things are “meat” or “dairy.”

So… am I the only pre-dishwasher dish washer?

(And feel free to ask any kosher kitchen questions since I know you probably have them since I just revealed that I have at least two of everything in my kitchen.)

Update:

This is getting more and more interesting.  We don’t run our dishwasher every day.  We run it every third day or so.  Perhaps that also lends itself to the fact that we wash the dishes before we wash the dishes.  If not, that food would be sitting on the plates in the dishwasher for three days.

I also will use the same water glass throughout the day.  So I don’t take a new glass with each meal — only one that lasts the whole day.

We end up with a lot of visiting kids in the house, hence how we can fill the machine in three days.  But if no one comes over our house during the week, it could take us even longer to fill the dishwasher.

Updated at the Bottom

There is only one correct way to load our dishwasher.  I say this because I just explained it to Josh, and he looked at me as if I were crazy.  But I’m not crazy.  I’m right.  And every morning, I need to fix the order of utensils and plates in the dishwasher because he loads it wrong.

This makes perfect sense.

Bowls and cups go on top because one of the Three Stooges had a bowl haircut on his head.  See, the top of the dishwasher.  You may slide two bowls into the back two slots on the lower level, but you only use those slots once the upper slots are filled.

On the bottom level go the plates and utensils and large items that you don’t want to hand wash for some reason.  There are two lines of slots to hold the plates.  All the small plates go in one line and all the large plates form the other.  BUT which size plate gets the left side or the right side depends on which type of plate there are more of in the sink when we begin loading the dishwasher.  If we have a lot of small plates, they get the left side, and vice versa.  The left side needs to hold the larger amount of plates first so the ones on the right side don’t roll to the left side when you accidentally close the dishwasher too quickly.

There are six slots for utensils.  On the far left should be the small spoons and on the far right should be the large spoons.  The spoons are always on the ends because spoons are rounded, and it is easy to remember where they go because rounded corners are a safety feature on certain counters.  One in from the left should be the small forks, and one in from the right should be the large forks because they prick food and prickly personalities sometimes need to be held back from the edge lest they lash out at people.  In the center left-side slot are category-less utensils: serving spoons, the random old spoons I use to stir my coffee, chopsticks, etc.  In the center right-side slot are the knives.  Only butter knives.  Sharp knives do not go in the dishwasher.  Ever.

I like having an order because I can unload things faster if all the same items are clumped together.

It wasn’t that Josh was incredulous over the idea that certain items should go in certain parts of the dishwasher, but he couldn’t see how he could remember my order based on those descriptions.  And I was like, how. could. you. not?  Seriously, round spoons, soft round edges — it makes sense.  Bowls on top because bowl haircuts belong on your head which is at the top of your body: easy to remember.

I am so lucky that he loves me and keeps me.

Do you have an order to your dishwasher for easy unloading or are items inserted wherever you find space?

Update:

Blanche additionally asks another important question: do you load your utensils with the handles up or down?

I hadn’t even considered another way: we load utensils down.  So the head of the utensil is sticking up and the handle is poking down.  Like a bouquet of utensils.  Is there any other way?

On Wednesday night, Truman attempted to jump out of his cage for the first time.  He gets super-excited late at night, popcorning happily while I do last minute things before heading up to bed.  That night, I was filling his bowl with his dried food, talking to him about how I was going to give him a cookie too when he started popcorning and wheeking.  Then, without warning, he jumped so high that he ended up folded over the side of the cage.  His bum and back legs were still in the cage, but his head and arms were dangling in mid-air outside the cage.  We both freaked out, and I quickly scooped him back in.  And then he went right back to popcorning.

We usually leave off the top of his cage, mostly because it seemed as if he couldn’t jump that high, plus it has a little internal lip that he’d need to jump over.  But that night, we weighted down the lid with a massive translation dictionary.

It freaked me out because the cage is high up on a side table.  So if he had actually gotten out, it’s a long way down for a little pig.

*******

Candy Crush Update: for those who are also playing, I FINALLY got off of 79.  It was quite an emotional moment that culminated with both hands clamped over my mouth to keep myself from screaming out in ecstasy because I finally cleared the board.  Without a doughnut and striped candy, I have to add.  I just had a lot of good moves fall into place by sheer luck and the board cleared.  The whole thing is always such a crapshoot.

I sailed through levels 80 – 82, and now I am currently stuck on 83.  I don’t like to call myself stuck until I’ve used up 30 lives.  Which… yeah… means I’ve used up more than 30 lives on level 83.

 *******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Enough” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Abortion and Perinatal Hospice” (Bereaved and Blessed)
• “Jealousy” (The Stars Apart)
• “Forgetfulness” (Teach Me to Braid)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Too Many Fish to Fry has a moving post about her children somehow tuning in to the people missing from their family.  Her daughter keeps the spiders at bay by imagining herself protected by “a virtual sibling family of three sisters and one brother.  My daughter only has one brother. Yet somehow she knows there were three other siblings she is owed.”  She shares a very moving story about a third baby who didn’t come to be.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has an emotional post on her anniversary.  She writes: “This morning, before running off to work, I laid down next to this same man and studied his face while he slept. So much has happened in these last 9 yrs, especially since our diagnosis. And yet, though we are both profoundly changed, I know how lucky I am to have found my soulmate.”  But what I really really really loved in this post is the Moroccan folktale she shares at the end.

Lastly, Dragondreamer’s Lair has a brief poem about the woman she used to know.  I loved loved loved this poem, especially that idea of those tiny glances that we get from a reflection in a passing window that remind us of who we used to be.  Gorgeous.

The roundup to the Roundup: Truman Harper Ford: Escape Artist.  My new stuck place on Candy Crush.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 21st and June 28th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form after adding the icon below:  The July list is now closed.  The August list will open on 7/28.
  
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. The 2 Week Wait (infertility, humor, TTC)
3. Breathe Gently (new-mum, IVF, PCOS)
4. The Destiny Manifest (stillbirth loss, family, life)
5. The Noona Musings (IVF, university, crap)
6. My Lady of the Lantern (neonatal loss, parenting rainbow baby, thinking TTC again)
7. Mommy-At-Last (ivf toddler twins)
8. Emma in Mommyland (sahm pregnancy, life)
9. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, cats)
10. Dangled Carat (marriage, relationships, love)
11. My Violet Thoughts (ivf#2, toddler, infertility)
12. Stupid Broken Eggs (infertility, life, marriage )
13. Ready for My Bundle (new mom after ivf, smc, family)
14. Baby On Mind (infertility, adoption, embryo adoption)
15. Waiting for Baby (PCOS, thyroid, vasectomy reversal)
16. Team Harries Beats Infertility (faith, hope, holistic)
17. Who Shot Down My Stork? (IVF, life, unexplained IF)
18. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (parenting post ART, infertility, navigating life)
19. Life Of An Army Wife (army, infertility, crafting)
20. the infertile chemist (IVF, diminished ovarian reserve, chemistry)
21. The Stars Apart (neonatal loss, grief, waiting to ttc)
22. In Quest of a Binky Moongee (first IVF, infertility, faith)
23. Premature Ovarian Failure… oops premature ovarian insufficiency (premature ovarian failure, infertility)
24. Thought Provoking Moments (IVF, parenting after losses, multiples pregnancy)
25. torthúil (fertility, reflections, goals)
26. My journey through infertility, pregnancy & loss (infertility, loss, IVF)
27. Searching for our silver lining (pregnancy after IF/loss, twins, healing)
28. His & Her Infertility (azoo, PCOS, adoption)
29. A Bliss Filled Life (open adoption after UI, acceptance, parenting)
30. Recurrent Loss and Moving Forward (recurrent miscarriage, surrogacy, grief)
31. Rasta Less Traveled (infant loss, surrogacy in India, donor eggs)
32. Our Journey to Cameroon (pregnant after loss, faith, ministry)
33. Comatised (love, life, happiness)
34. Creating a Family (infertility, adoption, adoptive parenting)
35. TTC Baby E3 (IVF #2, baby #3, high-risk pregnancy)
36. Non Sequitur Chica (pregnancy, IVF, life)
37. One Step at a Time (baby after infertility)
38. The Second Bedroom (infertility weight)
39. Just Another Infertility Blog (infertilty IVF life)
40. Hidden Infertility (Infertility, TTC, loss)
41. Recipes for Lemons (infertility, loss, adoption)
42. Life As I Know It (twins, toddler, life)
43. A little blog about the big infertility (PCOS, TTC, RPL)
44. It’s Just a Box of Rain (parenting post-adoption/ IF, TTC again, self-acceptance)
45. Stepping Stones (step-parenting while infertile)
46. InfertilityLand Is Not Like Disneyland (IVF, loss, life)
47. Baby Makin’ (pcos, ttc baby #1)
48. No Good Eggs (donor eggs, IVF, frozen cycle)
49. Forgetting to remember to forget (adoption, mastiffs, infertility)
50. Learning To Let Go (#2 after IVF, infertility, hope)
51. Fearlessly Infertile (domestic adoption, losing weight, parenting)
52. Faire Faire (pcos, iui, randomness)
53. Journey For My Baby (ivf, infertility, pregnancy)
54. How I Spend My Dash (twins, parenting, life)
55. Child of the Universe (ivf, loss, medicine)
56. The July list is now closed.  The August list will open on 7/28.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is blue, the next month it will be purple, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

There was a post I edited on BlogHer today that I think brilliantly touches on a very sticky subject in the infertility community: hating on the Internet.  Oh, I think it’s fairly rare that we get the type of all out hate going in our community that she discusses in her post, in the same way that in my very liberal, East coast community we rarely get blatant racism.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t get covert racism.  And I think our community gets this covert pressure, this unspoken (or kindly spoken) message that it’s not okay to be yourself after a certain point in your infertility journey.  And where that point is varies from niche to niche in the infertility community.

Like racism, I think the way through it is to speak about it bluntly.  To look it straight in the eye instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.  Because when you don’t, you get the quiet sort of racism that is prevalent in the north, or the quiet sort of hate that is prevalent on the polite Internet.  If we’re all a little bit racist, then we need to admit that deep down, no matter how kind we think we are, we’re also all just a little bit hateful.

The House Always Wins points out the way we’ve gone from hating things that deserve our disdain, to hating other people for having happy moments.  And when I say “people,” I really mean women.

Contrary to what Heller writes, in the past few years, a wide swath of the social media world has gone from criticizing the terrible shit that needs to be challenged to hating… everything. Apparently, we ran out of bad things to hate (I guess? I’m pretty sure there’s still some racism out there that we didn’t catch), so we started hating the good things, and the earnest, hopeful, without-a-trace-of-irony moments that people once felt safe sharing on social media. Those people being hated are often women, and those moments are often emotional ones. Women who just met a career goal. Women who just got engaged, or who are planning their weddings. Women who are pregnant, or whose IVF finally worked, or whose adoption finally went through. Women talking about hobbies that make them feel confident, happy, and fulfilled.

Yep, IVF success made it on the list, and it should.  IVF success is a perfect example of quiet hate, covert hate.  Rarely (if ever?) has someone started a hate blog about someone who is now finally pregnant after infertility treatments.  But that doesn’t mean that they haven’t gotten a clear message not to talk about their happiness on the Internet.  Whether directly in the form of a comment, or indirectly due to blog posts of others talking about what we shouldn’t talk about on infertility blogs.

It’s also a circular issue: bloggers who speak clearly about how they stop reading other bloggers once they achieve pregnancy then turn around to complain about how no one is reading them anyone once they become pregnant.

And still, there is — when we’re talking about an emotional topic — elements of sensitivity that come into play.  No one who is struggling wants to be reminded that they’re still struggling while someone else has moved ahead to the next leg of the journey.  No one wants to see their life choices put down.  How do we share our good news without being smug, record our pregnancy or parenting milestones without being accused of insensitivity, or move on to living child-free without it being treated as commentary on other ways to resolve infertility?

Because, frankly, I believe that pregnancy and parenting after infertility as well as living child-free after infertility has a place in the actively-treating infertility community, and I always have.  For seven years, I’ve been talking about this circular issue, and why it’s worth supporting those who now out of the trenches because they still have very understanding hands that want to reach backwards and comfort.  And yet, here we are, still discussing this quiet hating.  And perhaps hating is too strong a term, but what else do we call this tendency for women to snark on other women?  Even if you’ve been lucky enough to avoid it yourself, most of us have seen these types of incidents play out in our corner of the blogosphere.

The House Always Wins states that women need to stop adding an asterisk after all their happy news, but I don’t think it’s that simple in our community.  There is a sensitivity line we need to walk, and a blog that completely ignores its readership isn’t having a conversation: it’s talking at vs. talking with.  But how do we take this idea of asking women to support other women and apply it to our unique situation?

Because I don’t want people to water down their content, as The House Always Wins says.  I don’t want people to withhold their story or not talk about their happiness or present a skewed version of their life after treatments because they think it’s what other people want to hear.  Sweeping the reality of pregnancy or parenting or living child-free after infertility under the rug helps no one: it certainly doesn’t help the writer who needs to vent, and it certainly doesn’t help the reader who gets a very unrealistic picture of life after treatments or adoption.

So how do we stop apologizing for our happiness and start continuing to record life, all the while being sensitive?

It’s a hard mixture to achieve.