Time for a Purple Scare FAQ:

When is your due date? Mid-October.

Is it a boy or a girl? Yes. We won't know which, though, until B-Day. Meanwhile, we're referring to our growing family member as "Bizzleburp".

"Bizzleburp"? Are you serious? Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It's Greg the Bunny's Puppish name, and appropriately onomatopoetic for the anti-social sound effects I've been experiencing since the early weeks. Don't worry, we'll come up with something better for the birth certificate.

When are you returning to the other side of the Atlantic? No later than September 1.

Where will you live? Good question. Know any good realtors?

How long will you be back in North America? Ummmm...good question.

Here's the story: Last winter, I asked my employer for a leave of absence starting when my contract here was up (fall 2004). My employer agreed. Shortly after my employer agreed to this, we learned about Bizzleburp. Around the time Bizzleburp is supposed to show up, my employer is going to want to figure out where to send me when my leave is up in Fall 2005. So within a period of about ten weeks, we're going to
1) make a transAtlantic move;
2) figure out how long we're going to be at our new location;
3) figure out whether to rent or buy;
4) settle into said place and unpack several tons of household effects;
5) try to guess where we're going to be in another year; and, oh, yeah,
6) bring another human being into the world and begin nurturing him or her on a 24-7 basis.

So before I even give birth I'm going to have to decide whether I'm going back to work and if so, when.

Are you out of your mind? Not yet. But now you see why I started the vent-a-blog. It's cheaper than escapist chemical recreation and less likely to damage the baby.

That address once again is purplescareblog@yahoo.com.