DLouisianaT: Denese -- a Louisiana Transplant

When I'm Unemployed

2012-01-27T12:18:00.003-06:00

I haven't written a post in a very long time, probably because of the confusion ~~cluster~~ associated with (my former) work and my ~~slow slide and then abrupt drop into the cesspool of unemployment~~ being laid off which technically began in early December ~~December 5th to be exact (yes, Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to me).~~ I'm handling this a lot better than I thought I would ~~I'm not nearly as bitter as I normally would be~~, considering that I do not do well ~~am usually immobilized~~ when I am not employed ~~(and lookie here, I'm writing and not even hate mail to former colleagues)~~. However, I'm finally old enough ~~"ancient enough," something not lost on my former employer when they decided to send me a waiver of an age discrimination claim to sign in order to receive the pittance they call my severance payment~~ to figure out how to stave off any negative emotional consequences ~~that black hole of depression~~, which means that, I have remedied that ~~pain in my ass~~ pain-in-my-psyche by a pain-in-my-(literal)-neck-and arms, which ~~I'm thinking about using to file a workman's compensation claim so that I can really stick it to my former employer~~ I prefer, by the way.

Due to expert advice from ~~busybodies~~ Facebook friends and coaches of all sorts, looking-for-the-good in the not-so-good has become a ~~mask I put on every freaking morning~~ part of my new life. And because I like to catalog things, I've created a list of ~~the truly horrible consequences~~ benefits that come from being unemployed ~~useless~~. So, here is ~~the beginning of what might become a very long list of stuff, depending on the length of my leisuredom~~ my positive take on the five benefits of being unemployed. So far it:

1. Allows me the flexibility to work at any time of the day or night that pleases me ~~sleep in, not shower, and work in my pajamas all day until my husband begs me to wash myself if I want him to sleep in the marital bed~~;

2. Gives me the freedom to go out for lunch at a nice restaurant at whatever time I would like and for as long as I would like ~~(wait, I don't have the money to eat out anymore so I chew on Kraft cheese food, something that could remind you of Brie if you hold your nose)~~ and with whom I would like (~~let's face it, there's noone to eat with because everyone else has a valuable career they're chasing and my former co-workers can't stand me)~~;

3. Allows me to spend quality time with ~~(gripe at)~~ my husband, children and mother ~~(if you can't kick your family when you're down, who can you kick?).~~

4. Gives me the satisfaction of hearing from numerous recruiters and potential employers about what a wonderful career I've had and how much money they would like to pay me if only I would consider their offers ~~(who am I kidding, all I receive are rejection letters, and sometime email notices telling me that I've already applied for a certain job 3 times).~~

5. Having the satisfaction of spreading the benefit of my experience to not-for-profits doing volunteer work ~~(screw that, I couldn't be elected to my neighborhood board, even though there was a dearth of applicants).~~

So, here you are, proof that tough experiences produce profound growth ~~incredible suffering and~~ the space to give back ~~a waste of talent.~~

Check back later for more tidbits from this incredible learning experience. I would bet that they never stop coming.

What is your Dream-Life?

2011-07-31T18:06:00.004-05:00

After looking at pictures of a friend's life in Africa and pictures of what seemed like a daily safari, a question crept up on me and it hasn't let me go. The question was: What would your perfect life be, Denese, if you had it to fashion all over again? I know that I am a 53 year old captive, by my own design by the way, of my family life here in Louisiana; but still, it's a question I have to ask as I go forward on this journey, which might last another 30 or more years.

Here are a few of the things that come to mind:

1. I need to live on or within steps of the water, preferably the Ocean or Gulf, but rivers and lakes will do;
2. Give me a walking/biking and skating path outside my door to trip about on in the early morning after I wake;
3. Let me walk or if I have to drive, give me an ultra short drive to my dry cleaners, favorite coffee shop, restaurant, library and bookstore;
4. I need to live within walking or mass transportation distance from cultural activities, like the theater, opera and art museums; Please save me from suburbia and/or commutes and the strip malls and concrete avenues that come with them: they depress me;
5. Let me gather with like-minded individuals who understand there is a need to focus on things that count (e.g., fair treatment and rights of human beings, poverty, racism, adequate nutrition, happiness) and not things that don't (like issues that are manufactured by isms, including but not limited to anti-gay marriage);
6. Bless me with meaningful work paid to a degree that I can support myself in the present and in retirement, with a little left over to help my kids/grandkids/friends. Even when I'm old, give me the opportunity to contribute and be rewarded for what I give;
7. And let me live in a place where "community" is possible. To know the bonds of friendship, conversation, shared food and drink over a long span of time is priceless. No matter the amenities of the physical space where I live, that's something I don't want to give up (again).

Please help me to find such a place not only in Oregon in the summer, but in Louisiana for the other 9 months out of the year. I've waited an awfully long time (18 years) to realize these dreams that are central to who I am. I've put in my time for everyone else and I think I'm due.

This is still my country & I'm fighting for & celebrating it

2011-06-30T17:34:00.019-05:00

For the last 10 years or so I feel like I've been fighting a battle to reclaim the heart and soul of my country (one person at a time). In this effort I spend an inordinate amount of time:

arguing with bloggers who think that the individual mandate in health insurance reform is unconstitutional.
wrangling with co-workers who think that we should be able to do whatever we wish, even if that means shirking our responsibility to shoulder our own weight (and sometimes a little bit extra if we can) in the social contract we call our society.
debating with folks who claim that they don't owe their neighbors anything.
and tangling with those who think that the middle class should support public goods and services but exempt corporations and the rich from those same responsibilities.

I'm tired of lecturing people who don't have compassion for their fellow human beings. A lot of good it does. But, you already knew that.

No argument I can drum up, no matter how persuasive, is going to convince my increasingly Libertarian-minded friends and family that they should do anything for anyone else unless they choose to do so at any specific period in time. This apparently leaves out supporting legislation for assistance of any kind because someone else might not want to give in the same way or in the same amount that I do. My question is, "When will your act of benevolence occur, when you're passing the plate during Christmas services?"

This brings me to what has become my biggest fight of all-- maintaining my Christian orientation. Many of the people who thrum the drumbeat of Individual Freedom, State's Rights and Anti-Federalism are Christians. I am one of the few people I know who still labels herself a Christian. Most of my compassionate friends have abandoned Christianity because of that community's move towards conservatism, individualism, anti-multiculturalism, anti-minority, anti-poor and anti-anyone or anything that is not successful. Since when were vulnerabilities considered weaknesses-- or an abandonment by God?

Buddhism is much more appealing to people who think like me, because of the philosophy's concept of Oneness. I was brought up with this concept in my Christian home, but honestly, I am hard pressed to find it articulated in mainstream Christian circles today. I think this is because you can't market it very well with the self-obsessed.

So, what am I to do? I could get "with the program." Honestly-- I get the idea of reaping rewards for belonging to the right (religious/ethnic) group. It's an easy spirit to groove to: tantalizingly simple and self-affirming. It's great being right and therefore chosen and living a life of abundance without guilt. I've had a lot of success in my life so it's easy to correlate the two (success and Christianity, that is).

The truth is that my conscience won't let me do this, which is unfortunate because it would sure be a lot easier if it would. You see, I *know* that in large part I've gotten to where I am because of our family resources, the color of our skin, and the hearts of my parents and in-laws who have lifted us up with consistent emotional and financial support over so many years. I can't imagine not having a family to bail us out of too many doctor bills or tuition payments (for grad or preschool). I don't know what we would have done as a young family without my parents buying us a mattress, bringing us a chicken, or buying me a dress for graduation.

I know everyone doesn't have the support I do.

So helping others with health insurance, which I consider a necessity-- no, more than that, a fundamental right-- is one of the easier decisions I've made. Plus, I can live with myself. I sleep at night.

So, Happy Independence Day from a Patriot who will keep on fighting.

When Another Woman Inspires Your Partner-- Thinking Through My Response

2011-06-29T19:41:00.000-05:00

Rich is home from Portland and in fine spirits. He is up early, singing to himself as he readies himself for work. He kisses me goodbye on the forehead before he darts out of the house and into his truck for the commute to work. He was so unusually kind and attentive last night (as compared to his moody demeanor for the last many months) as we ate dinner and watched my Netflix-movie-picks (he usually hates them, by the way) that I had to ask him about the reason for his change of heart and new bouyant persona.

Given that opening-- and my seemingly innocuous, non-threatening invitation to share-- he felt comfortable enough to tell me that the impetus for his jolly change of heart came from his heart-to-heart with a female, Chinese collaborator, with whom he talked at length for the past week when he was at his annual meeting out-West.

Deep in-take of breath, trying to maintain my composure. Big smile.

I hear that the topic of conversation for this very "Christian" woman and my "Agnostic" husband is--doing the right thing, acting the right way, being the right partner. Apparently, he's been moved by her example (her experience-- she's engaged).

Tell me why I'm not thrilled over this development?...Isn't any vehicle for the dissemination of important news heaven-sent? Why do I feel so suspicious?

I should be thankful. Right?

Why I Keep My Mother at Home

2011-05-06T09:46:00.002-05:00

My mother has mid-stage probable Alzheimer's Disease or some related dementia and as my friend Susan says, "has become toxic." This week she is suspicious of and furious with me because of the form we need to fill out for her Long Term Care (LTC) Insurer. It requires her caregiver to mark the amount of time she spends on each task listed at the bottom of the form. Toileting, transferring, bathing and other Activities of Daily Living (ADL) are arrayed in the little box at the end of the page. So are "constant supervision due to cognitive limitations" and "medication supervision," as well as "cuing" for other ADLs, all of which apply. The major task in taking care of my mother is to be present, as she shouldn't be home alone anymore for the whole day. And when one of mom's three insidious chronic diseases present themselves, she needs ferrying to the doctor's office sometimes multiple times a day. Plus, someone should be there to make sure she eats, is safe getting in and out of the shower and dressing.

The problem comes because my mother doesn't think anything is wrong with her so she wants her caregiver to mark down only that she does "housekeeping," which is clearly not just unreimbursable but is likely to get the LTC policy discontinued. This weekend she accused me of making her caregiver commit fraud by lying on the insurance form.

And then today she tried to sell a Currier and Ives print from my childhood without telling me. She asked both of my children if they wanted it, but not me. I think she is trying to hurt me. My eldest says I'm making more of it than it is. My husband agrees with me. And here you see the beginning of a feud in my own home.

Therein lies much of the problem.

I have these forms spread out on my kitchen table, trying to fill out the ones that need tending so that mom gets reimbursed. Mom showed up in our bedroom today where I was hiding out, and wanted to see every form before I mail it, which means I have to confront her with the truth, which means that mom will be furious and life will be very nasty for a long, long time, or at least every week when I have to deal with LTC housekeeping. I did not sleep last night.

I really think that subterfuge and lying are the way to go here. Agree with her to her face, and send in the forms like crazy behind her back.

Our family therapist, mom's physician and a friend all tell me that maybe it's time for mom to be moved to a more appropriate environment, if only to save my sanity, marriage and possibly my relationship with my mother. However, sending her away seems like breaking a sacred trust. Just as I wouldn't send my husband away in similar circumstances, or my children, I wouldn't send my mother away. So, other than that, why do I keep my mother here in my house?

I think while writing, so I thought that writing the reasons mom should be at home would help me to better consider my alternative courses of action. So, here we go...

My mother lives in an addition on our house because:

She took care of me for the first 18 years of my life, sometimes when I was not so loveable and I owe her the gift of living where she wants to live.
She has helped us tremendously as a married couple with emotional support (when she was able) and financial support (when she was cognitively intact) and we owe her this much.
She paid for the beautiful addition on our house where she lives; we committed to caring for her and shouldn't renege on that promise unless we can come up with the money the addition is worth to set her up in another living arrangement. The sky will fall before that happens.
I'm a gerontologist and I know what happens to elders who are moved without their consent; they die.
She shouldn't be moved unless she wants to move.
She paid for a LTC policy and has the money to bring in a caregiver to take care of many of her needs during the day, which lightens the burden on us.
Paying for a nursing home or other extended care arrangement would be like throwing away money because her LTC policy wouldn't be needed or used; what a waste.
She is a part of our family; our children, grandchildren, grand nieces and nephews love having her here; so do we, but less and less often these days.
Her garden improves our quality of life; if she wasn't here it would be a weed bed or filled with stones and ugly red bark dust.
What would I do without my mother's love, because surely I would lose it if I moved her?
I could never forgive myself.
And finally: Some things you just do.

I knew that there was never another course of action but to keep mom at home, but writing it out helps me see the many reasons why that's so. At this point, if I could just get her to stop barging into our house to use our washing machine (she has a beautiful one in her own place) I think that half of the battle would be won.

The Nuclear Energy Issue and Other Ill-Fated Policies

2011-03-13T14:40:00.008-05:00

The probable meltdowns that are now occurring at two (now the press says three) nuclear power plants in Japan started me thinking, again about the issue of nuclear power. You would think that as an intelligent people, we've had sufficient warnings of the risks involved in using nuclear power. I remember the Chernobyl meltdown and the Three Mile Island disaster, and know of people that have probably been exposed to nuclear radiation as a result of each.

This situation with nuclear power reminds me of another ill-fated energy issue: the recent recent BP disaster on one of their deep water drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico that spread 205 gallons of crude oil along 280 or so miles of the Louisiana coastline just last year. Not enough redundant safety systems, and those that they had were probably never going to be sufficient.

Where there's money involved, we will apparently find it impossible to err on the side of safety or sanity.

Despite how unlikely an event is judged to be, if the worst case scenario is an unremediable disaster that we can't figure out how to prevent, then it seems to me we shouldn't do it. Economic benefit/cost analyses be damned, particularly where the economists involved have an economic interest in the venture, whether they rely on employment in the oil company or the governmental agency regulating it.

The value they place on things like clean air and water are just made up numbers anyway. Sort of like the valuation of life years involved in the Pinto (Ford) debacle. The "fix" to their fuel system would have cost them $11 per car, but the cost/benefit analysis came out on the side of not fixing the design flaw ($50 million dollars' value placed on deaths versus the $137 million dollars it would have cost them to fix their cars). At least jurors had the right idea, awarding $128 million dollars in damages in the first court case, which was trimmed back by $125 million by the appellate judge, as a "matter of law."

If I had to bet on endeavors of the human race versus acts of nature (or chaos) I'd go with nature/chaos every time.

But I digress:

In pondering, writing, speaking to friends and researching the effects of nuclear radiation, I came across information that led me to believe that my mother, a cancer survivor might be eligible for compensation for living near nuclear testing sites. Apparently if you lived in certain counties in Nevada from 1951 to 1958 for 2 years and you got cancer (from bladder to brain to breast-- there's a list) you're called a "downwinder" and there's a trust set up for you by the US government to compensate you for being exposed to their 200 some nuclear tests --and, bonus, you get $50,000. My mother-- who had breast breast cancer twice, lived in Reno, NV in the county of Washoe in the early 1950s. Alas, too far to the west.

Here is the website for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Fund:
http://www.justice.gov/civil/torts/const/reca/about.htm

The "downwinders compensation fund" was only established via an amendment to a federal statute for miners and military employees, in the year 2000.

Here is my family Atlas. The yellow areas are those where the "downwinders" can receive compensation for radiation exposure from nuclear testing

Another friend just suggested that mom might have been exposed to radiation from nuclear waste from the Hanford Plant that has seeped into the water tables in Oregon and Washington. My mother was raised in Grays River, WA and lived in Portland, OR for most of her life. And it is true that all of our proximate neighbors on 23rd Street in Portland had cancers, mostly breast cancers that weren't fatal. However, our neighbors to the rear of us were stricken with breast cancer (the mom) and a lymphoma (the son, my age) that caused both of their deaths.

Post Script:

Now the Japanese press is saying that the wind is blowing toward the ocean and not toward the populace in the vicitinities involved. That's supposed to be good news. What a consolation. What about my people on the West Coast?

My Life's Lesson

2011-02-13T15:06:00.000-06:00

I know my Life's Lesson.

It should be etched on my brain because I keep forgetting it, and that act of forgetting triggers some cosmic event that makes me remember it over and over again. This weekend it was an event with my son J that whacked me back into alignment. The thromping always hurts, and not less each time, like you might suppose would happen, considering that I replay the lesson again and again.

It all started on Friday night. The whole family went to a dinner in honor of one of LSU's best alumni fundraisers-- a dear friend and the children's surrogate grandfather. I was proud of all of us for showing up, despite having to meet a report deadline that night, in R's case; despite no babysitter and little grandchildren in attendance, in D & B's case; and despite it taking up a chunk of a Friday night, in J's case.

So, there I was basking in the glow of my priorities-in-alignment-family when J and I began to hyperfocus on each other. He thought I was moving too fast, and talking too loud, and I thought he seemed a little too pulled apart, at loose ends; discombobulated. I'm like Pavlov's Dog. Once I see what I think are signs of a lack of focus, I start drilling him on his life. How's school? Is he going to class? Is he studying? How are his grades? Should he be going to that outdoor concert, on Spring Break, out later? This despite him getting great grades last semester, and "A"cing all of his tests last week.

This makes him talk louder, move quicker and back away. The last text I received from him before bed was, "there is always some sort of miscommunication between us."

Gah.

And even if these great academic accomplishments were lacking, I mean, really, is it my nagging that is going to steer him on the right course? I think not.

So, what's my Life's Lesson?

My lesson is the pain I inflict on myself and my loved ones when I try to control them. It's not like I want to keep J -- or anyone else for that matter -- from having fun. Really. It's just that I don't want him to do anything that would make him experience something bad. So: go to class everyday; do your homework; get enough sleep; don't overdo it; find a nice girl; Then you won't: get bad grades; drop your classes; flunk out of school; lose your scholarship; be arrested; get hurt.

You think this is normal for a mother, don't you? Well, I did too until I realized -- over and over again unfortunately -- that if he doesn't experience these "bad" things, or others like them for himself he won't be able to learn the life skills to be able to achieve the very things I want for him.

It's not when will he ever learn?

It's when will I ever learn?

I am so dense.

It's not the things I want for him.

It's the things he wants for himself.

Shootings

2011-01-09T12:47:00.000-06:00

I don't have a political commentary to report following the shootings on Saturday in Tuscon, AZ. What I do want to do is to create a space to remember them, in the case of Judge John Roll and to pray for their recovery, in the case of Gabrielle Giffords. I think we need to center ourselves on what is good and right before we can plan a way forward that is good and right.

I will leave it to others to go after the inciters, as I can tell that by focusing on agitators like Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin that I will sink into the abyss of hatred. I don't want to do that. I would rather that they and others of their ilk would become irrelevant in the shadow of a political movement designed around love, understanding and reconciliation. That might sounds stupid but it didn't at various times in the history of our world. We had Martin Luther King, Jr., India had Gandhi, I know that Sri Lanka has Dr. Aritiratne.

So, I am thinking about how to proceed. I think one thing is for sure, and that's that I'll become involved in politics in some concrete way at the local level. Writing is good. Talking is good. Action is better.

So, God Bless the deceased. Let us not let their lives to have been lost in vain.

Sweet and Salty Christmas Reflections: The Origin of our Traditions

2010-12-26T13:48:00.027-06:00

Most people have some sort of holiday tradition this time of year, whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or name that holiday. My family's traditions are Christian, but are probably as much unlike other Christian traditions are they are like them. Our celebration has changed throughout the years to incorporate new family members, like my husband, and our children, the family of the mother of our son's children, and our baby grandchildren. Sometimes tradition changes manifest themselves as a "work around" other people's celebrations. Sometimes we create them to accommodate an individual's beloved personality traits (Daniel) or ineptitude or exhaustion (me). But, their core pretty much remains the same or has for the last 25 years.

Here are some of my favorite Christmas traditions and the people who inspired them:

1. We always open presents on Christmas Eve, after dinner, in the glow of candles and a lit and decorated tree. The origin of this tradition is my mother's Swedish family, originally from Sunne in Varmland, Sweden, later from the farming town of Gray's River, WA where they ultimately settled. They would decorate the tree on Christmas Eve, eat a late dinner and receive Santa, replete with presents, after midnight. The children might have slept all afternoon, but the women were up for days preparing the Christmas fest. Those poor women. They were sturdier than I.

We've adapted this a bit-- no Santa, no late tree trimming, no staying up past midnight to open presents, but the evening tradition lives on. My husband came from a morning-present-opening-family, so adapting to the Christmas eve celebrations leaves him a bit wanting. However, having Daniel, who was physically unable to "wait" for anything, helped chauffer this day-early tradition along, and now that we have grandchildren who celebrate on Christmas morning with their mother, the celebration timing is settled. We did add opening presents in stockings on Christmas morning, to bring a little of my husband's traditions to share. I confess that this hasn't amounted to much these past years, as the stockings are generally filled with an abundance of Chap Stick (long story, having to do with husband's families' very dry lips and him having initiated our small children into same habit years ago) and not much else, which isn't very inspiring. I vow to do better next year.

and

2. We always eat the same sugary and salty foods every Christmas. I'm not sure why. I just remember that we have always had cranberry salad, pumpkin pie, stuffing with giblets, green beans, carrots, and mustard sauce.

For the fresh cranberry salad-- my mother grinds the cranberries and for days adds and readds sugar to the mix, and then, finally, tops the confection off with nuts and whipping cream. I picture blond women performing this same ritual all over Sweden, maybe outside in the snow using their ice-skate blades as knives, almost like I see Italian women of old stomping grapes for wine, but the Italians labor in nicer weather. Fortunately, we generally have use of a Cuisinart (that has apparently imploded this year) so the chopping is manageable. This year it died and my mother struggled with various mutilating utensils, like our blender and that little handheld chopper you see on informericals, neither of which seemed to serve very well. There is a fine line between chopping and mashing. You can tell what we will get her for an early Christmas present next year.

We also have mom's pumpkin pie, a unique version that incorporates fresh spices, like cinnamon and ginger. My dad always said it was the best pumpkin pie ever, which clinched that tradition. My poor mother used to despair in the making of it until she found the pre-made and pre-rolled Pillsbury piecrust in her grocer's dairy case. That stuff is magic and it tastes good. It also makes my mother happy and calmer for the holidays. I used to consider writing Mr. Pillsbury a letter of thanks for saving our family holidays and may still do so.

I have taken over Win and Oz's sweet potato roll, which has to have a bit of orange juice, butter, milk, brown sugar and nuts (in Oregon it was Walnuts, here in LA it's Pecans) in it. It used to be carefully placed in a wreath shaped tin and baked. However, Win and my mother were the only two individuals on the planet who could get the contents out, in the right presentation, without gouges and ill placed nuts and onto the Lenox china plate for the Christmas dinner table (the secret is in buttering and flouring the tin beforehand, and then placing it in the refrigerator to chill before baking, or so they say). I admit I am a miserable failure at this, but mine still tastes good, and sometimes I vary the recipe; this year I added baked apples. That sort of makes up for the lack of presentation. Or that's what I say anyway. The truth is my kids just want me to quit putting fruit in their food.

Daniel usually does my Aunt Eileen's fresh green beans with onions, bacon, celery and a bit of tart barbeque sauce because Aunt Eileen is gone and he has been dubbed, "the bacon fryer." Richard was supposed to take over dad's stuffing because dad's gone, and Rich loves internal organy things and he doesn't have a cooking job (he wraps presents). And James was supposed to be the orange carrot man, just because; although I wouldn't care what vegetable he cooked as long as it was a vegetable. This year I did it all myself -- but I somehow missed fixing the stuffing. I think I'll make a run to the store tonight and pick up the fixings to have with whatever leftovers are "left" "over" (aren't there supposed to be leftovers? All we have now is a bit of sweet potato and ham).

Finally, we have Honey Baked Ham because my mother adores it. Either mom or I make Aunt Lucy's mustard sauce (the tartest sauce you can have without it being 100% vinegar) so that I can eat it (the ham). We've all but given up on cooking for Thanksgiving -- we order out, and that's when I get my turkey, otherwise I suppose I'd cook one of those for Christmas too.

Just so you know-- children-- the recipes for all our traditional dishes are stuck inside various pages of the Fanny Farmer Cookbook in the pantry, next to all of the other cookbooks on the bottom shelf. I think the outside back cover is coming off but you will be able to identify it by the white and yellow crosshatched design that remains still adhered to some of it. Some recipes may also be in the cookbook that my Cousin Shari made for me when dad and I first got married. It's the spiral notebook, whiteish cover, with the little celophane holders for the recipes. Some recipes are jammed behind others. The mustard sauce may not be written down: just remember equal parts of everything, except for the sugar, which is doubled.

and

3. Someone always takes mom to Episcopal Mass, "the midnight one," which isn't even at Midnight anymore as it's at 4:00 in the afternoon and 10:00 o'clock at night. James and I took mom to latter one this year. Mom never stays to the conclusion of the service after the Mass -- she skips out early -- which to be honest, is the wiley card up her sleeve she uses to entice the children to go with her ("we won't stay long...").

This is not a lament really, but the service didn't even seem like one of the traditional Episcopalian ones I used to know, as we only knealt once. We stood most of the time singing ourselves through the hymnal. One thing's a constant: I continue to pitch my voice up into the rafters, which probably embarasses James, but oh well, feel God's presence, and thank him for my family and friends and another year to spend with those that are still here.

What else?

We always say we're not buying presents except for the little kids, because we've spent way too much money on so and so throughout the year; but we always buy for everyone and we always overspend. We are weak and sentimental. We always fight a little bit at some point during the day or night and someone always says, "Can you give me a break!? It's Christmas!" Rich and my mother are the cleaneruppers (Rich mostly the paper, mom mostly the china). Sometimes things get lost (like a gift card this year). But, it is the one time a year when I can be sure that we will rise above it all.

Merry Christmas!

Caregiver's Dementia

2010-12-21T16:23:00.000-06:00

They call it Caregiver's Dementia and I've got it.

I lost my Barnes & Nobel Nook two weeks ago and my glasses and debit card this morning. Fortunately, I "remembered" where the latter two items were, but not the first. The thing is, I'm getting shaky and flustered when this happens, which makes it impossible to remember what I'm trying to remember when I'm trying to remember it.

This feels more like a panic attack.

I think the first step towards swimming my way out of this raging ocean is to stop reading books about dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. I feel like I did in college when I took a psychology class and thought that I had contracted every malady mentioned in the text.

I think the second step is to practice some sort of meditation or relaxation exercise. I know that forced thinking of any kind just makes my mind go blank. Things start to "pop" into my head only when I'm feeling calm and confident. My state of being during these times is the opposite of confident. That doesn't portend well for my job performance either. Fortunately, mom is not at the office.

The third thing I should do is to get some rest.

Today I came home to a mother who thought I owed her $10,000 (again). These sorts of accusations just compound that quaking feeling I have inside. Rather than put her rants in their proper place (which is to set them aside and in a box somewhere until I can muster the energy to deal with them) I began digging through her bank accounts, my bank accounts, and other assorted accounts, printing off materials that would show her where her money had gone (she transfers money from one account to the other, sometimes between as many as 3 accounts in the same day). This took most of my afternoon, somehow exhausted me more and probably won't do me a bit of good in reasoning with her.

Now I have to look forward to figuring out how to deal with her in paying her caregiver directly (which we will eventually be reimbursed for) which may require us to issue a 1099 and pay payroll taxes. I could deal with that. It's just dealing with her confusion over payments and reimbursements that is sure to push her over the edge and cause me more unease.

Good Reads on the Tough Topic of Dementia

2010-12-17T10:04:00.005-06:00

Denial appears to be very functional, particularly for persons with dementia. I know. I live with one (mom's caregiving company "fired us" this last Friday; and I appear to be the only one preoccupied with this. She seems to be unconcerned). Family members heap on an added layer of indifference, to wit: my family asked me, "What's your Plan B?" Notice the possessive pronoun in that question.

It's rough. But, bring in the following excellent books to the rescue.

I've recommended Still Alice by Lisa Genova to many, but what I find missing in that book is an illustration of the behavioral component of dementia, which in my opinion is much worse than the memory loss. What may make that book less helpful to families is that it is fiction that reads like great non-fiction (but it's truly not and therefore misses the mark on truthfulness). It is written by a PhD Neuroscientist about a woman with Early Onset AD, which is an unusual form of AD, and spares familys, comparatively, with its fast decline.

I said comparatively.

I just finished reading, Keeper by Andrea Gillies, that fills that gap in the literature. It is more of a biography of the author's elderly mother-in-law and her life with Alzheimer's Disease (late mid-stage and late-stage I would say) which not only includes all of the emotional and behavioral complications involved, it, by necessity, highlights them. The book is about the disease of a family, as AD or dementia in general, impacts everyone in the family it touches. The family's decline, particularly the author's is as marked as that of the sufferer, "Nancy," her mother-in-law. And because it is true and written by an excellent writer, it is wincingly exposing. I can see myself in every mean thought, every instinct to run away, every instinct to feel self pity, and particularly in what is now my paranoia in my dealings with the geriatric professionals, clinical and social worky, from agencies brought into help. I'm not a good self censurer, and have said way too much to the caregiving agency about my state and my mother's situation. If I had read this book first, I would have been more guarded.

Live and Learn.

Both books are beautifully written. Both include helpful information about AD, and its stages and types.

Self Control? Self Censorship? Or Self-Improvement?

2010-10-30T17:44:00.002-05:00

Why can't *other people* just control themselves...?

Or said another way, why can't people learn to self censure?

I have been struggling with this question for the last few days because I have been irritated at some of the people I live with for their inability to stop criticizing (me). You know the old adage: If you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all.

But, no matter how much I just want peace and quiet I have to ask myself, is self censorship desirable or even a good goal?

If someone is constantly irritated and cranky, and they have the self control to hold it in, isn't it nearly as bad for you and for them as if they just spoke their (cranky) mind? I tend to think that I can read people fairly well, and if I was with a person that was angry all the time, verbalized or not, I'd know. Living with that sort of anger sounds illness inducing. And probably has been.

However, I am reminded that I can't control someone else and what they do or don't do, or what they think or don't think, or feel or don't feel. Yes, those things are outside of my control.

That's too bad because I was going to recommend meditation to attain inner peace and harmony *for the other person.* :-)

What I *can* do I guess, is to encourage communication and problem solving with my house-mates. And I know that I can work on not letting someone else's attitude or problem bother me so much, through meditation, prayer, and inner work.

So, I guess I've answered my own question, even if I don't like the answer so much, because it means work, and change, and self improvement for *me.*

Waiting: for who we will become

2010-10-24T17:22:00.002-05:00

Today I was reminded by a friends' post, that in marriage or in any other partnership we seem to be waiting for the "other person" to blossom into who they have the potental to become. This fact is at the root of relationships, great or small, but especially at the root of marriages, I think. I also think it's at the root of divorces.

If only he would.... If only she could... Some day he will... At some point she'll learn...

My husband and I have 27 years of marriage behind us, and yet after reading my friend's post, I thought, "yes, I'm waiting for my husband to reach his full potential," because of ... because of... [insert issue here]. Does it matter?

Then immediately after this thought knew that surely he was waiting for me to improve in innumerable ways, also.

And then I realized:

What a waste of time. What a pity. What an example of "expectations" gone awry.

You would think that after nearly 30 years I would certainly know that who we are is what counts, and that the best of each of us should be celebrated each day.

The rest can be mourned once overcome.

So, here's a reminder to celebrate what we become daily.

Luck or planning?: Where do you fall in this philosophical debate?

2010-09-26T18:30:00.002-05:00

Recently, I commented to an on-line friend that she was "lucky." I said it because of her ability to be grateful for all things in her life and her obviously caring, mutually supportive and sustainable long-term relationship. She is an example of how to integrate the spiritual with the material, and the mundane with the inspirational.
My friend replied that her beautiful life, which is full of challenges by the way, and how she has managed it, is a choice.

So, I come back to the fundamental question:

How much of our lives are planned? How much of life is purely random or the result of luck?

To Plan or not to Plan, that is the Question

2010-09-12T17:20:00.021-05:00

Image thanks to Christie Abshire Butcher's Students at the University of Texas, Austin

A friend, known as Artfish on Open Salon, posted the following on her facebook page:

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

To which I shot back:

"That's where the cat and I differ-- I don't think it matters where you want to go, there is always a right road to take."

My response touched off a conversation about "mistakes" that led into a discussion about the role of "planning," which now that I think about it, was probably a conversation about the role of "self determination" in living a "successful life."

Okay so I think too much, but that quote touched a nerve.

I think it struck me because for the first 40 years of my life I lived via the extreme planning method that was advocated to all of us (educated people) in fact, through the education process, whether in high school or college or graduate school, which, in short, was, "if you don't have a plan in life, you'll never get there." Never mind where "there" was. But, you'd never get "there." So, be afraid, be very afraid; and I was very afraid that I would never amount to anything.

Let me elaborate on what this method "meant:" You made a plan, generally in writing, for the next year (short-term), and the next five years and ten years (long-term) and then planned, generally in writing, how to set about trying to accomplish it. This process was reevaluated every year, preferably near the New Year, as far as I knew, though I'm not sure why, and life was assured to consist of some ordered (and successful) trajectory.

Living life by this method was a better guarantee of "success" than the "other method," which I assumed was "just drifting through life." I guessed that drifting through life meant that you didn't get an education, lived in a trailer park, had children by various fathers and never married.... or some kind of life as equally "unsuccessful sounding" as *that.*

Okay I had anxieties.

The first little crack in this philosophy appeared as I graduated from college in 1982 in one of the worst recessions in years and couldn't find but a secretarial job. This was not what I was led to believe should happen. I deserved some recognition of some sort. And I didn't get it. I was special, damn it. Plus, I planned.

To recover from this unpleasant and unplanned scenario, I just planned some more. I set my sights set on law school, which was supposed to solve all career snafus as I would be on a bona fide career track. Undergraduate degrees, obviously, no longer trained you for anything, so an advanced career track, like law school would fit the bill. Getting into law school was a chore and I don't want to belabor that time in my life. But, if you think that getting into law school was a chore, practicing it, with children, then with a possible move to Vancouver BC (which I bucked) then with a move to Louisiana (which I accepted, naively) was impossible. I struggled for years, mainly because I was so focused on my "law school" career, which I had written down, that I couldn't see beyond it or outside it, and I was miserable.

My husband can attest to years of misery.

At some point during these years of unmet goals, I had a breakdown and went to see a therapist, who fortunately was a spiritual person. Thank goodness for someone that believed in life, rather than the plans of small human beings.

I learned to plan but to be open to the possibilities that "life" (or God, if you are so inclined) throws at you. My first great opportunity was to take advantage of the time I had "off" to pursue involvement with a lifelong passion-- the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, a development organization in Sri Lanka that I fell in love with when I was 19 years old.

The second was to "study" gerontology, another passion. No goals. No nothing. These two passions intersected for me and I have years of volunteer and consultant, development and aging work to show for it, including another MS and a PhD. None of it planned.

I also "happened upon" a Duke post-doc, not planned, and went for that. When I got back, I "happened upon" a position of directing numerous evaluations of state social programs. And after that, I "stumbled upon" a job with private industry as their director of chronic care research, a gerontologist position that has been more than I ever could have imagined.

So, after the last 12 years of a fabulous life, I have to say that I am an advocate for being open to the Big Picture. You can plan, but be guided by your passion and by opportunities that present themselves to you, whether in "your field" and "within your plans" or not. Trust your gut. If you can help it, don't make "lists" (which I also used to do -- you know, listing the "pros" and the "cons" of a scenario).

Do what drives you. Be in love with your life. Follow the possibilities.

In that way, I truly believe, there will never be a "wrong road." All roads presented to you will be or will lead to the "right ones," divinely inspired, if you are so inclined.

A dream I lost today

2010-08-23T18:18:00.003-05:00

I was really down today because the condo I had been planning to buy on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon was sold. Condos that were similar, though not as perfect, were still on the market but for a lot more money. I wanted my 180 degree view of the river and the marina below, near the biking and walking trails littered with wildflowers and tall grasses that led to Cottonwood Cove, a beach laden with water soaked logs for climbing and smooth stones for skipping.

I had pictured myself waking up in the morning and taking my bike from the closet to ride out my door and along the river path, where you can grab a handful of Brown eyed Susans or those wild faintly pink roses that grow with abandon in my hometown. I want to be able to roll out of bed in the morning and pull on some sweats and a t-shirt and slide the canoe from the top of the car into the water for a morning paddle. Maybe we'll even have a small skiff or sailboat moored in the marina below that I could take for a spin. I want to read the paper from the deck of my home and breath in the smell of river air and rain over the eggs my lover has made for me. I want to love my partner in that room with the 180 degree view of the water and the mountains, knowing we are finally in the place we are meant to be, living as we should.

I'm not interested in retiring, oh no. I will still engage in life. I picture myself taking the tram into town to work and back or to shop and back or to the doctor's office and back. I long to *not* drive my car for a year, and have it not be a burden, because I don't need to.

You must agree that the life I envision appears divine? So, you can see why I slumped around most of the rest of the day based on this feeling of loss for a place I had never lived in and a life I had never had. But, I'm a regrouper. My heart skipped a beat and a smile spread over my face when I started looking at other properties in Bellingham and Whidby Island, WA, and one in particular that I loved on the banks of a meandering creek in Salida, CO. I convinced myself that the specific locale wasn't what I needed, it was a home with a particular aesthetic, and that aesthetic had a lot to do with water, and living near an informed town center, and of course the west. Don't forget the west. Don't forget freedom. This has a lot to do with freedom.

I guess that all of this would make sense if the plans I made were based in any way in reality, but they aren't, and I know it. This is all a part of a game I play with myself lately called "transporting myself anywhere but here," or "living the life I am entitled to but can't," or "walking and swimming just outside your door in a temperate climate."

Or I would be happy, if only...children, my spouse, grandchildren, my mother and my job were transported somewhere else and some of them were something that they're not.

That day is just never going to come

2010-08-17T15:32:00.008-05:00

I'd like to live at the beach

I went over to mom's house this morning to see how she was feeling. She lives in my backyard, so it's just a short walk.

She has had a bladder infection that just won't go away, despite being put on a low dose of antibiotics for months, and despite being prescribed another type of antibiotic in a stronger dose last week. She was allergic to the second antibiotic, which caused spasms in her bladder. The pain made her panic, which very nearly meant an ER visit, but we managed to get her into see her doctor on short notice. So, now she's on a third antibiotic that I hope is ridding her body of this latest nasty UTI, and some sort of pain medication that seems to be easing the symptoms a bit. Of all of the physical problems she has, these urinary tract infections are the worst.

yadayadayada. I know. Now you're bored. I'm bored in the telling.

So:

I arrived at her house when she was in mid-conversation with her caregiving company. I could tell that it was them because her conversation was peppered with "4 hours" and "she didn't tell me she couldn't come on Wednesdays" and "how much do you pay her?" When I arrive in the middle of these things I feel like I maybe shouldn't listen, even though I am the "responsible party" (how I'm hating that). They were trying to explain something to her, and she was trying to come to some decision, but she wound herself into such a whirl of frustration that she became visibly upset, and physically aphasic, and finally spit out, "never mind then!" and hung up the phone.

I think I physically cringed when she finally looked at me because I was scared and because I knew how the visit was going to go, which was not well. And it didn't. Go well. After an uncomfortable conversation, with me trying to brace myself against her anger, my visit with my mother ended with her parting shots: "You should have thought of that when you took my car away," and, "You are making my life miserable."

I turned around and walked home and called her caregiving company to complain about things that were making her upset, even though I know nothing is going to make her happy, at least not anything I've had a hand in creating. And boy was I was involved in getting her a caregiver-- pretty much to the exclusion of everyone else because I thought (and think) she needs it. I also thought she'd get used to it. Now, however, I don't think she will ever get used to it. It's been nearly 3 months and she seems just as mad as she was in the beginning, maybe madder.

After awhile, she called to apologize, sort of, and then launched into a begging chant, "Can't I just drive the car to the store, please, please?

I said something weak back to her, like, "you know I can't let you do that," or something equally lame.

After that, I simply placed the phone in the cradle.

Explaining or restating my explanations just makes her mad. I'm pretty sure that I should be mad back and that maybe we should have a good old fight like we used to have when I was a teenager (there is so much about *this* that feels like *that*). However, as far as my feelings go, I'm sad but not angry. She's a 89 year old woman with dementia, and the dementia is making her upset. A lot.

This maybe the more interesting part:

And all I can think of is-- When will the time come that my life is "my own?"

After mulling this over for the last five hours, I have come to the conclusion that that day will never come. I know this for sure for a bazillion reasons related to my sad overburdened with dependents life situation. Even so, I can't help but ponder "my other life," as in, "the life I'm supposed to be having but can't."

I'll let you in on a little secret: My main pathetic source of entertainment lately is planning the life I could have if I was only responsible for myself. I'm not only a daydreamer. Sometimes, I put these plans into action, like a month ago when I tried to have a contractor draw up plans for a spa-pool for our backyard. I could just envision myself lazing around in a Grecian shaped pool, with a fountain or two, while my family fixed me a mouthwatering dinner. Ah, denial.

That didn't go over well, despite my big push to try to make it a reality. I thought that if I showed my family how much I really needed something fun in my life at home, that they would understand. They were unimpressed, and, well, it will never happen, as we recently put an offer on a house for our son.

I did buy myself a treadmill for our bedroom, against the advice of my cohabitants. *That* was liberating. And I gave away our huge Thomasville Entertainment Center (located in our bedroom at the site the treadmill now occupies) to one of the treadmill moving guys. (A treadmill is such a symbol of a 9-5, button-down, boring life. Don't you think?) Anyway, giving that thing away made me feel euphoric.

So, I guess I've had one little triumph. "Yay!" for creating my own space, and having fun, and bucking convention.

Now I think I'll go and pick up food to make dinner.

How Long Does it take to Mend a Broken Heart?

2010-07-31T17:41:00.000-05:00

I thought that we were in the clear, in terms of my son's heart mending. However, it seems as though this will take longer than I thought to resolve itself. Is a year enough? How about two?

I have been depressed before (some people haven't). Age has tempered my moods. These days I am content to be in whatever situation I am in, not questioning how I got there or whether it's fair that I got there or not.

But, being with a sad child is a terrible experience. You want to take on the hurt and make it okay. However, all of us old folks know that's not possible. Anyway, a child with pain is just heart rending, and there's nothing that I can do but listen.

Today, I told him to wait until January. It will be a year then. I hope things are better.

An Embarrassment of Riches

2010-07-17T18:36:00.002-05:00

I am embarrassed to say that I have received (too) much in terms of material things in my lifetime. This was especially apparent after visiting my mother-in-law's home after her death and trying to figure out what to do with the 'things' we were allotted. All of it was special - that's the problem. And we wanted some of it, but we knew other items would sit around unappreciated and would go to waste after our deaths. It's no fun to think about your own death, but it's an instructive and enlightening exercise. I would recommend it to anyone over 50, which we, ahem, are.

At any rate, after returning from my mother-in-law's house in New York, and looking around at the things we had already accumulated, and looking at my mom's stuff in the addition, and talking to our kids we decided to lighten our load a bit. So, I opened an etsy shop selling "vintage" mostly family things.

Here is the link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/denese

I'm telling you, that much of these things that we have are "beautiful things" and have been particularly meaningful to me. I would be surprised if their "specialness" isn't recognized by you-all.

At least I'm thinking so...

Please, let me know what you think (I've never been a shop-keep before).

A Godfatherless Child

2010-01-09T09:05:00.009-06:00

My Godfather Glen Osborn died yesterday. I had not seen him much in recent years -- the collateral damage of living away from home and kin. His passing made me sad. I had numerous Godmothers. But, I had only one Godfather. He was the last man standing of that generation. First, Rich's dad, then my dad, and now Oz.

Actually, he was probably one of the last men that exemplified an era. He was an elegant man of only kind words and a soft heart. He loved the Lord, antiques, good food, his garden, a poodle named Missy Muffet and my (Fairy) Godmother, Win.

His name was Glen but I called him Oz and I'll miss him.

Breaking My Own Rules

2010-01-03T14:32:00.011-06:00

This post is in response to Shutter Sister Sarah-ji's post on "breaking my own rules:"

http://shuttersisters.com/home/2010/1/3/breaking-my-own-rules.html?lastPage=true#comment6770309

Since I am so new to photography, I don't have many rules to break. However, when I shoot I am usually with my husband, an accomplished photographer, and he reminds me of the rules that I'm supposed to follow, like, keeping the sun at your back, and not shooting into the light. On our recent trip to Orange Beach, AL for Thanksgiving, I was loving the warm light of the fall sun and the effect of photographing my family by directly shooting into the sun, which created a sort of dream like state. At least I thought so.

I particularly liked this set of pictures because they show my husband photographing our son. So, here are my beach shooting-into-the-sun-shots.

This next set shows the beach at just a few minutes later, but with the sun to my back, like you're supposed to shoot it.

All on automatic ladies.

Developing a Hobby with the Hubby: The Camera on the Water Experiment

2010-01-03T09:45:00.042-06:00

Panoramic view of Pigeon Bayou (that's water covered in algae and salvinia)

About a year ago, I decided that if I was going to stay married for the long-haul (that is post-year-26, post-empty-nest and into-retirement) I should develop a hobby that I could practice with my husband. My husband has a million hobbies. I have a couple. They do not intersect except in admiration of each others talents and proclivities.

Admiring the old cypress tree, estimated to be between 400-800 years old

That's good, but not good 100% of the time if you're married, if you know what I mean.

Path through the woods I was tempted to try to walk through

So, the Thanksgiving before this last one, I began using one of his cameras, and things turned out fairly well, at least well enough that he gave me a camera for Christmas last year, which I have been using pretty regularly. Then, I purchased a photography class for him with CC Lockwood (our resident LA naturalist/photographer) and instead of taking the class alone he bought me a place on the boat.

Lake

I say that he bought me a place "on the boat," because the class took place on Pigeon Bayou, about an hour and a half south of here in the middle of Cajun country. I was excited to participate, even though we hadn't been on a canoe together since the first year of our marriage when we lived on the Trinity River, I am deathly afraid of "dropping snakes" and "lurking alligators," and I was a tad bit afraid of dumping said new camera into the water. Plus, my arms hadn't had a work out in months. How was I going to keep up with the rest of the canoeists and barrel-chested, huge-armed Richard, paddling all the live-long-day (until sundown), and shoot a decent picture or two, to boot, particularly with my neck and shoulder issues? Ack.

Cypress

As is my way, I moved ahead even though apprehensive, based on the knowledge that things always work out, even if I can't see how, if I get a good night sleep and say a prayer or two (or one hundred).

Artistic stand of cypress seemingly set up just for me

Well, the trip was fabulous. We kept up with CC's lead canoe most of the time through sheer adrenaline fueled by sheer panic that we might be lost amongst the cypress trees, even though CC kept saying it was impossible to get lost in Pigeon Bayou. Plus, we didn't want to look like a couple of wimps in that gnarly group of environmentalist types. My photographs were not as studied as some -- as I couldn't quite get a handle on stopping for any length of time and setting up a shot while the rest of our group was speed-gliding away -- but they're still pretty good.

My assignment from CC: Take a picture of this and spend more than 2 seconds doing it

The neck did suffer, but in a normal way that necks suffer even if they aren't chronically messed up. We did roll-and-drop out of bed the next morning, rather than try to use our arms to push to stand up, due to screaming pain, but, it was the kind of pain that you have if you ski, or run or work out a tad too much. And it abated to just the regular chronic crap I experience everyday anyway. So, I'm going to do it again, hopefully soon, with the purchase of a canoe after our bills are paid, and maybe a rug or two are laid.

Synchronicity

2009-12-27T17:42:00.004-06:00

Joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart

Synchronicity: The experience of two or more events that are not causally related that occur together in a meaningful manner, unlikely to be by chance. Synchronicity is also described as Divine Providence or as a serendipitous event which is the act of finding something unexpected and useful while searching for something else entirely.

I am focusing on the definition of synchronicity because of an event that have happened to me recently. I'll describe it to you in a minute, but the big question for me is not what it was but why it occurred to and for me, particularly at this late stage of my life, when it seems I've been waiting for it forever? Can we create synchronicity as the Law of Attraction states? Are there a select few that can change the future or present simply due to their ideas? I hate to think of these events as benefiting only a select few. I don't like the idea of a chosen group. At any rate this last summer was the summer of life's generosity toward me and I am thankful.

It started with my job situation. During the pre-legislative session, the legislative session and the post-session I literally did not know if I had a job. The governor pledged to cut higher education, various legislators vowed to be either for or against the governor's plan, the university chancellor and the system president all sounded off, and our university had various scenarios for cutting our program either 5, 10, 15 or 20% (or other scenarios that would be either in line with the university's cut or that would exceed the cut by 2 X or more, in some cases the estimates went to a full 50% cut of our program budget). Then add to this the impact this had on the personnel in our group and the various interaction effects between various people that did or didn't get along, with those folks being impacted by the budget woes, and you had a big mess on the employment front. Yikes and yuck. Big headache.

My response was either fight or flight. Most of the time I chose to ignore the clamor outside my door. But, sometimes, I couldn't help but be affected, particularly when our director and our associate vice chancellor of finance appeared to be at wits end. Add to that, that the powers that be said that they did not know if I would have a job if we didn’t’ receive funding from the legislature) and my nerves were shot. A million plus in cuts, and I was planning a vacation out west to take my mom on the "old home tour," still not knowing if I would be employed when I got back.

Fall sunflower field at Burden Plantation, Baton Rouge, LA

In the meantime, in my despair... I was noodling around on the Internet, probably trying to find a recipe for dinner and I found a job announcement on Job.com for a gerontological researcher. I applied, apparently, and then promptly forgot about it. Within days, I got a call from the administrative assistant of the Senior VP of Clinical Operations at Amedisys, a large (now 16,000 employees in 47 states) home health and hospice company headquartered in Baton Rouge, and they wanted to interview me. After I solicited the help of said administrative assistant to send me the job description, I interviewed, breaking every rule in the book: What that means is.. I told them about my life (my mother), that I truly wasn’t looking for a job, forgot that I contacted them, and wasn’t interested in leaving academia. Ugh. Anyone of those faux pas could have been a huge mistake, but instead, my future potential boss "got" me more than most and said, "some things are meant to be," which prompted one of my life-guides to say, "pay attention," which I did (I don't have to be told twice when lightning is about to strike).

My mother, my constant cheerleader

Those words echoed throughout my head as I flew out west with money that I did not have on faith that I did, that things would turn out right. I think it was in Oregon that I heard I still had a job at LSU through a mass email to our constituents, which was a relief, but which was delivered in a sort of weird way. Anyway, it freed-up my mind enough to have a spectacular time taking Grammy to visit her 95 year old sister, Portland where I was raised, and the village where she grew-up, respectively. We ate sumptuous salmon at the Olsons (cousins) in Vancouver, met up with Myron (my brother) and family at Canon Beach, spent time with Bob and Thea Pyle, and Bobby Larson in Gray’s River eating prime rib and chasing butterflies, and thoroughly enjoyed our Inn on the Willamette River near Cottonwood Cove. I ate lots of razor clams and Marion berries, which made me a very happy woman, despite the pain in my neck, which thankfully, is finally dissipating somewhat, but which stopped my blogging/writing for months, and very nearly put a dent in my new photography hobby.

Anyway, I got back to Baton Rouge and interviewed again at Amedisys, and as luck would have it, they hired me. I started in September as the Director of Chronic Care Research, and work on their clinical R&D programming efforts. I’m very proud of this company, their focus on business ethics, passion for serving their clients, and their creativity.

For 15 years I’ve been lamenting that I was an academic (a converted attorney) that landed in Louisiana and never left because I followed my husband to the job that God intended for him. Now that I am no longer an underemployed academic, and maybe in the job that God intended for me, I'm trying to figure out what that means for my life’s story. It takes awhile to sing a new tune, but I'm trying because as long as things are in sync I want to enjoy the hell out of them.

So, that's the story of one synchronicity that happened to me. There are others that occurred right around that time that I'll get to later, maybe, if my neck holds out enough so that I can continue writing at night (or in addition to when I'm at work). The neck is better, however, it's taken a bit of time to get a handle on it, which tells me I have more to learn. If I talked to my life-guide often enough, about this or anything else she would tell me that Carolyn Myss would say that the pain in my neck isn't just physical, it's metaphorical, and I would try not to yell or sing, "la, la, la, la, I'm not listening" cause I surely would have learned my lesson by then, wouldn't you think?

Putting my head back in alignment with my spine where it belongs and other midlife issues

2009-08-07T09:46:00.010-05:00

Canon Beach, Oregon

I remember my Godmother Win as a very religious woman that would introduce any missive with a bible verse. Her favorite verse was, "This is the day the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." Most of the time I can do this. But, lately "rejoicing" has not been in the cards due to an almost constant pain in my neck.

I thought that this pain in my neck was from sitting at the computer too long and progressed from multiple Ibuprofen a day, to Naproxin and in the last few weeks to narcotics. My doctor thought the neck pain was from muscle spasms and ordered a muscle relaxant and a wicked (on my stomach) arthritis medication. The whole multiple pill regimen had bummed me out because, hey, I'm the healthy jointed and muscled person in the family, and have been relatively pain free for most of my life, other than a headache here and there. The only up-side was that I was losing weight. When you're in pain you aren't hungry.

Long story short: I requested physical therapy, have gone twice, and have been diagnosed with a dowagers hump, which is the classic hump back profile you see on very old women from Eastern Europe, which is caused by a disruption in the C 5, 6 and 7 vertebrae. Mine is caused by my unnatural slumping posture and probable degenerative disk disease in the C 5 and 6 vertebrae. The "treatment" for this hump is a head exercise to force me to bring my head back in alignment with my spine. I am very motivated because 1) I do not like to hurt despite the meds they give me, and 2) I am too young to be a dowager.

I might be exercising too much because I'm very sore and home from work for the second day today, but at least I'm rejoicing because this can be "fixed," I'm told, with hard work. And that I can do, hard work that is.

I now find out that the guys in my house have noticed this "hump" for years (which is at present a huge size due to being filled with fluid) and have never told me about it because they said I'd be insulted and cry, which was probably right.

So, damn my sensitivity and vanity. I really have to get rid of those things, along with the extra pounds I'm dropping.

Orange Beach, AL

Letter to a Friend about Why I'm for Obama's Health Insurance Reform

2009-08-02T13:47:00.014-05:00

Robert [I love you Robert, even though on the whole I don't agree with you!], from what I have read, Obama’s plan would reduce costs in numerous important ways, insure portability, and cover most Americans. He would do this by:

1. Reducing the cost of underwriting. If you eliminate the need for underwriting, you save a ton of money, insure everyone and eliminate the problem of becoming uninsured due to losing a job (aka you insure portability). Imagine the labor and money it takes to police this elaborate system created by private insurance companies whereby coverage is denied in a thousand ways due to “preexisting conditions.” I am assuming that this would mean that “preexisting conditions” would be a non-issue across the board, which should satisfy one of your criteria for insurance reform.

Interestingly, one of the most vehement opponents of the Obama plan that I know is my best friend who happens to be an insurance agent. She spends her days trying to figure out how to get someone to qualify for insurance one way or another, I presume by combating insurance underwriters that are simultaneously trying to deny these same clients coverage. Believe me when I tell you that she has advised me plenty of times on the wording to use on insurance applications. She’s good at what she does and she gets paid handsomely for it, as do a million other minions that do similar jobs. I love my friend and do not wish her ill, but I think that this is one of the duties of insurance agents that should become extinct due to a lack of demand/need.

2. Negotiating costs with pharmaceutical companies and doctors/nurses. Seems reasonable to not only me. In fact, these companies and the AMA appear more than interested in making concessions because they know what a mess our system is in and how much better off they’ll be (financially) if everyone is insured.

IMO, when individuals are attracted to a profession because of the money involved, and said profession is supposed to be governed by what is in the best interest of the patient and not by the financial incentives/upside involved (have you read the Hippocratic Oath lately?) there are going to be issues, big issues. Not all physicians, but plenty, have learned how to “work” the system (whether public as in Medicare, or private as in private insurance companies) for their maximum dollar benefit and have become hugely rich because of that. This has to end now.

On a personal level, another vehement opponent to Obama’s plan is another relative, an RN-phlebotomist that doesn’t want her income curbed due to Obama’s plan even though today ER docs come to work on weekends knowing they won’t be paid by the “weekend clientele,” which they appear to begrudge care. It just makes sense to take this emergency-room-as-dumping-ground out of the equation. I think everyone will be better off and doctors can go back to feeling empathy for their patients rather than anger.

3. Improving prevention. Amen. This should save a ton of money. Remember my comment about Blue Cross denying my son’s his Interferon treatments but telling me they’d pay for a liver transplant? How ridiculous and counter-intuitive is that (the Interferon was 100000 times less expensive and more ethical). Plus, think about the medical care that would be provided to the poor under Obama’s plan, which individuals now wait too long for care because they can’t afford it until a basic condition becomes chronic, which sends them to the emergency room for treatment that is outrageous in cost not to mention not what anyone had in mind when they use the word “preventative;”

4. Making sure that *everyone* is covered which again would reduce emergency room visits replacing them with regular and preventative (less expensive) doctors’ visits (see my friend’s blog about the out of control, illogical billing at hospitals due to treating the uninsured and various illogical reimbursement rules*) AND making sure that the 18 to 30ish crowd are required to pay into the system (too many of my friends’ kids are uninsured, many by choice, and I think this is one of those “free rider issues” (that is, these kids bets on not getting sick until a certain age and therefore opt out of insurance when they’re healthy, only to buy into the system when they’re more likely to be sick) that is one of those “choices” that is cheating the system and that dooms the health insurance system for all. It’s got to stop;

5. And, yes, turning back the Bush Tax breaks to folks who make more than 250K a year;

Sadly, I think our opinions come down to our income tax brackets, and our respective trust in government (me), distrust in government (you), or trust in the private sector (you) and distrust in the private sector (me). I think that you make more money than we do, and that you trust the capitalist system and distrust government, which thereby determines your views on this. Honestly, I have no idea why you would trust the capitalist system after the current bank, insurance and investment house disasters (most of which were caused by pure greed and not enough oversight, which were frankly preceded by the Savings and Loan crash, which everyone seems to have forgotten about now, but which I lived through has an attorney to credit unions). Businesses can’t self police when the public good is concerned because of their only mandate to increase returns to the stockholders, which just doesn’t consider/cover external costs to the public, or consider the public good. Think public transportation. Think paper mills and oil refineries. Think modern day agriculture.

I am considering a job with a very large private home health care and hospice care company, and have combed through their records for the last 25 years. I want to know their financial situation, how they operate and whether it is a good place to work. They have had their trials, let me tell you, and they have worked through them through various infusions of cash, selling off assets, acquiring other companies, and painfully moving toward an outcome based incentive system (which is where I come in). They have been lauded by Fortune Magazine as one of the best 200 small businesses over the last 10 years. I think that if you-all-folks that mistrust government so much were to look at their historical record and were told that they were run by the government, you-all would use their record to highlight that government can’t be trusted to run entities/concerns like a for profit concern could. But, in fact, I think that this type of organizational morphology happens all the time in various settings, not with just government run concerns, but with private concerns, as well. There is no panacea in private enterprise.

6. And Yes, Obama’s plan would limit “choice,” which will reduce costs. I think the concept of “choice” in today’s health insurance market is a pseudo concept to begin with, which has been reinforced and created by the PR firms and folks with communications degrees that are hired by insurance companies as a talking point against the public regulation or public option of health insurance (see my opinion below about where “choice” has gotten us **). The long and the short of it is that there really is no choice. We pick a policy with various provisions at a certain age never knowing which provisions we will need. And frankly, policies change, generally not due to a “choice” made by the policyholder (of course there is boilerplate in the insurance contract that says they can change any damned thing they want in your policy with notice). I remember a catastrophic health insurance policy from The Principal that I paid on for years that was expensive, that we never used, that was cancelled because they pulled out of selling insurance in the State of Washington. No refund. No nothing. Not my choice.

Interestingly, one of my best friend’s “greatest concerns” is that the bill would require doctors to talk to elders and those with life threatening illnesses about end of life care every five years, which she thinks brainwashes them to consider ending their lives prematurely, which of course, to her is “bad” because it would limit “choice.”… In fact, that is not the case under this bill, as these folks are only offered the opportunity for counseling by a doctor, which I think is good, as counseling been denied previously because doctors have not been “reimbursed” for it. Any education is good, considering the cost of health care during the last months of life and the fact that end of life health care doesn’t generally increase quality of life (or length of life much), and considering the fact that although we all have to die, we are just not that keen on talking about it in the US and would rather remain in denial, which makes us and our families request expensive procedures that are ultimately not very helpful to the person being treated and the public at large.

I also know that there is an argument against a Medicare type system because of the “lack of choice” issue. Let me say that having taken care of my elderly mother, who has lived in my backyard for the last 5 years, I have not found Medicare to difficult to deal with. She is glad she has it, as am I. She did have a stent put into her artery about 2 years ago, and when she first went to the hospital with chest pain, the doctor could only find a 60% blockage, and Medicare said they’d only pay if there was an… 85% blockage (or something like that). So, when I brought her in a couple of weeks later with the same symptoms, Medicare rules allowed the doctor to do the procedure (because there were various exceptions to the 85% rule, one of which was that the person has future life threatening symptoms). It seemed reasonable.

If it’s in financial trouble let’s fix it, not all systems stay healthy forever, even those run by private companies. We all deserve Medicare. I want to remind you and others that we had a surplus during the Clinton years he tried to put aside for SS, which we didn’t allow him to do. The current financial deficit has much to do with the Bush administration and not the previous Democratic administration, and the war….. Anyway.

I know folks in Canada, plenty of them. We lived in Seattle and Richard worked for a Canadian company for awhile. Plus, just our proximity to Canada resulted in us knowing so many folks there. They just have not complained about their health care [except for one silversmith Canadian friend of mine who can comment here if she wishes], and in fact the people I know that have moved there from the US are thrilled about it. Yes, there are waits, but for elective procedures. For non-elective procedures, there usually is not a wait. I have lived with an HMO policy for 25 years. My mother, a nurse, was vehemently against HMOs for most of my life, due to issues of “choice” with arguments much like I hear in opposition to Obama’s plan. Well, we have been very well treated by our HMOs. I have no complaints even through garnering various life saving procedures for both my son and husband.

I think that frankly what will happen is that people with money will buy additional health insurance policies which will allow us to have better health care than the basic universal care policy. In a perfect world this wouldn’t happen, but the world’s not perfect. However, I am willing to live in a less than perfect world where everyone has coverage, even if uneven. I think the people you know from Britain and Canada that come to the US for procedures are some of those folks in the upper income brackets.

Lastly, Robert, I’ve followed this recession/depression pretty closely for the last couple of years and have followed several economists from the time they were formulating their responses on how to deal with it. I know that for certain people with a certain political approach this stimulus measure seems counter-intuitive. In a family, for example, when you are in financial trouble you stop spending. In the larger macroeconomic environment, however, as we’ve seen from the recession in Japan in the 1980s and their delayed but finally successful stimulus response to it, and from Roosevelt’s response to the Depression, that is not how you come out of a financial situation like the one we were facing and face (where a reduction in the Fed rate and tax cuts will NOT do the job). In fact, you spend into it. I recommend you read Krugman with the NY Times, both his blog and his column. As to how to come out of it and get a grip on the deficit, I believe the theory is that once business is robust again spurred by an improved economy that increased taxes will pull you out of the hole.

Now I have to go to bed. I hope you had a wonderful night.

[My thanks go to my friend Robert-- he can identify himself if he wishes. He spurred me into putting my feelings down on paper because he was unimpressed with my first response because it was mostly emotional and wasn't substantive. I wanted to impress him. If I did not rise to the challenge, it wasn't for lack of trying. I do appreciate the alternative views of my friends and family even though to some it may not seem like it.]

* http://open.salon.com/blog/mishima666/2009/03/06/secrets_of_hospital_bills_revealed

** http://open.salon.com/blog/cindy_ross/2009/03/04/we_went_broke_paying_medical_bills--and_were_insured

** And my response:

I appreciate your post. It shows the community here on OS what normal, hardworking folks go through in this country every single day with our "free market" "health care" system which incorporates “choice" (whether you can afford it or not).

Our son has a chronic medical condition that he acquired from his first country at birth, which we didn't know about, but which surfaced during his middle school years. We are lucky that his very expensive treatment was fully covered by our HMO, which we "chose" during the "election" period at our large university employer. If we had "chosen" the non-HMO, typical Blue Cross option, which would have cost us much more, his "treatment" would NOT have been covered. But, his organ transplant WOULD HAVE BEEN covered.

He responded very well to the grueling treatment and has been healthy since. Lucky "choice" on our part.

He and his girlfriend, who has Type I diabetes, had a baby 2 years ago. Our grandson was "unexpected." Because they were both on their parents' respective health insurance policies, they couldn't marry because our insurances would drop them, and they are uninsurable due to their "pre-existing" conditions. Plus, although our son's girlfriend's parents both cover her with their large employer-based insurance policies, the pregnancy was not covered. Why? I'm not sure if they could have "chosen" such coverage. Even if they could have how many of us foresee our children's pregnancies and would choose a higher premium based on such possibilities?

Thankfully we had a very new Medicaid program in our state that covered the pregnancy, and our grandson's care after he was born. Both mom and baby have received excellent care from "Medicaid." Our son and his girlfriend are in graduate school now, and because they remain in school their parents' (our) health insurance policies will cover them until they are 24 years old. Apparently, that's the "standard" age that "kids" are dropped from parents' policies. We do not have any "choice" in the matter.

They will graduate before they are 24 by three months, and at that time will have to find employment from an employer that has a Group Health Insurance Policy, so that their "pre-existing" conditions do not "count" against them, so that they can be covered by health insurance.

What do I think their chances are of gaining such employment in this recession? I seriously don't know, but their "chances" of gainful post-graduation employment look dimmer every day. This is not their "choice" either.

This is what "choice" gets you.

Thank You for Continuing to Check-In

2009-07-18T17:01:00.007-05:00

There are those of you that check in every day or week to see if I've written anything new. I guess I've disappointed you because I have not. This legislative session and anticipating the size of the subsequent LSU budget cut really wore me out. It's not the fault of the legislature or anyone else for that matter. The same thing could happen if I was working for a company that was downsizing, as many have in this economy. I have just been too exhausted from the 'waiting' to be creative.

This is my fault. I will not waste my time behaving in this way again. There is something to be said for having the wisdom to suspend your emotional self until life works out the way it is supposed to. I am 50 I should know that by now.

My life's work is equanimity. What's yours?

I am leaving tomorrow for the West and I am hoping that this rejuvenates me so that I start writing again.

Exciting things are planned on this trip and I can't wait to be infused with energy.

Hopefully I'll be blogging. I'm taking my camera.

Denese

A really bad day Can only get worse when your husband calls you fat

2009-05-12T11:58:00.008-05:00

[Post Script: Yes, I have the most supportive husband in the world. He supports me in my writing even if said writing is about him! Really, things are good. July, 2009]

This is the deal: Tonight Rich called me fat. And no I’m not exaggerating. I’m also not misinterpreting. Those very words came out of his mouth, or very close to them and under circumstances where I was feeling very vulnerable. ::Sniff::

Telling your wife that she is fat would be bad under normal circumstances, but I think that it was particularly cruel considering that I am in the middle of a crisis of personal appearance and I am sick with some gross mung throat thing that is making me delirious with pain. I mean, I could have antibiotic resistant strep throat. What else would make my uvula as large as the pendulum on a grandfather clock? It was possible that I could choke on my own spit or be unable to breathe.

And for me to visit a medical professional I have to be feeling lousy enough to think I might be dying, with, for example, the Swine Flu, West Nile Virus, meningitis or maybe a full body staph infection, something like that. Everybody knows that, including Rich. The fact is that I am the least doctor-going person in our family. My husband happily makes the trip for more maladies than I can commit to memory. My 88 year old mother schedules appointments with so many specialists that I have keep track of them on an excel spreadsheet. And my youngest son misses school weekly for an asthmatic condition I’m not even sure he has, but that provides him with an excused absence. But, me?: I go so rarely that the clinic’s turtle obsessed receptionist that’s been around for the 15 years I’ve been there, didn’t even recognize me or pronounce my name correctly. That made me feel terrible; we gifted her with a Costa Rican Loggerhead Turtle replica not too long ago. I’d remember that, wouldn’t you?

After I got home from the pharmacy, alone, I took pain meds and antibiotics for my throat, drank water because I knew it would be good for me and tucked myself into bed to try to sleep off the gross sickness. But, sleep wouldn’t come, probably because my throat was still sore as hell and I was hungry. So, there I was at home starving because not one of the many relatives I feed daily thought to throw me a bone for dinner. So, I wandered around the house in my pajamas, gnawing on a loaf of bread, attempting to figure out something productive to do with my evening. So, I waxed my upper lip. Then I gave myself a manicure and pedicure, where I cut my heels to shreds with one of those callus removers. Then I made a list of hair things I needed to schedule like a color, which included high and low lights, and a cut. I think I may have ordered some sandals on-line. Then I started feeling really sad about all of the time consuming things I have to do now, at the age of 51 to beautify myself. They seem excessive not only in terms of time I can’t get back, but in terms of spending money that I don’t have. Then for some reason I thought of cartouche because she says she doesn’t color her hair, and I’ll bet she doesn’t have any unwanted body hair or calluses on her feet like I do.

By the time my husband came home, I was feeling pretty low, and after he folded himself into bed and started to read, I plopped down on top of him and started recounting the litany of mostly aging things that were upsetting me on this perfectly gross day. When I mentioned the personal appearance things, he said something about plastic surgery, which confused me, although I guess I could see that laser hair removal would be advantageous, and although I hadn’t mentioned my aging face, I guess I could see where a nip and a tuck here and there could be useful. But, then he said something about liposuction, which is where I got really confused. I was on medications so I was feeling like I might have missed connecting the dots in the conversation, so I said that I didn’t know what he was talking about because I hadn’t mentioned my weight as an issue. Then came the bombshell. He said, “Well you’re fat and it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.”

I left the room and here I am now on the couch, listening to the roar of the air conditioning, and the roar of him snoring, and I’m wondering what to do with myself other than to go to visit a plastic surgeon and get a personal trainer STAT. My last thought before I went to sleep was cartouche's skinny body that doesn't even remotely need liposuction.

I woke up this morning and Rich vehemently denies saying any of those things. He brought me tea. He thinks I was delirious.

I am confused.

What would you do?

Beat this Puppy Picture for Cuteness

2009-05-08T17:57:00.000-05:00

This is Georgie as a Puppy. He is a Shetland Sheep Dog, or Sheltie, and has no toes at all on his left rear leg. Oh yeah, he has his own very dramatic rescue story!

-----------

Georgie's story:

Our prior Sheltie, Tuki, was put to sleep as a result of uncontrollable idiopathic epilepsy. We were heartbroken. We don't deal well with animal deaths. We also do not do well dogless.

We love Shelties-- they are small dogs with big dog personalities -- and after a time we went looking for another. I found several within a fairly close driving distance but eventually focused on"Georgie," even though he didn't live closeby, because he was apparently unadoptable. He was the last puppy of championship dog parents, which was a plus. However, George had no toes on his left rear foot, due to complications from dog-birth, which was a big minus for people looking for show dogs. As I said, they don't let you show a dog with no toes.

Shelties should be adopted at a very early age so as to bond closely to their families, as otherwise they can be reclusive and afraid. George was way beyond the age of adoption. Of course, even though this might have meant that he could have some 'personality' issues, being who we are, we wanted him immediately. However, the breeders still wanted nearly full price for him, and Georgie was expensive. They were very ambivalent about him, but wanted every dime ("if you were to look at him you wouldn't even know he doesn't have any toes." "He walks and runs perfectly fine, no limping whatsoever. "). I tried to haggle, but something in their tone made me believe that he was about to be sold to a glue factory. Bargaining got me nowhere--not that I'm very good at it.

So, after a few dozen conversations where I begged my husband to loosen his grip on the family finances (and where I told him a little fib about the price), we hit the road on our rescue mission.

My husband and I drove up to Dallas, from Baton Rouge, with money we did not have, paid for George and brought him home. I'm so glad we did. He is perfect for us: he doesn't bark, he follows us around everywhere, 'gardens' with my mother (by that I mean he stays outside with her, without moving, basically on-point), sleeps at our side, and literally lets our grandson 'ride' him. Any other dog would snap or bite, but George doesn't have a mean bone in his body.

And yes he limps and did so from the second we laid eyes on him.

Open Salon Comments

2009-05-02T12:53:00.017-05:00

I am going to post some of my Open Salon comments to other posters, as I don't want to lose them. I tend to be a thoughtful commenter and not a very fertile poster. This will be edited/extended from time to time:

In response to Cindy Ross' post: UPDATE We went broke paying medical bills--and we're insured.

I found your post via CM's Daily Scrawl. And you've now been awarded an Editor's Pick. Double bonus. I appreciate your post. It shows the community here on OS what normal, hardworking folks go through in this country every single day with our "free market" "health care" system which incorporates "choice" (whether you can afford it or not).

Our son has a chronic medical condition that he acquired from his first country at birth, which we didn't know about , but which surfaced during his middle school years.We are lucky that his very expensive treatment was fully covered by our HMO, which we "chose" during the "election" period at our large university employer. If we had "chosen" the non-HMO, typical Blue Cross option, which would have cost us much more, his "treatment" would NOT have been covered. But, his organ transplant WOULD HAVE BEEN covered.

He responded very well to the grueling treatment and has been healthy since. Lucky "choice" on our part.

He and his girlfriend, who has Type I diabetes, had a baby 2 years ago. Our grandson was "unexpected." Because they were both on their parents' respective health insurance policies, they couldn't marry because our insurances would drop them, and they are uninsurable due to their "pre-existing" conditions. Plus, although our son's girlfriend's parents both cover her with their large employer-based insurance policies, the pregnancy was not covered. Why? I'm am not sure if they could have "chosen" such coverage. Even if they could have how many of us foresee our children's pregnancies and would choose a higher premium based on such possibilities?

Thankfully we had a very new Medicaid program in our state that covered the pregnancy, and our grandson's care after he was born. Both mom and baby have received excellent care from "Medicaid." Our son and his girlfriend are in graduate school now, and because they remain in school their parents' (our) health insurance policies will cover them until they are 24 years old. Apparently, that's the "standard" age that "kids" are dropped from parents' policies. We do not have any "choice" in the matter.

They will graduate before they are 24 by three months, and at that time will have to find employment from an employer that has a Group Health Insurance Policy, so that their "pre-existing" conditions do not "count" against them, so that they can be covered by health insurance.

What do I think their chances are of gaining such employment in this recession? I seriously don't know, but their "chances" of gainful post-graduation employment look dimmer everyday. This is not their "choice" either.

This is what "choice" gets you.

Denese
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In response to Dennis Loo's: T ugging on the Torture Thread

Hi Dennis,

I wrote the following on Blue's blog and I'll re-post it here:

"With all of these posts on water boarding, I've been trying to figure out my reticence to jumping on board the anti-torture bullet train all night. I guess it's this: if there was an evil person that knew some secret information that could stop people from being killed, why wouldn't I torture him or her to find that out to save people's lives?

Okay. I'm ready for the millions of comments I will get pounding me for that statement.

But, there seems to me a difference between torturing someone for information on a person who already did something, and torturing someone regarding something that is about to happen that you can stop.

Is this simplistic thinking?

I actually am a Catholic that thinks like a Buddhist most times, and these thoughts still come to mind. I mean, I totally believe in the laws of karma........ So, I'm not sure why I'm thinking this way.

Is it fear?"

_____________________________

It's not like I want to get pummeled. I want to hear your answer and you seem like a very smart guy. So, I welcome your response.

denese
__________________________________________________________

Dennis Loo's response (same url):

Denese:

You write: "If there was an evil person that knew some secret information that could stop people from being killed, why wouldn't I torture him or her to find that out to save people's lives?"

There are a number of different ways of answering this question.

The most important one is in my April 22nd post: "The 'War on Terror' is Like Antibacterial Soap.”

That post puts the stress on the moral question which is the central one. I also address (albeit very briefly) all of the other major dimensions.

I would read that post first.

To add to that post, let's take your question.

The “ticking time bomb” scenario contains a number of fallacies. The first one is that the ones holding the suspect are CERTAIN that this suspect has knowledge about a soon to happen murderous act against many people.

Under what circumstances would anyone come upon such certain knowledge?

To my knowledge (I don't have complete knowledge, but I have familiarized myself with the issues in this matter), there has never been a case in history where such certain knowledge was possessed by someone.

It would be a different thing if you saw someone who had their hands on a triggering device that you saw was going to blow up a building or bridge where there were many people and you had a chance to stop this person, if necessary, by shooting them.

Torturing someone based on a SUPPOSITION (because that's all you would have) that they might be involved in a murderous plot is a wholly different matter. Torturing someone based on such a supposition would be morally and legally indefensible. It would also be a bad way to get information since torture doesn't produce honest answers. That is the consensus among intelligence people worldwide and the universal conclusion of those who have been tortured and survived.

The people who are justifying torture on the grounds that a "bomb" might be ticking somewhere are saying this not because they have such information - because they CAN'T have such information - they are saying it because they want to cover up what they're really doing and why they're doing it. (If someone wants to claim that an informant has told them that their suspect knows something, then you have to assume that this informant isn't lying. This is another supposition you'd have to be relying upon to justify torturing someone.)

Furthermore, if a group was actually planning a murderous terrorist attack and one of its members with critical knowledge of the plans were arrested, what would the rest of the group do? Would they still go ahead with their plans, knowing that one of theirs is in custody and could spill the beans? They would, of course, cancel the plans and disperse. This means that torturing the person in custody wouldn’t prevent an attack.

What those who torture are up to throughout history isn’t getting information. Torture is specifically designed to terrorize the individual and others. That is its purpose.

If one were to allow the exception that in some instances one may be permitted to torture someone, then what this opens the door to is anyone, anywhere, just has to SAY that they believe that the person they have in custody has info that will save many lives and that they can't find out the info without torturing them, and one would have NO WAY to determine whether or not this was simply an excuse and the torturers were using torture because they were sadistic or trying to terrorize the population and so on.

In other words, by allowing exceptions, what you have done is permit torture to become a regular, widespread practice. That would obviously produce a hellish world where any tyrants could torture without any consequences.
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My response:

Thanks Dennis. The "ticking time bomb" scenario is the one that keeps surfacing when I'm trying to get over *not* being outraged by waterboarding. My husband and I went over hundreds of possible scenarios last night, and you're right, we couldn't come up with a single one that would warrant or even be helped by an act of torture.

Seriously, I think that this "ticking time bomb" scenario is so present for me because I've seen too many Superman movies or CSI episodes (pick your movie or tv show). And I don’t want to minimize PTSD, but I think that to varying degrees we all suffer from it or something similar to it as a result of 9/11.

My feelings on this issue are surprising to me, because I'm a person that is adamantly against capital punishment, for instance.

denese
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Dennis Loo's response:

Denese:

9/11 was traumatic for Americans and the cultural productions that you mention such as CSI (you don't mention 24, but of course that one tops the list) have been exploiting this and promoting it.

Bush and Cheney made their regime on it. The GOP more generally and the rightwing overall bang the 9/11 drum incessantly because it suits their real agenda: a fearful population will agree to measures that they wouldn't otherwise stomach or contemplate.

The Nazis used this same technique to impose their policies.
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My response:

Dennis,

This will be my last comment, I promise. I just want to say that I appreciate your tone. You are informed and rational, and you didn't call me names, which I appreciate. My husband is a Jew and a student of the Nazis I would say, and he was having a hard time walking me through this discourse yesterday.

I hope to hear more from you;

Denese
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In response to Dennis Loo's Post: Genius: It’s not who you are, it’s what you do.

Dennis,

This post is fascinating and I agree with everything you say in theory. I have to speak as a mother here, as I haven't done any research on this issue. I do have the unique perspective of having one child that is biological and one that is adopted. One of them has a rather significant case of ADHD. Each, I suspect have different IQs. Both of them have focused on very different things from very young ages, in which I think in the long-run they will both be very successful.

Here's the thing: I am convinced that I couldn't have predicted or directed their areas of focus, not that I didn't try. Maybe Mozart and Woods had extraordinarily persuasive parents with very pliable children? Their parents "saw" a sport and an instrument and directed those children from there. Whatever they did, as a parent, I would have appreciated the recipe 20 years ago. For our kids, there were certain 'gifts' each had from birth, and we tried to foster those. However, let me tell you, they didn't follow our lead at all. The Pied Piper we're not. They hyper focused on areas of their choosing, which may or may not have been what we would have chosen for them. Once we saw what motivated them, we supported them from there. Who knows if they would have been a Bill Gates in a different area that we had pushed?

Denese

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In response to Lea Lane's post: Birth and Death: The Circle of Life

I like the original Shakespearean version of the Seven Ages of Man, although I'd title it a bit differently and add a stage or two. My father was in the seventh stage when he heard that our son's girlfriend was pregnant. This was not a joyous thing. At the time I thought it was tragic. My father didn't though. He beamed. He died before my grandson was born and I thought about the cycle of life and death and half wondered if Kellan wasn't gestating if my father would have died. Silly I know.

My mother says that on the farm, when someone died they used to say, "and here she comes!"

denese

Oh Lea,

My comment didn't make me cry but your empathy did. Painful but beautiful to watch someone you love so much take flight while another loved one is finished on this earth. Our son is expecting another child, this time a girl. We have been waiting so long for a girl child in this family. There really hasn't been one since me (and I'm 51). It's unspoken that we're all worried that my 88 mother won't survive this, even though she would gladly give up her place for Daniel's daughter.

When I used to ask my mom why people died, she said, "to make room for the babies, of course!"

Thanks for writing this and understanding.

denese
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In response to Mothership's post: Prelude to VR (5)

Dear MS and VR;

This post made me so sad I really couldn't speak or write right after reading it. As I told you, on one of your previous posts, my birthmother didn't get to hold me, let alone know what gender I was. Actually, I think they told her but she thought they were lying to her so she didn't commit it to memory. Add to that that she was so emotionally scarred by the circumstances surrounding my birth that my birthdad (BD) convinced her that my birthday was right around when their second child was born (in March, just 15 months later) so they could 'celebrate' both birthdays at the same time. Still to this day, I have to remind her I was born in December not March.

Suffice it to say that BD tried to get her to put my brother up for adoption too. Her response, "I'm not going through THAT again." They both raised him, in a city 3 hours from where I was raised. My BD lived with them 1/2 of the week, and with his wife and son the other 1/2 of the week (across the river in the "nice" section of town). My brother finally found out that they weren't married and about my dad's "other family" when he was 18. He's smarter than I am but the devastation was unremitting for a number of years. Here I am with my bag of degrees and he just graduated from high school (normal life trajectories are interrupted when you have to deal with this kind of crap).

I don't know why I'm telling you all of this... I guess I'm mad at BD. He died of Alzheimer's before I came around. So much in the aftermath to deal with.

denese

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In Response to emma peel's post: Are you love-based or fear-based?

Hi emma;

I'm late to this conversation too. Thanks for posting this. I think that if children can withstand their 13 years of primary and elementary school education they can get to a place where they can be love based. Unless, as a child, you're perfectly rounded and good at everything, and learn well through reading and lectures, well you're going to come out of the experience being somewhat fear based. Parents who don't know any better overly react to teacher's comments about their children and the 'problems' become the focus. I am relieved that my last child is leaving high school this year, but now, after hearing about your granddaughter's experience I realize I will have my grandchildren to worry about. .

Just as an aside, a very good thing is resulting from our current budget crisis at the Big University down the street. They are "merging" 8 departments, fortunately two are our school of social work and the school of education. I believe that the synergy between the two schools can produce better teachers. SWs focus on strengths, and protective factors, rather than weaknesses and risk factors.

denese

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In response to Sandra Stevens post: I'm Afraid of Menopause.

This seems like the topic of the day.

I've gone through it.

It was rough and it took a long time, and my body is changed forever.

However, I am on the other side and am actually interested in sex again, and vivacious, although very thick in the middle, which I think is my fault for not going to the gym as I should, and belonging to one too many wine swilling book clubs.

After 2 years of misery-- I mean, I seriously couldn't be in public and have a decent conversation with someone without having a meltdown-- I did the bio-identical hormone thing. Well, first I started with a patch prescribed by my doctor and I hated it. The side effects -- heart palpitations and a sort of over revved up feeling, were followed by the normal icky menopausal symptoms of major sweats, among other gross things. The latter effects were because the damned patch fell off before it should have.

Oh, and did I mention that I almost left my husband of 20 years? Oh, yes, I did that too. Just classic. And I didn't "see" any of it. Yep, I was pretty crazy.

I'm sure I'm just scaring you. I don't want you to think that this happens to everyone. Not everyone goes through this. Some women barely notice, or don't notice at all. It all depends on your DNA, and the amount of hormones that your body retains. I've heard that soy supplements help women that retain a degree of estrogen in their systems. I tried that, but it didn't work, probably because my body had zero hormones in it (I know this because I went through saliva testing).

There is help available. You just first have to see how you react to menopause. If you feel you are sliding downhill and primary care doc doesn't help you, contact me. I can pass along reading materials that can help.

denese

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In response to Stellaa's post: Stop Bashing Menopause.

Stella, hi.

Can I ask you something: Why not be able to talk about the extremely positive and the extremely negative of menopause experiences (and everything else in between)? Why does it have to be one or the other? When I had my son 18 years ago, my husband and I went to natural (of course!) childbirth classes. The long and the short of it was that after weeks of training, and a very detailed, very natural, anti-drug birthing plan, which I still have by the way, I had 24 hours of miserable labor, and finally, an epidural, and in the end, a C-Section. What I just described was the *definition* of failure. I remember coming to a reunion class with our babies and being one of the few mothers that didn't describe the birthing process in glowing terms. I felt terrible about the experience for years. From what I understand, childbirth classes offer more choices these days and make fewer pronouncements of what is good and bad.

I think that if we push the idea of a limited dialogue about menopause, the same type of only “positive” discussions could be the norm, which would be unfortunate. It would put some women back in the same type of situation: feeling awful because your menopause experience wasn’t “positive.” You may have been one of the lucky ones, symptom wise, but some of us haven't been. When I went through menopause 6 years ago, I didn't have anyone to lean on, had no information good or bad, and was totally in the dark and miserable. Remember, menopause was for most of my life a topic that was *just not discussed*. For me: if I could have my period back, I would be thrilled.

I don't think that it's helpful to insinuate that descriptions of menopause by women here or elsewhere have been exaggerated. What that does is divide us as women.

Respectfully;

denese

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In response to tammie's post: Women's Mid-Life Career Crisis.

Hi and Welcome,

Everyone here knows my tale of woe but here goes the telling for you. We moved to LA for my husband's first academic job when I was 36. It is a state where I couldn't practice law. He said he'd move us outta here and he didn't, not for lack of trying. The Gods just weren't willing to give him a chance at another decent job. I was mad as hell at him and life for a number of years, and I wasn't very nice. I just wanted to go back out west (to a place like Walnut Creek, CA) and practice my earned profession. I was fixated. Finally, after a couple of years, my husband said, "For the love of God, just do something to make yourself happy!" I did, and I have done such awesome things in that period of time from then to now, and have had a very rich life.

It's hard to explain how to get there from where you are, but let me try: the key lies in just "doing it," whatever "it" happens to be. Live in the moment. What I mean by that is do not toil for the payoff, and by that I mean a career, recognition, publication, or whatever your end game happens to be. In fact, don't have an end game. Follow your bliss. Learn to have some measure of equanimity. You are a young-thing and have years ahead of you to explore an absolutely fabulous life.

I know you can do it! Keep us in the loop.

denese

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In response to Steven Axelrod's post: Leaving "The Breakers": Escape From Assisted Living.

YAY for your family! This is precisely why my mother 'lives in my backyard' in a beautiful addition we had built for her, and why we purchased long-term-care-insurance years ago for both her and my dad, so that they could 'age in place' no matter what health issues materialized.

So far so good. Dad died almost 3 years ago in his sleep. Mom has made a great life for herself and is intricately involved with my husband and I, her grandkids and her great grandchild. My husband adores her BTW.

If you want tips on universal design -- just let me know. We built the addition according to that model with help from an architect friend so that dad could get around even if he became wheelchair bound.

Good luck and God Bless you and your family.

And beautiful writing. I've been in enough nursing homes/assisted living facilities/CCRCs to smell them by what you write.

denese

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In response to Jess D Fact's post: The quest to save baby Alana

Jess,

There are several issues here: issues related to Alana's abandonment and legal issues related to your quest to adopt:

Alana's short life sounds a lot like Misty's life. Consider that Alana's future behavior might be very similar to her mother's past behavior. Both have been abandoned repeatedly, and there are certain behaviors that go along with abandonment.

Consider Misty: Every time Misty was 'saved' by a new someone (Stewart, Jean, your husband) she challenged her new savior with her 'bad' behavior. She was forcing another abandonment, that she was certain was coming, under *her* terms, rather than wait for her new caretaker to abandon her under theirs. She was absolutely right, because with each new string of bad behavior, she was sent packing to some other destination.

Please consult with Mary and the other real therapists on OS, but I believe that you can possibly anticipate similar behavior from Alana. Your husband sounds like a good old fashioned dad, and no doubt your kids respond to his limits and boundaries. Alana may not. If your bottom line is that she can stay with you as long as she "plays by your husband's rules" she might be gone as soon as puberty takes hold. You taking her on would require a different set of parenting skills, or maybe the same skills with different responses, and maybe no or different expectations. You taking her on would mean more parenting efforts directed at her than potentially to your other children.

I am an adoption advocate. I am not saying *don't* raise this child. I am saying -- be prepared, get the support you need, and go into it with eyes wide open. It sounds to me like you've already begun bonding with her even though you don't know her, like many of us do with our adopted children at the point we know they are meant to be "ours." Love can overcome a lot but maybe not everything.

The legal issues involved are daunting, as well. If the father had simply put Alana in foster care, you-all would probably have been first in line to foster her and adopt her. But, he was the parent with the legal rights and he terminated them. When did this happen? How long ago? Do you know if he in fact legally terminated his rights or did he simply give her away? What sort of situation does the child live in now? I just don't know how the law will be on your side if he went through the full legal route.

Tell me what happens Momma.

denese
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In response to cartouche's post: Overage and Undervalued - America's Midlife Crisis:

So much to say. You know that cartouche is already living in a multigenerational living situation, right, mary and RedStockingGrandma? She takes care of her mother.

In our household, we have three generations living under one roof, our son, 18, my elderly mother and my husband and I. I love it and it makes sense. Much of the world lives this way, why not those of us in the US? Rich and I are lucky, we have children that claim (without prodding from their parents) that they will take care of us when we’re old. For those of you that don’t have children, I would recommend what cartouche has suggested: multi-family households of either roughly the same age or of multiple generations. This is *not* a new idea. The intentional community movement (google it) has been on-going for a number of years now, and a number of my friends have lived in such a situation, either here in the US, in Europe or in India. I would have been tempted to join my SC friends, if they (my favorite community) hadn’t disbanded a few years ago (Nature’s Spirit—see a remnant of what it was all about: http://www.collaboration.org/97/nov/text/4_nature.html in an interview with my friend Carolyn Vaughan).

We have come a long, long way from the days where we expected to work for the same company our whole lives and receive some sort of financial security in our retirement years. My father was the president of a union, so I grew up with those expectations.

Honestly, from my point of view, I don’t think it’s bad that we have to shift our expectations to the reality that we will be living in community with others. There are so many rewards that we will reap from living that way, if we wanted to or not.

denese
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In response to Cindy Ross' post Health Care Abuse: Could This Happen to your Teen?

Dear Cindy,

I'm sorry this happened to you. We have tried to dispute bills before but eventually paid to save our credit rating.

About kids and health care-- I am conflicted about my response. I think that part of the reason that insurance costs so much for most of us is because young people 18-30 do not purchase health insurance, even when it is available to them. So, the oldest and sickest are insured, which raises rates for everyone.

I think that the system is at a critical point and we *will* have some form of universal health care and your son and other young people won't have a choice but to pay. I hope that lowers rates and provides health care for everyone.

About my son and his girlfriend who are going to run out of health insurance either when they graduate with their MBAs or at 24, whichever comes first. If they can't acquire insurance, my husband and I will go broke paying for their COBRA benefits.

Cindy,

I understand. Really. But what kind of a cost are we talking about for a 19 year old that is single? Then again, he's probably making almost nothing. My father unionized all of the "retail clerks" in Portland, OR when I was growing up. So, the secretaries and the grocery clerks had good benefits and pay. I think part of what we're seeing is a result of a decline in the presence of unions.

At any rate, I do understand the dilemma, which is why I am for a mandated contribution and coverage so that these "choices" don't hurt those of us that do choose insurance or those of us that at this point in time do not.

I am a bit afraid, at this point, that Obama, with his rational 'don't stir the pot' decision-making style isn't going to mandate health care coverage, and therefore we won't truly be able to get this universal health care thing figured out.

Two Truths and One Lie Game: Answers

2009-05-02T10:50:00.003-05:00

The titles in bold are my responses to OESheepdog's Open Call requesting Two Truths and One Lie. Answers are below:

I spent New Year’s Day 2000 praying with a living saint and a Ganesh channeling Buddhist Monk

That's the truth, and it was one of the most sublime and metaphysical experiences of my life. I think I have yet to top it. The Channeling Monk actually told me prophesies-- personal and political-- that I promised to never reveal, and I never have. I have a journal entry I wrote on January 2nd, 2000, that I might post sometime, if anyone would read it.

At 22 years of age I was fired from a job as a cocktail waitress because I refused to go braless

This is a lie. I was fired but not because I wouldn't go braless. I mean *everyone* went braless in the early 80s in Portland, OR. I was fired because I was a nervous wreck as a cocktail waitress, and because I flunked a test they gave us after our first week on the job due to neglecting to memorize the company's history, which was 1/2 of the test. That job was the beginning of me realizing I'm not quippy-- my repartee’ to drunk men and their gross come-ons wasn't what it should have been for that, uh, position.

I almost killed my toddler son in a cloud forest by exposing him to an eyelash viper

This is true. We took the kids on a month-long adventure travel extravaganza to Costa Rica. I had us booked in a Cloud Forest (a fog forest eco-system in the mountains) Hotel owned by one of the prior presidents of the country, and the first evening before nightfall we took the kids down the cute little wooden path into the forest, just for a peek at the monkeys, even though we had a guided tour the next day. As all of us were looking up, James, my two year old was crouching on his haunches looking at what I thought was a plant. He talked incessantly, so we mostly ignored him. But, he kept saying, "I see a snake." Daniel, our 7 year old would look down periodically and say, "That’s not a snake, that's a slug." This went on for quite some time while the rest of us were looking skyward toward the screeching howler monkeys.

Finally, for whatever reason, Rich and I both had that parental-6th-sense-thing come over us (finally!). We looked down at the exact same time and the horrifying scene came into hyper focus. What we saw was a coiled snake about 6" from James' face, with what looked like black horns on its head. I let out a blood curdling scream, Rich swooped to pick up James and we ran like hell out of the forest on that same cute wooden path we strode in on. I didn't sleep wink that night. The guide told us the next day that the snake was an eyelash viper, and that if it had bitten our son he would never have survived.

Shaped by Adoption

2009-05-01T16:42:00.002-05:00

Here are Bardgirl's questions in an Open Call on Open Salon for Adoption Stories.

1. Was your experience as an adoptee or a parent of an adopted child positive or negative?

2. Do you know your/your child's birth history?

3. Did you meet you/your child's birth mother/father/siblings and are you still in contact?

4. Was finding out the adoption details comforting or disturbing?

5. Do you think that being adopted made you feel different from your peers?

I hope I answered all of them below, in no particular order.

First, let me say that I'll call my adoptive mom, "Mom" and my birthmom, "Athena."

I am an adoptee and an adoptive parent. The first as a result of fate, the second was planned, at least for the most part.

Me:

I’d say that my experience as an “adoptee” was positive. Although, life isn’t always positive, and sometimes the “adoptee” identity is hard to disentangle from the good and bad experiences that were the rest of my life.

I knew I was adopted, and under what circumstances (unwed mother), my ethnicity (Greek and Norwegian), and the OB/GYN that brokered my adoption (he knew and respected both of my moms, and I remember Mom telling me that he said, "Athena could make you feel like a King".) I even knew that my adoptive dad (Dad) was reticent about 'adopting a child that wasn't his,' which never caused me any angst because we had a love affair that weathered all and for the rest of his life, and I knew that he would have stood in a hailstorm of bullets for me. And yes, I found the information about my birthmother comforting. It was a part of knowing who I was.

As I look at what I’ve written, I have to say that it sounds a bit pat and simplistic. The rest of the story is that for the most part, life with Mom was intense. As a rule, during school days, it was just the two of us because Dad had a time consuming job. Mom could be very critical of me, mostly, in terms of my character. She didn’t focus on school performance, on popularity, or even very much on discipline or rules during my adolescent years. But she did expect me to be a saint. I was to be generous, thoughtful, not speak ill of others, protect and defend the downtrodden, watch my tone of voice, among thousands of other things. Plus, I had a rigorous schedule of responsibilities around the house.

You might think that her behavior was the product of having an adoptive child that she wanted to shape into someone more ‘like’ her. That was my analysis of our early relationship (from 0 to 18 years), but after having had children, adopted and biological, I find that to be overly facile. By nature, she was an anxiety ridden, perfectionist, that unfortunately for me had done a stint in the army as a nurse during WWII (which is where her natural inclination to be regimented was reinforced) that wanted to do the job of parenting as perfectly as possible in a situation where her husband was absent. I truly do not believe that she would have parented me differently if I were a biological child. My husband (not adopted) has your same theory about any children: they either try to be very like their parents or they try to be the opposite of them. He comes from a family of semi-slobs and is extremely neat, nitpicky and regimented, just like my mother.

So, do I feel different than my parents? Yes and no. I am much louder than they are, much more unconventional in my behavior, and attracted to the academy. On the other hand, I am as much of an advocate as both, have a yen for adventure like my mother, and could ultimately give a crap what others think of me, like my dad.

Do I feel different than my peers? Yes, being adopted for me is like being Swedish to someone else. It’s always been a part of my life, and the conversation about my life with peers, family or colleagues. I gravitate toward adoptees.

I met my birthmom, Athena and my full brother, Myron around 15 years ago, following a very rough period in my life, at a time when Mom found my birth certificate in an unused safe deposit box of my dad’s that had Athena’s full name on it. Finding them was like finding family, pure and simple. I feel the same way about my grandson. I already had a Mom, so Athena wasn’t replacing anyone or anything in my life. Finding Myron, on the other hand, was equal in experience to meeting my children for the first time. Myron and I had both been raised as only children, and having a sibling is stardust. I’m glad I didn’t have to forego it.

Our son:

We adopted our son Daniel from South Korea after my husband and I had been married for the minimum number of years to qualify to adopt (3). I would say that the litmus test for me finding my mate was if he would agree to adopt a child. I wanted to adopt because of ‘want’ not ‘need’ (45 year old couples ‘resorting’ to adoption of many times poor children in other countries bugged the crap out of me). My husband's baby sister was adopted. My husband’s mother always said that adoption “ran in the family.”

We didn’t choose a South Korean child, like you’d choose a baby doll off of a shelf at Toys R Us. The waiting period for adopting a child in the US was too long, well at least for adopting a Caucasian child. I exhaustively explored adopting a child of another race or ethnicity in the US, and to make a long story short, we were literally blocked or extremely discouraged from doing so. I could write a treatise on that issue, but will leave it for another time. After extensive research on adopting older children (Claudia Jewett has a great book on that topic) we decided that we were ready to adopt a healthy infant. We found ourselves at a specific adoption agency in Seattle that dealt with a specific agency in S. Korea because I felt that both agencies were excellent in terms of how they treated the birth parents, the children, and the adoptive parents. In fact, it was the only agency in that area at that time that I would have adopted through internationally. In truth, it was probably the only agency that would have had us: two relatively young, married individuals with little income and still in graduate school.

We requested a female child, because we were asked. But, for mysterious reasons our child was never ‘referred’ to us and while we were waiting, a picture of an infant boy was sent to me by our caseworker. He had various issues that made him unadoptable through regular channels, but we took one look at him and decided that he was ‘ours.’ It was fate. So much for our list of requirements.

Adopting Daniel was an adventure. It also wasn't always easy. We went to Korea to get him, and while there we were thoroughly versed on his short 3 months of life. There were photocopies of his adoption records that revealed intimate details about his birthparents, their pictures and addresses. All of that information has always been available to him. For example, the picture of his birthparents is in his “Daniel (adoption) Book.“ I don’t recall him ever being uncomfortable with his knowledge of his first family.

If you had problems being a redhead, then imagine the trouble our son had being an Asian in a Caucasian house. From the beginning, we raised him with a Korean nanny (family) and mainstreamed him into the Korean community. So, imagine us in Seattle, State College and Baton Rouge, the only White family sitting in on services at the Korean Church, being at birthday celebrations, or performing in talent contests. My parents were also there, which was really an interesting development considering that Dad was from the wheat farming community of Hepner, OR and Mom from a dairy farming Swedish immigrant family in Rosburg, WA, not exactly hotbeds of diversity. Whether or not we exacerbated his feelings of being different by being involved with the Korean community, you’ll have to ask him. Plenty of therapists discouraged us from raising him by what I call cultural mainstreaming. We basically ignored them. Daniel did go through a number of years very early on where he wanted to be White like us. Then there were a few years where he wanted us to be Korean like him. We were fortunate to have so many Korean friends that helped him and us through those periods. He will tell you now that he is comfortable being in his own skin.

For the record, I don’t think that those difficult times should infer that international adoptions don’t work or aren’t good for the children. Immersing him in the Korean community is probably the only parental decision we made where I think we got it exactly right.

We took Daniel back to S. Korea when he was 7 for a month-long homecoming, just because he wanted to go. I believe that we jumped on the chance because it came at a time when he was having issues with being Korean. At that time, he did not want to meet his birthparents, but did meet the three foster families that cared for him, the caseworkers that helped him on his way, and the doctor that delivered him. In later years he has discussed returning and meeting his birthparents, I think mostly due to his relationship with his significant other, and we would have facilitated him doing so, but our grandson came at about that time, and traveling became less attractive. However, at the time we took Daniel back to Korea we traveled with his 2 year old brother, so it can be done, although I wouldn’t recommend it for sane people. By the way, after that trip, I do not recall Daniel having another major crisis regarding his race.

Pappa visits us on Daniel’s birthday: Sometimes fights are good for something

2009-04-25T18:37:00.009-05:00

Fighting with my baby is painful, particularly on my baby's birthday

My oldest son and I are in a fight. Somehow we are communicating the arguments of our respective significant others. Daniel is speaking for his fiancée and I am communicating for my husband. At one point, I had to stop the argument to ‘fact check’ so that I could offer up the appropriate retort. In that long moment when I was searching my brain for suitably fitting words of reply I realized that the words weren’t absent because of any impending Alzheimer’s disease. The words weren’t there because I didn’t have a memory of what we were fighting about. For a lack of anything better to say, I told him I’d have his father call him directly. The situation becomes simultaneously more complicated and clearer with the knock knock of my mother at the door. She begs me to “please, please, please agree to go to Daniel’s birthday dinner with him. “

This strikes me as absurd. Why wouldn’t I want to go to our number one son’s birthday dinner? How did a fight about canceling Kellan’s visit to our house at the last minute become so complicated?

In an obviously rare moment of reflection I figure out that it is because our fight over Kellan overshadowed the second part of the weekend soiree, which was to have dinner with Daniel and family when we brought Kellan back or they picked him up. Daniel was feeling like we only cared about seeing his son and not him. All at once I felt awful. No one could replace Daniel, not even the child that he fathered.

How do you explain that there is always enough love for everyone, and that love is not reproducible. Unlike a dojong (a Korean name stamp) it is never the same twice.

We had a foreshadowing of this altercation the weekend before, when we were focusing on a grandson-visit and our grown-son felt left out. I hate it when I’m obtuse and stubborn.

I call Rich and leave a message. Then because I am shook up I go to sleep.

Rich comes home and immediately apologizes via iPhone. Daniel does the same via his iPhone. They say they’ll “start over” and talk after the NFL draft is over. They are fine in 5 minutes. It has taken me a full day of arguing and fretting to come to this point of what is non-closure for me (I guess I need an iPhone), but relief.

We wait for Daniel’s phone call.

In the meantime, all phones large and small in our house are freaking out. We get multiple calls on our land-line from the pharmacy telling Rich that his prescriptions are ready to be picked up. This is a new experience, the same recording over and over, one right after the other. China Taste, our local restaurant calls James twice on his cell phone to tell him that his food is ready to be picked up (he didn’t order any). Rich’s cell phone, clearly sitting on the counter in the basket calls me on my cell phone. I answer to silence. And now my freaking E-mail doesn't work.

I am aggravated at technology and perplexed at the multiple glitches that can occur at the same time in totally different communication systems, until it dawns on me. It’s my father: Daniel’s Pappa, who died almost 3 years ago. He is upset that we are fighting on the day before his Prunie’s birthday. I walk over to mom’s house and tell her that Pappa is here. She cries and says, “I’ll bet that’s it.” I call Daniel and tell him what is going on. He believes me. Dan calls and makes reservations at the Japanese restaurant for tomorrow and promises me he’ll let Pappa know that he’s okay. I have no doubt that my dad will be there tomorrow with us, eating Japanese food and celebrating. Just like I have no doubt that he’s here with us now.

The phone calls stop. My E-mail works.

Open Salon Interview by cartouche with dcvdickens/ My side/

2009-04-05T20:51:00.037-05:00

How are you and dcvdickens related?

Dcvdickens and my husband, Rich share a half brother. I say that she is my sister-in-law but we’re unrelated. We may never have met if not for a family wedding, because it was with religious fervor that Rich avoided his half brother’s father’s side of the family. As far as he was concerned, his loyalty was to his mother, the woman that dcv’s father left for her mother. Then their common niece got married in NM 6 years ago. We didn't want to go because that “other side of the family” would be there, but our eldest son shamed us into going. Once we got there it was like meeting our long lost relatives. After about an hour, people were saying dcv and I were sisters. Our relationship has just grown from there. I love her.

HOW DID YOU COME TO OPEN SALON?

I am a major Salon fan and have been since discovering Anne Lamotte here years ago. I gravitated to OS after starting a personal, more family-related blog on Blogger last summer. My sister-in-law, dcvdickens, the real writer in the family, had an OS blog, and after reading one of her incredible posts I decided to experiment by putting “just one” of my personal pieces “out there.” It was about the anniversary of my father’s death. Then, I found Gwen Cooper’s writing about her tiny rescue cat, and well, I was hooked.

WHICH POST ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF AS A WRITER AND WHY? (PROVIDE A LINK, PLEASE)

I’ve posted little of my writing on OS. Much of it is still on my computer or on my personal blog. I’m shy about sharing it. For the most part I write for myself. My purpose is to preserve moments in time of my life that I think will be of value someday to the family I will leave behind. So, writing about topics as ordinary as our first Mardi Gras in Louisiana, the second anniversary of my dad’s death, taking the civil service exam, or the disaster that was my first wedding are very personal to me. I will post other more intimate stories someday, maybe. I just want to make sure that I’m not exploiting anyone by making my writing more public. The only reason I was able to post the piece about “How I Married into a Family that Eats Road Kill” is because everyone I might truly have offended is either dead or incapacitated, and for that opportunity I had to wait 25 years.

WHICH POST DO YOU THINK WAS MAYBE OVERLOOKED THAT YOU WISH MORE PEOPLE HAD READ? EXPLAIN WHY. (AGAIN, PLEASE PROVIDE A LINK).

To a certain extent most of what I’ve written has been overlooked by the masses, although I have had technically 3 EPs, a couple of covers and a number Critical Mess’s Daily Scrawl Picks, all of which I’ve appreciated by the way. It’s been very encouraging. I’ve been very welcomed here. It’s been my experience that OS is not a place for braggarts and despite all of those posts about “the quality or lack thereof” of writing on OS, I do not feel it has been a place of elitists. I think that the longer I’m around, and the more other readers and writers become familiar with my voice, the more I’ll get read, or not [laughing]. I’m not worried about it.

WHAT AUTHOR, PERSON OR EVENT HAS MOST INSPIRED YOUR WRITING (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE STYLE), AND THE SUBJECT MATTER YOU WRITE ABOUT?

I wish I could be more literary with this answer but the person that has most inspired me to write is my mother. We’re very close. As most of you know she’s been living in my backyard (in an addition we had built for her) for the last 5 years. I was an only child, and she worked as an RN on the 3-11 or 7-3 shift. Both shifts would place her out of the house either when I woke up or when I went to bed. Sometimes she’d work the afternoon and morning shifts back to back. I was alone a lot. Seldom was I with my dad due to his 24/7 work schedule as a labor organizer. I did spend a good deal of time with my father's very Germanic parents that lived 3 blocks away. I loved them, but they weren’t the most expressive people. In order for mom and I to survive we would communicate by writing notes, passing them between us by leaving them on the kitchen counter. So, from the very earliest of ages I learned how to write to communicate my feelings about family life.

WHAT POST BY ANOTHER OS WRITER MADE YOU GO “WOW” AND WHY?

If I can only say one, I’ll say Steven Axelrod’s writing about Sophie in “The One Who Got Away: The Survivor’s Tale” (Part 1, 2, 3 and whatever) because he loved her well, and he writes about that relationship in a way that makes my heart break. Sophie, whoever she is, is a very lucky woman. At times, throughout my life I have been “that woman” and God bless Steven Axelrod for reminding me of that. By the way, his book, “Just Like in the Movies” is available on Amazon.com. I know because I bought it.

MORE ABOUT YOU. PICK FOUR QUESTIONS FROM THE FOLLOWING:

Tell us something about yourself that most people on OS would be surprised to learn.

I am an adventurer at heart. I met my husband in a restaurant called “Stanford’s” in 1982 in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica-- the most underdeveloped part of that country , mostly populated by refugees from the Caribbean. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer, had long wavy hair, a huge beard and an earring, and when I spied him at our “hotel” “The Maritza” earlier in the day he was reading "Silent Spring" (smart, irreverent, handsome and a man with a purpose: note to self, you must meet this man) . I sashayed up to him during dinner asking if it was appropriate considering that we were on the Atlantic side of the country, that I was not wearing a bra. [Blink. Blink. Smile]. Of course, he said, "yes, entirely appropriate."

Later, that night we had a beer and he asked me to go snorkeling with him in the morning. I excused myself early because I wasn’t feeling well, and spent the night puking into a hole of a toilet down the hall from my room (bad langostinos: lobster-like creatures). Just the memory makes me wretch. I was so ill that I left the following morning before dawn on a prop plane back to San José for medical care. Before I left, I posted my name and address on his door and asked him to look me up if he was ever in the Northwest.

A year later when he got back from the Peace Corps he stopped by my house on his way to a job in Chicken, Alaska. I had a boyfriend. He was two days early. I was irritated, but rather than cook for him I took him to a Jazz Club for dinner, and that was it. We have been together ever since.

Tell us something about yourself that you have shared on OS that most people in your real life do not know?

I confide so much more with people in my real life than I do with people on OS. My friends live all over the world: I have intimates in Louisiana, New York, California, Indonesia, Sicily, Sri Lanka and Mexico to name but a few places. We talk about the woes of child rearing, marital troubles, health problems, lost dreams, attained goals, and my soon to be lost job… I write a lot of E-mails [laughing]. I can’t imagine telling an OS friend any more about my personal life.

As an experiment, after reading this question, I decided to write an OS piece about something that I hadn’t yet shared with anyone. I wrote about potential staff layoffs at the university where I work in light of our looming budget cuts. It wasn’t a great piece. It didn’t take long to write. It was more like one of the many E-mails I write. But it was written with passion. Well, within 48 hours that piece had more ratings and comments than all of my other OS posts combined. It also rated a cover, and it was my first OS piece that was picked up by Google. It was also the first time I had a chorus of PMs suggesting I take the post down for fear that it would hasten my job loss, which was very sweet as it made me feel a part of the OS community. I learned that writing about something I’m passionate about, without diffusing it first through other means is probably a more powerful although not safer way for me to write.

For women: Thongs or briefs?

God, my husband wishes it were thongs. I have tried thongs but they are just so damned uncomfortable. At this point in time, boy briefs.

How much of what and how you write or respond in comments is reflective of the person you are in “real life”?

I am who I am and my writing style reflects that. I would say that my lack of pretense is one of my best traits.

The Best Way to Lighten our Mood?: A Visit from Our Grandson

2009-03-22T18:02:00.015-05:00

This weekend we received the first visit from our grandson -- unaccompanied by throngs of people -- that we have had in awhile. Before he got here, "we" (that is, Rich, Grammy and I) were totally agitated, complaining, tired, bitchy, itchy and scratchy. What I'm trying to convey is that we were uncomfortable for a myriad of reasons, some real and some imagined. Maybe we were suffering from some sort of spring fever.

I tried to tell this to Daniel, but I think I insulted him and Brandi by saying that we felt left-out of Kellan's world in the crowd that is Brandi's family. Rich and I are a family of few people. Rich and I only saw one grandparent at a time, and consequently, we believe, we became very close to them. Brandi is from a large family and is used to a crowd of loving people. It's a difference in family backgrounds. I didn't mean to upset anyone.

We just missed Kellan.

So, Daniel placated us by visiting here on Saturday with Kellan. While they were here and afterward, "we" were just so happy. "We" seem to operate as an ecosystem, like the spiders' many eyes, or as the jellyfish's many tentacles, or like the many leaves on a tree... if one branch is out of whack, the whole organism falls ill.

We certainly operate this way. When one person is happy, we spread happiness around. When one person gets pissy, we spread misery around.

Anyway...

So, after Kellan visited we were in a little bit of heaven (poor Daniel, I hope he and James don't feel left out).

I hate to brag, but Kellan is the most personable child for a 2 year old that I've ever met. He appears to be able to relate to people of any age, as well as to animals. Plus, he's so easy. My kids were running around in circles, and climbing on tables and roofs when they were his age. He eats almost everything. He likes books. He loves to go outside. He likes to take care of plants. Plus, he can now say my name, "Nena." AND he ran up and hugged me, arms wide open, the first thing he came in the door.

He is officially my favorite person.

Oh, and he taught Grammy how to use the Wii.

I say he's a social phenom.

Here are some pictures from the visit.

At this point, Michael is not entertained....

But, he is a patient cat and melts when Kellan kisses him...

Kellan is mesmerized and I think Michael is asleep...

Then Kellan works his magic on Grammy

Instructing her on how to play the Wii

The Civil Service Exam

2009-03-13T17:06:00.061-05:00

I took a Civil Service Exam today, and unfortunately the experience sucked my good attitude reserve dry because I think I flunked it. Maybe I didn't do well because I didn't haul my big bag of degrees into the testing office. Plus, the ambiance didn't help.

It was conducted in a building dedicated to agricultural products in Louisiana. Why? Probably because it is massive – multiple offices seem vacated—so it can warehouse rooms of test takers.

Big doesn't mean beautiful in this case. The building's asymmetry inspires depression. On the outside, the parking lot and modular cement building look like abandoned Wal-Mart facades. The interior is comprised of unrelated decorating details. There are the silver covered planks on the ceiling, and live the plants on the floor in an area where there are oddly no windows or florescent lights. After walking through a long, low tunnel of plants there is an unexpectedly expansive atrium with a white shiny school-tiled floor and a massive open staircase to the second floor. I’m sure the room is large enough to stage a state-expo or rodeo, or maybe a Katrina triage unit or NASA lunar module assembly plant.

The room, hall, stairway, and upstairs do not fit together. The building looks like is made from pieces of other buildings that were never used. I'm guessing that the finished product was completed at such a cost savings that they drove every available state vehicle to the Home Depot and bought container-loads of plants and plank outdoor fencing, and gallons of silver spray paint.

I'm feeling dizzy and I think I might cry.

I tell myself to stop being upset and make a plan. Go over other possible options. Can I do something other than work? Actually the question is: How much longer do I have to work? If not long, maybe I could dedicate the rest of my life to something bigger than myself. Quit working for money. Save the world.

Or, maybe it’s not too late to be a lady of leisure, what Daniel calls a tennis woman? I could go to the University Lakes and walk with the other tennis women. I could write, dabble in charities, talk on the phone, and watch foreign films. But, who would take my calls? And if I don’t work will we have enough money for Netflix? What about a budget for tennis racquets, club dues and court fees?

Then I remember, the stock market is in the toilet and our investments have been reduced by nearly 40 percent. We have a freaking huge mortgage, and I’m working now for a ‘cause’ saving the world for less money than I am supposedly supposed to make. I have terrible hand-eye coordination and those tennis women never accepted me.

Will work for Netflix subscription

+

Really Great Face Cream

I’ll never retire. I’ll die in an office building just like this, maybe of a stroke, maybe by falling off of the second floor balcony to the shiny floor below. I think of the sad clothes and too-wide-of-shoes I’ll be wearing when I die because of the skimpy salary I’ll be making. I think of how easy the tile will be to clean-up.

Ack. I would love to set-up at least a part-time residence in the land of self-pity but unfortunately I don't have the time because I need an income, which means I need a job. I tell myself to remember that no matter how frustrating the job, it is good to get up in the morning and have a purpose; someplace to go. Getting paid is important. It makes me feel empowered-- like I didn’t get all of those degrees for nothing.

And today, I’ve done well. I showed-up at the testing center early because the website said to and I follow orders. It is 11:45. The test is to begin at 12:15. I approach the clerk, and without looking at me she says “you’re too early. We won’t even begin processing applications until 12:15. The test is at 12:45.”

My face contorts into a “huh?” because I’m the only one in line. I shove the test schedule at her that shows the test time is 12:15, but I say nothing; I’ve lost my voice. She’s not looking or listening.

I hate that I am early mostly because I’ll have to spend even more time in this cavernous place.

There is a “café” at the end of the first floor, if you can call it that. And absent going out into the deserted, broken cemented parking lot and hanging out in my car, I decide to hang out there and order “lunch” while I wait. The tables are of the outdoor variety, and look like something that I would have put on my patio 20 years ago. They aren’t massive enough --are dwarfed by the sheer size of the room. This is the surplus furniture that goes with the surplus building parts, that go with the surplus people here.

I pay a $2.50 for a cheese burger-- about the only thing on the menu-- and wait for maybe 30 minutes. I glance up from time to time and try to make eye contact with one of the cooks at the window. I smile. They act like they don’t see me. So, when I see someone else retrieving food that was ordered later than mine, I go up to the window, and the server says “I called it out and you didn’t come.” She points to the Styrofoam container next to the cash register with my now cold hamburger in it. Although I’m not even hungry, I pick it up and eat it, because it looks like I’m doing something rather than just staring at the odd assemblage of people sitting on the outdoor lounge furniture, who like me are trying to appear engrossed in something.

I see a woman in the distance that is eating take-out from McDonalds. She has obviously done this before.

I should have gone to McDonalds

My stomach begins to ache and I hope it’s because I am stressed, and not because the hamburger sat too long. The other people in their patio seats are all overweight. Then I start to think, maybe they're thinking the same thing about me? I go into the ginormous, vacant, water stained, tiled bathroom that would be big enough to service all of the passengers in O’Hare, and look at myself in the mirror. I look fat. I suck in my gut. My stomach feels worse. Going to the bathroom doesn’t help. I wonder what I will have to do if my stomach explodes while I’m taking the test. I hear that you can’t re-take it for 90 days.

This makes me wonder how we would survive for 90 days without my income. I mentally calculate what I would cut from our budget to make up for the money I bring in: the gym, occasional house cleaning, meat and fish, fresh vegetables, decent wine (not all wine), good cat litter (very important: this helps our house not to stink like the urine of two cats-- one of which has a bladder problem), prescription compounded hormones, hair color, highlights, and a good cut once every two months, miracle face cream that makes me look 10 years younger, cancel the land-line, sell my fuel efficient car, beg my mother to pay off James’ car, tell my son that he’ll have to get loans to pay for his room and board and spending money in college.

I reconsider saving on my son's college living expenses. Surely he wouldn’t want to live at home? Another year of living with my 18 year old and I will be unemployed because I will be dead.

I do not like Boone's Farm but there must be a dry, oaky, tanniny, dark grape cheap wine? By cheap I mean around $1.39 a six pack.

I leave the bathroom, pick-up what looks like a Craig’s List and sit down to read about livestock and farm machinery for sale. I read about Hotots, Netherland Dwarfs, Californian and New Zealand Whites, Havanans, and Dutch, English, French, Fuzzy, Holland and Mini Lop Rabbits for sale. I wonder if buying a bunny would make me happy, or if I could make some money without having to kill it, because I couldn’t do that.

I look around again at the conglomeration of humanity waiting there—the half a dozen middle aged women who have stomachs that look like they’re pregnant; three men right in front of me that are eating with their bad teeth; the several women to my left that need a good haircut and color; the one man and one woman to my right wearing 1980s polyester pant suits that are too short and covered with those fuzzy balls that appear on cheap worn material; the multitudes of people that are wearing shoes that too large for their feet…

I love living bunnies

I think about my mother and the money she spent to buy me narrow shoes for my skinny feet. My well clad feet and I do not belong here.

Everyone here looks desperate to me; like they just came out of the woodwork for this one long-shot precursor to a job, after which they will crawl back into whatever cave they came from, most likely never to be seen again……… because who would hire them?

I realize that the state would hire them. And if I’m lucky enough I will be working for them.

I also realize that I'm a snob, which makes me feel even worse.

As the time draws near, or at almost 12:15, I retrace my steps back to the testing office, and walk up to the window. I see than I am 2 minutes early and apologize to a different clerk. She accepts my examination materials anyway. Thank God for that; somehow it makes me feel better. She directs me to a hall, and says, “maybe there is room to sit down.” There isn’t. I stand and wait until maybe 5 examinees are called and then I sit in between other people, young, old, black and white. They all look nervous. No one talks. I can hear my heart beat.

The Good Old #2 Pencil
I am a "chewer" but did not chew on mine because it was supplied by the State
Who knows where it might have been?

No one speaks until the proctor recites the rules, “walk single file, present your identification and your test registration materials, pick up pencils and the test booklet, when I call out a number and a letter proceed to look for your seat, put your identification on the upper left side of the desk you are assigned, anything else goes under your seats, do not open the test booklet until you are told to do so, just slide out the registration materials, put away your cell phone-- if it buzzes or rings you will be escorted out of the building, and may never be able to test here again… I take this seriously and I hope you do too.”

I had already turned off my phone, but I check again. Maybe I’ll turn it on? I don't like this guy's tone... "never test here again! ha!" The ringing phone would seal my fate and establish me as a rebel-civil-service-anti-test-anti-regimentation-hero; or maybe just a stupid person who can't follow directions... Anyway, I don’t think a soul will call me. I don't use my phone enough. Damn me! I decide to save myself the anxiety of waiting, so I put my turned-off phone back in my purse.

Note to self: find more contacts for phone
And stop being a phone phobic

I feel like I’m in prison, or in a bad hospital or nursing home, or maybe in the 5th grade.

I sit down and fill out the personal information on the header of the test form. This hasn’t changed in 40 years. Still with the number 2 pencils, circling a, b, c, or d, erasing completely, guess rather than leave a blank.

Twenty minutes after the test starts I panic because I realize that many of my answers are the last letter, which means that there either is not enough information to answer the question or the answer is not stated in the options presented. What are the chances of that? I complete the test and go back over the first 10 questions, the ones I have marked “no acceptable answer.” I write all over my pink sheet of scratch paper with calculations, then I go and get another sheet, calculate more and I’m still unable to change my answers.

Mine looked just like this but with many more erase marks and lots of "E"s

Twenty minutes early-- after 2 hours and 10 minutes of test taking, I leave, hoping that a bad score will just prove to me how over-educated I am, or how in the wrong company I am, or that this is just not meant for me, anything but that I’m stupid.

As I drive home, I think about where I find myself. I am 51 years old, have two terminal degrees and am taking the professional entry examination that recent college grads take because I need to work to pay the mortgage and our children’s expenses, and maybe for a dinner out or a beautification thing or two. Oh, and remember, I am putting money into our 401K: for every $1 I put in I can take .60 cents out.

Oh Bill Clinton: Those were the days

Can I save myself from the embarrassment of caring that I flunked the Civil Service Examination, by moving to another less expensive house and never working again?: No, my mother’s addition -- that she LOVES-- is attached to the back of our house, so we can’t leave. In fact, I’m sure she will outlive me.

I have a gigantic headache and when I get home I lie down and ask Rich to come and rub my neck. He can’t even bear to turn off his music video. He turns it up and comes to lie down with me. My headache returns by tenfold and I feel like I will throw-up. He ignores what I’m trying to say to him, and I realize I don’t feel like talking anyway. The neck rubbing lasts about 10 minutes. He goes upstairs to play the guitar while I cook dinner. I write this and burn chili beans and hamburger on the bottom of the pot. He says, “You wouldn’t have done this if you hadn’t been blogging.” The truth is that I wouldn’t have been writing this if he would have been talking to me. I start to tell him how depressing living in Louisiana is for me. He says, “you’ve been saying this for 15 years, and that dog won’t hunt.”

Not a "bad" dog; he just ain't gonna hunt

After cleaning out the pot I burned, he goes back upstairs to play the guitar.

Tomorrow, he’ll go back to his job from which he can never be fired, due to me putting him through his PhD program and moving to this damn place and being stuck here.

James wants to give me a hug and honestly, no matter how bad this sounds, it doesn’t help. I watch Grey’s Anatomy, sort of. I take two Benadryl and lock my door and go to bed.

The last thought that enters my mind before I drift off to sleep is, "my mother's right; I should take better care of my shoes."

Mommy's little pink pill

When I wake up in the morning I print out the test questions for the next Civil Service Exam I’m going to take. I’ll study them while I wait for my mother’s physical therapy appointment.

How do you know if you are at the end or the beginning ?

2009-03-08T10:35:00.023-05:00

I know it's all about perspective...

So tell me: Am I at the beginning or end?

Am I landing or taking off?

Am I jumping up or down?

Am I eating or being eaten?

Am I blocking or being blocked?

Am I docking or lifting anchor?

I'm pretty sure I've taken the road less traveled so far.........

The Road Less Traveled
Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

And I used to be confident with the path I took. But now?

If it were only this clear (one road in and out)....

There's been a storm brewing for quite awhile now and I need to figure out which way to go.....

My family members are no help. You can see my dilemma, as I get the following advice from Rich:

"Roads start either in the East or South and end in either the West or the North, respectively. Other rules of thumb: Start Southeast; end Northwest; start Southwest; end Northeast."

Say what?

I was never very good at directions. I can't even seem to figure out these GPS systems. I miss what "the voice" is saying, and when I say, "huh?" there is no response.

Why don't those things have a replay button?

One thing I know for sure: I'd rather be skiing.

Okay. I supposes that daydreaming is not helpful. Rewind.

So, what to do? Hopefully, the most recent budget cuts for Louisiana Higher Education (announced at 15% this weekend) will help someone decide something that will have some definitive impact on me. Definitive would be good.

I hope that this is the final number, because if it is a political ploy and is adjusted downward as the legislative session rolls on, I will be furious looking back on what they put us through. I guess it won't matter at that point because I'll either have a job at LSU or not.

My real question is: Are these sorts of tsunamis a "sign" that I should be doing something else? What is life trying to tell me?

A Big Dose of Mardi Gras: When your Attitude Needs Adjusting

2009-02-21T10:16:00.188-06:00

Let's get this party started: from 8:30 am until the parade starts at 4:30 pm and beyond

We leave our ever-growing work machinations related to the LSU budget cuts and our recent issues with our youngest son behind and venture out onto I-10, where we are graciously allowed into Mardi Gras traffic. We are tired, but happy because we are leaving home and traveling just 80 minutes to the east to a magical land--the Land of Mardi Gras, joie de vive, don't have the follow the rules, and not a care in the world.

Float art: Clown mask

Before we leave we lay down the law with the 18 year old son -- no having parties, no going to parties, no parties without booze, no parties with just a 'few friends,' no parties, period, no leaving the house, no going to N.O. and no heading off to Red River, NM skiing; and by the way "have fun." We kiss Grammy goodbye and head out the door. I thank God that Grammy is in good health so that we can leave home for a couple of days.

We are broke, but hurray, we double check: We have our credit cards.

Endymion Parade Theme: Tales of Sleep and Dreams

Just before we get out the door, one of Daniel's future family members calls and wants to have dinner with us when we get into Metairie. I'm caught off guard. I manage not to answer -- as the last thing we want to do is talk to anyone tonight. I tell him we'll call him when we are on the road. I try to think of a reasonable reason to beg off, but really haven't come up with something "polite" to say before I nod off to sleep.

Then my phone rings just minutes after we get on the Interstate, and he wants to make plans. Now I'm starting to feel a little edgy. I tell him we are going to spend the evening and the next morning ALONE. I am tired. I do not tell him about the big fat drama week at work and at home, or that we need a break. I heave a bigger sigh than intended. I'm sure he hears it. He hangs up. I think I've probably been rude but am just too tired to reverse course.

I mention to Rich how glad I am that Deb didn't spend the money to come to our crazy house in the midst of so much craziness to watch such an obviously crazy parade in a crazy city, in a crazy state.

Float art: Clown

We arrive at the 1896 O'Malley House -- and let out another sigh, this time of relief. Rich parks his truck and we look out at a crowd of people already cordoning off their spaces on the island in the middle of Canal Street, where the Endymion parade will pass, which is exactly 1 1/2 blocks from where we are staying. It is 5:00 p.m. and the parade starts tomorrow at 4:15 p.m. We comment that it looks like a giant tailgate party, with food, drinks and a weird conglomeration of ladders and scaffolding being erected so as to view the parade better. I wonder, 'better than what?' as these folks will be on the front line of the parade route.

The ladder & scaffolding industry

We meet Larry, the owner of the B&B, who shows us to our very nice cedar walled room with antique-ish furniture on the 3rd floor. He gives us our keys and reminds us to lock the front door every time we come in so that the folks outside "don't come in and pee pee on the floor." We go back down to our car, take out our suitcases, lock the door, and schlep our stuff up to the room.

Baby doll on a stick

Rich thinks he pulled his back out. He takes some pain meds, and admits to me that he is not sleeping well lately because our 18 year old son is leaving home for college soon. I wonder why he wouldn't be thrilled in anticipation of this send-off, but murmur something that sounds like I'm in agreement.

Captain on horse back

Eldest son, Daniel calls twice on the road, where he is in a traffic jam due to a multiple car wreck with fatalities, trying to make it to his future in-law's house in Metairie, near N.O. He tells us that future father-in-law is already staking out their spot on the parade route with various other family members "spelling" him out so that he can go home and sleep. We wonder why anyone would go to so much trouble just to watch a parade.

We hope we don't have to "spell out" anyone. We are dead-tired and may not wake up for the parade, let alone in the middle of the night for a walk to the beginning of the parade route to "spell out" people who feel that a parade is worth losing sleep over.

Besides, we are afraid of N.O. in the middle of the night.

Spectators participate: Swashbuckler

We need to eat, so we walk four blocks and the first restaurant we see is Mandinas -- a little hole in the wall Italian restaurant on every restaurant guide in in the city, with a police patrol outside. There is a sign on the door that says,

"No checks, No credit cards. Cash only. ATM on the premises."

I do not think I have seen this before, except maybe in a lesser developed country. I make a comment to Rich about how rife with fraud N.O. must be for them to enforce a rule like this at a place of business where they actually want customers. I start feeling uncomfortable about walking the streets at night. We open the door, and I see a tacky sign at the back of the restaurant that says, "ATM," so I walk back and up a few steps near where people are eating, and try not to bump into them while retrieving several hundred dollars from our checking account. I hand it to Rich.

It occurs to me why the police patrol is outside -- to keep the bad guys away from the front of the restaurant.

To hell with you patrons as you head down the block or around the corner. We want your cash.

The last time I saw a police presence like this was in another country. Wait a minute: I have seen this in Baton Rouge, outside the Honey Baked Ham store at Christmas. At least there, we can park our car directly in front of the store and near the police.

Kid Rock on his float

REO Speedwagon

We walk back to the waiting area, where a young Italian man with an earring shows us to our table, which is near the door and unfortunately behind a post, even though there are much better-placed tables that are free. I look at my clothes, and think to myself, "you're not dressed like a bum." I ask Rich if he thinks the young Italian man is a "Mandina" and he says, "No, he's not family." What criterion he's using to make that determination, I don't know. I'm feeling very unimportant but the waiter smiles at us, and I pretend he's a Mandina, just so that I don't feel like a second class citizen.

Float art: The Joker or a Jester

The restaurant is a classic. It has a huge cedar, glass backed bar, cedar wainscoting and sturdy Italianate furniture that looks like something grandma would have, where a view of the clientele and the owners are enough for the price of the meal.

We order their Friday special:

Eggplant, ham, shrimp and brown gravy with spaghetti meal

Almost immediately after receiving it I feel terrible eating all of these calories, so I selectively eat bites out of the gravy plate and most of the spaghetti, which seemed like the lesser of the two evils.

It is all delicious.

Float art: Man/Goat/Winged Creature

Parade paraphenalia hawker
Boobs of all colors are hot items

I look around. I'm pretty sure that most of the waitstaff and customers have been there since 1932, the year of their opening: two towering gentlemen in white waiter's gear and ties, probably at least 300 lbs, and in their 70s, distinguishable because one has a goiter and the other does not; a woman in the corner that looks like an obese 80 year old Marilyn Monroe; some handsome couples in jogging gear with their beautiful children in front of the bar; some young Italian men; quite a few established New Yorkish looking families; and a burn victim and his wife. For some reason the restaurant looks like it is filled with characters from a movie. I keep telling Rich to "look" at various people behind him; he is facing the door as usual. Each time he says, "no," I point loudly to one of the cheap paintings on the rear wall so he'll have a reason to turn around and stare.

I order Cabernet. They say they have Merlot. I say, OK. It tastes like Sherry, and although I hate Sherry it fits the mood of the place.

NOPD on horseback: Keeping the peace

I text James twice telling him that although he's 'in trouble' I love him. I'm beginning to miss him and feel sad that he is leaving the house for college in 6 months. I look at my watch: That change of heart took approximately 3 hours.

Spectator: This one's a Pirate

The next morning I roust Rich and we head on down to breakfast. I am craving coffee and drink maybe 5 cups, and of course eat breakfast, which I never do, because "it's there" and I'm "on vacation" and "it's Mardi Gras." The breakfast consists of fruit (good for me), yogurt (good) coffee (okay) with cream (not good) and an Italian Quiche made with filo dough (not good) and sausage (definitely not good).

It is all delicious.

I refuse the homemade biscuits, which makes me feel somewhat disciplined.

Larry tells us that Mandinas was a purported mafia hangout for years, and it dawns on me that the cash-only policy has more to do with money laundering than it does with fraud, which makes me feel a lot more comfortable about walking the streets with money and a credit card jammed in my front pockets.

No bare faces on floats: It is against the law to take off your mask and the mesh face-cover underneath

The future grandfather-in-law calls and wants to know where we are because the future-grandmother is going to drop off a Mardi Gras bag she made, complete with beads to get me started. He wants us to check out tomorrow morning at 8:30 to follow him to a parking lot close to the bleachers were they've paid for our tickets to watch 4 parades from 12:00 p.m. tomorrow to 12:00 a.m. tomorrow night.

I panic. I cannot sit still for 12 hours and watch 4 parades. I beg Rich to ask them where the bleachers are -- we'll try to catch a cab or the trolley across town and just leave from our B&B at a more civilized hour. They say it's "miles and miles" away and "the street cars don't operate when there are parades."

This guy scared the hell out of Rich

They then suggest that we not watch the parade today with Daniel's future in-laws (their son and daughter-in-law). They say, "just go outside your door and watch from your Bed and Breakfast;" "You'll never find Tommy and the family, there are thousands of people out there;" the location is "miles" from you; and finally, "Tommy is cranky." All the while, we hear Larry, the B&B proprietor yelling in the background, "You're maybe a mile at the most from them. I walk the dog there every day." Daniel calls twice, he gives Rich the parade location. We GPS it, and it's 8 blocks from here. I calm down. We can do that.

He calls again and tells Rich that Tommy and Alfie haven't rented a port-a-potty this year, but they have rigged up a "bathroom like structure" on the back of his truck (now I remember Brandi telling me that they have used it in the past for #1 but not #2). Okay. The port-a-potty concept was probably the only reason I agreed to be on the parade route and not watch these parades on television (are they on television?).

I take a shower and get ready for the big extravaganza. When I get back to our room, I notice that the future grandmother has dropped off my Mardi Gras bag. She has indeed decorated it with sparkly paint, it has big beads in it, and several moon pies. It is adorable. I vow to myself that I will not eat the moon pies.

Enough is enough. I struggle to put on my pants. Didn't they fit just yesterday?

Daniel calls twice more. He wants us there now. Rich is asleep. I wake him up and tell him that we really need to get started walking to our spot on the parade route, it's after noon and our tribe has been there since yesterday morning at 5:30 a.m. He wakes up, gets dressed and off we go, but not before he tells me he's disappointed in me for spending time on the computer this morning instead of spending time with him. "Oh Shoot," I think. "He's right. I'm an idiot. I was just trying to recharge my batteries, which didn't include recharging him." Bad wife. I run along after him apologizing. He says it's okay, but it's not.

Spectators participate: "Nurse" dispensing liquor shots

We finally arrive at the spot Daniel's future family members have staked out, which is just a block from the bandstand where Kid Rock, the Grand Marshall and REO Speedwagon will perform. I am genuinely happy to see the whole family. Familiar faces amongst thousands. Hugs and kisses all around. We're let into the gated area. I'm offered food from the feast they have prepared, and a beer, but I trade it in for an "Ice Pick." We are offered a place on the ladder, front-row seats and places to stand. More hospitality than we deserve, after all we haven't done anything to contribute.

Flambeaux carrier

Minutes turn into hours and I find that I'm smiling again. Rich says, "This has significantly exceeded my expectations."

We relax and celebrate for the next 8 hours. Thirty floats, probably 15 bands, maybe 8 sets of gas flambeaux carriers (traditionally African American men that originally carried paper-lit-lanterns in the early 17th century when there were no lights to illuminate the evening parades), a king, a queen and various princesses, all on custom designed floats, and probably 30 pounds of beads, all make the parade memorable.

What makes it exceptional is that thousands of people, young and old, large and small can be jammed into a fixed space, in an alcohol-fueled environment and get along so well. We feel like there is a possibility of a brother and sisterhood of men and women. We are happy, content and smiling. Maybe it's the Ice Picks, maybe the exhaustion, or maybe it's simply that we were welcomed and given a place to rest. For the moment, we love Louisiana. We have 'family here.'

Now, I wish Deb had spent her money to come to New Orleans to experience it with us.

Queen of Endymion

For the record, the make-shift port-a-potty is genius. It's inside a Ford Van with plastic hefty bags taped to the windows. It's clean and was made by Daniel's future in-laws' grandfather when the girls (future mother-in-law and her sister) were little. Someone has to stand guard outside the van while someone is doing their business. Even the place where we put our little tushies has a historical familial connection. I like that.

Float art

After the parade ends, we pick our way through screaming crowds of people to make it back to our Bed and Breakfast, which happens to be along the parade route. This means that we are backtracking along Carrollton, and catch-up to the parade that we had just finished seeing as it careens to the Convention Center. We walk with the floats all the way back to Canal Street. I feel like we are "in" the parade. Rich and I take hundreds of pictures of the absolute insanity. By that time the barricades have been torn down, people are pressed up against the floats in a frenzy of bead throwing and catching. We are trying to walk the very narrow space in between the floats and the clamoring crowds.

A very tall black woman raises up her baby to kiss a masked man in a purple, fuzzy hat. The baby kicks me in the head. She is aghast and very apologetic. I keep telling her it is okay; that it did not hurt. He's just a baby, with baby feet. But, she puts her large arms around me and gives me a big hug, then kisses the top of my little pin head. I grin. This will be forever the metaphor for me that is Mardi Gras.

The art of face painting

The next day before we leave, we have breakfast with a number of other Mardi Gras visitors, and Larry who owns the B&B. Most of the visitors have a strong connection to Louisiana, either having lived here or visited here for years. We learn that each of the floats are made up of people that pay to be on them (from $400 to $2000). These fees apparently take care of the money for the police escorts, the marching bands, and the floats. They also pay for all of their own beads, their costumes, and the food they eat at their respective Balls. Now I am even more thankful for the beads that these men, mostly, have thrown to me, because they have paid for them out of their own pockets. Larry calls it the least expensive, best entertainment in the world, and I think he is right.

The last mental picture I have is of Larry dressed in his big black afro, riding his vespa from party to party through Mardi Gras crowds on parade nights, with Cody, his Golden Retriever chasing after him.

We come back home to Baton Rouge to our real lives. We "lost" James last night (we couldn't locate him) which is why we came home early and did not go to an additional day of parades. My mother has two new physical symptoms that need a doctor's attention. Our house is a mess. And, just as we were pulling into the driveway, Grammy was trying to back out and ran into my car, which now needs body-work.

I pick-up our ailing cat "Gray" from the vets. I make dinner. I wash clothes, and hang up my jeans to dry (no dryer) so that I can fit in them for the next few weeks, or until I lose weight.

I'm feeling tired but remarkably rejuvenated.

We decide to do this all again next year. We will go 24 hours earlier so that we can help claim a great spot on the parade route, and "spell" out those family members that need it. We will help cook and mix drinks. We will buy a ladder or two for our grandchildren. We will go to 4 parades the next day with the grandparents-in-law. It will be a wonderful time. We can't wait!

My grandson is worn out!

5 Months Post-Tsunami In Search of a Village to Build a Preschool

2009-02-16T17:41:00.011-06:00

This is a repost of an article we wrote for Sarvodaya after the Tsunami of 2005. We are considering a return to Sri Lanka next fall, which prompted me to dig out this piece. We miss Sarvodaya and our friends there and hope the civil war stabilizes so that we feel comfortable making the trip.

Someone asked me today why I write this stuff. I feel compelled.

Our Mission

We were making our first trip to Sri Lanka in 3 and 6 years, respectively, to see our friends at Sarvodaya and to find a tsunami impacted village that needed a preschool—the heart of the Sarvodaya village development process. The International Student Association at the Louisiana State University (where Rich is a professor and I am an adjunct) under the student leadership of Francisco Aguilar a former volunteer for Sarvodaya, with the support of Virginia Grenier at the LSU International Hospitality Foundation had raised over $5,800 through a series of concerts to build a preschool; these monies were generously matched by our friend Rick Brooks at SHARE in Madison, Wisconsin for an additional $3,500. Thus, we had enough money, we were told, for possibly two preschools, depending on whether we had to construct them outright or whether they simply needed repair and reconstruction.

Before we embarked on our trip, Sarvodaya Headquarters had determined that the Matara District was the tsunami-impacted area that needed our help. We learned that what would have been a relatively simple task before the tsunami—determining which village in which to build a preschool—was a multifaceted and complex task in post-tsunami Sri Lanka.

Traveling on Galle Road

We left for Matara under the care of Vinya’s driver, “Mutu” to see where the preschool was to be built, or if a village had not been identified, to choose the most appropriate village in which to build. Traveling on the coastal road (Galle Road) the devastation was still apparent, the majority of which appeared to be around the City of Galle itself. Houses and other structures were totally ripped from their foundations, with partial cement walls standing to mark the place where the structures had been. In other instances, nothing was left except rubble or garbage strewn on the ground.

‘Temporary housing’ in the form of tent cities were scattered amidst the broken cement, each of a different color and with various emblems depending on the donor. They looked hot. Sometimes mixed in with the tents were ‘semi-temporary housing’ units about half the size of a small U.S. bedroom, of rough, crooked lumber without window coverings, running water or plumbing. They looked like my children constructed them and didn’t look like they could house a family for any length of time. From time to time, Mutu would say “tsunami” and sweep his hand dramatically over the terrain to indicate where a particularly bad stretch of devastation had occurred.

Brightly colored boats were strewn in various broken states on the sand and land, with remnants of nets draping what was left of the boat or bunched in a pile on the sand. The boats looked strangely beautiful even though they were in pieces. The devastation was oddly uneven.We would drive past rubble the size of pebbles and shortly thereafter we would see a stretch housing along the beach that appeared untouched. Individuals were busy mending walls of structures along the road with whatever materials they could find. Toward the District of Matara, however, the tsunami devastation appeared to be less severe, and that there was a greater organized repair effort underway. Mr. Senerath told and retold stories of Buddha statues, shrines and stupas that were untouched by the tsunami, some right next to great piles of wreckage, and about dogs that alerted their owners and retreated inland before the tsunami struck.

We stopped abruptly beside a USAID tent city, where Subasena from Sarvodaya Headquarters was standing waiting for us. He informed us that our hotel, located high on a hill was spared (the Matara District Center does not have housing available and many hotels along the beach were destroyed) and that “H.M. Nelson,” the District Coordinator was waiting for us at the District Center.

The Matara District Center

We came to the Matara District Center and Nelson and Ninsanke (from the legal aid unit, who assists with the effort to reproduce lost documentation such as birth certificates, other identification and land deeds) awaited us with welcoming smiles. In the middle of the property were stakes laid out to mark the place where the new district center would be located (partially funded by Sarvodaya USA). On each side of the construction site were buildings that were being rehabilitated from tsunami damage. In the rear were debris and a tent filled with salvaged preschool supplies. Nelson took us into an office in the building behind the preschool (which had a newly painted mural of children on the side), where we sat down to a tropical fruit drink to look at pictures of the post-tsunami district center. The room where we sat was filled with water to the ceiling and all computers and supplies had been destroyed. In limited English, Nelson tried to explain to us how he’d been swept away by the wave but managed to survive by hanging onto the roof and door frame, how the preschool children were not inside the preschool that morning at 8:00 because it was a holiday, that 5 districts were affected, and that 27 of the impacted villages were within the Matara District. He then escorted us to the Pearl Cliff Hotel, where we were staying, in what has to be the highest piece of land in the area, and which undoubtedly is tsunami-proof.

Village Reconnaissance

The next morning we met with Nelson and our translator, Mr. Senerath, a retired government official, who led us through villages along the shoreline in the Matara District that had been severely damaged by the tsunami. We visited with the Shramadana Society Members in each village, who recounted the number of dead, wounded and the impacted structures and businesses in their village. Intermittently during our visits, Nelson relayed to us the dry rations, tents, medicines and books that Sarvodaya had distributed, and future plans to construct latrines and houses, and to provide counseling for women and children.

Kottagoda Village

The first person that we met was Samadhi Maheshica, the Society President of Kottagoda. She told us that out of 400 families in the village, 34 people had died (3 or 4 children, and the rest elderly) and 255 families had been affected. Sixty-two houses were fully and 192 houses were partially damaged. Most of the fisherfolk (the word they used to describe the fishing community) lost their boats and fishing supplies. The government granted the affected families 5,000 Rupees a month (or approximately $50) for two months, and a one-time allocation of 2,500 Rupees (or approximately $25) for kitchen utensils. Rations of 375 Rupees (or $3.75) a week per person were apparently still being distributed by a foreign agency, with about a third consisting of food stuffs (cheese, milk) and the remainder being distributed in currency.

Samadhi said that most of the people now had semi-permanent structures, yet, they were uncertain about when or whether they would get permanent houses because their destroyed homes were within the 100 meter zone from the coast that the government had declared could not be used for dwellings. Thus, they were in limbo, stuck in either temporary structures or living with relatives, waiting for other lands to be located by the government on which they could build, if they only had the money to do so….

We were told that many villagers escaped with only “what was on their backs.” They did not have medical supplies or physicians. People from several outside villages located in-land came to help with the clean-up in Shramadana or Sarvodaya work-camp efforts. The society president suddenly pointed out a young man that had appeared in front of us, who, he recounted, had lost a 2 month old child to “the wave.” He stood with his other child, of maybe two years, that they found stuck in the “V” of a tree root. Instinctively, I looked to see if the child appeared traumatized. Unfortunately he wouldn’t come near me, (all Sri Lankan children are traumatized by me—without exception they cry) so I couldn’t tell.

The town’s preschool had been damaged, and was outside the 100 meter zone. The preschool teacher, Gnaanawathie, said that she continued to teach even without a preschool although many of the children had left to go to schools in other areas. We wondered how they knew who would continue to be located in the village, what would be the structure of their Society (as a number of officers appeared to have lost their houses) and what children would come back to the preschool with the land situation as it stood.

Our translator said that the government had appointed a special officer for the disbursement of lands, and had changed the onerous land laws so that property transfers could be facilitated more quickly, but he added, “That takes time.” We encountered a “strike” against the government that closed Galle Road, which indicated to us that displaced people thought that time had run out.

Sudawella Village

In the village of Sudawella we were taken to meet the Secretary of the Shramadana Society, Vimla Abesuria. She recounted how Holcim Cement Company had donated cement, and in partnership with Sarvodaya, was constructing houses, which lowered the cost of building due to cement shortages (construction costs have gone up at least 2 times and of course there are stories of gouging). Society members and Nelson took us to a hilltop “neighborhood” where Sarvodaya was building houses for those who had the funds to purchase land there, which was a part of a larger project to build 42 houses in Matara (for which the Matara District has funding for 24). Notice that I said that the people who were building these donated buildings were people who had the money to buy property. Many villagers do not have such funds and are therefore left waiting for the government to act and allot land. So, the neediest suffer most.

The people that were “given” these houses were chosen by the Sarvodaya Shramadana Society in the village, based on criteria such as character, need, ability to purchase land and willingness to contribute to the construction process. Additional features such as red brick or more square footage had to be subsidized by the recipient. Apparently, there had been a lot of controversy and clucking about the people that were chosen. Therefore, the decision of the Society was carefully made, and was reviewed and approved by the District Coordinator. The houses that dotted the hillside—each at different stages of development—were designed by an architect for Sarvodaya. They were 500 square feet in size, were generally made out of cement blocks, had wood window trim and clay tile roofs, and seemed to fit organically within the area’s geography. Each home varied just enough in design, some with multiple roof lines or varied window frames. They appeared to be built so that there would be running water, several bedrooms, and a room with a place for a cooking fire.

We went back to the Society president’s house, which had been partially destroyed along with 20 other homes (30 totally destroyed). A cadre of family and friends gathered around us to tell us that most of the villagers (280 out of 390) lived within the 100 meter zone, and were therefore unsure about where to go or how to proceed. The Society president made it clear that she no longer wanted to live close to the water, a sentiment she said was shared by nearly all of the people in her village. You would never have known that these people lost so much, as we laughed and they recounted their stories. “What to do?” she asked (fortunately, a rhetorical question in Sri Lanka).

Five boats were partially damaged and had been repaired, and another 7 large boats were fully damaged. Rather than focus on the boat situation, people were dismayed about the fishing net situation! Most of their fishing nets had been washed away. They therefore couldn’t fish for income (instead they were living on the WHO ration of 375 Rupees a month) nor could they provide their families with food—fish was a main staple of their diet. Each boat employed 6 people, thus not only were they unable to provide for themselves, they were unable to provide for their 6 additional families. We quickly ascertained that there were 30 boats in that village, and that each boat needed at a minimum 10 nets a boat (roughly ½ the usual number), 5 or so small nets at 6,000 Rupees each, and 5 or so large nets for 7,000 Rupees each. Thus, outfitting each boat in that town with the minimum of nets would be 65,000 Rupees (or about $650), which times 30 boats equaled close to $20,000 US.

Gandara Village

In the village of Gandara we met Gunawaite, the Sarvodaya Village Bank Manager, who proudly showed us her wall chart of their bank’s progress since it opened in 1999. They currently had 1071 members, 11,000,000 Rupees in savings, offered loans of 1 Lak maximum (100,000 Rupees), offered 15% interest on savings, and charged 20% interest on loans. So far so good I thought, until we were told that during the month of December Gunawaite had given 3, 1 Lak business loans to people who lost their homes and fishing boats in the tsunami. Obviously, they can’t make payments. She said that these people come to the bank from time to time and say, “some day we will pay you back.” The benefit of a village bank is that people are given loans at least partially based on their character, so she knows that they are good people, but good people in an impossible situation. A grace period of three months was granted, but now, people had to pay the interest on their loans monthly. She said that she would still give them business loans so that they could rebuild their businesses, but I wondered how many people would be willing to take on a loan when they couldn’t pay back the somewhat large one they already had. We sweated profusely as we all laughed, while we tried to jump start their ceiling fan, ate dohdol (a sweet desert of coconut oil, treacle and wheat flower) and sweet, fat, short bananas, tasted their sambol of Maldives Fish (that I mispronounced “moldy fish”—which garnered more laughter) and drank hot tea with milk.

Kiralavella Village

In the village of Kiralavella we were met by the bank manager, Djap Nandaweithie and the Society President, Nanda Sudasinghe. The mood in the village was grim. As we stood just inside the village bank, one by one, villagers appeared and surrounded us. Several fishermen looked vacantly in our direction. None smiled. Their Society had been relatively developed: they had conducted Shramadana camps, nutrition programs, health clinics, Lamaze courses, children’s programs, and had a bank that had been in operation since 1990 with 629 members. The tsunami virtually wiped out their village. All but 3 families lived within the 100 meter zone. One hundred and ninety families (190) were affected by the tsunami, all of them fisher folk. Five houses had been fully and 42 houses had been partially damaged; twenty five people had lost all of their household goods. All told, 35 large and small boats had been destroyed. Engines were smashed—they had repaired 14, and dismantled another 5 for repair. Again, no one had nets and therefore there was no way for families to earn a living. Coir pits (a secondary income source from which mostly women make brooms and rope to sell) dug close to the shoreline were covered with rocks and soil and were therefore unusable. Divers lost their gems. Pit toilets destroyed by sea water, were dirty and unusable.

Kapparatota North and South, Divisions of Weligama District

The Society members in the villages of Kapparatota North and South recounted that a full 58 houses had been partially or fully destroyed, 15 within the 100 meter zone, out of 997 families directly or indirectly affected. Although the story in this village seemed so much better than in others, dissension amongst villagers was slowing the structural and emotional recovery process. Some people within the 100 meter zone wanted to stay and rebuild, and some wanted to leave. “What would the government do to those who wanted to stay?” someone asked. “How could the government take people from their land?” someone else retorted. “I don’t think they will do it,” another person commented. The preschool had been fully damaged but another organization was reconstructing it.

Talalla South—A Village Ready for a Preschool

We arrived at Talalla South and were greeted by the Society Secretary, S.D. Punyawaithe, the Treasurer, Adjanta Edinsinghe and the Bank Manager, M.D. Paduma. In the background we could hear Buddhist chanting. This was a very large village of 1,056 families, and a total population of 5,820. Seventy three families were affected by the tsunami, 284 had lost their jobs, 55 homes were fully and partially damaged, and 11 people died. Forty boats needed nets, 50 toilets needed constructing (families were sharing toilets), water was contaminated and wells needed to be built. The majority of men were fisherfolk, and women were coir workers. A considerable number had homes inside the 100 meter zone (350) and all agreed that they wanted to relocate inland, that they wanted to remain together as a village, and they had a plan to do so. Collectively, the displaced landowners had asked the government for apartments rather than houses: Less land would be required on which to place the construction, and well-built apartments were high off the ground and therefore out of reach of the water if such an event were to happen again, away from the beach anyway.

It was at that moment that we looked at each other and realized we had finally found a village “ready” for a preschool, if indeed they needed one.

They did not have a Sarvodaya preschool, although a Buddhist Monk had given them a piece of land that would house the 50 or so children that would attend. We immediately headed over to the monk’s compound, met him (Rathmalkekitiye Sirinanda) and saw where the preschool would be constructed (over where an existing well stood) and where the playground would be located (surrounding a Bodhi tree). It was the perfect match. We were poised to give money and support for building a preschool, and in Talalla South we had a village that we knew would stay together, that needed a preschool and that already had the foundation practically laid for one. We were exhausted, hot and sweaty and ready to rest.

Lessons Learned

We learned some important lessons on this trip: A “permanent
building” such as a preschool may have to be followed by or built along with meeting other needs. If we had not been sent by our donors to specifically build a preschool, there were other items that screamed to us to be addressed also, particularly in the villages that were the most severely impacted. Counseling programs for tsunami-impacted villages, families and children need to be, and in fact are being initiated by Sarvodaya, alongside bricks and mortar projects. Toilets, wells and coir pits that were contaminated by sea water and debris, need to be reconstructed, built or cleaned. Land, private or governmental, requires locating or purchasing. Houses need constructing. Boats demand to be repaired and nets to be purchased.

‘Integrated development’ is the gold standard, and we saw first-hand why the Sarvodaya model works so well to realize it. ‘Development’ is best engineered by the villages and villagers who have the most intimate knowledge of their situation. ‘Outsiders’, even well-meaning ones (like us), just don’t know enough.

The Cilly Letter "C"

2009-02-11T13:29:00.008-06:00

c is for crazy cat

c is for caged crania

c is for comb

I was assigned the letter “c” by Willow more than a week ago. As I was contemplating this letter, I realized that I don’t like it much because I don’t associate many good things with it. Most of the “c” words that I use are hard sounding like “cackle,” “click” and “cold”. Even the “ch” words, except for “Christmas” are harsh, such as “challenge,” “chaos,” “choke” and “Chlamydia”.

It turns out that I’m not the only one with a disaffection for this tough little letter. In fact, Jakob Neilson, a web pioneer (http://www.useit.com) declared the letter “unusable.” It turns out that 83% of the words that we look-up start with the letter “c,” mostly because of the “i before e rule.” And of course there’s that annoying little issue of it mimicking two other letters in our alphabet, namely “k” and “s”. I mean look at the word “mimicking” – what good is the “c” in that word anyway?

Why not get rid of “c” if there are other letters that can substitute for it and that make more sense? For example, “.com” would just become “.kom.” The letter “c” originated with the Etruscans, and actually stood for the sound of “g” before there was a “g,” and I don’t see them needing it anymore.

This elimination idea seemed simple enough until Neilson proposed using “x” for the “ch” sound, such as “xh,” which would require us eliminating the “z” sound for the “x” and..

Well, from there on his treatise lost me. I’ll leave the rest to the linguists and the language pioneers on the web and elsewhere. But I just want to say-- I’m open to change if it will make things simpler (and my spelling better, which is wrong, coincidentally, about 83% of the time).

Inspired by my OS writer friend, Gwen Cooper*, I wrote some Haikus for your enjoyment that are composed mostly of “c” words, plus a few other helpful letters:

Christianity
come comfort and communion
my close connection

camping in the cold
all covered in cloaks of clothes
a crackling fire comforts me

cigarettes as clubs
clonking clueless children
closing their chances

conifers cycle
C02 and clean the air
clear compensation

congratulations
one challenge conquered
click click click comes another

those cursed credit cards
cleverly choke your choices
closing in on you

cooperation
consensus can be coerced
caution censorship

a clever cheater
charisma cloaks clarity
cleaves closely to compliments

chaos confusion
confrontational cretins
cognitive dissonance clangs

cackle: the urban echo
of grievances and complaints
challenge civility most

chickadee coulter
a conservative cynic
cackles in conjoint clamor

clearly charming colonel
a candidate for congress
character charade

a cantilever
catapults the chaise cockeyed
crazy conundrum

complex chimera
coyly collective creatures
creating chaos

cold clammy crazy
what was comfort before now
chaos for cocaine addicts

callous cad Charlie
Chlamydia came courting
clueless now childless Claire

consider your cat
collectively conniving
cat considers you

* Go HERE for some vivid haikus by Gwen Cooper

Lessons Learned by a Suburban Housewife on the Power of Unity: The Auroville and Sarvodaya Shramadana Experience

2009-02-06T18:30:00.015-06:00

This is a re-post of something I wrote 9 years ago that never found a home. I dug it out after reading the NY Times yesterday about the partisan squabbling over the bailout bill. The behavior of our elected officials depresses me, particularly now in this time of crisis.

I think we need some unity at this juncture of our history in the United States. But, frankly, who is here to teach us? And more importantly, who would follow? I was hoping that Obama could work his magic on the lot of them, but it doesn't appear that that is going to be the case. At least not yet.....

The lotus flower: A Symbol of Wisdom

I confess. I am a suburban housewife.

Me drinking from a coconut on the road to enlightenment

This is an embarrassing admission to make to the group of people that I traveled with to Southern India and Sri Lanka. Many of them do poverty work and fight for social justice. Some of them live on intentional, sustainable communities. Many of them have given up money to work for a cause close to their hearts. They certainly do not live like I do, driving a mini-van and raising kids in a neighborhood of upper-middle-class homes, with green lawns, on cul-de-sacs, near and next to people much like us, down the main road from a large University which is my husband’s employer.

I live in a neighborhood like many others in this country. But is it a community? Considering the lack of time I spend in connection with my neighbors, I think not. And if it isn’t a community, what does it take to create one? Do community members have to spend a certain minimum amount of time together? Do communities have to be made up of people who are all alike? Do they need to be composed of people who are motivated to cooperate, grow and change? Do the inhabitants have to possess a certain minimum amount of resources? Or are resources an impediment to social cohesion and solidarity? And where does the idea of sustainability fit in? Is there a prescription that can be followed as to how “community” can be created? And if so, can I apply it to my white-bread neighborhood, where many of us do not even know each other’s names?

These are some of the questions I sought to answer as I participated in a Kellogg Foundation grant to study “community, spirituality, and sustainability” at the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, a development organization in Sri Lanka, and in Auroville, an intentional, international community in India.

Upon close inspection, Sarvodaya and Auroville appear radically different. Sarvodaya is an organization and a movement; Auroville is a group of settlements. Sarvodaya develops community with participants that have little choice as to where they live; Auroville creates communities with people who can choose to move to a land far away. Auroville has created a community where many of its inhabitants have accumulated a measure of wealth; Sarvodaya advocates a society without affluence. Sarvodaya is based in tradition; Auroville prides itself on creating a new culture. Sarvodaya is based in a traditional religion; Auroville flourishes in the midst of a new brand of religious (SPIRITUAL?) anarchy.

But for all their differences, both Sarvodaya and Auroville start from the same transcendent vision. Either through Gandhian philosophy and Buddhism or through the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, they seek to realize the dream of human unity for all. Think about this for a minute. Both groups either attract or actually develop people who come to understand that we are all “one.” This has deep and permanent consequences. Simply put, people change from being "I" centered to "other" centered. This revolutionary germ of a concept spreads miraculously among those who are introduced to it, transforming them into advocates for harmony within the human, animal and natural environment in which we all live. Through this one simple but powerful idea, I have seen equality; empowerment and awakening take root. The result is an attempt to create a world that is heaven on earth, based in community, spirituality and sustainability.

Did I learn this in church as I was growing up through the teachings of Jesus? I surely could have, but I didn’t.

It took this trip for me to actually see the power of what I can only call “oneness.” When this concept takes root, you can no longer ignore an ailing neighbor, nor can you walk by a person on the street who doesn’t have food or shelter. And you can no longer harm the environment for temporary gains that will destroy the land’s ability to support your children and grandchildren. You become a servant for the human community. Some folks might even become saints or revolutionaries.

Now, does this mean that Auroville or the Sarvodayan villages are perfect manifestations of this ideal of oneness? I can unequivocally say “no” to that. In fact, in many ways, the problems of all of these communities mirror those of the society that we come from. The difference is, they are trying to strive for human unity. I don't see much of that where I come from, and I find that good and inspiring for my soul to see.

If I truly want to live a life in pursuit of community, sustainability and spirituality, what does this mean for my life in suburbia? Is it hopeless for me to look for like-minded people in my neighborhood? Do I have to move to Sri Lanka or to Auroville to find people striving for the good of someone other themselves? Does that mean that a Dr. Ariyaratne, a Mahatma Gandhi or a Sri Aurobindo need settle in my neighborhood so that it can be transformed as I’ve seen communities transformed in India and Sri Lanka?

After a lot of thinking about these questions, I can unequivocally say, “no.” What I think is essential is the simple power of the concept of unity. The concept is so powerful, so transcendent, and has transformed these spiritual teachers so completely that they don’t need to be physically present to teach us the good news. I think that any of us can light the spark that starts the revolution toward a community of unity or oneness in our neighborhoods. Even a suburban housewife. The spark will spread.

We only need begin.
__________________________________

I posted this on my blog at Open Salon, a place that has been very nurturing to me of late in my writing efforts. Thanks to one member (Critical Mess) and the People that Read Open Salon articles for making this one of the People's Picks (No Pans) 2/7/09. Even at OS, which I think of as a very legitimate platform for thinking writers, it is an effort to get noticed if you aren't writing about the popular culture or about something that can be sensationalized. I think that the focus on disharmony and/or controversy is one of the things that keeps energy from flowing to the right and righteous, and maybe has something to do with the mess in which we find ourselves.

25 Random Things About Me

2009-01-31T09:20:00.012-06:00

This originated from a facebook invitation, which copied an Open Salon invitation, to write 25 random things about yourself. These aren't exactly, 'random,' like "I love peanut butter and ice cream" (which I do) 'random.' They are 'random' as in, today, these things rise to the top of my head as important things in my life, 'random.' This feels more narcissistic than most posts. But, what's a a little narcissism among friends?

What are your 25?

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's my shot at it:

25 Random things about me:

1. Family is everything to me. I delight in being a daughter, wife, mother, sister, aunt, cousin, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law and a near-mother-in-law.

2. Being adopted was my fate. I was blessed to find Darlene and Lowell and their wonderful Scotch, Irish and German, and Swedish families. I am partial to the crazy Swedish branch (here and in Sweden).

I heart holidays

3. Adopting Daniel and having James were two of the most important events and adventures of my life. I couldn’t live without them. They don’t follow the rules but neither did their father or I.

4. My friends are like family, particularly because growing up I was an only child and ‘built family’ through my friends. I plan on retiring with some of them (Deb). Two of them (Rob A. and Susan) allowed me travel adventures I could not have experienced without them. I cherish one of them (Lisa) that lives behind me. One is now in Portland and working for a demography center (Gu). One I met at the Baton Rouge, YMCA at our children's swimming lessons (Jerri). One took care of my children in State College, PA (Bernie). One was my mentor in Human Ecology (Lyn). One I grew to know after her husband died (Kimberly). There are so many more.

5. I met my full-brother 15 years ago after we both grew up as only children in the Northwestern United States, two states apart. Rich and I lived literally blocks from where he and my birthmother lived in Ballard, Washington. My brother was a gift.

6. I am ½ Greek and ½ Norwegian although I look totally Scandinavian (pale as all get out).

I always had my own tree. T'was the beginning of the 15 boxes of decorations we now own.

7. I was an AFS exchange student in Tres Rios, Costa Rica when I was a junior in high school, which started my travel lust. I recommend international travel or residency to nearly everyone, including my children. In this, and in many other ways, my children are so unlike me. They barely want to leave the state.

8. On Christmas Day in 1981 I was taught how to weave on a back-strap loom from an indigenous woman named Rosa on an Island across from Lake Titicaca in Guatemala. I can remember thinking, “this will be the coolest thing I’ll ever do.” Fortunately, that has not been the case, but it was one of the coolest…

9. I met my husband, a Peace Corps Volunteer on a bus destined for Cahuita, Costa Rica in the fall of 1981. The bus broke down and we met again near the white and black sand beaches of Puerto Viejo two days later. He visited me again in the summer of 1982 in Portland, Oregon. We got married in April of 1983 at the Orangetown Courthouse, in NY. At the time of our wedding we had spent roughly 6 months with each other.

10. Rich and I were married twice but not divorced in between-- once in April of 1983 and again in October of 1983. The second was less traumatic than the first. Marrying him was the smartest thing I’ve ever done. He is truly my life partner. Thank God I listened to my intuition and heart.

11. Meeting the people of Nature’s Spirit in 1999 while working on a Kellogg grant studying community, spirituality and sustainability was one of the fortuitous events of my life (XOXO Elisa, Ricks, Charlie, Kathy, Carolyn, Francisco). I finally got to visit Dr. Ariyaratne and Sarvodaya, an organization that gives my life hope and meaning, and I was introduced to Auroville, Vérité, Village Action and Bhavana Dee, more reasons for hope in this life time. I need it-- “hope” that is.

12. On New Year’s Day in 2000, I spent the day with a channeling Buddhist Monk in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka and learned about my and Sri Lanka’s destiny.

Here I am with our first boat, Nena I (my father named it after me). I love the water and smell of a sputtering 35 hp engine. The dreams I have not realized are owning a boat and living on the water.

13. My favorite books and writers are all based in the spirit or on religion. However, a requirement appears to be that the authors are about ready to leave their religion, or at least that they’re irreverent. I think this speaks volumes about my relationship to religion but not to my relationship with God. I am a converted Catholic that thinks like a Buddhist, and has a soft spot for Hinduism and Judaism, and Sufism.

14. My grandson Kellan has been a shining light in my life, and is the sweetest soul I know (other than his mother, Brandi, and my cousin Carrie). He re-taught me what I already knew, that what is best for you cannot be planned.

15. My mother has made my favorite cookies (white, puff, cookies that melt in your mouth), her spicy pumpkin pie, her creamy cranberry salad, and my Aunt Lucy’s ham sauce for me for the last 45 years of my life, mostly on Thanksgiving and Christmas. She made me cook, travel and learn to ski and swim – all of which I now love-- and is probably the person closest to me alive.

16. I have been lucky in love and have been loved well by the men in my life. I owe this to my father’s love in the first instance, I think.

17. I love to travel, cook, read, write, dance and laugh.

18. I am a loud speaker and laugher, and all my life people have been telling me to “shhhh.”

19. I like my animals often better than people, and have a hard time living a content life without them. I grieve hard when they die.

20. Moving to Louisiana was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it has forged and defined me and my life. You’d have to drag me out of here.

21. Although I was trained as a gerontologist, I feel blessed to have found work on the other end of the life span, helping children avoid truancy and delinquent behavior, and working in an office with an eclectic band of social worker types (the closest people I’ve found in Louisiana that I can call ‘my people’).

22. Meeting Rich’s Jewish family and relatives was like “coming home.” I’ve never experienced such a feeling of belonging in my life. They make me crazy but I wouldn't have missed them for the world.

23. I like television and am addicted to American Idol, So you Think you can Dance, this season of The Bachelor and Ghost Whisperer.

24. I love weddings and funerals, both are celebrations when they are done right. Both make me sob, sleep and feel content.

25. I have a phobic aversion to the telephone, and it gets me into trouble. Rich and I fight over who has to answer it. This is related to my tendency toward hermetic behavior.

Did I mention that I do not like my picture taken? Nearly always though, at about a year later I think, "that's the best picture anyone ever took of me!" So, you can imagine that I love these pictures, most taken about 40 some years ago.

Adventure of a Lifetime: The Magic that is Sri Lanka

2009-01-24T10:37:00.012-06:00

Buddhist Temple

This is a copy of a journal post I wrote during my first visit to Sri Lanka in the several months spanning 1999 and 2000 of the Christian calendar. A friend urged me to post it as a record to my children that their mother is more than just a suburban housewife. But, most likely they will just think that I'm crazy, which, upon reflection, is actually my choice of the two. It was also prompted by a discussion on Open Salon about the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, and my friends and experiences there. As I said to Deb, "Magic happens to me everytime I go to Sri Lanka." The truth is that it's more about mysticism and a connection to those who have a connection with the Divine, than about magic. It's about time for more magic and mysticism. I guess I'm "homesick" for Sri Lanka. It's been since 2005.

Celebrating January 1, 2000 in Sri Lanka

Momo brought the message from Dr. Ari that I was to be at his place at 8:45 in the morning to be ready to leave for Anuradhapura. He changed the time from 1:00 so that he could make it to his appointment to kiss the Bodhi tree before evening, and so that I could get to the district center to start my research. So, I got myself to bed by 1:30 a.m. after sad phone calls from mom and dad and Richard and the kids, and after stuffing my things into a backpack while gathering extra toilet paper from Karun-aka, and winding up my mosquito netting.

On the morning of the 1st I got up too early, to an unusually great Canteen breakfast of kiri bat or milk rice. Milk rice is served on all auspicious occasions, the first day of the New Year being one. Served with it are a delicious concoction of shaved coconut with peppers and hot onions, called polsambol. I then walked over to the guardhouse where Dr Ari was waiting. He shepherded me to his home and insisted that I have ANOTHER breakfast, as he was supposed to wait for a visitor (I being the only visitor there) to eat the first bite of food on the first day of the New Year for good luck. Realizing how historic this was, I ate again-- another great breakfast of kiri bat. We waited around his house for a very long time while people from inside and outside of Sarvodaya came to prostrate themselves before him and wish him their respect on the New Year. Literally, people brought beetle leaves in their hands, and placed themselves on their knees, on the floor in front of him, head down, arms outstretched in front of them in prayer. I spoke to his wife, Neetha-aka, who from time to time was the receiver of such prostrations herself.

FINALLY, we left his house only to get in his vehicle, and drive about a half a mile to Chardika’s house, who is his eldest daughter. She was sick, sick with some sort of asthma-- so sick that it worried me to look at her. Dr. Ari gave her a speech about plugging into the healing energy and told her that she was one of the reasons he was going to Anuradhapura (“too many doctors in the family… they need to be totally vegetarian and meditate to health”). She prostrated herself in front of him as we walked out the door to the garden and out to the car.

We then got in the car and drove another mile to Vishva Lekha, the Sarvodaya printing press, where there were probably a hundred people waiting for Dr. Ari to begin the “family gathering.” After several long speeches, the longest by Dr. Ari about Christ and the significance of the year 2000, we went upstairs to eat even more food. I couldn’t eat another bite but could manage to drink more tea. More prostrations. After staying there for another hour or so, we picked up two of his best friends-- Susiri, his friend who runs the Vishva Lekha press, and Dharma the retired principal of the boy’s school where he used to teach-- and headed out to what I supposed would be Ahuradhapura (although at this point I wasn’t sure where we were going to end up).

I fell asleep in the back seat of the car, in spite of Dr. Ari trying to talk to me. I awoke to Dr. Ari the race car driver. He was accelerating and breaking around vehicles, cows, bicycles, people on foot and tri-shaws, yelling back to me “Denese, I’m testing out the machine! But don’t worry I am protected by the gods!” I was pretty sure that if anyone was protected it was he, although I didn’t know how many folks on the road would be safe if he kept up the erratic driving.

A place of repose for farmers

I was so full and possibly car sick that I couldn’t possibly think of food, but Dr. Ari kept saying, “Denese is sooooo hungry.” So, finally we stopped under the shade of a forest of beautiful old trees in a protected area, and ate a boxed lunch (actually the rice, curries and chutneys are wrapped in saran wrap-- a substitute for banana leaves-- then wrapped in newspaper and placed in a picnic type box. The newspaper wrapping keeps the food warm). We got back in the car and Susiri and I slept again for an hour and a half until we were almost to Anuradhapura, some 200 miles from where we started out, which because of the road conditions in Sri Lanka is like driving 400 plus miles.

Terraced fields

We arrived at the District Center to Winsor’s and Thalatha’s house, which is inside the iron gates of the Anuradhapura District Center. It is a lovely landscaped place, where luscious flowers surround the house and where the beds outside appear “swept.” Fat buds from the pink poinsettia trees dripped over the doorway, and clay pots loaded with red, chocolate and orange anthuriums were strewn on the ground in the front yard. Interspersed around them were small containers filled to the brim with different sizes of ferns and bright, delicate flowers.

I tip toed around the plants and inside the house where we had tea and fruit. Then we were whisked off to see the Bodhi tree-- but not before Winsor made sure that I had my passport. I was in Dr. Ari’s car, and Winsor led the way in his white Mitsubishi truck through numerous military checkpoints guarded by men and women soldiers who were carrying some pretty serious looking guns, wearing camouflage-gear with flack jackets--complete with grenade belts encircling their waists. Each of these soldiers was sitting or standing around black and red 10X6X6 foot corrugated metal huts, all of which were hidden from our initial view behind big black, white and yellow striped oil drums that had, what else, flowers planted on top!

Rain forest

Apparently most people walk to the tree. However, because of Dr. Ari’s stature they arranged for him to have a pass and we were allowed to drive to the center of the ruins, even side-stepping most of the check points and searches. Five years ago the LTTE massacred 300 pilgrims there on a holy day, with this guard structure being the result. Finally, we hit the end of the road and got out of the car, barefoot, walking to several stations where we were searched, the guys at the “man’s” side and me at the “woman’s” side. Finally, we entered through the main gate, where we were thoroughly searched—breast and groin pats-- again at an inner chamber, usually in a hut or enclosed room with a ratty curtain hanging at the doors to shield the room from outside view.

Buddha in Recline

We then headed straight to a wroght iron “tree” of many little cups that were to be filled with a bottle of amaretto colored oil we brought. In each of these, we placed little wicks that we lit (the Singhala version of the votive candle at the Vatican) but only after Dr. Ari told me to “touch the bottle of oil” as he poured it in the little containers. Not knowing what to do, I said a prayer each time I touched the bottle. We meditated and prayed, and as I looked around I saw gray monkeys sitting stoically on top of the 2500-year-old ruins in back of us, some with their young in their laps. Then, Dr. Ari lit a hand full of incense. He gave one bunch to me and pointed to where I should place it. Following directions, and with great effort, I stuck probably 20 sticks of incense, one-by-one in the brass containers filled with sand awaiting such gifts.

After running past the candles and through a gate, I finally caught up with Dr. Ari, after which, we walked up the stairs to the Bodhi tree entrance. One of the district employees then offered me a tray of white, thick-budded lotus flowers, one of which I took. I walked up to an altar filled with flowers and prayed with my head down, hands in prayer with the flower in them above my head, and deposited the flower in an offering to their Lord Buddha. Just as when I was in the Vatican, my eyes filled with tears. We then sat and meditated. After a time, we left and went to another vantage-point farther away from the masses of people but facing the Bodhi tree, and meditated again. From time-to-time people would recognize Dr. Ari and would prostrate themselves before him.

Fishermen

We went to another alter, inside a building with a very large and colorful Buddha sitting in a meditative posture, and offered more flowers, which were promptly arranged according to color and type by attendants (different colors going to different locales). We finally left the center of the Bodhi tree and went to the head monk’s dwelling to offer gifts. When he didn’t come, Dr. Ari abruptly got up and left, leaving the gifts on a table. We exited the ruins without incident, driving past smiling guards carrying big machine guns.

We came back to Winsor’s house to more tea, and then Dr. Ari suddenly looked at me and in his high pitched voice, said, “are you going to come and see the show?” So, I said, “why not?” and I got in his blue car with he and his buddies and went several kilometers to a monk’s house who always helps Dr. Ari usher in the New Year. We showed up at this house and this smiling monk met us—and like all monks in Sri Lanka-- he was bald and dressed in an ochre colored man’s sari-type garment, called a Seeu’ra, reserved for Buddhist religious devotees. He was very jolly and laughing and told Dr. Ari that he woke-up that morning knowing that Dr. Ari would come. At that point he said he cleared his calendar and asked that the evening be left free for us.

Water Lilies

He showed us into his cement home, painted many colors—blue, yellow, red and white-- with carvings outside around the door itself, on the stoop (carved out of stone) and on the walls. He showed us into a room with six white plastic lawn chairs against the wall, two of which had pink satin pillows decorated with semi precious gems on them, and he sat and chatted for quite a long while. Generally Dr. Ari didn’t translate for me until something of merit came up, or until there was something he wanted me to know. For example, he said that this monk said that the Bodhi tree used to be guarded by many gods and that he felt their presence whenever he went to the Bodhi tree. But, now with the military presence there, the protection of the gods had gone. He said that the gods still come to places where normal people worship, but no longer to the Bodhi tree.

Buddhist Stupa

We had tea and bananas, without the monk ever looking at me. We then went upstairs to an area outside of a small room where the doorway was decorated with ceremonial fans, brass objects and colored lights. It looked like Christmas. We prostrated ourselves outside the room, and then sat in a meditation posture, Dr. Ari’s two friends to my left, me at the center rear and Dr. Ari at the center front. Inside the little room the monk chanted and arranged flowers near the brass vases and urns on the floor, and lit white candles along a ledge on the wall in front of 28, 12-inch-high brass Buddhas that were symmetrically arranged there. He turned on more colored lights and sat down in front of Dr. Ari, who was at the forefront of our ceremony. The monk handed him a section of a long piece of twine. The monk unwrapped the twine from around a polished wooden handle that was attached to the top of the doorway at one end, and which was held by the monk at the other end. After arranging the twine he began a religious ceremony, where he would chant something and then Dr. Ari and his friends would answer (I thought of our Episcopalian ceremony, “and also with you”). The twine, I found out later was supposed to give Dr. Ari a multiplied dose of protection from the blessing. I didn’t know enough to chant so I held my head down and my hands up. This lasted about an hour and a half. Incense was lit. More candles were lit. More flowers were distributed. Sometimes chanting led into sermons.

Mountains in the Mist

After the monk left the little room ahead of us to join us in the outer sanctum, he picked up an urn of water, which he poured into Dr. Ari’s hands, which then Dr. Ari drank and poured over himself. Before I had a chance to think-- “Please no standing water!-- he poured the water into my hands, which I drank and washed over my face, arms and hair. Dr. Ari and the monk reserved water in their hands and in an urn, respectively, and came outside and sprinkled the water over Dr. Ari’s car, inside and outside.

When the ceremony was over, we went outside in the rear yard to his Bodhi tree, which he said was placed there through some miracle (bird) after he arranged a special place for it. The tree was surrounded by a cement structure, which was decorated by flowers and plastic leis. We then filled clay pots 12 times with water from an outside faucet and gave the pots to Dr. Ari who fed the water to the tree while saying prayers. The monk then lit small square candles around the Bodhi tree, and placed white flower offerings, and offerings of food and fruit-- which Dr. Ari had me “touch”-- on the ledge of the cement structure encircling the tree. He lit incense, which he placed by the root of the tree, and we again sat and he chanted, as Dr. Ari and Winsor and his assistant responded to him.

Lord Buddha at the Sarvodaya Peace Center

Finally, we came outside to the entrance area of his house. Dr. Ari had told me in the car on the ride over that this monk has been telling him his future for the last 19 years. He said that he had never been wrong. He said that he had saved his life when he was being stalked by the Premadassa regime. When he was on their hit list, he came up to Anuradhapura to talk to this monk, and the monk literally wouldn’t let Dr. Ari go anywhere alone. He led him in his separate vehicle, and at one point the military shot at the monk’s car, at which point, the monk got out of the car and approached the soldiers who acted as though they had made some sort of mistake. He said that one year the monk, channeling another entity, was particularly angry with him for visiting sites and removing people’s severed hands that were on display as a warning from the LTTE. Although Dr. Ari had not told the monk of these activities, the monk raged, “why did you do something that I should be doing? You are protected unless you continue doing such stupid things!” Then the monk hit him three times over the head with the staff he carries under his left armpit (like General Patton). Dr. Ari says, under other circumstances these blows would have killed him. He said that some political leaders, namely Premadassa, had tried to secure the monk’s help for personal aims, but that this monk only does good and not evil. Dr. Ari also said that in 1992, he wasn’t sure he was going to survive Premadassa’s death threats, and he asked the monk what course of action to take for the New Year. The monk told him to leave the country as much as possible until after May 1st , when he could come home safely. So, Dr. Ari accepted as many engagements abroad as possible. On May 1st Dr. Ari came home, which was the very day that President Premadassa was killed.

Buddha in many poses

Back to the monk: The monk approached another small brightly colored cement building directly across from the entrance to his home, decorated with urns, incense, and three gods, Krishna, Vishnu and Ganesh. He went in. Dr. Ari and his friends crammed in the narrow doorway and I sat directly behind them on the steps. There were two women directly behind me below the steps, probably the monk’s sister and niece. At one point everyone prostrated themselves and the women motioned for me to “get down!” I did. At one point I was praying, head down, hands outstretched, and one woman motioned for me to “look!” I did. The monk was shaking a brass device wrapped around his left hand, filled with little pebbles--which sounded like a moracca or tambourine-- and he was chanting. His head was gyrating in what looked like a 180-degree swivel, back and forth, back and forth. He was in a trance. His facial features were contorted so that he looked unlike the happy smiling monk I had seen just minutes before. He was still laughing, but in a different way, and in a different voice. He then talked to Dr. Ari for around an hour, with the only sounds being uttered by Dr. Ari being “Oooh-wuu” (or “yes”). Several different characters came through this monk, one of which was supposed to be the God Krishna.

Much of what the monk said I can’t repeat either in written or verbal form. I am sworn to secrecy. However, I can say that Dr. Ari is supposed to continue with his present course of action, meditating around Sri Lanka and especially in the conflict zones until he has ¾ of the population behind him. The monk said that Dr. Ari shouldn’t align himself with anyone, or place himself at odds with anyone. But, that by his actions, he will lead his people to peace. He also said that Vishva Neketan will be a successful international peace center.

After he had finished with Dr. Ari, one of his incarnations took many limes in his hands and blessed them. He then started handing them to everyone. Dr. Ari motioned for me to come forward and I took a lime. We kept it in one hand, then the other, placed it over our chests, on our stomachs, over one knee and then the other, and over our toes. He then took the limes back and cut them in half and placed them in a bowl. He then took a piece of white string and cut a length of the string by burning it with a candle. He wrapped the string around Dr. Ari’s wrist, tied it and cut it again (the second cut is to cut away the evil spirits from your body for the New Year) and blessed it. Then he did the same blessing with another length of string for me, then for Dr. Ari’s two friends. Finally the monk came out of his trance. I am to leave the string on my wrist until it falls off and it will protect me through the year. I’ve now decided that Rich can come to Sri Lanka as I have enough protection for the whole family.

Rocky Cliffs

Before we left we chatted, the monk’s sister and niece trying to feed me AGAIN. I finally declined food! Then he told fortunes by looking at our palms (he said Dr. Ari would be in the presence of many wild women… and I was hoping he wasn’t thinking of westerners!). Finally, he told my fortune after Dr. Ari thrust my right hand up to his face. He said that although I come from a rich country and I have many things, I am not a person who is much impressed by “things.” He said that I was going to become a very spiritual person. And that I would develop my spirituality to a point beyond even those people born into Buddhism.

We talked more and left, but only after I paid my respects again (on the floor, head down, arms outstretched).

These photographs were not taken during my New Year's adventure. I refuse to take pictures of people worshiping, and I don't take pictures of soldiers/guards/armaments mostly because I would rather keep my camera. Rich took these at another time.

If you're wondering what this post has to do with the 'everyday life of a woman from the NW living in the Deep South', the answer is, well, almost everything. If I hadn't been dragged here by my husband and been forced to remain, which resulted in an early mid-life crisis and a semi-nervous breakdown, which then led me to rethink what I was going to do with my life, I would have never become re-involved with the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement and Dr. Ariyaratne, or newly acquainted with Sarvodaya USA, and Charlie Joiner (and his friends at Nature's Spirit), who offered me a place on this trip as a part of a Kellogg grant he helped to secure on spirituality, sustainability and community, which then led to this experience. There is no doubt in my mind that Louisiana and Sarvodaya are deeply interrelated parts of my life. How did I first come to know Sarvodaya and Dr. Ariyaratne? At 21, I was studying 'social development' in Vermont, and 'found' some of his writings. They were really the only exciting concepts I found related to international social development. And when I wrote to him, now 30 years ago, he wrote back!

Forty-four words from Abraham Lincoln for our 44th President Barack Obama

2009-01-20T18:39:00.013-06:00

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

for more go to: http://shuttersisters.com/home/2009/1/20/44.html

A new word from my grandson and a visit from a long-time friend

2009-01-18T10:22:00.018-06:00

Kellan's new word

My grandson learned a new word last week. He first verbalized it when he fell into the laundry hamper in his bedroom, face down, legs up, and couldn't get out. He, yelled, "Stuck"! Of course we all think that he is a genius. Yesterday, we wanted him to pose for photographs wearing his new poncho from our Ecuadorian friends. I got the poncho on, initially backward (bad Nena), which made him cry. Then when I got it turned around, he wanted it off. A lot of tugging and pulling didn't produce the desired results. Basically, he was "stuck." And he let us know it. Daniel blames me for Kellan's bad poncho experience. I mean, get it right the first time Nena.

A special visitor

One of Rich's first graduate students, Olivian visited us this MLK holiday weekend from Los Angeles, CA. He came here 12 years ago from Romania and has remained one of our favorite students (don't tell the other students that). Kellan liked him much better than Nena because he didn't try to force strange clothes on him, and let's face it he was a lot more fun. His height doesn't hurt his attraction factor either (we are a family of short people)!

What a view!

Petroleum Refinery Gas Burn Off Spectacular

2009-01-15T21:20:00.018-06:00

It looks dangerous

Last week Rich was taking photos at a soccer game at James' school when he noticed a spectacular red sky in the distance. He left the game early and followed the light. He drove to the levee on the Mississippi River and this is what he saw. It was from a 'gas burn off' at a petroleum refinery. Word was that this was the most spectacular 'burn off' anyone had seen in years. My father used to follow fire trucks and take pictures of the fire where ever it was.

Is this a guy thing? Or is it human instinct to be attracted to fire?

like the end

and the beginning

and other worldly

Okay. I hear from Rich that this event was an EPA nightmare. I had no idea, but I think I could have guessed from the spectacularness of the sky. It is a reminder that "good" and "bad" often go together.

The Season of Debs, Belles & Balls

2009-01-11T12:30:00.074-06:00

A table full of James' party invitations one day in early December, 2008

In Louisiana, this is the season of Debutante Balls, which are actually 'coming out parties', or parties of introduction for all of the young women of a certain age and of a certain class. The families of these young Southern Belles put on parties that rival any wedding I've ever attended, thereby presenting their daughters to society. Often, whole floors of hotels are reserved for the participants of these dances that continue into the wee hours of the morning. Both of our sons, Daniel and James have been escorts and attendees at these events, because they are friends and go to school with these young women.

James and a Deb who shall remain nameless (I promised)

Daniel before a ball in 2003 with Grammy and Pappa

They are darned lucky that they're boys, because if they had been girls they would have been a part of the 'never came out group,' which in this culture would be a bad thing. I suppose that some of the other parents would have attempted to assist me. But, I'm sure I'm ineducable. Friendships would have been strained. Wailing and gnashing of teeth would have occurred. At least I spared our friends and our hypothetical daughters that. Years ago Daniel coined the phrase, "Mom is not a tennis woman." That continues to be the case.

James (in white and pink) and friends at a Cotillion Dance in Middle School

These parties are the pièce de résistance of a 'party education' that starts unofficially in elementary school, but officially in the later years with "Cotillion". Yes, both of our children were members of a Cotillion, Daniel was a member of 'Elan Cotillion', and James is a member of the 'Baton Rouge Cotillion.' Cotillion is basically a training that children and young adults attend to learn manners and proper social behavior in the context of formal dance (or so says Wikipedia). Here in Louisiana we inherited it directly from the French. I hear that in other places Cotillion training only occurs for seniors in high school, and is more like a class for which you register. Here it starts in middle school, and with an invitation.

However, I remember that our children attended dances in elementary school. James had his first dance in 3rd grade. He came home crying because he hadn't been able to ask a girl to dance. At the time, I felt that his reaction was a sign that dances were occurring too early. Anyway, since that experience, he's developed into an expert.

In addition to Cotillion and Debutante Balls, children and young adults here attend school parties and parties thrown by local families celebrating literally every possible holiday or event.

James at Sadie Hawkins 2008

James at his Senior "Toga" Party (in which he violated the dress code (I mean really, they have "standards") and had to put on a t-shirt underneath

James as a Roman soldier with a cute soldieress

This is not taking into account the number of parties that take place in Louisiana in preparation for Mardi Gras by the various Krewes that organize them. Mardi Gras parades (that are really just long parties) occur the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. But, in point of fact, the Mardi Gras Season starts on January 6th, -- the Twelfth Night of Christmas, also called the Feast of the Ephiphany. Mardi Gras is a Catholic event, also brought to us by the French, which precedes Lent, a time to give up all excesses. In contrast, Mardi Gras is the definition of 'excess.'

The most famous parades are in New Orleans, but literally hundreds of parades occur all over the state of Louisiana during this time period. We have just reserved a place on the Endemyion Parade Route in New Orleans, and we are setting aside time for a St. Patrick's Day Parade, again in New Orleans, and a St. Patrick's Day party here in Baton Rouge (Lilly: it is marked in red on our calendar).

Still going to parties: Daniel, Brandi & Kellan Halloween 2008

Some of our friends, usually those 'not from around here' have commented that they did not allow their children to join a Cotillion. Their feelings generally stem from solid philosophies involving feminism, egalitarianism, and anti-elitism. Rich and I would never have joined any such group in high school (we were sort of from an anti-establishment era).

However, our stance is twofold: 1) Our children are not "us," and they really wanted to do this. No parental pushing was involved. And 2) teaching children in Louisiana how to party is sort of like teaching your child to swim when you have a pool (or the bayou) in your backyard. Not that our children haven't almost drowned once or twice....

And that's where we stand on that.

Celebrating the New Year Louisiana Style!

2009-01-03T11:47:00.038-06:00

Bobby Larson, Darlene (Grammy) and Brian Larson at Alligator Bayou

http://www.alligatorbayou.com

These New Year celebrations were eclectic! We had mom's kin from "the farm" here for four days. Bobby Larson (82) and mom (87) grew up together in Gray's River, WA where Bobby still lives. I'm not sure what he thought about the Swamp Tour on Alligator Bayou, the visit to the Rural Life Museum, or our New Year's Day dinner with Rich's students from Sri Lanka and Ghana, but he appeared to take everything in stride. Here are some pictures of the festivities.

On the Flatboat

The stark beauty of the bayou in winter

Me Cajun dancing with Jim (one of the owners) on the boat! Aiii Eeeiii!

Baby Nutria "Rich" with Rich on the boat. Notice the similarities-- those eyes and even the hair color

On the Alligator Farm

Before going into the enclosed walkway in the Alligator pen, Frank and Jim repeat the "rules" numerous times. These rules are so important they use a microphone. To my mind, the most important rule is to "never, ever put your fingers arms or limbs, etc. over or through the fence, as these alligators are conditioned to expect food from visitors, and your fingers "look like fat Vienna Sausages," according to Jim.

Being proactive, and thinking I will be ultra careful, I repeat this rule to Darlene, who says, "Of course," rather indignantly. During the course of the demonstration, where Frank dangles pieces of raw chicken ("Louisiana Sushi") over the fence and alligators jump in the air to retrieve it, I see Darlene at the far end of the walkway leaning over the fence to better see the show. And it was not just a finger over the fence but her whole upper body.

Look what was pretty damned close and below her...

Now that's a big gator

Of course, I screamed at her, which gave me a terrible reputation during the rest of the tour, with Jim, periodically asking mom if she wanted to "get rid of me" or "lose me" somehow...

They almost did leave me after we stopped off to hike and see some 1800 year old Cypress trees. But, I think that could have been a mistake... ??

Everything is beautiful in its own way, except for maybe a vulture

New Year's Day Dinner

The cook (of course we had beans & ham but the lawyer in me just can't insert the penny)

Darlene with baby Richard Kofi
Darlene and I saved Abena and the baby's life -- but they named him after Richard! Is everyone/everything named Richard?

Richard Kofi (7 months) and Abena

Brian & Bobby Larson and Abe Baffoe watching football

Priyan Perera has become an American Football fan -- move over Cricket!

Probably the prettiest PhD student in Sri Lanka
A pregnant Rangika Perera

Rich bought me a Canon EOS Rebel XTi for Christmas! So we both shot these pics!

A New Tradition & Disaster Averted!

2008-12-25T15:26:00.058-06:00

Some of the hundreds of finches that found their way to Grammy's backyard on Christmas Eve Day

Hey, where are you goin'?

Even though it was 75 degrees, with torrential tropical rain and high humidity, we really got into the Christmas spirit this year (this only works if you crank up the air conditioning and ignore how easy it is to break into a sweat).

Land of plenty

We celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, much to Rich's chagrin, as he came from an early morning Christmas family. Unfortunately, when you present children with the option of opening presents on Christmas Eve, or on Christmas Day, they choose the earlier time every time. It also coordinates well with Brandi's family. They celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day. I'm just sayin'.

Some of James & Daniel's handmade ornaments

Christmas Eve Dinner is a tradition we inherited from the Swedes at the farm. They would nap in the afternoon, have a late dinner, and then Santa Claus would visit the children with his bag of gifts after midnight. We don't make it to the midnight hour -- Daniel and James could never have waited that long and Rich and I don't want to stay up that late-- but we maintain that Swedish celebration.

Our table with our good wedding china and Brandi's place cards

This year, we started a new tradition -- everyone was assigned a dish or more to cook. Actually, I tried to "assign" dishes to them, but the kids did a lot of trading, altering and bartering. It used to be that Grammy, Pappa and I would cook the dinner, but Pappa's gone and Grammy and I are old and tired. So, Daniel cooked my Aunt Eileen's BBQ beans, Brandi made her cheddar cheese green salad, James took over for Pappa and made the all-day-to-prepare giblet stuffing, Grammy made her favorite fresh cranberry salad, and pumpkin pie, I made the mustard sauce for the ham, and the sweet potato casserole, and Rich made a broccoli souffle with hollandaise sauce. We do the Honey Baked Ham thing.

A whole lota cookin' goin' on

James and Daniel working in tandem

Performing the intricate hip-hop-ballet of the Vlosky cooking brothers

The dashing younger brother

Older brother's commentary on younger brother's dressing

Rich'd rather be playing with Kellan than cooking... maybe that's what happened?

Mom at her house making cranberry salad

Me trying to smile at Rich after sweating in the kitchen.. or maybe I'm just sweating period

This year, the afternoon of Christmas Eve was probably the most entertaining precursor to our dinner ever! I was finished with my jobs at about 3:00 (including setting the table) and I spent the next few hours listening to the boys, mostly, run around in the kitchen chopping, blending and saute'ing and shouting questions at each other. The conversations went something like this:

Rich: "How do you turn this on? (referring to the blender).
Brandi: Presses the "on" button.

Rich: "What's a ring mold?"
No answer.
Rich: (Googles it on the internet) "Oh!"
Me: Laughing in the bedroom.
Rich: "Did you already know what one was?"
Me: (still laughing) "Yes, but you don't have to worry about finding one of those, just put it in a casserole dish."
Rich: "Do we have a casserole dish?.."
Me: More laughing.

James: "Mom, I think I made a mistake. I put red wine in the dressing instead of white wine."
Me: (thinking, ewww, doesn't sound good) "That's okay James it'll be fine."
Later -- turns out it was.

Rich: (looking at a watery, eggy, hollandaise sauce) "This doesn't look right."
Daniel: (wrinkling his nose) "I think we ought to throw it out."
Me: "Did you follow the directions?"
Rich: "I followed everything that the directions said to do, except we didn't have enough lemons."
Me: Pointing to the fruit bowl full of lemons.
Rich: "Well, what are they doing in there?"
Me: "It'll be alright once it sets."

Later... turns out it wasn't.

...After opening presents, I felt a little queasy and went to lay down on the bed....

James: "Dad, I think you killed Mom!"
Daniel: "You gave her Salmonella poisoning!"

Kellan really liked his dad's beans

I'm needling Rich, as my father would say, but Rich was so great he even cleaned the whole post-cooking-extravaganza kitchen! Wow. The kitchen stove is still soaking with cleaner -- I hope I don't have to buy a new stove top. But, if I do, it will have been worth it.

I can't believe they really got me this black (workout) powder!

Kellan finally has a real bat and ball to smack around!

There was only one slight glitch the morning after. Rich accidentally threw out all of my mustard sauce. I love my Aunt Lucy's mustard sauce. So, he volunteered to make some more for me (even though he can't stomach it). So, I went into the pantry to look for the sheet of hand scribbled family recipes that I've had for 25 years folded in the Family Farmer Cookbook, and they were gone! This triggered near hysteria, running around the kitchen, shaking of cookbooks, and rummaging through the garbage. Mom saved the day by bringing over her family recipes, that I was sure she "lost" the year before. So, I typed them all and they are posted in my * Google Documents (thank you Google).

Kellan looking for Nena's recipes?

* Again documents only appear to those with permission. If you would like to see them, write me, let me know your E-mail address and I'll put you on the list.

Family History Overload

2008-12-19T09:27:00.038-06:00

Michael helped me decorate the tree this year

This has been an overwhelming month. This week I carefully placed our much beloved ornaments on the tree. At this point, not only do I have antique ornaments from previous generations, the ornaments from my babyhood are antiques! Somehow, the whole life-history-review-aspect of this exercise is exhausting. However, the result is a tree that is the most "beautiful tree we've ever had." On Christmas Eve, I'll recount that phrase and ask my kids where it came from. They'll tell me, "that is what you said every year when you were growing up in Portland, and we say it every year in our house." Okay. They won't say it like that, actually they probably won't say it at all, but I give them little "memory-nudges" along the way, whether they listen or not.

With Santa's sleigh on the table

Last week, after much effort, by moi, we finally received a shipment of Olson farm furniture and framed family pictures from Aunt Athalie, mom's 94 year old sister. Mom was so totally overwhelmed she called Rich and me at work, crying, about how some of it was so old "it looked like it could have come over from the Mayflower," which seemed like a reasonable response until we realized she was looking at the opaque-black-visquene-wrapped palette sitting in the driveway. You couldn't even see an outline of the contents.

She could barely restrain herself while Rich and James dismantled and unwrapped the two sitting chairs, a psychiatrist's couch and numerous family photographs in ornate gold frames. They were so fragile they had to have individual custom wood containers built for them before they could be shipped (for which Darlene paid a fortune). The chairs and the couch are already into Anthony Saia's to be rebuilt and reupholstered. We're negotiating with mom, who will keep the chairs at her place, but Rich and I are thinking all 3 pieces should be covered with blood red velveteen; however, we may have to compromise and agree to a burgundy color. I have no idea where we'll put the psychiatrist's couch, but probably in the dining room in front of the window. Rich says he'll ask our guests if they'd like to lie down before dinner.

The psychiatrist's couch, covered in gold velveteen by my cousin Joannie Ferrick

I wrote our 20th almost-annual Christmas letter, a tradition that started the year after we adopted Daniel. It's the most comprehensive and succinct recounting of our year. I send it out to family, far flung friends and colleagues, but the truth is, I write it for our nuclear family, so that we can remember the ups and downs, and small milestones of our lives. Really, most of the stories are sweet only to us. I'm concerned about preserving them, so today I figured out how to put them on a 3rd party platform (thank you Google) with a link to this blog. So, hopefully, between this blog, that platform, and our many copies, our kids won't misplace them until they are old enough to figure out that they actually mean something.

Then on December 16th I received a happy birthday email from my brother Myron, with a document attached, entitled "Sessa's Book." I opened it at work and blubbered through the rest of the morning, after realizing that Sessa (Stella was her given name) was my birthmother's sister, who had written a book of their family history going back to her parents' parents in Greece, and I was included, by name. For an adopted child who is realistic about the time and place in which she was adopted (1957, during a time of "closed adoptions") and expects never to be named in the originating family's records, it was a huge surprise and the best birthday present I could have received. Of course I called mom and she cried, and then I called Rich and he was about to cry. I am truly blessed by the kind hearts of these two families, and by Myron's thoughtfulness, and Joan's (his wife's) efforts at securing the book. "Sessa's Book" was apparently found in Stella's things after her death a month ago (I missed her!). I'm not sure who recounted the situation regarding my birth and adoption, but I am thankful to that person and to Stella for having the gumption to recount the truth.

Well that's enough for this post. I am officially "off" of work until January 5th but still have Christmas gifts to pick up and then wrap.

Ashbaugh Vlosky Christmas Letters Links (which will only work for those with *"permission"):
1987
1988
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008

*If you're a friend and would like to see these, just write to me and I'll add you to the list.

Snow makes everything better

2008-12-11T19:59:00.026-06:00

For some us in South Louisiana, today was like a dream. A dream that happens only once in a lifetime. A sigh in the midst of an impossibly busy season. A wonderland. An instant dose of happiness. A time to stop and be thankful.

Perfect.

.
Snow falling from tropical skies

On oaks still struggling to recover from the hurricane

Delaying berries ready to start another cycle

Making big boys little again

Blobs straight jacketing leaves

Converting our driveway to a path to an adventure

Vibrating on flame red Camelias

Creating a magical shortcut to Grammy's house

Forming sparkling crepe myrtle sculptures

Staging a postcard out our back window