Theatrical Milestones -- The Hoosier Hippie Edition

The Misery

2012-01-25T14:08:00.000-08:00

Ear infection, y'all. That there is Little Miss Kickboxer sleeping on my office floor, a couple of hours after her pediatrician appointment, which confirmed the redness and swollenness--no, not of my eyes after waking up in 60-90-minute intervals all night to soothe a preschooler in agony, but inside my sweet little daughter's ear canal.

Which can mean only one thing, right? No binkie (ha, ahead of you there, doc with the bedside manner of an HP AIX workstation!) and, well, these things can clear up after 2 to 3 days if they're viral. But if they're bacterial, hello! antibiotics. So, since I'm not too big on antibiotics because they, you know, make people poop funny, we'll be surviving on non-working eardrops and baby ibuprofen for two more days. When those are over, I can fully see myself persuading the pharmacist to give me Zoloft instead of amoxicillin.

Not a lie--just a creative re-imagining of reality!

2012-01-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

I hate lying to Little Miss Kickboxer.

But seriously, what other choice does a mom have when a three-year-old has been steadfastly refusing to give up her yucky, yellowed, bacteria-laden and almost unsterilizeable night plug?

Yes, yes, I know: You're supposed to take them away from them at 1 or 2 years of age, when they get started on potty training, in order to mark the big-kid change in their lives. But puh-leeze, not all kids are made the same; not all boys go to bed with their favorite plush truck, and not all girls coddle their favorite doll. In fact, Little Miss Kickboxer does neither; instead, like Linus, she drags her favorite blanket and her super-soft plush moose named Mookie everywhere. Well, those two and her binkie.

Which went missing this morning, in the early morning hours, from underneath Mookie's butt, where it had fallen during the night. Somehow (*cough cough*), it went missing into the deepest depths of the medicine shelf where it won't see the light of day again until our angelchild enters middle school--kind of like the toenail fungus cream we've had there since ... but I digress.

So, this morning, a sleepy, crazy-clownhaired little girl toddled into the kitchen where I was preparing her breakfast eggs and asked "Where is binkie? I can't find binkie, mommy!", and I--SHAME ON ME!--laughed it away, saying "Binkie probably fell behind the bed." Then I walked casually into her bedroom and looked: Behind her bed, behind all the plush animals, under the pillow, under the bed, under the big pile of books. Nothing.

She stood there, lower lip quivering, with tears in her eyes: "Binkie fly away!"

You see, ever since her third birthday, we had looked at that thing every evening, noted its increasing lack of viscosity and yellowing. It looked somehow like it was maturing, so why not align it with the caterpillar turning into a butterfly or an egg giving way to a bird? The binkie story was born! It goes like this: When a kid turns three, the binkie starts changing--it starts getting yellow and harder and then, one night, it will grow wings and fly away to a little baby that was just born.

You're welcome. Feel free to modify as needed.

There was much hugging this morning, and much cuddling, but the heartbreaking sobs didn't happen yet. Those, I am sure, will come this evening, which is when we may have to color a binkie picture or tell the binkie story as it evolves.

It really isn't lying, I think. It's a creative expansion of an evolving reality. Which is what I will experience after Little Miss Kickboxer's wailing will rob me of my of course completely undeserved sleep for the next three-plus nights.

Best-laid plans

2012-01-03T22:19:00.001-08:00

Speaking of which (which what? Huh? Whatever!), I'm on the job hunt again. My part-time contract expires at the end of June, and I like the idea of working where I live too much to give up on the university completely (although I'd like it much more if the benefits kicked in full-force and the paycheck were, well, commensurate with my skills--despite the, you know, shameful Ay-Bee-Dee). So, I'm determined to do three things:

1. Make myself indispensable internally.
2. Make myself indispensable to the boss's boss's office.
3. Check out what else is open in the 'hood.

The trick with #1 and #2 is, though, to act not as if I'm worried about not finding a job (Hello, Dale Carnegie, I may already have made that mistake, so there may be an impression to correct), but as if I'm getting ready to wrap up a 10-month consulting gig by contract end. In other words, I'm delivering my deliverables--and then some, since "overdelivering" (one of those classic marketing terms I picked up along the way) is a biggie when it comes to creating customer loyalty. Take today, for example, when a simple email conversation with the legal folks all of a sudden had the boss's boss on the cc line because hey, there was an idea, and then there was light and the light was good and probably pretty impressive, most likely setting the upper echelon's hearts aflutter because, hey, it looked like I knew what I was talking about.

That and the prospect of money. Which is why I am about to create and not one, but two separate job descriptions for what I think needs to be accomplished to "move the institution forward."

Of course, said job descriptions need to be shopped around--which means networking, working through TBIK to get audiences with Teh Important People, and "accidentally" leaking these documents, along with an updated resume, to the powers-that-be. I mean, who hasn't had an unintended name on the cc list ever in her or his life, right? Or who could ever completely control the forward trail for documents sent out for confidential (*cough cough*) review? These are the things I will need to work in the coming couple of days and next week, before all budget decisions are made.

Speaking of which (again?), a good third strategy might be to create competition, both internally and externally. So, after doing all the working and networking in the previous paragraphs, then some, and then some more, waltzing in with an external offer in hand and ask how much they are prepared to counteroffer should seal the deal--aka the old academic game. Now, given the short timeframe and the complete overabundance of Supreme Ruler of the Universe jobs in this town, that might not happen in the next week.

But it may need to happen, anyway, since academia has the annoying habit of getting sh*t done at the eleventh hour, and I'm getting too old for these shenanigans. Plan B, you see. Or, in this case, Plan C.

Plan D will, as always, be to cry hot salty tears into my nonexistent mousepad.

OCD, much?

2012-01-01T23:53:00.001-08:00

2012 is coming off to a great start. Today I have

Launched multiple rocket balloons, whose multimillion dollar satellite payloads are now withering away in our neighbors' shrubs. (Not really, but it's a nice thought, anyway).
Watched Little Miss Kickboxer climb on her Learning Tower and make hot chocolate from skim milk, chocolate chips, and cinnamon--all by her big-girl three-year-old self.
Fabricated a cookie monster on a red spaceship AND a martian, both out of playdough, both on a mission to Mars or Jupiter or wherever Little Miss Kickboxer wanted to send them.
Watched and discussed with Little Miss Kickboxer Youtube videos about the Mars Rover and about Jupiter, just to keep the astro interest alive.
Made Gulasch for the husband in my fabulous slow cooker (2 lbs dead cow, chopped into pieces + two onions, chopped into rings + 1 red bell pepper + 1 cup chicken broth + 1.5 cups Barilla organic tomato and basil sauce; stick everything in the crockpot on high for 4 hours, then cock the lid for 2 more hours or until liquid reduces to half the amount and thickens naturally; DUNZO!)
Sneezed, coughed, and contemplated the purchase of Depends. Ahem.
Watched a 90-minute episode of Das Traumschiff, which still is super-German and utterly predictable.
Watched a 30-minute episode of Lindenstrasse, which is still the best German soap EVAH.
Peeled dried spots of hot chocolate off the green play rug. With soap and a paper towel.
Coughed and sneezed some more (ewwwwwww ...).
Worn a firefighter helmet to approach our fireplace (because the almighty angelchild commanded me to) (no soap involved).
Built dragons and rescued them from falling into the potty--the "baby potty," mind you, where all our toys go poop.
Cheered one of my dear friends on who's just given birth to triplets via her first c-section.
Shlepped my fabulously dragonrescuing daughter to Menard's to pick up a doormat, which she got to pick out--and for which she picked the perfect design.
Read stories, hung up laundry, stared at snow flurries, shivered in the icy wind, eaten chocolate ...
And tried to figure out how to entertain the loveliest of daughters tomorrow, when preschool is still not in session. Ah, the possibilities (NOT!). Ah, the fingerpaint projects, the handknitting, the cooking, what have you ...
Thought about New Year's Resolutions that I'd like to make, and the ones I can realistically achieve.

We'll see what this year brings. After all that 2011 did to us, I'm still leery about ever trusting a year again, especially an even leap year that isn't even divisible by three and does not end in -y (and how silly does "Hi there, Twenty-Twelvy" sound?).

Achoo.

Cough.

Pardon me while I step into the bathroom.

Good riddance, 2011!

2011-12-30T21:40:00.000-08:00

Honestly? 2011 can go fuck itself.

And just incase you were wondering: No, this is not going to be one of those wistful "It's been a hard year, but I'm thankful, anyway" post. In fact, if I could turn the clock back to December 31, 2010, I'd be fine with moving into January 1, 2012, thankyouverymuch. 2011, to borrow a phrase from the almighty dooce, sucked sweaty goat balls.

Which was one reason why I stopped updating this blog. Every single post would have sounded like an exercise in whining--or rather, a step in training for the whining olympics. Who knows, I could have been a valedictorian in whining. There goes another missed chance at greatness ...

Would you really like to know how much I'd like to show this year the finger? Fine, here are the stats:

Three miscarriages (four since October 12, 2010).
Passed over for a promotion because I lived on the wrong (=West) Coast.
Dealt with sh*t from Space Cadet Central and my former boss's promise to ruin my professional future.
Lost 4 cats to various diseases, with currently zero animals in the household.
A 2,195 mile move from Podunk, CA, to Pretentious Biblebeltia, Indiana.
A 70% paycut, in which I traded a job as a Systems Engineer in aerospace for a part-time rainmaker position at a so-so 4-year college, which happens to be the only game in town. Under a 10-month contract.
A job in an institution in which I am known as "TBIK's wife" and as a second-class citizen because "oh God, you have only an Ay Bee Dee"?
Everything here is at last 50% more expensive than in California (except for processed crap food and gas).
Did I mention the processed crap Little Miss Kickboxer's preschool feeds her? Corndogs, "little smokies," commercial "blueberry" muffins? Of course, this exceeds Indiana nutritional standards. Which doesn't mean much considering that here, people really believe ketchup is a vegetable.
When people praised the schools in this area, they forgot to add "in Indiana." No, you don't want to know.
A friend from my teenage days died of brain cancer. He was only 8 years my senior.
People in the midwest: False friends. Also file under: Mediocrity, greed, judgmentalism, utilitarianism, conservatism, not trustworthy

Sorry, the last one was qualitative, rather than quantitative, but I trust you get the point.

The big exciting thing, though: The ~~Money Pit~~new 100-year-old house is coming together as everything I've ever dreamed of. The fireplace is in; the two "sexy" chairs are in front of the big window; the drapes drape; the wooden floors creak; the rusty-orange/ adobe-colored kitchen walls invite you to sit down and hang out. The new bedroom furniture is fabulous, including the headboard, for which I used a 20% off coupon at Pier 1. The music corner sports a real upright piano, which we rescued from withering away in the music department's basement. This house--I want to load it on one of those big trailers and ship it back to California. The house and our local Aldi and the Y.

So yeah, I miss California. Not necessarily the Podunk part, but heck, the friendliness, the openness, the political (and politicizeable) climate, the intellectual awareness, the upbeat outreach attitude especially in a church context (rather than doctrinal quabbles and Old-Testament brimstone that don't help feed anyone), and did I mention the health consciousness? So yeah, I have managed to find flaxseed meal and some organic fruits and vegetables here, too, and I spend far too much time on Facebook, but seriously, none of that makes up for California. None of that makes up for the fact that, in the past three months, it's taken superhuman effort to get up in the mornings and through the day without erupting into tears because Walmart was again out of Little Miss Kickboxer's nitrate-free hotdogs?

No, I'm obviously not pregnant (duh!). See above.

So, 2011, go to hell. Unless you're a midwesterner, at which point I fully expect you to scan me top to toe, roll your eyes, and exclaim, "Well, at least nobody died or got sick or got another Ay Bee Dee. And you still owe me $200 in cash, not check." And at which point I'd probably wish you to ... oh, I don't know ... Indiana?

From the mouth of ...

2011-10-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

I swear, Little Miss Kickboxer is putting together her standup material!

LMK: Hey Mom!

Me: ???

LMK: Hey Mom!

Me: Honey, hay is for horses! Is mommy a horse?

LMK: No, mommy, you not horsie!

Me: So, what is mommy?

LMK: Mommy, you moo-cow! MOOOOOOOOOOO!

*sigh*

H is for Halloween

2011-10-21T10:42:00.001-07:00

Not much to say today, other than: Guess who is getting ready for Halloween?

Have a great weekend, all!

Not good enough ...

2011-10-18T09:02:00.001-07:00

While we are still waiting for The Money Pit to be finished (oh, the floors! The beautiful wooden floors! They're about the only thing right now that I know will be finished, *sob*), we are ~~"slumming" it in~~ housesitting the 2-story downtown villa of one of TBIK's sorta colleagues. Which means, basically, that, two months ago, we moved some of our boxes in, unpacked one or three, and let the rest that we're not going to need (cough cough) smoulder away, either in the house itself or in storage. Because, heck, come October, we will be in our new home and everything will be fine. Right?

Ahem. Not so much.

Our first contractors *way* overpromised and so far, have grandiously underdelivered, to the point where, yes, it's important to put the tiles on the bathroom wall so they stick, but two weeks for a tub surround, and not yet grouted? That's what the entire bathroom remodel should have taken, tub surround, floor, installation of "the facilities" and everything. After all, "approximately 2 weeks" was what it was bid for. Since tiling is a one-man job, the other contractor promised to bring in one or two more people to do the painting. Fine, we said. Only that the additional one or two people never showed up, not even after a schedule-based warning to him to get organized. Of course, the contractor himself was so colorblind he couldn't distinguish between white wall and mauve paint--and those kinds of stripes weren't planned. But enough of that. As of today, I have a third-finished bathroom, three painted ceilings, one room that needs to be redone, and four that still need to be painted. That move-in date of October 31? Fail.

Naturally, my sleep schedule and general stress level has peaked, to the point where the fingers on my right hand keep tingling whenever I do something. Hello, nervous system! Thanks (NOT!) for reminding me you're still there.

One of the things I have noticed about our corner of Indiana is that "good enough," or mediocrity, seems to be the standard here. Cheap insulation? "Good enough, will last you a few years." Processed hormone- and chemistry-laden food in Little Miss Kickboxer's pre-preschool? "Good enough based on the dollar-per-student budget." Even the much-touted education out here has to be "good enough." Businesses here compete on price, not on quality.

That said, overstatements and broken promises seem to be de rigeur here, as well, from Little Miss Kickboxer's pre-preschool director who promised fresh fruit at least once a day and is instead serving fruit cups no more than once a day, to the painting contractor referenced above, to the lousy cupcake bakery here in town, to the DSL company who took three weeks to insulate a telephone cable on our rental home to ... well, just about everything. Add to that cashiers and other businesspeople who bring their frustrations to work, and, whoa, WHY again did we move to the Midwest?

Oh, I forgot. The jobs. Yeah, that.

Do I miss California, then? Yes and no. I miss Little Miss Kickboxer's awesome daycare environment, in which she learned more in 2 months than she will learn here in 2 years. I miss friendly people who don't talk about you behind your back. I miss cheap, fresh organic vegetables and fruit, and a health-conscious culture and a beautiful animal-filled State Park surrounding us. What don't I miss? Looking that I don't get into a gang fight when driving through our little town in the dark. The outspoken Tea Partiers at the main intersection. The absence of cool coffeehouses, of a mid-size university, and of intellectual conversation. The fact that a third of TBIK's day was spent commuting to work. All that.

What I do miss, still, after almost 9 years, is Toadtunnel Toontown, with the perfect constellation of a large university, proximity to the state capital and lots of high-tech industry (aka paycheck), the best schools in California, and the sense of home. I will always, I fear, miss that little city that holds so much of my history and all of my heart.

Oh, and I miss TV. But that is a whole 'nother pair of shoes.

Geographical Cure

2011-10-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

That's an expression apparently used in AA circles describing the behavior when alcoholics up and leave an environment in order to start a better--sober--future somewhere else. "Change the environment" sounds very good, when the real work would be "change yourself." So, the "geographical cure" is really not a cure, but a band-aid because "wherever you go, there you are."

I found out just a few hours ago that a friend, a really good, longtime friend (let's call him Tom), who has been knocked around by life more than anyone deserves and is now a homeless veteran, is on his way from California out to here. Tom isn't an alcoholic nor a junkie, don't get me wrong; he made a narrow escape from a toxic relationship that cost him all of his belongings and most of his sanity and needs to get back on his feet. He's stayed with his extended family in the Bay Area, applied for jobs there, interviewed for exactly one job and wasn't chosen, registered with a job agency and overdid it with the calling in, so they dropped him like a hot potato. Which is why for now, he is convinced that a happier future lies here, in smalltown Indiana.

In smalltown Indiana where being openly gay is almost as bad as being Hispanic. In smalltown Indiana, where everybody is straight and white and owns a house with a picket fence and 2.2 kids (or was that dogs?). In smalltown Indiana where people often measure your social value by the church you attend. In smalltown Indiana where the temperature went down to 35 degrees last night.

Did I mention that Tom is on his way? That he walked 56 miles, sleeping out in the open, to get to the nearest military base airport and is figuring out how many hops he needs to get to an airbase somewhere around Indiana? That he's selling his little watercolors for food and a bus ticket? That all of this breaks my heart?

So yeah, it breaks my heart, and at the same time, I'm scared. Not of my buddy, of course, but of the challenge, the immense challenge that goes beyond money, mouth, walk, talk:

34-36"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'

40"Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'

Yep, Bible. Matthew 25, just incase you're wondering. This has always been one of my favorite passages. But how much easier is it to just send money and keep "the problem" away? Seriously, when has giving away a few dollars towards a good cause ever failed to soothe a bad conscience?

This thing with Tom, should he really make it out here, it's bigger than the clean financial buffer between middle-class privilege and "the causes we like to support": Tom is where the rubber meets the road. It's where your integrity as a Christian, a Buddhist, or a plain self-respecting person, is tested. And yeah, the theory of it is nice, isn't it?

It's the practice that is scary, in a household in which embracing social challenges isn't often a dinner-table topic. In a household that's seen a lot of stress recently, what with four miscarriages in the past year, the death of Vinnie, Little Miss Kickboxer's beloved cat, not even two weeks ago, the cross-country move, new jobs, the new (old) house (aka The Money Pit) whose renovation is finally underway, all that. In a household in which boundaries need to be managed and negotiated in its quest for stability. Maybe that challenge could be a cure for our stress, in our household in smalltown Indiana.

Sanity, where are you? Please don't tell me you're on the airplane to California.

Morris Grey, perhaps ...

2011-09-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

You will be relieved to hear that, as of Monday evening, a bottle of red Zinfandel is safely ensconced in our pantry (I am!). Given the level of stress and lack of any time in our lives, the earliest chance we might get to open the bottle will probably be Election Day.

Did I mention that there's a State Law prohibiting alcohol sales while the polls are open? No? Well, now you know.

In other news (*so many* other news!), we are closing on our new OLD (1912) house aka The Money Pit on Monday, at 1 p.m.. So, by about 2 p.m., we should be the owners of a home with one single grounded outlet, vermiculite insulation in the attic, and some sort of hardwood floor underneath grimy carpet. Did I mention that the Eighties called and said they want their bathroom back?

Oh yes, pictures will follow.

I have my contractors lined up already: Most importantly, the electrician is coming on Friday, various hardwood floor guys on Thursday and Friday, and the bathroom guy (please let him be competent!) on Thursday, too. Then we will scour the town for smelling salts because I am guaranteed to keel over when I see their estimates.

Of course, first comes the painting, with VOC-free paints, of course. I swear I can tell you the name of every single shade of green, yellow, taupe, and orange Dutch Boy, Martha Stewart, Behr, and Sherwin-Williams produce. I can also explain to you just about anything to do with William Morris wallpaper or the Arts and Crafts movement because if you're buying a little house that was built in 1912? You have responsibilities. Want to paint your living room mint green? The art history Gestapo might start your file. Use subway tile in the bathroom? They will show up at your front door and take you to their Baroque room, where you will be forced to stare at fat naked little angels among swirly clouds for the next 3 years. Responsibilities, you see.

So, right now, I'm looking at having the ceiling papered with some paintable embossed tile wallpaper. One wall in the living room and one wall in the bedroom will most likely have some out-there wallpaper or mural on it because, hey, we're going all out here. The front room and the dining room will be welcomingly green, the living room cozily taupe, our bedroom some sort of lavender-and-tan, and TBIK's Man Cave whatever-rest-ish. What will be Little Miss Kickboxer's room is currently light blue with whitewashed clouds on the walls and just perfect for her. The kitchen? Probably yellow to orange, and the bathroom blue/green/whatever matches the existing vanity because whoa! Have you ever priced bathroom furniture? Now, *that* will give your heart muscle a workout!

So, in other words: It's coming. The whole crazy ohmigoshwhatdidigetmyselfinto project is coming.

Have we talked about the basement yet? No? It's probably good that way, too.

Indiana Sunday

2011-09-11T21:38:00.001-07:00

"But ... but ... it's SUNDAY!!!!" She white knuckled her cash register as her brown eyes bulged out at the sight of my transgression.

"It's ... SUNDAY!!!!"

Confusion exploded from my head like a rainbow from a box of Lucky Charms. "What do you mean?"

There, between us, on the register belt, stood a bottle of red wine. Some version of a Two-Buck Chuck.

"It's ... Sunday!"

With a stern look and a headshake, just as I started complimenting myself on my youthful appearance that might necessitate producing my California driver's license, she wrapped her fingers around the bottle and put it under her register. Next up: Applesauce for Little Miss Kickboxer, a bag of pretzels, and some deodorant.

My confused stare triggered not only TBIK's hysterical giggling, but also the pity of the shopper behind us. Ah! Out-of-towners!

"You can't buy alcohol on a Sunday, hon!"

"You ... WHAT? Excuse me, WHAT????"

"State law," the cashier snorted disparagingly as she stuffed TBIK's organic granola in yet another plastic bag.

Shattered was my hip, wrinkle-free, ready-to-be-carded self-image. Exposed were my dirty California hippie boozin' ways.

The teenager on the next register followed our conversation attentively while sticking a Marlboro behind his ear. He obviously expected more tie-dye or patchouli or maybe some gay marriage peace sign tattooed on my forehead. So, I stammer, "Uh, we just moved here from California."

"Well, you're in Indiana now. If you have to drink, you can always drive over to Illinois," the cashier remarks as she hands me seventeen gazillion plastic bags, her disdain now turned into pity for the crazy alcoholic I must be. "And people here do plan their Sunday drinking better."

"This is one for the blog," I say. "Thanks, ma'am. And by the way: There's a law against plastic bags in California."

Welcome back!

2011-09-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Cue voiceover as a row of cornfields scrolls across the screen:

"It's been a long-ass time since we last saw our dishevelled hero lugging a kid, a cat, two cars, and 17,000 pounds of crap across the country."

All of which would be true. ~~Six~~ Seven weeks ago, we were still in California, not worrying about whether it'd be a sweltering 98 degrees with 85% humidity outside, or whether Pupselkind needs to pack the rainboots for preschool because a thunderstorm might drench the roads with 4 inches of water and lower the temperature to a balmy 66 degrees. ~~Six~~ Seven weeks ago, we were packing stuff in boxes, rugdoctoring carpets, patching up walls (hoping that the shade of white would be a close match), and cleaning out cars for transport. We were throwing stuff away and giving stuff away and, at least in the case of yours truly, falling into the deep hole of "Sh*t, I just quit my perfectly good, well-paid job to go on to ... what, exactly?"

The good news is: We have arrived. Sort of. We're still in our rental home, henceforth to be termed The Cave because it's old, dark, and, well, cavernous, and closing on our new home, henceforth to be termed The Money Pit, sometime near the end of this month. Little Miss Kickboxer is officially in pre-preschool because, well, State regulations apparently prohibit any child younger than 3 in actual preschool, so I'm doing my best to keep her interested in math, reading, and writing while we chomp at the bit to get her learning again. TBIK is in his fabulous new job where he gets to be Wise and Important. And I, um, have a nice title in a temporary part-time job and make about 30% of what I used to make in California. So, come on over, and I'll treat you to a stick of gum. Which you will be expected to return at the end of your visit, so I can roll it out for the next person.

To tell you that The Big Move(R) was probably one of the most stressful things I've ever done, and certainly much more stressful than leaving Germany for this country some 16 years ago, is an understatement. Then, I had had a living situation lined up, together with a job with a regular paycheck and health insurance, and a clear perspective of how that move was going to make me a bigger and better person and a university professor at the end. It was my move, my thing.

This move wasn't; it was TBIK's thing. And it's shaken me to the core. I spent weeks barely being able to make it out of bed during the day, get dressed and go to a job interview or two, or write cover letters to companies screening candidates for "present employment" status--and nights crying until there were no more tears left. That's how scared and pulverizing it felt to fall into the jobless hole, with some brainless idiot or the other spouting cliches like "but there's so much opportunity around, Chicago, South Bend and stuff." Newsflash: Not in the rust belt, where more companies are downsizing and closing than in the coastal states. And certainly not when you're unemployed.

That was the bad news part. It lasted until last Monday, when I stepped into my new office, logged on to my new computer, registered my new email address, and updated my resume with "August 2011 to present." Then I started working, and I haven't stopped since--and I'm a better person and certainly a better, happier mother for it. Fine, jobwise, some things need to happen to ensure the 50% appointment turns into a little bigger piece of the pie and the temporary turns into regular, but I'm confident that I can do this quickly. The most important thing is: I get to contribute to my own retirement fund AND, yes, own my own paycheck. Believe me:

A woman needs a room of her own. Not just physically, of course, or intellectually, but also financially. Being financially dependent, to me, is suffocating. Having to ask for $20 spending money, just for a few odds and ends, and receiving them with a wry smile, has given me a taste of the soul-crushingness other women go through wondering what parts of their dignity they're selling today. It's also given me a good reminder of--albeit in this case self-inflicted--patriarchal structures; maybe one that I really needed. Was this what I wanted to model for my daughter, this image of the dependent, politically weak, subservient wife? Heck, no. When Daddy goes to work, Mommy goes to work, too, and the angelchild goes to her work aka (pre-pre)school. We all do the same thing; we all contribute to some sort of social-professional circle, even if the only thing we do is bring the cicadas we found in the park into the pre-preschool classroom (because hell, those creepy things *had* to get out of the house!). We all have rooms in which we can be independent, whether it's TBIK's sprawling top-floor suite with the secretaries out front, whether it's Little Miss Kickboxer's pre-preschool classroom with her cubby and picture wall, or whether it's my fabulous old-skool hard-doored real-daylight-windowed office across from the broken water fountain. A room. My own.

Welcome back!

Checkout Day

2011-07-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

AActually, I was joking in Friday's post. No, really.

Today is my last day at work. The checkout-say-goodbye-to-everyone day.

It's not like I'm all that happy to give up a job of only moderate annoyance, in which I've met people who are 500% nicer than the mobbing bosses at Space Cadet Central. If bad came to worse (or even if it didn't), I'd work for The New Company again, and I've made damn sure, what with my actions around the quitting thing, that the powers that be feel the same way. Here's what I've done, just to show you:

I've given them a two-month notice. Yes, you read that correctly: Two MONTHS, rather than two weeks. Why? Because it's very hard to find someone who does what I do and does it well. What I do is a specialized form of project management, with an added math-and-geekery component that spreadeagles between finance, probability, decision analysis, and software/ hardware engineering. And people management--much of that, actually, including customer management (i.e. the people with much budgetary power). That's why two months, not two weeks. And wouldn't you know it, they've managed to conduct a non-panicked interview process and, from what HR told me, picked the best of the applicants, rather than the earliest available one.
I've put a handoff workbook together: A comprehensive Excel workbook with explanations and current status of all my 20-some current projects, contact information of all the major stakeholders, and embedded copies of all the current slidesets, including their business rhythm and accountability lines.
I've worked until the end of Friday, making sure that everybody gets the information s/he needs in order to continue with business as usual while one of my colleagues comes out from the East Coast to bridge the time between my leaving and the start of my replacement (and her training).
I've networked the sh*t out of my colleagues from other companies who are on the same contract and put together an "opportunities" spreadsheet with all sorts of relevant contact information, especially of people who work for large national consulting agencies and their agents. That right there is professional gold. Muahaha.
I sent a heartfelt, yet professional, and not mushy goodbye email to all folks with whom I've had excellent working relationships and cc'd myself to my private account. Another instance of professional gold because when you cc yourself, all Outlook email addresses stay intact, whereas forwarding erases them. Muahaha.
I had personal contact cards (with a few bullet points on the back from my resume) printed through VistaPrint and stuck them on the wall of my (now former) cubicle.

Why am I doing all that? Because in this economy, burning bridges (unless it's with Space Cadet Central) is one of the worst things you can do. And because guess what'll be waiting for me on the other end?

[crickets]

You heard that right. The work that TBIK's new university supposedly needs me for is, so far, unfunded. While, in a moment of sheer desparation about the impending resume break (aka professional death sentence), I actually offered to work for a title, an email address, and a symbolic salary, I somehow knew that they probably wouldn't go for that, and they didn't. After all, they're a university, rather than a flexible startup, in which like deals with a commitment to stock options post-IPO, aren't unheard of. So, while the good university folks are trying to nickel-and-dime things together through various budgets, I am busy constructing Plan B and C and possibly D.

All this constructing has made my mental and emotional sitation fluctuate from pure, naked existential fear that had me awake on most nights, to entrepreneurial optimism. Add to that, of course, the giving up of one of my major income-generating qualifications--my clearance (unless I find a Government contractor position again within the next 24 months)--and you've got the holy trifecta: No cash flow nor 401k contributions, no resume continuation, and, tick-tock tick-tock, a skillset downgrade. And all of this in a new community in which the local PMI chapter has been anything but helpful and the nearest military base is 2.5 hours to the south.

So, the fight is on. It's gotta be on because if it isn't, I know I'll spend my days in bed, unable to get up, shower, and eat anything but chocolate. Instead, I'm hoping to spend those days finding some way of reinventing myself, starting a career from scratch again. Ugh.

What I really wanted to write but didn't ...

2011-07-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

Shamelessly pilfered.

Dear Co-Workers and Managers,

As many of you probably know, today is my last day. But before I leave, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know what a great and distinct pleasure it has been to type “Today is my last day.”
For nearly as long as I’ve worked here, I’ve hoped that I might one day leave this company. And now that this dream has become a reality, please know that I could not have reached this goal without your unending lack of support. Words cannot express my gratitude for the words of gratitude you did not express.

I would especially like to thank all of my managers both past and present but with the exception of the wonderful Mr. ABC: in an age where miscommunication is all too common, you consistently impressed and inspired me with the sheer magnitude of your misinformation, ignorance and intolerance for true talent. It takes a strong man to admit his mistake – it takes a stronger man to attribute his mistake to me.
Over the past seven years, you have taught me more than I could ever ask for and, in most cases, ever did ask for. I have been fortunate enough to work with some absolutely interchangeable supervisors on a wide variety of seemingly identical projects – an invaluable lesson in overcoming daily tedium in overcoming daily tedium in overcoming daily tedium.
And to most of my peers: even though we barely acknowledged each other within these office walls, I hope that in the future, should we pass on the street, you will regard me the same way as I regard you: sans eye contact.

But to those few souls with whom I’ve actually interacted, here are my personalized notes of farewell:

To [ ], I will not miss hearing you cry over absolutely nothing while laying blame on me and my coworkers. Your racial comments about [ ] were truly offensive and I hope that one day you might gain the strength to apologize to him.

To [ ] whom is long gone, I hope you find a manager that treats you as poorly as you have treated us. I worked harder for you then any manager in my career and I regret every ounce of it. Watching you take credit for my work was truly demoralizing.

To [ ], you should learn how to keep your mouth shut sweet heart. Bad mouthing the innocent is a negative thing, especially when you’re talking about someone who knows your disgusting secrets.

To [ ], well, I wish you had more of a back bone. You threw me to the wolves with that witch B and I learned all too much from it. I still can’t believe that after following your instructions, I ended up getting written up, wow. Thanks for the experience buddy, lesson learned.

[ ], I’m happy that you were let go in the same manner that you have handed down to my dedicated coworkers. Hearing you on the phone last year brag about how great bonuses were going to be for you fellas in upper management because all of the lay offs made me nearly vomit. I never expected to see management benefit financially from the suffering of scores of people but then again, with this company’s rooted history in the slave trade it only makes sense.

To all of the executives of this company, [ ] and such. Despite working through countless managers that practiced unethical behavior, racism, sexism, jealousy and cronyism, I have benefited tremendously by working here and I truly thank you for that. There was once a time where hard work was rewarded and acknowledged, it’s a pity that all of our positive output now falls on deaf ears and passes blind eyes. My advice for you is to place yourself closer to the pulse of this company and enjoy the effort and dedication of us “faceless little people” more. There are many great people that are being over worked and mistreated but yet are still loyal not to those who abuse them but to the greater mission of providing excellent customer support. Find them and embrace them as they will help battle the cancerous plague that is ravishing the moral of this company.

So, in parting, if I could pass on any word of advice to the lower salary recipient (“because it’s good for the company”) in India or Tampa who will soon be filling my position, it would be to cherish this experience because a job opportunity like this comes along only once in a lifetime.

Meaning: if I had to work here again in this lifetime, I would sooner kill myself.

To those who I have held a great relationship with, I will miss being your co-worker and will cherish our history together.

Please don’t bother responding as at this very moment I am most likely in my car doing 85 with the windows down.

One!

Your demands were high and your patience short, but I take great solace knowing that my work was, as stated on my annual review, “meets expectation.” That is the type of praise that sends a man home happy after a 10 hour day, smiling his way through half a bottle of meets-expectation-scotch with a meets-expectation-cigar. Thanks [ ]!

We did make it back from Indiana, after all

2011-06-14T06:12:00.000-07:00

"Honey, are you sure I shouldn't look this up on my phone?"

"I know my directions. You go worry about, uh, your mascara or something."

"But hon, I don't remember driving past here. And by the way, I have to go pee in the next, oh, five minutes."

"Here? We are almost, uh, at the airport! What is it with you peeing so much, anyway?"

"No pithy response available. Need ... you ... to ... pull ... over ... NOW!"

"How are you going to pee here?" (pulls over)

"Watch me! No, uh, just ... don't." (jumps out of car, opens both sidedoors and strips pants down barely in time) "Phew. Also, honey, are you sure that this isn't the Chicago skyline? I remember the airport looking slightly differently. Also, no tollbooths so far."

"Look, Little Miss Kickboxer, a train!"

"A train! Chugga chugga CHOO CHOO!!!!"

"OK, so, which one do you think is the exit to the airport, then? The one after all the skyscrapers? " (adjusting seatbelt)

"Well, why don't you look that up on your phone?"

--overheard in a certain rental car when a certain family missed a certain exit on their way back to the Chicago airport.

*sigh*

Send martinis!

2011-06-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

By now, our home looks like a warzone. Boxes are stacked up in every corner, book cases are half empty, the garage is full with stuff that didn't sell at last weekend's garage sale (note to self/ TBIK: NEVER have a garage sale at the end of the month when people are broke), to be either given away or disposed of otherwise. Because we can't take it with us. The quotes from the moving companies already exceed the budget we were given.

You think a 2,500-mile move like that is stressful, especially if you don't know yet where you are going to end up?

That would be TBIK's greatest concern. On Tuesday, we're meeting up in Chicago to drive down to Valparaiso and house-hunt (see that there? That's a loaded sentence in itself. More about that later). Since we can't sell our home here in California, thanks to owing much more than the place is worth currently, even after paying an exorbitant mortgage for over 4 years, we'll be forced into renting a place there for the amount of our future rental income here. Which 1. covers just two thirds of our mortgage and 2. doesn't account for the fact that, in a college town, rentals are hard to come by.

I'm not as worried about this as TBIK. If bad comes to worse, there's always temporary faculty housing. Or hotels. Heck, when I moved here from Toadtunnel Toontown, I lived in a hotel for a month. What's not to like about an always-available indoor swimming pool and someone else cooking you breakfast in the morning?

But then, remember what I said about the whole mortgage thing? Well, TBIK has a job with an income waiting for him. I don't. At this point, all I have is an appointment on Wednesday to discuss potential opportunities/ a "vision" with someone at the university there--and that's my only shot, really, because once TBIK starts his job, unless I find a reliable child care, interviewing for a job is out of the question. Which also means that, while our mortgage remains steady, after TBIK's pay raise, our total household income decreases by 30%.

So, the pressure is on, in many ways. My last day at the old job will be July 5 (and trust me, for some reasons, I wish it were earlier), but being unemployed in this economy poses a great risk to one's career, no matter what the reason. After remote networking attempts through professional societies have already failed (Midwesterners apparently don't do electronic communication too often), my one shot is the meeting on Wednesday, and then maybe a local temp agency or any other place--anything to prevent 1. the resume from going stale come August and 2. my emergency savings from dwindling too quickly (especially since they may have to cover next year's IRA contribution, given the potential absence of a 401k). So, if this Wednesday thing doesn't work out, my approach will, I think, have to be to volunteer my services in a professional setting until December and work a money-making job on the side--back, in other words, to the old graduate student days. OR become a full-time student, with access to graduate student teaching opportunities.

Oh, whoops, did I say full-time? That would, of course, mean that I would find a suitable situation for Little Miss Kickboxer, who has officially entered the Terrible Twos and refuses to learn how to use the potty, despite the fact that, in already early-education-challenged Indiana, preschools aren't kidding about "kids must be fully potty trained by age 3. Pull ups are not acceptable." Which was a verbatim quote from the one and only Montessori preschool in the area (there are actually two, owned by the same person) with whose directress we are meeting on Wednesday and who already confirmed to me on the phone that the angelchild will not be allowed to enter the preschool classroom until she can reliably dispose of #1 and #2 in the "appropriate" receptacle. As if there's a magic switch that you flip when kids turn two or three, and voila!

As you can imagine, then, Little Miss Kickboxer, who is two-and-a-half going on twelve, has decided not to cooperate. After a few successful and highly celebrated attempts on both, the little and the big potty, she has resolved that Big Girl underwear is not all it's cracked up to be--even though it's blue and has a froggie and a monkey on it. So, after a week of her begging, whimpering, crying, and screaming not to be caught with her pants down every half hour, we decided to let it go for the next few weeks. Which, of course, will mean ... see the previous paragraph. Which, in turn, will mean that I'll have to find an alternative solution ... see the paragraph before that. Ah, causal chains, let me French-kiss your links!

Or I could also just book a one-way ticket to the Australian outback and let one of TBIK's three new admins take over. Give me three martinis with extra olive and a laptop, and watch me broadcast live from a kangaroo pouch.

Speaking of plane ticket: On Tuesday, Little Miss Kickboxer and I will drive ourselves to the Santa Barbara airport and board a plane to LA, and from there, to Chicago, where TBIK will meet us on his way back from an East Coast conference. And I've had nightmares about her being kidnapped in the airport, haters smacking her upside down the head or spiking her apple juice for singing her ABC song, her screaming and wanting to walk around the airplane, and whatnot. So, a couple of weeks ago, I bit the tech waste bullet and bought a fancy big-screen Android phone that will not only hold my materials for Wednesday's meeting, but more importantly allow my angelchild to play toddler games, read toddler eBooks, and watch Little Einsteins and Biene Maja. Needless to say, there's also a special little Elmo backpack that will be stuffed with individually-to-be-wrapped Matchbox cars, flashcards, Aquadoodle, a string for cheerios, Dora and Diego tattoos, some playdough, and, of course, her assortment of binkies. And there are address stickers that will be stuck to her shirt and jacket. And there better be a martini or three waiting for me at the other end. Or a rubber cell.

Or, goshdarnit, a new set of nerves.

And so it begins ...

2011-05-31T22:05:00.000-07:00

Well, then. Remember how I spoke about "cautious optimism" with regard to Little Miss Kickboxer and any potential MMR vaccine reactions?

You can stick that optimism somewhere where the sun don't shine.

Today at 10 am, our fabulous daycare provider called to let me know that my angelchild is sporting a rash all over. When her mom saw it, she immediately blurted out "Three-Day Measles" aka rubella (we're all about the technical terms around here). So, I called the pediatrician and brought our little sunshine in at 1:45.

In other news: If you have a toddler but no android phone, hie thyself to an android phone store, get one, and download the socks match app, then the "toddler lock" app, and then a few episodes of Little Einsteins, and nothing, NOTHING will ever phase you.

As expected, the good doctor diagnosed a viral rash as a consequence of the MMR shot, but said that, since the viruses injected into my little daughter's body were not wild, but attenuated, there really wasn't any problem with her returning to the daycare--unless she was going to be around any immunosuppressed children with cancer or lupus or HIV. Well, not the case in our case. I took Little Miss Kickboxer back to the daycare, returned to work, did my whatever little I do these days, and then picked her up again.

As we usually do, we walked to the playground, chattering about all sorts of toddlerish things--you know, the dogs along the way, the trees and the pinecones in them, the birds, all that. And the fact that there was no pokey at the doctor's today. Just looking.

And then, Little Miss Kickboxer ran around, after me, before me, with me, we let ourselves fall into the thick grass, slid down the slides, climbed up the climbing wall. Until she didn't make it up all the way and almost fell if I hadn't caught her. And then she started to cry about her arms. She didn't even want to walk home; I carried all 36.8 pounds of her sobbing toddler-softness for about a mile. There was no consoling her--not at home, not even with cheese or her favorite snap pea crunchies, or fishsticks or peas. Nothing. She cried, squirmed, and screamed that her arms were hurting. My first assumption that she may have bruised something when she slid down the climbing wall soon turned into the assurance that the rash on her arms, now really pronounced, was itching the hell out of her little mind. So, I ran to grab a cold wet washcloth, some calamine lotion, and some tylenol, and went to work. You should have seen the expression in her face When the desired effect set in! All she said for a while--even ditching her favorite Little Einsteins--was "thankyou mommy! Thankyou mommy!" And yeah, so the itch and whatever fever might set in was taken care of.

But man, am I going back on my decision!

I'm praying to all that is holy that this is it--a little bit of an uncomfortable rash with a low-grade fever.

I fear, I really really fear at this point the big ones, the bad ones. The brain swelling, the encephalopathy, the subsequent behavioral changes, all that.

I'm worried.

Better living

2011-05-25T10:54:00.001-07:00

Do you have any idea how much cr*p is in your house?

We are certainly getting an idea how much is in ours--even though the husband will, of course, take exception to labelling his beloved dragon coffee tables, lamps, mirrors, wall sconces, candle sticks, swords, knives, rugs, toasters, and tattooed breast implants, etc. as cr*p. Those would be all the dragon paraphernlia he pulled out of storage for our Big Dragon Sale this weekend. Well, fine. I may have exaggerated about the breast implants. Slightly.

Add to that all of Little Miss Kickboxer's outside toys that we're selling; something which I know will break her tiny little heart into tiny little smithereens. Fine, I already told her that the climbers have to go away to grow up a little, and they will be waiting for us in a playground in Indiana. And that another little baby may be playing with Freddie The Firefly. And that there will be lots of ice cream with chocolate chips--because otherwise, I would be losing my sanity right about now.

Speaking of which, this here household is currently experimenting with Better Living Through Chemistry--no, not the good old Prozac. The good new Clomid. Because losing yet another pregnancy is not an option I want to exercise. So, for the past five days, I've been hopping myself up on hormones and monitoring myself for signs of Teh Insane, which promptly arrived after the first dose. Two entire hours of violent self-effacing rage later, my brain was back to normal (ahem!), and since I knew what to possibly expect, I was able to hold it together. Honestly, I had prepared myself (and the poor husband) for a whole month of emotional hell, silently hoping that this wouldn't last longer than a week. But two hours? That was much less than expected. Which could mean that by now, I may be stronger than I thought. Nice!

Speaking of which, Little Miss Kickboxer is also just that: Stronger. So far, no big reaction to last Wednesday's MMR vaccine. On saturday, she complained that her knees hurt when touched or bent, which is a known response to the mumps component (mild acute arthritis) and passed overnight, but also could have been growing pains because that same night, all her pants legs shrunk by one inch. No fever yet, nor rash, but then, we're only on day 8, and the vaccine reaction period ranges from 5-21 days. So, no dewarning just yet, just cautious optimism. And a growing two-and-a-half year-old who is going on twelve with her bedtime-negotiation technique ("No mama. I reading!").

In other news, did I mention that we are moving? To Indiana? Or rather, across the state line from Chicago? And that, most likely, we'll be the only hippies in a town marked by staunch Lutheran piousness? I can't wait to dye my hair purple with green dots and pull out my ripped flare jeans and the patchouli. Or maybe go streaking on the quad on a hot summer day?

Yes, you did not need that visual.

But the options. Oh, the options!

Likelihood Times Impact

2011-05-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Little Miss Kickboxer got her MMR shot. She took it like a champ--lying down, with her binkie in her mouth, clutching her blankie, and crying for about 30 seconds until she noticed the Winnie-the-Pooh bandaid I had previously handed to the nurse. "Pooh Bear!" she exclaimed excitedly, "pokey and ouwie and Pooh Bear!" And frozen yoghurt afterwards (strawberry with chocolate chips, if you must know).

I tried to get her to slow down a little in the afternoon, just incase, but as soon as we started "going shopping" at home, with wooden blocks for broccoli, "wuerstchen," and strawberries, she started running through the entire house with her little shopping cart aka shape-sorter wagon. Without passing the (my) cashier's desk. Mental note: Ask daycare provider how she learned to run away without paying for a big cart of groceries.

Anyway, no fever last night or this morning, which means no visible anaphylactic reaction. The angelchild slept soundly, breathing normally, and demanding something to drink right after she woke up and commented on her mama's stinky butt (who? me? never!). In other words, everything's normal right now. First hurdle taken. First out of three, that is.

Now we wait for the bad ones--the vaccine reactions (fever, rash, vomiting, swollen glands), sometimes triphasic, that could occur within about two weeks from the vaccination date, and then the "adverse events" (the really scary stuff like encepalitis or encephalopathy, or the scary but manageable stuff like diabetes) that could occur anywhere from today to six months or longer down the road. One of my friends admitted just a couple of days ago that she never stopped monitoring her little son after this shot. So, I'm starting a log to note any changes, especially in behavior. And I swore to myself that, rather than giving her another MMR jab at age 4 (that is, 1.5 years down the road), we'll have a titer drawn first to prove immunity.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, "vaccines are safe," blah blah blah. Sorry, but I'm not drinking that KoolAid. If they were, we wouldn't get any adverse events, not even 1 in 100,000--especially when the morbidity or mortality risk for measles in this country is far less than 1 in 1,000,000 (with zero reported deaths in the past few decades). AND dear old Merck wouldn't have to put out that long list of legal disclaimers. On the other hand, despite all my digging around on private websites and PubMed, I haven't found any data to confirm that the adverse event risk is as high as 1 in 150 (autism) or 1 in 110 (encephalopathy), as some of the more militant anti-vax websites like to point out. I'm convinced that, given the huge holes/ underreporting in the CDC's data collections, the truth probably lies somewhere in between, possibly one or two orders of magnitude higher. But then, that's just a maternal-statistical gut feeling.

What irks me most about this is this (and I know I'll probably get a pat on the back from some crazy teabaggin' dude): My taxes pay for public education. And yet, in order to access what my money already pays for, the government requires me to accept a health risk that a Merck, Bayer, or Glaxo lobbyist has greatly downplayed to the CDC in order to receive federal funding. Orwellian, much?

Fine. All states allow some sort of exemption, philosophical at the least, medical at the most. The problem with that is, while I have no issues with that paperwork, we won't be in hippie-relaxed-liberal California much longer. Any quality (as in: Montessori) school with a waiting list in the conservative Lutheran-Bible-tootin' Midwest will scoff at such a letter and then kick the can (as in: Little Miss Kickboxer) further down the road, to the next institution and then the next. I can assure you that that risk is 1 in 2. Of course, if the angelchild joins the 7 in 100,000 with encephalopathy, none of this elitist school crap will matter.

In basic risk management, the risk score is often determined as probability times impact, just as a photograph is composed of both, aperture and exposure. With a photograph, you can decide to prioritize one over the other. With complex decisions, you can decide to prioritize probability over impact or vice versa. My choice was obviously more weighted towards probability, and only the final outcome will prove whether that prioritization was a sound choice or a disastrous one.

Just so you know ...

2011-05-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

Well, if you've read this blog for a while, you know that numbers keep me sane.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE numbers. Seriously.

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, here is my crunchy thing on a new study, "Adverse reactions following immunization with MMR vaccine in children at selected provinces of Iran." published in Archives of Iranian Medicine. 2011 Mar;14(2):91-5. The abstract is here.

Way to go

2011-05-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

One of the preparations for The Big*ss Move (tm) involves looking into which of the local preschools would be a good fit for Little Miss Kickboxer.

Which, apparently, is putting the cart before the horse.

I'm not going to make any bones about it: I'm one of those crunchy granola moms. Fine, when my boobs gave out, the angelchild drank formula, but at least, that was organic formula. I made 95% of her babyfood myself. After we tried cloth diapering and found that it wasn't for us, she spent her days in chlorine-free, mostly environmentally conscious, disposables. Plus, we almost always bought all of her toys via Craigslist or thrift stores in order to nto waste another piece of five-minute-interest plastic.

Part of my crunchy hippieness intersects with my job as a risk manager, too--namely the "crunchy" part. In my job, I crunch a lot of numbers, probabilities, impact dollars, you name it. That kind of math of part of my professional life. And you can probably see where this is going, too: In contrast to out hippie-fabulous State of California, the State of Indiana requires that all children have lots of shots. And I don't mean just the ones that the CDC requires--no. A. LOT. And I am scared shitless.

We're not against vaccinations in our household. Vaccinations have saved countless lives--trust me, I've seen kids in wheelchairs with polio-crippled legs and all that. I still have the little scar from my smallpox shot when I was just a tiny thing. So, Little Miss Kickboxer's finished out most of her series, albeit somewhat delayed. When she was 2 months old, she had a really bad reaction to the pertussis component in the DTaP, so the ped decided to just give her the DT, and she's been fine with that. But my nerves have been rattled ever since.

Now we're looking at THE BIG ONE. The one that could potentially ruin her life forever, send her into encephalitis, loss of hearing or of speech, type 1 diabetes, and whatnot. We're faced with MMR (or rather, since TBIK is not interested in contributing to this decision, yours truly is faced with MMR).

When I was a kid, I had all three of them: Measles, mumps, rubella, oh, and, of course, the chickenpox. They came, they passed, they didn't even leave a scar. And I got lifelong immunity out of that. What I didn't get was all sorts of other things in my body, like aluminum, human albumin, bovine fetal serum, all that. Plus, somehow, I had the diseases in a row, one after the other. Now, though, Little Miss Kickboxer, my lovely, Sesame-Street-happy-birthday-singing social butterfly who loves nothing more than feeding me blueberries and asking "Is good, mama?" and demands to sit on my lap to read her entire library every evening, will have to withstand not just all three of those bugs, but also phosphate, glutamate, and "other buffer and media ingredients." As a mamabear, I would, of course, like to know what those "other buffer and media ingredients" are, notwithstanding the fact that the MMR II vaccine now comes preservative-free, thank God.

But you know what catches my eye about the package insert? This (emphases mine):

Local health authorities may recommend measles vaccination of infants between 6 to 12 months of age in outbreak situations. This population may fail to respond to the components of the vaccine. Safety and effectiveness of mumps and rubella vaccine in infants less than 12 months of age have not been
established. The younger the infant, the lower the likelihood of seroconversion (see CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY). Such infants should receive a second dose of M-M-R II between 12 to 15 months of age followed by revaccination at elementary school entry. Unnecessary doses of a vaccine are best avoided by ensuring that written documentation of vaccination is preserved and a copy given to each vaccinee's parent or guardian.

You know, if this vaccine is so safe, why that last sentence? Any what about sentence one and three? Safety and effectiveness have not been established for the youngest and most vulnerable kids, and yet, this vaccine is the only one out there?

Reading onward into the Contraindications and Warnings sections, there's the usual "patient has to be healthy and strong as a bull and not allergic to anything, especially eggs or antibiotics" disclaimer, along with a reference to immunodeficiencies and family history of "convulsions, or any other condition in which stress due to fever should be avoided"--and, of course, yes, thrombocytopenia, i.e. a type of hemophilia, could occur, too. But then, we're coming to the Adverse Reactions section on page 7, and all hell breaks loose:

Panniculitis, vasculitis (including the associated leukocytosis), pancreatitis, Diabetes mellitus, Thrombocytopenia (see above), arthritis, encephalitis, Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and/ or ataxia and/ or polyneuritis, ocular palsies, and the scariest one: Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). On the latter one, Wikipedia is quick to state "1 in 100,000 people infected with measles develop SSPE. No cure for SSPE exists, but the condition can be managed by medication if treatment is started at an early stage." But then, "Death usually occurs within 3 years." One of the Ms in MMR is, of course, the live measles virus, attenuated as it may be.

Add to this that a couple of years ago, for a risk analysis research paper, my co-author and I checked into all sorts of available epidemiological data to determine the risk ratio of developing wild measles side effects versus the risk of developing MMR side effects, which revealed that the latter is magnitudes higher than the former.

In the meantime, we're readying Little Miss Kickboxer for battle, which may potentially be a battle for her life. I'm watching her multivitamin and fish oil dosage very well, and making sure she eats lots of antioxidants like blueberries, strawberries, broccoli, spinach, you name it. I've banned the Infant Tylenol from her bedroom and instead put out the Infant Motrin (Ibuprofen). I'm brushing up on my first-aid skills and have already warned the boss that I may have to take off at a moment's notice if anything happens a week after the shot.

I'm also still trying to get an appointment with our current healthcare provider. When I called on Friday, the nurse wasn't in. This morning, they seem to have lost our patient file. Is this a message?

Way to go, State of Indiana! We're not exactly starting off on the right foot.

Well, then ... poop (of sorts)!

2011-05-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Well, then.

The call happened. TBIK has a new job. A nice one where he gets to wear nice suits and act all Clark Gable-like.

In Indiana.

Let me qualify this: It's really in the northwest corner of Indiana, a hop, skip and jump away from Chicago, which means that HELLO! yours truly gets to visit an actual live bookstore again (and take her fancy new e-readerin' phone along, just for the thrill). We also get to spend the summers body surfing in the Lake Michigan Dunes and the winters making anatomically and politically correct snowpersons in our privileged-white-people frontyard. The school district is supposedly fabulous as are the city parks and the brand new YMCA and I the Mayor's home page offers a free dubloon-shittin' goose for every new resident. Which means we're getting three--unless, you know, my uterus becomes less hostile by mid-July, at which time we might file for equitable adjustment from the City of Valparaiso.

Oh, moi? No job there just yet, but the hot air I'm getting is making my fabulous freak flag fly high.

All I know is that there will be a move, a big move, with a big van line costing big van line money. And there is the getting-the-house ready for renters because selling the thing in this market is impossible. And the house-hunting trip with Little Miss Kickboxer on a plane full of measles and pertussis viruses pooping on the shreds of my sanity.

I apologize for the poop. but only a little. Because it had to be said.

In other words: I feel completely overwhelmed right now. Add to that some managerial a**foolery going on at the current job, and you've got pimply little me snarfing down Milky Way bars as if they were pretzel sticks and contemplating the best ways to unload the unnecessary half of our household in the near future. Given that it's taken me five days to give away a space-devouring wok through Freecycle, I should be done with the whole enterprise when Little Miss Kickboxer graduates from college.

So ... just forewarning you: There will be lots of talk and whining about moving because MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOving is such a big task for such a little person (me) and picking the angelchild's first preschool and finding a job *there* and and and. After July of this year, you may want to treat yourself to more whining because WAH! New house, new neighborhood, and is the language they speak here really English? Also, where can I find organic, free-range diapers, please? Unused diapers, I mean.

Wish us luck, all three or four of you!

Biting Nails

2011-05-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

Changes are afoot. Hopefully. There's a chance we might be moving far, far away (well, to the Midwest). There's a chance I might narrowly escape this job and its ramifications (i.e. pushing some extra hours in, yes, software engineering!). There's a chance we might be in a community with great schools for Little Miss Kickboxer and with an actual bookstore and more than a Walmart to go shopping at.

There's a chance. If only the stupid phone would ring.

They said they'd call TBIK back today. Yes, today is not over yet, but, you know, they also didn't commit to any particular time at which "they" would be calling. So ...

7 a.m.--Hmmmm. Wonder if they've called already. After all, the Midwest is 2 hours ahead of the West Coast. I try to skype with TBIK. He's not signed on. RATS!

7:15 a.m.--What if they call and he's not in the office? Am considering calling one of the office assistants to put mounting tape (extra heavy) on TBIK's office chair.

7:16 a.m.--Oh, there's nothing in his office yet.

8:00 a.m.--Little Miss Kickboxer is crying because she wants to stay home and play with HER toys, not the toys at the daycare. When the call comes, I can start planning her start in the German preschool ... over there, in the Midwest.

8:30 a.m.--Walking into the office ... maybe I should check my email to see if the realtor whom I contacted yesterday has found a few objects we should look at when we fly out in June.

8:31 a.m.--Gosh, I hate the small screen on this phone. No email from realtor.

10 a.m.--Boring meeting. Booooooooooring. My cellphone is on no sound, so I check it every minute or so. Don't want to miss The Call.

10:01 a.m.--Maybe TBIK has decided to email me when they call him.

10:02 a.m.--No email.

12:00 p.m.--I dial TBIK's number and map out my resignation letter. Mmmmmmmmmhhhhh ... the thought tastes like chocolate.

12:01 p.m.--TBIK sounds too calm. WHY IS THIS MAN SO CALM? Also, no, no call yet.

12:05 p.m.--I'm googling that "Needles and Pins" song because, heck, I'm of absolutely no use right now. Who can concentrate when The Call could be coming at any moment? Who?

12:07 p.m.--I consider biting my manicured nails. Nah, I decide, maybe not. My eyes travel to my toenails. Nah, I'm not that limber any more.

12:08 p.m.--Still no telephone call.

2 p.m.--Another boring meeting over. It's 4 p.m. on "the other side." Surely, they have a decision now and are just not telling us. I browse their website and hope that that means good karma. Good decision karma. Karma! HEY, KARMA! Get your ass in gear!!

2:15 p.m.--TBIK hasn't heard from them, either. He's starting to sound a bit upset at me calling him several times about this. If only he knew that I've dialled his number every 30 minutes, but quickly hit the "hangup" button. No need to make the man nervous.

2:23 p.m.--I'm calm. Caaaaaaaaaaaaalm. Maybe it helps if I go talk to a colleague about, you know, work.

2:25 p.m.--What did he say? If we were, you know, *there*, we could now walk to the lake and look at the sailboats. Oh, did he say something? Uh, sure. Could you please send me this in an email? Suuuuuuuure.

3:00 p.m.--I call TBIK again. Almost.

3:30 p.m.--Maybe I should get started with the coding or code reviews or whatever software project they're tagging me with now. Or I could check if the city *over there* has an aquatic center in one of their parks. Hm.

3:32 p.m.--Aquatic center located. Software files not uploaded yet. I decide to write this entry, not before checking the ringer on the phone again. It's on loud. Even if a rocket went off in the building next door, I'd be able to hear this phone ring.

3:45 p.m.--Ring, darnit! RING!

3:46 p.m.--Silence.

Platforms

2011-04-12T10:25:00.001-07:00

Whenever there's a mini hiatus going on here, you already know that drama is happening. Let's just say that this drama is currently happening at work. Not about me, mind you. About the company. It's like the proverbial trainwreck--you see it coming and sound the warning bells, but the drivers won't listen. They're too busy congratulating themselves about yet another spectacularly business-busting decision in the wake of a large reorg that will likely involve badge changes and throw a lot of people under the bus come October.

Which is why there are now almost weekly going-aways and retirement luncheons for those folks who "deserve" them. The others leave quietly.

Burning platform, much?

I wish I could find the time to apply for jobs in the area. If there were jobs in the area that I could see myself doing, and "in the area" meaning NOT in Santa Barbara, 1 hour down the road (one-way) aka 2 hours round-trip away from Little Miss Kickboxer. But in Prisontown, there's really only Aerospace for someone with an education like mine. Or something completely different. And I mean COMPLETELY.

Which is why, given that TBIK's job situation (admittedly a well-paid one) is holding us hostage in this community, I'm starting to think in entrepreneurial terms and reading a lot of books about financial management and building a successful, preferably largely self-sustaining, business on the side. But thinking like this again, after years of working for "the man," is difficult. When I was a free-lance translator and interpreter, many years ago, in Germany, I remember pounding the pavement for hours advertising my services, home-printed collateral in hand, then working days and nights to meet tight deadlines, and desperately trying to even out cash flow in low-income months. However, making the rent isn't as big of a motivator this time around because, well, TBIK's income is big enough to cover all monthly expenses, even if I stopped working tomorrow. Apparently, there's this advantage to our current economic hostage situation.

Then, of course, I keep asking myself "Do I really want to do this again? Can I do this again?" Granted, where I did a lot of face-to-face B2B soliciting previously, I'd now use "Web 2.0" technology (which would make an iPad an utterly necessary business investment, of course, ahem!), but if you think the internet can do everything for you, you're dead wrong. Face-to-face, direct communication, and availability as needed, are still the one most important components of running a successful business because they generate the most valuable PR in the world: Word of mouth. So, "Do I really want to do this again? Do I have the energy to project the young, dynamic, driven business persona that it takes to succeed? (and can I lose all that babyweight?)"

And then, there's the other side of me, the bleeding heart, who wants to do nothing more than help a nonprofit organization succeed in making this world a little better for someone, anyone. As long as it doesn't send me over the edge emotionally, that is (otherwise, I'd end up with a house full of abused kids and/ or animals--and hey, there's a business idea right there! At which point, TBIK would probably divorce me.). Of course, this might require a degree in Public Policy, perhaps. Or in some sort of Administration. Or maybe what I already have, together with some Federal Funding.

Oh, right. Whoops!

So, there's a lot of thinking going on right here, right now.

Curve, or: Why math gives me solace. Sort of.

2011-03-28T13:08:00.001-07:00

These days, I don't much look forward to my phone ringing any more. Usually, the caller is from a certain alma mater of mine, a student making minimum wage to shore up alumni donations. Or it's the vet reminding me to pick up this or that cat's anti-diarrhea meds, or some sort of other robo call. Friends know to email or text me because, well, the message is either to organize a play date or to find a good time for an uninterrupted 30-minute chat.

Today, the call came from the new ob in town. I'd been to his office on Thursday because, uh, couple certain mood swings with uterine revolutions, bone tiredness, and a penchant for broccoli with tabasco and ... yeah, that. At my methuselaic age. When I told him about the miscarriage from October and my current symptoms, and when the pee test came out the tiniest bit positive, his eyes widened with disbelief, and he sent me to the lab. I drove there with a big smile on my face. "The old lady can still do it," my inner voice yelled out. I gave blood, celebrated with a new bottle of prenatal vitamins and one of B6, and yay to the yay, even felt justified to take a delicious Saturday afternoon nap because long live those peesticks, right?

And just now, the ob called me confirming that, yes, I was actually pregnant on Thursday. Granted, the numbers were on the low side, but still: Pregnant.

Only that, yesterday morning, the bleeding started. Again. Just as I was up on stage, playing keyboard with our church band.

That's two miscarriages in less than half a year. Or, if you look at the bright side, two pregnancies in less than half a year. Or, if you look at it differently again, two pregnancies lost in less than half a year.

So, this morning, as Little Miss Kickboxer was happily chewing on her (homemade) breakfast waffle in the back of the car and humming her tune du jour, I was doing probability math in my head. 50% statistical risk of one miscarriage; that's 25% for two miscarriages in a row; that's 12.5% for three miscarriages in a row; that's ... yes, keep multiplying by 50%, and you'll get your basic logarithmic curve that approaches 1% somewhere between points 7 and 8.

Which means, at a rate of getting myself knocked up every 5 months, I should certainly be able to kick my uterus into submission sometime in 35-40 months.

Yeah, right.

So, I'm looking at "better living through chemistry" options right now--a direction I've poo-pooed for many years because, hey, who wants to admit that her uterus ain't hyster-ical enough (ha ha ha. Bad joke. Indulge me)? And who wants to pop pills that unleash her inner hysterical nymphomaniac?

Apparently I do. Or may. Or, oh well. At least this time, things progressed rather quickly.

Byebye little embryo that never was. We would have loved you.

Pangs

2011-03-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

I remember that moment very clearly: I was sitting at the kitchen counter, a brand new black ballpen in hand. Little Miss Kickboxer was taking her morning nap (remember those glorious days When there was actual time to do more than take a cursory glance at the news?), and I was getting ready to shape her future--a better future, greater responsibility, greater love, hope, and change. I set the pen tip down on the ballot, in the box to the left of "Obama" and made extra sure that the whole square was filled out. Then I went over it again, just to be sure. When I was done voting in this, my first Federal election, ballpen ink was almost dripping off the sheet like morning dewdrops off the rainforest leaves. New dawn, blablabla.

A few months later, the angelchild and I snuggled into the pillows to watch the Inauguration. I promised her, at that time, that the world would change: That people would be equal, that all the wars would end, that folks wouldn't die any more because they couldn't afford health care or be shot by some Bushified militia nuts, that everybody would have solar collectors on their roofs by 2010. That this new President would set a course that would ensure my daughter, one day, could become President, too. Not Mrs. President. Madam President.

Seems like history is making me a liar. The Healthcare bill came out less than lukewarm. The Wall Street bill, well, fine, despite its loopholes. Then the attacks on the left base--and I swear, as soon as I get a moment to breathe, I'll become so professionally left you'll want to hold on to your hats. The lack of open support for the state workers in Wisconsin. The lack of sanctioning of Arizona's anti-brown-people legislation. The kowtowing to BP during the Gulf spill. And now a new war, by Presidential Executive Order, with the "U.S. taking a leading role among the U.N. allies," spending $62 million a day to drop Cruise Missiles on Libyan government forces?

Does any of this feel like Groundhog Day Lite to you, too?

Fine, at least nobody's been trying to sell us stories about WMDs this time, but still, the parallels between the Libyan government and the erstwhile Iraqui government are too close to disregard: In both situations, you have a megalomaniac leader who turns against his people, maims, tortures, kills the political opposition, spreads Anti-American sentiment, bleeds his nation dry. Whereas we've seen quite credibly how the situation in Libya started as a civil war, we knew far less about that component in Iraq, how active the opposition was there, how organized--mostly because, at that time, many American media outlets taught the public to regard any of the "brown towelheads over there" with suspicion. All "we" knew was that the first Bush should have nuked 'em all. Now, I'm hearing voices that Reagan should have nuked Ghaddafi all those years ago.

I'm not a fan of war. We've heard about the collateral damage in Iraq--all someone's sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers. Innocent bystanders always get in the way, and we don't have the targeting technology to separate The Bad Guys from the street vendors who just happen to sell oranges in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What are the alternative solutions, then, if you want to help out a people that's obviously being oppressed by its leadership? My suggestion: Aid the opposition. Give them everything they need, including training, ammo, infrastructure, to become successful in fighting for their own cause. My second suggestion: Assemble a dozen of Secret Service James Bond Ninjas to take out the one bad guy and maybe the two, three people who'd become his immediate successors. In both of these cases, there'd be far fewer casualties and certainly less perception that "the Americans" always look at everybody else's splinter and ignore the economic and social two by four in their own eyes.

So, yes. Not happy about the latest military action here, also because it makes the military industrial fat cats even fatter. At this point, I regret not having voted for Dennis Kucinich. Maybe that would have left Little Miss Kickboxer better off.

Atommeiler

2011-03-16T16:30:00.001-07:00

People in the area(s) here are buying potassium iodide tablets like crazy. Off of the internet, I might add, with the prescription of online doctors located somewhere between, oh I don't know, Malaysia and Guadelajara, who have seen them a grand total of zero times.

*Eurotrash sigh* Americans popping pills to calm their fears. What's new? *Eurotrash sigh*

See, in Germany, folks go out in the streets and ~~complain~~ protest against the Atommeiler again, just as we did in the Pleistocene, when I still lived there, and we used smoke signals to broadcast our chants. Out here? Haven't seen one iota of activity against the Diablo Canyon plant, which, believe it or not, has only two diesel generators plus one spare, in the middle of a State Park, and about 50 feet above sea level. So, if one of these generators fails, and then another one, the spare is already used up and, well, the term "radiant personality" will have a different meaning for those in the immediate vicinity. Because getting there takes a while, if you're trying to navigate an emergency vehicle down the windy slopes.

"Immediate," by the way, being about 50 miles. Our home is about 40 to 45 miles down the coast as the bird flies.

Ah, the reassurance--NOT. Especially not because this power plant is built just like the Daiichi one, only with half the number of reactors. Only that a tsunami wave would have to be extremely high to rewach up that far. Which, I suppose is small consolation for the 7.5 seismic rating of the plant.

So, because I'm a professional risk manager, I have, of course, begun to devise our own personal evacuation plan, complete with alternate routes to neighboring states and eventually, airports to leave the approximate 600-800 mile contamination radius. Which would mean we'd most likely end up in Texas, where Little Miss Kickboxer could thoroughly enjoy all of her cousins' big-kid toys and college reading. And where TBIK and I would grin and bear the conservatism until things settle down. Which wouldn't be until 50 or so years down the road. But who's counting?

Seriously, the likelihood of something like this happening again is very very low. Lower than you getting in a car accident (me? Not so much, if you believe TBIK's comments about my driving). Lower than your average airplane dropping from the sky. The impact? Huge. Which is why it's so important to have the right mitigation plan in place, just incase. Popping pills and staying indoors isn't going to be a solution unless you think "duck and cover" got anybody anywhere in Hiroshima. Unless, that is, you put radiation-safe HVAC filters on every door, window, and crack of your house and live off of cold Ramen for the estimated half-life period. So, trying to outrun the event is really your only chance. Or living far far away from any of the 23 nuclear plants in the United States.

Or just, you know, passing a law that puts solar cells atop everybody's house.

What else? Go help Japanese kids!

2011-03-11T12:16:00.001-08:00

A few years ago, The Ex embarked on his reserve assignment in Okinawa. He'd always been a fan of East Asian culture, painting techniques, dragons, all that, and the deal was that, wherever he went, he'd bring me a local musical instrument. For the Japan assignment, I had asked for a Koto, which turned out too big to even ship (in contrast to the thunder drum from his previous assignment in Korea), so he brought me a shakuhachi. I have loved this shakuhachi ever since I figured out the rather complicated embouchure (called utaguchi). To this day, it still hasn't lost its smell of wet bamboo and smoke.

This morning, I had to take a different way to work. The coastal highway was shut down, with troops redirecting traffic inland, or to higher terrains. Our local beaches are closed for the rest of the day. Because you never know what can happen.

Seriously, natural disasters have something morbidly fascinating about them. I wanted to look away last night, when the first pictures of the Japanese coast appeared in the news. When what looked like black fingers of debris were clutching onto green farmland squares, seemingly dragging little pebbles with them. Only that those pebbles, when the camera closed in, were cars, lots of cars, and a white passenger bus.

This is bigger than Godzilla, I thought. This is bigger than anything in the Japanese disaster imagination.

Being a risk manager, of course, I immediately started thinking about numbers, statistics, impacts, pushing far away from me the thought that 1. this is happening to real families in the real world, and 2. OMFG what if this ever happened here (hello, San Andreas Fault!)? That realization came this morning.

That along with the fact that, just as at the Japanese coast, we have a nuclear power plant right here in our backyard. And if the security-minded Japanese engineers are already having issues cooling the Fukushima Daiichi's core down in order to contain radiation leaks and concomitant exposure (experiencing, interestingly, similar backup generator failures as in Chernobyl), what if this ever happened here, in Podunk, California, far away from the industrial hazard industry?

Cue the soundtrack of The Day After, along with the faint babble of historical news reports about Chernobyl. Which about tells you how much real trust I have in American politics and government-sponsored engineering.

Here's hoping and praying that Japanese engineers can get the situation under control very quickly and efficiently. Those folks "over there" really don't need a human-made apocalypse right on the heels of this first huge natural disaster, whose huge human loss in terms of mothers, daughters, fathers, brothers, can't even be estimated yet. This has got to be the most horrible thing for the little kids.

If you want to help, but don't want to go the Red Cross route (even though you could simply text REDCROSS to 90999 and donate $10 from your snazzy phone), you might want to support Save The Children, known for its very low administrative overhead, and their Children's Emergency Fund, or go to GlobalGiving.org. My favorite charity is Doctors Without Borders, who are already mobilizing via helicopter to look for injured survivors in the flooded areas. Whatever you do, this is a good time to help.

And when you're done with the helping, go listen to someone play the shakuhachi and think of the kids who lost their parents last night. And send a wish to the stars that the power plant stays stable.

Stellung

2011-03-09T10:17:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite things in the morning is to wake up to a hot cup of coffee and NPR. In fact, NPR and I go way, way back, to my first "serious" trip to the U.S., in 1993. The first time I opened my eyes to the jingle of Morning Edition, I was hooked, and I've never looked back. I'm an NPR groupie, even when it comes to the tiny local station here in Podunk, California, where the most "cultural" thing is the Monday night movie review night featuring a host too ostensibly from Boston to miss. This is the same Public Radio station, by the way, that puts on the fabulous local Hippie festival, at which rich people's kids get to play in the mud, smoke weed, and dance to African drums, every Father's Day weekend.

And then I'm reading this. And it makes me sick.

Not because the CEO resigned--heck, no. Whatever. But why. Since when does a Fundraising Director have no discretion over turning down contribution when they come from a questionable right-wing/ fascist source and are too obviously "no strings attached" (*cough* bullshit *cough*)? That discretion is part of a director's job description. Even worse, through, when did the station apparently decide to cut its own balls off when it comes to 1. a private person calling the Tea Party exactly what it is (and I'll go even further and call them "fascists") in a statement qualified as "personal" in an entrapment situation, and 2. backpedal itself into the safe arms of effin' right-wing Capitalism, only to make nice with the right-wingers, should they possibly control the pursestrings of Congress again?

1. When did Public Radio become John McCain's whore?
2. Remember the whole Keith Olbermann debacle over at MSNBC?

Fine, as someone who's interned at nonprofits before, I know how important donor relations are to the bottom line, and how serious offending a whole group can be in terms of how much you get to spend for future programming, but should a station like NPR really be allowed to sell out to the right wing that way?

And now let's talk about the CEO, Ms. Schiller. I'm quoting from the NYT article:

She added, “I’m hopeful that my departure from NPR will have the intended effect of easing the defunding pressure on public broadcasting.” Ms. Schiller has been campaigning in recent months against potential funding cuts.

...

In a separate interview, Ms. Schiller spoke fondly of her tenure at the organization. “I am sorry to be leaving NPR,” she said. “I think it’s an extraordinary organization, and while the organization is on the right track there’s much work to be done. I regret I’m not going to be part of it.” She praised NPR’s journalists as “heroic and uncompromising in their work.”

Yeah. Also, "the buck [get it? "Buck"?] stops here." Is anyone else, too, waiting for the moment when, in Fox News manner, journalists' careers hinge on what they say in public and private? When giving second thought about how to ask (and what answers to broadcast to) the five W's becomes the determinant of one's career? And when intellectual vigilance and critical thinking becomes too subversive to voice in a public forum?

Should NPR go the same way as, say, AM 1240 out here, with its syndication of Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, and inherit the legacy of Air America (another station I sorely miss)?

Maybe it's really time to rethink federal funding if it does exactly what it isn't supposed to do: Hinder the truth from being spoken.

Whine, eytch included ...

2011-03-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

You know how, when you're on a diet, you see food everywhere around? Food that everyone's eating except you can't, and you're trying to be proud of yourself but not quite succeeding?

Well, everyone around me is pregnant.

I'm not just talking about the mommy bloggers I read most frequently (yay to all of your fabulous uteruses!). I'm talking about our admin assistant at work. And the girl down the hall who just walked around with a bucket full of donuts. And the woman in the office across the hall whose babybelly walks through the doorway three days before the rest of her does.

And.

And.

And.

And here I am, waiting around again this month, contemplating a diet based on soybeans, bananas, and broccoli that, as Meredith says on my hotly beloved "Grey's Anatomy," should make my uterus a little less hostile to another little human being. Should.

Because I'm OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD. And that's not even in dog years. In fact, if it were, I'd probably come out better given my legs are the length of your average chihuahua's. But nope. I just realized that there's a birthday looming in the very near future (dun dun dunnnnnn!), and you know what I want?

Nothing. AB. SO. LUTE. LY. NO. THING. Especially nothing to remind me that I'm turning anything, especially a year older.

Well, there's one thing (see above). But you know that already.

The Planets (of sorts)

2011-02-28T22:59:00.000-08:00

You know, sometimes I wonder what planet I'm from and whether it's possible to go back.

Case in point: We picked up a solar system toy for Little Miss Kickboxer at our favorite thrift store--and, along with Saturn, Uranus (ha ha ha, she said "anus"!), and Pluto (bite me!), there is the Green Planet. And yes, one of the voices explaining atmosphere, circumference, travel distance, and whatnot, is actually E.T.'s.

If, at this point, you're sporting the deer-in-the-headlights look and asking me who E.T. is, please leave your address below so I can send you a poopy diaper.

And get off my lawn as I whine about my fabulous alien DNA.

Seriously, the world is turning too fast. A friend of mine just got divorced, not even two weeks ago. The ink isn't dry yet on the judgment, and yesterday, her ex remarried her erstwhile BFF.

When I check any mainstream news website on any given day, I run into a story of a father or a mother or a daycare worker or whatnot killing their children. Right here in this country. And when I turn on the teevee I see caveman weddin' scenes from Alabama or Georgia or the Carolinas that involve hunting rifles, antlers, "mudrasslin'," and taxidermied squirrels atop Betty Crocker sheetcakes.

Good thing that the office still harbors the same old ~~idi~~ people, except for the new boss who is currently posturing, as they all do during their first couple of months, in order to establish their authority. Whatever. We've already established that I'm ok with biding my time until any of TBIK's bazillion job interviews gets us out of this zit on the behind of the California Central Coast.

But sometimes, really, it's as if I am standing atop a hill and doing a 360 and wondering how I ended up in this fast-moving world, in which teenage girls blow teenage boys in middle-school bathrooms, and in which my lovely little daughter will lose her geeky innocence far too quickly. That's when I think back to the times when I was a 4-year-old in a horde of other 4-year-olds ransacking the sandbox, zipping through the neighborhood on my little red bike, or climbing the walnut trees with my trusty bow-and-arrow that my Grandpa had made for me from two sticks and a piece of twine. I recall Sunday afternoons when we'd sit on the patio, and Grandpa would flashcard me, not with storebought Sesame Street or Elmo words, but with handdrawn and handwritten strips of cardboard, made from the inserts that came with Grandma's nylons and which she saved for crafts. I remember walking myself to school in the morning and to Kinderchor in the afternoons when I was only 7 or 8, and nobody seemed to worry about pervs or rapists. I remember TV being a special treat, on only for specific shows that Grandma had carefully marked in the paper--and for the original Star Trek, dubbed into German, every Sunday evening. Geez, and then, there was Peter, whom I had made my friend only out of convenience because his parents had bought him a guinea pig and a real electric train and Legos. I loved Legos.

In some way, I'm trying to give that part of my childhood to Little Miss Kickboxer. The wholesome part. The part of the toys and the positive attention and the big small world that felt safe, the books, the train track I always wanted but never got (and which she digs with a big shovel!), the cars, the animals I always admired (well, at least the cats), the flashcards, and the horde (even if we pay good daycare money for that). But there are things I can't give her, and those worry me sometimes: The slowness of life, the opportunity to just sit there and listen to music without the distraction of a computer, the safety of a tightly-knit German community. And I wonder how I can protect her as she shapes her early childhood around these presences and absences as I navigate this crazy world myself anew every day.

This may just become a case of the one-eyed leading the blind on the search for home on the Green Planet ...

Which is what happens when I'm bored ... sort of

2011-02-22T15:24:00.000-08:00

I still have a half-written Valentine's Day post somewhere, effluviating about the beauty of this world and my life and the love of my family (hey, before I met TBIK, that f-word had really been just that, an "f-word") and commenting about Little Miss Kickboxer's latest thing, namely that she says "I love you" after saying "thank you," as in "thankyouiloveyoumommy." And just ... aaaaaaaah.

Like bathing in a vat of chocolate mousse. Only that your hair smells better a week later.

Of course, then, TBIK decided to go to a conference somewhere. And then to the eleventy-millionth job interview since we met (I think)--both on the East Coast. And quite punctually, Little Miss Kickboxer came home from daycare with a half swollen-shut goopy eye, which "forced" me to take a couple of days off for pink-eye nursing and playground-exploring and icecream-eating and did you ever know you can build a giant penis with Legos? No? Well, it really was the rocket from Little Einsteins. Claims my angelchild.

Ahem.

And then Monday aka President's Day reminded me once again why I work in this industry--and it brought me great joy to think that at least part of my day off was funded with Rush Limbaugh's taxpayer money. Or that of some Tea Party Reichswinger.

But Tuesday had to roll around, didn't it? Do I need to tell you how difficult it is, after five (FIVE!) days of extended morning cuddling and Biene Maja watching with my favorite two-year-old, to squeeze my behind into those work pants and behind the work desk? And since I've made it a rule a couple of months ago to get all my weekly reporting commitments taken care of in as little time as you'd take for removing a band aid, I now have ample free time. To sit around and do, as it turns out, a lot of waiting, for numbers, decisions, dates, what have you.

It's frustrating, also from an ethical standpoint. I've rationalized my work down to essentially a part-time gig, and what happens when I tell management, any management, that I have x hours a week available for some more/ other work, and that, given my experience and credentials, I could do this and that and the other stuff that's been falling by the wayside in such-and-such department for the past 6 months? I get a nod and a smile. And then nothing. And your taxpayer money on my bimonthly paychecks.

Of course, then, major restructuring is underway in the upper echelons, which means that, really, nobody knows what's about to happen a few months down the road. Which means, too, that the turnover is becoming unreal.

Writing on the wall? Heck, yeah, and time to sharpen the open-jobs detector. At the same time, though, I'm hoping that one of TBIK's job interviews may finally produce a position for him near a large urban center that harbors more than essentially just one industry. Or that lends itself to another degree for yours truly. Or that needs a German bookstore really really badly. Or ... who knows ...

In the meantime, I might as well try to write a professional article because, hey, if government productivity is already only measured by completed "work" hours, then why not work on that career?

Anything but

2011-02-10T06:20:00.000-08:00

One of the things I've been very careful about is to not pigeonhole Little Miss Kickboxer into a gender stereotype. She wears jeans and a t-shirt almost every day (unless we get all role play-y and she wants to wear her ballerina skirt), and said t-shirts come in various colors. Her favorites? The red one with the Elmo face (duh!) and the brown one with a heart made of flowers and two owls kissing. And anything blue, of course, because that's the color of the sky. Brown, by the way, because that's the color of the horse the daycare provider's friend owns, red because Elmo is her hero, and yellow because, I dunno, it's the complement to blue? Because she's a University of California baby? Because there are yellow flowers in the park?

Anything but pink. Whenever we find ourselves in the Walmart aisle (mostly for birthday reasons) where pink threw up, she usually goes "wow!" and then makes a beeline for the Legos or the chintzy little plastic workbenches with little plastic screws, wrenches, and hammers. Which is what she loves to play with at the daycare, as well. And, of course, she's got one of those wooden sets at home, right next to her train set. Pink? One of the colors among many. Her favorite playdough is black and white.

Some of my more traditionalist friends have tried to convince me that little girls are supposed to develop more of a nurturing instinct than boys--and practice early how to fit into the mommy stereotype. That's what dolls are for, right? Only that Little Miss Kickboxer's hot sweaty lurve is not directed at some fabric construction with an oversize plastic head, but almost entirely towards Vinnie the cat. And her two Elmos. And then maybe her teddy bear, her stuffed bunny, and Bella, the stuffed cow. Her "babies" (of which she has three)? Not so much. I couldn't be prouder of her when she asks if she can give the cat a treat, or when she snuggles up beside him to read one of her books.

Speaking of which, her extensive library--which is what happens when you're the kid to two academics, I suppose-- contains books like The Paperbag Princess, Ladybug Girl, the Princess Knight (for which she's still a bit too little), Goodnight Moon, a slew of Dr. Seuss books, and, of course a number of German books, for example the one in which a little boy(!) cooks a pretend dinner for his teddybear, or the one in which a little girl steals her baby brother's binkie. We've got the gender stereotypes covered, I think. And since we're still holding off on fairy tales, she hasn't seen any princesses yet that need to be rescued by some sort of prince, let alone the whole Disney princess empire. And you can be sure as hell that the unavoidable third- or fourth-birthday-Barbie will most likely be the Danica Patrick one. Unless, of course, we can hold off on the Barbies for a bit longer.

A sign that we must be doing something right:

Me: Honey, are you a boy?
LMK: No!
Me: Honey, are you a girl?
LMK: NO!!!
Me: Honey, what are you, then?
LMK: I'm Noelle!!!

Here's hoping that this sense of a unique self will last her all the way through the end of her college years.

Dazed

2011-02-09T11:10:00.001-08:00

You want signs that the job market is picking up?

People have been fluttering in and out of this company as if it's a pigeon coop. They come in, mostly from being laid off at other places, stay for 2 or 3 months, and then move on to jobs in other states, or with other government contractors her in town, that pay twice as much. Which means that a lot of productive time is spent either playing musical chairs with badges or ~~going on interviews~~ being sick and laid up.

High turnover, especially when a large corporate reorg looms on the horizon, is never a good thing--not when you're working with one-off systems and hopelessly outdated, sometimes homegrown equipment that the guy three cubicles over once soldered together as his senior project in college. Not when your company is apparently lightyears away from ever making it on the Forbes 100 Best Places to Work For list.

Just to illustrate the fun I'm having here, here is yesterday's encounter with one of the ueber senior executives:

[USE, looking at the name plate outside my cubicle]: Oh hi, Charlotte. We missed you at the all hands meeting on Friday. We had a plaque for you with an award.

[Me, confused]: Oh, but you called me to the front and shook my hand and thanked me. And there was no plaque.

[USE, looking away and shaking his head]: I must be going nuts, then. [walks away]

Yeah, that. Of course, I'm keeping this job only for blog fodder, right?

Right?

The hand

2011-02-07T12:04:00.001-08:00

My German friend, her three munchkins, and Little Miss Kickboxer and I had been looking forward to this trip to the playground the entire week, given that 1. it's been in the seventies and sunny around here and 2. TBIK is frolicking around at some important conference in the Colorado hinterland, and a mom-and-kids afternoon on the Viking-inspired richer-than-rich storytown jungle-gym castle park playground? Sounded lovely. So, of course, yesterday between church and our coordinated takeoff to the town 20 miles down the road, my angelchild decided she needed to play in her sandbox outside. With water. Lots and lots of water. Ergo lots and lots of mud caked to wet clothes and a happy muddy toddler with sand in places where the sun won't shine. And where exfoliation is really not needed. So, off to the tub she goes for a quick desanding, and then into her playclothes.

And ah, the playground! It's a structure of castles and steps and rope ladders and too many swings to count and monkey bars and slides of various persuasions as far as the eye can see. And, since the town is surrounded by former movie stars and pop singers and horse ranches and safely tucked-away private boarding academies (ACADEMIES!), it's always super clean and very well maintained, including the adjacent baseball diamond and the picknick benches where we set up our snacks. And then proceeded to run up stairs, slide down slides, peekaboo our way through cutouts in walls, lift our kids up on various monkey bars, and wipe pints of snot off of everybody's noses.

I swear, today, my arms and forearms feel like I'm channelling Popeye. My back, however, feels like I'm channelling Mr. Magoo.

And then Little Miss Kickboxer found the "misting station," which is, basically, a little doorway with misting spouts built into the sides and triggered when you slap a large knob. Since it gets very hot in this little (rich) town, the genius designer thought it a stroke of genius to allow the kids the opportunity to cool off in the midst of playing hard. Which, in theory, is a genius idea. Which, in practice, meant that Little Miss Kickboxer spent the afternoon running through water. Again and again and again. And trying to drink the mist right out of the spouts. And, even when the wind picked up, didn't want to stop, despite shivering. Because, hey, WATER!!! WATER!!! And then some more WATER!!! Did I mention there was water? No? Because there was WATER!!!

Did I also mention that she's also discovered how to pop off her diapers, so that they escape through her pantsleg? No? Ahem.

"Hey, your kid's got something trailing behind her."

"Oh, um. Thank you."

Great to be THAT mom now ...

He looked at me as I considered using duck tape on that diaper.

"Deutsch?"

So, we got into talking. His flaxen-haired five-year-old was playing with my friend's oldest, and he told me he's from Darmstadt, about 50 miles down the road from where I used to live, and came out here to join his wife and manage the horse ranch. "So nice to speak German again," he said.

I agreed, right before I carried my soppingly wet, "WATERRRRRRRRR!!!" screaming, mostly diaperless angelchild to the car because those blue lips and the shivering? Clue! I changed her into an extra set of dry clothes, buckled her in, and followed our friend and her kids out of the parking lot because there was yet a bookstore to be explored.

"BAM!"

I looked around. A shooter? "Shit shit shit," I thought, "a shooter?"

Not so much. Not when the left front side of our car suddenly caved in, and I heard the "flop flarp flaaaaaarrrrrp" of a busted tire. Just. Great. Especially since the whole set of tires wasn't even six months old. In my mind, I went through all the food for Little Miss Kickboxer that I still had in the cooler. At least her needs would be covered, even if we had to spend the night here--because what tow truck driver works on a Sunday, no less a Superbowl Sunday, right?

I'm on the phone with AAA, anyway, as he leaves the playground with his son, sees me, and walks towards me. "Lass emol gugge," ("Let's see what we can do," in best Hessian dialect) he says and starts unloading all the blankets and the spare kites in our trunk to get to the emergency tire. A few moments later, he's got the car jacked up, the lugnuts off, and the donut on, while my friend, who had turned around, herded and entertained our kids. "In my previous life, I was a Kfz-Meister," he explained as we marvelled at his obviously experienced hands. And then laughed. Because meeting a German Kfz-Meister on a rich and ritzy playground on Superbowl Sunday?

Maybe God doesn't do football, either? Because coincidence? Nah, not so much.

Add to this that calling ahead to the tire store worked to keep the mechanics waiting for us to arrive (hey, 20 miles on a 45-mph-rate donut tire in 15 minutes? Yeah, baby!) and that, one busted diaper and a banana later, we finally arrived home safely, hungry, tired, and dirty enough for Little Miss Kickboxer's fourth encounter of the aquatic kind that day.

And so, so grateful to everybody who helped us out. We did find the village that it took, yesterday, in that little rich town 20 miles away.

Martial

2011-01-28T06:49:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, on a playdate between our kids, my friend remarked on Little Miss Kickboxer's inclination to drop everything in order to get her dance moves on. Yes, my little angelchild loves to shake it, upside down, downside up, right, left, you name it. We're still working on not falling over during the shuffles, but there you go. And she knows she's adorable when she bends her body in whatever unnatural ways exploring two-year-olds can come up with. She grins, screams at the top of her lungs, "Mama, I dancing!" and hopes that you'll join in on the butt-wiggling fun.

That's when my friend mentioned that Little Miss Kickboxer would probably make a great cheerleader.

And stopped me dead in my tracks.

A cheerleader?

Here's what I know about cheerleaders and cheerleading, I mean, besides, yes, this being some good and not un-dangerous exercise:

Cheerleaders wear uniforms. TINY uniforms. Where the underpants show.
Cheerleaders wear makeup.
Cheerleaders have as many eating disorders as professional jockeys.
At every game, cheerleaders ensure you know they know how to spell their school's name.
Cheerleaders like jocks.
Cheerleaders have as much brains as the jocks they end up dating and getting pregnant from. At 14.

So there you have it. My prejudices against cheerleaders, born from 1980s movies and tales about Teen Mom episodes. And from my militant aversion to anything that sexualizes and objectifies girls (and exposes them to leering eyes), ever. When the angelchylde was born, I swore to her that there would be no princesses or ballerinas or cheerleaders. Instead, there would be Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie, and martial arts. And lots of emphasis on brains, physical strength and agility, and character. Also, I made it quite clear to my friend that, notwithstanding the repeated public hugfests between Little Miss Kickboxer and her 3-year-old boy, my little gumdrop would be allowed to date only after she finishes grad school. Ahem.

And you know what? There is princess stuff. In fact, in Little Miss Kickboxer's dressup box, you'll find fairy wings and a little purple glittery tutu, right next to the pirate hat and the construction worker helmet, and the ladybug skirt. And so far, said pirate hat, especially combined with the butterfly wings and sometimes the ladybug skirt (over jeans) wins. When we look in the mirror together, we laugh at the silly outfits she puts together, and I'm dead-set on adding a little ninja outfit to the box next Halloween. Or maybe Buzz Lightyear. Anything but pompoms.

It's bad enough that girls and boys are color-coded from birth, something we have tried to resist from the get-go, and something I call people on when they assume that, just because she isn't wearing pink, my little girl must be a boy. But have you ever looked at any toystore? The aisles for girls look like someone barfed pink cotton candy all over them, and the toys? Dolls, miniature hairdresser chairs (I kid you not--check your local Walmart), fake nails, and did I mention dolls? The aisles for boys? Trucks, Spiderman and Toy Story paraphernalia, science kits, you name it. What is telling us that girls can't like bugs, snails, and puppydog tails, too? Probably one reason why we're so much into Legos (NOT the pink ones), playdough, and fingerpaints. And why Little Miss Kickboxer's favorite colors are blue and yellow. Ha!

But back to the cheerleading. Fine, I get the fact that it's a sport, sometimes even performed by guys. Heck, my own Mother was a professional ballerina--I get the idea of athletes in tutus. The cultural connotations, though, of easy sexual availability and willing sexualization (increasing the risk of date rape), popularity wars and bulimia, and of intellectual underwhelm (wasn't Sarah Palin a cheerleader before she became a beauty pageant contestant?), has me run for the hills, with Little Miss Kickboxer tucked safely into my soccer-ball, softball-bat, volley-ball-wielding arms.

And before she turns 12 and whines about the cheerleading tryouts, you can bet she'll already have a black belt in karate.

(Muffin) Top of the morning to ya!

2011-01-21T14:24:00.000-08:00

One of my New Year's resolutions for a happier self was not to step on the scale.

That lasted until this morning.

There may also have been a little voice screaming "ouch!" from underneath the fat-measuring footpads. Which may or may not have woken up Little Miss Kickboxer, so that I had only a few minutes to do repeated double-takes at my back in the mirror. Yes, my back. Which, believe it or not, has developed rolls and is spilling sideways out of a certain lady-undergarment.

Great. Just. Great.

Of course, the heightened body awareness must have been prompted by something. Like that failed trip to the store in search of new business pants. And the untimely demise/ involuntary air conditioning of my favorite jeans.

In the past two years, I've gained 20 pounds. Since I already started at a slightly overweight BMI, this makes me, in the eyes of today's BMI-based medical community, obese.

Hello, my name is Charlotte, and I'm obese. And very thankful for those Riders vanity-size 6 stretch jeans that leave ample room for my size-12 behind. Heh.

Cue to tracking everything I eat and do on fitday.com again and to the smelling salts for TBIK because I see lots of Broccoli and beans in our future. Ahem.

And the happiest New Year goes to ...

2011-01-20T07:09:00.000-08:00

Uh, hello there!

Did you have a good Christmas?
What about the New Year?
And the Orthodox Christmas?
And while we're at it, probably also Easter and Spring Break?

Fine, it doesn't help that I'm sick ... again. Or rather, that the same cold seems cycling through our household (hi honey! You're next!). Or that TBIK and I have been somewhat "busy" because this year's project? Pretty much the same as last year's project. Which is to say that, yes, I've picked myself up and put it back together, whatever "it" is: Genetics, uterus, stress level, whatnot. And who woulda thunk that there would be

So. Much. Sex. At least before "the date."

Oops, sorry. TMI.

And then, of course, the daily temperature checks. And the waiting. And several smaller annoyances that have been circling our days like flies a chunk of Swiss. Like the local "hospital's" (and I'm using this term lightly) billing department still can't figure out which of my two insurances to bill for the "emergency" room visits for last year's miscarriage. Or the company I work for, which, all of a sudden, decided to split itself into three (hello, Defense budget cuts!), leaving long-term employees' pension plans in the dust, and the rest of "us" curious what'll happen when the ~~divestiture~~ split is finalized. You can bet your hat that I'll call that creepy recruiter back who left me a voicemail about having applied to some obscure position two or three months ago.

But whatever. Unimportant noise, for the most part, because you know who started the New Year as a ball of happiness and general existential joy?

Also, welcome back to the rest of you! Uh, hello there!

Did you have a good Christmas?
What about the New Year?
And the Orthodox Christmas?
And while we're at it, probably also Easter and Spring Break?

Fine, it doesn't help that I'm sick ... again. Or rather, that the same cold seems cycling through our household (hi honey! You're next!). Or that TBIK and I have been somewhat "busy" because this year's project? Pretty much the same as last year's project. Which is to say that, yes, I've picked myself up and put it back together, whatever "it" is: Genetics, uterus, stress level, whatnot. And who woulda thunk that there would be

So. Much. Sex. At least before "the date."

Oops, sorry. TMI.

And then, of course, the daily temperature checks. And the waiting. And several smaller annoyances that have been circling our days like flies a chunk of Swiss. Like the local "hospital's" (and I'm using this term lightly) billing department still can't figure out which of my two insurances to bill for the "emergency" room visits for last year's miscarriage. Or the company I work for, which, all of a sudden, decided to split itself into three (hello, Defense budget cuts!), leaving long-term employees' pension plans in the dust, and the rest of "us" curious what'll happen when the ~~divestiture~~ split is finalized. You can bet your hat that I'll call that creepy recruiter back who left me a voicemail about having applied to some obscure position two or three months ago.

But whatever. Unimportant noise, for the most part, because you know who started the New Year as a ball of happiness and general existential joy?

Also, welcome back to the rest of you!

Poverty

2010-12-27T12:00:00.001-08:00

You know what makes me happy?

When good things happen to people who deserve them. Unexpectedly.

Flashback to Christmas Eve, between the 6 pm and 8 pm services, in both of which I'm playing the flute. Flashback to my friend, who's had a horrible year and is going through a nasty divorce, and her three kids sitting in the congregation and waving at me. Flashback to their German-style Christmas Eve and their presents. Or rather: Flashback to my friend confessing to me that she's sad she can't afford too much for her kids without jeopardizing the rent money. But they went home, anyway, to be together, at least for that evening, before the kids were carted off to their dad and his girlfriend.

And then, two guys walk into the band room, with three or four boxes of Christmas presents for kids--new toys donated by folks in the community who wanted to make a difference in a kid's life. Only that the effort had been somewhat not-planned at all. The pastor looks at the boxes and scratches his head. What is he going to do with the presents? What underresourced families with kids does he still know that haven't yet received some sort of present through a community program? I tug at his arm, tell him a bit about the three kids I know. He smiles and tells me to go play Christkind after I'm done with the flute set. I grab a present for each of the kids from the boxes.

When I walk through the door of their apartment, the kids can't pick their jaws up off the floor. Their mom has tears in her eyes. They'd made cookies, and share some with me. But more than the cookies, their hugs are the best present ever for me.

Well, those and the ornament Little Miss Kickboxer made herself at the daycare: A pinecone ornament with glitter, which we hung on the tree ceremoniously. Which I know I'll cherish for years to come. And maybe put in a shadow-box frame when my angelchild turns 18.

==================

Last Wednesday, I took off from work early and looked at mugshots in our local police station (remember that break-in we had a couple of weeks ago?). Afterwards, I stopped at our local independent coffee shop. Before me in the line were two older women, debating how much food they could buy off the menu with the $4 they had available. I gave the cashier my card and asked her to charge to it whatever the ladies wanted. The older one turned around and gave me a big kiss on the cheek, thanking me for that "Christmas present."

A while later, I noticed from my table how the cashier turned a homeless guy away who asked for a hot coffee refill. I left a few dollars with her that would buy the next homeless person who came in a cup of coffee and a meal.

==================

Part of Little Miss Kickboxer's Christmas presents were three things that she gave to kids in Afghanistan and some African countries: Books, a musical instrument, a pair of shoes, via a childrens' support organization.

==================

And while being able to help people out makes me happy, it also makes me mad. Because I'm using my USian marriage-enabled overducated double-earner privilege to sprinkle a few dollars around when, really, poverty should be addressed on a government level. Remember the part of the Constitution about "promote the general Welfare"? Fixing poverty shouldn't be left up to wealthy individuals or churches with soup kitchens or meager handouts in the form of foodstamps. It really should be an extension of this half-sentence, one that requires 50% taxation on all income above the poverty line, until every person has enough to eat, easily accessible and appropriate medical care, and a safe roof over her or his head. If this country prides itself of a classless society (hello, Declaration of Independence!), why, then, are we looking at a new Congress that was voted in to reduce taxes for the rich and the corporations and cut social service programs in order to "reduce the deficit"?

Paying taxes is patriotic. It's what Jesus would have wanted you to do. Tell that to the Tea Partiers.

==================

In the meantime, I'm thinking of going to the coffee shop again, if only to see that someone gets a hot cup of something that'll help them through their day.

Two!

2010-12-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

Little Miss Kickboxer is THIIIIIIIIIIIIS BIG now (holding up my thumb and index finger).

OMG.

What's next? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Car keys?

And yet, she'll always be my sweet wonderful baby with the cheeks made of velvet and angel wings.

Happy Birthday, angelchild!

In which I demonstrate my lack of maternal judgement

2010-12-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

Of course, then, I spoke too soon.

About the comfort food, I mean.

Apparently, Little Miss Kickboxer has decided that whatever food her slave (maternal) provides is poison.

Backstory: Because I vowed, even before the angelchild was born, that she would be eating only organic meals whose ingredients were tickled to death with the manehair of a unicorn, I've been making all of her breakfasts and lunches for the daycare. So, every day, I drop her off with her bag full of goodies, such as grapes, veggie burger and beans, scrambled egg nuggets with flaxseed, yoghurt, pears, raisins ... you get the point. Add to that the occassional homemade muffin or PB sandwich, and you've got a basically all-organic food pack. Which she ate with glee. Until this week.

This week, Little Miss Kickboxer discovered that the other kids eat chicken nuggets and corndogs. And of course, she whined over her lovingly homecooked risotto long enough for the daycare provider to give in. My child, of whom I swore she won't see a French fry until college, and who I could have sworn had developed healthy eating habits, devoured microwaved mass-slaughtered Foster Farms crap. Which is higher in fat and sodium than it is in protein and probably ranks on the same level as any other fast-food garbage.

The worst thing is: I allowed the daycare provider to give it to her, just so she'd eat anything at all, in these times of omnipresent stomach flu.
Which, I'll be the first to admit, was a mistake. Because now, she's probably smelled blood.

To say that I feel like a grandiose failure for this is probably understating it. When I think of my lovely child's pristine body, whose safekeeping is my goddam job, being contaminated with artificial crap--along with MSG, HFCS, and artificial soy--and thus predisposed for childhood obesity, early menstruation, and all sorts of behavioral issues, I could just cry. Heck, I want to pack up all our things and move the family home, to food-safe Germany, where fresh oranges from Spain still count as a highly priced delicacy (I'm sure TBIK could still find his Hot Pockets on some black market for gastrointestinal pickling devices).

And I know what you guys are thinking: Welcome to the Terrible Twos.

only that they're not supposed to start until TUESDAY. I am supposed to have until TUESDAY, people, to bend my child to my nutritional will.

Except that, apparently, she's an early bloomer.

So, what do I do now, other than trying to flush this week's chemicals out of her body with pomegranates, tangerines, and pears? And maybe some homemade apricot muffins and chicken nuggets?

Foodie Friday: Cuban-style risotto

2010-12-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

It's not even Friday (well, actually, it probably is, given this post's proximity to the midnight hour), but remember the Foodie Friday thing I had going on here for a while?

Yeah.

So, today/ tonight/ whatever bleary-eyed hour it is, I'll share with you one of Little Miss Kickboxer's comfort foods:

Cuban-style Risotto

2 cups organic brown rice
1 cup black beans, soaked over night in water
1/2 large onion, diced
1 or 3 garlic cloves, diced
1 medium-size green bell pepper, diced
2-4 strips of bacon
1 chicken breast filet
lots of LOW SODIUM chicken broth
1/2 chicken bouillon cube
juice of 1 lime
some cumin

Soak the beans overnight, then sort them and dump them in a pot of boiling water. While the beans are boiling away, fill a large pot with 3-4 cups of water, set to boil, and dissolve the bouillon cube; then add the rice and cook. While rice and beans are doing their thing, fry the bacon until crisp. Set aside on a paper towel, then use some of the bacon fat to fry the onion until glassy to light brown and add the garlic and bell peppers for a quick sautee. By now, the water in the rice will have evaporated; fill up with 2 cups of the chicken broth and simmer to reduce again.

Defrost the chicken (don't if you're using fresh, of course, duh!) and boil in 1-2 cups of chicken broth until soft and broth is evaporated. Then cut into small cubes.

Drain the beans once they're soft and wash them well (otherwise, they'll color your dish grey).

Throw crumbled bacon, chicken, onions/ peppers into the pot with the rice and stir carefully, then add more chicken broth and the beans. Again, stir carefully and wait for the chicken broth to reduce, so you have a nice, thick layer of gluten. If you don't get that because you've cooked the rice too fast and the hull hasn't broken down, don't fret, but drizzle a little corn starch on top. Nobody will know.

Finally, add the lime juice and some cumin, and you should be good to go. There should be enough salt in the recipe from the bouillon cube and the bacon, but if you're of the saltier persuasion, well, then do your thing. Or sprinkle with parmesan cheese, if you must.

In our house, we must, most of the time.

This recipe freezes extremely well, so don't worry if you made a bit too much. It's ok.

Minus six

2010-12-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

The gratefulness machine is cranking again--I know, I know, it's partly the season. But it's partly also the circumstances.

Someone I consider a friend (and most certainly a compatriot) is going through a really messy breakup right now. Something that came out of thin air and ended up being what we Germans call most "schaebig." As in, an unforeseen rhetorical punch into the gut, delivered electronically, and squarely aimed at her self-confidence and sense of independence with a pettiness you'd expect from a teenager, but not from an adult.

Stuff like this riles me. To the point where I want to "come over there" and deliver a good one-two right between the eyes.

Of course, now she's grieving, mourning the loss of a relationship that may never have been what it looked like. That will never be what she dreamed it could be. And she doesn't deserve being put into such a shitty situation.

All of which had me thanking my maker on my knees for being "off the market," for eluding the vicious cycle of dating and dumping. All of which had me think about how, if TBIK ever chose to leave or (God forbid!) passed away, I'd fare all by myself. And you know what? I think I'd be okay. In fact, I think I'd be more than okay with just Little Miss Kickboxer and myself, both in the short term and in the long term, after she moves out to go run for POTUS, of course.

I think I'd be happy to turn into a spinster, kind of like my own mom, who shares an apartment with a friend of hers and lives her retired life dedicated to her animals and her watercolors. Fine, for me you'd have to strike the paints and add the instruments, but I honestly think I'm done with dating. For good. For the rest of my life.

The thing is, the advent of Little Miss Kickboxer almost two years ago changed everything. It changed how long I stay at work and how long I wear my fingernails. It changed how I perform at work and how I communicate with other people. It changed when and how I wear, eat, and exercise what. And when I use correct grammar, apparently.

I used to define myself in relation to others--almost everything had a purpose, and that purpose was usually geared towards advancement either in my career or in my personal life. I chased happiness, or my definition thereof, which was most intricately connected to whatever "success" meant at that time, relentlessly. I chased the next higher paygrade, some guy's lingering eye, a number on the scale, a sense of personal satisfaction through a planned volunteering trip to Africa. And I never stopped.

Fine, I still don't stop, but now? I have clothes; why would I buy new ones? Guys? Over it (and married). Gadgets? See the remark about clothes. Career? I'm far more relaxed now, and also more productive because I have to fit a whole day's work into my 8 hours. I have more patience, even as I work with less time. I'm friendlier because I'm not as aggressively driven about having to get to the next step before a certain age. My nails are as short as they get because I don't want to accidentally scratch my angelchild during a diaper change. I still exercise, of course, but either only when I know her in good hands. The things that used to matter two years ago don't really matter any more.

What matters is teaching my child everything I know and more, to ensure she becomes a socially responsible, kind, intellectually savvy, physically fit, happy person. That's what most of my activities are geared towards.

And I know that makes me really boring, on the one hand. On the other, it makes me very focused, able to prioritize, and rocking the follow-through.

Two years ago, I was a different person. Two years minus 6 days changed the rest of my life.

What I owe you

2010-12-14T23:55:00.000-08:00

... and wouldn't you know it, I brought myself a little something from the East Coast. A very little something that's been nestling itself comfortably into the warm, glubby folds of my stomach. And that's been sending me to the bathroom in regular intervals.

I know, I know: TMI.

Does that make a good-enough excuse not to post? Well, that and the fact that I still owe you pictures from Little Miss Kickboxer's birthday party at the kiddie gym, at which one of the squirt-size guests told me she hated my lovingly homemade frosting (cream cheese and vanilla pudding) on my lovingly homemade cranberry-orange cupcakes? And at which my angelchild had an obviously fabulous time:

With the parachute

Running across the trampoline

Um, yeah, that, too

And, finally, stuffing cupcakes and chips and whatever else would fit into her mouth.

Ugh. Are we talking about food again?

What to do?

2010-12-10T15:47:00.000-08:00

You're kidding me, right?

On the heels of this business trip, I'm getting an award? And my hair isn't washed because, heck, those 30 minutes of sleep are too costly? Oh, they're going to have to photoshop that picture!

Anyway.

Coming down from my East Coast high also means re-entering the world of news and blogs and ohmigosh, my favorite soap's website is completely redesigned. But really, the news. And Christmas. Oh Gosh, Christmas.

But everything in order: Tax cut deal? What? A president who finally shows what he's made of, and it's not what I voted for?

I'm shocked.

What else was there to expect after the foot-dragging on DADT, the concession of the public option, and the expiration of unemployment benefits for long-term unemployed folks--who, mind you, paid into said unemployment insurance during their work years?

No, really. I'm shocked. I voted for someone who had more integrity than what's currently transpiring.

Which means that I'll go frustration-shopping, to ensure that at least one poor Apple worker gets to keep his or her job. Right, Mr. Jobs?

So, yes, Christmas. Honestly, I hate Christmas, consumerism and all--except, well, that this year, TBIK hit a bull's eye. For years, I'd been joking about wanting some housecleaning support, as in, some fairy swooping in, waving its Mr. Clean wand, and swooping out again, all without me having to move a finger. Add to that two cats and a toddler.

So, guess who came on Wednesday and made the house sparkly clean? A sparkly-clean housecleaning service. My Christmas present. And I LOVE IT.

Which, of course, raises the annual question of what to get the hubs. All my present ideas have so far been blown out of the water (heck, he bought himself a new watch, and believe it or not, his mother took him clothes-shopping last week!), so what to do?

The thing is, he loves his online poker over at Pokerstars. Which is why, every day, he shleps his 27-pound laptop with to the bus and back. He also likes to take video and listen to music, and maybe he'd get into eBooks (although so far, he is vehemently against them). So, knowing that he'd never give up his simple old phone, I've been going back and forth on, you know, a little Apple device. But it seems that Pokerstars isn't available for little mobile devices (Windows- or Apple-based), which would mean that he'd have to get used to another poker application--and trust me, this man is nothing but a creature of habit. Maybe he also wouldn't like the small screen? And what if he wants to listen to music while maybe actually using a different poker app? Actually, I hear the new processor supports that kind of stuff.

I just don't know. But I know I can't not give him any presents at all considering that he gave me exactly what I'd been dreaming of.

So ... what to do (other than shooting Santa Claus in the butt)? I'm taking suggestions.

Home

2010-12-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

I'm home. Finally. After a not-so-happy interlude in the airplane's bathroom that involved, oh, last night's dinner, this morning's breakfast, possibly a celebratory pint of Ben&Jerry's, and (ahem) just as possibly two chocolate cookies with some disgustingly sweet frosting-style cream in the middle.

Yes, celebratory. Because yours truly stood up in front of the customer and killed the competition, smiling remark by smiling remark, fact by fact, suggestion for improvement by ... you get the point. And yes, they had regrouped, but from their attack mode of the past two days to something between grovelling and the realization that maybe their preparation wasn't as good as they thought.

I should have become a lawyer. I love me a good verbal one-two punch far too much.

Anyway.

Little Miss Kickboxer is fast asleep in her big girl bed. The house is brand-spankin' clean, thanks to an early Christmas present from TBIK (housecleaning service, y'all! Best present ever!). And my stomach keeps fluttering like a hummingbird on ecstasy.

But I'm home.

Competition

2010-12-08T18:12:00.001-08:00

Gosh, how I love me a good Hilton Hotel bed. And nope, not endorsed by the chain at all, just happily typing and trying not to drip the celebratory Ben & Jerry's into the keyboard.

Yes, I said "celebratory." Because in today's presentation (the reason for this jaunt to the East Coast)? Smoked. The. Competition. Not only because, with a bit of hairspray and mascara, I clean up nicely, too, but because the proof was quite obviously in the pudding, the customer pretty excited, and pretty boy in a dark suit stammering and asking for input while his boss shot me the evil deathray a number of times.

It's not like I'm gloating.

Well, okay, it kind of is.

Add to that the fact that I'm on a first-name basis with the customer's advisory team and happily chatted away with their chairperson about potential modelling approaches--a conversation my Ueberboss overheard and commented on later. In which conversation I could share with him a few successes from earlier this year.

All in all, it's been a good day.

And yes, I'm intensely competitive; it's not necessarily a streak I like very much about myself, but if you've ever had a German Grandma, you'll know that "good enough" just ... isn't. In fact, even "the best" can still be improved. That's how I grew up, with the permanent pressure of perfection, of capturing not just the A, but the A+. I remember that one day in seventh grade when I got a C on a math test and cried all the way home, afraid of a dressing down that would end with a slap in the face. But all y Grandmother had to do was to give me "the look"--that mixture of disappointment and disgust, paired with a sigh and a slow headshake.

Kind of like the look on the customer's face today, directed at the wannabe Gordon Gecko team.

Of course, now the competitor's people are regrouping to rescue or refocus their value proposition, and tomorrow's round of meetings will show how nimble they are. So, yes, while I'm gloating today and soaking up all sorts of kudos, I'm aware of the fact that you should never ever underestimate the other side.

But I still like winning today.

Like, NOT

2010-12-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

Um. Do we know what day it is?

I'm sitting here in my Florida hotel room, wondering who turned the heat off outside. Brrr.

Also, what day is it?

I remember getting on the plane sometime in the evening some day in the past. I think that may have been in Santa Barbara, where I parked TBIK's car in the long-term parking. And then got on the plane to fly out to Florida for some sort of work summit. Only that the plane broke in Santa Barbara and, despite running through LAX, I missed my connection to DC, and then there was a lot of coughing and hacking and a little waiting and sleeping and OHMIGOSHWHOFARTSTWICEONTHESAMEPLANE???

And somehow, Orlando appeared on the horizon, and the rental car did, too, and I still remembered how to get here from five years ago and this little beach bum town still has the same Greek restaurant across from the strip with all the nudie bars, and wow, I actually made it into work and met my boss for the first time. And colleague jerkface.

And our competitors.

Wow.

Seriously, meeting the competition in the conference room was surreal. Previously, we had only traded socially sophisticated barbs on teleconferences, trying to persuade the customers of each company's better approach to the task they need done. And the contrast couldn't have been starker:

Competitor sent a team of young, buff guys (five white, one Asian) who talk a good game, and do so aggressively. Average age is about 27. Let's call them the Gordon Gecko team.

My company sent a larger team of tired-looking overweight greyhairs with an average age of ca. 47, yet spread across gender and color lines. And, uh, me. Which makes us effectively the Pequot Team and me the big-boobed lady at the helm of the ship. It's weird being the youngest in the boardroom.

Competitor did intel about us. Heck, someone even mentioned, in casual conversation, my academic title, which he could only have gotten through a deep internet search.

My company did ... prepare PowerPoint slides. Lots of PowerPoint slides.

Lots.

Of course, I'm so overtired from taking a redeye out to here that I don't even know what up and down is. And what the heck I'm going to tell people in tomorrow's 30-minutes slot. And how I'm going to stop screeching "Puuuuuuuupselkind" every time a thought of Little Miss Kickboxer flashes through my mind.

Or how I'm going to make sense. Like now. Like NOT.

Not safe

2010-12-06T06:17:00.000-08:00

Why, hello Holidailies. Do I have a story for you!

Remember the whole thing about this weekend that was going to kick my ass with its trifecta of stress: Little Miss Kickboxer's birthday party, Mother In Law's visit with stepdaughter-cum-boyfriend in tow, and tonight's business trip to the East Coast?

The good news: Little Miss Kickboxer's birthday party got off without a hitch. The family got into town safe and stood amazed at all the yummy food.

And then, there was the burglary.

Oh, you're still waiting for the bad news? Re-read the last sentence. I kid you not.

Yesterday after lunch, I was putting Little Miss Kickboxer down for her nap, complete with reading her a story, making sure that all members of her little Elmo brigade have their binkies, and understand that, even in the rain, the cow still goes "Moo." Our guests were downstairs and wanted to carch a few winks after taking the early flight out of Vegas, so TBIK poked his head through the door to let me know he was just driving them them to their hotel down the road really quickly.

After Little Miss Kickboxer's Elmo brigade had enthusiastically, yet very sleepily cheered Little Blue Truck and his animal friends on for the squillionth ird time that day, I opened the door to her room go back downstairs for some post-first MIL visit cleanup.

Instead, I saw this guy looking at me from across the hallway. From inside our bedroom.

I stood maybe one or two seconds trying to figure out whether he could maybe have been stepdaughter's boyfriend, but heck, no, not with those shorts, and certainly not with the shirt he was wearing.

"Hello?" I said/ He pulled down his hood and stomped right past me, out of our bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door, straight to a running car in which his buddy was waiting to make a quick getaway. How do I know? Because I followed him out. And saw the driver of said car look straight at me.

Then I realized what had just happened. A stranger had been in my house while I was putting my daughter to sleep.

A stranger. A big, tall guy who could have easily taken me out or raped me and killed my daughter--or worse.

Instead, he chose to just rifle through my purse and grab my wallet. And leave when I interrupted him as he was looking for more cash.

Then I started shaking like a leaf, so much so my fingers hardly made it from the 9 to the 1 on my tiny cellphone keypad. Here I was, on this the First of Advent, a sunshiny early Sunday afternoon, in a gated community in the zit on the behind of California, and obviously not safe.

NOT. SAFE.

The officer later told me that this must have been a gang job, judging by this guy's ethnicity and his clothes, and that his "visit" was for quick cash only and not to hurt anybody.

Sure, I get that. But what if he had panicked?

What if he had panicked because I walked in on him? What if he had brandished a knife and slit my throat?

What if?

What if they come back to finish that job because I saw them?

Fine, if I can replace my credit cards and my driver's license today, I'll still make my plane to the East Coast and be gone for a few days. Maybe this will blow over by then.

But I know I will never ever feel safe again in this house. Nor in this town.

Perfectly mentally stable ...

2010-12-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

You do know what PMS stands for, right?

Perfectly mentally stable.

I think.

Notice how I'm not saying "emotionally"? Because, oh man, it doesn't take much to make me cry these days. This could have to do with Little Miss Kickboxer's birthday party on Saturday, for which I have yet to pack the goodie bags, bake the cupcakes, and finish the centerpiece (let alone procure the balloons in the shape of a certain red, fluffy Sesame Street character). It could also have something to do with the swooping-in of TBIK's mother and daughter plus boyfriend, right the next day, for which I am hoping to have the house picked up and presentable, which includes some rudimentary cleaning, the wrapping of guest favors and the varnishing of Little Miss Kickboxer's Salzteig Handprints, the assembling of a visit schedule with options that allow for the angelchild's (and perhaps the MIL's) naps, appropriate transportation from/ to sights, activities, and events, and appropriate feeding of the masses, including some homemade bakery items whose raw dough will hopefully not land in the jaws of a certain orange cat thanks to Little Miss Kickboxer's extensive nurturing instincts, eggnog!, a homecooked dinner where everybody can "help." Or it might have something to do with catching the red-eye to the East Coast office Monday night to talk and look smart in front of our customer Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, only to fret the whole time about TBIK's single-dad skills and Little Miss Kickboxer's organic food, poop, and German language schedule.

And I completely forgot that it was the first night of Hanukkah last night. I *so* wanted to make latkes. And ohmigosh the cookies and I'm going to miss my angelchild's velvety cheeks and her big buggers and her DC-10-level whining that "Mama, MAMA, MAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAA, Elmo fall chair! MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

And then a friend sent me this:

Which put me over the edge.

Now excuse me while I go blowdry my mousepad in the bathroom ...

Just around the corner ...

2010-12-01T15:33:00.000-08:00

You know what's funny?

This.

For those non-clickers among you, this is a rather enlightening discussion on CNN dot com about a billboard the American Atheists, a New Jersey-based atheist advocacy group, put up at one end of the Lincoln Tunnel. The billboard shows a shadow image of the Three Kings approaching the manger with Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus, which is graced by a big star--in short, your typical mass-produced Christmas card image. The writing on the billboard says "You know it's a myth. This season, celebrate reason." The Catholic League, of course, reacted, with a billboard showing a rather Catholic-looking Joseph overlooking Mary and the babe in her lap (no kings, no manger) exhorting the passers-by "You Know It's Real: This Season Celebrate Jesus" on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel.

*sigh*

Why don't things like these not happen in California? Perhaps because we're hippies and go by "live and let live"?

Hang on, let me adjust my flower wreath.

Better than the article itself, though, or the clip in which Mr. Silverman, enthusiastic leader of said atheist group, equates Santa with God (because "He knows when you are sleeping/ He knows when you're awake/ He knows that you've been bad or good/ So be good for goodness' sake"), are the comments to this article. And I'm not talking about the "oh, you hateful heathens" or the "Do the same thing on Ramadan and I'll support your cause" taunts; I'm talking about the ones in which thinking people actually make thoughtful arguments--a rarity in CNN comments sections.

Here are a few tidbits I especially enjoyed:

"3) Science isn't always right so saying that scientist rely on "fact" is foolish at best. If scientist only believed in what they could "see", then we'd still be rubbing sticks together in attempts to stay warm. Every great scientist came up with outlandish ideas at the time (WHAT!? The world ISN'T FLAT!? Preposterous!) that eventually moved from outlandish to fact. In short, just because we can't prove god exists doesn't mean he doesn't."
"Atheists DO have faith. As you describe it, "Atheism is science based." But science starts with several suppositions, including the following:

1) the universe is based on consistent, understandable laws, and

2) these laws are decipherable from experimental evidence.

I will grant you that these rules *seem* reasonable, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF they are true. You BELIEVE they are true because they make sense to you, just as the concept of God makes sense to others. There is no proof God exists, any more than there is proof the universe behaves according to absolutely consistent, predictable rules.

Yes, the world *seems* to be predictable - MOST of the time. But those things we hold as constant are rarely so. Regular weather patterns suddenly shift, for no apparent reason. Disease rates plummet or shoot up unexpectedly, in ways that seem to make no sense. And even in the most complex models in physics, uncertainty and unpredictability rule. Tiny uncertainties, according to chaos theory, can ultimately make dramatic global (or larger) shifts.

And every good scientist knows that theories without supporting evidence are not necessarily wrong. They are simply not publishable.

So... a good scientist might easily still believe in God. And there is (in current models) an easy way for God to manipulate the world, subtly, with dramatic effect (assuming such a being has the ability to understand the consequences).

I have no evidence, no PROOF. But you have no proof I am wrong. So you are denying God's existence simply on blind faith."
"Hume did a fairly convincing job of demonstrating that scientific empiricism is ultimately based on faith……rational faith, but faith none the less. Kant did a fairly convincing job of critiquing the limits of pure reason. James did a fairly convincing job of outlying why utility and experiential value is more of a rational basis to hang one’s human hat then abstract notions of rational truth.

What a lot of Atheist fail to see is the distinction between definitions of God and God. I am an atheist concerning most definitions of God and an Agnostic concerning all definitions of God, including my own. I do, however, believe in God for the same reason you don’t: Believing directs and makes sense of my personal experiences while increasing my functionally and creative capacity in the real world.

Who cares if somebody believes in God or not. The important thing is what does your belief do for you and is it increasing or decreasing toxicity and harm in a shared human environment. Rather than only seeing the ignorance and capacity for harm in paradigms you don’t find relevant, examine the inconsistencies and capacities in your own viewpoints. Over the last 150 years, from any objective standpoint, non-God-Believers have been responsible for more stupidity and crimes against humanity and rationality then God-Believers. Perhaps God-Believers will catch up this century but this is not the point…the point is to stop pointing fingers and realize we all have a hand in the human condition we are mutually creating.

I am not a Christian but a wise man once said, “Remove the blockage from your own eyes before you worry about the vision of another”……or something like that. Wise words whether they come from God or human……..and perhaps they are the same thing."

Intelligently reasoning and well-spoken life; seems like it's out there, cleverly hidden among the Bibleburners and Biblethumpers alike. And yes, I happen to agree with the last commenter while identifying as a Christian, especially on the points of "definitions of God" and the social ramifications of belief systems on "the human condition" (which, to me, is a grossly simplified placeholder for ... grossly simplified fluff, like saying "society" or "social contract," but whatever). In fact, the writer might even like the church TBIK and I attend--a church well-known for its extensive community service.

HOWEVER.

You know what gets me most about this conversation? That most commenters equate Christians with the Right and Atheists with the Left. I could say that my politics feel insulted, especially since, hello!, I still believe that Jesus was about as far left as it gets. I mean, we're talking about the guy who not only hung with the "low-lifes" but rallied against people's exploitation by "big" business, against organized religion, and against judgmentalism. And who, really, did the Rosa Luxemburg thing where "freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter." Oh, and did I mention that he dined with a tax collector?

So, excuse me, but to me, the so-called "Christian" Right just ... isn't. If we could instead talk about "loving your neighbor" in real political terms, rather than Old Testament language, or about the sharing of resources, the arbitrary nature of national borders, and the whole idea that "Christians" of any persuasion are supposed to be working together like a body composed of different organs, then yeah, maybe. But as long as the "Christian" denominator is being hijacked to validate socially and politically dismissive obstructionism, then, uh, nope. See? Jesus wasn't all wrong about this labelling bit.

I'd like some room in this discussion for the Christian Left--I know it exists, and not only in this here household. A lot of people out there do a lot of good things in their communities without planning to shoot ob/ gyn surgeons or brown folks who may not have all their immigration papers in order, burning Korans, or getting off on any holier-than-though homophobic propositions--and they don't vote to make rich people richer and cut social services for folks hard on their luck. I reckon they also let their actions speak for themselves, rather than their words. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is probably the best.

I'd also like to see breathing room for everyone, and personal consequence. If you don't want to celebrate Christmas, nobody's forcing you to go to church or take December 25 off work. If you don't believe in the American Santa Claus of the movies, then don't sit on his lap for a picture. And yes, reindeers can't fly (if they could, the poor things might actually be able to escape Sarah Palin's gun-totin' friends).

Enter our Christian Left version of Christmas. "Santa," as I am explaining to Little Miss Kickboxer, is, in fact, people dressing up to celebrate Saint Nikolaus, who brought poor children lots of good food to eat. Also, he comes on December 6, 2 days after her birthday bash, for which we've asked for donations to the food bank instead of gifts. From then on, yes, it's all about putting an ornament on the tree each day and, on special days, adding a figure to the nativity. And about the Christkind because what little kid can't identify with another little child (usually a girl) sharing toys and goodies to celebrate another kid's birthday? So there. Let's see how long we can keep up the good old German bulwark in a flood of American holiday consumerism. And let's see how long we can sidestep the hate-filled debates about what should be a season filled with peace.

Thanksgiving wrapup

2010-11-30T06:29:00.001-08:00

Last night, we finished off the rest of our Thanksgiving dinner leftovers. I had taken the roasted brussels sprouts and butternut squash and the cornbread-apple-sausage-raisin stuffing to work for lunch, and TBIK hugged, cuddled, and smooched the rest of his meat (MEAT! Hunh, hunh!), potatoes, and gravy before they found their way into his digestive tract. All in all, this year's Thanksgiving dinner was a total success, not only because our 2.5-lb. slow-cooked pork shoulder came out perfectly and, for $5.50, made five good-size servings of food, but also because, given its leanness, didn't put too much extra fat on our hips. I will admit that I made the mashed potatoes with real butter and sour cream, though (oops!) and the stuffing with some sort of sausage (double oops!), but then again, the German apple cake consisted of mostly apples, and the pumpkin-cranberry muffins with cinnamon creme consisted of mostly pumpkin.

And yes, we're very regular this week, if you must know.

The best thing about this dinner? The make-ahead or prep-ahead part AND the slow-cooker approach, which made for a perfect "German" pork roast with pears and onions. You know what we got to do while other folks were basting their turkeys every half hour?

We went to the zoo. Where all the animals had received their own pumpkins (except for those who don't eat pumpkins, like the otters, who got their own crabs, yum!). Where we slid down the playground hill and ran around the lawns and played airplane. Where we group-hugged as a family and Little Miss Kickboxer commanded TBIK and me to kiss, too, after we'd stereo-smooched her velvety cheeks.

Where we remembered how life is really about just this: Knowing that you're part of something bigger than yourself.

Laptop Giveaway--because I love you

2010-11-29T12:21:00.000-08:00

Cyber Monday, anyone? No? How about Black Friday? Anyone go get their iPod or DVD player or big screen TV?

In our house, the answer to that would be "no." Heck, we don't buy electronics just to have them--it's a policy I made a long time ago--because

If [insert electronic item of your choice] works, there's no need to replace it;
If we're replacing something that still works just fine, we'll spend a lot of money for functionality we already have AND need to find a way to responsibly dispose of the electronic waste we've just unnecessarily created;
All electronic overflow/ waste MUST be recycled, preferably passed down to someone who is still using it or via online forums like Freecycle or craigslist. The landfill is only the absolutely last, final nothing-goes-anymore option.

Fine, we do own a number of electronics, like two irons (which we really never use), three TVs (2 of which we do use; one of which will be donated, and one has already found a home with a TV-less friend in need), three DVD players, one of which is region-free but in need of repair; two cellphones that are either way overdue for uprgades or have been obtained through Freecycle; two MP3 players still in use; a yoghurt maker which I promise I will use sometime this month (cough cough); a blender for smoothies and other things; a toaster; a coffee maker; an espresso machine; and the best investment ever: An immerson blender, which I use almost every weekend. Seriously, you don't need a food processor if you have that thing. It helps you slice heaven and would probably do the windows, too, if I asked nicely. But we like to keep the help well pampered.

Now, with Little Miss Kickboxer, that's a different story. When you have a toddler, many best-laid plans will fly out the window, even though most of her play computers have come from thriftstores, eBay, or craigslist, and have been passed on (with one exception that actually broke)--and so, last week, TBIK ordered her first electronic item new: A "real" laptop for Little Miss Kickboxer, whose hot and sweaty lurve for Little Einsteins surpasses anything in the world (sorry to break it to you, Blue's Clues), except for, of course, Elmo.

Now, of course, we have a problem: Her "old" baby laptop's gotta go.

So, leave me a comment letting me know what your coolest electronic item is that you'll only replace if it ever breaks, and who would be getting the baby laoptop, and, given the amount of visitors this site gets, your odds of winning might be, uh, 50%.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, my Little Miss Kickboxer, greatest love of my life, was 23 months old. In 26 days, she'll be two. TWO!

Nothing, NOTHING this year has been as rewarding and fulfilling as seeing her grow from a dependent baby into an independent, strong-willed, generally happy, airplane-drawing, cheese-eating, Elmo-and-VinnieTheCat-loving, running, and babbling toddler. Nothing makes the day better than chasing after her with the hairbrush in the early mornings, as she climbs, bare-bottomed, onto her Thomas-the-Train table and recites to me the names and colors of her trains and their cars. Or as she sings Tinkle Tinkle Wittell Staw" or "Summ Summ Summ, Biensa Summ herummmm" on the way to her daycare-cum-preschool, or as she draws her N's, M's, and W's, or airplanes, or boats on her paper pad and squeals "I did it!" Or as she hugs the cat to within an inch of his life and declares "Good VinnieBOY!!!" only to turn to me and say "Ceemip MamaBOY!!! Ceemip DadaBOY!!! MamaDadaNoelle FAMILIE!!!" (ceemip = "so lieb").

Or when, this morning, she ran into the schoolroom, then stopped, toddled back towards me and said "KISS!" before she planted a big wet one on my pursed lips.

Those moments. I want to hold on to those moments, carve them into my skin for everyone to see. Carve them into my memory to recall them on my deathbed.

I have never loved any human being so fiercely, completely, and thoroughly.

I've never felt more in love with my life than now, knowing that it's graced by two good cats, a loving husband, and a perfect little daughter who will grow into a strong, smart, and successful woman with dimples and a great sense of humor. And that I will provide for her the optimal context for that.

Everything else is small stuff.

I'm so thankful for that perspective.

I'm also thankful for the recipe that I just found at one of my new favorite blogs, The Mom Chef, and which I'll make this evening:

Pumpkin Dip

1 8-ounce package cream cheese
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 15-ounce can solid pack pumpkin
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon frozen orange juice concentrate

In a medium bowl blend cream cheese and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Gradually mix in the pumpkin. Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix until well blended.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving!

Snakes on my plane

2010-11-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

I was planning to take Little Miss Kickboxer to Germany next year, to visit her Oma and to meet some of my dearest, oldest friends and their babes.

If only it weren't for the flying part.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've done this before, taken my angelchild on a plane filled with fifty million adults, including the whole security bit. The difference? The flight went from Santa Barbara to Chicago, I had TBIK to help carry some of our luggage, and this was a 2-week trip. Oh, and the all-important detail: Little Miss Kickboxer was 7 months old at that time, barely crawling, and napped twice a day. She only cried a little on the way back, in the 50-seat turboprop from LAX to Santa Barbara. Other than that, we had the best baby in the world.

Ahem.

Now we have the following:

A very active, strong-willed 2-year-old who loves to sing and talk and hasn't quite found her indoor voice yet.
Longer check-in lines with increased TSA crap, which might well include feeling up the contents of my daughter's diaper (and I'm not talking about the poop).
An international flight. A looooooong international flight. As in, an 11-hour international flight, and I'm only talking about the longest leg. Add to this the time to get to the first airport, the check-in time, the time at the immigration and customs desks, and the time to get to our final destination, which involves another 2-hour car ride, and just ... ugh. Oh, and then there'd be the hours on the tarmac if the plane needed de-icing again.
The increased terrorism risk in Europe and, of course, in this country. Didn't we want to end this stupid war at one point?
Recirculated air and people breathing their cooties right into my daughter's nostrils.
This. Or that. Be sure to read the comments, too. That hateful sh*t has me sick to my stomach.
My sanity. I know I wouldn't be able to enjoy that trip and fret about the plane trip back the entire time. Including waking up in a cold sweat at night and downing my Prozac as if it were M&Ms, just to control the shakes.

So, unless we're planning to move to Germany, and until the dust settles around the TSA policy, all plane trips are officially moratoriummed until Little Miss Kickboxer is at least 5 or 6 years old. And don't give me that happy-parent about "kids will be kids and there are nice people around" or "the world is a safer place now" and whatnot. I know that I'll already be frazzled and worried out of my mind that a TSA agent will do a body cavity search on my child, that some inconsiderate, selfish podperson will shoot me dirty looks, tell me to "control my child" (hahaha! Like, yeah, why don't YOU try to control your two-year-old?), or even worse, slap Little Miss Kickboxer (in which case, trust me, you'd wish there were only snakes or killer tomatoes from outer space on your plane and not this here mommabear). Add to that entertaining my toddler or calming her down after some stranger has laid hands on her and making sure TBIK doesn't go off the deep end for 10+ hours, and just ... no.

Can't do it. Won't do it. Flying with my daughter will require a village--of friendly people, not of self-involved idiots, hysterical lawmakers, drunks, or underwear bombers.

Happy Opt Out Day to you, too!

Office space

2010-11-23T04:47:00.000-08:00

Well, the idea of sitting around a well-stocked Thanksgiving table with four little kids ... bombed, sadly. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Divorce sucks, especially if one (or both) of the parents decide(s) to use the children as pawns in a big ego game. Yes, they're safe, and yes, they'll apparently be with their grandma now, 5 hours to the south, but it still sucks, for the kids, their families, and my planning of happy-thankiness and a visit to the animal park with a big bag of carrots and crafts and all that. At least my German friend will join us after she gets off work, so that we're not completely left to the mercy of whoever is kicking the pigskin around.

Speaking of which, now I do have enough of the pork roast, and there'll be oven-roasted squash, tossed with Brussels sprouts and garnished with pomegranate seeds. Take that, Bobby Flay! I'm going rogue (and easy) on you. And Pioneer Woman, your corn chowder recipe, when made with less broth, sour cream instead of sweet cream, and a lightly beaten egg, will firm up into one kickass corn pudding! Which is going to be a hit at the office T-Day party today, and which, ohmigosh, I will bathe in come Thursday.

Speaking of which (the office, not the bathing), it seems that things are getting around at The New Company. Colleague Jerkface, despite his constant attempts at shmoozing senior management, may just have struck out in his quest for department domination. Apparently, at least two more people got wind of how he communicates with us of the non-penis-carrying variety and how little of the actual gruntwork of this job he got done, and they made it to the executive watercooler before he did. That said, there have also been emails from the customer to the people in charge commending yours truly on her subject matter expertise and communication skills, and those haven't fallen on deaf ears, either. Which is nice, but in the end, it's a consolation prize for a job I'm not going to get because I live on the wrong coast. Case closed.

Still, though, I've never seen happy customers, especially those labelled internally as "difficult," writing me or my management thankyou emails. That right there is professional gold in this big, yet relatively small industry. BAZINGA!

So, yeah, in the spirit of happy-thankiness, this year hasn't been as much of a professional waste as the past one. Fine, there's been the noticeable paycut from Space Cadet Central to here, but the benefits of working closer to home and of actually having a real assignment have definitely paid off. Add to that the ease with which I've been able to make a good impression and substantiate it with about 50% of what I could really do if given more responsibility, and the turnaround is there--despite some moronic management decisions which make hitching my career wagon to this corporate star long-term improbable.

Seems like my career runs kind of like the economy, doesn't it? The numbers indicate an upswing, even though the general populace isn't really feeling the love just yet. You can be sure, though, that, at least, I"ll never vote for the Tea Party.

The thank is in giving (of my sanity)

2010-11-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

... and I thought slapping a piece of pork into a slow cooker, with some diced onions and pears, would be the extent of my Thanksgiving cooking. Much to TBIK's chagrin because Thanksgiving without a formal dinner? Ha!

Oh right, there are some Brussels sprouts in the fridge, and a butternut squash has been sitting on our kitchen counter for a couple of weeks. And last night's "Grandma style" German apple cake was at least a partial success. "Grandma style"? Um, that would be where the yeast dough doesn't rise and actually burns underneath the apples. Please don't tell Grandma, though (and if you have a direct line to the dead, call me!).

Turns out that Little Miss Kickboxer's three little friends will be staying with us on Thanksgiving Day and that their mom, one of the few Germans in this town, will join us after she's done working, around 6 pm. Which means I get to use all my project manageriness to plan, schedule, and work within budget and time constraints to 1. make a Thanksgiving dinner without breaking the bank or my back and 2. keeping 4 kids busy and fed starting at 10 a.m.

Take that, Bobby Flay! And no, you're not allowed to bring any camera team or sidekicks to delegate to.

Gosh, I love me a challenge. And a good list. And food safety common sense which dictates that precooked dishes can remain in the refrigerator for 3 days.

So, here is what's going to happen:

That apple cake will be gone by Thursday, so I'll make another batch of that, probably tonight, and I promise I won't burn it. If that's not happening, there's a Sara Lee Dutch Apple Pie in the freezer. (Ha! How's that for Risk Management!)
I'll also make two batches of corn pudding based on Pioneer Woman's corn chowder recipe. One of these batches will go to work for Tuesday's T-Day bash there. The other batch will go on our table on Thursday.
Remember the piece of pork and the slow cooker? That would be for this recipe from Poor Girl Gourmet, which I was hoping to "set and forget" during Little Miss Kickboxer's midday nap. The problem? a. pears and slow cooker--I sense a mush-problem right there; b. I have only 2.5 lbs of pork shoulder, which would be enough for TBIK, whose idea of portion-size is slightly distorted, given his Midwestern/ Tim Allen/ caveman approach to all things meat. So, today, I'll need to plough through the freezer hoping there's a pork cutlet or three hiding somewhere in the back, or I'm going to load and shoulder mah trusty ole double-barrel and hunt for a 4-pound chunk of dead piggy in the wilds of our local supermarkets. And by double-barrel I did mean the Black Label.
A butternut squash's been sitting on our kitchen counter for a good while, begging to be processed. Let me assure you that it shall be heard, either in the form of a squash lasagna, which I know the kids will love, or, uh, just roasted.
I know for a fact that at least one of the kids is a Brussels sprouts fan, as are their mom and I, and those can't be made ahead--but they can be prepped to just be put together and served with pomegranate seeds a la Bobby Flay, which one of the kids can harvest.
Did I mention the mashed potatoes yet? Because if I didn't, they'll need to be made that very day, as well. I'll probably mix white and yams for that, since I really don't like anything candied on my sweet potatoes.
Or we could fill sweet potatoes with some cornbread-turkey-apple-raisin stuffing and just bake them, kind of like this. Ha! Turkey on Thanksgiving? Am I a genius or what?
Thank you, Pillsbury, for dinner rolls.

So, looks like the only "day of" dishes to make while the kids are around will be the Brussels sprouts, stuffed sweet potatoes, and the mashed potatoes, which I can also cube ahead of time. Gravy? Yeah, that. That may require a bit of additional thought. We've got two bottles of Martinelli's in the pantry, so that'll do. Then there's milk and water. Period.

This might just work, even if it means that I might have to pull TBIK away from his all-day football bonanza for a few minutes to supervise the little turkeys while I'm assembling, reheating, and setting the table, after we've returned from feeding the horses, donkeys, and the longhorn at our local animal park and said hi to the turkeys. And after we've spent the afternoon playing basketball and frolicking at our local playground.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this now, and to a day of R&R on Friday, on which I'll gear up for Little Miss Kickboxer's birthday bash preparations.

Are you tired, too?

Yuletide ADHD

2010-11-18T09:49:00.001-08:00

Ohmigosh, y'all, I'm all about Christmas these days, and it isn't even December yet! But this year is the first year in which Little Miss Kickboxer is really aware enough to know that something is going to happen in a few weeks. Heck, last November/ December, she wasn't even walking yet, and the whole Christmas tree and present thing? Let's just say that any and all wrapping paper made that morning for her. The doll? The wooden pull duck? Not so much. But paper, oh, the paper!

Enter my Christmas spirit, which you might also rename into "Yuletide ADHD."

This year, the ambitious plan is to do a Christmas activity once a day for the month of December (all you Holidailies people, rejoice!). This will include:

Singing German carols
Reading (and maybe memorizing) German poems--at least one little Christmas poem because Little Miss Kickboxer ROCKS at memorizing.
Using an advent calendar and learning how to count above 12 in German.
Making Salzteig ornaments.
Decorating paper stars.
Learning about Nikolaustag (unless stupid work has me travel to the East Coast for that week) and "shining" our shoes.
Trimming the tree.

And if we have enough time between now and December 1, we'll even make 24 nativity and -related figures ourselves (Salzteig, most likely) because a home-made advent calendar? WHOA, baby!

I'm also collecting German Christmas poems and trying to figure out how to print them on cardstock. After over a year of owning it, I might actually have to finally unpack our inkjet. Printing at home? Unanticipated luxury (especially considering the cost of replacement ink cartridges, ugh)!

Speaking of which, yesterday, I bought this, which you need, no NEED, in order to celebrate Christmas. Trust me, your Christmas will be fifty times as lovely. Here's the proof:

And here, too:

Are you crying? No? Because I am. With joyful anticipation.

The lair

2010-11-16T12:47:00.000-08:00

You know, we've got this huge house. Sort of. It's big downstairs but lacks two, if not three, sorely needed rooms upstairs. When I initially saw it, I fell in love with its open floor plan and the implicit promise of swanky cocktail parties and other social occassions.

In the 3 and a half years we've lived there, the following swanky parties have occurred:

*crickets*

Fine, add to that one afternoon blind wine tasting and the occassional visit from a friend or two.

Fact is, the place just isn't visitor-friendly. It's not even friendly. In fact, I'm somewhat embarrassed by the space.

Now, the frontroom is just fine, with a nice almost-white sofa and chair in front of the wall-covering bookcases full of books. The door to the patio is a little verklempt, but who cares because the first glance always goes towards the utterly cheapo vertical blinds. Only to wander over to the even utterlier cheapo-lier aluminum horizontal blinds. The only saving grace is the 90's almost-white laminate floor, which has so far withstood various attacks from tricycle-wheels and roll-arounds with much grace under pressure. And an area rug.

The problem is the "family room," really TBIK's TV room into which the piano migrated, right underneath the focal point of said room plus the dining room: The huge wall-mounted HD plasma-screen TV, TBIK's entire raison d'etre now that football season is back in swing. Across from the TV squats our $40 yard-sale couch, wrapped in a green cover, cutting diagonally across a windowed corner that we use for storage. Two square black pleather ottomans that function either as coffee tables, piano stools, or footrests complete the picture. Well, those and TBIK's two bookcases filled with DragonLance novels and high-school yearbooks that he desperately needs around "just incase" he decides to write the next Great Dragon Novel. The only saving grace? The red tile floor. The cold red tile floor, especially when it's cold. As in, you fall down and your behind freezes onto the floor. Brrrrrr. And did I mention that TBIK likes his shades closed and the room dark, for more TV contrast?

In other words: It's impossible to make music when the TV is on (which is almost always). The diagonal sofa uses up too much space. Toy and life detritus collects on the bookcases. And the big black TV looms over the space as if it's going to fall off the wall any moment. It's also angled such that you can't connect anything to its input ports, and I desperately want to hook up one of these. Playing the piano means constantly fighting the irrational fear that said glass and plasma may be going for my jugular if an earthquake ever shakes the house during a Chopin etude. One word? Oppressive. Looming. TBIK likes dragons, and this room still has the makings of a lair. Especially when Angelina Jolie flashes her nipples. And then I watch this and cry.

Fine, taking the TV off the wall and sticking it into an armoire isn't up for negotiation (especially since the extra piece of furniture would eliminate the room for the piano). So, to counteract its blackness with more room and light, and to give my short arms access to the two usually shaded corner windows, I've decided that the diagonal sofa's got to go in favor of, as Niecy Nash would say, "an L-shaped seating solution" that runs along the walls with the windows, allows you to sit closer by the fireplace (remember that it's cold downstairs, as in COOOOOOLLLLLLD?), ideally with a built-in sofa bed for visitors and an appropriate cat-hair compatible color. Along with that, the cheapo area rug must go in favor of a large off-white shag or flokati. And some actual lights which to turn on I won't have to crawl onto the couch each time. The behind-the-sofa storage? No longer needed because Pupselkind is all growed-up now. The fake ficus, left over from my old apartment? Donation material.

The only problem?

Money.

So, I've been trolling overstock.com and checking out the local Freecycle lists and ah, the furniture sales in our tiny town and, of course, the purveyor of cheap crap from China.

*sigh*

Mother-in-law is coming into town on December 5. Think Santa could maybe make an early effort, overnight, and throw in some extra housecleaning?

I thought so.

Rabimmel rabammel

2010-11-15T11:18:00.000-08:00

My goodness, what would you like to know about my weekend? I could write about:

How I changed my name to "Albertson's" and "baked" "homemade" cookies that tasted really homemade.
How I took two bellydancing classes on Saturday--one of which was a three-hour veil class and made my shoulders all big, green, and hulk-like. And pretty. Now, if I ever learn how to not tangle myself up in three yards of silk and avoid falling over looking like a mummy, uh, I think we can call this a success.
So far, we can't. Ahem.
How Pupselkind squealed when she realized that she can now blow out that paper-blowout-rollup-thingie that we got in someone's birthday treat bag last summer.
How I've been waking up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night EACH NIGHT panicking about nobody showing up to Little Miss Kickboxer's birthday bash at the local tumble gym.
How the house is clean after my date with a bottle of Mop-N-Shine.
How the ob who advertised VBAC support on his homepage doesn't really support VBAC. At least not if you haven't had a previous natural birth. So ... that three-hour round trip to the next county over? Pretty much useless. At least he assured me I didn't need a D&C after you-know-what.
How Friday the twelfth was the one-month anniversary of you-know-what.
How this pre-Christmas season is making me want to quit work and stay home to decorate little paper stars with Little Miss Kickboxer.
How homesick I am for Germany.

Instead, how about I tell you about last Thursday?

Huh? Thursday?

Yes. You see, Thursday was November 11. November 11 has a double meaning for us Germans. On the one hand, on 11/11 at 11:11, each kid in a German classroom (and some adults who've never grown up) will belt out "HELAU!!!!" or "ALAAF!" or whatever local saying to ring in the merry time of year. And I don't mean Christmas. No, this is the beginning of Fasching, Fassenacht, Karneval, whatever you name it. This is when the Fasching Guilds will start designing their floats for the parades in February or March; when the marching bands will start practicing; when the dancers will start choreographing their parade moves.

On the other hand, the Christmas season goes into full swing with the festival of St. Martin. If you've ever been to Kindergarten in Germany, you'll have spent at least a week crafting your little paper lantern--either with colorful crepe paper glued around a balloon (you pop the balloon later) or onto a cutoff clear soda bottle, or with a round cheese box, black carton, and colorful wax paper, or in many other ways. If you live in a country in which the real materials aren't easy to come by, you'll *cough* find the party supplies aisle in your local Dollar Store and spruce the made-in-China masterpiece up with some star, moon, and sun stickers or cutouts. Then you affix a stick to the lantern, stick a fake tea candle in, and off you go to join the other kids and parents on their walk around town. In the dusk, which is really, as Little Miss Kickboxer informed everybody, "NIGHTTIME!!!! NIGHTTIME!!! LOOKIT!!!! MOOOOOOOOOOOOND! LATERNE LATERNE!!!"

Before you take off to ~~set the neighborhood on fire~~ light up the night with your pretty latern, though, you make a circle with the other kids in the neighborhood and sing of how St. Martin (originally a Roman soldier who became Bishop of Tours in the 15th century) shared his warm cloak with a half-dead beggar by the roadside during a snowstorm and later on dreamt that that beggar was, in fact, Jesus who then told his angels: "Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptised; he has clothed me." (OK, fine, I stole that quote from Wikipedia). And you sing of your lantern and sun and moon and stars and "rabimmel rabammel rabumm bumm bumm." Gluehwein optional for the under-15 crowd, but definitely mandatory if you've been listening to "rabimmel rabammel rabumm bumm bumm" for the fiftieth time over a number of days. Rabimmel rabammel ...

So, here is the official video of the shindig, organized by a group of German moms in Santa Barbara. Little Miss Kickboxer in her thick pink jacket with the reflective stripes is certainly the star--look for us at 1:18, then from 2:04 to 2:24, then again from 2:34 (lower left-hand corner-ish) to 2:55.

Also, at the end of the walk, one of the moms distributed homemade "Weckmaenner," sweet bread rolls shaped into a gingerbread man form with raisin eyes and a white clay pipe in his mouth. Need I say that, by that time, I had sufficiently dissolved into tears?

Rabimmel, rabammel, rabumm bumm bumm!

It's alive

2010-11-10T14:42:00.001-08:00

Well, then. Call me a lazy mom with a clean freak streak (and I can prove to you that you're, ahem, wrong on that one), but, yes, in the end, we booked the kiddie gym. Now all I need to do is distribute invitations pronto, and we're good to go for Little Miss Kickboxer's Second Birthday shindig which, I pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (and the $150 we're going to shell out), will be unforgettable.

What I really wanted for her? A small party at home, with 5 or 6 kids, a crafts table, games, and a pinata.

Ah well. Next year, maybe.

Because this year? I'll tell you what's going to happen this year. I am so going to find me a new job. Remember the tales about "dear" colleague Jerkface and his aspirations towards world domination? Well, turns out that, even before interviews for our departmental management position have even started, his name is already on the department plaque in the boardroom. Does that surprise me? Heck no, and here's why:

He's a guy. Guys get promoted in this industry; women don't.
Because all the senior management people are--you guessed it--guys.
Guys have urinal conversations with other guys about, you know, them b*tches.
This is the government contracting industry, and we're not talking small, woman-owned business. We're talking billions of dollars, multi-tiered executive management structures, presidents, vice presidents, that kind of stuff.

Want more proof? Check out this class-action lawsuit against one of the big players in the field. Or this one. Or this one. And just incase you're more of a race relations geek, I've got this one for you. And incase you want to see them all, look here.

Still not convinced? Well, then I can't help you, either. But it's gotta be nice and warm under that rock, right?

Social commitments

2010-11-09T13:49:00.001-08:00

Being a Project Manager is coming in handy--not professionally, mind you, since, just like Space Cadet Central, The New Company, too, prefers tall ladies under 40 with long, straight hair and not too much on the resume for their schedule-tracking and customer-interfacing needs (the "real men" do the rest, you know)--but for planning Little Miss Kickboxer's Second Birthday Party.

Yes, the angelchild is turning 2. And there obviously needs to be a party, since we've already been to another child's 1-year party. Which is, exactly, where the problem lies. Well, that and the fact that the party will obviously be in December, the first weekend in December, to be exact, on a Saturday afternoon, after nap time. But let's step through this one by one, shall we?

Did I mention December? Which, hell to the no!, means that, while I'd love to just let the kids loose on our community playground, on a rented bouncehouse, with the adults hanging out in the adjacent gazebo, I will also have to plan for indoor activities because December could, after all, mean rain, mud, puddles, and the hiring of Merry Maids for the post-party cleanup, because you know who arrives the next day? Mother in Law, with stepdaughter in tow.

Yes, that date was well-chosen, wasn't it? Pardon me as I wipe my tears off the mousepad.

So, the biggest driver for any plans will obviously be the weather. If it doesn't rain on December 4, we will go to the park, if only to restrict the chaos in the house to the entryway and the downstairs bathroom. Chuck, purveyor of local bouncehouse elegance from dinosaurs to Tigger, Dora, and Spongebob (ick!), needs only a week of lead time, as does our HOA park, charges $75 to $80 for "the duration of the party," and has set up his jumping extravaganzas in said park many times. Add to that the cost of cupcakes, fruit kabobs, a large bowl of hummus or homemade ranch dressing with various dipping options, and a big lasagna, and we'll be running at about $150 for ...

Yeah, that's the next riddle. Because, you see, the weather determines the location--which, in turn, determines the guest list. And did I mention that we've been to another child's 1-year-party before? Ha!

A week ago, I had a friend's three kids over for a couple of hours. Three extremely well-behaved kids, aged almost-3 to 6, whose interests ranged from PlayDoh to Legos and, yes, Little Miss Kickboxer's drumset. And the chaos and noise drove TBIK, who likes his evenings to consist of online poker and football on the big screen TV, batty. Fine, he suffered in silence, but afterwards asked whether "having friends over" would have to occur more than once a month. Because otherwise, we might consider outfitting his office in Santa Barbara with another big-screen TV, a cot, and a direct-line telephone to Domino's.

I've already invited those same three kids, by the way.

Which is where the "social commitments" thing kicks in, and if you tell me that your toddler doesn't have any of those, I'm going to call your bluff. You see, we went to that little boy's First Birthday Party earlier this year. His mom had rented a community room for that purpose and invited all the kids from Little Miss Kickboxer's daycare--because she's Miss J, the daycare provider, and she rocks. Countless tiny humans? No problem. Give them punch and let them run loose. Miss J. has three kids, whom Little Miss Kickboxer really really likes. Her "helper," sister-in-law, and permanent sidekick, Miss T., has three very active young boys herself (Did I mention very active?) (Because I mean it.) (As in, "remove your valuables from your shelves" kind of active). Now, I can't invite Miss J. and her kids without inviting Miss T. and her kids, whose energy may just make our home go up in flames. Then, of course, we're looking at two sweet girls from the daycare whose mom I also know from church, plus another friend's very low-key two boys, and we're up to thirteen. Needless to say that both of the girls and one of the boys also attend the daycare.

Let's let that sink in for a moment. THIR. TEEN. KIDS. UNDER SEVEN.

In the park? No problem. Bouncehouse, basketball hoop, maybe one or two outdoor games, and done. For about $150.

In the house? Kill me now, please. We don't even have video games, and if we did, can you imagine the hullaballoo about the controllers?

So, just incase, I'm checking into other options. Our local tumble gym charges $130 for one-and-a-half hours for 10 people (including favors), plus $5 for each additional ~~person~~kid, which, given that we have 14 children, brings the total cost up to $150 plus food (ok, a big batch of cupcakes is going to set me back about $5, plus about $5 for a pasta bake for the rest of us). Since entertainment and favors etc. are included, the whole thing may come out to about the same as the outdoor shindig. Our local PlayPlace McDonalds is ... just out of the question (major ICK!!!!), as is our local Roundtable Pizza because, yeah, ICK!!!! If our community had a club house, that problem would be solved, but nuh-uh. Not so.

Or maybe we can also just eat what's on our plates until then. What do you think?

The email that made my weekend

2010-11-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, so I'm posting one of those chain letters, but only because it's too good not to share. Ha!

Secession

Dear Red States,

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New York, and all of the Northeastern states. After this election, we'll be adding Colorado and New Mexico. We believe this split will be beneficial to the
nation, especially to the people of our new country - Nuevo California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states; we get stem cell research, the best beaches, and the best ski resorts. We get the Statue of Liberty; you get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft; you get WorldCom. We get Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cal Tech, MIT and Columbia; you get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs; you
get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than that of the Christian Coalition, we get a bunch of happy families and you get a bunch of under-educated single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we'll need all of our citizens back from Iraq at once.

If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They apparently have kids they're willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't mind if you don't televise their kid's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq and hope that those Weapons of Mass Destruction turn up for you, but we're not willing to spend any more of our money in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States, we will control 80 percent of the country's fresh water, 90 percent of pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 97 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at your state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, and all the Ivy
League and Seven Sister schools. We also get New England, the Great Lakes and Yosemite, thank you very much.

In the Red States, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, 100 percent of tornadoes, 94 percent of hurricanes, 99 percent of Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, and Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bob Jones University, and Clemson.

Additionally, in the Red States, 38 percent actually believe Jonah was swallowed by a whale; 62 percent believe life is sacred unless it involves the death penalty or gun ownership; 44 percent claim that evolution is only a theory; 53 percent insist that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11; and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you have higher moral standards than those of us on the left.

By the way, we're taking all the good pot, too. You get that dirt weed from Mexico and Kansas ditches.

The Blue States

No idea who the original author is. If you know, please post the name in the comments, so I can attribute this gem to the rightful genius who wrote it.

Fallout

2010-11-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

So, the fallout from Tuesday's election. Hoo boy. Not looking forward to the hullaballoo by a few old white men and church ladies to roll back the Health Care Reform, Wall Street Reform, and you know, other lovely things like net neutrality, DADT, and the like.

Some folks, though, got what they wanted. This was one of the main intersections in our town about two weeks ago:

Yeah, that. How can you argue with such people?

Moral requirements

2010-11-04T13:10:00.001-07:00

This morning, I just about had a heart attack when TBIK informed me that not only is he going to spend the equivalent of a mid-size car on putting himself through a fellowship program to help his career, but that said fellowship program would also remove him from home for "oh, 2-3 weeks about 5 or 6 times a year."

Um. What?

After some right-sizing of his ego in the form of "so, you're going to be gone 2-3 weeks at a stretch, and if anything happens to me, Little Miss Kickboxer can go suck it or what?", the whole thing turned into three 5-day trips and two 3-day trips and a few webinars over the course of 18 months (amazing what reading the small print can do!). And the midsize car.

Fine. Our value system is okay with spending on educational must-haves (and driving our fully-paid cars a few years longer), and my next graduate degree is going to be sometime down the road, so who am I to complain about the money? Although, wow. Midsize car.

But what this has really shown me is that we live in a vacuum, out here in California, without any social safety net. TBIK isn't exactly into making (or maintaining) friends, and I work, play with Little Miss Kickboxer, and work, and sometimes, go to the gym, where I exercise with some lovely graduate-educated menopausal ladies who thank their lucky stars that they haven't ruined their svelte high-tech bodies with pregnancy. TBIK's nearest family lives in Texas, and then in Illinois. So, the local "village," you know, the support network of mothers, MILs, sisters, aunts, cousins, and other folks morally required to drop everything and stand by your side, that a lot of single moms can often rely on? Nonexistent.

And given that TBIK works about 50 miles away and takes the bus to work (so he can't simply come home if anything's wrong with Little Miss Kickboxer or I have an emergency doctor's appointment or whatnot), I find myself in mini single-mom mode every day. So, I'm realizing, again, the necessity of circling the wagons. My strongest ally, and the relationship I am committed to nurturing above all else, is that with Little Miss Kickboxer's daycare ladies. They're a fabulous bunch with a truckload of children of their own between themselves, and they try to help out where they can. Our formerly reliable babysitter has ditched us in favor of working for Walmart (more steady employment there, I suppose), and I'm hoping another friend of mine, for whom I'm currently doing a lot of legwork, may offer to help out when needed and not interfering with her whacky work schedule. I've joined a bimonthly evening mom's group at church, which turned out to be mostly a tightly-knit Avon- and Pampered-Chef-loving crowd of twentysomething military SAHMs, and by golly, I don't even remember all their names (Ashely, Ashley, Madelyn, Ashli, Britney, Brittany, LaAshlia, perhaps?). UGH.

It's hard to find, and to participate in, mom's communities out here, in rural Central California. Add to that my pinko-commie feminist tendencies, and double ugh.

So, I spent the day thinking about what it would take to move to Texas (a job for TBIK, which, honestly, is not going to happen) or to Illinois (a job for TBIK, which, honestly, is not going to happen), just to have a local safety net of family who is morally required to step in incase anything happens. Heck, I'd even move to Germany (if it weren't for TBIK's job situation) to be closer to a friend who I *know* would care for Little Miss Kickboxer, no questions asked, if I ended up the hospital or had a car accident.

But we're obviously stuck here, in a town that's either bible-thumping military or a tightly knit Latino community. And no, I'm not bitter (not even after trying to get out of this intellectual hellhole for the past seven years (in vain, obviously)); I'm realizing the challenges of this situation just one more time, and the thin ice on which we are skating.

My worst nightmare? TBIK being off at a conference, I'm in the hospital after a car accident, and Little Miss Kickboxer ends up in foster care because the daycare ladies have their hands too full.

Call me a utilitarian and opportunistic b*tch, but something has to be said in favor of family and moral requirements.

Thankful

2010-11-03T13:14:00.001-07:00

Ah, fine, then. NaBloPoMo or not (hint: NaBloPoMo), it's not like I have nothing to complain about today.

Um.

Like, uh, this in the face of this, and other news like that. But you know what? Looks like the Blue Dogs, you know, the ones who flew their Democrat flag when convenient, but flapped their, uh, tails just a tad too right of the middle when the heat was on, are gone. Which, hopefully, paves the way for a more aggressive progressive left during the next federal elections. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

But then, I did get the governor I voted for, a guy who won't finance his Cubans with State taxes and who actually cares about education, and the Lt. Governor I voted for, and the environmentalist inside me is dancing a jig at the defeat of valero- and Koch-sponsored Prop. 23. So, all is not lost, at least on the State level. Even though I'll admit that just the thought of my past and future Congressional representation has me gag. It's the price to pay, I suppose, when you have a brain.

Speaking of which, though, last night, we hosted a friend's three kids (aged 6, 4, and 3) for din-din. In my infinite wisdom, I'd thrown together and pre-baked a pasta bake (you know me: organic whole-wheat pasta, ground turkey, organic this that and the other, then mix with cheese) the night before, for immediate reheating purposes when needed, and, all of a sudden, found myself sitting around our kitchen table with TBIK and four kids happily devouring a good, warm meal, with a side of good (organic) cool milk. All Norman Rockwell-like. If you discount the fact that our three little enthusiastic visitors were going to return to their reality of a nasty nasty divorce-cum-custody situation later that evening, with much desperate love for them and much exasperation and hatred between their parents. And very little money.

Honestly, as much as I didn't enjoy digging bits of playdough out of my $20 rug afterwards, I secretly wanted to keep those three, put them to bed, and sing them German lullabies to let them know they're loved and safe. Even if the world is disorienting to them right now, and they feel like they're being shoved back and forth between homes, daycares, and friends' houses, they're very much loved. And always remember to wash their hands after using the bathroom. Ahem.

When the hordes had been picked up, and I spent the last 30 minutes of my day pre-cooking Little Miss Kickboxer's breakfast, I couldn't help but vowing to myself that I would never ever allow Little Miss Kickboxer to be put into the role of pawn in a divorce. I looked around my kitchen, the big, open downstairs with its assorted toys, the backyard with the sandbox and the little climbing structure, and imagined how many under-fives must be going to sleep worrying if they'll ever see their mom or their dad again, and how such existential worry must consume their entire beings. Then I walked upstairs to listen to Little Miss Kickboxer snoring for a while in her new big-girl bed.

I was thankful for the opportunity to give the three little ones at least a few moments of "family time." And to be able to, for one evening, have a big family at my dinner table.

Catch-All Catch-Up

2010-11-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

So, wait! It's November already? Eeeeek. Not only because, hello NaBloPoMo, I wish I wish I could ... or maybe I can? Or maybe I shouldn't? Or should? Whatever.

And just because, here's a list to catch all two or three of you up:

I am back among the living. Almost, that is. Don't ask what kind of bug has been taking residence in my body since last Wednesday, just celebrate the fact that a. the fever is gone, and b. the feeling that my brain is pushing out of my skull is not waking me up at night any more. Hey, I'll happily take that sound in my ears and the fatigue, as long as you don't make me revisit my dinners any more (that spinach quiche tastes so much better going down that it did coming up, dudes!).
Which is why I'm going to see the doctor today. Well, that and, you know, the other thing.
A few days in Monterey. As evidenced by Little Miss Kickboxer's wet t-shirts--and by many many scared starfish in the Aquarium's touch pools. I hereby apologize to the marine community for my daughter's aquatic enthusiasm. But only a little. Do they make Prozac for sea life?
Halloween? OMG. I've been to more Halloween parties last weekend (see bullet #1) than I've been in my entire life before then. Shall we start with Little Miss Kickboxer's fantastic daycare "party," in which myriads of under-fives coagulated in various representations of the bug world? Including a werewolf "bug," a ninja "bug," numerous butterflies, bumble bees and ladybugs? You get the point. The Cute, oh, the Cute! And my potlucked spinach quiche (see bullet #1)!
Harvest Party at church--no, not some cheesy little affair, but oh man, the annual block party, with about 4,000 people, pony rides, bounce houses ("bauhaus, mama, bauhaus!"), 50 or so game things for under-fives and over-fives, costume contests, and a professional bluegrass band. Little Miss Kickboxer hit the dancefloor. Hard. With her newfound BBF, a 6-foot-tall guy in a 7-foot-tall bear costume. I kid you not. Watch for the video.
Also: If you don't vote today, you're helping a Tea Partier kill a kitten. So, get off your fanny and get to it. AND if you're in California and need some help, here ya go:

Governor: Jerry Brown
US Senator: Barbara Boxer
Lt. Governor: Gavin Newsom
Attorney General: Kamala Harris
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer
Controller: John Chiang
Insurance Commissioner: Dave Jones
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tom Torlakson
State Supreme Court retention - Carlos Moreno: YES

Now for the Props. Some are easy enough, but don't be fooled by others.

Prop 19: YES
Prop 20: NO
Prop 21: YES
Prop 22: no recommendation
Prop 23: NO By now you should know the story here. Texas oil companies and the notorious Koch Brothers are funding this proposition.
Prop 25: YES
Prop 26: NO
Prop 27: YES

SAVE THE KITTENS! VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

And that should just about catch you up.

Crusty

2010-10-21T07:07:00.001-07:00

So, yesterday, I started looking for a job again--which is ironic because, a year ago, I had just interviewed for this one, been promised the stars in the sky, and received the call (on October 23) with the initial offer. Yes, while we were on vacation in Monterey, as we will be this year again. 2009 redux, so to say, just without the disastrous work atmosphere and the daily anguish that had made Space Cadet Central so unbearable. And yet, this year's situation has left me with a big egg on my disappointed forehead, thanks to variations of the glass ceiling I keep running into.

Now, part of that is my own fault. My former mentor, the one and only West Coast ueberboss, who moved on to greener pastures about 6 months ago, had already warned me: There is no rhyme or reason why strategic management positions should be located in the East Coast office, especially since the customer is located in Los Angeles. As I showed in a visit to said customer on Monday, and proven by subsequent emails from this customer to senior management, I ROCK the relationship building, the needs assessment, the placating, the fixing of miscommunications, the we're-so-excited-that-we-get-to-work-on-this-together-and-oh-you-want-to-do-some-more-math?-SURE thing. Add to that the fact that, despite my overweight, I still clean up nicely, and that I always know what I'm talking about, and the questions kept pouring in as to whether I'll be moving into my boss's spot. Not just from random colleagues in the hallway, but even from my boss, who had already started setting me up for this and asked about my level of interest. Before the Big Kahuna determined that, no, this position must be located on the East Coast office because he can't be bothered to dial a different area code. Pouf! Pfffffffffffffffffffffffff!

Move to Florida? Over my dead body. Not even if they offered me six figures.

You see, not only did I not gather many favorable impressions of the Florida coast and its inhabitants first-hand a few years ago, but TBIK's job and very limited academic career niche pretty much determines where we end up. Most people in the aerospace and defense industry don't understand this lack of geographical mobility, since they usually move around between Florida, DC, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and California, depending on where their company's contracts place them. In other words, being able to pack up and leave with a month's notice is almost something like a requirement if you want to stay with one and the same company and earn your pension and your 25-year pin. After all, we're looking at an environment often run by former military types who retired in the Seventies or Eighties. *Cough cough* Before the internet. *Cough cough.*

So, yes. BOING! Geographical glass ceiling. Ouch.

And to add injury to insult, my application for an entry-level (!) project management job was turned down, too, in favor of an administrator who had already been helping that department out. Now, I'm all for stepping back when it comes to promoting folks with the right qualifications, but, wish I had known about the inside-job-ness of this earlier. So, that was the final straw.

Luckily, it's almost November again, which means the financial year is at its end and companies are planning for the next year, so this is a good time to rev up the old jobsearch engine. Seriously, let's hope that there's some meat to the "economic recovery" thing and that the search turns up something viable and less crusty outside the aerospace industry.

In which I ramble on and on and on

2010-10-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

Would I sound like a broken record if I told you I'm really really tired? And that I can't imagine anything better than curling up on a big pillow with Little Miss Kickboxer and her soft little cheeks and The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

Gosh, yeah, whine whine whine, I know. There are 4-year-olds in Kahunistan who work 800 hours a week, get 30 minutes of sleep at night, and still are next in line for the Nobel Prize in Physics, all that while living on a diet of potato peels and cheap vodka. I know.

In other news, interesting things are happening at work. Our department manager is leaving to head up another department. You already know about fabulous colleague Jerkface who is always eager to get some "facetime" with the boys from upper management, and since the headquarters is on the East Coast, as is he, chances are that the succession deal may already be sealed. If there weren't, uh, yours truly, who actually knows what she's talking about when she opens her mouth. And charms some previously unruly customer-ish types into submission, as evidenced yesterday during a gruelling 4-hour meeting for which a shirt collar actually had to be ironed. Be that as it may, there is a good chance that he may become the new boss next month. In which case, and provided that the other internal job she applied for doesn't come through, yours truly is seriously considering voting with her feet. Perhaps, in workplace lingo, "removing a source of major aggravation may prove beneficial to uterine performance." As for the rest, "goto line 1."

Don't you miss Basic sometimes, too?

Ahem.

Morgue

2010-10-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

I left my youngest child at home today, a 7-week-old clump of tissue about the size of a small cotton ball, now safely nestled into a babywipe and a plastic bag and resting in our refrigerator, which has suddenly turned into a morgue.

At least the cramping and bleeding have stopped. The grieving and healing can now begin.

I wish we had had a chance to get to know him or her.

The other 50 percent

2010-10-13T06:07:00.000-07:00

I got home from the emergency room around 9:15 last night, just in time to catch the last part of The Biggest Loser, which, I'll admit, I watch almost as religiously as Grey's Anatomy. Yes, I know. I'm weird that way.

Oh, that emergency room bit? Yeah, that.

We now turn to girl talk. Feel free to visit the kittens if you're squeamish.

Remember what I wrote in the last post about not exactly feeling pregnant, despite the persistent two lines?

Yesterday afternoon, things in my nether regions started going south. I noticed some strange cramping, which I remember from Little Miss Kickboxer's earliest days of kicking my uterus into the shape she needed it to be. So, I chalked it up to "hey, things are growing down there!" Until I went to the bathroom and noticed the blood.

After work, I tried to call the "Cadillac" ob's office 90 minutes away and realized while on hold that I'd never make it there in time for an evaluation. Plus, hello!, Little Miss Kickboxer needed to be picked up from daycare and someone was coming over to pick up some craigslist things and maybemaybemaybe this is just a fluke and will go away once I'm home.

If I close my eyes and pretend this isn't happening, it's not happening, right?

Once TBIK got home, I had already let Little Miss Kickboxer and her mad small motor skillz loose on her lacing beads and googled "first trimester bleeding." Five minutes later, I was on my way to the emergency room of our shiny new cut-once-cut-again local hospital.

After a few hours and blood tests and through-the-roof blood pressure measurements, it's looking like my current hormone levels won't allow this baby to stick. Heck, the HCG levels was so low that the ER ob/gyn didn't even think Squirmy merited an ultrasound. I drove home with a sheet outlining instructions of how to collect any tissue or tissue-ish clots.

Then I watched the rest of The Biggest Loser. Numbers and percentages always give me solace, somehow. They're a pretense of fact, a description of some law of nature or logic that governs our existence. I knew going into this that, once the likelihood of actually getting pregnant at my methuselahic age had turned in our favor (yes, there's an algorithm for that), the chance of staying pregnant is about 50%. Of course, then, it never occurred to me, the eternal optimist, that the other 50% were actually a realistic part of the equation. Today's plan will be to find an ob who'll do an ultrasound to confirm or deny miscarriage. And to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

El Segundo

2010-10-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

So, I've pretty much settled for working until the "bitter" end--that is, if Squirmy decided to hang in there. I also keep peeing on new sticks because, uh, I don't feel pregnant. No nausea, no heartburn, no vomiting, no aversions to Chinese food, not even the absolutely debilitating fatigue I had with Little Miss Kickboxer. Nothing apart from the occassional something-is-growing-within uterine cramping. And no "ohshitimpreggerswhatdoidonow???!?1?1?!!!11" panic.

So far, everything's very different from two-and-a-half years ago, probably also because 1. I actually live at home, rather than commuting to the Bay Area and back every week and 2. Little Miss Kickboxer keeps my maternal hormones flowing freely. Let's also not forget that, this time around, we'll only need to replace a few items that I've already sold or given away, two of which (an almost-new car seat and a unisex bouncer) have already found their way into our home again. All I'll have to find is another car seat base and a sit-and-stand stroller, and we're golden. If Squirmy won't mind wearing all those pink ruffles Little Miss Kickboxer has long outgrown, that is. And if Squirmy decides to be a boy, we're already on a couple of other boys' moms' handdown lists. I'd say, stuff-wise we're covered.

That last one, the "other moms" thing, represents the most important change from the previous pregnancy. I've learned the hard way that moms need moms--not necessarily their own ones (heck, my Mom wouldn't be much help, let me tell you), but mom friends or a mom community within which all sorts of baby things, experiences, and advice are traded. Raising a baby truly does take a village, and as helpful as websites and mommyblogs are, they can't come over and hold your little screamer when you really really want to take a crap in privacy. They also can't come over and watch your oldest when you're in the hospital giving birth to your youngest.

Ahem.

That right there is my biggest worry right now: That nine months down the road, we may not have anyone to take care of, hug, and cuddle Little Miss Kickboxer as Squirmy makes "hir" (sheesh, how much more feminist-speaky does it get???) appearance. That there will be another c-section and I'll be drugged up and out of commission for the recovery period. That TBIK and my angelchild's daycare provider, who are currently the only local support network, will get sick, have a heart attack, or be in a car accident. That my lovely Big Girl will be roaming the streets at night crying for someone to give her cheese and read her Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and help her find her blankie, only that she'll call it "Decke," and nobody will know what she means ...

Maybe I'm still traumatized by Elmo. Maybe I'm also realizing that our local network is really just a gossamer web and requires some serious work. And I mean "serious" in the way of throwing parties and playdates before we have to bust the doorways for my feet to fit through.

Now, nobody ever said that being pregnant was easy, right? Here I'll be, sacrificing my youngest's health to chocolate cupcakes and steak dinners.

Walking away

2010-10-08T11:44:00.001-07:00

So, yesterday, I stumbled upon this new blog (which, apparently, has already gone viral in its short life--only, also apparently, not so much in my sheltered neck of the internet, but whatever). And honestly, the writing is amazing. No matter whether the author himself is simply too good to be real, or whether he actually exists (or I'm just too jaded, thankyouverymuch, internets!), I'm finding his narrative about himself and his 2-year-old adopted son intriguing. Put that together with one of my other favorite blogs at this time, Eventual Millionaire, and you've got a composite persona who walked away from an executive job because he felt he couldn't make a difference and who's set up a successful home business in which she can determine her own hours and take care of her children in a way she feels is appropriate to their needs--and make her first million on the side (which includes savings through clever budgeting).

Sound good?

It does to me. With Squirmy so far sticking it out in my uterus, I'm staring down the abyss of work-life-balance decision-making again. In my current work situation that's, to put it mildly, annoying about 90% of the time. But then, this job was supposed to last until the end of November, anyway, right? One year, to put the whole Space Cadet Central debacle behind me and then move on to something that really meant something to the rest of the world, like saving the whales, heading up the Next Great American Alternative Energy Startup, that kind of thing. And finally drive into the sunset in my Tesla.

More than once have I been tempted to simply walk away from this job here at The New Company, not only because the position itself turned out to be pretty much the exact opposite from what I was interviewed for: Innovation, change, improvement, all that. Instead, the bicoastalness of this program isn't doing itself any favors, and since all the "important" people (and those who deem themselves such) are located on the East Coast, I might as well have talked to the Great Wall of Dismissiveness in my first 10 months. And then I simply stopped talking. And nobody noticed. So, now I'm coasting on autopilot again, doing my routine work that really doesn't require any education in anything in particular (beyond reading and writing, that is), and doing the military "yessirthankyousir" thing, and everybody is happy. Well, everybody save that one or two colleagues who won't forgive me for being assigned the one or other customer-front briefing. Via telecon, of course. And me. Heck, I have never even met my boss in person.

So, two-and-a-half weeks ago, I interviewed for an internal opening that would allow me to do a little bit more of the organizing, pulling together, and kicking butt that my inner project manager has wanted to do for the past few years. My PMP, industry experience, and track record would have made me a shoo-in in any conventional business, but since there's been no communication at all after the interview, I can probably assume that this job went to someone politically more useful ~~at the 18th hole~~. So ... I should be putting my feelers out again, right? Or even strike out on my own, with the kickass business plan I have in my head, right?

Right. And wrong. You see, there's the issue of Squirmy. And there's the issue of maternity leave legislation. FMLA rules state that, to be eligible, you have to have worked more than 12 months for the same employer, which I would have for The New Company by the end of next month. If Squirmy decided to join us "on the outside," that would happen next summer--too quick to qualify for FMLA in any follow-on position.

Why is this so important? Ha, let me tell you: Health insurance. Not that TBIK doesn't have health insurance; he does. We do, actually, through his plan and through mine. However, his health insurance covers only providers and hospitals in this county--and those providers and hospitals are firm on their "cut once, cut again" delivery policy. My (hideously expensive) PPO covers the luxury of obtaining prenatal care 90 minutes away, in the neighboring county, with the only physician and hospital following the ACOG guidelines regarding VBAC. Given the national average of a 75% VBAC success rate after a single previous Cesarean delivery, I'll consequently be paying through the nose for the privilege of a 25% vs. a 100% re-cut probability, including all the risks associated with the latter such as hemorrhage, staph infection, cuts to the baby, all that. Yeah, so, nobody ever said that risk reduction is cheap. In this case, factor in, too, the opportunity cost of gritting my teeth through this job for 9 more months, should Squirmy really become a reality. Which, of course, we won't know for a long time to come.

Squirmy aside, though, the first paragraph raises another important issue: Not everybody can afford to simply walk away. If you're single and walk away from an executive job, such as the first example in the introductory paragraph, you'll most likely have more than enough savings and stock in place to tide you and your kid over until you've realized your next money-making venture. If you walk away from a regular daytime job as in the second example, you're most likely married to someone who still generates some sort of income. Walking away, in other words, is a question of affordability, lifestyle, financial commitments, and probably more.

Which doesn't mean that I can't still dream about walking away, right here, right now.

Gender confusion

2010-10-04T11:13:00.001-07:00

"You're kidding, right?"

That's what I said to a close friend who, last week, whispered to me over the telephone that she thought this next baby would be a boy.

Let's have that sink in for a moment:

A. BOY.

Fine, until now I haven't been sick yet. And just in case, I've already stocked up on the Tabasco and the salsa and liberated the half-full bottle of Tums from its dusty existence in the back of our medicine cabinet. I've been tired, but more from the reduction of caffeine in my system than from, you know, the making of a full human. And since we're officially over a week "over," with three confirmed pee sticks on two different days, and with the Good Hair Days already starting (ha!), yours truly done got herself 'ficially knocked up.

But you knew that already, right?

A boy?

Pffffft.

Seriously, I'd have no idea what to do with a boy.

I made a mental list this weekend of reusable things I still have from Little Miss Kickboxer's infant days, such as my two favorite slings, the co-sleeper, umpteen blankets, the Boppy with both covers, and all of her clothes. In a fit of cleaning madness, I had already sold her gDiapers, the two infant swings, the infant car seats, the bouncer, and the Bumbo seat. I then realized that we even still have an old crib in some sort of storage unit, behind TBIK's far-too-many dragons. And the dark blue Pack-N-Play with the Noah's Ark animals. And the green Miracle Wrap. So, all we'd need is a new car seat, a Sit-and-Stand stroller, a ...

Wait! A BOY?

What the heck would I do with a boy? Take him fishing, when all I'd do is get tangled in the line and quite unceremonially plop into the tiny lake of our local park? Take him skydiving? Martial arts classes? What would he wear? Do real men really wear pink? Because, you know, I still have a lot of pink ruffly things that people gave us for Little Miss Kickboxer. And the hairbands with the little bows that she never wore.

The truth is, Little Miss Kickboxer is far more interested in snips and snails and puppydog tails than sugar and spice. She isn't afraid of dumping a whole bucket full of water on herself and then go sit in her sandbox to hide her feet and hands and construct crabs and fishies around her muddy-fingered self. She doesn't mind if a bug lands on her hair or a rock flies far away. Our social orange cat remains well-kissed, hugged, brushed, and tail-pulled in her presence, and ever since she discovered how to open the drawer with the Pounce treats, also too well-fed. In her dress-up corner, she's got hats for a pirate, a construction worker, a jungle researcher, and a firefighter--and, for good measure, a pair of purple fairy wings with a starry wand (but no tiara!). The latter doesn't get much of a workout; however, the pirate hat? ARRRRRRRR!

No wonder that she prefers her teddy bear and her blanket to any of her two dolls. She's got a thing for animals, that one. And for the baby broccoli that's growing in our flowerbed.

This one here? Yeah yeah, I know, it's waaaaaay too early to speculate. I mean, first comes the appointment at the end of this month, where we'll see whether this is just my hormones gone funkily awry on the pee sticks, and whether there's an actual beating heart on the ultrasound. Then comes the next hurdle--the one at 20 weeks, where results from the amnio will determine whether my ancient "girls" and TBIK's ice-age "boys" have actually put together a biologically and socially viable human. Oh, and then, of course, the whole rigamarole about actually being allowed to try and push a watermelon out of my hoo-ha, because the local hospital? No VBAC. Once city over, in Strip Mallorama? No VBAC. The hospital in which Little Miss Kickboxer was born, 60 minutes away? No VBAC. Turns out that we'll have to drive 75-90 minutes north if we want to try to avoid another major abdominal surgery for yours truly. Did I mention that there are also only ONE doctor and ONE hospital in a 100-mile radius who practices VBAC, despite the new ACOG guidelines? Nothing speaks louder than Malpractice Insurance rates, obviously.

So, before we actually get to make the list of names (you know, Kaiden, Aiden, Brayden, Jayden, Connor, Trevor, Paxson, Peyton, Maxwell, Jackson, Dylan, Hayden ... ugh, obviously ABSOLUTELY none of the above, even though, hey, they rhyme!), and dig through Little Miss Kickboxer's tubs for the unisex onesies, there's still a long way ahead of us. So to say.

My gosh, what if it's twins? Or triplets?

Or just what, based on past history, it's really going to be: Another sweet little delicate broccoli-and-cats loving girl?

On the other hand, "Sean Alexander" wouldn't be too bad, would it?

In my darkest heart of hearts

2010-09-29T16:24:00.001-07:00

You know, I should care more about politics this time around. I mean, our local teabaggin' crowd has placed itself at the main intersection in town again, with American flags, American flag t-shirts, American flag boxershorts, or bikinis, and all the smug- and righteousness that only, well, you know, *good patriots* (ahem) can genuinely display. They've recycled their signs from earlier "stand-ins," like the "Go to hell Obamacare" or "It's no longer the WHITE House" or "Hitler was a Socialist, too" gigs (yes, I know), and I'm still waiting to see Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck portraits rise above the masses like a stinky mushroom cloud over, well, stink.

But I wish I could care more this time around. Somehow, the outrageous stupidity doesn't really outrage me that much any more--I suppose, given the persistence of ignorance and anti-intellectualism in the Teaparty crowd (which, at least in our little town, naturally intersects with the town ~~fools~~ Republicans to about, oh, 95%), the bar of riling potential has moved to a new low. When I drive past them, I might smirk sadly, maybe even muster the beginnings of a head shake, but that really covers all the political energy that I want to invest here.

Kind of.

And I feel a little bit dirty when I admit that, sometimes, I like to imagine what would happen to that otherwise lovely grandma with the white curls, or the grandpa with the old Marines cap in his PowerScooter when a new Republican administration takes away their Medicare or VA benefits, closes their grandkids' schools, sets the trend for 200% tuition hikes at our colleges and universities, and closes the senior center. I imagine them shushing their gay grandson into drug abuse and eventually suicide because DADT has been expanded beyond the military, and trying to decide between footing their own bill for a new colostomy bag and sending their pregnant teenage granddaughter to Sweden for an abortion. All that while they put together applications as Walmart greeters because, hello! privatized Social Security!, and harvest their own strawberries because $8 a pound at the market? Yeah, that.

Honestly, I wish they made a Big Brother-style enclave just for teabaggers, and the only exit to reality would be through a defilee of sweaty migrant fieldworkers, pregnant military teenage moms with babies in stinky diapers, a couple of gay airmen kissing, and some CTA representatives. Fine, add some firefighters and police, and maybe local librarians, for good measure, too. Give them a good dose of their own medicine.

I know. I'm evil and probably beyond all hope.

Who knows? Maybe I need my own portion of reality dumped over my head like a chamber pot in the Middle Ages. After all, as one of the semi-professional Left ingrates, I won't be sold on any Healthcare Act that omits a public option, and I was certainly hoping that *someone* in the White House would have enough cajones to sign executive orders to lift DADT immediately, put Joe Arpaio in his own prison, and close Gitmo for good. So, pardon me if I don't jump to the forefront of this election season with my "follow the donkey" dance, especially considering its long trail of political manure. Whatever.

Salsa Days are back

2010-09-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

Last night, I suddenly couldn't live without Salsa. Not just any salsa, mind you, but the homemade salsa from our favorite Mexican hole-in-the-wall here in Prisontown. So, TBIK, knowing that I wouldn't stop talking about said condiment, rushed over to the restaurant. When he walked through the door, big tub in hand, Little Miss Kickboxer ran up to him as quickly as her fat little legs would carry her, exclaiming happily "SALSA! SALSAAAAAAA!" Which meant that my daughter and I spent the next half hour dipping chips and apple slices into the tomato-ey garlic-y delicacy and pronouncing that a nutritious dinner.

I wonder whether she'll also try to sneak my Tabasco when that enters the house in various permutations again. Because, guess what we found out on Sunday?

Suggestive

2010-09-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again--all training records have expired, and if you've ever worked for a government contractor, you'll know that certain training classes are required, whether they make sense or not.

While clicking through slides and, you know, paying special attention to everything, I came across this gem from the "Sexual Harrassment" module:

In consideration of your coworkers, suggestive images should not be displayed anywhere in the workplace, as they may be considered part of a hostile work environment. Certain websites and e-mail containing offensive images, jokes, or stories can also be offensive to others and should not be distributed. A coworker's photograph of himself or herself on vacation wearing a swimsuit on the beach is, however, not likely the type of visual image that would constitute hostile environment harassment.

"Not likely"?

Trust me, nobody wants to see yours truly in a swimsuit. That would be an attack on everybody's sense of good taste.

Foodie Friday (on a Monday): Perfect Zucchini Streusel Muffins

2010-09-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

As you know, I'm a big fan of healthy food--probably one of the reasons for my own physical biggitude (other than the fact that I've declared chocolate to be healthfood, too). And I've always, always been a fan of zucchini. They're not just super-easy to grow and prosper richly, I've been told, but they're also laden with all sorts of minerals and whatnot, and with filling fiber. Anything you make with zucchini will be nice and moist--just make sure that, after grating the zucchini for the recipe below, you press the water out a little bit or squeeze the grated squash with a few paper towels.

I've been experimenting with the recipe below and, as confirmed by TBIK and the kids at Little Miss Kickboxer's daycare, this may very well be the yummiest (and zucchini-est) version of them all:

Ingredients for the muffins:

3-4 cups of shredded zucchini--a LOT, in other words.
1/2 cup to 1 cup of raisins, plumped in water.
1 cup of regular flour, 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup of flaxseed meal
3 tsp baking powder
1-2 tbsp of brewer's yeast or 1/4 tsp of salt.
1/4 cup of unbleached sugar and 1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 stick of butter, softened
1/2 -1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 - 2/3 cup of milk
1 large egg

Mix flours, baking powder, yeast or salt, and sugar and add zucchini and raisins until they're well coated. Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl, then stir everything together. When you're done, fill into muffin tin lined with paper cups--since the dough is heavy and dense, it won't rise too much, so fill the cups almost full.

Ingredients for the streusel:

1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup 1/2 and 1/2 white and brown sugar
LOTS of cinnamon (I use about 1 tbsp)
1/2 stick butter
if you need it, a couple splashes of milk

Combine all ingredients with a fork and your hands. Consistency should be like dry, brittle playdough (can you tell I'm the mom to a toddler?). Distribute evenly across all the muffins.

Bake at 325 F for about 15-20 minutes, then check with a knife. If it comes out clean, the muffins are done. Remove from the oven and--this is important!--let the muffins cool off on a grate, NOT inside the pan (which means they'll continue to bake and become drier).

You can also make this recipe with carrots or apples or berries or anything else that strikes your fancy. I've made these with carrots and fresh ginger before, too. YUM!

How to pill a cat

2010-09-17T10:36:00.001-07:00

Do you want to know more about the terrible twos? No, you don't?

Well, in that case, go look at kittens and consider yourself excused.

Why are they called the "terrible" twos, anyway, unless they start as soon as the age number in months starts with a two. As in twenty, twenty-one, and so on. Because Little Miss Kickboxer, she of the mile-deep dimples and the charming, unfettered giggles, is now of drinking age. MY drinking, Her age, so to say. Mental note: Buy more vodka.

"Pick your battles" is what you hear in all sorts of parenting magazines, handbooks, and mommyblogs. Fine. I don't mind if she walks around nekkid every once in a while, and later, I find an occasional tinkle on the carpet. Heck, that's what steam cleaners are for. She also gets to pick her clothes, decides when and how her hair gets brushed (i.e. hardly ever), what books she wants to read, what she wants to eat (healthy habit training is showing), when she goes to bed (did I mention healthy habit training?), all that. A couple of things she doesn't get to pick: When her diapers get changed and when her teeth get brushed. Choose your battles.

Remember all the internet jokes you've heard about pilling a cat?

Yeah. those.

Now, the diaper changing process is usually accompanied by the writhing, wiggling, kicking, and the barenaked lady's desire to get back on her feet to toddle away. At which point, my having read Montessori materials about diapering kids while they are either walking or standing has proven handy. Want to play at the train table? The bathroom sink? No problemo. Slip the diaper through the middle and swoop the ends around the sides. Technique is everything.

Up until 10 days ago, that's been the only battle. Then Little Miss Kickboxer decided, all of a sudden, that sitting on the bathroom counter every everning to do her "eeeeeee" and "aaaaaaah" the way she's done them for half of her tiny lifetime is not an option any more. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" she'd scream. I'd say "cheese?" She'd say "No cheese! Alldun cheese! ALLDUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" and writhe her way off the bathroom counter. Add to that tears, screams, the pouty lip, and ohmigosh, the drama.

The DRAMA!

And this drama about a normal bodily hygiene thingamajingie is KICKING. OUR. ASS.

Diapering? At some point, and to some point, it's optional (hello, potty training! Do you come with a rubber cell?). Toothbrushing? Not so much. Fine, Little Miss Kickboxer follows an ultra-healthy diet, isn't into sweets, drinks one cup of diluted juice in the morning with her vitamins and flouride drops and (ahem) Miracle Poop Fairy Dust, and usually eats cheese as the last thing in the evening. She loves green beans, peas, whole-grain risotto, and still eats broccoli and burritos, but give her a cookie? One unenthusiastic nibble and it'll land somewhere behind the couch or in the cat's water dish (healthy habit training, woohoo!). And of course, I pack all herlunches and snacks for daycare, so I know what she does eat.

Oh, did I mention the daycare? The one where the ueber-mommy daycare provider just sat the angelchild on the bathroom counter and brushed her teeth the past couple of days?

Yes, desperation leads to outsourcing. I will never look at a call center employee in India the same way again.

Just to make sure, though, here is what I've tried so far: Mommy brushes her teeth with gusto--and oh, the spitting into the sink! The spitting! So much fun! Cheese?

ALLDUNNNNNNNNNN!

Look, there's a monkey! It's on your arm! [touching arm with toothbrush] It's on your cheek! [touching cheek with toothbrush] It's on your too ... ALLDUNNNNNNNNNNNN!

Wanna brush mommy's teeth? Elmo's teeth? Teddy's teeth? Sure. Baby's teeth now! ALLDUNNNNNNNN!

OK, baby, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. ALLDUNNNNNNN! Ok, the hard way. Which ... see the "How to Pill a Cat" link up there. Also, includes big towel and baby burrito and ohmigosh the screaming, the tears, the crying!

All of which is normal, various mommy sources, including my baby bible, the Dr. Sears handbook, assure me. Bodily independence and integrity. Kewl beans. But not for TBIK, whose tender soul apparently cannot bear the sight of his angelic daughter turned Exorcist, without the pea soup. "You're on your own," he loudly proclaimed a couple of days ago and stomped out of the room. Would you like more detail? Go ahead and email The Young and The Restless or Days Of Our Lives. They're bidding for the exclusive rights to that story. Ugh.

Kicking our ass.

So, today, I followed another tip from a mommyblog and sat down on the floor, Little Miss Kickboxer's head between my knees, and--WHOA! Ten seconds, and the molars on three sides were done. Yay, BIG GIRL! (Me) BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG GIIIIIIIIRLLLL! (LMK). Hug?

Hug.

Now, where's my vodka?

Terrible Twos in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

2010-09-14T10:42:00.000-07:00

Remember how Little Miss Kickboxer was the most angelic little lovebug ever, and I wished that all of my future chilluns be like said most angelic little lovebug?

"Good morning, good morning ..." [singing her good morning song upon walking into her room]

"No! Alldun mokik!"

"Poopeedoopeedoo? No?"

"No! Alldun poodoo!"

"How about a niiiiiiiiiice dry diaper, hm darling?" [in German, of course]

"No! Alldun diapo! Alldunnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!" [writhes in her bed) "Alldun binkie! Alldun blankie!" (low-flying objects flying low across the room].

I change her diaper anyway because, you know, leaks ain't pretty.

"Hi pipi! Mama, alldun pipi! Alldunnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Up! Up!"

"Honey, we have to wear pants! Look! Pants with flowers! Pink flowers!" [in German, of course]

"NOOOOOO! Alldun fowa! Alldun pik! ALLDUNNNNNN!" [writhes, tries to evade the pant legs, but so far: Mama: 1, Little Miss Kickboxer: 0].

"Up! Up! Up! Cayos! Cayos! Fowa! Oooooooooh! Fowa!"

"Honey, would you like to draw a flower with crayons?" [in German, of course]

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOO!" [toddles off with a blue crayon on one hand and a yellow one in the other].

"ELMOOOOOOO!"

International Literacy Day

2010-09-08T14:13:00.001-07:00

Happy International Literacy Day!

I know, I know, I listen to too much NPR. Seriously, ya gotta wonder what happened when the #2 country with the worldwide highest literacy rate is

*drumroll*

Cuba.

What happened?

According to The Writer's Almanac, in 1961, the Cuban illiteracy rate plummeted from 24% to 4% less than a year through a concerted federal effort:

About one million people were involved in the Cuban literacy campaign: 270,000 as teachers, and the rest as learners. It was a highly organized and regimented effort. There were 100,000 middle schoolers and high schoolers who left school for eight months to live in the countryside as volunteer teachers. In the cities, literate adults taught their illiterate neighbors in classes that took place after business hours. There was a group of 15,000 teachers called the "Fatherland or Death" brigade, who left their salaried professional jobs and went out to the countryside to teach.

The government provided the books, which tended to be about the history of the Revolution and all of its socialist ideals. One of the instructional texts was a pamphlet Fidel Castro had written while imprisoned after his first failed attempt at revolution; it's called History Will Absolve Me (1953).

This story left me speechless, especially remembering my days teaching freshman English at various colleges and universities throughout California and facing many students with reading comprehension levels not much beyond fifth grade. Shouldn't the by-definition "developed" world do better than end up in position 21 on that UN world literacy list? But fine, let's approach this from various angles:

The Cuban government realized that literacy was absolutely key for a functioning system--economically, socially, and politically. First of all, I'm imagining that in a typical command-economy, you'd want people to be able to read their production quotas, to understand the rules and parameters of their output, and to be able to write and file your procedures and reports. Not too different, actually, from the environment in which I currently work, in which parts of the American government and its various representatives determine every signle facet of our output and we write, follow, and file procedures, reports, requirements statements, the whole shebang. Literacy is key when working first for the government, then for some vaguely defined version of patriotism and honor, and lastly for oneself. And let's make sure to correctly identify the new TPS coversheets, please.
Obviously, the move towards literacy wasn't exactly a move towards freedom of thought, but more like a Texas-Schoolboard-gone-commie gig. Literacy meant being able to read propaganda in a country in which the information infrastructure in the Sixties and beyond didn't support highly reliable telecommunications devices, let alone nationwide TV or radio reception. So, the political brainwashing happened through party pamphlets, newspapers, and other print media that, at the same time, proved cheapest among governmental communication channels.
While the NPR snippet doesn't talk about the flipside, I'd imagine that "opting out" from literacy and the associated ideological brainwashing wasn't exactly an option. Remember the informant system in the old DDR? I'm imagining something similar there.

Oh, and were you curious about #1 on the UN world literacy list?

Georgia. No, not the state. The country. Also formerly part of the USSR. As are, with the exception of Barbados, the first ten, almost twenty, countries on that list.

What is it about Socialism that makes schooling so important, and what is it about Capitalism that doesn't?

At which point, I'll jump to the easiest Tea-Party-level conclusion: "OMGZ111!!!!Freedom!!!!!!1111OMGXZ!1"

In other words, then, pure capitalism would mean anyone's right to freedom FROM schooling as much as anyone's right to freedom TO schooling? Or freedom TO be schooled as one pleases? While both of these cases foster a decentralized approach to education, they certainly don't liberate schooling from ideological influence and direction, but just substitute one with various others. In addition, they open up the access issue--where, in Cuba, everyone had forced access to the same kind of literacy education, deregulation here means various stages of access to various stages of education, which brings us to school vouchers for those who can afford to send their kids to, and in the end pay for, "better" schools, while those without minivans and the necessary cash or professional cachet rely on ... what? Because public schools, with regulations and whatnot, they're part of the Socialist system. Homeschooling is out in households where both parents have to work or aren't sufficiently literate to teach to the schooling materials themselves. And remember, there wouldn't be any centralized standard curricula anyway, other than those published by whatever interest group/ political party/ church/ corporation a parent affiliates herself with (UGLY grammar in that sentence; I know).

Tell that to someone who grew up in a country in which national grammar and orthography are still ruled by the National Duden Society. And in which the local dialects coagulated into one national language through the use of the Lutherian Bible. Ahem.

And while I shudder at the thought of both extremes, I can't but wonder what would happen if we took that piece of Cuban methodology that teaches folks the mechanics of reading, writing, thinking, and math, and made that mandatory for everyone, no homeschooling or privileged hoity-toity allowed. Would American literacy improve? What about critical thinking?

Oops! Thinking. Which leads us, full-circle, back to ideology. In fact, no matter whether we're talking about one centralized ideology or many decentralized ones, ideology is something we can't get away from. Even independent critical thinking stems from the value that such thinking is a good thing, where others may label it "anti-patriotic" or "un-American." The next question, then, is who stands to gain from which of the extremes.

And I promise I'll look at that in another post.

Shackles of the Oligarchy

2010-09-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

The situation in the office these days is "interesting," to say the least, even weeks after the announcement that The New Company is letting one of its major subcontractors go. That major subcontractor? My old company, including my old boss, The Garden Gnome.

That last incomplete sentence there still makes me squeal very quietly, an expression of schadenfreude only squelched by my Christian-girl guilt because "Was Du nicht willst, das man Dir tu, das fueg auch keinem Anderen zu," as Grandma used to say. And yet, sharing an office building with over a hundred people in their early fifties to sixties who are frantically trying to find a job within their company because they "can't afford to lose years on that pension plan," that sucks. Not only because folks here are, in many cases, so specialized that all they've known for years are a few pieces of outdated radars or meteorological instruments, have spent many overtime hours fabricating strange plugs for antiquated proprietary connectors, and in many cases are the only ones who can still read and interpret the data output, but also because "pension plan" is first and foremost on everybody's mind. No, we're not talking eligibility for such (vesting); we're talking about the actual, hard money that my colleagues who've stayed with the company for the past 12, 20, or 35 years will have coming to them on their retirement paychecks, aside from the 401k and the Social Security.

Hence, playing currently in this theatre: Shackles of the Oligarchy--The quest for worker oppression.

Actually, that sounds much more like a paper at an American Studies conference. But I digress. Heck, even I who stayed with said company until the magic vesting hour, and then hightailed it outta there, am guilty of trading a year or so of outside professional opportunity for the fear of penniless retirement. One year after I started with said outfit, they nixed the pension plan, following other major industry players and leaving "the young generation" with a less employer-bound and more portable 401k. And it's this young generation who won't think twice about hopping on a different bandwagon. Of course, it's also this young generation that the aerospace industry is most afraid of losing. Who's going to carry the IRIG timestamp scepter on if not, uh, someone who's traded a bright Silicon Valley future for Ada, IRIG, and sentences like "boy, that reminds me of my old aircraft carrier days"?

Of course, I read the previous sentence and think "Charlotte, you hypocrite! As if you could afford just taking your 401k and going to work for someone else before your first year here is over!" Or not work at all. Or do something completely different like crocheting magnetic rat mazes for a living. What would I do if I had just gotten the news that I'd need to vacate my office by November 1 and find a different assignment within the company before then OR take the voluntary layoff plan? You know what? I probably WOULD take the layoff plan, file for unemployment, and then find me a job in which I can actually use my degree and my project management certification. And I'd volunteer my skills for a fabulous local group in return for a recommendation. Ah, the opportunities!

But wait! Am I not doing the same thing? Rather than for a pension plan, I'm selling my soul (and my time with Little Miss Kickboxer) for the 401k, the paycheck, the health insurance, the career continuity (even if there currently isn't much of a career to brag about). And why? Because being out of work is still a Bad Bad Thing--much easier to digest and sell if your layoff comes with a nice padding and the promise of unemployment assistance than if you have, in another job interview some time down the road, to defend your decision to just quit. After all, this isn't some fast food outfit where you throw your apron into the deep fryer and run screaming out the door; it's the King-and-Country thing, or somesuch.

And yet, that layoff ... ever since I heard about that, I started fantasizing what I'd do. Perhaps, like a friend of mine whose academic career ended over a year ago, I'd become a doula and midwife. Or a chiropractor. Or a naturopath. Or write that Great American Blog, or spend a year in Germany, introducing Little Miss Kickboxer to homemade sauerkraut, or lose those extra fifty pounds or, my gosh, catch up on sleep and the bugs eating my broccoli before it ever had an opportunity to breathe in the sunshine. Or ... ah, the opportunities for living far away from the desk in a warehouse with chickenwire walls!

Anyway. I'm the one who's staying since Space Cadet Central isn't my company any more. And The New Company doesn't have a pension plan. So, I keep staying for that 401k and the health insurance. Until something better, with at least a little bit of a paycheck, comes my way.

Directions

2010-09-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

You know, I'd write more on this blog. Only ... I have been at a loss, lately, how to say things. How to pick the right words. How to make sequential whole lists of things that seem to be intricately related and that spell to me only one thing: HATE.

And then, I read Hugo's post a week or so ago, and things fell into place. The "summer of hate" and obstructionism. The complete dumbass-ness and a lack of critical thinking that should cost some people their right to vote in any of this country's elections (and yes, you do want to watch the linked video and then send the reporter some buy-in money for the World Poker Tour), and a closing of "the American mind" (ha!) that I, as a European, begin to find more and more threatening to my and my daughter's future. You don't even need to look as far as the Texas Board of Education, which tends to set the standards for what is and what isn't being taught throughout this country. Just look in your email inbox and at the hateful, gossipy, and openly deceptive emails that your friend's cousin thrice-removed, your Aunt Holly, or your former colleague forward you on a weekly, if not daily, basis. While previously, I'd reply to them (bonus points if all recipients are listed in the To: line so that your "Reply to all" delivers the counter-message) with information from Snopes.com and the like, but you know what?

I'm tired of that crap. Simply tired.

And I can't but think back to my then utterly booooooooooring (!) eighth-grade history classes in which I learned how Fascism began in the Weimar Republic, right after the Versailles treaty, which sealed Germany's WW I defeat, the rising unemployment, the increased xenophobia, the escape into empty patriotic rhetoric, all that. Knowing, from the history of my own family, what can come of that, that scares me. Not so much for myself, but for Little Miss Kickboxer's future. If we stay in this country, will she become one of the shallow, assimilated masses? Will she be denied, some time down the road, access to "forbidden" books, or punished for her thoughts?

That's why I'm increasingly wondering how difficult it would be to return to Germany, or at least to northern Europe, where exercising your intellectual freedom and finding teachers who are able to resist any "collective" is much more possible than out here. Given my degreedness, flexibility, and penchant for languages, I might relatively easily find a job, even though, in a few years, my age will become a problem. TBIK, on the other hand, wouldn't be that lucky, not only because his field of work is so extremely specialized that there are maybe half a dozen openings a year in the U.S., and far fewer in Europe, but also because, as a product of this country and without much international exposure, he doesn't have a basis for comparing K-12 systems, and thinks that a little more money and private schools may well solve the problem here. So, I'm pretty much on my own trying to find or create the comprehensive educational and cultural perspective that, in my mind, any productive global citizen deserves, one that no homeschooling, with its absence of the "village," can provide.

So, while I'm waffling back and forth on this, I've been teaching her German songs like "Die Gedanken sind frei" and "Die Internationale," along the regular "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," ABCs, and, of course, Sesame Street's "Sunny Days." Who knows? Maybe that'll get us started in the right direction.

Not sure where I'm going with this

2010-08-23T10:53:00.001-07:00

You know what gets me?

Little kids dying and dead.

It makes me sick. A couple of weeks ago, when those two 2-year-old boys in Arizona disappeared, only to be found dead a week or so later, all I wanted to do is go hug some 2-year-old boy looking lost somewhere "out there." And don't get me started about the two little boys that died in South Carolina. At the hand of their own mother.

Something in those stories, rouses the militant momma bear in me, and not in a good way. Kids have this sense of wonder and everything. "Bug!!!" Little Miss Kickboxer will exclaim and enthusiastically place a roly poly into my palm. "Bluuuu," she'll say when she picks a flower and proudly hands it to me. And "WHOAAAAAAAAAA" when we watch the wind ruffle the leaves in the trees. Kids also have an innocence about them that, yes, brings them closer to angels and fairies. Or to undomesticated puppies. They'll chew on everything, pee everywhere if you forget to put the diaper back on (ahem), forgive you everything and always come back to snuggle, and they smile. A lot. Like, when you play horsie with them, or airplane, or even just throw a ball. Kids are dope. Even if the exasperation sometimes ... gosh, yes, the exasperation! Which is why you'll want to pick foods that won't stain carpets or walls (and which reminds me to investigate that sticky handprint above Little Miss Kickboxer's crib). So, imagine a kid's moment of death: The short, short life that'll pass before that child's inner eye before his or her system shuts down, that life that hasn't had the time yet to store any experiences or to become fully aware in this world, doesn't that get you, too? Add to that the panic and the simply-not-understanding what's going on, the lack of any cultural reference point, and you've got the stuff that makes me cry over news about little kids dying.

And yeah, another mother who allegedly confessed to killing her 1- and 2-year-old, and a story about overbearing mothers, unemployment, and the deep South. Fine, I get pressures from overbearing caretakers/ mothers/ grandmothers; I had one of those, down to the usual strip search in the evenings, and yes, sometimes, I was so angry that I just wanted to run away. After Little Miss Kickboxer was born--not immediately after, but about 6-9 months later--I fell into a pretty bad postpartum hole. That, with baby in a less-than-stellar daycare and with some very ugly writing on the wall of my Space Cadet Central cubicle, that had me wish several times that I could just drive my car into a tree. At no point, though, did I think about killing Little Miss Kickboxer, that lovely, fantastic, ethereal half-human-half-fairy who swept down from who-knows-where to bless my life with spit-up, poop, and a whole host of worries. But I will confess that, more than once, I thought about her being better off in someone else's home, and I became very adamant at picking, for my last will and testament, just the right family to take care of her should anything happen to TBIK or me.

I suppose some switch flipped inside me when I became a mom. It flipped from "me" to "Little Miss Kickboxer." So, do I feel sorry about losing my prior life, such as the grown-up dinners with TBIK, the trips to far-off fabulous places, the concerts, the spontaneous, um, spontaneity--or my waist which I haven't seen in 20 months? I'd be lying if I said "no," but I'd also be lying if I said "yes." Because, honestly, I prefer Little Miss Kickboxer's company to anyone else's these days (except maybe TBIK's when he's not glued to the TV or the computer screen). I love reading stories to her, seeing her fat little fingers squish playdough into all sorts of shapes, drawing disproportionate butterflies or whatever she asks me to draw with crayons or sidewalk chalk. I love cheering her on when she climbs up to the big corkscrew slide in the park and proudly whooshes down on her belly. I giggle with her, even if she says "no" to everything right now; I sing with her ("bus please, mama, bus! Tooooooooooooooooooownnnnn!"); I look at flashcards with her and yell "notebook" at the Blue's Clues screen. Diving into my baby's world has become my recreational drug. Hi, my name is Charlotte. I snort playdough.

That's why I don't get people who hurt kids--their own or anyone else's--and why these unnecessary deaths make me so mad. I get folks who grew up in stricly no-abortion anti-choice families who decide that parenthood is not for them, and who give their kids up for adoption, hoping that someone will give them a better life. I get people who drop their kids off at safe havens. But how much selfishness does it take to take your kid's life before taking your own? I'm also talking to you, universe, and those two little boys in that Arizona desert!

Of course, yes, here's the disclaimer that I'm talking from a privileged white, educated, married perspective, that, despite last year's close call, I haven't been unemployed in ten years, and that I don't think I've ever gone without health insurance, even in tight times when I was working two or three jobs at the same time. I've always lived in the "better parts" of any town I've lived in, and I know how to cook rice and beans or potatoes and carrots twenty ways to Sunday, so I've never had to rely on fast food (although I am a recovering turkey jerky addict). Heck, someone (hi, universe!) even talked my broccoli and fennel seeds into sprouting. But you know what? I'd rather have some dead broccoli and four kids alive.

How to Fight a Federal Speeding Ticket

2010-08-19T12:42:00.001-07:00

I went to court today.

Yes, court, as in Federal Court with a Federal Judge, and not as plaintiff, nope. That Notice to Appear? Was in response to a speeding ticket.

Huh? A speeding ticket?

Yes, a speeding ticket. Because if, say, Park Rangers or MP or whoever catch you speeding on a Federally owned road, such as a National Park or a military installation, you're not just getting a state trooper ticket. No, you get a Federal speeding ticket, which is really a Federal accusation that you did something really really wrong to The People of the United States of America. And Those People will sue you. Like, you know, Jeffrey Dahmer. Or the Oklahoma City bomber.

Now, if you know one thing about me, you'll know that 1) I never miss a good fight and 2) I'm pathologically prepared. In other words, I spent nights on the internet trying to figure out whether and how to fight that stupid ticket, and all I could find was, of course, state-based material. By the way, if you ever have to fight a speeding ticket in California, it pays to look at the following websites:

Sarit's blog entries on how she beat her speeding ticket--not for the legally faint of heart, but if you like to geek out on how to write motions and prepare letters for discovery, get your pizza and Dew ready! Best. Resource. Ever.
The Ticket Assassin. This works best if you're contesting a prima facie ticket like California's CVC 22350 or if you're preparing a speed trap defense. Dude will charge you $25 to talk to him or look at document samples he's posted on a "secret" link. Um. That link isn't really that secret.
Then, there is Help I Got A Ticket, which I found more useful than the Ticket Assassin. Great guidance on Trial by Declaration--and GREAT tip about unmarked cars and plain clothes officers.

Oh boy, did I have all my information together, could cite all the codes, had Google images of the roads, had obtained a copy of my DMV record, all that. Heck, I even had my informal discovery letter all ready to go, and was debating last night whether to start preparing my motion to dismiss based on the prosecution's refusal to supply evidence during discovery. I was THERE, baby, ready to be arraigned!

So, my big docket and I walked into the courtroom today, confident and pro per and--WHOA! HOT! Public Defender ahead! I turned my head. Second HOT! PD on the other side of the room. And my docket, my black heels, and I? Off into Law & Order fantasy land. This may have involved a quick glance around the courtroom to see where the flokati could have been hidden. But I digress.

I looked around the crowd of about 20 people--over half of them with speeding tickets from the same place where I got mine. "Where'd they catch you?" became the secret handshake to this little community. Nods, smiles, discussions about what it's like to work in certain buildings, all that. The other half of the folks in the room was far less chatty, either because they would have to rely on an interpreter, or because they were possibly looking at jail time or heftier fines, who knows for what. The HOT! Public Defenders were zipping around among that crowd, armed with copies of police reports, some of them screaming JUVENILE in big letters, escorting various non-speeders onto the mezzanine for private conversations.

Then, one of the women on the other side of the PD's desks (i.e. The People's Desk) stood up and gave a little lecture about petty offenses and speeding tickets and how everybody who's eligible should be choosing traffic school because it's not connected to a guilty plea nor to a fine, but if you want to fight the ticket, there'll be an in-person trial only, and they'll make extra sure the officer shows up. "This is Federal Court," she remarked dryly, "not The State." Then she read the list of names who'd be eligible for traffic school and asked each person called to respond if s/he would take the offer.

So I did.

Received the handout about which one online traffic school handles Federal tickets and was out of there in less than 90 minutes. Yes, anticlimactic.

But oh man, the next time someone stops me for speeding on a California highway? I am so ready it's not funny any more. I only hope that The State, too, has such HOT! Public Defenders.

UPDATE:
I double-checked the court paperwork--it says "The Court has waived the fine--do not pay the fine." In other words, all this thing cost me were the $20 for the online traffic school which I completed during lunch and the gas money to drive into Santa Barbara. Now, *that* was a good deal!

American

2010-08-17T14:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, when listening to Grieg's piano concerto via NPR between the end of my bellydancing class and the beginning of my Ross shopping trip (finally successful because it produced curtains for Little Miss Kickboxer's room), memories somehow swapped into my car and hit me over the head--twice, maybe three times, and not with one of those ridiculous foam hands you'd see at a baseball game. No, those suckers were tasering my mental state back twenty, maybe even thirty, years.

All of a sudden, I found my teenie self sitting in that bus again, in winter, boots and socks wet from grey city sludge, the wire from my walkman headphones pressing uncomfortably into the sides of my head, but the music coming out of them ... ah, the music! As with every Thursday evening, I'd come from a piano lesson, doomed by genetics, as my Grandma believed, to become a professional musician, and yet thwarted by my own mechanical abilities. I remember reaching into the pocket of my thick winter jacket in order to hit the "rewind" button (around the 4:40 mark in the above YouTube video), its curvy plastic hard against the soft felt, and running my chewed-off thumbnail along its ribbed edge. Then, I'd lean back and, in my mind, write out every single note on paper as soon as it was played. Or I'd follow the colors. Or plan out the homework I still had to do, the reading for the philosophy class, the pages in the math textbook, the paper for AP chemistry. I thought about Bonhoeffer and Buddha, vectors, ketones, and Macbeth, and the Russian Revolution. Sometimes, a boy who'd many years later become an extended affair and much more serious (and professional) pianist than I ever was, would take the same bus, and he'd share one or two of his classical mix tapes with me. We'd discuss the difference between Argerich's and Pollini's Chopin recordings, even share headphones sometimes to marvel at some Albeniz or Liszt, or pull out our sheet music or theory books and read those together. I may have been 13, which would make him 14, 15 maybe. We were teenagers. We were consumed--not by each other or the teenie star du jour, but by our desire to grasp and understand music, to get to the very bottom of it, as a logical construct, as a mechanical challenge to our muscle memory, as some sort of greater truth that was "out there," begging to be explored.

So yes, I may have been a weird teenager, in American terms. Heck, not having sex or drinking at 14 and secretly pining for my redheaded Physics teacher in 8th grade probably also made me a really weird teenager in German terms. But you know what? I was okay with that. Mostly. I had one friend, a girl from Romania, whose parents had fled the last days of the Ceaucescu regime, and who was a math wiz like noone else, and another one who learned how to ride a moped as soon as she could and announced her plans of becoming a police officer at the end of middle school. Our conversations? Math problems, social responsibility, motorcycle engines. We all hated Georgraphy and History, but loved our classical Latin teacher, especially when he started using comic books as teaching materials at the end of the schoolyear.

In other words: I grew up aware of my "chronotope" in all different directions--spatially, historically, philosophically, culturally. Heck, I even taught myself old German handwriting and stenography, just for the fun of it. When I wasn't reading through some sort of anatomy book.

To make another long story short: Last night, it struck me, in a very physical way, how much I knew, how I could easily identify pieces of classical music, paintings, poems, read in 3-4 languages and speak fluently in about 3, and how OHMIGOSH, my daughter will never learn anything to the depths to which I learned it, given the qualities of American education. How my daughter, if I let her vanish in the pragmatism of the American system, will never have the chance to ponder the difference between Being and Essence (with apologies to Heidegger), between sitting on the sidelines of history and taking to the streets as a political act. And how giving her all of this, the classical humanist education that'll ground her firmly in her cultural heritage, may very earily become my responsibility.

And how there is, in contrast to my youth, no "village" that can offer her the intellectual richness that I experienced; heck, that, unless we have her educated in Europe, her critical thinking facilities will melt away over Baby Einstein, football, and the Jonas Brothers. That her horizons will close and she'll become ... sorry ... "American."

Notes from the stupor

2010-08-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

Missed me? Well, let me tell ya, it's been a ride. And I'm not talking about the fabulous orange cat below who routinely takes up residence on my keyboard in the early morning wakeup hours.

To wit:

Little MIss Kickboxer's been sick again with a cold, to the point where I'm glad that 1. my boss is on the east coast, 2. she's got three grandkids under 5 living with her, and 3. that I have flexible work hours. Because fevers and coughing and general malaise hardly ever hits toddlers in non-business hours. And by that, I also mean the business of sleeping which I've frequented far too little in the past few days.
If you've ever gone without (or with very little) sleep for a few days, you'll notice differences in how you perceive the world. As in, colors? Brighter and shinier. Sounds? Somehow right inside your brain, bypassing the ears. Balance? Challenged. The latter one made for a rather entertaining trip to the emergency room last Saturday, when I started having to hold on to walls and our kitchen counter just to stumble around. After measuring oxygenation, blood sugar, blood pressure, heart rate (per a tiny, but rather efficient EKG machine), the nurse pronounced me healthy as a horse and, oh that vertigo? Will probably go away at some point. In the meantime, enjoy the buzz without the booze. Also, here, do these exams and don't drive or operate heavy machinery. That'll be ... oh, health insurance. Good for you.
Don't drive? Ha ha. Ha.
Because I will be driving to work, which, luckily, involves straight three- or four-lane country roads and thankfully very few slow tractors, thankyouverymuch. And this is my elegant segue into just that topic--work. Some major shifts are happening that, despite the general reluctance towards the term, can only be best explained by "downsizing," aka not renewing a major subcontract. Given these economic times and the current trend towards the elimination of waste in government contracting, that shouldn't come as a wonder to some. But it did. When the decision was announced on Monday, part of me was sorry for the folks who'd be looking for other assignments out of the area/ state or retiring (nobody ever really loses their job in government contracting), and the other part of me was secretly nodding in agreement. Plus, you remember the Garden Gnome, my evil former boss at my evil former place of employment? He's part of that group. Which made me smile and then, oh Lordy!, REPENT for my schadenfreude. That said, I still have my job. In fact, a couple of rather marketing-y conversations we had earlier this year may have helped save our whole department from being cut. My current boss? Knows that intuitively. Which may just position me well for the inevitable interim performance review.
TBIK's big fat round birthday is coming up--one that, by all signs, he'd rather ignore than celebrate. Which leaves me in a pickle: Surprise party or small dinner? Memorable gift with the number of years engraved on it or babysitter and concert tickets? Folks, help me out here. If you (or your man) turned @#$^&%*ty, what would you do?

And I promise I'll update more often. Somehow. Because there's important stuff going on in the world and I certainly have much to say to it. If only I weren't so tired most of the time, still. Zzzzzzzzz ...

Looks like Little Miss Kickboxer's got an idea, doesn't it? Wish she had the words to tell me.

Introducing

2010-08-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

Because, between a feverish, coughing toddler, a fulltime job, and far too little sleep, I'm wavering these days between dizziness and that stupid eyelid nervous tic thing, I give you this:

His name is Vincent aka Vinnie "the Nose." He's been with us since Saturday and WHOSAGOODBOY?

IMAGOODBOY purr purr purr purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Why? Because purr purr purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Hug me!

Be prepared for the black hole of cuteness featuring Little Miss Kickboxer and Vinnie in a tight embrace, watching Blue's Clues together.

Also, this? Not just for dogs any more.

This big house

2010-07-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

This here big house is filled with two humans, one toddling toddler (why did we ever worry that she wouldn't walk when, oh, she could have survived juuuuuuust fine crawling until her college days???), one sweet old kittyboy, one supersized flatscreen TV because TBIK refuses to watch football with his reading glasses on, and far too many toys.

You know what's coming, right?

No, not the fact that trying for that new baby was this month interrupted by nights of unquenchable tears for Eliot. Or Emerson. Or Ginsberg. Or, my gosh, Little White Canine.

Also, not the fact that, ah, sexism is alive and well in the Aerospace government contracting world. At least in our office, where some guys would love to return to the Fifties when, you know, "the girls" were all secretaries and would wear hup-hugging skirts and button-up blouses and stuff like that. (Plus, where would be the segue to that?)

Or my upcoming column on that despiccable Arizona immigration law in our local newspaper for which I expect our local Republican leaders to scan the local phone book for my pen name and then send me stinkbombs (note to self--love the fact that we don't have a landline).

No, this here household has too little furlife in it, and the local shelters are full of wonderful dogs and cats who are looking for a good home. I know because I've been trolling Petfinder, writing to people about what I'm looking for, scanning Freecycle and whatever other newsletters, and yeah, we're on a mission to fix at least some of this problem. In other words: There will be at least one more cat. And a dog. So, in addition to Project: Baby, we are starting our shelter tour this weekend to find at least one new companion who'll get to sleep somewhere in our home. And I couldn't be more excited.

Because, heck, how can you ever live without chaos?

Belly laugh

2010-07-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

Oh man, the devil got a belly laugh today: They're about to let Warren Jeffs go. You know, the guy who calls himself the "prophet" of the FLDS cult, who told hundreds of underage girls that it's not only okay to be raped by their assigned first-cousin or so "husbands," but that they'd have to submit themselves to years of sexual torture and physical exploitation because, heck, they're girls, right? Girls with no rights who have been brainwashed into thinking that doing what this man says, to the letter, means attaing some obstruse "eternal salvation."

What. The. Youknowwhat.

And some folks say that, in our advanced and civilized society, we don't need feminism any more.

Sweet and bitter ...

2010-07-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's Monday morning and I'm sitting here quite obviously too blurry-eyed from the weekend (thanks. NyQuil) to get much done. Just. Great.

But really, my thoughts keep wandering, just like Little Miss Kickboxer's little body above her little feet that have been movingmovingmoving like you wouldn't believe. Also: This has got to be (knock on wood) the best-behaved child in company--we went to a small dinner party last night at the ex-ueberboss's home, and wouldn't you know it? My angelchild charmed the pants off everybody and their cousin thrice-removed because those dimples? Those wobbly toddler-zombie steps? That playing on the stairs into the sunk livingroom? "Wasser Wasser Wasser"! Yes, there's a fountain in the backyard. And look! A little carved-rock bunny! Needless to say that the ex-ueberboss's wife and assorted company were suitably impressed. Also: We'll pay for that cheese tray our daughter devoured almost all by herself. Promise!

All of which, really makes for a bittersweet weekend. The bitter part?

Eliot died.

He showed up 11 years or so ago in that Toadtunnel Toontown apartment complex, at around 2:30 in the morning. I had woken up, not only from the lightning and rainstorm outside, but also from what seemed like a baby crying somewhere in the parking lot. Having peeled myself from my blanket-cocoon and wondering, huh, no cats on the bed?, I soon found all the furry residents lined up one-by-one in front of the patio door. On the other side? A thoroughly wet buff-and-white cat screaming to be let in. RIGHT! NOW! When I opened the patio door, he didn't just run inside, no, with a regal demeanor, he set one paw in front of the other, quite like Queen Elizabeth greeting her minions, looked around to determine if all demands on his checklist were met (sofa? check! litterbox? check! foodbowl? check!), then cast a sideways glance at me and curled up on our old yellow couch.

He never left; I never bothered to put up "Cat Found" flyers, although I scanned the neighborhood for "Cat Lost" ones. The truth is: Eliot had come home.

Gosh, and how he could purr. His favorite thing was to sit on your chest, his front paws towards your shoulders, and to lightly touch your nose. Or to stick his entire face into yours for a full-on cranial collision. Or to check out what you are cooking. Or reading. Or typing on the computer. And to voice his opinion about anything. Federal election? Mraaaah. Shrimp Alfredo for dinner? MRAAAH. You get the point. Eliot was a character.

A few of weeks ago, I had noticed that he'd been losing weight. Along with his usual regurgitating from overeating, he'd actually been vomiting. So, I increased the wet food and cut down on the dry food. And a couple of weeks ago, the vomiting came back with a vengeance. All of a sudden, my big wonderful cat felt like a frail, old man. "Kidney disease," I thought, and took him to the vet for a bloodpanel, which came back surprisingly clean. Whew. But the vomiting continued, not even a minute after he'd eaten something. That's when the vet suggested an ultrasound because ya never know what cats eat and what can get stuck in their abdomen. "Fine," I thought; the whole vet office got their degrees at UC Davis. They know what they're doing. And they did.

On Monday, Eliot's primary vet called me back with a diagonosis. What they saw wasn't just an obstruction. They saw multiple tumors in and around the upper parts of the small intestine. Tumors with diffuse edges that were clamping his bowels down. So, I researched. And came up with various ideas about surgery, chemo, radiation, all that because the big c-word? Looming over the situation, with nobody really wanting to pronounce it. Due to the nature of the tumors, surgery was not an option; due to Eliot's age (15, maybe 16), chemo or radiation would turn his life into one big suckfest. "So, what we're left with, then, is really hospice care?" I asked the senior vet on Wednesday. "Yeah," she replied and wished it were different.

We all did.

Despite an attempt to temporarily shrink things with high doses of prednisone, which worked for a day or two, by Friday, Eliot wasn't keeping down anything any more. That's when I made the call.

He spent the entire night from Friday to Saturday on my chest, purring, mrrrahing, wishing it weren't so, and saying goodbye. And on Saturday, he fell gently asleep in my arms, after the first shot.

So yeah, I'll say what you're thinking: You're not supposed to have favorites among your children. But Eliot was the best cat who ever had me.

By PowerPoint

2010-07-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

Wow. So, where do I start? Perhaps with the fact that, holy cow!, this lovely lovechild of mine can now be convinced to walk across a room on her own two feet? Of course, that works only if you coax her with a cheerio or a crayon or a Tiffany's silver kaleidoscope made with diamond fragments. My daughter. Walking, finally somewhat, at 19 months. Wearing 2T clothes and smooshingly in love with all things Elmo.

She's not a baby any more.

Let's have this sink in:

She's not a baby any more.

Instead, Little Miss Kickboxer knows exactly how to kick your butt, whether with her mile-deep dimples or bloodcurdling screams if said Cheerio happens to be too high up on the kitchen counter (and yes, she gets the regular General Mills Cheerios--no judging us here, folks, because those screams? Blood. Curd. Ling.). Or if she wants to play outside in the big old sandbox I found at one of last Saturday's garage sales. Or ... you get it.

And you better watch your mouth around her, too. What's so cute about a 19-month-old saying "Scheisse"? Oh, wait, let me put that on video the next time it happens, and you'll know.

Which brings us to the next topic, literally.

She's not a baby any more.

And you know what I want? I want a baby again. Yes, you heard me right: Another one. A brother or a sister for Little Miss Kickboxer; someone she can shower with love and attention the way she showers the babies at her daycare with love and attention; someone for her to turn to when her Mom and Dad just "don't get it" (ha! teenage years!). And I'm not the only one who'd like for that to happen. TBIK is also totally on board with that--especially the, you know, "production" portion. Which, in my ripe old age of, um, thirtysomething (where the "something" may just approach the dozen), carries a likelihood of between 1 to 5%, and yeah yeah blah blah 1-2% chance of this or that genetic problem, miscarriage, Methuselah parenting, whatnot. I know. I've done my reading thankyouverymuch.

Anyway.

Marry that intention with my geekness, and a whole world of Excel spreadsheets opens up--from morning temperature trackers to calendar thingies, and, oh, it's a real project. Of course, you know how I love project management with budgets, schedules, white papers, "review meetings," and the like, so, oh man! Are we going to have fun with this. And PowerPoint charts.

Green!

2010-07-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

Last night, during my usual toddler-risotto-batch-cooking, I found myself rummaging through our refrigerator for a bell pepper. A green bell pepper, to be exact. After digging through bags of slightly liquefied organic spinach and black carrots that would have made great protagonist in a vegetable zombie movie, I found these:

Yes. In the refrigerator. In the vegetable drawer, to be exact.

Those would be Little Miss Kickboxer's sandals I'd been looking for for the past three weeks.

Note to EVERYONE IN OUR HOUSEHOLD: If it's green and in a plastic bag, it's not always a vegetable.

*** brought to you by The Confused Housewife Enterprises ***

The value of face time

2010-07-07T10:10:00.001-07:00

I haven't written about the work situation here in a while--not because there's anything to hide, but exactly because there isn't. Things at The New Company are going great. Since I started ~~whippiong the place in shape~~ working there, department results have improved measurably, noticeably, and OMG. the percentages are awesome. And yeah, I've been getting kudos from senior ueber-executive management and all that. Even just this morning, one of the managers from the East Coast office stopped me in the hallway saying something like "I've seen your work--great job!" Kewl beans.

Except.

You see, this used to be a department of three women. We all worked together well, in a great team, where everybody respected each other and their area of work (I'm the only one out here on the West Coast; everybody else is on the East Coast). Then, one of us quit.

Enter Jerkface.

Jerkface used to work for this company way back when, when the department was in shambles, much of it because of his doing and his attitude. Which is why he and his posse were asked to leave. The Boss, nice, but spineless wonder that she is, didn't bother to research that, apparently, got all googly-eyed about his resume, and wrung her hands for days over whether the salary she offered him at the end of his interview would be enough to entice him to come on board in the East Coast office, at the desk to her right.

You see where this is going, right?

During a telephone conversation 5 days after he started (on June 1), Jerkface told me that I didn't know what I was doing and "obviously need training," that he is always right because "that's how we used to do it," and to go suck it. During a customer meeting dry-run, he wouldn't let me go through my slides without letting me finish one single sentence--in front of The Boss. The Boss? Stepped aside, rolled over, and played dead. My slides? Kudoed through the roof by customer and Executive Management during the actual meeting and recommended upwards for implementation on other programs. Go me, right?

WRONG.

Enter the value of facetime. Whenever The Boss is out sick, or taking care of one of the grandkids, she now asks him to step into her role in senior meetings. Emails show that he knows quite well how to watercooler/ golf with the Good Old Boys, and remember how we're in an ultra-conservative industry?

Today's telephone conversation with The Boss:

Yours truly: "Hey, I know our ISO audit's coming up soon. What can I do to help with getting our department ready?"
The Boss: "Oh, just do your thing out there on the West Coast. Jerkface is helping me re-writing our processes."
Yours truly: "What about the [material for which yours truly got all the kudos from the customer]? Do we want to include that this time around?"
The Boss: "Nah, that'll go into some sort of desk guide. Jerkface is working on the process right now, and he's right here next to me, and we talk all the time."
Yours truly: "Ah, I see."

You can't argue with facetime.

You also can't argue with the good old patriarchy.

Which is why I'll be voting with my feet.

Fashion emergency

2010-07-01T15:56:00.001-07:00

First of all: Elena Kagan rocks. She's apparently the ultimate Teflon woman, given the questions from the conservative senators, all designed to push a button or three--questions that would have me hit the roof and swoop down on these guys with 3-feet dragon fangs.

But then, there's also the need for compassion because Arlen Specter? Heck, he NEEDS a personal tie shopper:

No, let me clarify:

Anyone compassionate enough to help the poor man?