Barnmaven

Routine

Some of you may know that I have ADHD.  For those of you who have known me for a long time, pre-diagnosis, I'm sure a big light bulb just popped on in your head and you said "Oh my GOD...so many things now make sense!" 

I was diagnosed when my daughter was.  She was four and we asked the school district where she would be going to kindy to start an IEP.  They sent us to a psychiatrist, a pediatric neurologist, school psychologist, and then conducted a battery of cognitive tests.  The psychiatrist had us fill out a sixteen page evaluation for every member of the immediate family.  Even for Connor, who was one at the time.  Try filling out sixteen pages of questions on the behaviors and personality of your one year old.  Come on!  Its fun! 

When we took our stack of self-evals to the doctor to view, he interviewed each of us separately, then interviewed each of us with Aeryn.  When he sat down with Chidl A and I together, he looked at me and said "You realize she has ADHD, don't you?"  I had a lot of theories about what was going on with her at the time, but it had never occurred to me that this might be one of her issues.  "Really?" I said in astonishment.  "Her activity level seems so normal to me."  Yes, normal.  The kid who was right at that moment upside down on the couch next to me, who moments before had gone dashing down the hall, grabbed ten things off the psychiatrist's desk, crawled UNDER the couch, sat ON the couch and then turned herself over so her knees hung over the top.  (Go right ahead and laugh.  I bet you have blind spots too! Never mind that mine's the size of, oh, South America!)   He then opened my evaluation and said "Of course it would seem normal to YOU.  You have it too."

I've tried different things since then, including Focalin XR (meh), Daytrana (just plug me into a light socket and see how bitchy I can get), nothing at all for a while, and more recently Adderall.  I was doing OK without meds, but one of the less fun aspects of ADHD is severe irritability.  When you have two kids who also have it, as well as other issues, irritability is something that is completely counterproductive for good parenting.  In the best interests of my family, I will remain medicated for the time being.

For those of you who don't know ADHD meds, what they are is basically speed.  In fact, the generic name for Adderall is "Amphetamine."  When we started with our new pediatrician after our move, one of the questions he asked me was if I had ever tried speed in my younger years.  I said that I had tried various kinds of illicit substances, but that speed had never been one of them.  "Oh, darn" was his response, which made me laugh because he's about the straightest arrow you ever met.  "I didn't think that was something to be disappointed about," I replied.  He told me that a person with ADHD who tried speed doesn't get "high."  They get CALM.  And not reacting to speed in a hyper fashion is a fairly decent indicator of ADHD.

So Adderall is lovely, it helps me think and not react, it helps my life go along more smoothly than I deserve for it to.  It helps me, when my bipolar child is in a mania-induced rage, to not lose my shit and duct tape her to the wall just to keep her from hurting herself or others.  My biggest problem, as is my problem with almost everything else in my life, is actually REMEMBERING to take it.  And most days that's a really REALLY big challenge.

Mornings are tough around here.  I touched on that in my hair post a couple of days ago.  Four days a week I have to get two kids and myself out the door by 6:30 am, and feed dogs, cats, horses and chickens as well.  "I don't know how you do it" is something I hear frequently.  Considering the ADHD maybe its a miracle.  The truth is, I don't do it very well sometimes.  Some days its sheer willpower.  Some days I call my carpool friends and tell them to leave without me.  But for the most part, it happens.

It took me months to perfect a routine, but I do have one.  Its the only way I can function in most areas of my life.  Every professional we've talked to about ADHD says the same thing:   The most important thing you can do if you or your child has ADHD is to create an extremely structured environment.  The problem with that is if you have ADHD yourself, its the "creating a structure" part that's hard.  Once you have it, though, it is a welcome relief.

I get up at 4:30.  Start coffee and make lunches for me and the kids, clean litterbox, put food in cat bowls.  By 5 am, pour coffee and eat breakfast.  At 5:15 its time to dress for work, do hair and makeup. 5:30:  Wake kids.  Feed kids.  Dispense medication for Aeryn and myself.  (This is the hardest part of the day, because it usually takes the kids anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes to actually get out of bed)  6:15 AM:   Feed dogs.  Ask kids to get dressed.  Take dogs outside for potty, let out the chickens, give hay and water to the horses.  Go back in, crate the dogs, do last check to see if we've forgotten anything important, herd kids into the car and leave.  Usually we make it out the door by 6:38, 6:30 being the goal. 

This routine works really well as long as I follow it TO THE LETTER and ON THE CLOCK.  One day I decided I would shower when I woke up and I was across the blue bridge and almost to the vanpool lot when I realized I hadn't fed my horses.  Other days I've left my laptop bag sitting by the door or failed to close the garage or lock the front door.    

Having ADHD sucks sometimes.  Like when I forget to close gates.  Its bad enough if you have dogs, but when you have horses?  Not closing gates is serious business.   Impulsivity is a big issue.  I can't tell you how many times something has "seemed like a good idea at the time" only to find I've left another swath of destruction in my wake.   I leave the milk on the counter overnight after having gotten it out for tea.  I've thrown away more food items that require refrigeration because they never make it back to the fridge (by the way, does Country Crock margarine go bad?  Because I left it out last night and now I'm not sure if its safe to eat).  I forget birthdays, anniversaries, appointments and deadlines.  I learned over the years to live my life by a complex system of calendars, diaries, to-do lists and reminders.  Sticky notes are my friend.  I don't know how I survived in the pre-PC age.  Lotus Notes calendar alarms are the only reason I make it to meetings and why I am able to not double-book myself.  I almost never remember to take my garbage can to the curb on Thursday mornings, thank God for my neighbor across the street, who has pulled it down for me more times than I've done it myself.  I keep meaning to do something nice for him, but of course I forget to.  >.<  Business meetings are hard to stay focused at.  I doodle a lot; recent research in the last year or two showed that doodling is actually a GOOD thing and that it helps the doodler to keep attentive to what is being said.  All I have to say is that I must have good instincts, because I seem to have figured out on my own a lot of the techniques for coping with the disorder that the professionals would have given me if I had asked for their help.

When I remember to take the Adderall its like I'm a whole different person, at least I feel that way.  My thoughts stay in my head  instead of racing around the track and chasing every shiny object they see.  I can go into a room and actually do the thing I came to do instead of doing ten other things and ending up halfway across the house having forgotten what I was trying to accomplish in the first place.  I can read something required for work without falling asleep.  I don't fall asleep driving home from work.  I talk slower, and I don't talk over people or finish their sentences as much.  I'm more focused and centered.  And yet, I'm used to being that other person too.

There are upsides to ADHD, I always have lots to do and think about.  Life is never dull.  The ability to hyperfocus has always given me the ability to deeply enjoy reading and to be a good data analyst.  I am one of the few people I know who can drink a pot of coffee before bedtime and still fall asleep.    I can multitask like nobody's business, and if I put my mind to it I can do in one day what it would take a non-ADHD person three days to finish.   I'm always one project away from nirvana. 

I hope that my awareness and my life lessons will help me pass along the skills I've gained to my children.  I can't undo the fact that I've passed along some really undesirable genetic traits to them, but I hope can use what I know to be a better mom. 

Gray

Saturday morning dawns gray

Rain falls, no horseback riding today

Housework begs doing

I try to ignore it

A fire, cup of coffee and a book sound better.

Big Fat Hairy Deal

I don't think I'm unlike most women in that I constantly struggle with my hair. 

I think it was in junior high/high school that I really had it the worst.  The "feathered bang" was the look at the time - that and the two big rolls down either side of the face.  I could never have the right look because I didn't really have the "right" hair.   I have very thick, very coarse hair, its wavy but not in what I would think of as a good way.  when I was younger, if it was wet and I didn't blow dry it, it took hours and hours to dry.  I could go to sleep with a wet head and wake up with parts of it still not dry.   In high school when the only things I knew how to do with it was blow it dry and then apply a curling iron, I just hated it.  It didn't look like the other girls' hair (or at least, I didn't think it did).  It wasn't shiny, it wasn't long enough, it wasn't straight enough, my bangs would make this weird ski jump thingy off to the left and if I didn't wrestle it into submission with the hairdryer, brush and curling iron, its natural inclination to wave was the entirely wrong direction.  One time, when it was really long, my mom thought I should trim the ends and let my DAD do it.  To this day I cannot figure out WHY.  By the time he finished "evening it out" it was up past my shoulders and I was in tears for days. 

It wasn't until I hit my twenties and went for my first expensive haircut that someone finally showed me how to deal with it.  I had it about shoulder length then, and the stylist, Michael, asked me how I styled it in the mornings.  I told him how I blow dried it and combed it and curled it and he just stared at me with this expression of abject horror on his face.  "Oh, honey," he said, "let me introduce you to the diffuser!"  That was the beginning of a much improved relationship between my hair and I and it last well into my mid-thirties. 

It was the pregnancies that ended what I like to think of as my "good hair" years.  The first thing I did wrong was look at myself in the mirror one day in the third trimester of my first pregnancy and decide I looked too old.  Unfortunately no one had hidden the scissors, and I cut bangs into my formerly one-length hair.  The second thing that happened was that I HAD the baby, and I experienced for the first time in my life what it was like to NOT have thick hair.  And the thinning behind my bangs was so unbelievably upsetting to me that for months I didn't even want to leave the house.  I tried getting different cuts, different ways of layering it, but it just didn't look or feel right to me.  Before Connor was born, I gave up and had it cut boy-short.   The stylist who I went to cut it with a razor, just like the men's cuts:

I loved having short hair, especially with two small children in the house.  Getting ready in the morning was a two minute process.  Eventually, though, the desire to have my former hair returned, and I started growing it again.  I don't have to tell any of you how agonizing a grow-out can be.  The older you get, the longer it takes, and it took me three years to get it from short to long.  Mid-length hair requires a lot more styling, so I was back to having to get up super early in the mornings just to have time to fix my hair before work.  The job that I moved to Washington state to take, the one I am still at now, is a casual environment so its not like I have to have "perfect" hair or makeup, but like a lot of people, I don't like leaving the house looking sloppy.  What's gotten more difficult over the past year is that I have been needing to be out the door with both kids by 6:30 am so I can drop them off in time to get to my vanpool, and I haven't had anyone around to help me with them or with feeding the dogs/cats/chickens/horses.  I get up at 4:30 in the morning most weekdays just to make on time.  I needed to do something different.  I started showering at night instead of in the morning to save some time, but then I found that my hair was even worse.  Applying a curling iron to wavy hair that's been slept on is inefficient, it doesn't work that well, and it takes forever.  Most of the time I'd end up with a pony tail, but then I'd end up with pony tail headaches by the end of the day.  I was getting really, really close to just giving up again and having it butchered short, only to save my sanity. 

Then a few weeks ago a coworker told me about the flattening iron she had been given as a gift.  She always has straight, shiny, glossy hair which I envy.  It didn't take much to convince me to at least give it a try.

Its not like I don't' want to have curly hair.  There are days when I have time to style it and I am very happy with it.  But what I needed was a 10 minute solution to the out-of-control morning hair, something that would allow me to leave the house on time but without looking like Cousin It.  Ladies and gentlemen, I believe I have found THE HOLY GRAIL OF HAIRSTYLING.  For reals. 

Proving this requires me to do something I am really uncomfortable with, i.e., posting pictures of myself.  In the spirit of this unsolicited product recommendation, though, I am going to put on my big girl panties and be brave.

Here is the "before" picture, taken last night.  This is hair that was blown out and then curled, as opposed to having been dried with the diffuser, so the only really curly, kinky places are underneath the top two layers.  But it provides a good visual for the starting point.  The other picture is one I took on my cell phone a while back, that's when its been diffused dry and allowed to curl naturally.

OK.  So the whole process takes about 10-15 minutes.  The iron itself is a CHI product, it was $76 and change ordered online through Costco.  Its a laser-heated iron, so it goes from 0 to 392 degrees fahrenheit in under two minutes.

I do it in three sections, bottom layer first, middle layer next, then top layer, and I use a salon-grade hair oil to add a little shine and protect the hair from breakage.  Each section of hair only needs to be run through the iron one time, its THAT hot and works THAT well.

Finished product (and yes, no makeup and YES, I realize my nose is big):

Can you believe that?

And my hair is SOFT.  And shiny!  And it swings when I move my head!  And the best part is:  NO MORE BAD HAIR DAYS!!   That IS a big, fat, hairy deal.

Besides, if things go REALLY wrong, I can always wear a hat:

Another groaner

Maybe I should just exit Facebook altogether.   Of course, then I might die from a little-known phenomenon known as social network deprivation, but it would be preferable to the agonizingly painful death my brain is suffering, a little condition I like to think of as Ignorance Abounds on Facebook.

This little gem made the rounds yesterday:

 Shame on you America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment - yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. 99% of people won't have the guts to copy and repost this.

Poverty and misery are everywhere, I'm not even going to argue that.  It disturbs me to no end that we have children and adults in our own country who live in poverty.  Can we think for a minute, though, of what happened in Haiti?

After a devastating event, the entire country's infrastructure (yes, Sarah Palin, it's pronounced inFRAstructure!  Who knew!) is shattered.  The normal channels for distribution of food and services no longer exists.  The Haitian government confirmed yesterday that the death toll there has risen to over 150,000 people.  It is expected to exceed 200,000, and one can only guess how many people will succumb not only to earthquake related injuries, but to starvation, thirst and disease.  If these people do not receive help from the outside, they WILL die.   Their own government is barely functioning, and unable to provide the help necessary.

So yes, there are children in America at this very moment who do not have enough to eat.  But we have functioning food banks, a functioning welfare system, standing churches with soup kitchens.  Right now, people in America have access to federally funded programs designed to provide assistance.  Programs that are in buildings not collapsed from an earthquake.  They have, certainly, access to potable water.  They have neighbors and family members who are alive, not buried under rubble.  Do our own citizens need and deserve our help?  Of course they do.  But I'm going to crawl WAYYYYYY out on a limb and postulate that their condition is nowhere NEAR as desperate as is the condition of those in Haiti.  Not even close.

What really bothers me, though, is that the conservative and libertarian movements in this country really don't think that much of our poor citizenry.  The Bush administration slashed social programs, resulting in a lot of families here in the U.S. falling through the cracks.  The unchecked arrogance of Wall Street that the administrations both right and left over the past 75 years caused our economy to splinter and collapse, throwing millions of Americans in to disarray and desperation, losing homes and retirement dollars, wondering how we will make it on a shrinking Social Security administration.  This same mindset that "we don't need to help others" is typically applied to our own welfare recipients.  But those same poor souls become, in my opinion, convenient pawns when the call is sounded for us to help people in need outside our own borders.

I know that not *all* political conservatives feel this way. I know people from various political backgrounds who have served on missions overseas, who have friends or family who are in Haiti right now.  They believe in the responsibility to our fellow man, regardless of country or culture.  They understand that we are not just a globe of separate countries but a world of common humanity. 

May God forgive us our arrogance.

On the nightstand

I'm a huge fan of Temple Grandin.  I can't even remember how many years ago I heard her on NPR being interviewed about her research into animal behavior and how she was consulting with slaughter yards across the U.S., helping them to evaluate their environments and practices in order to create a fear-free environment for our food animals.  The interview itself was interesting, and without knowing her story I could tell by the way she spoke that there was something a little different about her.  As it turns out, Grandin is autistic.  I suppose its not suprising that there are highly functioning persons with autism in our world, I have family and friends with kids on the autism spectrum who function so well that people don't understand they have the disorder.  What is remarkable, to me at least, is just how high-functioning she is.  She holds a Ph.D. in animals sciences, is a tenured professor at Colorado State University, and has authored four books. This in addition to her consulting work.    She is passionate and articulate, and she was influential enough to convince the CEO's of five of the biggest fast-food chains to visit their own slaughter vendors, which had (and will continue to have) enormous and lasting changes on how these companies produce meat. 

Its an interesting discussion for me, this question of animal happiness and quality of life.  And no, its not just because I'm an animal lover (NO, you say?  REALLY?  YOU LOVE ANIMALS?  I hadn't a CLUE!), its the awakening somewhere in my cerebral cortex in recent years that there really are people who fall in between "HUNTS TO KILL SHIT" and "PETA" on the spectrum.   I've at times in my life gone vegetarian, was a member of PETA for about three seconds when I was in my 20's and still naive and impetuous.   Eventually, as happens to many people, my craving for steak overrode my desire to see animals die for my consumption.   I understand intellectually that meat comes from animals; I can see the plastic-wrapped packages of beef in the grocery coolers and I know the process whereby that meat is derived - I've lived in the country for long enough and seen my dad butcher enough deer, elk and other game to not have the need to mentally separate the end result from its origins.  I mean, when we bought two yearling steers from our black-angus-raising neighbor, we named them "Chuck" and "Strip."  I know where meat comes from and I'm no longer ashamed to admit I eat it.  AND ENJOY IT.

So anyway, big fan of Temple Grandin's. And I'm two chapters into her newest book, Animals Make us Human.  The book delves into available research and Grandin's own hypotheses around what emotions animals actually feel, how they are similar to the reactions of humans to similar stimuli, and what various kinds of animals in our lives require in order to be "happy."  I've just finished the chapter on dogs.  God, I love my dogs.  Grandin has some interesting and potentially controversial things to say about how dogs interact with one another in various situations - she talks a lot about Cesar Milan (also a huge fan of his) and his theories on dog behavior.  I guess I was surprised when she parted company in her interpretation of the necessity of dominance structure.  She agrees that with a pack like Cesar's, where he has 40-50 dogs in his center at any given time, that like captive wolves, who are often put in groups far larger than they comprise in the wild, a dominant leader is necessary to keep equilibrium in the group.  But she offers that in smaller groups, family-sized groups of dogs, that a more reasonable and necessary function of the human is to act as a parent, much as wolf family groups in the wild function.   As with our human children, Grandin promulgates the idea that we serve our dogs better when we teach them to handle frustration with equanimity, since much of dog life with humans involves the frustration of natural dog behavior.  Now, as a woman whose life is partially ruled by three very large, friendly dogs, I agree that its important for dogs to tolerate frustration well.  God knows it has to be frustrating as hell when my children dress them up in hats and coats, or tie all three of them together with winter scarves to make a driving team...and its remarkable to me almost daily that my dogs don't just finally say "Done" and take off a limb.  So yes - I see how frustration tolerance is a key element of dog behavior.  She believes this is more important than the concept Cesar teaches about teaching your dog to be submissive to a dominant alpha.  Applying my approach with my own dogs, I can see how I do a little bit of both.  My dogs know who I'm boss...although they don't always choose to listen.  Hercules, he talks back a lot, but he usually complies.  Roscoe?  I can give him a sideways look and he immediately rolls over on his back and does his best imitation of a pathetic little love-starved puppy (yes, all 70 pounds of him.  Puppy.  Heh.)  Lady is a being unto herself.  I have never met a dog more stubborn and willful and yet at the same time completely dopey and loving.  She is the most single-minded dog I've ever seen, fortunately her mind is mostly set on sleeping.  And eating.  And having her belly rubbed.  Lucky, fortunate, because even at a small-for-a-bullmastiff size of 93 pounds, she is a formidable enough dog that if what she *really* wanted were to make you not be in her way any more? Not hard to accomplish. 

I read after I adopted Lady that the bullmastiff was originally bred to control poachers on the large game estates of very wealthy Lords in old Britain.  They are very quiet dogs, not big on barking.  Their job was to locate a poacher, sneak up on them, and restrain them physically until the Game Warden could some slap the cuffs on and throw the miscreant in the pokey.  Watching Lady sometimes this doesn't surprise me at all.  She doesn't move a lot, but when she wants to, she can move FAST.  When she plays with Roscoe I wince.  He is all legs and he's whip-fast.  He can outrun her any day of the week, but she knows this.  All she does is wait for him to come flying at her, then she drops her shoulder and takes him OUT.  She doesn't even have to try...she's so big and solid that he just hits her, WHAM!, and goes rolling. 

Grandin suggests that the newer theory about never letting your dog win in games of tug-of-war, because they might learn they are dominant over you, is rubbish.  She cited a study in her last book Animals in Translation that collected data on Golden Retrievers playing Tug of War.  Essentially, the dogs' submission to the human leader was unchanged regardless of whether they always lost, always won, or were allowed to win half the games.  In fact, what would happen when the dogs *always* lost was that they eventually lost interest in playing.  Apparently dogs don't like to lose all the time, who knew?  So anway, when it comes to things like playing games with your dog, or even letting them up on the furniture, Grandin says "Beating a person at tug of war didn't make the dogs more dominant.  I wouldn't be surprised if you saw the same thing in a study of dogs getting up on furniture and beds."  OH THANK GOD.  And here I've been worried that someone was going to tell Cesar that my dogs were sleeping with me and he was going to show up and revoke my dog-ownership rights for being a lousy alpha. 

Oh, and there's actually a chapter in this book on Chickens.  Which I cannot wait to read.  Because I am intensely curious as to how it is I will be able to recognize when the chickens are happy.  I will become the best chicken momma EVER.

Happy News

Warmest and most delighted congratulations to Mike and Heather Spohr on the arrival of Annabel Spohr.  The world is a somewhat happier place today.  I suspect God has tasked Maddie with Guardian Angel duty.

Happy days ahead for all of them, I think the blogworld is one big teary-eyed happy mess.

Foreigner

A friend, a very good friend, posted the following status update on Facebook yesterday:

" WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Press '1' for English. Press '2' to disconnect until you learn to speak English And remember only two defining forces have ever Offered to die for you, JESUS CHRIST And the AMERICAN SOLDIER One died for your soul, The other for your freedom. If you agree......."

One other person on my friends list posted the same thing.  They weren't really a friend, an acquaintance of an acquaintance, and frankly that person is no longer on my friends list.

*

I HAD to comment.  I love the friend who put this up there, but I had to say something.  To say that I'm opinionated is probably sugar-coating things.  This is me:

 

I've never been the kind of person who could see something I felt was wrong and keep my mouth shut about it.  So of course, I commented.  The string follows, ending with the comment I wrote this morning.

"That Jesus Christ of whom you speak...did not speak English. And it is unlikely he berated visitors to his country for not speaking Yiddish."

Just sayin.

Yesterday at 2:45pm ·

 

 

And then the following ensued:

 

 

And yes, it should have been "He" and "His", not he and his.

Yesterday at 2:45pm ·

Everyone likes a little ass but no one likes a smart ass!!

Yesterday at 3:00pm

You go Chris!

Yesterday at 3:54pm

LOL Chris

Yesterday at 4:14pm

Unlike.

Yesterday at 4:32pm ·

AMEN

Yesterday at 4:33pm

I am all for it when you go to China they don't learn american to speak to us.......

11 hours ago

"American?" Even in China they know that our language is "English," not "American." This is what we are graduating from our schools these days? No wonder the U.S. is slipping behind the rest of the world in education.

I'm not being a smart ass, here. Jesus doesn't just save white, english speaking souls. Please leave Him out of rants against people from other races. I'm pretty sure He doesn't appreciate His name being used for this.

16 minutes ago ·

 

 

*

And now I'm just pissed off.  And the final comment, the one that I will refrain from adding to what is now just an internet pissing match between me and my brain and a bunch of people half as well equipped, is this.

 

American soldiers are out across this globe dying EVERY DAY not only for the best interests of America, but for the freedom of other people - other NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING PEOPLE.  Jesus gave His life  not just for those who speak english (ZOMG, she actually called it "American."  FAIL) but for all people of all races and colors. 

 

I don't believe for one microsecond that either of them, the soldier who gave his or her life, or the Savior of us all, would appreciate their name and memory being utilized in a diatribe most likely started because some ignorant idiot got pissed off when they tried to call Bank of America to find out why the rent check for their double-wide bounced and got routed offshore to speak to a customer service associate in India or in Mexico.

 

That someone would even begin to equate their annoyance and aggravation over this boggles my mind.  Is THIS what our priorities as a country are?  Are people really more concerned about how many people in this country speak English than they are about healthcare or two wars overseas or the fact that hundreds of thousands of people just freaking DIED in Haiti?

 

My dad, in fact both of my parents, lived and taught the value that a person's character was the most important thing to know about them.  This value has been part of my landscape since before I could talk.  I know in my soul that character is more important than education, more important than financial worth, than social standing, job title, hair color, culture or religion.  And when you get right down to it, if you narrow your thinking about a person to whether or not they are living in America and speak English, then you limit your understanding of that person to the extent that you will never understand their CHARACTER because you made their language the most important thing about them.  How can we devalue people to the point where we no longer care WHO they are but what language they speak?  

 

How many third, fourth or fifth generation Americans have a direct relative that came over from another country not speaking English?  My father-in-law's parents, for example were Polish.  When he arrived at Ellis Island, I assure you Jan Peretsky did not speak English. 

 

I believe we are incredibly fortunate to live in a country that has been enriched by so many different cultures and influences.  The freedoms we hold so dear have allowed people to come here and bring with them their language, their religious beliefs, their food, their color and their language.  Italian, German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Polish, Irish, Spanish, African, Turkish, Puerto Rican, Portugese...forgive me if I leave anyone out.  I had an acquaintance in college who was from Lebanon.  In his country, military service was compulsory and they lived in a state of constant war.  He told me about studying English in his foxhole because he so badly wanted to come to America.  We are so privileged to live in the country that so many people around the world hold up as the "place they want to live."  And we constantly seem to forget how so many of our families arrived here. 

 

How sad it would be to live in a place where there was only one language, one color, one culture. 

 

 

I despair for the future.  What this says about us as a country, about the average American mindset is more than disturbing.  It is a nightmare. 

 

 

 

To my friend, if he reads this:  I love you dearly.  I always will.  You probably didn't even think about what you were posting, something in it just touched off something in your tired overworked brain yesterday.  If you weren't my friend I wouldn't be so upset. 

 

To the others who commented:  I believe racism is poisonous, insidious and that it is evil.  When we allow it to slip into our daily words, into our train of thought, even in these small ways, it changes us into people who forget about being human.  Think carefully about what kind of human being you want to be, what you want to teach your children about this world in which we live.  What you say in front of them is what they will learn to believe.  Remember your humanity and help your children learn what it means to share a world with people of other cultures.

Ummmm

Its not...its for the...its too...ohhhhhhh, never mind.  The dogs sleep on my bed anyway.

 

Quickly

Today is a holiday for federal employees and schoolchildren everywhere but not, alas, for most working parents.  I'm torn; I love my days off as much as anyone, but I understand the negative impact on productivity and cost to employers.  Still; we're celebrating a man who espoused freedom and equality.  Give me freedom - from work, and equality - with the REST of the people who didn't have to commute 45 miles today.  Ha.

The kids are spending the day with their dad today, since I already had meetings on the calendar and couldn't take the day to work at home or use vacation time.  So they spent the night with him last night.  I miss them when they're gone, I always do. 

But this morning..OH THIS MORNING.  This was the first workday morning in about a year and a half where I did not have to have them fed, dressed and out the door with me at 6:30 in the morning all by myself.  The first commuting morning in a year and a half A YEAR AND A HALF where I could get up, make coffee, check email, feed animals, feed myself and get ready for work without anyone having a tantrum about their breakfast or their clothes or because their sister's head is in the line of sight of the television.  It was HEAVEN.  The silence of my morning today was so absoutely divinely magical that I wanted to roll around in it like a dog in a fresh pile of cow crap.  I can't remember the last time a non-holiday Monday was this calm. 

Reality, when it sets back in tomorrow, will suck.  And I will hug my children and tell them I love them and then lose my mind while the tornado that is us gets out the door.

Miscellany

I'm bummed because it seems not many hits on the blog for yesterday's post on help for Haiti, even though I FB'd AND twittered it.  I hope its just because people were too busy looking up their own channels of donating or doing something to come here and read my blog.  Its hard to imagine being worried about the ordinary minutiae of life when it seems that hundreds of thousands of people are trapped, injured or dying half a world a way.  It certainly puts things into perspective.

Personally, I could use a little perspective, since this week I've really felt up to my ass in alligators.  Or up to my caboose in crocodiles. Whichever metaphor works for ya.  Work has been a trial, and I often think I need a daily refresher in corporate politics.  I love my job, I really do.  I love my company and I love the people I work with.  I'm very fortunate in this economy to have what I have.  But even the best workplaces come with quicksand and politics and people who do things you don't like.  I've had my nose out of joint all week about something, and  I really just need to get over it and move on.  Monday I seriously felt like punching someone in the face.  I dont' get that way at work too often, and when I do it is not pretty.  I practically have to lock my office door and not answer the phone, otherwise I risk saying something really bad to someone. 

Top that off with the kids and/or dogs keeping me up almost every night this week, I've devolved into a shambling, cross-eyed shadow of my former self.  I've become so absolutely inane that yesterday when I heard what Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson said about Haiti not only did I lose my temper, but I lost the ability to even TYPE.  I started to write something about it last night and the keyboard was all 87jk7hjjkoip*&9uiohjHUYU.  ZJH897hjaghadf.  38or7uzgknjvxjhauio;hgnlkjlKJL:J:HHH:OIIUUJ. 

See?  Inanity.

I don't even know if I can adequately put into words what an assbag douchenozzle I think Rush is.  That man has made millions off of riling up stupid people with stupid opinions.  He's not THAT ntelligent, he doesn't personally adhere to the values he holds up for the rest of the world, but I mostly dislike him because I think he's a bully.  There is always room in any government for opposition to the current status quo. That opposition is right and it is necessary because it helps keep things in balance.  It gives the politicians a gut check, and I'm all for outstanding reporting and fact-finding to help keep our government honest, no matter what party is running the show.  But outright lies and stories that are only meant to widen the difference between the citizens of this country get us absolutely nowhere.  Nowhere. 

I don't even want to talk about how big a difference, RUSH, there is between waiting three days to make commentary on a terrorist attack where no one was even hurt (well, perhaps the would-be attacker singed his testicles a little bit, but come ON) and getting the word right out there while hundreds of thousands of men, women and CHILDREN FOR FUCK'S SAKE are dying, injured, trapped.  Its like discussing the salient differences between peanut butter and oh, I don't know, CARROTS.  And as for Pat Robertson?  Does anybody even WATCH the 700 club anymore?  Apparently they must, since his idiocy made the news.  Either that or someone suffering from terrible insomnia was sitting on the couch flipping channels, they happened upon the Good Mr. Robertson talking about Haiti and thought "Oh, good, he's going to tell me where I can send some donations, I'll stop and listen!" and instead got an earful of complete and utter batshit idiocy.

See, I start to think about it and I'm all adfkjfdal;aerito;knj.uoit548u904tq09ujkcl and I have to keep backtracking to retype the words I've completely misspelled because I WAS SO FURIOUS I COULDN'T EVEN TYPE.  JJujutg89IOJ789t

45qtagjdas890tj.

So there.

People, PLEASE.  Help out our friends in Haiti.