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My Part-Time Job

Have to go to work shortly.  What is my job?  Driving mom and dad to the doctor.  Yes, you are reading the blog of an unpaid chauffeur. 

No, I don't mind.  It gives me great pleasure to be able to do this for them.  I do have the option of refusing, and they could go to see doctors out in Virginia instead.  But we are hooked into the best medical care in the DC area by way of the best internist in the universe.  I found our internist when I worked as an RN.  Nurses that I respected said he was a good doctor, and they were right.  He listens, takes everything seriously, is there when you need him, and gives great advice.  Plus, he knows the best docs in DC and refers us to them when we need to see a specialist. We all - me, husband, all three kids, and my parents - see him.  Husband and I had our first appointments with him back in the mid-80s.  He knows our histories very well. 

I wouldn't think of making my parents switch.  My father especially has a complicated health history.  Docs that don't know him tend to screw him up.  Case in point - he fell and broke his neck in 2005.  He was taken by ambulance to a Virginia hospital where our doc doesn't practice.  We should have had him moved because he almost died as a result of the fact that they did not understand his medications and cardiac history. And they were stupid and uncaring and treated him like an old man who was about to kick the bucket so why should they bother anyway?*

I am not the most forward person, I don't like to be emotional in public, but these folks heard from me. And when I was through, they knew exactly what I thought of them.

My advice: If you have family members in the hospital, don't assume anything.  Keep a close eye on them.  You know you family member better than anyone.  You can spot changes that will not be noticed by others - particularly those who are careless.  Don't hesitate to point these things out and don't be afraid to be a PIA about it.   

Have to run!

*Note:  Good medical care is available in Virginia - we just had bad luck, which is why it's good to stick with docs you know. 

Schedule Changes

I am taking three classes this semester (portrait, figure drawing and Hebrew).  Daughter has begun an internship every Friday from 9-5 pm in a distant place involving the dreaded Washington rush hour, and I am driving her back and forth. As a result, I have lost a big chunk of time that I usually use to blog. Thus, few posts. I'll be back to posting more regularly eventually.

Last semester, I took portrait drawing and really enjoyed it.  The teacher basically allowed us to do our own thing and went around making suggestions to us. He did occasional demonstrations - the eyes, the nose, the ear, the mouth, etc.  I started out very rough, but could see improvement as I went along, and I was really inspired by it.

This time, I have a different teacher (she teaches both the portrait and figure drawing classes).  She tends to be more obsessive-compulsive, and started us all from the very beginning - telling us how to set up the easel, how to hold the conte crayon (sanguine or black, on newsprint), etc etc.  We had to draw boxes she'd set up, we had to do blind contour, she's given many long lessons, and frankly, it's been a bit frustrating.  I am trying (on the advice of my children, who very adorably both independently said the same thing to me, "Mom, do you want to learn?  Then listen to the teacher." Heh.  Echoes of past mommy-isms reverberating back to me) to be patient and attempting to incorporate what she's teaching.  The thing of it is, is, what I am producing now looks like utter cr*p. Whereas, I'd actually begun to like what I was doing previously.

Well, today is our 4th figure class.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that she will actually allow us to draw people, instead of blocking out big shapes and making stick figures showing how they are posed.

I hadn't taken a "life drawing" class in quite a while. Our model was absolutely fearless.  Took off her robe and practically did gymnastics.  There was no pose she did not think of, no part of her she was unwilling to expose.  The instructor thanked her and observed to us how fortunate we were for having such a "giving" model. (I heard a woman mumbling under her breath that it was really a bit more than she needed to see...)

I missed last week's figure class due to preparing for Passover.  One of my classmates told me that there was a male model last week.  She said he was about 70 years old and was president of the artist model guild or some such thing.

Can't imagine what lies in store for today's class.

So Much to Blog...

...so little time. Heading out the door to art class - back later.

Facebook People

You who visit from Facebook, be ye friend or foe?

I've had several visitors from a particular Facebook page over the last couple of days.  Not sure what it's all about.  Wondering who linked and why? 

I can't visit their page because I don't have a Facebook page of my own.  Why don't I?  Because it would compromise my internet anonymity, which is already somewhat compromised as it is. 

Why am I anonymous? 

1.  So that my blatherings don't embarrass anyone close to me.

2.  For reasons of safety. 

3.  Because it's nice to just have this spot for me and me alone.  I can say things here in ways that I can't/won't elsewhere.  And I don't have to explain anything.  And no one calls me a radical extremist.  Next to the apolitical person I once was, I am now a radical extremist to some who knew me when.

The end.

Of this post.

Sorry, but I am sleep deprived and am too tired to find a more graceful way of ending.

Hebrew

I am once again taking a class trying to learn Hebrew.  I tried a few years ago, but too many distractions were going on in my life at the time and I didn't get very far.  I ran into the Rabbi's wife recently (she's the adult Hebrew teacher).  She mentioned that she was teaching a class again, and before I knew it, I was asking her if I could join them.  I don't think I realized that I really still wanted to learn until that moment. 

I have learned the letters aleph (א) (an easy one that I knew already), nun ( נ) (also easy because I remembered it from the dreidel), mem (מ) (looks like a Mountain), tav (ת) (has a Toe), hay (ה) (has a Hole), and a bunch of vowels which, to make it easier for us (I think), our teacher told us all sound like either ee or ah.  I think one of the "ah's" actually sounds like "aw" when using Ashkenazi pronunciation, which is what I was used to hearing (not that I had the opportunity to hear it that much) growing up. My temple uses Sephardic pronunciation and that's also what is used in Israel.

All I really want to do is to be able to read the actual Hebrew during services, rather than having to rely on the transliteration.  Not everything in the prayer book is transliterated.    

I wrote this post because I have class tonight and it was a good way to get myself to review.

Oy

Eldest son:  [shouting to me from the kitchen] Hey, are those flatbread sandwiches you bought any good?

Me: What flat red sandwiches?  I don't know what you are talking about.

[three minutes of silence pass, followed by an epiphany]

Me: Ohhhh, you said flatbread sandwiches, not flat red sandwiches!

The process is now complete.

I have turned into my mother.

Only she's 79.

A Mind is a Terrible Thing...

...to lose.

The link above is to Twitter, where I kept a somewhat crazed running record of my thoughts as I spent approximately 4 straight hours on the phone first straightening out a health insurance matter (for 45 minutes) and then talking to Intuit tech support (for a Quicken/Turbotax/Java script error message).

The last gentleman I spoke to (I was on the phone with him for over 2 hours) was located in the Phillippines.  There was a 12 hour time difference. So, we spoke from about 3pm-5pm my time and it was 3am-5am his time.  I had to compliment him on his terrific English (he said they all learn it from birth), for being amazingly wide awake, and for having the patience of a saint.

The frustrating part for me was being kept on hold for so long.  I waited close to a full hour before I ever got to speak to a human being when I called Turbotax.  It took 4 hours to deal with things that should have been dealt with in no more than one.      

My Favorite Birthday Present

My eldest son, born 24 years ago today, on my 28th birthday.

Looking to Trade Mornings

Up for grabs:

A lovely prospective membership brunch at the retirement community where my parents will hopefully be moving soon.  This meeting is for those who are on the waiting list for an apartment in the community and whichever of their children they can talk into attending with them.  A side benefit: Time spent with my mother and father - truly loveable people and great parents - who will be happy to tell you in great detail why you should vote for Hillary Clinton. My mother loves Bill Clinton and will definitely mention how attractive he is and his fabulous charisma. Several times.

They are serving quiche! Assorted baked muffins! Sliced fresh seasonal fruit! Followed by a chaser of prunes and metamucil.

Teeth. Always Such a Pain.

Not mine this time.  Daughter's.  She's going to have her wisdom teeth out today.  I am bringing her big brother along with us to the procedure.  Why?  Well, when he and his younger brother had their wisdom teeth out, the anesthesia caused very interesting reactions in both of them - very amusing, but difficult to handle.  They both  became silly beyond belief, and I actually had a little trouble getting them home.  Oldest son wanted to press all the buttons and switch all the switches in the oral surgeons office. He continued to want to press all the pretty buttons in the car as well.  Middle son, whose mouth was full of those wads of dental gauze, thought he was the Godfather, and kept trying to make me an offer I couldn't refuse.  Funny as hell, but I felt as though I had to keep an eye on him the whole ride home.  He was having such a great time and it was so beautiful out, he thought maybe he'd walk instead of ride.  5 miles from home, under the influence, with a bloody mouth. He kept threatening to open the car door and get out, all the while talking like the Godfather.  I could barely stop laughing long enough to yell at him to stay the hell in the car!

Daughter is unpredictable under ordinary circumstsances.  So, another set of eyes seemed prudent.

Oy.  Get me through this day.

****

The lasts.  The last Bar/Bat Mitzvah.  The last child left in school.  The last at home.  The last SATs.  The last college hunt. The last wisdom teeth.  One by one, the milestones that end childhood are coming and going. Daughter always gets to bring up the rear.

Something I Once Thought I'd Never Be Able to Say

"In a few minutes, I will be leaving to take daughter to visit a couple of local colleges."

She's a junior. It's time to start the college song and dance (been there twice before with her older brothers, so I know it well).

: ) <------Big grin

It's not perfect - there are issues and bumps in the road, I still worry, but we seem to be heading in the right direction.

She is think of majoring in nursing.

: ) <-----------Even bigger grin

Tonight's Debate

Getting right to the essentials:

Gee, Romney looks amazingly good for a 60 year old...

Ron Paul reminds me of Pat Paulson...

Pat Paulson's Presidential Campaign slogan:

"I've upped my standards. Now, up yours."

McCain needs to sit up straight...

****

Romney is better spoken, makes more sense, looks better, is a better candidate.

But McCain can win more votes from moderates and disaffected Democrats. He has a better chance against Hillary or Obama.

****

Anderson Cooper keeps cutting Ron Paul off.  He looks annoyed.  Heh.

***

John Podhoretz writes:

Click. Click. Click.  That’s the sound of America changing the channel from this excruciating debate. I said a few posts ago that Romney was doing very well. He is. But he is also a crashing bore.

*****

Romney: 

Bush kept us safe for the last 6 years. 

Big applause.

*****

McCain is a lefty.  (Left handed, not politically)

****

McCain is wrong about Romney's position on the surge. He should drop it.

****

God in heaven.  Move on, already. It's getting a little too Captain Queeg and the strawberries for me...

******

If I had it in me, I'd find a picture of Ron Paul and another of Pat Paulson and post them side by side....they could be twins separated at birth....

Another Paulson Presidential campaign slogan:

"If elected, I will win."

****

Huckabee just mentioned that the quote "peace through strength" came from Ronald Reagan.  Giuliani said it in his concession speech yesterday.

*****

Mystery:  Romney says he had 2 regrets - not having served in the military was one.  What was the other?  He never said.

****

In conclusion:  McCain did not come off well.  Romney looked much better.

Wha..?  Huckawho...? Ron Paulson?

Huckabee and Paul are irrelevant at this point.

Scwartzeneggar is endorsing McCain.  I think McCain is going to win the nomination.

Kind of disappointing.

But if it turns out that he does win the nomination, I will support him over Hillary or Obama.  

Heading Out of Town

Back Monday.  Have a great weekend.

January 4th 2002

That was the date of my last chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer.  I am now 6 years in remission.  It still affects me every day - not the cancer part - I'd have forgotten that a long time ago.  It's the aftereffects of the surgery that are the reminders.  The loss of the breast for one thing, of course.  I've considered reconstruction but from pictures I've seen, the results are not worth the effort.  Better a nice clean scar than a Frankenstein monster on one's chest.  It's true, sometimes they do come out ok, but 90% of the photos I've seen make me say no thank you.   The other thing is that due to nerves being cut during surgery, post mastectomy I lost sensation over a swath of chest and underarm from sternum to back.  I know it's a gross thought, but you could stick a needle in it and I wouldn't feel it.  And lastly, I was left with a mild case of lymphedema.  I am very lucky it's mild.  When I worked as a nurse, I took care of women who had severe lymphedema, to the point where they had to carry their arm in a sling it became so big and heavy.  No, mine is not at all like that.  In fact, unless you were seeing my wrists right next to each other, you probably wouldn't notice it.  But I have to be extremely careful in what I do and I have to take very good care of it because it could at any moment in time turn into a severe case.  I do the best I can, but I am not always 100% good about it.  I am not supposed to carry anything heavier than 10-15 lbs on that side.  My family rushes to take things from me all the time, which makes me feel like an invalid.  I don't like the feeling - and I don't want to become weak, so I still carry things when they are not around.  Sometimes when I am shopping, I forget and carry my purse on that arm, which I shouldn't do.  If by some chance I get a cut or burn or any sort of injury in that arm, I have to be very careful about infection.  Once I bumped it and it swelled up causing some concern, but after wrapping it in a compression wrap for a bit, the swelling went away.  Every 3 nights, I wrap the arm in 3 layers of ace bandage-like wraps (compression bandages).  They are not really ace bandages - they are lymphedema wraps that I special order online.  I have to do it at night, even though it makes sleep difficult because it almost completely immobilizes the arm and would be a greater inconvenience to deal with during the day. Finally, when I fly anywhere, I always wear a compression sleeve and gauntlet.

Though I'd like to forget about it, it's something that I live with and think about quite a bit, even after 6 years. Cancer ruined my 40s completely, I'd have to say. I had career plans, and between the cancer and my daughter's difficulties, they were pretty well obliterated.

Nevertheless, I am very lucky and happy to be here. In the past 6 years I've completed a master's degree (in middle school education) as well as a two-year certificate in adult Jewish education from Florence Melton, taught Sunday school, volunteered for Reach-to-Recovery, parented my kids who were ages 10, 12 and 17 when I was diagnosed, been around to help my daughter through some very difficult times and to see both sons off to college, visited Florida, New York, Arizona, Hawaii, Rome, Florence, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Spain, Prague, Budapest, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and the Dominican Republic, been able to see my husband's dear face every day, taken care of my parents as they've become less able to take care of themselves, had great times with family and friends, thrown some nice dinner parties, eaten in many terrific restaurants, sipped some fabulous wine in some very nifty places, enjoyed writing some bad poetry, had a blast taking pictures with my very cool camera and done 4.5 years of blogging. 6 winters, 6 springs, 6 summers, 6 falls. I've enjoyed them all.

Yeah, I'd say it's definitely been worth hanging around and I am fortunate for the way things have turned out.

   

Note: Sorry for the I, I, me, me-ness of this post. I generally don't like making me the issue and it won't happen again for a while, I promise. Hard to resist doing it from time to time when you have a blog...

That Time of Year

I just got excited when I saw it was 36 degrees outside.  This morning when I drove daughter school, it was only 25. Heat wave!  Ya-hoo!

Not Enough Hours in the Day

No time for blogging.  This time of year.  Gahh.

Took daughter and friend to mall this weekend.  Big mistake.  It was a lot like this:

I would have much preferred this:

Little Time For Blogging

Took my mother for cataract surgery this morning.  My father insisted on coming along, which complicated matters.  He has so much trouble walking, getting in and out of the car, etc.  But he wanted to be there for my mother, which is sweet.  They just celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary.

Anyway, we had to get up at the crack of dawn and drove through bumper to bumper traffic.  I am tired and stressed.  Mom is doing fine though.

My sister-in-law refers to driving her mother to doctor appointments as her "part-time job."  I know just what she means.  Podiatrist, cardiologist, internist, dermatologist, opthamologist...As soon as we are done with one, it's time for the next.

But yes, it's much better than the alternative. I will drive them anywhere they want to go for as long as they are able, and may they continue to be able for many, many years to come.    

T'wouldn't Be Nice

I'd write about my visit to the dentist today, but I don't want to horrify anyone.

 

Daughter

Daughter tells me that she has a date for her school's Homecoming dance.  He's "just a friend."  He's very funny and makes her laugh. 

I can tell she's pleased and excited, though she's trying to play it cool.   

This is big when I consider the fact that for quite a while we thought she'd never have a "normal" high school experience.  I am so very happy for her.

One of Life's Great Excitements

Taking mom and dad to the podiatrist.    

Weekend Snapshots

We left for NYC on Friday afternoon.  Upon arrival, we checked into our hotel and then walked around the city just window shopping and people watching for a while.  Stopped into Davidoff because my husband needed some cigars. I've been to lots of cigar shops with my husband.  This one had the biggest selection I'd ever seen. In the huge humidor room, the steam was visibly coming through the humidifier, there were boxes upon boxes of cigars from all over, and a cool looking modern bull sculpture (as in Wall St. bull and bear). I took several pictures.   

After buying cigars we headed to the Peninsula Hotel which has a rooftop bar with a great view.  I took many pictures of the city from above - horn-honking yellow taxis, masses of people, buildings, skyline - tilting the camera at several different angles in an artsy-fartsy attempt to capture the essence - - wild and crazy camera angles for a wild and crazy city. My Kir Royale arrived, ruby red on the bottom, glistening drops of moisture clinging to the glass.  I took some closeup shots of it.

An adorable little girl, about 6 years old or so, was there with her family. She was enticed by the view and climbed up on a chair about 20-30 feet away from where her parents were sitting, in order to peer over the wall.  It was a bit scary because she was so small and so high up and she could have fallen - in either direction.  Her mother handled it very well.  She didn't panic, just walked over and calmly put her arms around the girl.  They both quietly looked over the wall together, intertwined, arms hugging the neck of the other, cheek to cheek.  I took a picture of them from behind, surrounded by skyscrapers, blue sky and fluffy clouds. 

We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Del Posto's.  The lobster risotto was fair, the filet of sole was wonderful.  The next day we went to see US Open tennis.  I took some pictures of the players, trying to catch them mid-serve, in the air.

Seated a couple of rows ahead of us was a woman in her early 40s who was a Bo Derek clone - an absolutely gorgeous creature. She was dressed like a 24-year old: See-through white lace shirt, white bra beneath showing through, tight bell-bottom jeans and extremely pointy shoes with razor-thin, mile-high heels. She was with a guy who looked like a cross between Richard Belzer and Ric Ocasek, if they'd starved themselves for several months. His thinning hair was arranged in a pageboy hairstyle.

She was all over him, her arm around his back, hand inside his shirt caressing his pale bony shoulder.

At one point, I noticed that she had both of her feet up on the ledge in front of her.  One shoe was on and one shoe was off.  Her exposed foot was squashed into the shape of the shoe like a bound Chinese woman's, and she had a huge, painful looking red bunion. I took a zoomed-in picture of the beaten up foot next to the elegant, sexily shoed foot and thought about the things we women do to look beautiful.  I gave up on painful shoes a few years ago.  No tight Jimmy Choos for me - if your feet aren't comfortable, there's no such thing as a good time, as far as I am concerned. But sometimes, I look at elegantly high-heeled women and feel envy.  So, the picture said a lot about me and her and women and fashion.  Not exactly sure what, but I know it was saying something...      

That evening, we went to dinner at Buddakan. Corn dumplings, scallion pancakes and more. Yum.   Husband thought the air conditioning was turned up too high.  Complained of feeling chilled.  By the time we were in the taxi for our ride back to the hotel, he was shaking uncontrollably and feeling warm to the touch.  We hurried up to our room, I gave him some advil, he jumped into bed and I threw all the covers on him and then threw myself on top in an effort to help warm him up. We had a horrible night's sleep, but he thought he was feeling somewhat better in the morning, and so we proceeded to do what we'd had planned and went to see another day of tennis.  However, he began to feel worse by mid-day and we made the decision to leave earlier than planned.  We took the subway back to the city, got our bags and cabbed to La Guardia in time to make the 5 pm shuttle.

I was worried about husband, sleep deprived, also I had been worrying over daughter starting school the day after Labor Day.  Would she like it?  etc.  Being all frazzled, I left my camera in the taxicab and didn't realize it until we were going through security at the airport. It is, of course, lost forever.  Camera, telephoto lens, wide angle lens, close up lens, density and polarizing filters - all gone. Cigar humidor pics, gone.  NYC pics from above, gone.  Mother/daughter pic, gone.  Tennis player pics, gone.  Bunion pic, gone. 

A picture not taken by me

Husband felt better enough to go back to work yesterday, but is still under the weather with some..er...uh...abdominal difficulties. He has promised me he will call the doctor today and he made me promise him that I would buy a new camera and "get over it."

I see that they've come out with an updated version of the camera I had before with newer and better features.

Daughter says she "doesn't hate" her new school.  Husband's fever is remaining down. I think he's going to be ok. I am going to order a new camera.

I will soon be taking pictures again.

Oh by the way, there were a few other things on the lost camera's memory card which to my chagrin, I realized might end up splashed all over the internet. A few weeks ago, I had some surgery and was on pain medication. Daughter, only too happy to take advantage of my narcotic induced exuberance, snapped a few pics. If you should happen to come across, in your internet wanderings, any pictures of a middle-aged woman in a fuzzy pink bathrobe, wearing a doofy smile and walking like an Egyptian, that would be me. 

Is it Really Labor Day Weekend Already?

The summer flew by.  Heading out of town for our annual trip to NYCity.  Two full days of US Open tennis and two nights out on the town - just me and my sweetie.  : )

Have great weekend.

Um, well, yeah

Just took an Internet Addiction Test. My results: 

36 points

You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.

Take the test.

At times I think I might score higher.  If I am in the middle of an intense internet discussion/argument, or if something big is happening in the news, if the war heats up or it's election time, my score might go through the roof. 

At the moment, however, I am finding the internet to be pretty boring. I couldn't care less about whatever politician was caught in the airport bathroom and everyone's predictable reactions. 

Walt and Mearsheimer want Israel to give away the farm and Olmert seems on the verge of doing so. This is not boring - just frustrating - so I stay away from blogging about it.  I'd end up saying the same thing over and over again anyway.

Maybe I am tired of blogging.  I certainly am tired of political blogging at the present time.

Thinking that I will just blog the silly, ridiculous and odd for a while as a sort of palate cleanser.

   

Q&A

I have been interviewed by Mark of Knockin' on the Golden Door, who asked me some really thought provoking questions:

1.  Would you ever consider making aliyah?

Consider it?  Yes.  Will I ever do it?  The chances are extremely slim.

2.  If so, why?  If not, why not? (not really two questions, just depends on your answer to #1)

A good deal of my heart and soul is over there fighting the good fight alongside the Israelis. Religiously, morally, culturally, and emotionally - I believe that Eretz Yisrael belongs to the Jews, and I believe that Jews belong to Eretz Yisrael. 

At this point, if this were live and in person, I would burst into a melodramatic, heartfelt, low-tenor operatic rendition of the theme from the movie "Exodus:"

This land is mine, God gave this land to me
This brave and ancient land to me!!
And when the morning sun reveals her hills and plains,
Then I see a land where children can run free.

So take my hand and walk this land with me.
And walk this lovely land with me!
Though I am just a man, when you are by my side,
With the help of God, I know I can be strong.

[brief instrumental interlude]

Though I am just a man, when you are by my side,
With the help of God, I know I can be strong
To make this land our home
If I must fight, I'll fight to make this land our own
Until I die, this land is mine.

You'll never guess who wrote those lyrics, by the way. 

Pat Boone - back in 1961.

Anyway, if I were younger - if I had no one depending on me, I'd be there in a heartbeat.  I'd join the army, I'd be more religiously observant, and I'd live a very different life.  But, things did not play out that way.  I was not at all religious when I was young.  It was only around the time my eldest son became Bar Mitzvah that the spirituality light turned on for me, which was very dim in the beginning and only in the past 5 years has it grown brighter. 

In short, however: My husband and children and my parents are here, and they have no desire to move to Israel. I am not going anywhere without them.   

At the same time, I know that if I ever did move to Israel, I would miss the US tremendously. I believe in the mission and philosophy of the great American "experiment."  Democracy feels like a very religious method of governing to me.  The Constitution is our Bible, and people debate over it like Torah scholars. Anti-Americanism be damned - I see only great goodness coming from the American people.  We are not perfect, but we want the best for the world and there hasn't been any government nor any people that has done more for the modern world than the US.

If not Israel, there is no where on this planet I'd rather be than the US, and I am extremely loyal and hold this country and my fellow citizens in great esteem.   

3.  Why do you support a two-state solution?

Who said that I support a two-state solution? I supported a two-state solution for years and I suppose that practicality demands that it must be, but I really think the Israelis should govern both Gaza and the West Bank.  I know that people think this makes me a greedy grasping Jew, but those people would think that no matter what I said.

What I want for the future has nothing to do with imperialism or greediness.   

Disengagement from Gaza has shown us that the Palestinians are in no condition to govern or take care of themselves.  I have read that many Palestinians wish the Israelis to return, and I don't blame them.  Until the Arab/Muslim world renounces violence and embraces tolerance for other religions and freedom for its women, I personally don't think they ought to govern an outhouse in the desert.

I feel the same way about each and every Arab country where Islamofascism grows unchecked, whether the government leaders cower in fear from it or whether they are part of the cancer themselves.

We and the rest of the world have a choice - allow them to do what they will while we live with the consequences, or else, we intervene and impose our own will.

I can see pros and cons to both arguments, but personally  I believe in grabbing the bull by the horns and being pro-active - even moreso as Iran's nuclear weapons plans come closer to fruition.  But that would require the support of everyone outside of the Arab world.  It would require cooperation.  It would require strength and determination.  It would require guts and courage. It would require uniting together and believing in our own goodness and being capable of agreeing upon what "goodness" is.  It would require strong leadership, it would require an effective communicator, and it would require maturity and adulthood on the part of all of us.  It would require great sacrifice.

I don't want to see us owning them, obliterating Muslim culture, taking their oil or land, or enslaving them.  What I do want is for us force the modern world down their throats until they stop and taste it for a minute and realize it's the best meal they've ever had.  But this is not going to happen overnight and it's not going to happen without force being applied and without our shutting every potential door of escape from our will.

Plain and simple:  We have to be cruel to be kind.

I don't think we have what it takes to do this right now.  Some hideous unfortunate thing, comparable to another 9/11 might have to happen first.  And even then, some will still be blaming themselves and the West for Arab anger and will think that the victims involved deserved their fate. And they will want to twist themselves into knots trying to appease the unnappeasable, wearing blinders to shield themselves from recognizing the dangers that require them to be courageous and strong.

4.  Do you regard Judaism as more a religion or a philosophy?

Well, it's both. One can follow Jewish philosophy without believing it religiously.  But believing adds a layer of meaning which I personally did not understand/perceive until recently.

Philosophy without belief removes the concept of transcendence, the great and wonderful endeavor of growing beyond our human failings.   

Philosophically, I think it's much healthier for us all to believe that man is not the best the universe has to offer. Philosophically from my point of view, it makes more sense to believe religiously.

5.  Why do fools fall in love?  Yeah, #5 is silly, but the rest sure aren't light, are they?

Ah, a silly one.  Thank goodness, Mark.  My little brain is killing me from all this thinking.

Hormones.  We have hormones and they turn us all into fools.  But thank God for them because love is a wonderful part of being human.

Thanks, Mark. Terrific questions!

This is Not the Post I was Going to Write But...

Just thought I'd mention, I've got sunshine on a cloudy day,

And when it's cold outside, I've got the month of May,

I guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way...

You know the rest. : ) 

So Not Ready

Me.  I am so not ready.  We are taking middle son up to college to begin his freshman year this weekend. So much focus has been on so many other things, I haven't had time for it to sink in - that he's actually going.

Oh, I'd planned things so differently way back when.  I never wanted to be one of those mothers who bemoans her children leaving the nest. 

Woman plans, God laughs.

Sigh.

The one who is most like me.  The one with whom I can sit for hours in companionable silence.  The only one in the house with the same temperament as mine (Quiet introverts requiring time to ourselves to regenerate after socializing). We understand that about one another.  We laugh at "the others." They who need to talk.  Ha.  Not for us talking.  We communicate via thought waves.

And he was such an amazing pleasure to raise.  (Until his teens, when they all go a bit haywire.  His version of haywire wasn't so bad though.) He DID HIS HOMEWORK WITHOUT ANY PROMPTING!  He'd remind me to sign papers that had to be brought back to school. He didn't lose things! He loved naptime.  He never fussed about anything - always easy going.  Never demanding. Great sense of humor.

There was only one thing, one thing alone, about which he was ever irrational in all hos 18 years.  When he was little, he used to like eating pop tarts for breakfast.

GOD FORBID THE CORNER OF THE POP TART BE BROKEN OFF.

Strangely enough, it was one of the only things that made him cry. 

And of course, we've ribbed him about it mercilessly. 

And he's taken it with good humor like the mensch that he is.

Saying goodby is going to be very hard.

Of course, they do come back.  Eldest son is still living at home at age 23.  And Daughter came back. : )

But I have a funny feeling, this bird is going to be the one to fly off the soonest.  He walked at ten months. He always got himself up and off to school on time.

He's ready.  It's just his mother who's lagging behind.

So

We flew home out of Salt lake City yesterday (from where we picked up our daughter).  A stormy weather front had been traveling through the area over the past 24 hours and the clouds were low.  As the plane took off and we soared over the Great Salt Lake, there was a brief period where we were just beneath the clouds and they were reflected in the surface of the lake below.  I was listening to my IPod, and just as this heavenly, land-of-the-billowing-clouds sight was completely blowing me away in its awesomeness, Mozart's flute and harp concerto in C major began to play.

I got to see heaven for about 30 seconds complete with harp sound effects. What a gift.  An amazing miraculous gift from above.

And miracles and gifts were the theme of the day. Just that morning we'd been to a ceremony for daughter's graduation from treatment.  Peers, staff, teachers and her therapist got up and spoke about her, during which time I used up every kleenex in Utah. She'd been there long enough to become a role model and an inspiration to others, you see. My little pain in the rear end, Little Miss Colic 1991, the girl who never took no for an answer, the one who could not be in the same room with us without yelling and cursing and running out in a tantrum, rules were meant for everyone but her, the poster child for oppositional defiance disorder, bad attitudes R us central, was inspiring and helping others to change, cooperate, get over it, do the right thing, lose the 'tude and go home to their familes. 

It was my turn to speak, after my husband got up and gave a speech that said all the right things plus made people laugh. Me? I could barely get anything out.  I thanked the staff - but seriously, how does one go about thanking people for giving you back your child?  Are any words enough?  Is there anything you can say that expresses what you feel?  No.  I just got up there and sobbed, basically.  Each one there gave a message to daughter that they wanted her to remember.  All I could choke out between gulps was to beg her to never give up on us, her parents, and that I hoped she knew that we loved her more than the world.  I might have said a couple of other things, I don't remember. I do remember the hug. I'll never forget the hug.

Her team members (peers - the girls she's lived with for the past few months) said such wonderful things to her and about her.  And at the end, a group of them surrounded me and told me that I had made them cry.  And I told them to remember that each one of them had a mother who felt exactly the same way about them, and that as we all went through our daily lives and saw other mothers with their teenaged daughters at the mall and other places, we grieved and missed their presence in our lives beyond belief, that they should never, ever forget that their mothers loved them like no other.

When it was daughter's turn, she went around the room and said something to each person.  Saving her father and I for last, daughter pulled a chair up to face us both. She said that though she'd said it before, she wanted to say it again, that she was sorry for what she'd put us through and that she loved us and was so thankful that we were willing to forgive her.

And there was a pause for just a second, and my husband said, "Ok. Let's go home." And everyone clapped and cheered.

There really are no words to adequately describe it. No words for any of it - the experience, the ending, the hope for the future, nor the niggling worries that remain, the ones I know are necessary ballast to keep my head from staying caught up in the clouds over Salt Lake.  This is real life, not a fairy tale. There will be bumps in the road as daughter makes the transition back home, I know it. But for now, it's about as good as it gets and I am simply happy.

Cue Violins

The little girl above turned 16 yesterday.  She is coming home for good in less than a week.  The little boy will be graduating from high school in less than 2 weeks. He will be leaving (not for good, nooooooo.....) for college on June 30 or there about.

I am dealing with a wide variety of parental type errands and phone calls and arrangements generated by the two kiddies above - and as a consequence, am slowly being dissolved into a puddle of undignified maternal emotion. My concentration is off - thus, little blogging.

Next week, light blogging will continue because I'll be traveling - taking son up to school for an orientation/advising session, and the day after I get back from that, I fly out to pick up my daughter.

Theme music for this post: 

I Couldn't Help it

This made me laugh.

Disclaimer: I have a fever (100.2 degrees) and being febrile always makes me a bit giddy.

Lack of Blogging

Under the weather.  Back asap.

Toilet Innards

My goodness, but toilet innards are very expensive to replace.  It seems to have gotten worse since the last time I had to deal with the issue.  I just spent $189.00 to replace a flapper.  Maybe next time I'll try to do it myself.  It doesn't look that difficult.   

Interview Me Meme

Found this meme at Shirl's and she has come up with some terrific interview questions.  Thank you Shirl! I normally don't like to write about me, but your questions got me going quite well.

1.  Former nurse, former science teacher.   If you had to go back to one of these, which would you prefer, and why? 

Oh man, that's a tough one.  I loved doing both, each in their own way.  Honestly, nursing is a good young person's profession - at least the sort of nursing I did.  I worked a day/night rotation which would positively kill me now.  It consisted of a string of 7am-3pm shifts, followed by a string of 11pm-7am shifts.  There was no chance to become fully acclimated to any time schedule because it changed so frequently.  I was on my feet and moving and lifting patients and helping them to the bathroom and in and out of bed and bathing them and changing their sheets and giving them meds for 8 hours straight on the day shift.  Every shift was a workout, both physically and mentally - yah, nurses actually do have to think, despite the bimbo reputation.   

The night shift was different, depending on what was going on with the patients.  It could be slow or it could be hell on wheels.  There's fewer staff on at night - if a patient goes south, you are on your own.

One of my least favorite things was waking up the doctors.  Some of them were quite nasty about it.  I never woke them unless it was absolutely necessary - I understood that they needed their sleep.  But the patient came first - always. I saved the rear ends of many interns who did not know what they were doing.  They never thanked me.  Not once.

Observation of symptoms and knowing what's important and what isn't is an art and a science.  My ability to observe grew over a period of time and became instinctive.  It was never wrong.  When I worried over a symptom, I was always right about it - it always turned into something that required intervention. It felt good to be able to catch things early and to intevene and help people. 

I worked at Georgetown University Hospital on the oncology unit.  The head nurse insisted on the highest quality of care for the patients and ran a very tight ship.  I have been to other hospitals as a nurse, a patient and an observer - I don't think you could have found better nursing care anywhere than on that unit.  I have no idea how it is now, but back in the early 80s, it was cutting edge treatment and care.  We had some of the first AIDs patients, back before we learned that it was not an airborne illness.  We gowned and gloved up the wazoo before we went into their rooms.  My husband was very disturbed by the fact that I was at risk, but we all did what we had to do.  They were so pathetic, so out of their minds ill.  What a wretched disease it is. 

We were also involved in research, giving the first trials of interferon and other chemotherapeutic agents and doing studies on pain medications. 

Truly, after bathing and changing the sheets and helping folks to the bathroom, spoon-feeding them their meals and giving them injections for pain, when those patients looked up at me and I saw the relief in their eyes - there was nothing like it. And I held their hands all night and was with them when they died and I wrapped their bodies for the morgue and comforted their families. It was an amazing experience.

But I don't have it in me to do it anymore - at least not to do it right. 

I left nursing because I found it incompatible with parenting and family life.

Later on when my children were a bit older, I went back to school and earned a master's degree in middle school education.  Taught 8th grade science part time from 98-2001.  It was great.  So much fun - I loved it.  Loved the kids - I feel right at home with the 13-14 year old sense of humor, quite honestly.  But I was very strict and my students had the highest scores of anyone else's in the department on the state tests.  I was very proud of that, and also of the fact that I was able to accomplish this without the kids hating me.  lol.  They liked my class despite the fact that I made them work.  Why?  Because I explained why it was important for them to know what I was attempting to teach them, I gave them context, I fit chemistry, physics and astronomy into the grand scheme of things for them and tried my best to make the abstract make concrete sense. I never gave an assignment that was busy work, I did not go onto another concept until they completely learned the one from before, and we got to play with chemicals and computers and beakers and fun stuff. And I always laughed and joked about the pronunciation of "Uranus."

I quit teaching when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Had to put health and family first. 

I loved both professions, each for different reasons.  What they shared was that each made me feel that I was doing something valuable, that I was of use to the universe.

Right now, I can't work - other than teaching Sunday school which will end soon in any event - because I need to be around when my daughter comes home from treatment in June.  The transition will not be easy for her, and I want to make sure that if she needs me, I am there.

2.  If you could be anything, what would you be, and why?  (I'd vote for you for president, by the way *grin*)

Oh Shirl, you are too kind!  I'd make a very bad president.  I think I'd have an itchy trigger finger.  The earth would be rubble!

I would be a science teacher and a poet/photographer/artist/blogger/cook/student of Judaic studies on the side. Those are the things I like doing most.

I once thought I wanted a title and an office and a big paycheck the big job that goes along with those things, but my ambitions shrunk after cancer.  I am happy to be alive and witnessing each season as it passes.

3.  You are so well-traveled.  If you could live anywhere, where would that be, and, of course, the inevitable why?

Hmmmmmm.  So many different factors enter into choosing a place to live.  Family considerations really color my choices right now.  Honestly, I could be happy anywhere.  I am very flexible in that regard. 

Out of sentiment, I might say that I'd choose to move back to where I grew up - New Rochelle, NY.  Only 45 minutes from Broadway....I've lived in the DC area for almost 30 years, but I'm still a New Yorker at heart.

I don't have a favorite place as far as travel goes. Every place has been interesting and unique. But, there's no place I like better than the US.   

4.  How many brothers and sisters do you have, and what is your position in the birth order of your family?  Do you believe birth order affects personality?

I have a brother who is 3.5 years older than I am.  I am the spoiled, cosseted baby, and yes, I think it does affect personality.  I'm absolutely adorable, of course - the cutest thing to ever make an appearance on this planet.  The only thing that keeps me from being completely insufferable is the fact that I grew up surrounded by many people of great wealth while we had nothing.  I was glad when my father managed to get the electric bill paid or could buy oil for the winter.  My school was filled with rich kids who went to exotic places for spring break, came back tan and gorgeous while I remained pasty white and envious.   

Being the youngest also made me very sensitive to being teased and if you do, I swear I'll tell on you.

5.  Okay, a silly one.  Who is your personal "McDreamy?"  We promise we won't tell your husband.

I like the old time actors - Richard Burton, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Humphrey Bogart. They were suave and handsome and brave and knew how to wear a tuxedo.

Thanks again, Shirl!

DIRECTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW MEME
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

It's Been a While

Yesterday I took daughter to the pediatrician because she had an earache.  Given that she's been away from home for the past two years and that her two brothers are older and go to an internist who sees only adults, it was a very strange flashback to earlier times.  Strange, but very sweet.  Of course, I have no way of knowing what will be in the future, but for now, our relationship and her behavior and delight and happiness and joy are everything I have every wanted and dreamed of from the day I discovered I was going to give birth to her almost 16 years ago. 

I'd grieved as if I'd lost her, and now she's back. How much more do we savor that which seemed lost to us? There are no words to express it. B'H.

This and That

Daughter is home - she's doing GREAT and it's a pleasure to see her.

Husband and I took daughter and our younger son to Penn State this weekend for a tour of the campus.  Son will start his freshman year there in July.  They have a very nice program for beginning students in the summer - they take classes and get to know the place before all 40,000 students descend upon it in the fall.  The school is huge and son is very psyched to go. (Time out while mom sobs her eyes out......sob.......boo-hoo.....Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I'm not ready to let him go yet......wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh................My baby, my baby.................Ok,  I'm done)

Interesting factoid I picked up from the tour: 1 out of every 115 college graduates in the US graduated from Penn State.

Second interesting factoid I learned:  They are very fond of towing cars away (and the nice little income stream it provides) in College Park, Pennsylvania. 

We went to dinner at a lovely restaurant Friday evening, came out and our car had gone missing.  We'd parked in an empty parking lot after circling round and round finding nothing on the street. It had been a long day, we hit horrendous traffic on our way there from DC  - left the city at 2:45 pm and didn't arrive until 7:30 pm.  We were exhausted and starving to death and figured they'd see the VA plates and realize we were from out of town and give us a break.  It was obvious that the business was closed and would not be needing/using the parking there that evening. 

Well, we made a big mistake.  We had to take a taxi to the place where the car had been towed and they charged us $95.00 to get the car back.  I gave them an earful about it being a very mean way to introduce out-of-towners to their area, that my son was going to be a freshman and it was the first time we'd been there and that we'd been so excited to see the place and that, well darn it, people were MUCH friendlier to visitors in Virginia.  As you might imagine, my lecture made a HUGE impression on them.   Husband then proceeded to give them one of his earfuls and it was much more effective.  Maybe because he didn't come off sounding like a Sunday School teacher, if you get my gist.

The place is huge and they have a very bad parking problem.  But this will not have any bearing on son's education, and we mustered up enough spirit to buy Penn State sweatshirts and a coffee mug anyway. Son wore his shirt proudly when he went out with friends on Saturday evening after we returned home.

Go Nittany Lions.

(Just wanted to note that prior to being towed, I'd have put an exclamation point or two after that cheer.)

When it's Time to Convince Mom and Dad to Move into a Retirement Home

It's not an easy thing.  Especially when you reach that point in the conversation when you have to get stern and tell them to face reality, stop putting you through this hell, do the mature thing, and go.

My father fell and broke his neck a year and a half ago.  He walks very slowly with a cane.  My mother has to do everything for them from shopping to preparing meals to laundry to putting out the trash etc.  They were iced in for several days during recent bad weather (they had everything they needed and were perfectly happy but I worried about them), and during that time my mother tripped over the rug and hit her head.  She was ok, but had a bump.  It could have, God forbid, been worse. She has to have cataract surgery.  Who will take care of my father when she does? 

They will still have their own apartment - 2 bedrooms, 2 baths.  They can participate as much or as little as they want with the exercise and art classes, bridge games, field trips into Washington DC, weekly wine and cheese evenings, and brought-in entertainment. There's an in-house physical therapist who can work with my father.  They will have their own kitchen and can eat on their own or they can be served in the dining hall.

If and when they go (they said they would, but are moving verrrrry slowly and are about to lose out on a 2-bedroom place due to their reluctance to move more quickly - and who knows when the next one will open up?) they will be moving closer to where I live - the place is only a 5 minute drive from here.  And I will continue to drive them into DC for appointments with their favored doctors. 

You'd think they were being sent to a prison in Siberia.

The truth is, and the thing that really makes it so hard: I understand exactly what they are going through and I know I will feel the same way that they do when my time comes.

But they have to go anyway.

I am going to remember this agony and try to make it easier on my kids.   

Windows Vista

I received the new computer a couple of days ago.  So far, I have to say that Windows Vista has neither struck me as particularly bad nor spectacularly good.  For all the fuss, the changes are kind of minimal, or at least they seem so to me - so far.  The new computer's processor is a speedy 2.33 gesuntehaits or whatever it is measured in. It is faster, and if it remains so and doesn't slow down with continual usage, that alone is worth a lot to me.  Blogging is very time consuming, and a faster speed really makes a difference.  Not that I take my blogging all that seriously.  This ain't no professional blog.  But that's even more reason to want a speedy computer.  Sometimes my hobby eats into the time I need to get the things done that I am really supposed to be doing instead of spending time babbling here. Which I enjoy, but as I tell my children, the most enjoyable thing in life is knowing that you are a person of responsibility who gets the things for which you are responsible, done.  And then I hand them a tissue so they can wipe their eyes after they stop laughing at the dorkmom. They actually agree with me, but I'd have to wrestle them to the floor and get them in a half-nelson with a knee pressed firmly into the small of the spine to get them to admit it.

The problems:

1.  Number one problem that I am having a bit of a hard time getting used to is deciding upon screen resolution.  This machine seems determined to get me to keep the resolution at the highest level.  Vista screen colors, by which I think they mean the palatte used in the Windows Vista theme, only works at high resolution.  That's not a big deal, but what is, is that screen becomes substantially more blurry as one decreases resolution.  The highest resolution, 1200 X 1900, while very sharp and crisp, makes all the fonts and pictures very small and more difficult to read.  But when I decrease it, things appear bigger but blurrier.  This was the case on my last computer (and on all computers, in fact) but not nearly to the same extent.

2.  Windows Vista is not compatible with iTunes yet.  iTunes reports that a new compatible version is in development and expected within 3 weeks or so.  I can wait.  I am not looking forward at all to transferring my music.  If I am reading things correctly, iTunes requires you to either transfer everything to CDs (extremely unwieldly if one has a lot of music) or else to somehow use the iPod hard drive in the transfer.  I printed out the instructions for that little maneuver and it came out to 11 some-odd pages and looks complicated as hell.  What a pain in the rear end.

3.  The new laptop is heavier than the old one.  I thought I'd had a 17-inch screen on my last laptop, and so ordered the same on the new one.  Turns out, my last one was only 15-inches.  Given the screen resolution thing, maybe a bigger screen is better - though I'm not sure how screen size works in conjunction with resolution.  But the thing weighs 9 lbs.  It's perfectly fine to schlep room to room, but I would not want to lug it through an airport.

4.  One feature of Windows Vista that is both good and bad is that they add another layer of protection in that asks you for permission to do just about anything on the computer.  Are you SURE you want to load that program?  Really sure?  Really, REALLY sure? Think carefully now, are you really, really REALLY sure?  You get asked security questions more often.  No biggie to me.  I will get used to it and I definitely approve of screening out viruses and unwanted visitors.

What do I like about Windows Vista?  Well, it's aesthetically pleasing.  Pretty colors, new sounds - all novelties that wear off after a few days.  There's a big welcome screen that I haven't decided whether or not I like yet.  I am keeping it there for now, but I imagine I will eventually do away with it.  It provides instant access to stuff I have no interest in, except for maybe the control panel.  Windows also belatedly has supplied a selection of widgets that sit along the right side of the screen.  You can have a clock, stock quotes, headlines, sticky notes and such - all things that one can get off the internet and place on any computer without needing Vista. Another cute little feature is that you can click an icon and see all of the open windows in 3-D, making it slightly easier to switch back and forth.  So, instead of opening and minimizing and opening and minimizing, you can keep everything open at once. 

I have not noticed anything else that is very different from Windows XP.  All in all, the swtch has not been a big deal, and I suppose I am getting used to the screen resolution thing.  A nice thing would be a feature to increase font size across the board while keeping the high resolution.  That may actually exist, but as I've always found with Windows, trying to find out how to do such a thing is damned near impossible, or else so time consuming that I don't want to bother.

This new machine will work out just fine, I suspect.  And in a few weeks, I'll go back to my old laptop to take a peek and will find it feels as foreign to use as this one does now.  You get used to whatever you work on, in my experience.

If any major problems crop up, I am sure I will whine about report them in this space.

 

Weather

Weather.com reported that we were going to receive 1-3 inches of snow followed by rain.  We actually received about 5-6 inches of snow.  I don't know whether it rained or not, but the snow was still very much in existence when I woke up this morning. Everything is about to turn into a big gloppy mess  - if temperature predictions are correct, we should be in the high 40s today and tomorrow and in the 50s by Wednesday.

And that's the DC area weather report brought to you by Gail.

In other news, for a complex set of reasons, middle son has decided that he is going to begin college early - this summer rather than in the fall. Maybe I'll begin speaking to him again one day.  I'll give it some serious consideration when he presents me with a few grandkids, I guess.   

Tough week, Not Much Sleep...

Warning: Extremely annoying whining ahead.

The visit with daughter was great, but I am left tired and a bit on edge - - it was an extremely busy week. She may be coming home for good sooner than expected, and I suddenly feel like a woman giving birth prematurely.  I need a few more months to prepare!!!

Husband left for a business trip in Los Angeles early this