"it is what it is."

Subtitle : Jen invokes the privilege to engage in indulgent navel-gazing

"It is what it is."

My husband says this phrase a lot. I get incredibly irritated every time. I told him it sounds awfully condescending to me. Why not just say,

"I am mature enough to view this problem that is making you curl into a fetal position and sob as the simple event it is, all contentedly set in its proper place in the universe and I'm cool enough to shrug it off with a flip saying."

or more succinctly,

"I'm not stupid enough to make a big deal over this."

(I know. Poor John. Sympathy donations to him for dealing with such a shrew are welcome)

So then I started noticing that at the many band boosters meetings I'd go to, the band director would very often shrug at any given complication, give a half smile and say "It is what it is."

(Of course, I initially had a different reaction when he said it. I thought it was cute and laid back...the first 100 times or so. Now, I'm having a reaction more similar to the one I'd reserved for John).

I've started to notice more and more people throwing this phrase around. And my dislike/morbid fascination for is increasing. Why does this phase make me so completely crazy?

Here's what the urban dictionary has to say about it. Some of the suggestions resonate with me and my annoyance:

A way of demonstrating apathy; an unwillingness to evoke change; a way of saying "It's not of interest to me."

OOOOhhh. There you are. That's exactly why that phrase makes my toes curl. Apathy is one of the things I hate most. Ever. I despise apathy. Apathy is lazy, and I hate lazy almost as much as apathy. Apathy is action by inaction; committing yourself to live in isolated boredom. Passion is where it's at!!!! PASSION and engagement and putting yourself out there - now that's the way to be, right?

But as my recent "beloved-teacher-from-my-past-getting-irritated-at-my-posting-a-link-to-an-article-about-cutting-spending/raising taxes-and-my-general-liberal-crap-and-then-calling-me-a-bitch-on-facebook" episode might have taught me, putting myself out there - embracing my passions and wearing them on my sleeve has certain drawbacks. (I am still smarting from that episode and trying to figure out if there is more than a negligible smattering of bitchiness to me - I think there is - and I'm trying to come to terms with it). But even still smarting from that virtual bitch slap, I can't retreat in how I attack life.

Life is a sine curve. You can let life wash over you without engaging, and flatline. Or you can engage and actively push those peaks up there and ride the resulting wave, including the valleys. It only is what it is if you let it stay that way. Change can be evoked, and it's passion that evokes change.

Did you read that?

Change can be evoked.

And thus is the conundrum of my life. While I am not a fan of change in the "Lassie is going off the air respect", I don't feel engaged and alive unless I invoke it. So I engage and push for change and feel wistful for the way things used to be. Repeat. It's just the way I am.

Indeed, you might even say, "it is what it is".

some random weirdness

November is NaBloPoMo, which translates into National Blog Posting Month. Someone has decided to form a national movement to encourage daily blog posting for one month a year. Why? No idea. I'm certain there is some advertising revenue in there somewhere for somebody.
In any case, while I don't get particularly excited about made-up movements like this, I suppose it's a good excuse to try to post more often.

So here are some random observations to make up my post for today:

There is a woman at the supermarket who is a perfect likeness of Sarah Palin, but with blond hair. When she spoke to me, it cemented the deal. She's way over-the-top perky, with perfectly applied make-up and has a loud, direct and um... down-home way of speaking. I admit my first reaction at being cheerfully greeted by her left me with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. It was almost as disturbing to me as the thought of Tom DeLay on Dancing with the Stars. However, after she asked me if I wanted paper or plastic in her perky, smiley way, I decided that she is actually a likable enough person. I look for her at the register now, and purposefully get in line to chat with her. She's fun in short doses - about the amount of time it takes to pay for my groceries. I imagine she's putting on somewhat of a front for her job, and is probably much more sedate in everyday life. It cheers me to no end when I see her at the grocery store now. I always feel like I'm caught in the middle of a Saturday Night Live skit.

I was getting my hair restored to its natural color on Friday, and was chatting with my new hair stylist, who is very very young - probably about 20 or 21. We got to talking about flu shots, and she told me about seeing something on youtube about how a healthy woman (who was training to be a Redskins cheerleader) got a flu shot and now she can't talk and can only walk backwards or run. My thought was oh great - every time I get my hair done, I'm going to be bombarded with urban legends. I didn't roll my eyes at her, in my defense. I smiled and said "Huh." in an appropriately bored manner in an attempt to change the subject. Because I am a well-educated and mature adult. Well, recently, I was bored and surfing the net and thought I'd look up that hoax. Color me completely shocked. I think it's a real story. I officially apologize to my new hair stylist. Sometimes life really is crazy...

in which she pops her head up to say hello...

November. WTF?

At the beginning of every autumn, I tell myself that this is the year I am going to go slow and revel in the change of seasons and enjoy every second of the cooling temps, the fires in the fireplace, the start of a new school year. I'm going to go slow enough to track the incremental changes in leaf color on the trees in my years and I'm going to feel the aura of autumn in every cell of my body. And about this time every autumn, I realize that I've been enjoying it so much that it has flown by unnoticed. I guess that's the point, ultimately, isn't it?

Soccer and baseball for the kids are over now, so my "free time" allotment has just exploded for the next couple of months (until it all starts up again). But really - I complain in jest. I never did sports as a kid and I do wish I'd had the opportunity. The opportunities were simply not THERE for a little girl back in the 70s. I love that E has no idea that there could possibly be any limits there for her because of her gender. It simply doesn't factor into her thought process. She plays soccer for the enjoyment and for the social benefit (very honestly, she has no real love of the game and has inherited my limited athletic prowess, but she embraces her "right" to play simply because she has fun). I LOVE that Q has found a sport that marries athletic ability and intellect. He is a perfect candidate for baseball. I love watching him play and love having him analyze the game for us afterwards.

So what I have had time to focus upon this fall from a personal perspective is food. FOOD!!!!! Food fascinates me. I love simple, plain food - the smell of earth, the warmth, the freshness that I smell on new greens, on onions, on potatoes. I stuck my head down into my CSA basket the other day to just breathe. In retrospect, I'm fairly lucky no one walked in on me. My counter is covered with butternut squash, garlic, honeycrisp apples, and something like 30 sweet potatoes. While I turn into psycho-yelling mom when my counter collects papers and junk mail, seeing all the food spilling over onto every quarter of the counter makes me happy. I'm sure my family will learn these fine distinctions in no time.

I've become quite the convert into eating locally and seasonally and organically, and so far, my family hasn't complained too awfully much. In fact, being the evil mom that I am, I forced my kids to sit through a showing of "Food, Inc." Despite the eye rolls and whining, E has since become a vegetarian, and has stuck to that quite strictly for about a month now. The rest of us have no problem eating meat as long as it's from an animal that resembled what it is naturally supposed to resemble while alive. It's been some work to find sources of healthy foods for the various aspects of our lives (school lunches, quick snacks, etc) but we're making excellent progress. I have a new 9 cubic foot freezer chugging away in the garage filled with fresh tomatoes, tomato sauce, and fruits, and waiting for our first delivery of meat from PolyFace Farm tomorrow. I have a lot of thoughts on my transition into crazy granola mom and why it's really not very crazy or granola. It's actually quite spiritual to me. My spiritual focus is on the way the universe fits together so beautifully, and the transition of solar energy into food into us is ultimately something important. I think the US has been brain-washed by the media into ignoring that natural cycle, or at least brain-washed into believing that the industrial version of that cycle (which is pretty whacked out) is the natural one. Craziness.

In the meantime, it's time to revel in November. October may have slipped through my fingers, but so far November is actually looking more like fall and I'm happy with that.

morning haiku

pre-ground hazelnut
bitter and mellow and smooth
the hot bites my tongue

muted morning sun
air so still it suffocates
thunderstorm looming

Jillian Michaels
waits in the dvd; come
I sigh, I obey

another birthday

Today is my birthday, and look at what gift I received from Mother Nature.
As of 2:45 this afternoon:

Light Rain

65°F Feels Like 65°F

Updated Jul 5 02:45 p.m. ET


I've got the air conditioning off and the windows open so I can hear the rain and feel the cool wind. Mmmm. I'm watching it come down, and the smell of wet earth is heavy in the house now. I'm still full from a lovely birthday brunch from a dear friend this morning (grits casserole, sausage, bacon, blueberry pound cake, baked french toast from homemade sourdough bread, fresh fruit, orange juice, coffee, etc), and am now happy with a beer and cheez-its. I've got all the senses happily covered. Daughter E is busy baking me a cake and our plans are to go out to dinner tonight. I'm thinking perhaps lobster or crab legs? Woo.

Speaking of senses, I feel more than a little overwhelmed with love today. I'm getting lovely and thoughtful gifts and lots of hugs and kisses and phone calls. If I can get over my guilt about being the recipient of such a wealth of love, it'll be an absolutely perfect birthday.

I'm mostly feeling ambivalence over turning 45. Actually, I've been mistakenly thinking I was already 45 for the last several months, so the real birthday lost any punch in that respect long ago. One year ago on my birthday, I was on a bus riding toward Cold Lake in Alberta, Canada for our field campaign. I stared out as the Texas-like landscape rolled by and tried to think deeply about what I wanted as I entered the mid-40s. Today, I've been trying to remember what it was that I wanted for this past year. I wanted to lose weight (well I have, though I've promptly put it back on again), I wanted to have a better organized house (parts of it are better and parts of it are worse), I wanted to be more patient with my kids (I am sometimes, and am sometimes not). In other words, all these abstract, hand-wavy things that I wanted to improve in my life this last year are about the same as they were then.

What I really accomplished without any prior planning, is living another year, and thoroughly enjoying it.

Our dear assistant principal at the kids' elementary school is retiring this year. I adore this man. I've heard him quote something from his uncle many times. "Whatever it is that life puts in your way, it's up to you to enjoy the ride." His uncle was killed in the 9/11 attacks, which makes his words resonate all the more.

This last year has been a pretty easy one for me, personally. It's not hard to enjoy life when things are going mostly as you have planned. I'm certainly not looking for a tough year, though I know there are inevitably some out there in my future. In the meantime, the best I can do is practice enjoying the ride, with all the unplanned little curves and jogs that take me by surprise. And that's what I hope my 45th year will be filled with. Open eyes, ears that truly hear, slow meals where I truly savor the taste, deep breaths and long pauses.

dreamweaver

I've been dreaming again, finally. It's been a while. Suddenly, I've had very vivid dreams for the last few nights. Last night's was just silly, but dear neighbor M helped me figure it out.

I was at a scientific conference and many of us were meeting at someone's house for dinner. All throughout the dinner, I kept spilling my drinks and knocking over my chairs. (feeling a little inadequate, ya think???)

I had just been diagnosed with a disease by my doctor that required multiple medicines, one of which was glue. I needed to take 1 teaspoon twice a day. At the dinner, I was worried about what people would think, so kept squeezing glue onto my finger and eating it.

In the meantime, I had to relay the message to everyone that my friend P had been diagnosed with a horrid outcome. We'd found out that one of her doctors when she was young had translated two numbers and that the result was that she was several (about 5?) years older than she thought she was.

Mary let me know I am in anxiety over getting older. (duh). I'm eating glue like a child and am self-conscious so am knocking over my drinks and chairs. My friend P is a cancer survivor and my take on it is that she is "older" than she thought she was.

This getting-older thing was so abstract when I was in HS. I never thought it would actually happen. I went on a hike with the Girl Scouts tonight in our local state park and after the very mild and easy hike, I hobbled into my house on painful knees. I'm beyond youth now. My body is breaking down. I have been at my workplace for 20 years (although they have YET to acknowledge that with my 20 year pin. Should I ask someone about it? WTF would I do with a 20 year pin anyway?)

I'm not a work in progress anymore. I'm there. I'm who I am. I am closer to retirement than I am to starting work. I'm not a "bud waiting to bloom" anymore. I'm more like a fully bloomed rose with petals that are dropping off.

Eating glue. What a weird way for my aging anxiety to manifest itself. Anyone who wants neighbor M's services should send a bribe directly to me.

Lucy! I'm Home!

We have a new family member now. Lucy is an 8 week old diluted calico that we adopted from our local animal shelter. E (my 10 year old) has been orchestrating this move for months now. She is in little girl heaven. Her tiny kitten slept on the pillow beside her last night and woke her up by gently batting her cheek with her paw. She's been prancing around the house tonight, attacking unsuspecting toes and making Roxy (the dog) hyperventilate. She is a trip.



As for the rest of my life, I feel like I am slowly winding up the process of wrapping up an enormous package. One by one, bits and pieces are being wound up and bound off. Piano recital and lessons (with the accompanying planning and transportation), check and check. Girl scouts - check (after Wednesday). Band practices and concerts, check. Career day presentation and PTA yearbook sales, check check, check. Baseball merits no check yet, but possibly will after another couple of weeks. I am not sure where this enormous package will be sent at the end of spring. I'm glad to see it wrapped up but not glad to see it sent away. Know what I mean?

I am not sure that I will remember how to exist on the absence of adrenaline. As much as I enjoy complaining about my (oh so typical) busy mom-of-teens-and-preteens schedule, it is, like it or not, my way of life. I have never been fond of change so the abrupt end to the chaos this summer may not be the reprieve I've been hoping for. In fact, I find myself projecting the summer's loss of activity onto my empty nest years. These are not exactly looming, but they are close enough.

I asked DH what in the hell we did before kids and what we would do after they are gone. He responded by cooking me a dinner that was fabulously full of spices and onions, which is something we've had to forgo when the kids eat dinner with us. It was delicious.

We are such a funny species, we humans. And in particular, we parent humans.

You’re an interesting species, an interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.

(from the movie Contact. I find myself repeating this line to myself very often)

Life has been fabulously fun and good this spring. I am short on time and long on things to do. The house is not very clean and certainly not organized, but my kids are smart and healthy and INCREDIBLY thoughtful. No complaints here. It's all spicy food and kittens.

continued

I was surprised when I looked at the date of my last post. Apparently, I'm still losing days. So on that topic (my last post) here are my latest adventures in the story of my mind's demise:

At the orthodontist yesterday (for Q) I was trying to make an appointment for E to be evaluated. They were getting some background information.
"Who's her dentist?"
All I could think of was "Dr. Payne." We've never had a dentist called Dr. Payne, but my friend and I were discussing unfortunate names one day long long ago and he told me HE used to have a dentist called Dr. Payne. Why that was the only name that came to me I don't know. (As an aside, my contribution to that conversation was the vet who put down my first dog Callias. His name was Dr. Stiff. Seriously).

Anyway. I hit my head with my palm and mumbled something about losing my mind. "He's in Hampton" I offered.
"Hampton?" the assistant asked as she flipped through a list of names. "Not Newport News?"
"Um, it's Newport News" I said.
In my defense, I usually call the whole peninsula down there Hampton because it's simpler to say. They finally found the name of E's dentist.

Then there was the lovingly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was intended to give my dear son sustenance during his 5:30-7:30 baseball practice (before dinner). I left it neatly wrapped sitting on our counter until I found it at about 10 pm last night. So there's not much progress on the losing my mind front.

I'll keep you posted, if I can remember.

oy vay

I fear I'm losing brain function. Really. Should you worry about me? Yes. I think maybe you should.

First order, it seems I am able to complete much less in a much longer amount of time than ever before. Functionality is trending toward negative infinity. Today, for instance, was my day off. I had no requirements. This was my day to catch up. I had vague notions of a sparkling house and concrete vacation plans made and clothes sorted and packed away for the Salvation Army. After that, the plan was to have lunch and proceed to the afternoon.

Instead, I wandered. All day.
(It wasn't actually all *that* bad. I had a long phone conversation with my BIL and worked on some PTA stuff. But the house is not sparkling and no vacation plans have been confirmed, and I haven't started to even think about sorting clothes).

The kicker was this evening. My children came home from school, and I, fresh from feeling guilty over yelling at them this morning over what children they were, decided we needed to order out Chinese food and get movies to watch. Family night!!!!
And all would be good. Rah rah rah.

First order of business was to pick up a Bar Mitzvah card for our friend who is Bar Mitzvah-ing tomorrow. Simple, eh? A-HAHAHA! I had just about convinced myself that I was going to have to buy a "first communion" card from Target, and delicately scratch out the words and the cross on the front when I *finally* found a card that said the words "Bar Mitzvah". (not so diverse here, I guess??) There were exactly two cards left in the pile. I'm wondering how many of the exact same card this poor boy will receive tomorrow. I'm kind of thinking I *should* have gone with the first communion card and some white-out for the simple sake of uniqueness. Actually, the really funny thing was that Q found a belated birthday card that he thought would be funny and nice. The birthday card was, in fact, quite funny and made a big deal out of the giver's forgetfulness, culminating in a "Merry Christmas!!!" greeting. I didn't know whether I should explain to Q why it was so totally and completely inappropriate or absolutely totally perfect. (He needed a small nudge and simple reminder about what occasion we were buying for before he thought it was hysterical). Oy vay, right?

So anyway, the next stop is where my problems began. We stopped by Blockbuster movie rental to pick up some movies. Simple enough. I argued us down from about 15 selections to four and went up to the counter to pay for the remaining DVDs. I even had my internet, mail-delivered Blockbuster DVD all packaged up to trade in for one of the store DVDs at no cost, so I was feeling quite virtuous. Well. *Apparently*, Blockbuster has changed their rental policies and had the nerve not to ask *ME* about it beforehand. Used to, they had no late charges, really. As long as you got your movies back in before they decomposed, you were golden. Well, not so much anymore. When the nice young lad asked me if I wanted the 1-night or the 5-night rental, first, my head exploded, and then I focused my laser glare of death upon him. I shrieked in my best banshee impersonation, peppered with the appropriate number of "But I know it's not your fault" comments as my son tried his best to disappear into the racks of DVDs. After announcing to the unsuspecting patrons in the store that NETFLIX does exist and is a very viable alternative to Blockbuster, I stalked out of the store while my poor son slunk into the shadows trying to pretend that he had no idea who I was. My daughter, she didn't care so much. She was just ready to go watch "Bride Wars."

So I figured Chinese food would be simple after that. As I am the one who is always prepared and in control, I had brought along not one, but two Chinese food restaurant menus with us in the van. My anal type-A plan was to call the order in directly after renting the movies (never suspecting that Blockbuster had colluded against me, rendering me irate), giving just enough time to arrive at the restaurant on the way home that our dinner would be perfectly ready for pickup. I had forced my young ones to peruse the menu on the way into town earlier, and they had written down their orders. After the Blockbuster confusion, my brain was showing distinct signs of implosion, so I sat there staring at the menu in total confusion for an inordinate amount of time before deciding to roll the dice and simply call in our orders and wing my own. Eggplant? OK.

All was good until I found myself driving down Rt. 60 wondering aloud where the restaurant was. My sweet son picked up the menu, looked briefly at it, and then looked at me. "Mom, this place is by Farm Fresh." (which was about 10 miles away, quite close to our house in fact and not at all close to where I was driving.)
Oh ho - little one. You don't know what it is that you are talking about (but of course, he did). Feeling quite small by this point, I did a U-turn and found the correct restaurant. And they did not have my order ready because *my* selection for dinner was not available. But of course! I managed not to cry, but the poor guy running the register was obviously worried I was about to. He asked me what I would prefer instead, and I was completely unable to answer. I simply could not make a decision. Seriously. I looked at the young guy helplessly and tried not to fall down and start crying. "I don't know what I should get!!???" He gently led me through the thought process of whether I wanted chicken or beef or veggies or did I want spicy or mild? I listlessly nodded yes to his recommendation and told him I needed to go buy a bottle of wine so would be back in 5 minutes to pick up my (his) order. And I was.

Dinner was fine and the movies were fine (E and I watched Bride Wars and the boys are finishing up James Bond. I will watch Slumdog Millionaire tomorrow.)

But really, I am concerned at my lack of ability to make decisions. You know, as we were embarking on this whole experience, I did have a warning signal. I was reciting to my kids what was going to happen tomorrow during the Bar Mitzvah and what they needed to be prepared for (I told E to have books with her for the morning service which should be about 3 hours long). She piped up with "Is the library open today?" because she thought she should check out some new books. As this was not in my original plan for my evening, I nearly drove off the road in confusion. "NO! NO! NO!!!!!" I shrieked. "I can't do that!!! No library!!! Use the books you have!!!"

Oy vay indeed.

slip sliding away

I lost April. I usually like April too, so it's sad that I lost it. At work today, a friend and I both tried to remember what had happened during April. It truly slipped by, unnoticed. And this got me thinking. We all remember how time was so much slower when we were kids. I would sob after Christmas was over because the wait for the next one seemed interminable. Forever. And in my defense, it really was a very very long time. When you are 8 years old, one year is equal to 1/8 of your entire lifetime. Or, if we make the assumption that the age of memory begins around age 5, one year chronological time to an 8 year old is approximately 1/(8-4) or 1/4 of her remembered life. That's a very long time. That's like someone telling me I had to wait for more than 10 years for something to happen.

And this got me to thinking about how time is really not an absolute measure. Time is relative, and our point of reference for time is the span of our remembered life, which constantly changes as we age. The one year wait period for the 8 year old me (1/4 of my life at that time) is only 1/39 of my remembered lifespan now. (I'm not lying about my age - I am retaining the assumption about 5 years being the age where memory begins).

So I wondered if I were to define a "relative age" as a measure of how absolute time changes as we age, how much of this relative time do I have left in my life? The years are spinning by faster and faster as we age - what percentage of my relative life have I lived?

So I came up with this:



Years as we normally define them are on the x-axis. (I did this on an extremely outdated version of excel and I couldn't figure out how to change the axis labels to show even decades.) Anyway, I assumed that memory begins at 5. Thus, 1 year for a 5 year old is equal to 1/(5-4)=1. One year for a 6 year old is 1/(6-4)=1/2, and for a 7 year old is 1/3, etc. I can then sum the relative terms to represent various lifespans, from 45 through 100 on this graph. The graph shows the percentage of your relative memory that you have lived as a function of chronological year.

The thick line is at chronological age 45, which I will turn in a few months. Even if I live to be 100, I have lived more than 80% of my relative age already.

It's interesting to think about childhood. We've lived about 50% of our relative memories by the time we're between 8-11. Childhood looms very large in our relative lives. Differences of a few years in children are enormously significant, while by the time you reach my age, the percentage lines really start to flatten out as the years whiz by.

This sucks.

I showed it to Gao just before I left work and his response was "Well shit, Jennifer." He thought for a while and then said "Since we're almost done, we should just do what we want. Go home and drink lots of wine."

I'm not drinking wine tonight, since I'm trying to restrict my alcohol intake to weekends. But it certainly makes you think. I started to realize life was not infinite somewhere around my early 30s, which coincidentally is when the slope of the lines starts to change more dramatically with chronological time.

I think I need to rethink how I spend my days. And maybe I need a vacation. A long one, both chronologically and relatively speaking.

tagged

I was tagged by wakeupandsmellthecoffee. Thank you, Wakeup, for thinking of me. ;-)

1. What are your current obsessions?
Facebook. American Idol.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Flannel pajamas. I find I am putting them on earlier and earlier every day. At least I haven't started to wear them to work. Yet.

3. Last dream you had?
The last one I remember is that my friends Jamie and Jamie had returned from Austria. Jamie B had curly hair (which was quite a new thing). I tried to kiss their daughter's head but she was too tall. (She is E's age). They were having a huge party to celebrate their return to the states. Nothing overly weird. I am just obviously beside myself anticipating them finally coming home. They've been gone a year and that's quite enough.

4. Last thing you bought?
Ingredients to make a Mississippi Mud cake for the teachers at school. Oh, unless you count the veggie sub I bought for lunch.

5. What are you listening to?
The sound of the TV in the other room that Q has on as he does his homework.
(I KNOW I KNOW....) bad habits. But the kid is pulling all A's in advanced classes. He knows what he needs.

6. If you were a god/goddess who would you be?
Good heavens. I have no idea. I don't know many gods or goddesses. I would be the saint of mothers and would go around blessing them all day long.

7. Favourite holiday spots?
(Wakeup lives in England, if you can't tell by the spelling. hee)
Coast of Maine. Mountains

8. Reading right now?
Easy Silence by Angela Huth. Black comedy. It's ok but it had better start moving along more quickly.

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Introspective, impatient, logical, realistic

10. Guilty pleasure?
Red wine. Cheez-its.

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?
My daughter. She is a riot. Lately our thing is to hiss at people that irritate us.

12. Favourite spring thing to do?
Sit outside to watch the stars

13. Planning to travel to next?
Not sure. We're talking about Hawaii possibly.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
I only got bits and pieces of the Mississippi Mud cake I made but those bits
and pieces were good. Butter, sugar, eggs, nuts....
Before that, I had Pad Thai with 5 star spiciness for a business lunch on Tuesday. It was excellent.

15. When did you last get tipsy?
Probably Saturday night after we had dinner with our friends

16. Favourite ever film?
Contact. (Jodie Foster, book by Carl Sagan)

17. Care to share some wisdom?
That presumes that I have some to share...
Things are rarely as bad as they seem at first.

18. Song you can't get out of your head?
Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi (blasted Rock Band. I can play drums on expert on that song, so I play it over and over)

19. Thing you are looking forward to?
Not sure. Nothing major is on the horizon. I'd like a week at home with nothing to do.

20 If money were no object, where would you choose to live?
Boston. DH would be happy and I'd be close to Maine.

a saturday morning...

...in which yours truly decides to finally create another blog post because there is an enormous mound (10 yards) of hardwood mulch sitting in the middle of her driveway. This is actually a very poor plan because the temperature is supposed to reach into the 90s later today so the more I put it off, the worse it's going to end up. And yet, here I sit composing.

It's spring, and as much as I love winter, I guess I can say I'm ready for spring. I stepped outside last night at 2 am to look up at the stars and it was slightly warm. It felt lovely. I spent the day yesterday removing leaves from the culvert and mowing and weeding beds (in anticipation of today's mulch) and I actually enjoyed it.

So in honor of spring, here are some spring photos for your enjoyment:


The end of a pretty successful season for Q's school baseball team means that the coach was finally letting some of the 7th graders play for a little bit. Here's Q making an awesome outfield catch yesterday. Just after I snapped this, his hat blew off. His teammates told him he was "doing a Manny." He also had a successful at-bat with a rocket line drive to left field. Sniff. Nothing like a child to turn you into an avid baseball fan. Oh, he's been dubbed Cotton-Schawb by his teammates. This is a combination of cotton swab (from Q-tip) and "stump the schawb" from ESPN. LOL!




Tell me if you recognize this plant. It's so nice, and we have no idea what it is. Here's a closeup of the flowers:





And this one has not much to do with spring (other than it was taken during spring break) but I think it's funny. Genetics, anyone?

more sundry yet again

Here are some random thoughts/things I've had or heard over the last few weeks that have either tickled me or touched me, or both.

My son Q made the baseball team at his middle school. Despite the HEAVY load for practices (every single school day until 6 pm and also on Saturdays for the love of Pete), I am simply ecstatic for him. He is ultra shy and reserved - and more than a bit of a geek. I thought that making the team would be a much needed boost for his confidence, especially since he's only a 7th grader. There are only about five 7th graders that were selected. Plus, I figure the label of "jock" can't hurt in the geek label department. Not that there's anything wrong with being a geek (spoken from vast experience). But still. The additional label of "athlete", as long as we're labeling, is a good thing, IMO. He is, in fact, very happy and has been doing well. But, back to the geek department, he is addicted to wearing this blue fleece jacket...which he buttons ALL THE WAY up. It drives me absolutely crazy. It's slightly too small for him so it barely hits his hips and stretches up to his nose, thanks to the excessive buttoning. Here's his chance to move into the "cool guy" department and he's walking around with no neck. On the way home one day, I asked him "Q - why on earth do you wear your jacket buttoned up like that?" He rolled his eyes and told me that it was a "reflection of his personality"... that he's a closed and private person and his jacket tells the world that about him. OK then. Can't argue with that.

My house is apparently smack in the middle of a major migration route for noisy black birds. It warmed up enough today that I turned off the heat, opened the windows in the sunroom and laid back on my comfy couch with my favorite soap opera on the TV. Unfortunately, I couldn't HEAR it because of the extremely loud birds. It was like I was in the middle of the Amazon. I am not exaggerating, I swear. I looked out into the woods behind our house and could see literally thousands of birds, all perched in the trees directly surrounding my house. They were being extraordinarily loud, too. I've no idea what it was they were so worked up about but they were certainly busy telling each other about it. I knocked on the window, opened and shut the door, let Roxy bark, and yelled loudly at them. Other than flicking the proverbial bird at me, I was totally ignored. I had to satisfy myself with calling my neighbor Mary and cursing them out to her. At least she understood.

WRT the cafeteria at work - it has gotten to the point where the cafeteria workers no longer even want to joke with me about how much of a rut I am in. I get the same sandwich every day (veggie sub on wheat, no mayo, extra hot peppers) and a diet Dr. Pepper. Used to be that the ladies making the subs and the ladies working the registers would smile at me and say things like "Hmmm, so what might YOU be getting today? Ha haha ha ha ha." Lately, they just make my sub and ring me up and send me on my way. I'm in so much of a rut within my rut that it's not even fodder for jokes anymore. In fact, I'm afraid to get anything different now. The spotlight on me would be too much to take. (Refer to my first story of my introverted son Q. NO IDEA where he gets it. No idea.)

I've been spending way too much time looking through blogs of global warming deniers lately. I've been doing a lot of thinking and psychoanalysis about why these people are so angry and so hateful, and so loathe to listen to "expert" opinion. I have several theories, all of which are kind of depressing. Global warming/climate change is a really big weight on my heart. It sure would be a lot more simple if I didn't love my children so much, you know?

For those interested in my daily activities: daughter E has been unable to eat anything solid for about 24 hours now. High fever, vomiting and other assorted illness symptoms abound. It is just so sad to look at her pale, pathetic face. I certainly hope this bug moves on quickly so I can get my sassy daughter back. My sweet puppy is also under the weather with an ear infection. Medicine bottles and measuring spoons and thermometers decorate my kitchen cabinets. Q goes to district band contest tomorrow. Sniff. You'd better believe I'll be there with my ear pressed to the door during sight-reading. I sure miss those days.

By the way. Q got his Toano Baseball sweatshirt today. I think it may have replaced the hated fleece jacket. I was thrilled. Until he pulled the hood up. "NO!!!!" I cried. "No, Q! You don't actually wear the hood over your head!!!!"
He looked at me calmly and said "I do if I'm cold...."

facebook stole my brain

My mom asked me why I don't write in my blog anymore. I can only blame it on facebook, which allows me to think and communicate in one-sentence snippets rather than spending the time and thought required to construct meaningful and informative (or at least entertaining) essays.

I've had plenty of ideas for blog posts. For example, the public distrust of science and scientists continues to astound me - as evidenced by things like recent polls showing the very low percentage of Americans that "believe" in evolution, or the continued "debate" in the media over the vaccine/autism connection or global warming. (Note the word "debate" is in quotes because I hate to characterize the shrills of a minority versus the near-consensus majority of scientific opinion as anything close to a real debate).

Anyway. Rather than research and write and edit on these topics, it is so much easier for me to opine "Jen likes the ravioli she just ate for lunch" or "Jen wishes it would snow" and be done with it. It's easier but increasingly unsatisfying. Facebook seems a lot like the Jerry Springer of the internet. My brain is feeling a bit over-sugared with trivial pursuits. I think it's time to switch modes before it's too late to go back.

But it may already be too late. Yesterday, as an exercise to get back into thoughtful writing, I submitted two long comments to two of my favorite blogs, neither of which has shown up on the blogs yet. One I know for sure was never received, and I'm suspecting the second may have reached the same fate, since I can't imagine my comment was too controversial to have been posted. I suspect FB is involved somehow, in a clandestine attempt to maintain control of my brain.

In the meantime, Jen is trying.

breaking away

By the time we've reached middle age, we usually have a pretty good idea of who it is that we "ARE." I don't mean to imply that I think we should have ourselves completely figured out. Half the fun in life, after all, is constantly discovering new things about ourselves. But we should certainly have a good idea of what our "core definition" is (I just made that term up).

For instance, in my case, I know that I'm defined by being a "good girl." I always have been. I'm not totally happy about that, by the way. I imagine that if I were not such a good girl, I would have had a lot more fun. The number of times I have acted outside of the box can be counted on one hand and I wouldn't even use all my fingers. I did skinny-dip once, but it was with my best friend, with no members of the opposite sex nearby, and under cover of darkness. I believe we also had our swimsuits firmly in hand underwater, ready to quickly slip them back on if we heard voices. Back home in Texas, I was too scared to go into the Meacham Ranch house that was purportedly haunted, despite the rest of my friends having a grand old time exploring it and the ghosts that they met there. The one time the police tried to pick me and my band-geek cohorts up (for toilet-papering a house), we convinced them to let us go because our parents knew where we were anyway. I did get drunk enough in grad school once to end up at the house of a guy friend. When he started to get a little affectionate (which would have been a huge mistake since we were slated to become housemates in a few weeks), I threw up on him. So even in a drunken stupor, I am somehow able to keep my actions in line with expected behavior.

Once middle aged, I think the wise thing to do is to simply accept our core-definition. While it might be momentarily exciting to try to crack out of that mold, to do so holds the potential to release a torrential outcome that we're really not prepared to accept.

(By the way - this post is completely opposite of what I normally believe. By next week, I will think these pompous pronouncements are complete crap and will once again ADAMANTLY disagree with the premise that who we "are" is set in stone by middle-age. I have no doubt I will be back to urging us all to throw caution to the wind and be unfettered by anything in, of, or slightly resembling the past. But for the purposes of this little story, bear with me.)

When Mare was visiting me last week, we drove out to Tuckahoe Plantation, on the west side of Richmond. This old house is where Thomas Jefferson spent most of his young childhood. It is also the plantation that was the site for a TV series (Legacy) that Mare was a big fan of years ago.



It was a very cold day, and when we arrived, the place was deserted. Mare had tried to arrange a tour, but was told that there were no guides available that day. We were told to feel free to wander the gardens and grounds, however.



I love old houses. I also love Thomas Jefferson. I was excited to be there, and Mare was over the top. The only negative was that we were disappointed we couldn't see inside of the house. I wandered around the windows and tried to peek in. I turned every doorknob to see if perhaps one had been inadvertently left unlocked. Around back, we found an entrance where the wooden interior door was open, but a thin glass storm door was locked. We could peer inside, and doing so we saw beautiful wood floors, a carved wood staircase, a gorgeous grandfather clock, and other antique furnishings.

Here is a picture of me at that door.

Mare wandered off to see more of the gardens. I pulled gently at the storm door. It was quite flimsy. Seriously flimsy. I could tell that with one sharp pull, I could have it open. I looked around at the empty gardens and empty parking lot. I jiggled the door again. I stood there in a deep quandary and let the argument inside me play out. I have always been a good girl. I've never really ever been "brave" enough to jump across that line. I tried hard to convince myself to do it.

"I am nearly 45. Just when am I going to let loose and be free? When am I going to live life? Seize the moment? Experience the thrill? Why do I continue to let myself be constrained by the edicts of society? Just what is it that is telling me not to break into this house? My own morals, or those of a society that I have forced myself to conform to?"

The other voice said things like,

"Oh for god's sake woman. You have children! What? Do you want tomorrow's headlines to read "NASA scientist and mother arrested for trespassing on federal property?"

I pulled the door a little harder.

"If not now then when? You are free. You are an independent spirit!"

"It's against the rules."

I couldn't do it.

I walked away, pissed at and disappointed in myself, and mentally berated myself for ultimately being a coward.

At that VERY instant, someone walked up to me. She was a tour guide for the house, and had a meeting set up with a couple she was looking for. As I chatted with her, she waved at a young man who walked out of the house. Turns out he was the son of the couple that owned the house and who lived there.
"People live here?" I questioned the guide. She nodded, as a young woman came out of the house. "Oh yes, and they have both of their children visiting this weekend. It's a full house!"
Huh. In the meantime, my inner critic had slunk off, no longer berating me for being such a rule-following coward. Can you imagine if I'd walked in on this family? It'd be hard to convince them I hadn't broken in, what with the storm door lock being freshly broken and all. At that moment, I was quite happy with my core-definition. Good girls rule. In fact, the tour guide was as nice as she could be and ended up giving Mare and me a personal tour of the inside of the house as soon as her meeting was over. She discounted the price for us because she thought we were so nice.

I am still on the lookout for a moment to break away from my good girl persona. I think I trust myself a little bit more now, though. If it happens, I will know the time and the place. More importantly, if it happens, it will be because the good girl is willing to go along with it. Because as much as I sometimes want to move away from her, she's kind of nice to have around.

crowded streets

You may recall that in my last post, I wrote that I am, at the core, a solitary person and I enjoy quiet and being alone. So you can maybe imagine my discomfort on Monday given the following:



There were more people there than I have ever been around in my life. At one point, we couldn't move very well for about 30 minutes, as we were in the middle of a large sardine crush. I was wondering how soon I would know if I were, in fact, being crushed to death. Would it happen quickly, or would I be aware during the whole thing?

Quite honestly, it was the perfect setup for a dangerous situation. There were too many people in the city relative to the preparations. There were not enough police, and not enough information dissemination. So many people, frustrated and crushed together, is a toxic combination.

But I was quite amazed and heartened by the fact that it never even almost went the bad direction. People were smiling and laughing at the situation (though obviously pissed off at what was happening in general). There was no taking out frustrations on each other. Rather, there was a feeling of being in a rotten situation together and what more could you do than share in it? We shared horror stories with other folks all day. We helped elderly ladies who were lost as we were strolling down the interstate, and laughed with people as they struggled to crawl over the medians.

I was there in DC to celebrate the end of a presidency that I abhored, the beginning of a presidency that I have much hope for, and the historic moment that it was wrt the inauguration of a black president. I did all of those things and enjoy the fact that I can say I was there. But the most striking thing for me that day was the realization that humans, en masse, might not be as bad as I have always assumed. There was mob patience shown that day, mob kindness, and a general wish to just share the moment with each other. It was a nice thing to learn.

Thoughts on things that give me comfort

Rain. The sound and sense of soft, steady, cold rain while I'm in my bed or cozied up on the couch with a book makes me feel warm and drowsy. The idea that I am cocooned in a safe place, in my personal harbor against the rest of the world, gives me a sense of gentle power over my own destiny. It doesn't matter that in reality, any power I have is an illusion - it's the feeling of the moment that I cherish. I will also sit on the steps to watch the rain as it moves the trees and the grass. I look up at the clouds and marvel at how enormous the sky is. That a single drop of rain finds its way from the majesty of the sky to land on the leaf of the plant beside my foot makes me feel integrated with the world. I'm not a visitor on the earth, but I am of this world.

Nighttime. To watch the sky as twilight fades into darkness is magical. The cover of light that essentially blinds us to all but our local world slowly slips away, and the reality of our small place in the depth and breadth of the stars and galaxies can finally be seen. It as if the door to reality opens as the universe is revealed. I find this enormously comforting. I go to the night sky to remind myself that I am not the focus.

Odors. Baking bread and brewing coffee. Warm cookies. The bite of sauteing onions and garlic. The crispness in the air that comes with a clean and tidy house. The darkness of smell that comes with a wood fire in the fireplace. The smell of laundry fresh from the dryer as I hold its warmth in my arms. I picture these odors as lovely ribbons of dark color that slowly wrap around me.

Solitude. I am naturally a very solitary and quiet person. I enjoy the peace of solitude. I have tried to rewrite my genetic code to be more of a people-person but it never feels honest to me. I am most comfortable in the quietness of my family or one-on-one with a friend. There is too much beautiful simplicity in the air around me that I miss when the focus is on frenetic human activity. I find comfort in quiet.

Creativity. The act of baking. I find comfort in the repetition of kneading bread, of mixing ingredients, the feeling that I am nurturing and providing for my family. Cooking and baking is a creative experience for me. I love the idea of a recipe. In this, a final creation is broken down into its individual components, the combination of which is often surprising and larger than the sum of its parts. I feel much the same about knitting. (This is something I've given up over the last several busy years and would love to rediscover.)

Order. A clean and tidy house. I crave order. I would love to have a month and an unlimited budget to organize and clean my house. I am not very good at either cleanliness or order, so this is a constant struggle in my life. I realize that it sounds quite shallow and artificial, and much at odds with my love of the chaotic natural world. Perhaps I love science because it is a way to understand the workings of nature, and understanding brings a sense of order to the seemingly unstructured.

Connections. My friendships are devastatingly important to me. To find someone that is genuinely interested in me, in what I believe, in what scares me and what gives me comfort - is a treasure. These are friends that don't define me or pigeonhole me. It is a fluid relationship, and we find worth in the act of constantly changing and learning with each other. In real connections, there is no judgment, and differences are cherished as much as similarities. These connections are very rare, but that I have found some lasting ones gives me much comfort and peace.

question

I've always been in awe of the natural responses of our bodies - evolution is a beautiful thing. The pumping of adrenaline at times of crisis, vomiting at the ingestion of poison, sneezing...

So why is it that at the times when you most need to be fully aware and filled with boundless energy that my body reacts with insomnia?

It's going to be a long, long next few weeks.

Recap

Being a self-professed and totally-accepting-of-myself type-A anal extraordinaire, there should be no surprise from anyone who knows me that my favorite holiday is New Year's. What's not to love about the ending of an old chapter, and then the beginning of a new one? ...about neatly tying up loose ends and packaging the old year into the box labeled "the past?" ...about a pure, clean, unblemished fresh new slate lying before me as I balance precariously up on the very left tip-top of the New Year's calendar on January 1? As much as I love the anticipation of the yet-to-come, I also love the wrap-up of the past year. I'll be the one parked on the sofa watching CNN's montage (to cheesy music) of the big stories from 2008, and I'll even shed tears for parts of it. (For what it's worth, I actually used to grade my years as well, and select songs for them. Haven't done that recently....Maybe I should return to this?)

So bear with me in this completely indulgent post as I reminisce over my past 12 months.

Without hesitation, 2008 will always and forever be to me the year that my country pulled its head out of its ass and finally made an intelligent decision by electing Barack Obama as our president. I've been wishing for this for 8 years, and anticipating it (with a name to my wish) for four years. I can't tell you why I instantaneously felt as strongly as I did in July of 2004, and I fully admit that then, it was purely a gut feeling that I knew he was destined to be my president. However, it ended up that my gut feeling was spot on and was only strengthened as I was able to shore it up with information, learning more about him through the years. This is a man with intelligence and integrity. This is a man of MY generation (I say with pride). This is someone who respects humanity, respects science and has ears to hear. He is the real deal (thank GOD). I wasn't sure exactly when he would become president, but the fact that it happened in 2008 will endear this year to me forever, despite the rest of the crap that happened worldwide.


So other than that obvious, my year-in-a-nutshell consists of the following:

This year I finally went into the field (Fairbanks, Alaska and Cold Lake, Canada) during our aircraft campaign. I am enormously glad I went, and documented some of my personal thoughts on the Discovery Channel science blog. For anyone who's interested, here are my entries. There weren't as many as I would have liked - I was sick for a significant part of my time in Fairbanks (99% sure I had Rubella, oddly enough - a mild but exhausting illness for a middle-aged gal).
here1
here2
here3
and here4.



We added a gorgeous sunroom onto the back of our house.



We had a fantastic vacation this summer in Boston and Maine - were able to see not only my boys play in Fenway, but got to spend time with not-often-seen-friends in the Boston area.



I learned this year that I was able to survive Jamie and Jamie and their beautiful children being located in Austria for the year. It's been hard, and I could not go for longer than a year without them, but I have survived (so far). But hurry home please. I need that honesty and acceptance and pure love from your family. Plus, my kids are a million times happier when their best friends are nearby.


We saw the Counting Crows and Maroon 5 and Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew."
I finished up a year of being PTA president and embarked upon a year of taking it easy in the volunteer department (am loving that, I tell you).

The Red Sox made the playoffs. I saw baseball-boyfriend Mikey play in person a couple of times.

Q and E were busy with soccer and baseball and Odyssey of the Mind and Girl Scouts and piano lessons and African Dance classes and science/math camps and cooking and art classes and Model UN and band and making excellent grades and playing with friends. I could not have imagined kids more fun, more awe-inspiring, more loving, or more all-around wonderful than the ones I ended up with.


As for my blogging life, it's interesting that I have been so consistent for the past several years with my blogging. I wrote 115 posts this year (111 in 2007 and 110 in 2006). October was my heaviest month, with 19 posts (pre-election build-up to be sure) and April and December were my slowest with 4 each (though this one makes 5 for December).


It's not been such a good year for a lot of people I know, though, or for most of the US or world. We have global warming issues to grapple with. We have an economic disaster on hand. There are many people I love who are now without a job. We have wars continuing to rage and the associated deaths of servicemen/women and civilians. Overall, 2008 has not been good to this little blue dot in the universe (from the human perspective, that is). However, since that perspective is the one I hold most dear, I'm going to throw all my wishes into improvement on that front during 2009.

A grade? I'm gonna give the world a C-. Only the election of Barack Obama kept us from failing. For myself personally, this was a B or B+ kind of year.

Year's theme song? What else? I didn't even have to think about it. This is what I played ALL NIGHT LONG on November 4 as I downed a bottle of wine and a bottle of champaign and cried and cried with joy as I emailed several of my friends through the night with cries of "WE'VE GOT PENNSYLVANIA!!!!" and "LOOKS LIKE OHIO!!!" as I told them to hang on and don't give up on VIRGINIA.... What a night to remember.

It goes along with my slogan for 2008:

"It was about f*cking time."

from the last week...

Me, my mom and dad, and sisters with my grandmother on her 100th birthday.


Watching Stephen Colbert's Christmas special DVD on Christmas morning.


Son Q with his granny and pawpaw.


E with granny


E with her grandfather (pawpaw).