In which I bitch about the FDA and the Media and Big Government

Thank you, FDA, for trying to protect my children from my own stupidity. (Insert annoyed ironic smirk here.)

Unless you've been living under a rock (or, like, parenting a sleepless child or something) - you've probably noticed several media stories discussing the FDA and children's "cough and cold remedies."

If you haven't read anything, you can read an example here: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1201599302271000.xml&coll=2

Amid all this brouhaha, I have two main complaints:

1. The media stories do not discuss WHICH cough and cold remedies they are suggesting don't work in children. I'm not asking for brand names, I'm just asking the media to do their job and report on the specific drugs, by their generic names.

• For example, if the FDA is saying that Phenylephrine (this is in products such as Sud*phed PE) is ineffective in children, I would say, "Hallelujah" and "they are abso-f**king-lutely correct." Why do I feel this way? Because phenylephrine at the maximum over the counter dose for adults (10 mg) is NOT effective in relieving nasal congestion. I have personal experience with this, but, actual scientists say so as well. (The FDA may SAY it works in adults, but, I tend to to believe the scientists at the University of Florida over the FDA.) Call me crazy. http://www.herbalist.com/news.details/2557/category/0/start/0/ This is not new information to me - Back in 2006, Rep. Henry Waxman was asking the FDA to look into the effectiveness of phenylephrine: http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1143. So, is the FDA finally ponying up to the idea that PE products don't work? WE DON'T KNOW because the news stories aren't telling us which products the FDA is questioning - they are just lumping them all as "cough and cold medicines".
• I'm curious if the FDA is suggesting that pseudoephedrine (i.e. Sud*phed) is ineffective in children? Because, if that is what they are saying, they are FLAT WRONG. When I give my children pseudoephedrine, THEIR NOSES STOP RUNNING. Guess what? The same thing happens when *I* take pseudoephedrine. It works. So, don't tell me, FDA, that it doesn't work. If you want to tell me I cannot buy it anymore because of the f**king meth-heads, whatever, tell me that. (I'll be pissed, but, less so when I feel like you are using this study as a means to an end, as opposed to just being honest with the American people about wanting to take this incredibly effective product off the market because of drug addicts - who, by the way, are not handing over their driver's licences to get a single box, but are instead stealing whole cases off of trucks, or, more likely, importing the stuff from overseas.)
• Diphenhydramine HCl (aka Ben*dryl) is also an effective over the counter drug - most effective, in my experience, for non-life threatening allergic reactions to things like bug bites, or for putting (many) people* to sleep. I defy anyone who has ever parented a sick child to begrudge them the fact that Diphenhydramine HCl quiets coughing and allergy symptoms in children, (probably because it puts them to sleep), because sick children need rest. I use it when *I* have a cold, too, because I need sleep. Shoot me for finding this drug effective and useful. But, again, we don't KNOW if this is one of the drugs the FDA is questioning BECAUSE THE MEDIA ISN'T TELLING US.

2. My second problem with the research is that most of the articles are saying that the problems that the FDA is concerned about arise when parents overdose their children because they give them two brands of cold-medicine that have the same ingredient, or when the children overdose themselves when the medicine is left out. Excuse me for feeling like it is NOT the FDA's job to keep stupid people from doing stupid things. What about *MY* responsibility as a parent to READ THE DAMN LABEL before I put something in my kid?? What about *MY* responsibility as a parent to put the medicine out of harm's way? My house is full of dangerous chemicals, like toilet bowl cleaner and nail polish remover. Should the FDA take THOSE things away from parents as well?

I'm a grown-up of reasonable intelligence. I want effective products to be made available to me. I don't want to be told that I cannot treat my daughter's runny nose because some yahoos have, on occasion, overdosed their children or left the product out where the child could reach it. (I'm not saying these aren't sad stories, I'm just saying that we cannot ask the government to protect us from our own poor choices.) I want the media to be just a little bit responsible, and NOT underestimate my intelligence, and tell me what the FDA is really saying about which drugs. And I want the government to keep its nose out of MY KIDS noses!

Lastly, what does the FDA THINK will happen when they take children's cough and cold medicines off of the market? Because what I think will happen is that lots of parents will cut adult cold medicines in half and give them to their kids. If they think lots of kids are being overdosed now, I cannot imagine what they think will happen when parents have no other option but to try to guesstimate a child's dose of an adult medication.

Possibly overreacting a bit,

LM

*admittedly some people, among them Husband, have a reaction to Ben*adryl that is more like mania than sleeplessness. It is not a good product for those people.

Is it ironic?

Does anyone else think it is a little bit ironic that a lawyer (uh, me) should be laid up with whiplash because she was rear-ended by an uninsured driver while sitting in stopped traffic IN FRONT OF THE COURTHOUSE??

I mean, a rear end collision and whiplash and a lawyer....could there be three more stereo-typical elements to a story??? I am SOOOO unimaginative with my misadventures.

So, this afternoon, I was innocently having a fine lunch of arayis halabi at a little Lebanese place by the courthouse with my Girlfriend S~. It was freezing outside, so, after we ate, I asked S~ to give me a ride back to my building, as she had driven to restaurant and I had walked, and she had managed to score a primo parking spot directly in front of the restaurant. (Practically unheard of good fortune.)

As we drove by the courthouse, the car in front of us stopped to let a passenger out - this happens all the time as there is very little convenient parking by the courthouse. Anyway, the point is we were coming to a stop because the car in front of us was stopped.

I don't remember what happened next. S~ says I was leaning forward and looking down into my purse when the car behind us smashed into us. I think I hit my head on the dash, although I don't know. (And I shouldn't have hit my head on the dash, because I was buckled in.)

The next thing I remember was asking S~ what happened. She said, "call 911 and tell them we were hit and that you hit your head."

So, I called 911 and told them we had been hit from behind, that it was not a bad accident but I had hit my head. And the 911-lady said someone would be there in a minute. In the meantime, the guy who hit us DROVE AWAY.

S~, who was clearly thinking more clearly than I was, started saying the guy's license plate over and over. And I remembered that I had the cell number for a divorce client who is also a sergeant in the sheriff's department in my cell phone memory.

I called my client, who was on duty, and I told him I was in front of the courthouse and that I had been rear-ended and that I hit my head and would he write this number down before I forgot it. And I gave him the license number that S~ was repeating.

So, my client says, "are you okay?" and I said, "my head hurts" and I think I hung up the phone.

And two minutes later, there were two fire trucks, a police car, an ambulance and a sheriff's deputy around our car, and they strapped me to a board and put me in the ambulance because I was "confused and complaining of head and neck pain." (And I also I told them I was 2 years younger than I actually am, and I wasn't intending to lie about my age.)

Five minutes later the sheriff's department picked up the guy who had left the scene of the accident. (To which I say, if you save a sheriff's department sergeant's pension from their ex-wife, you can, at a minimum, anticipate that they will come through for you if you are rear-ended in their jurisdiction.)

So, I spent six hours at the hospital, being x-rayed and CT scanned and, except for some confusion and nausea and aches and pains, I guess I am going to be okay. Mild concussion and whiplash...I have strict instructions to stay in bed for 2 days.

So, I'm typing on my back...which is quite a talent...

LM

Freaking Out About Kindergarten

Well, it's January here in the frozen tundra we call home (and no, I don't even live in New Brunswick or anything- it's just very freaking cold here)...so, of course, what is on my mind but - AUTUMN and BACK TO SCHOOL.

Lana will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and I have it on good authority that if she doesn't have a private school placement by March 1, she will not get one.

No, I do not live in Manhattan. Or Chicago. Or some chi-chi suburb of either one. I'm just a mid-western girl in a city on Lake Erie, and I did not expect this kind of PRESSURE.

It's not that I have anything against public-school. In fact, I'm married to a public school teacher who does a darn fine job educating the public (if I do say so myself.) I have many friends and relatives who are fabulous public school teachers. I support public education. And I am generally happy with the public school district in which we live.

Gabriel attends 2ND grade at the public school.

Need I go on to convince you that I am not anti-public-school?

I think not.

BUT....

You knew this was coming, right? The big BUT...

BUT, the school district we live in is one of only two school districts in our county that has half-day kindergarten.

Which is, frankly, kind of a pain-in-the-neck for a working mom. And not really what Lana, in my opinion, needs.

Since March of last year, Lana has been in a NAEYC-accredited all-day pre-school program located on the campus of a large university. They have done a phenomenal job with her - she has two awesome teachers in a positive, comfortable setting. Lana is happy there. She loves S~ and S~, her teachers, and she loves her school friends. Her ability to speak English as well as she does is really a testament, I think, to the school and her teachers. Bottom line, I love Lana's current school situation. Gabriel was in the same day-care/pre-school from the time he was a baby until he started first grade. Gabriel did his kindergarten year at the school and it was a great success.

The problem is, there may not be enough children this coming year for the school to have a kindergarten program. Which means I need a second choice.

I'm all freaked out about this. As near as I can tell, our options are as follows:

1. Hebrew School - although I'm left wondering if it's totally inappropriate for me to send my Vietnamese-American-previously-Buddhist-being-raised-Episcopalian daughter to Hebrew School, merely for the convenience of it having all day kindergarten.
2. Catholic School - there are two options for all day Catholic school kindergarten near our home. One of them has an extremely inconvenient start and end time, so, it's out. The other one would be okay, except that I have many deep, unresolved issues with the Catholic Church...like, just as an example, birth control. I'm all for it, they're not, and I cannot reconcile giving tuition money to them. Does that make me too rigid?
3. Montessori School - we have an excellent Montessori School option. It is quite expensive, but, I'm leaning in that direction.
4. Public School in the morning, some kind of after-school day-care program. Honestly, this would be the most convenient for me, but, I am not sure about the after-school program. She would be bussed to a different building from her kindergarten...I'm all in a tizzy about this. I'm not sure it's a good fit for Lana when she has been in one place getting consistent care and lessons from the same people all day, for her to have kindergarten with a brand-new teacher, followed by afternoon care with brand-new care givers...I think it is worth mentioning that this is the option that Lana would probably choose for herself, because she is desperate to go to the same school as her big brother...

Just not sure what to do,
LM

Random Frap*

1. I am seeing the neuro-opthamalogist today at 3:30. I hope it goes well.
2. I have to be in housing court every day this week. That sucks.
3. I have started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer during my treks on the treadmill. So far, it hasn't quite sucked me in the way Veronica Mars or Alias or Grey's Anatomy did, but, it's good enough to keep me coming back. As an added plus, it has David Boreanaz, who, well, he's no McDreamy, but, he's not hard to look at. (Although, he's starring on Bones, now, so, maybe we can collectively refer to him as McBony? Or would that be all kinds of wrong?)
4. Speaking of Alias, I'm partway through Season 4, but, somehow Netflix keeps sending me the disks in the wrong order, so, I'm taking a short break from it. Also...what happened to the Vaughn-Sydney chemistry in Season 4? I've seen more passion in a fish tank than they seem to have on-screen?
5. And speaking of Veronica Mars (stop reading if you haven't finished watching Season 3), I have just finished watching Season 3 (it was a gift from Husband for Christmas) - and I am just scratching my head and wondering if Rob Thomas (the guy who produced VM, not the guy from Matchbox 20) was smoking crack the last half of the season? Because, seriously, Logan would not have slept with Madison. I could probably write a whole essay about this and bore you all to tears, but, the point is, that character's development over the first 2 seasons - he's a serial monogamist with serious mommy issues. His break-up with Veronica in episode 9 is totally a cry for her attention. I just don't buy that he would sleep with Madison. A total stranger, yes, but, not Madison. And Veronica - WOULD NOT HAVE ERASED LOGAN'S DRUNKEN VOICEMAIL MESSAGE. She would have TOLD him she erased it, but, not actually erased it. She's WAY too curious to have just erased the message like she did. Despite my feeling that somebody dropped the ball on 7 of the last 8 episodes, I loved the show. And I firmly believe that what should have followed the final scene of the last episode is Veronica leaving the voting booth and going to the Grand to jump Logan's bones. After which she would have marched her ass to Jake Kane and told him to make sure the election came out with her dad on top, or else the secrets of every capitalist in the free world would be all over TMZ.com.
6. I am loving the music of Amos Lee. Check him out, cause he's awesome. I am particularly loving the title track from newest album, Supply and Demand, but, I cannot find a good video for it at Youtube. So sad, because it is so so so good and I wish I could share it with you.
7. Also, this week, I am obsessively listening to Brandi Carlile's Have You Ever and Shakira's Te Dejo Madrid. (The Shakira video is extremely cheesy, but, I love the song. I don't even know what's she's saying, except that, evidently, she is leaving Madrid.) I warned you I was musically schizophrenic.
8. I am reading the newest YA novel from British author Louise Rennison , Love is a Many Trousered Thing, and, as all the other books before it, it makes me laugh very hard. If only I could write the journal of a self-absorbed teenage girl and turn it into such a hilarious best seller, I could stop tromping to housing court in the freezing cold.

That's all.

LM

*Frap is my new favorite expletive. I totally stole it from Mrs. Broccoli Guy's four year old son, Zeeb.

Things that have gone missing from my house

We seem to have been robbed, or something, because the following things are missing and cannot be located despite diligent searching.

1. Lana's rabbit. Lana has this rabbit. It's name is, predictably, "Bunny", although it did spend a brief period of time, at the start of its existence, being referred to as "con tho" - which is, I am reasonably sure, Vietnamese for "Bunny." Anyhoo, it's not a real bunny, it's a stuffed bunny from Build-A-Bear, the same stuffed Build-A-Bear Bunnny that a gazillion other American children have - you know the one - this one - only Lana's is unique in that, when you push its paw, Gabriel's voice calls out, "Welcome Home Lana!"

It's a pretty Lana-specific gift that way. I mean, seriously, how many homecomings could there have been for little girls named Lana in the tri-state area in the last year?

Not many, is what I'm thinking. It was the gift Gabe brought to the airport for Lana when he came to the airport with my sister to meet us when we came home from Vietnam. I need the rabbit to come home!! There is much angst occurring whenever Lana remembers that she doesn't have it anymore.

2. My favorite pants. My favorite black dress pants that look great with every blouse I own and make me look 10-lbs lighter than I really am. I LOVE THOSE PANTS. I cannot imagine why anyone would steal my pants, but, please, I beg of you - these pants have been faithfully making my butt look smaller at least once a week for the past 3 years. I NEED THOSE PANTS. Please come home, perfect black pants. Please. I bought them at Casual Corner which DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE. They are, therefore, irreplaceable. I need them. If I have offended the pants in some way, I'll make it up to them. Just. Come. Home.

3. My Nintendo DS carrying case. I have the Nintendo, and the charger, but, the carrying case is missing, and so I only have one game to play. And I'm getting a little sick of playing Sudoku everyday. Perhaps it ran off with my pants???

LM

"Within the Normal Range"

I am embarrassed to admit this, but, frankly my frustration level extremely high right now, and I just need to write about this before my head explodes.

I spent 20 minutes this morning crying in my eye-doctor's office. Crying to my eye-doctor. Slow, drippy frustrated tears of complete and utter frustration.

I'm not even sure where to begin.

I've talked to three doctors (well, and now an eye-doctor, who is not an M.D. or a D.O., but rather an O.D. ) in the past three weeks. I've had an MRI done of my head and three tubes of blood drawn, a visual field test, and two other eye tests the names of which I cannot recall. I've had unpleasant things slapped against my eyeball in order to check the pressures.

And I wish I could say what the bottom line is, but, I can't.

I've been having these massive headaches. Pretty much daily. They respond to Excederin or ibuprofen. Usually. But, I'm not convinced that going through life taking excederin or ibuprofen twice a day is a great solution.

In addition to the headaches, I've been working out like a maniac, and also following WW, and having extremely minimal success.

My fingers and my face are puffy. I'm tired.

Did I mention the fricking headaches?

What I have been told, by the three doctors who have looked at the tests, is that I may or may not have a 7mm tumor in my pituitary gland.

This is not news. 2 years ago, I was told, categorically, that I had a 7mm prolactin inducing tumor in my pituitary gland.

Except, now, they are not so sure that's what it is, since, well, someone finally said, "hey, let's test the prolactin levels in her blood" and - guess what? The results of that test? "Within the range of normal."

So...the next response was "perhaps it is an abnormality of the pituitary gland that is ([F**K]) within the range of normal." WTF????? I was also told, "maybe your pituitary gland is just shaped that way," and also reminded that "up to 30% of people can show an abnormality on an MRI."

REALLY? So, pardon my french, but, WHY THE F**K did you diagnose with a TUMOR 2 years ago, and NOW YOU DON'T KNOW???

My TSH was tested, and provided I take my prescribed synthroid daily, it is also, "Within the range of normal".

I suggested that perhaps it was a cortisol producing tumor and was told that, two years ago, your cortisol levels were [F**K!!!!!!!!!!!!!] "within the range of normal."

I suggested that perhaps they might want to run a cortisol test, NOW, on my saliva, which I had read on the Internet was a more sensitive test. The response was that "I don't think that's the problem. It's probably just PCOS."

Yeah. About that...we don't have ANY IDEA if I have secondary infertility because I NEVER TRIED TO HAVE A SECOND BABY and RIGHT NOW I AM VERY WORRIED THAT YOU, DOCTOR PERSON, ARE ASSUMING I HAD SECONDARY INFERTILITY BECAUSE YOU KNOW I ADOPTED MY SECOND CHILD. And I have no ovarian cysts. And my sugar levels???? Yeah...WITHIN THE F**KING RANGE OF NORMAL.

I called my family doctor demanding his opinion as to whether or not I might have a cancerous 7 mm tumor hanging between my eyeballs. (No one has even mentioned the word cancer. It's just that I hear the word "tumor" and my mind goes there). He graciously said "I can tell you it's not cancer." The reason he knows I don't have cancer is because "whatever is in your head, if it is anything, is still 7 mm after 27 months between MRIs - if it were cancer, it would be growing. Also, cancer in your pituitary gland is incredibly rare. But, if that is what it was, it would have grown."

So, this morning, as I sat with my eye-doctor, and he said, "well, there's a place on your visual field test where your peripheral vision has decreased from your last test, and the size of your optic nerve in your right eye is large, but, it's within the range of normal."

I JUST LOST IT. I said, "look, if one more doctor says to me something that sounds like, "well, I'm concerned about xyz, but, it's within the range of normal I think I will lose my mind."

So, I end up telling the whole saga to the guy whose expertise is solely of the eye. And he said he didn't know what was causing my headaches, that he was sure it wasn't my vision because he was testing my eyesight at 20/20 - but, he thought I should see a neurological ophthalmologist, which is evidently a neurologist who specializes in eyes.

I frankly don't know what to do from here. (Aside from seeing the neuro-eye guy), but, it freaks me out to be told, that, basically, there is something the size of 7 mm hanging out between my eyeballs, it's not what they thought it was two years ago, and, maybe it's just nothing. But, no, they cannot tell me why my fingers and eyes are puffy, or why I have headaches every damn day, and, no, they don't really think these symptoms are necessarily related.

My lunch hour bitch fest has now come to an end. I have people to divorce and tenants to evict and an estate to file, so, I'm going to go practice some law now.

I just wish I could convince someone do more for me than just practice some medicine.

ARGH.

LM

365 Days, or Now I Have You

Right now, as I type this, it is about 7:40 PM Eastern Time in the US on January 7th. But, in Vietnam, it's about 7:40 AM on January 8th.


Which is roughly the time that, one year ago, we left our hotel to travel to Lana's orphanage for the last time.


Lana left the orphanage with us, and two other families, in a taxi a few hours later. She had never been in a car before. At times it is hard for me to wrap my head around the enormous changes this little girl has been through in the last 365 days. She had never been in a car before.


She had never been outside the province of DaNang before. She had never seen snow. The list is endless...


If you've been reading our story for a while, you know this. If you haven't been reading...well, I blogged the whole thing here:


http://gretchenfaith.blogspot.com/2007/01/we-have-lan.html


and here


http://gretchenfaith.blogspot.com/2007/01/giving-and-receiving-ceremony-and.html


As I type this, Lana is sitting in the big bathtub in my bathroom, tormenting her brother with a fish-shaped water pistol.

A year ago, as I concentrated on getting through each second without flying apart into a gazillion pieces of emotional wreckage, I don't think I allowed myself to believe that such normalcy was attainable.

I'm not going to lie and say that every day of our lives is an exercise in normalcy. (And I'm not sure that I would want to be living that kind of life.)

I strive for honesty here in this bloggy place.

The truth is, this has not been an easy year.

The truth is, this year has been more difficult than I imagined it would be on the day that Lana became our daughter.

The truth is that Lana crawled into my lap two days ago, played with the buttons on my shirt, and matter of factly said, "I used to have a different mommy. You used to be not my mommy. I had another mommy. Now I have you. I love you, mommy. I love two mommies." (I am NOT paraphrasing. That is, word for word, what she said to me.)

The truth is that is I was so stunned by her statement that instead of forming a response, I blinked and I just said, "I love you, too, Lana."

The truth is that while watching her adoption video with me on New Year's Day, she pointed to the footage of the orphanage and said, "I was scared. I was scared in that place, Mommy. Scared." And my heart broke for her.

The truth is that she was up half the night after watching that video, screaming in her sleep, "I don't want to go, I don't want to go, I don't want to go."

I don't think you have to be Freud to draw some pretty hefty conclusions about that.

At the end of the day, at the end of a year, the truth is that I love this child. I didn't fall in love with her right away. I fell in love with her in bits and pieces. When I think about what our journey to this child means to me, and the family of four that we have become with her in it, there are two verses of a song that run through my head. And begging the pardon of the person or persons who wrote it, because I don't pretend to know what they were writing about, (and it is most certainly about a woman, because, come on, isn't that what all the best songs are about?) - the song is Pat Green's Wave On Wave - and to me the words sum up the way Lana brought us to find her, and then made us love her - wave on wave, piece by piece, over and over. The words go like this:

So caught up now in pretending
That what we're seeking is the truth
I'm just looking for a happy ending
All I'm looking for is you.

You came upon me, wave on wave.
You're the reason I'm still here.
Am I the one you were sent to save?
You came upon me, wave on wave.

LM

Some Photos from the Holidays

12 Months Ago

At exactly this time (noon), at O'Hare Airport, Husband and I boarded a Korean Airlines jet bound for Seoul, South Korea.

It was just the beginning of our long journey to Lana.

I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head today, on this topic and many others.

Right now, I just want to post a photo of Lana and I watching her adoption video. We watched it New Year's Day. Please excuse my appearance, as I am nursing a serious champagne head-ache in the photo.

The News Has Me Down, and, Why Didn't She Just Go To Boston??

The news has me despondent the past few days. My little corner of the world has been reeling from a Sunday night tragedy in which a construction worker with a blood alcohol level over three times the legal driving limit for our state, got into his truck, entered the interstate going in the wrong direction, and managed to get four miles before he killed a mother and four children who were traveling home to Maryland after visiting family in Michigan. The father and two children survived.

The news keeps playing footage of the accident site - it looks like a bomb went off inside the family's minivan.

Oh, the drunk driver? Yeah, he broke his jaw. THAT'S IT. He killed 5 people and HE BROKE HIS JAW. I would like to take a tire iron to his head. I would like to take a tire iron to the heads of the people who let him leave the bar he was at.

I realize that this has been done to death, but, good grief. What does it take to make people realize that car+alcohol=dead people.

----------

The news out of Kenya has me biting my nails. My 17-year-old cousin, K~, attends boarding school near Nairobi, where there is rioting and pillaging and people being burned alive, and it is basically a horrible situation in what was, heretofore, one African nation where things seemed to be okay.

This morning, I did hear from my cousin M~ (K~'s older sister who is here in the US going to college) that K~ is still in Uganda with my aunt and uncle and won't be returning to school for several more days at least...it still has me nervous.

_________

I was at the doctor's office this morning, sitting in my paper gown, waiting for the doctor, when the radio began to play a song I hadn't heard in years, but that never fails to reduce me to gushing tears.

It was Dave Loggins' Please Come To Boston from 1974.

Good grief. IS THERE A SADDER SONG EVER??

The line that kills me every time is "Please come to L.A. to live forever" - and she just says "no, you come home to me." WHY?????? WHY?? Seriously - the man loves her - like, in a passionate, epic way. And she won't leave Tennessee?

Don't you think if she had JUST GONE TO BOSTON she probably could have used her wicked feminine wiles to LURE him back to Tennessee eventually? Was she wholly unable to see the bigger picture? Did she not really love him?

Anyway, EVERY TIME I hear the song, I just tear up and think, "How could she turn him down?? Why didn't she just go to Boston?? WHY??"

Yeah, it's possible that I get too emotionally involved in such things.

Fortunately the next song on the radio was something benign from Hall&Oates, I think, so, I was able to stop crying before the doctor came in. Cause I'm sure there's nothing a doctor likes more than to find his patient, waiting for her annual visit, crying into her paper gown over a 34 year old love song.

LM

Attention Tommy Shaw Fans!

Okay, I realize that being a Tommy Shaw fan is vaguely obscure, in and of itself - therefore, the collection of persons who are simultaneously Tommy Shaw fans who read MY blog is probably limited, to...well, the one person who once commented several months ago that they were a Tommy Shaw fan as well.

So, to my possible audience of ONE person...

Huzzah! Tommy Shaw's debut solo album, Girls With Guns, HAS BEEN RE-RELEASED by American Beat records and is available on CD at Amazon! For, like, $11.00!! GIRLS WITH GUNS AT AMAZON.COM

I originally received this album as a Christmas gift my freshman year in HIGH SCHOOL (so, that would have been [gulp] December 1986), on cassette. (Remember cassettes??) I played it OBSESSIVELY through high school - my tape broke from overuse sometime during my senior year of high school, at which time I got a new one from someone, who, I think, was not as big a Tommy fan as I was and had rarely listened to their copy.

Anyhoo, that second tape lasted me through college, but, it too broke sometime around 1994. I didn't think about replacing it at that time, as my musical interests had shifted and I was all about The Indigo Girls, Nirvana, The Smiths and Nine Inch Nails.

By the time I decided I wanted to replace the album, it was out of print, and people were selling it on Ebay for something in the neighborhood of $300. Too rich for my blood. I kept scouring the Internet looking for a reasonably priced copy, and looking for the music as downloads and not finding it, and YESTERDAY! Yesterday I logged onto Amazon.com for something and lo and behold, in "recommendations for you" was the news that Girls With Guns was available for immediate shipment!

So, the album will be on my doorstep shortly. Husband remains convinced that when I hear it again I will be disappointed, since I have been looking for it for 5 years.

For once, I hope Husband is wrong. :-)

LM

I never thought I could handle
A girl with guns
And let me tell you
You can bet that I'm not the only one
(Lyrics by Tommy Shaw, circa 1984)

:-)

Happy New Year

Happy 2008!