tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-214606652024-03-07T04:15:04.526-05:00adventures of law mommyAdventures in Vietnamese International Adoption and the Practice of Law in a medium size Midwestern CityLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.comBlogger737125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-25957588509439561892011-11-28T12:07:00.004-05:002011-11-28T13:13:27.817-05:00And They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love...I don't often speak of my faith on this blog. <br /><br />My relationship with God is very private, very personal. I have struggled with my faith for more than ten years - a struggle that began on a sweltering morning in July of 2001, at the funeral of a friend who died far too young. I can pinpoint the moment that my unquestioning faith left me - it was the moment that his widow, only 27 years old and holding her infant daughter in her arms, read aloud a letter her husband had written her only a few days before, on their wedding anniversary.<br /><br />At that moment my belief in a just God left me, I think I would almost describe it as a physical loss. Something, some part of me, the part that was able to BELIEVE without question, without pause, the part of my heart that held on to the idea that there was love and reason in the way the universe was ordered - was pulled out of me. I have been trying to find it ever since. <br /><br />When, only a few months later, we faced the collective nightmare of September 11, followed by the very personal nightmare of my grandfather's death at the end of November 2001...the tiny bits of faith left in my soul were dashed against the rocks of despair. <br /><br />This is not to say that I no longer believe in God. More to say that God and I are no longer enjoying the cozy relationship we once had. Possibly I am not speaking to him right now. These are my issues, I know, and issues enough to fill a whole book by themselves. They are not the point of this post, though. It's a lot of background to schlepp through, though, but I am getting to my point.<br /><br />In the last few days on Facebook, there have been a number of people posting this (and I quote, including the obnoxious screamy caplock feature):<br /><br />I DO NOT CARE IF THIS DOES OFFEND SOMEONE…THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE…I AM SICK AND TIRED OF EVERY YEAR WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES AROUND; THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TAKE CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS BECAUSE IT MIGHT OFFEND SOMEONE…WELL, HOW ABOUT ALL OF THE CHRISTIANS?...WHAT ABOUT OFFENDING US BECAUSE YOU ARE TAKING OUR CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS?...CHRIST IS CHRISTMAS!...IF YOU AREN'T CELEBRATING CHRIST THEN WHY ARE YOU CELEBRATING?...CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOR!...CHRISTMAS IS ONE OF A FEW HOLIDAYS LEFT THAT CELEBRATE "MY" CHRIST!...LEAVE "MY" CHRISTMAS ALONE!...AND TELL EVERYONE MERRY CHRISTMAS, NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!...RE-POST IF YOU’RE NOT ASHAMED!!and I'm not...and I will add an AMEN to that!!<br /><br />Okay, I'm not even going to touch the fact that much of what we celebrate as Christmas has its roots in some very ancient paganism, because that would be sort of like complaining that the Japanese borrowed curry from India and then declaring that it's irrelevant that Japanese curry is superior. (And friends, let me tell you, if you have ever had a bowl of the true perfection that is Japanese curry rice, you will be behind me on this - Indian curries may be delicious, but Japanese curry is a little piece of heaven. And it is no less heavenly just because the original spices came from somewhere else.) <br /><br />I like Christmas. I like Christmas trees and Christmas presents and Christmas carols and Christmas cookies and Christmas dinner and I love Santa Claus and that unique smell of Christmas morning that is tangerines blended with pine cones and cinnamon. <br /><br />I love to sit in church on Christmas Eve with the lights turned low, and the candles setting the stained glass windows on fire and the low hum of Silent Night and that feeling, for a brief, fleeting moment, that God and I are maybe, just maybe, on a first name basis again. <br /><br />So, it's ridiculous and offensive to me that the above rant is making its way around my facebook wall. I'm not offended for the reasons the people posting it imagine I'm offended. I am not offended by Christ. <br /><br />Christ, and Christmas, are about <em><strong>hope</strong></em> and <em><strong>joy</strong></em> and <em><strong>peace</strong></em> and <em><strong>love</strong></em>. <br /><br />What Christ and Christmas are categorically NOT about is figuratively smacking your friends and family in the face with a ridiculous holier-than-thou rant about taking Christ out of Christmas.<br /><br />In fact, I would venture that the above referenced rant goes a long way in taking Christ out of the lives of people who encounter it. <br /><br />I am the last Christian who should be giving advice on effective evangalizing (see above history <em>vis a vis</em>, me and God) - but I can say with 100% certainty that creating a vortex of douchebaggery is the wrong way to go about it.<br /><br />I am not ashamed of Christianity (although I will admit that I have, on occasion, considered not calling myself a Christian anymore, and calling myself "follower of a guy who got nailed to a tree for suggesting that we should be nice to eachother" - mostly because of people like the author of that facebook rant, who make me feel quite certain that we have NOT been reading the same sacred texts...but it's a bit longwinded. I'm not sure it would catch on as a religious movement.)<br /><br />I do say Merry Christmas, but I also say Happy Holidays. And Happy Hannukah. And Happy Diwali. And Happy New Year. I would probably wish a pagan a Blessed Solstice but I don't know any actual pagans, but I certainly wouldn't spit on their holiday. It's not my style.<br /><br />What are other people celebrating if they aren't celebrating Christ? They are celebrating what humans have needed to celebrate for millenia - they are celebrating the LIGHT that shines in the DARKNESS. The light that calls out from the bleakness of the endless snowy cold and dark, the hope that the sun will return. <br /><br />And if they are greeting me with hopes that I, too, will find light in the dead of winter - I will accept those cheerful greetings and I will not greet them with the hatred that is embroiled in the sentiment above. <br /><br />I know I have spoken often about my grandfather, and his music, and the ways in which his music still speaks to me, still reaches out to me, and comforts me when I am sad.<br /><br />And he used to sing a song called, "They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love" - and I wish that I could bring him back and have him sing for the hateful creature who wrote that rant. But since he's unavailable, and since I cannot pinpoint the hateful creature, I will just leave one of the pertinent verses here, in the hope that it will bring a little bit of light to the darkness.<br /><br /><em>We will work with each other, we will work side by side </em><br /><em>We will work with each other, we will work side by side </em><br /><em>And we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride </em><br /><em>And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love </em><br /><em>They will know we are Christians by our love </em><br /><em></em><br />Have a Blessed Advent.<br /><br />LMLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-44472445574875834292011-11-11T12:03:00.004-05:002011-11-11T12:23:20.963-05:00Turn Me On Like a Light SwitchI debated about sharing this story...but then I told it to <a href="http://ellaatlast.blogspot.com/">Ella at Last</a>, and she threatened to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">de-friend</span> me if I didn't, "blog the sh*t out of that."<br /><br />So...<br /><br />The other night, Husband and I were in the kitchen. We were standing by the stove, hugging.<br /><br />Lana stuck her head in, looked at us hugging <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">each other</span> and said, "Are you making the sex over there?"<br /><br />Husband and I both said, "What??"<br /><br />In point of fact, we were MAKING THE CURRY for the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">CROCK POT</span> for the next day. NOT making THE SEX.<br /><br />So she repeated herself, "Are you making the sex?"<br /><br />For a moment, words failed me, and then I said, "No, making the sex is private. So we are not making the sex in the kitchen."<br /><br />Quite honestly, the kitchen tiles are extremely hard and cold...I'm fairly confident when I say that those particular kitchen tiles have never seen anyone "making the sex" on them, ever. <br /><br />So, my nine year old daughter, giggly madly, sweetly says, "I know making the sex is private. In your bedroom. You kiss <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">each other</span> and then you say, "don't you want to go to the zoo, my darling, to see the baby giraffes?" and then you kiss <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">each other</span> some more."<br /><br />I wish I could tell you that I used this opening to have a frank and honest discussion with her about the birds and the bees.<br /><br />But instead I laughed until I was shaking and then I laughed some more.<br /><br />And Husband declared that "going to the Zoo to the see the baby giraffes" was the best <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">euphemism</span> for knocking boots that's he's heard since "fighting crime".<br /><br />Probably I should have a talk with my daughter this weekend...and then maybe I'll see if Husband wants to go to the zoo to see the baby giraffes... :-)<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-14780866092639535722011-09-29T10:25:00.002-04:002011-09-29T11:06:44.767-04:00All the Other Girls Here are Stars, You are the Northern Lights*At night, when I am snuggling with my daughter, and singing her a song just before she falls asleep - if Lana has something important to say, that is the time she will say it.<br /><br />Is this true of most children? I suspect so. It's certainly true of her older brother. Something about the dimness of the room, the closeness of lying together, the lullaby induced sleepiness - it makes important conversations accessible.<br /><br />The other night, after I sang "You Are My Sunshine" and "K-K-K-Katie", Lana rolled herself into my shoulder and said, "Someday you are going to give me away to another mommy." <br /><br />"No," I said. "I'm not ever going to give you away to another mommy. Not ever. You are stuck with me kid. Forever." <br /><br />"My foster mom gave me away to you. So, you are going to give me away to some other mom, I know it. My foster mom keeped me for four years. Now you keeped me for four years. Soon you will give me away, and it will always go on that way." <br /><br />Sometimes it amazes me, the cogs turning in that complex brain of hers.<br /><br />"Your foster mom didn't give you to me, exactly," I said. "She kept you and loved you, and she loves you still. She emails us to ask about you. She still loves you. She didn't have any choices, honey. But she loved you and she will keep loving you and wanting you to be happy." <br /><br />This distracted Lana for a minute, and we talked about what pictures we want to send to her foster mom, and what she might want to say in an email, and would I help her type an email to her foster mom, if she wanted to? <br /><br />Then abruptly, she hid her face back in my hair and said, "Why did SHE give me away?" <br /><br />The way she said it, I was pretty sure she wasn't talking about her foster mom anymore.<br /><br />"Your foster mom?" I ask, preferring the idea of discussing Communist government red-tape over the can of worms I was pretty sure she was opening.<br /><br />"No. Not my foster mom. My...the other lady. The one who had me in her tummy. Why did SHE give me away?" <br /><br />"Well...that's a big question. I never talked to her about it. I never talked to her at all. But I know what she told the nannies at the place where she left you." <br /><br />"What did she tell them?"<br /><br />And so I told her, the two sentences that are written in her file. <br /><br />They are not uncommon reasons for giving a child up for adoption, not here in the US, and probably not anywhere in the world. <br /><br />"Why did she even have me then? Why did she even keep me in her tummy?"<br /><br />Talk about a kick in the teeth.... I don't think that my daughter understands the concept of abortion, and I'm not sure that was what she was asking. She does understand (because of an event that happened in our family) that some babies die before they are born, but I wasn't sure if that was what she meant. <br /><br />Sometimes "I don't know" is the only answer we have. And so that's what I said.<br /><br />"I don't know. But I want to think it was because she loved you so much, but I just don't know. But I know that I am so glad she did, because I love you so much. And your foster mom loved you so much."<br /><br />"I don't want any other mommies," she said. "Three mommies is enough mommies, okay? No more. No more giving me to any new more new mommies."<br /><br />"Okay," I said. "It'll be just us three, then, forever." <br /><br />Then she rolled over, and said, "I am lucky that my Daddy is my only Daddy. He's never going to give me to any other daddies." <br /><br />I assured her that her Daddy was never going to give her to any other daddies, and I kissed her goodnight, and she fell asleep. <br /><br />I suppose that one day in the not too distant future, she is going to figure out that somewhere, out there, someplace on the other side of the planet, is a man who donated half her DNA, who has no clue, that this beautiful, starry-eyed, fabulous, stunning creature exists. And I'm not sure how to tell her, that even though she only has one Daddy...biology dictates that she has another father. <br /><br />LM<br /><br />* Josh Ritter, <em>Kathleen</em>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-30917876473962724532011-08-30T16:15:00.000-04:002011-08-30T16:17:13.073-04:00As the fire of memory burns me, the grace of your love returns me, to this most traveled of highways*<p>Grief is exhausting. And <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">surprising</span>. And really f**king frustrating.</p>
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<br /><p>It can leave you alone for months, buried deep beneath the day to worry about <em>what to cook for dinner</em> and <em>did you pay the gas bill</em> and <em>what movie should you watch for family movie night</em>, and <em>what filings are due when for which cases</em>.</p>
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<br /><p>And then, one day, when you least expect it, she shows up and bitch-slaps you across the face and kicks you in the teeth and leaves you curled up in a ball crying so hard you are gasping for the air to fill your lungs with everything you've lost. (I totally stole that last line from Snow Patrol, but it's an apt description.)</p>
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<br /><p>More than a year has passed since J~ left us. Fourteen months have gone by, and most days in the past few months have been mostly fine. </p>
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<br /><p>And then last Monday (14 months to the day since he shuffled off in that early morning thunderstorm) - I find myself enraged. Enraged with the universe, enraged with the other people he left behind, enraged with him for being dead and not being f**king HERE where I NEED him. Where I MISS him.</p>
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<br /><p>And for the last eight days, I am floundering, once again, in this foul soup of grief and loss and anger and mourning. And insomnia. </p>
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<br /><p>I need to remember that this sadness, this anger, this monstrous grief - this is not what J~ wants for me. I need to remind myself that he always walked with the sun on his face and treated everyone with grace. I need to remind myself he loved me like his own daughter, and he had hopes and dreams and expectations for me...that I let him down when I give in to the despair.</p>
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<br /><p>It's not easy, though. It's not easy to remember those things when grief is all up in your grill, screaming like the wicked banshee she is. </p>
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<br /><p>Sorry to be morose. It's just something I have to get out of my head before the grief drives me crazy.</p>
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<br /><p><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span></p>* John <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Hiatt</span>, Come Home to You
<br />LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-83118600394297353842011-08-09T14:30:00.004-04:002011-08-09T14:51:49.626-04:00People Are Raising Their Expectations, Go On and Feed Them*If you've been watching the evenings, the photos and stories coming from the famine stricken Somalia, and the relief camps in Kenya, are probably reducing you to tears of hopelessness. (Well, that's what they are doing to me, anyway.)
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<br />I sent an email to my aunt and uncle in Tanzania, where they have been working for Southern Baptist Missions for the past 15 years. (Not all in Tanzania, but in Uganda, and Lesotho as well.) My uncle is a doctor specializing in AIDS treatment and prevention. But he's there, he's boots on the ground, so to speak. And he knows about Africa and corruption and what's working and what's not working.
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<br />So I asked him, point blank, "I can't see this news footage without crying. What can I do, who can I give money to and know it will go to help these starving people?"
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<br />His response was immediate and decisive - Doctors Without Borders. (He is not working for DWB, by the way.) Here's a link if you are so inclined to donate: <a href="http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/">Doctors Without Borders</a>. You can click on the "Donate" tab at the top.
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<br />(This post is not sponsored by Doctors Without Borders and I am not affiliated in any way with them. I just could not watch the news one more day without doing something. This isn't much, but it's what I have.)
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<br />LM
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<br />* Shakira, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRpeEdMmmQ0">This Time For Africa</a>, which is, admittedly, about Soccer and not Famine, but I defy you to not want to dance to this song
<br />LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-39837662584620786572011-07-28T10:10:00.003-04:002011-07-28T12:26:03.285-04:00Making Kafta in the RainThis past weekend we went "camping" with my entire family.<br /><br />I say "camping" because the event took place at an alleged "campground" in Indiana, which is really more like a "parking lot for RVs and campers." (Question - are all campgrounds like this anymore? I do not remember campgrounds looking like this when I was a child. I mostly remember...trees, and streams and fairly large spaces between sites. Was I imagining this? Am I just seeing things differently as an adult?)<br /><br />Were it not for the fact that our four campsites sat directly on a little lake, (and they were amoung the only 12 such sites in the vast RV park) - it would have been...really ugly. <br /><br />On the upside was the fact that all five of my siblings, all of their spouses, all of their children, and my mother and step-dad were all in attendance. This was the first time since my brother's wedding in December of 2008 that all 28 of us had been in the same place at the same time. (Yes, there are 28 people in my immediate family. Fourteen adults and fourteen children. On four campsites. In an RV park.)<br /><br />It was 97 degrees most of the weekend. And humid. (In an RV park. With twenty-eight people. Come on, you are totally jealous now, aren't you?) <br /><br />Between us we had two large campers, three tents, one "rustic cabin" courtesy of the alleged campground, and three dogs. One of which is cross between a Great Dane and an Irish Wolfhound. Which means, for all practical purposes, that she is rather more the size of a horse than a dog.<br /><br />On Friday night, there were a few moments of utter bucolic bliss, as I watched my son and my niece floating together in the lake, sharing an inner tube and laughing, while my daughter and another niece ran off together, hand-in-hand, towards the playground, giggling. (It was actually a really nice playground.) <br /><br />On Saturday, most of the family spent the morning and early afternoon floating in the lake, supported by a variety of vinyl blow up toys. (Rings, rowboats, rafts, etc.) The lake water was really warm, and there was a lot of seaweed, but it was nice to be swimming and chatting and drinking adult beverages and watching the kids play in the water.<br /><br />On Saturday afternoon...it began to rain. And it rained some more. And it kept raining. And almost immediately upon the rain beginning, the power went out, so that the two campers and the "rustic cabin" became hot boxes of humidity. <br /><br />And in the midst of the rain, my mother and my husband and my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law were trying to make dinner, huddled under the awning of my sister's camper. <br /><br />They were making kafta. <br /><br />Okay, okay, I know, you are thinking, "who in their right mind makes kafta on a camping trip?" To which I say, OBVIOUSLY NONE OF US ARE IN OUR RIGHT MINDS. <em>We were camping with twenty-eight people and three dogs in an alleged campground in the middle of Indiana on one of the hottest weekends of the year with two normal sized dogs and a horse-sized dog</em>. We were not in right minds. <br /><br />Anyway, under the awning of my sister's camper, there was smashing of garlic (lots and lots and lot of garlic) and mincing of mint, and then the forming of twenty pounds of ground beef and lamb and garlic and mint and onion meat sticks. (Rather like a meat ball, but longer and log-shaped.) My mother was also slicing an eggplant and zuchini and tearing up two heads of cauliflower, and rolling them in garlic and olive oil and some kind of spice packet she found at the Middle Eastern market (incidentally, a Middle Eastern market is a "suq". This is an EXCELLENT Scrabble word if you ever need it. It can also be spelled "souk", which also doesn't suck as a Scrabble word.) <br /><br />And the rain kept coming down, and the electricity stayed off, and the guys tried to light a fire in the fire pit in the rain, and finally the rain let up enough so that we could grill the meat and the vegetables. <br /><br />And everything was really, really delicious. <br /><br />But I couldn't help thinking that it would have still been delicious if we had been, you know, inside. In a kitchen. With electricity and running water.<br /><br />I mean, let's face it, making kafta, or anything, really, outside, in the rain, at an alleged campground, is pretty inconvenient. <br /><br />My siblings want to plan this all-family getaway again, possibly at the same campground, for next year.<br /><br />And as much as I want to spend the weekend together somewhere...I really wish we could find someplace less...crowded with RVs. And more cabin but less "rustic". <br /><br />Anybody know of any nice cabins for rent in a pretty place that sleeps 28 people and is within a few hours drive of Lake Erie?<br /><br />Yeah...probably not.<br /><br />LMLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-34276632538663253892011-07-12T16:06:00.002-04:002011-07-12T16:23:35.616-04:00VariousI'm trying to write a real post, truly I am, but here are some things on my mind:<br /><br />1. Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Strawberries. This is all <a href="http://grouchosfamily.blogspot.com/">M's</a> fault, because she introduced me to them when we were visiting her in Oregon, and WOW are they good. I've been on a quest to get a hold of them for days, and snapped some up when we were in Ann Arbor on Sunday. They are addicting. Like, crack or heroin, but full of fiber and antioxidants, and you probably won't want to knock over a liquor store to get them. (Okay, you might think about it, but you probably wouldn't actually do it.)<br /><br />2. My son is such an old soul - recently, in the back of my car, Gabriel and Lana were trying to decide what music they wanted to hear - the conversation went like this:<br />Lana: <em>Mom, please play Katy Perry!!!</em><br />Gabe: <em>Mom, no Katy Perry, please!!!</em><br />Lana: <em>He never wants Katy Perry!</em><br />Gabe: <em>Because I don't LIKE Katy Perry</em>.<br />Lana (exasperated): <em>What DO you like, then???</em><br />Gabe (matter of factly): <em>Classic Mo-Town. And Michael Jackson. </em><br />I swear he is the oldest 11 year old boy there ever was.<br /><br />3. My daughter CRACKS me up, regularly. The other day I overheard this:<br />Lana (to Gabriel): If you don't stop that I'm going to scream bloody murder.<br />(a pause, during which, presumably, Gabriel kept doing whatever it was)<br />Lana (loudly): <span style="font-size:180%;">BLOODY MURDER! BLOODY MURDER!</span><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"></span><span style="font-size:100%;">(I can't decide if she was being intentionally hilarious or not.)</span><br /><br />4. The television show Medium has me completely and utterly hooked. I have been watching an episode nearly every day on Netflix streaming. It's a compulsion, and my husband cringes every time I turn it on, because he hates Patricia Arquette for reasons he has not articulated. I hate having a tv obsession I cannot suck him in to.<br /><br />5. I just finished the fifth book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, which was released last month and called, "Sisterhood Everlasting." HOLY MOLY I cried. I mean, serious, serious tears. I still love the series...but, wow, that book made me cry.<br /><br />6. I am utterly obsessed with a new feature at our public library called Overdrive. This allows me to put audiobooks from the library website onto my Zune in a very easy interface. I cannot tell you how much more pleasant my communte to and from work has become when I know I have a good audiobook to keep me company. It's also really wonderful at night - I can listen to a book and not need to have a light on to read. Our library is starting to get more and more titles, it's a wonderful service!LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-21737988253129902332011-07-11T11:52:00.002-04:002011-07-11T11:59:05.998-04:00Thoughts on Asian Skin Care?Dear Internets,<br /><br />I'm looking for recommendations on an appropriate facial moisturizer for Lana. She is 8, but the skin on her face is very dry. <br /><br />I am using Aveeno Ultra Calming on my own face, and I really like it, but since it is advertised as reducing redness (a problem in my very Scandinavian skin), I am hesitant to put it on my daughter - am I wrong about this?<br /><br />The prescription non-steroidal cream her last dermatologist prescribed was completely useless, and it costs $40 to re-fill. (I wouldn't be opposed to spending $40 if I thought it was helping, but it doesn't do anything. We've had more luck with Cetaphil, but she still has some very dry spots.)<br /><br />So, should I stick with cetaphil, try the Avenno, or is there something better?<br /><br />Your input is appreciated!<br /><br />LMLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-14632926370799773922011-05-26T20:56:00.003-04:002011-05-27T11:18:48.228-04:00I live too many miles from the ocean, and I'm getting older and odd*Wow, so...long time no see?<br /><br /><br />I guess two months went by, and I had nothing to say.<br /><br /><br />Or, actually, I had things to say, and I felt I didn't have enough time to say the things I wanted to say eloquently enough to do them justice, so I said nothing at all.<br /><br /><br />And the longer I didn't write anything, the more difficult it came to conceive of writing anything...<br /><br /><br />It occurred to me the other day that if I didn't start writing again, this little corner outlet for my creative juices might dry up completely - which led me to worry that all those creative juices might dry up as well.<br /><br /><br />Time to get back up on that horse, as they say.<br /><br /><br />Some bullet points, because I'm not sure how else to sum up 2 months of time:<br /><br /><br /><br />1. I had a birthday. It wasn't a "big" birthday, but the birthday right before the big birthday. I spent a few days moping about feeling old, but then:<br /><br /><br />2. We went on vacation to an island where the water is so blue it looks like raspberry kool-aid. I walked around all week in a daze, awed by the crazy delicious beauty. (And, okay, the rum helped a bit with the daze.) The sand was so fine it was almost like powdered sugar, and the water was so clear it felt like you could see straight to the bottom of the sea. I spent 7 days floating in the surf, and walking on the beach, and watching my kids (and Husband) build fabulous and complex sand castles, and it was perfection.<br /><br /><br />3. Attempting to return home from the isle of paradise, Delta Airlines did it's very best to drive me to the cliffs of insanity, leaving me sitting on the floor of not one, but two airports with my head in my hands, trying hard not to bawl. We ended up stranded in Atlanta overnight, re-routed in a wholly irrational way, and literally running at full speed through the Baltimore (Baltimore, yes, Baltimore) airport so as not to miss our (new! re-routed!) connecting flight, and arriving at the airport in Detroit fully 22 hours after we were supposed to, only to find that, not only had Delta lost our luggage, but they made a valiant effort to deny that some of our luggage even existed. That was...not ideal.<br /><br />I declared that I was never going to get on another Delta flight as long as I lived, but then I remembered that we had already booked a flight to Husband's brother's wedding in Seattle, which includes a plan to spend some time in Oregon visiting <a href="http://grouchosfamily.blogspot.com/">Groucho's Family</a>, so I guess I probably will get back on a Delta flight. <br /><br /><br />4. My husband ran his second marathon in a storm of wind and freezing rain, immediately after which he declared that he had, "never felt so awful in his entire life." Four hours later he was discussing when he would run his next one. Runners are masochists, apparently.<br /><br />5. Work is busy. Like, completely, insanely, "can't catch my breath, feel like I'm drowning in paper" - busy. There are a lot of attorneys who don't have enough work right now, so I'm not complaining, I'm just...expressing my feelings that there aren't enough hours in the day.<br /><br />6. My new cat is on a quest to keep me from sleeping more than three hours at a time. I feel a little like I'm living with a newborn, except one who meows and licks and my face a lot.<br /><br />7. My old cat is very sick. He's been hospitalized two nights this week. He is 15 years old, and he seems to have a sinus infection. Also, the vet suggests he is a grieving the loss of our cat who died just before Christmas. (They had been companions for more than 12 years, so...the vet might be right about that.) I'm very worried about my little guy.<br /><br /><br /><p>8. In about 10 days my son is going to be finished with elementary school and moving up to the big junior high school and I'm a bit...sad, nostalgic, worried about the whole thing. Junior high was pretty much the three very worst, wretched, horrifying years of my entire life, and I am hoping that he will have a much better time than I did.<br /></p><br /><br /><p>I'm hoping to be back here and writing more frequently. </p><br /><br /><p>* Patty Griffin, <em>Mother of God</em></p>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-13959984697159367502011-03-22T14:12:00.002-04:002011-03-22T15:43:59.299-04:00I want to tell you about my HusbandWarning - I'm about to get all political, which I don't usually do. But politics is hitting too close to home for me to keep quiet about this anymore.<br /><br />*****************************************************************<br /><br />There are any number of things happening in the world that make me want to crawl back under the covers and pretend the world isn't turning outside...the earthquake, the tsunami, the nuclear problem (all happening in a place I once called home, which, well, see my previous post); the new war in Libya (look, we've spent <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">eleventy</span>-gazillion dollars fighting wars in the middle east, only one of which (Afghanistan) did we have any business whatsoever getting involved in.)<br /><br />I'm very seriously thinking of becoming a Quaker. That might seem like a non-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">sequitor</span>. It's not.<br /><br />But the thing that is making me the most upset, because it is affecting me most personally, is the idea that seems to have sprung suddenly, and out of no where, that public school teachers are Public Enemy Number One.<br /><br />I don't usually get political on this blog, but this isn't politics to me. You talk smack about public school teachers, you are talking smack about a man I happen to be very much in love with.<br /><br />So today, I want to tell you about my Husband.<br /><br />My husband gets up at 5:45 every morning, so that he can be at school by 7:00 AM. If he doesn't have a meeting, he leaves school at 3:00 PM. If he has a meeting, he might not leave until 3:45PM.<br /><br />He has 22 minutes for lunch. 22 MINUTES. It takes him 3 minutes to walk to teacher's lounge, so, really, he has 16 minutes.<br /><br />My husband gets home in time to meet our kids as they get off the bus at 4:00 PM, and he helps them with their homework. <br /><br />After dinner, my husband grades papers. He teaches English and Science, and between the two, there are many, many nights and weekend afternoons and early mornings where he grades papers for three hours. Many of these papers, based on the indecipherable handwriting I have personally observed, appear to have been written by a right handed lemur writing with his left hand, possibly with his left hand encased in a cast.<br /><br />During the summer, he is required to use his own money to pursue a Master's Degree. If he doesn't work towards a Master's Degree, (and after his M.A. he will have to pursue continuing education) - his teaching certification will not be renewed. During his other free time, when he isn't grading papers or working on continuing education, he must put together lesson plans and curriculum plans. (Because the district he works in doesn't have a curriculum director.)<br /><br />So, let's see, 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM is 8 hours...plus 2 to 3 hours per night, let's say 10.5 hours per day. And probably six hours per weekend. So, let's say, conservatively, that he works 10 hours per day on the 187 days per year he is contracted to work - that's 1870 hours. Then let's say, also conservatively, that he works 6 hours per weekend, approximately 30 weekends per year. That's another 180 hours. And let's not forget the hours he must put in during the summer, on his own dime, towards his Master's Degree, and putting together lesson plans and curriculum, so, again let's say, conservatively, 10 hours per week during the 10 weeks he has "off" in the summer. That's another 100 hours. Add those up? 2150 HOURS. Guess who has a FULL TIME JOB? MY HUSBAND. Full time and then some. SO PLEASE - stop screaming that teachers don't have full time jobs. It makes my head want to explode.<br /><br />My husband's job is teach 16-17 year <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">olds</span> enough chemistry and physics and geology that they have a working knowledge of these things. It's also his job, as an English teacher, to teach them how write in an intelligible way.<br /><br />Special education has been phased out in his district, so, among his students are several severely learning disabled students, and also some who don't speak English as their first language.<br /><br />He has some students who has to remind, over and over and over again, to stop hurting themselves in the middle of class, and to not eat the chemicals that are part of the labs.<br /><br />In spite of these challenges, my Husband is GOOD at what he does. He is a good teacher. He is good at helping children understand difficult concepts. If you ask him what part he loves about being a teacher, he will tell you it is the time when his door is closed and his class is full and he is teaching his kids. If you ask him why he became a teacher, well, that's a very personal story, and it's not mine to tell. But I can tell you that his reasons were compelling. He might have gone to medical school, or he might have become an engineer, but he <strong><em>chose</em></strong> to become a teacher because that's what he cared about. <br /><br />He is not a miracle worker.<br /><br />He is not a social worker or a psychiatrist but he is expected to act in these capacities as well.<br /><br />The fact that his union has asked for him to be paid a living wage and for him to receive health insurance (for which we DO pay a portion) - is not him "fighting for things he doesn't deserve". (Thank you very much (NOT!), FOX contributor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Byrnes">Tracy <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Byrnes</span></a>, you horrible, wretched two-faced, abominable, low down shameful talking head, for that ridiculous assessment of what teachers are concerned about.) (In case you missed it, you can see Jon Stewart's piece <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-3-2011/crisis-in-the-dairyland---for-richer-and-poorer---teachers-and-wall-street">here</a>.)<br /><br />My husband is not the enemy. My husband is teaching children how to understand chemistry.<br /><br />Please - get off his back and let him do his job.<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-36886529517672076102011-03-12T08:28:00.003-05:002011-03-12T09:08:31.110-05:00World Turned Upside DownOne afternoon when I was 24 years old, I left my office on the 4<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">th</span> floor of a five story building in Hitachi City, Japan. I was on my lunch break, and I walked to a department store called <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Isejin</span> to get something to eat. (Department stores are probably not good lunch choices here in the US, but in Japan, at the time at least, the bottom floor of a department store was likely to have a grocery, a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">ramen</span> noodle stand, and a bakery.)<br /><br />When I returned to my office building after lunch, I walked into the elevator, hitting the button for the 4<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">th</span> floor, and the elevator began to rise, and then...<br /><br />The elevator stopped, and the lights went out, and the elevator car began to shake violently, and it tilted for one brief and horrible moment, smacking against the walls of the elevator shaft.<br /><br />I clung to the railing inside the elevator and I was pretty sure I was going to die.<br /><br />Seconds passed. I don't know how many. It felt like a lot, but it was less than 2 minutes.<br /><br />The lights came back on, and the elevator continued its ascent. When the doors opened, three of my co-workers were standing in the vestibule, staring at the elevator. (I believe they had been standing in the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">door frame</span> between our office and the lobby, seeking the soundest structural place to wait out the earthquake, and then they stayed there when the realized the elevator was moving and someone must have been stuck inside during the earthquake.)<br /><br />I stumbled out of the elevator and grabbed my friend <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Riyako's</span> hand. She squeezed my hand back. "<em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Jishin</span></em>," she said, her eyes wide. Yes. Earthquake.<br /><br />I took the stairs for the next four months. <br /><br />I experienced a few more earthquakes during the time I lived in Japan, and while only one was anywhere near as frightening as those moments in the elevator, they still scared the crap out of me. (My husband slept through that one, he has no memory of me dragging him by the hand to stand in doorway of our apartment building in the middle of the night, or of watching the lamp hanging from our kitchen ceiling sway back and forth.) (I wish I did not have that memory myself.)<br /><br />There is something <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">indescribably</span> terrifying about what happens during an earthquake - that the ground, the earth, the very thing that is supposed to be IMMOBILE and SOLID and RELIABLE, is shaking violently. There really isn't anything to hold onto when the ground beneath your feet begins to tremble. So you pray that it passes, and that it's small and that it isn't "the big one".<br /><br />When I turned on my phone yesterday morning, there were two emails at the top of my inbox, one from our friend <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Keiko</span> and another from our friend <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Miho</span>. Both were short, "I am okay."<br /><br />But you have two emails from two Japanese people that you hear from a few times a year, both saying, "Hey, I'm okay." You KNOW something bad happened.<br /><br />The images and news stories are horrifying and I cannot wrap my head around it. Trains? NOT RUNNING? IN JAPAN THE TRAINS ARE NOT RUNNING? If you've never been to Japan, the gravity of this statement might be lost on you. I cannot even begin to describe the Japanese rail system in a single blog post, but the adjectives generally used to describe it are "precise" and "punctual" and "efficient" and "reliable" and "like clockwork". <br /><br />If you get on a train in Tokyo, and the schedule says it will stop in Sendai at 4:17 PM, it WILL stop in Sendai at 4:17 <em><strong>exactly</strong></em>. They are not late, they do not fail to arrive. It is admirable, this efficiency. And the Japanese people rely on these trains. They are used by TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE every day. <br /><br />So to hear that they ARE NOT RUNNING and that FOUR OF THEM ARE MISSING - (FOUR TRAINS ARE MISSING. MISSING!!) - I cannot even begin to fathom the chaos.<br /><br />I have had to stop watching the footage coming out of Japan. Because while I know that <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Keiko</span> and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Miho</span> are okay - so many others, so many other people I cared about and have lost touch with - I don't know. <br /><br />We've lived less than a mile from the beach on the Pacific Ocean, south of Sendai, north of Tokyo...I don't imagine that area could possibly have come through this unscathed.<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-29067912369228521342011-02-21T13:48:00.002-05:002011-02-21T13:53:48.639-05:00The Mystery of the Yellow Gatorade, ExplainedI realized in my last post that I didn't add my mother-in-law's postscript to the Yellow Gatorade Mystery. :-)<br /><br />I didn't have the answer to this mystery myself, until a few months after Gabriel was born, when I remembered to ask her about it.<br /><br />But the answer is that my mother-in-law and father-in-law had had the flu themselves a few weeks earlier, and her friend had brought her some yellow Gatorade and my in-laws felt much better after they started drinking it. Eleven years later and I can assure you that there hasn't been a day that we haven't had at least one bottle of Gatorade in the pantry, for flu emergencies. :-)<br /><br />My mother-in-law maintains to this day that the yellow kind is the best for post-flu. I sincerely think this has to do with the fact that the yellow is less likely to stain than the orange or the red or the blue, if, you know...well, if it makes a reappearance all over your living room carpet.LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-22109526806893871922011-02-18T14:37:00.002-05:002011-02-18T16:08:05.497-05:00In Which I Take a Walk Down Memory LaneHave I told you this story before? If so, bear with me and treat me like your dotty old aunt who tells the same story over and over so you nod politely and smile...and wish you could spike her holiday eggnog so she would just shut up and fall asleep on the couch. Er, or something like that.<br /><br />Eleven years ago - February 18, 2000 - was also a Friday. (Question - is this true of any date at any given time? Is eleven years the number of years at which a calendar will be exactly the same? Or does it vary depending on how many leap year periods have been in any given eleven year period of time? I don't know.)<br /><br />At any rate, February 18, 2000 was a Friday.<br /><br />I was a gazillion months pregnant. (OK, maybe I was only nine months pregnant. But it FELT like a gazillion months pregnant.) <br /><br />I was really OVER being pregnant. My back hurt, my feet hurt, everything hurt. I had to pee every 3 seconds. <br /><br />Despite the generally <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">achey-ness</span> of my condition, I worked fiendishly that day - I had a weird, manic energy and a compulsion to finish EVERYTHING on my desk. <br /><br />I wasn't a lawyer then. I was a "research specialist" - a job that involved crunching data from the US Census, and researching whatever odd or bizarre questions that came up in the process of doing consumer research. (When I interviewed for that job, the man who would later be my boss said, "I need someone who I can call in here and say, "<em>How many Chihuahuas are there in Boston</em>?" and by the end of the day they would either know or present a model for finding out. Can you be that person for me?" And the answer was, yes, yes, I could. I actually really liked that job, and I was good at it. But I didn't see myself counting Chihuahuas or crunching census data for the rest of my life.) <br /><br />As I prepared to leave for the day, I wrote a clear list about what things needed to be accomplished the next week - not something that was usual for me. (I tend to keep lists in my head rather than on paper, especially at that (<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">pre</span>-child) point of my life.) But that evening, I knew I needed to write everything down, secretly hoping that I would not be there on Monday and that the note would assist my co-workers. (God forbid there should be a Chihuahua counting crisis in my absence.) <br /><br />I waddled out to my car, and it was already dark. Husband had telephoned me when he got home from school (as was his habit and is still his habit today), and told me he didn't feel well. I told him I didn't feel well either, what with the baby feet grinding in my ribcage and all. <br /><br />When I walked in the door I knew something was wrong, because Husband was ASLEEP on the couch at 7:00 PM in his PAJAMAS. <br /><br />I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen my husband in pajamas before bedtime. While I may prefer to pass entire weekends in my <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">pjs</span>, Husband is not that kind of peron. Nor does he nap. Ever.<br /><br />So to come home and find him napping and be-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">jamma</span>-ed...something was up.<br /><br />And the thing that was UP was his TEMPERATURE.<br /><br />Husband normally runs a temp of around 96 to 97 degrees. He's cold blooded or something.<br /><br />But eleven years ago tonight, he had a fever of 102 and climbing. <br /><br />When I woke him up he barfed. <br /><br />This was not good news, because all during my drive home, I was having pain in my lower back. I was beginning to think I was in labor. <br /><br />Have I mentioned that I was a horrible pregnant person? Because I was. really. wretched. Cranky. Petulant. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Pouty</span>. <br /><br />Whilst Husband was tossing his cookies again, the phone rang. It was my mother-in-law. I told her what was going on with her son. <br /><br />My mother-in-law said, with a conviction in her voice that implied her next statement had years of empirical data behind it, said, "He needs Gatorade. The yellow kind. Do you have any?"<br /><br />No, of course we did not have any yellow Gatorade, because Gatorade was not something we ever had at our house.<br /><br />I told her so.<br /><br />"He needs some," she said. "Call one of your sisters to see if they will bring you some." <br /><br />(It should be noted that my mother-in-law did not bring me the Gatorade herself because she two hours away, and she did not want me to go out and get the Gatorade because she was also convinced I was about to give birth.) <br /><br />I hung up with my mother-in-law and told Husband I was going to the store to get him some Gatorade. He was laying on the couch again in a feverish lump. He mumbled something about not wanting me to go out. I went anyway.<br /><br />(Both of my sisters and my mother lived on the other side of town. There was a grocery store at the end of our street. It seemed silly to call my sister to drive across town to bring Gatorade.)<br /><br />Have I mentioned that it was snowing? <br /><br />No?<br /><br />It was. <br /><br />SNOWING HEAVILY. <br /><br />It was snowing like our city was competing for a chance to host the Winter Olympics. <br /><br />I went outside and brushed all the snow off of my car that had accumulated in the time since I got home from work. I drove to the grocery store, my car slipping all over the road. <br /><br />I waddled/skated/slid into the grocery store, where I wandered the aisles fruitlessly - unable to find Gatorade or a human being working there. <br /><br />I also determined that I was hungry. STARVING, in fact. Ravenous. And I had a <em>craving</em>. <br /><br />A ridiculous craving. I wanted a <em>Wolfgang Puck BBQ Chicken Pizza</em>. Why? I don't have ANY IDEA. But I wanted one, desperately.<br /><br />I toddled over to the frozen foods and stood there, staring sadly at the collection of frozen pizzas. I can assure you that there was no BBQ Chicken pizza option there.<br /><br />I left the frozen food aisle and stumbled upon a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">teen-aged</span> boy stocking shelves. <br /><br />"Where is the Gatorade?" I asked him. <br /><br />HE DIDN'T KNOW. <br /><br />WHAT KIND OF TEENAGE BOY WORKING AT A GROCERY STORE DOESN'T KNOW WHERE THE GATORADE IS?<br /><br />He wandered with me, and we ultimately found the Gatorade over in the produce section. WHY? I still don't even know. I bought the last two bottles of yellow Gatorade and realized I was still hungry. <br /><br />And there was <em>still</em> no BBQ Chicken pizza in the frozen food aisle. <br /><br />I decided (?? WHY ??) that a can of Chef <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">BoyRDee</span> Spaghetti and Meatballs would suffice. <em> A product I had not consumed since I was a child</em>. But I wasn't about to argue with my very pregnant self. The baby wanted BBQ Chicken Pizza and I couldn't deliver. So the baby wanted canned meatballs. Who was I to quibble?<br /><br />I slipped in the parking lot walking to my car and I really thought I was going to fall down and end up giving birth, alone and frozen, in a snow drift in the parking lot of a poorly stocked grocery store.<br /><br />I somehow regained my balance and lurched into my car, driving home at about 5 miles per hour, since visibility was minimal.<br /><br />When I walked in the door, my husband was on the phone with my mother. They were hatching a plan to start calling both the hospital and the grocery store, concerned that I had actually gone into labor while on the hunt for yellow Gatorade. <br /><br />He was so relieved to see me he threw up again. <br /><br />I got him some Gatorade, and I ate some canned spaghetti product. <br /><br />We both fell asleep. <br /><br />At some point, in the middle of the night, Husband's temperature spiked to 104. <br /><br />I think I gave him some ibuprofen. A few hours later his temp was 95. <br /><br />I probably should have taken him to the ER.<br /><br />In fact, I think I definitely should have taken him to the ER, since a temperature swing of eight degrees in a few hours is really not normal in a human being. I think. I mean, I'm not a medical professional, but that seems wrong to me.<br /><br />But I didn't take him to the ER. I went back to sleep and so did he. And we slept all day and all night Saturday. <br /><br />Little did we know that was the last uninterrupted sleep we would have for about three years, because by Sunday night, Husband was feeling much better (and he confessed that his mother had never ever once, not a single time, in his childhood, given him yellow Gatorade to recover from the flu) and I was very definitely about to deliver the sleepless little man who has been making me laugh and keeping me awake for the last eleven years.... <br /><br />LMLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-25181657403336422902011-02-07T11:11:00.003-05:002011-02-07T11:28:59.930-05:00Eminem and Chrysler's Curious and Compelling Love Song to DetroitIf you were watching the Super Bowl last night, you may have noticed <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc">this ad</a>.<br /><br />If you were watching the Super Bowl in the general geographic region where I was watching the Super Bowl last night (confession - I was watching the ads, and eating and chatting during the game) - this ad probably made you sit up and take notice.<br /><br />We were watching with two other families, and the room mostly went silent when the underlying music (the bass line of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Eminem's</span> "Lose Yourself") began, and the screen panned over the Detroit Institute of Art's magnificent Diego Rivera murals.<br /><br />I'll admit I was glued to the screen.<br /><br />I wasn't sure what the ad was for, and even when the end revealed the ad was for Chrysler, this was so much less about a car to me, than it was about a city that has, indeed, "been to hell and back". (And I'm not entirely convinced it's "back". Yet.)<br /><br />I spent a good portion of my childhood playing in my grandparent's back yard. In Detroit. Not suburban Detroit - but Detroit proper. Twenty-five years ago, it was a neighborhood in Detroit where <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">pre</span>-teen girls could safely walk to the corner grocery to get milk and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">lunch meat</span>.<br /><br />Last week, in that same neighborhood, somebody stole ALL FOUR TIRES off of my aunt's car. (Not just the hubcaps. THE TIRES. They left the car sitting on bricks.)<br /><br />(And yes, a part of me wonders why they didn't just steal the whole car.)<br /><br />I'm torn about Detroit - a city that dominates the area where I live, and yet which seems to be crumbling into chaos. <br /><br />I'm weirdly grateful to Chrysler for putting this ad together - for saying, I think - "We have an ability here - here in the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Midwest</span>, here in America, here in Detroit - to make some amazing machinery. Don't give up on us yet." <br /><br />On the other hand...I still worry about my aunt and my grandmother, and I worry that next time, it won't just be the car that loses something.<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-65352178944296335062011-01-25T11:16:00.000-05:002011-01-25T11:16:29.233-05:00...and my cat is HUGE*Random things in random order because I'm not feeling like organizing my thoughts today:<br /><br /><ul><br /><li>Work is extremely crazy stressful right now, for a variety of reasons, most of them involving stuff I can't discuss</li><br /><br /><li>I've started taking a belly dancing class, which I am enjoying very much. However, I am sore in places I didn't know I had.</li><br /><br /><li>I am completely horrified by <a href="http://iamkoream.com/adopted-korean-woman-facing-deportation/">this story</a> involving a woman who was adopted by an American family at the age of 8 months. She is now facing deporation because her American citizenship was never established. As the author of the story notes, the moral of the story is that adoptive parents have a responsibility to establish citizenship for their children before they turn 18. </li><br /><br /><li>I am wholly devoted to the TV show <em>Burn Notice</em> and the capers of Michael and Fi and Sam. This is keeping me on the treadmill, thank goodness.</li><br /><br /><li>After devouring the <em>Hunger Games Trilogy</em> and a disturbing novel called <em>ROOM</em> that everyone is buzzing about, I longed to read something sweet. As such, I picked up a copy of Anne of Green Gables at the library and I am loving the quaint coziness of it. The last time I read through the series was 1996, when Husband and I were living in Japan and the series was one of the few selections available in English at the library. I am finding it as charming as I did then (and before that as a 12 year old girl) although I will confess to the fact that I giggle inappropriately every time the author uses the word "ejaculate" to describe someone's speech. (I.e. "Anne, why did you do such a wicked thing? ejaculated Marilla." Totally approprirate for 1905, of course, and yet hilarious in 2011.)</li><br /><br /><li>We adopted a new cat at the end of December. He is HUGE. He is one of the tallest, longest, largest house cats I've ever seen. Much larger than a number of dogs we know. But he is so charming and has such an empathetic look on his face I can't help but love him. Also, he loves me devotedly, and has since the day we brought him home. His devotion to me is undeserved - Husband is the one who rescued him from the cat shelter - but he adores me just the same. I've not had an animal so enamored of me since my dog died. (The dog I had growing up, from the time I was 12.) I'm quite fond of him as well, so I will spam you with a photo:</li></ul><br /><p></p><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDqc_PVbsnThUqR4MoDcLtYQpYoqiHzAOW3kafKWelZL58V6-dknGDqH6oifG-zRh0Z5OAQ89C1eX_wC0NBt7ZwqAfeSV7oBP1eBzer1d43d052o3kKaLz9tYjw7CeoWQxg_p/s1600/samson.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566156680788865026" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDqc_PVbsnThUqR4MoDcLtYQpYoqiHzAOW3kafKWelZL58V6-dknGDqH6oifG-zRh0Z5OAQ89C1eX_wC0NBt7ZwqAfeSV7oBP1eBzer1d43d052o3kKaLz9tYjw7CeoWQxg_p/s400/samson.bmp" /></a><br />The photo really doesn't give you an accurate feeling above how massive this cat is. But trust me when I say, he is HUGE.<br /><br />*Christopher Moore, from his book <em>Bloodsucking Fiends</em>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-79995411652316202352011-01-08T12:10:00.003-05:002011-01-08T12:33:54.788-05:00Happy Familaversary to Us<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHVJMk85pR036r_q9HlMrOpX0WacGyD7EvU6ghCyX6mO6a-eD1rh-Yiakorukys6fJFzzl9BZSVc5AACdOwLGSGToi6fAA3uY5NCFVPwvQ6wCZf9PEp_otHdN79KVH6NO-a2I8/s1600/Jan+8+2007.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559864154294569266" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHVJMk85pR036r_q9HlMrOpX0WacGyD7EvU6ghCyX6mO6a-eD1rh-Yiakorukys6fJFzzl9BZSVc5AACdOwLGSGToi6fAA3uY5NCFVPwvQ6wCZf9PEp_otHdN79KVH6NO-a2I8/s400/Jan+8+2007.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br />Four years ago today, on a humid day in Da Nang, in a small government office near the South China Sea, Lana became our daughter.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r21/gretchenfaith/?action=view&current=UncleHolookingoverus.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Uncle Ho looking over us at the G & R ceremony" src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r21/gretchenfaith/UncleHolookingoverus.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Bach Ho (aka Ho Chi Minh) observed the ceremony stoically.<br /><br />There are probably lots of things I should say, about how that day was hard for all of us, most of all Lana, who lost everything she had ever known that day. About how the days that followed, the months that followed, were painful and difficult and frustrating, and that it was a long time before we felt like a normal family.<br /><br /><a href="http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r21/gretchenfaith/?action=view&current=TurtleLakeFamily2.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="At the Temple of the Turtle" src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r21/gretchenfaith/TurtleLakeFamily2.jpg" /></a><br /><br />I'm not feeling particularly wordy or thoughtful this morning, though.<br /><br />Right now, I am sitting in our living room, cuddled with our new cat, watching both of my children play a game together.<br /><br />Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate, at one of those Benihana style teppanyaki restaurants. (Because nothing says 'commemorate an adoption from Vietnam' like dinner at a Korean owned Japanese restaurant.) (Yes, I'm making fun of myself.)<br /><br />Today we are all going to see Tangled, and tomorrow we'll go ice-skating, and right now, in this moment, I don't feel like we're a normal family. But I do feel like we're a happy one.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr5KwTgjD_veGlFg70Ibj4UP_LDjbSWXhuVHxz8L5DSaebEpcHxqnH-xEFv9mqWbY26UqyEh8whxP2AFMiO4pssBixT3BBEYJWXjQX04xNW6unHyRpXjc_yYFcBDfwRYcAmNo_/s1600/christmas+2010.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559869275064136450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr5KwTgjD_veGlFg70Ibj4UP_LDjbSWXhuVHxz8L5DSaebEpcHxqnH-xEFv9mqWbY26UqyEh8whxP2AFMiO4pssBixT3BBEYJWXjQX04xNW6unHyRpXjc_yYFcBDfwRYcAmNo_/s400/christmas+2010.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />LMLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-67289734761394378222011-01-06T14:40:00.002-05:002011-01-06T14:54:22.983-05:00The End of the World as We Know It?I have to admit, I'm a little weirded out by the combination of the following things:<br /><br />1. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/02/dead-birds-fall-from-sky-akansas_n_803358.html">Dead birds falling from the Arkansas Sky </a><br /><br />2. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/dead-crabs-wash-ashore-by_n_805211.html">Dead crabs washing ashore in Britain </a><br /><br />3. <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40947831/ns/us_news-environment/">Dead fish in Chesapeake Bay</a><br /><br />4. <a href="http://www.detroitlions.com/schedule-and-events/season-schedule.html">The Detroit Lions winning FOUR GAMES in a row </a><br /><br />So, Internets...is the end of the world upon us?<br /><br />(Obviously I'm *mostly* kidding, but...those first three things ARE freaking me out a bit.)<br /><br />LMLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-18919390091759630692011-01-01T21:50:00.002-05:002011-01-01T22:40:26.049-05:00Just Be Here Now, Forget About the Past*Happy 2011!<br /><br />I said goodbye to 2010 in the company of Husband and Gabriel and Lana and two of my siblings and my mother and step-father. We laughed, we ate too much, we played board games, and at ten o'clock I tried to convince everyone to celebrate the New Year on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Buenos</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Aires</span> time, because I didn't think I was going to make it to midnight.<br /><br />I did manage to stay up to midnight (just barely) and share kisses and glass of champagne and fell asleep with high hopes for a shiny new year with no mistakes in it yet.<br /><br />2010 began in fear and worry and anxiety about J~, and quickly spiraled into devastation and grief.<br /><br />Grief and sadness were the primary emotions of 2010 - and I cannot say I'm sad to say good-bye to it.<br /><br />I'm making resolutions, despite having never had much success with them in the past. Want to know what they are?<br /><br />In 2011 I'm going to:<br /><br />1. drink more water<br />2. eat more fruits and vegetables<br />3. get back on the treadmill three times a week (right now I'm only doing once or twice)<br />4. be a more appreciative spouse<br />5. read more to my daughter<br />6. do only one thing at a time (this is a big thing I need to work on, particularly at work, where I tend to take out 12 files at once and then wonder why I feel overwhelmed - so, I need to finish one thing before <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">transferring</span> my attention to something else. I honestly think I will get more done this way.)<br /><br />We had a lovely and lazy New Year's Day - I slept in until 10:00 AM, had a Bloody Mary with my neighbors, and had <a href="http://ellaatlast.blogspot.com/">Ella's Family</a> over for a cheese and chocolate fondue feast.<br /><br />Oh, I also made some kick-ass black-eyed peas, if I do say so myself. I was walking through the grocery store yesterday afternoon, and I saw a sign that said, "Don't forget the black-eyed peas to start your New Year right!" and I thought, "Well, I didn't eat any black-eyed peas last New Year's, and that year sure sucked" so I bought a bag of dried black-eyed peas - to ward off bad luck, etc. <br /><br />Then I spent some time trying to find a black-eyed pea recipe that would taste like the black-eyed peas of my childhood, made by my great-grandma, who made them with lard and bacon, and none of the recipes sounded right to me, even the ones that called for lard and/or bacon.<br /><br />Lacking both lard and bacon and a decent recipe, I improvised my own recipe, and it goes like this:<br /><br /><strong><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Lawmommy's</span> Wholly Non-specific Recipe for Really Awesome New Year's Day Black Eyed Peas</strong><br /><br />1. Soak a 1 lb bag of dried black eyed peas overnight (this is really an important step, and yes, it's annoying cause it requires a day of planning ahead)<br />2. Drain the black eyed peas the next morning and set them aside<br />3. Chop up a bunch of left-over Christmas ham (I had about a cup and half of left-over smoked ham)<br />4. Chop up a bunch of carrots, onions, celery and garlic<br />5. Saute the chopped onions, carrots, onions, garlic and ham, add some olive oil because the ham probably doesn't have enough fat to saute everything properly<br />6. Saute these things until the onion is translucent-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">ish</span><br />7. Add the peas to the pan, and saute them for a while with the vegetables and ham.<br />8. pour about four or five cups of chicken stock** over the peas and veggies and ham (enough to just cover everything.)<br />9. Bring to a boil for a few minutes<br />10. Reduce heat to simmer and simmer on the stove for a few hours (in our case, it took three hours before the pea started to smell "right" to me. I cannot describe what the "right" smell was exactly, but the peas started to smell like my great-grandmother's kitchen.)<br />11. Add salt to taste - enjoy. Yum.<br /><br />I hope everyone had a safe and festive holiday. Hoping for better days in 2011.<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span><br /><br /><br />* Colin Hay, <em>Waiting for My Real Life to Begin</em><br />** We have been making quite a bit of chicken stock at our house lately, because about once a week I buy one of those Rotisserie Chickens from Kroger. After we eat the chicken (usually having it for two dinners - one as just a rotisserie chicken meal, and the next day in an Indian simmer sauce or casserole of some sort) - we boil the chicken <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">carcass</span> and make stock. This stock is very useful for all kinds of thingsLawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-83369513773191056952010-12-16T09:48:00.003-05:002010-12-16T11:17:17.150-05:00Ghosts of Christmas PastI lost my mind a little bit last night. <br /><br />Possibly, I lost my mind a LOT last night.<br /><br />I'm not sure where to begin. This might be a lot of disjointed nonsense. I don't know.<br /><br />Yesterday was our firm Christmas luncheon. <br /><br />Our original plan for a firm Christmas party was much better - we were going to do something we'd never done before, namely, go out to see a movie together. <br /><br />In years past, we often went to J~'s favorite restaurant for our Christmas lunch, because he was completely enamoured of their shrimp cocktail.<br /><br />I thought that the plan to go see a movie was a good one - make a new tradition, do something unusual - do something that would <strong><em>not remind any of us of J~. </em></strong><br /><br />Our plan was foiled by the fact that the movie we had chosen isn't playing in our city until next month. (Thanks so much R*A*V*E *C*I*N*M*E*M*A*S and the stranglehold you have on my city. I so appreciate your monopoly and the way you insist on dictating what 5 or 6 movies you are going to play on the area's 50+ screens. I love you. NOT.)<br /><br />So, it was decided that we would hold off on our movie outing and order in lunch for our Christmas luncheon.<br /><br />As we did last year.<br /><br />As we did last year because J~'s <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">neuropathy</span> from the chemotherapy made walking through the cold torture for him.<br /><br />And last year, on the morning of our Christmas party, I had to take J~ to the ER (a story that deserves its own post), and in the ER, the realization that J~ wasn't going to beat the cancer hit me for the first time.<br /><br />Yesterday morning I put on my fuzzy snowman sweater and jeans.<br /><br />Yesterday afternoon I realized that I had worn that same snowman sweater on the day of last year's Christmas lunch, <em>and I had worn it to the ER that morning with J~.</em><br /><br />I didn't make that connection until about 4:00 in the afternoon. <br /><br />Hours after the Christmas luncheon, I sat in my office in my snowman sweater and fought back the overwhelming urge to vomit, because I swear that, in the moment - as I realized that the sweater I was wearing was the same one I wore last year on that horrible morning - I could <strong><em>smell the ER in the sweater</em></strong>. <br /><br />Which is ridiculous - the sweater had been washed and fabric-softened and there was no way it was still smelling of the fear and anger and frustration and rubbing <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">alcohol</span> and hospital cafeteria stench of the ER. <br /><br />But at 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I probably would have sworn on J~'s grave that the sweater reeked of the hospital and I couldn't stand to have it next to my skin. <br /><br />From 4:00 to 5:15 I worked maniacally, throwing myself into tasks that didn't take a lot of intellectual effort.<br /><br />At 5:15 I drove home, avoiding thinking about that morning in the ER, fighting back tears.<br /><br />When I walked in my house I discovered that my son's "State Project" - a project that his teacher had indicated would be completed at school - was due. <strong>This morning</strong>. And it was 90% <strong><em>not finished</em></strong>. <br /><br />As I realized that my meager plans for the evening - dinner, walk on the treadmill, straighten the house, maybe watch Modern Family - were shot to hell by the necessity of making a huge project about New Mexico. The idea of staying up late, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">gluing</span> and pasting and cajoling my son to <strong><em>just get the damn thing done</em></strong> - it was just too much to bear.<br /><br />My head cracked open and a whole bunch of crazy spilled out. <br /><br />I screamed. I cried. I hissed profanities about the teacher and the State of New Mexico. <br /><br />I screeched at my son. <br /><br />And then I tried to leave my house. I don't know where I thought I would go. (In my haste to rid my body of the stupid snowman sweater I was in purple sweatpants and a red t-shirt. I looked ridiculous.) <br /><br />So, I just sat and cried for a while. <br /><br />Which is not helpful, at all, in getting a project finished. <br /><br />In the end, the project got done. Lana and I went to the grocery store. I walked on the treadmill. <br /><br />Husband and Gabe did the whole project by themselves. <br /><br />The kids were in bed by 10, only 1 hour late. <br /><br />I sat in the tub with a glass of sweet red wine and re-lived that morning in the ER of one year ago. <br /><br />I cried some more and felt like a total failure at pretty much everything. <br /><br />I really thought I was starting to feel better. I really felt that the grief no longer had me in a stranglehold. <br /><br />Last night the grief brought me to my knees and ripped me into tiny little pieces. <br /><br />I'm not entirely sure how to put myself back together again.<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-5474989816719371272010-12-02T11:06:00.004-05:002010-12-02T16:31:58.199-05:00And we will ride until the sun, goes to the place where it begunWe were driving through Detroit the other day, and a song came on the radio that slammed into my brain and demanded that I pay attention.<br /><br />It took me a while to figure out what the song was.<br /><br />But I found it, and it's amazing, and you should listen.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1I90JcF85o">Michael Franti and Spearhead, Hey Hey Hey</a> from their Album <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Sunshine-Michael-Franti-Spearhead/dp/B003PJ7K38/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1291306351&sr=8-4">The Sound of Sunshine</a>.<br /><br />(I would prefer to link to the artist's own Youtube page for this page, but for some reason it is blocked in the US. I didn't make this video, and, as always, I support paying artists for their work, and I have purchased a legitimate copy of the song from Amazon.com.)<br /><br />EDITED: I found a link to the artist's official page for the video: <a href="http://michaelfranti.com/media/videos/hey-hey-hey-official-music-video">Michael Franti and Spearhead Official Hey Hey Hey Video</a>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-30070934071629011022010-11-29T14:47:00.003-05:002010-11-29T15:51:23.472-05:00All Roads Lead Back to Tucson*<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6Z55SuejOIZdN9DNG0eZhBmmDWqlOEdg1HKHS3Ch7jM1_mc82FNuUBJwdXdQt8mG0huBfaxxKKe6OoTUyAtaAcGpN_BGKE9-kIsZekHfBhyphenhyphenXT5c0KKAKMf2Jgl6AuVJROZPJ/s1600/Nolan+in+front+of+fire.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 247px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 242px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545074949068894898" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6Z55SuejOIZdN9DNG0eZhBmmDWqlOEdg1HKHS3Ch7jM1_mc82FNuUBJwdXdQt8mG0huBfaxxKKe6OoTUyAtaAcGpN_BGKE9-kIsZekHfBhyphenhyphenXT5c0KKAKMf2Jgl6AuVJROZPJ/s400/Nolan+in+front+of+fire.JPG" /></a><br /><div>One sweltering afternoon in August of 1994, I walked into the Tucson Humane Society, and told them I was looking for a cat.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I was living on my own for the first (and, so far, only) time in my life. My apartment complex didn't allow dogs, but they allow cats, if they were front <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">de-clawed</span>. (I was a graduate student living in a furnished apartment.) </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>For reasons I don't fully understand, I had my heart set on an orange cat.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>So, when I walked into the kennel that day, I said, "I'm looking for an orange cat, front <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">de-clawed</span>, neutered." </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>The woman working was excited - because while I was describing a <strong><em>potential ideal cat</em></strong>, she thought I'd come looking for a<strong><em> particular cat</em></strong>. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>In their possession was a orange tom cat, neutered, front <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">de-clawed</span>, who had been dropped off 7 days before. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>His number was up, so to speak. It was his last day before he would be "put down".</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>So, when I walked in with such a particular request, they thought maybe his prior owner had had a change of heart. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>$40 and some signatures later, I walked out with that tom cat. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>His prior owners had relinquished him to the pound because he chewed on things on night and cried because he wasn't allowed to sleep with them.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I had no interest in keeping the cat out of my bedroom, so I wasn't concerned.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>His prior owners had named him...and at this moment it seems important to remember what that name was. But I can't. I cannot remember what his name was before he came home with me. I do remember that I tried to call him that name and he didn't respond at all. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>So I renamed him. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I declared his new name to be "Johnny" Nolan, but I never called him Johnny - just Nolan. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>He was named after the character Johnny Nolan in the book<em> A Tree Grows in Brooklyn</em>, which is my favorite book of all time. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Nolan rarely chewed on anything, provided he wasn't left alone too long and he was allowed to sleep in my bed. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>A few months later, he took to Husband immediately, (even though he was Fiance and not Husband yet).</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>He was a smart cat, and a good mouser, and a flycatcher, too. (And he once caught a bat, but I really don't like to think about that day.) </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>He rode across the country in the back of my Ford Escort, sitting in a laundry basket, watching the cars on the road. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>He could jump high, and liked to hang out on top of the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">refrigerator</span>. He once stole a jalapeno from a pizza and rarely tried to get "people food" after that.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>We tried to camp with him, once.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Cats, let it be known, do not like to camp.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>When I adopted him on that sweltering August morning, the vet said he was "at least 1, but not more than 3 years old" - when means he was born sometime in 1991-1993. Which means, this morning, he was between 19 and 17 years old. </div><div></div><br /><div>He was a big cat - at one point hitting 23 pounds. </div><div></div><br /><div>He had been sick for about a year. </div><br /><div></div><div>On the morning of J~'s death, he had a mini-seizure. I yelled at him, told him he was not allowed to die that day.</div><div></div><br /><div>And he didn't.</div><br /><div></div><div>This morning, at 12:45, he stood next to our bed and cried. I pulled him into bed and laid him between Husband and I, because that was where he liked to be - right next to Husband's head.</div><br /><div></div><div>He slept so deeply that at 6:00 AM, we weren't sure he was still with us, but then he lifted his head sleepily, and yawned. </div><br /><div></div><div>At 7:40, I put him down on the floor as I got dressed.</div><br /><div></div><div>He fell over, his whole body shaking, and he was unable to stand.</div><br /><div></div><div>I think he used all the energy he had in him to make it up our stairs in the middle of the night.</div><br /><div></div><div>He tried to drag his body to his water dish with his front paws. </div><br /><div></div><div>I called the vet. </div><br /><div></div><div>I called the judge I was supposed to be in front of at 10AM. </div><br /><div></div><div>The judge's clerk told me to go to the vet and that the judge would call me if he needed to talk to me.</div><br /><div></div><div>I wrapped him in one of Gabriel's baby blankets and drove to the vet's office.</div><br /><div></div><div>At 10:00 AM, in the vet's office, he mustered the last bits of strength he had and threw himself off the examination table and landed on his head. His whole body shook, and the vet and I gently put him back on the table, and she said he was hurting and there was only one thing she could do for him. </div><br /><div></div><div>At 10:20 his face was peaceful and for the first time I realized that his muscles had been bunched up in pain for weeks. </div><div> </div><div>As I held him, cradled in the baby blanket, as he slipped away, I thought how far my cat had come, and how far I have come with this cat always by my side. I wondered if he missed the desert where he had been born, I wondered where he went when his body went limp. I like to think he is with J~ now. Maybe they are both chasing lizards in some heavenly Sonoran canyon. </div><br /><div></div><div>Rest in peace, old friend. He is missed. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><div><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span></div><br /><div></div><div>* Roger <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Clyne</span> and the Peacemakers, <em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Americano</span></em></div>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-16238061127387710662010-11-23T14:13:00.004-05:002010-11-23T14:28:08.712-05:00I've Got a Good Mother, and Her Voice Is What Keeps Me Here*Considering it's two days before Thanksgiving, and considering that I've not done the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span> exercise of listing one thing I'm thankful for each day, I thought I'd list a few things I'm thankful for.<br /><br />I'm thankful for:<br /><br /><ul><li>...being married to my best friend</li><li>...my parents (all of them)</li><li>...having two children who make me laugh</li><li>...my siblings and the comfort of a shared history</li><li>....my friends</li><li>....the strange sense of satisfaction of playing <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">FB</span> Scrabble with friends (see above)</li><li>...having a job, especially one that, on occasion, let's me really make a difference for someone</li><li>...books and music and the library and well-done television and people who still make intelligent entertainment</li><li>....buying that extended warranty on my car</li><li>...chocolate</li><li>....rum</li></ul><p>I'm sure there are other things, but those are the ones that come to mind.</p><p>This is a bittersweet holiday this year, and I worry that Christmas will be even more so. I'm trying to focus on making it special. </p><p><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span></p><p></p><p>* <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Jann</span> Arden, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SOrmtqTVHc">Good Mother</a></p><p></p><p></p>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-11519592498027639342010-11-22T14:19:00.002-05:002010-11-22T15:16:00.725-05:00Still StandingI'm still here. It's been a while.<br /><br />Hello? Is anybody out there?<br /><br />Random bullet points because I'm not sure how to sum up everything on my mind in any other way.<br /><br /><br /><ul><li>We went to Chicago for the weekend because Husband and the kids had a day off of school. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, and hung out with Husband's best friend/roommate/Fraternity brother from college. We also had the opportunity to meet the very charming <a href="http://ordinary-time.blogspot.com/">Ordinary Time family</a> for a delicious Vietnamese lunch. E and J's son TM was adopted from the same orphanage as Lana, through the same agency. They entered the orphanage around the same time, and must have been cared for there together for a period of time. They are only six days apart in age. I am hopeful that knowing another person who experienced almost the exact thing Lana experienced will be comforting to Lana. (For her part, Lana was remarkably quiet throughout lunch, although she was very happy to have Summer Rolls, which I have never successfully made for her and which are nearly impossible to find at restaurants near us.) I would have liked to have visited longer with E and her family, but we had arranged for Gabriel to spend the afternoon with Husband's friend (Gabe hates Vietnamese food, a subject that probably merits its own blog post) - and we needed to retrieve him in time for Husband's friend to teach a class.</li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>Someone on the bus said a very rude thing to Lana that was grossly racist. I am very upset about the situation, but I feel the school has, at least at this point, responded appropriately. I resisted the urge to confront the other parents, because I was so upset I didn't think I would be helping the cause of tolerance and understanding by ranting and raving like an angry bear. Thoughts on what to do??</li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>Lana turned 8. I find that, around the time of her birthday, she is very sensitive to adoption related worry and distress. A few nights ago, I got in my car to re-park it in the garage (it was too far over and Husband would not have been able to get his car in). Lana was in the kitchen and she and I were home alone. When she heard the car start, she flung the door open and started crying. I got out of the car and asked what was wrong, and she wrapped herself around me like a rubber band and cried that I was trying to leave her. For days, on either side of her birthday, she was almost manic with intense energy and clingy in the extreme. I am hoping that she will calm down a bit now. </li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>I've just discovered <strong>The Hunger Games</strong> books by Suzanne Collins. I'm about 75% through Book 1 and I cannot put it down. So, so, so very good. </li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>I've also just discovered the show <strong>Burn Notice</strong>. It has all the qualities that keep me coming back to the treadmill, which is precisely what I need in DVD television. </li></ul><p>And...that's about all for now. </p><p>LM</p><p> </p>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-11253097503061006212010-10-23T18:07:00.003-04:002010-10-23T18:39:29.331-04:00How does a duck know what direction south is? And how to tell his wife from all the other ducks?*We interrupt this story of grief and loss (and coffee drinking and international adoption) to talk about...agriculture and baking.<br /><br />You're glued to the screen, aren't you?<br /><br />There are occasionally some distinct advantages to being married to a guy who teaches teenagers whose parents are farmers.<br /><br />For example, downstairs in my freezer there is 1/4 of what used to be a very happy cow. Well, I suppose, since it was a boy, it's the remains of what used to be a very happy steer? A very happy bull?<br /><br />I'm pretty sure it was a steer. It was one of Husband's student's 4-H projects. It had a name and grazed openly and generally led a the blissful life of a cow (er, steer) that wanders around a open pasture. It wasn't locked in a barn with a thousand other cows being administered massive doses of antibiotics and goodness only knows what else.<br /><br />And it was reasonably priced, all things considered. (Of course, buying part of a carefully raised 4-H steer does require that one has room to store a side of beef. And probably, if everyone decided they wanted a side of beef from a happy 4-H project, there wouldn't be enough to go around.) But, from my perspective, it's tasty, convenient, and I feel much better about it than I do buying meat from the supermarket.<br /><br />We also have a line on some happy chickens and some happy pork. (Well, I suppose the pork won't be happy. The pig it used to be? It was happy.)<br /><br />But, actually, this post isn't about community supported agriculture or happy cows.<br /><br />This post is about ducks.<br /><br />Duck eggs, in particular.<br /><br />Recently, we obtained a dozen duck eggs from one of Husband's students.<br /><br />I was dubious at first.<br /><br />I wasn't sure what to do with them, and so I googled, "cooking with duck eggs".<br /><br />And the Internet responded with enthusiasm - BAKE WITH THEM!!!<br /><br />And while I will be the first to concede that the Internet isn't always right, today I am here to tell you - baking with duck eggs is <em><strong>the bomb</strong></em>.<br /><br />In the past 24 hours, I've made muffins, cookies, and french toast. The french toast, in particular, was amazing. The muffins and cookies have a really rich taste and the muffins rose really well. (I understand this is because duck eggs are higher in both fat and protein.)<br /><br />I was so impressed that I asked Husband to get MORE duck eggs from his student.<br /><br />And then I made the mistake of googling, "buying duck eggs" - and, apparently, duck eggs can be crazy expensive.<br /><br />So, while I would not say that it would be worth paying $50 for 18 eggs...I would say that, should anyone ever offer you duck eggs at roughly the same cost as chicken eggs? But them. And bake something delicious.<br /><br />One caveat - the shell of a duck egg is much harder than the shell of a chicken egg - break them into a separate bowl rather than breaking them over the rest of your <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ingredients</span>, or you will find yourself with a lot of shell in your muffin mix.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Bon</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Appetit</span>.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">LM</span><br /><br /><br />* Crash Test Dummies, <em>How Does a Duck Know?</em>LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21460665.post-6565332228706162132010-10-18T14:22:00.003-04:002010-10-18T14:45:04.270-04:00Some Days I'm Bursting at the Seams With All My Half-Remembered Dreams*I've been having the most vivid dreams lately.<br /><br />~<br /><br />I dream the ponds behind our house are flooding, flooding our pool and subsequently our home. Gigantic catfish, bigger than actual cats, float through my living room. <br /><br />~<br /><br />I dream that I am running, faster and faster. The ground beneath my feet is the softest grass, and I am barefoot and I feel <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">exhilarated</span>, like I could run forever, like I want to run forever, barefoot on this silky meadow.<br /><br />~<br /><br />I dream that J- walks into my office, wearing his burgundy sweater and khaki pants. "Hey," he says. "How ya' <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">doin</span>'?" <br /><br />I spin in my chair, surprised to see him. I have one of those moments of spooky clarity, where I know I'm dreaming. I have not dreamed of J- since before his death. <br /><br />"You died," I say. "And it SUCKED. Don't do that again." <br /><br />"Yeah," he agrees. "That sucked." <br /><br />~ <br /><br />The next night I dream of J- again. He is sitting in my living room, which, in reality, now holds J-s last beloved leather lazy boy, recently moved from my J- and my aunt's home**. <br /><br />In my dream, the lazy boy is conspicuously absent, and he sits in the chair he always sat in, when he sat in my living room. <br /><br />He is holding our ancient orange cat on his lap, stroking his back, scratching his ears. <br /><br />Again, he is wearing his burgundy sweater. Again, with the spooky moment of clarity, the realization of a dream state.<br /><br />I want to ask him why he keeps wearing this burgundy sweater. I want to ask him where he is now. I say nothing. <br /><br />He keeps petting the cat. "I'm going to have to take him with me when I go," he says. <br /><br />"I know," I say.<br /><br />~<br /><br />When I woke up that morning, I went searching for the cat. He was hard to find, and his breathing was shallow. He was curled beneath one of the couches in the living room.<br /><br />That was four days ago. Every day since I have been shocked to find him still with us. <br /><br />He is (probably) 18, perhaps 19. He's been with us since 1994. His days are dwindling down. I am comforted by the idea that J- will take him to the other side...which is probably where the dream came from. <em>Probably.</em><br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">LM</span><br /><br /><br />*David Gray, <em>Ain't No Love</em><br /><em>** </em>Having the chair in her living room was too painful for my aunt, and she asked us to take it.LawMommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17772740759391002766noreply@blogger.com7