Daydream Believer

Olive and Morgana had a hard time figuring out how to be roommates (cagemates) at first.  There was a lot of sniffing rear-ends, chasing one another out of corners and pigloos, and blocking each other from water and food.  Olive was usually the instigator, and Morgana the poor victim, however, now that they’re friends, Morgana is totally dependent on Olive’s company.  If we each have one on our lap, it’s not long before Morgana darts out of our arms to go snuggle with Olive.  It’s a funny turn of events.

Unfortunately, we’ve had a little piggy drama this week.  On Friday, Grant noticed that Olive was breathing really rapidly.  On Sunday she was still breathing heavily, and her breathing sounded like a coffee percolator – kind of cracking/bubbling.  We paged her vet, who almost immediately called us back.  We discussed her symptoms and whether we should take her to emergency care.  She wasn’t lethargic, her behavior was all normal, so that doc concluded that she was probably not an emergency case.  We agreed to take her into his office first thing Monday morning.  In the meantime, he suggested that, since she probably had a cold/congestion, that we humidify her, just like you would a small kid.  We don’t have a humidifier, so we did the next best thing: ran a super hot shower, and stood outside the tub letting Olive breathe in the steam.  She didn’t enjoy the hot air, but I think it really helped her breathing.

Sunday night, I woke up every 2 hours to check on her to make sure she was still ok, and then Monday morning we drove from Oak Park to Lisle (45 minutes away) to the vet.  Read the rest of this entry »

According to the original timeline when I got matched with the recipient mother, I was supposed to be on hormones during the month of October, for an egg extraction date in the first or second week of November.  The recipient mother, however, needed to get some tests done, which set us back.  We’ve both had a barrage of tests, and we’re both healthy and ready to proceed.

Except we can’t proceed.  I did the math and because of the delays, my extraction date was going to be sometime in December.  Unfortunately, I’ll be in Florida for my sister’s graduation from Dec 12-16.  Even if my extraction isn’t during that week, I’d still have to be available for doctor visits 2 or 3 times a week.  So, I called the doc and explained the situation, and I told them that unless they could guarantee we’d extract before Dec 12, we’d have to wait until after Christmas.  They talked to the recipient parents, and they’re perfectly willing to wait to get started, especially since they made me wait in the first place.

This is really great news.  I feel really good that they are willing to be flexible, and that really simplifies my life these next two months.  I’m still excited to get started, and I’m glad that we don’t have to go at a breakneck pace.  So, stay tuned for more egg news sometime in 2009.

This is not an entry about why McCain lost.  Frankly, I am not politically savvy enough to know the answer to that question, though I suppose I could make certain biased guesses….  This post is instead about McCain’s missed opportunity to go out of this election, and to essentially begin winding down his political career, not only with class and dignity, but with moxy and real inspiration.  In my mind, though he tried to do that, he didn’t come through.

So many times during McCain’s concession, I felt like we were building to a pivotal point in the speech, or a moving, important statement. but we never got there.  Maybe I’m just used to Obama’s “dazzling rhetoric,” but I felt that McCain’s speech was simply okay.

I think McCain (or rather, McCain’s speech writers) missed an opportunity for a great speech, and thus, for greatness.  He talked about unity, working together, and supporting the new President, but his words were not dynamic enough, his tone was not insistent enough, to get anti-Obama voters to even consider burying the hatchet.  People booed when he suggested people welcome Obama to the Presidency.  Now, I’m sorry their guy lost, but I’ve had it with Republicans booing.  The did it all the time at the RNC, at various campaign speeches, and again last night.  I’m sick of it, and actually I think McCain is sick of it too.  At his very basic, at his core, he is a patriot.  From the viewpoint of his generation, and of such dedicated military service and ethics, you do not boo your President.  You accept the process, lick your wounds, and salute all the same.  I ardently wish McCain would have gone off teleprompter and told his audience to give it a rest.  To implore them, not as the losing candidate, but as John McCain, to be Americans, not just republicans.  I think that would have been a crowning moment in McCain’s legacy.  He will not be the one to change the country as President, but maybe he could have used his defeat to try to start changing his party.  After all, isn’t that what he wanted to do before entering the presidential race? 

A second note that both Grant and I noticed was that McCain called Obama’s win an important victory for African Americans.  I think that was limiting.  Yes, black voters came out in record numbers to vote - a fact which indoubtedly affected this election, and one more pillar of racism is now collapsed.  That is something to be immensely proud of for the African American population.  But Obama’s victory also represents a victory for the rest of America - that whites also are starting to really transcend the bigotry and mistrust that has shadowed ”our” own history in this nation.  Obama’s acceptance speech said it all - that this race was about Americans.  Not black or white, not red or blue.  He has promised to be a President for everyone, and everyone can share in that celebration.  After all, isn’t calling a black President a victory for blacks also a bit of a racist, or at least separatist, statement?  Agree or disagree with that last point, but I think McCain missed the mark there. 

As Grant and I were driving around Chicago for Halloween supplies this past Tuesday, my phone rang.  It was a gentleman calling on behalf of MoveOn.org, asking if I would be able to volunteer any time in the days between then and election day to go to Indiana and make sure Obama supporters voted. I had been considering doing some calls or canvassing anyway, so I agreed.  A few people were going to join me, but all wound up having commitments.  So, at 12:30 on Sunday afternoon, I headed out to Gary, Indiana for an inspiring, sobering and unforgettable day.

I was a little nervous heading to Gary.  Anyone who has been there, or been through there, or known someone who went there once, knows the predominantly-black city of 100,000 people is very run-down and poor.  This is the kind of place where children hang out by the convenience/liquor store because there’s nowhere else to go, and anyway someone they know is there.  I wasn’t sure how a white girl in a Prius telling these folks to vote would be received.  I arrived at the Obama Campaign HQ, signed in and got oriented on how to canvas – go door-to-door making sure people knew about early voting, their Tuesday polling locations, and what was required to vote.  They told us we needed to pair up with someone else, so a man in his 50s named Mike and I decided to be partners.  Mike was from Wheaton, IL, had served as a delegate for Kerry in 2004, used to work as a junior high science teacher and now works in the family tool and dye business.  He also drives a silver Prius and has a daughter named Allison.  Needless to say, we became friends.

We got our assignment and drove 5 blocks to our neighborhood; on each street, Mike took one side and I took the other.  Every street we visited had houses with broken windows or boarded-up doors.  Some yards had trash strewn about – not just beer cans and plastic forks, but half-eaten take-out food containers that someone just set down next to the fence, rather than putting in a garbage can.  More than half the houses didn’t have working doorbells.  Many had broken screen doors.  Just as many had angry dogs barking behind chain fences.  Some houses had nice cars or clean appearances, but I’d say that was only about a third of them.  Sidewalks were grown over and uneven.  In short, it was an unusual sight for a girl from Schaumburg and a guy from Wheaton.

For the first block, I admit I was scared.  But my fears were calmed as soon as people started answering their doors and talking to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is this pharmacy up the road from our apartment that always has these huge posters in the windows about different products and medications that are on sale or have low prices or whatever.  For the first few months we lived here, there was sign in one window that said, “Despite rumors to the contrary, this pharmacy is doing FINE and will not be closing.”  We always got quite a laugh out of it.

Imagine my delight to drive by said pharmacy today and see a new sign in place of that one: “Our Regrets: The phone answering system was NOT supposed to say, ‘Please hold, your call is unimportant to us.’”

Sad day to be the owner of this pharmacy.  I think some unseeable power in the universe is kicking his/her ass.

There are a few formative moments in a child’s life when their eyes are opened to the possibilities of the world.  In my case, several of these moments were courtesy of Sesame Street.  This video in particular has stayed in my head since I was a toddler, and I was thrilled to find it on YouTube.  So, enjoy, and do some Tube-snooping of your own afterwards!

Friends, it was time for a change.  Behold the new theme of the blog.  Revel in its pretty-ness and ease-of-reading.  Observe its tagline, previously not displayed but always intended to be visible.  Ponder the delight of the tree image in this ever-increasingly digitalized world.  Wonder at the magic that is a new blog.

That’s all I got.

1. Never make a funny face on stage with hundreds of reporters and cameramen nearby.

2. Telling the world you’re “proud” of your veep candidate (cute little maverick that she is) sounds more sexist in the end than any mention of cosmetics being applied to livestock.

3. If you’re a plumber who is broke, you too can be famous, with even less justification for it than Paris Hilton!

4. With instant fame comes instant defamation.

5. Barack Obama is a magician!  He launched his presidential campaign from a hotel in Hyde Park and Bill Ayers house.  Magicians for president!!!

6. One of the most important moments in a debate is the minute or so right after the debate is over, but the microphone is still on.  Quickly run to your oppornent and make sure you are the first and loudest to congratulate the other candidate on a good job.  Say it 3 times, just so all of America knows how gracious you are.

7.  By enforcing a unilateral freeze on spending, we will be able to devote more time, money and other resources to the cause against autism…

8. …A cause on which Sarah Palin, as mother of a child with Down Syndrome, is apparently an expert.  After all, all special needs children are essentially the same.

9. Sitting at a big round table makes everyone feel all warm and fuzzy…or cold and angry.  Whichever.

10. Debates are far more enjoyable without the CNN voter tracker on the bottom of your television screen.

Although it happened a few weeks ago, I’m compelled to post about this, especially given all the crap out there involving politics these days.  No Child Left Inside, a bill designed to serve as a supplement to the No Child Left Behind Act, was recently passed with an overwhelming majority vote by the U.S. House of Representatives.  If it passes in the Senate, this law will create more opportunities for nature-based learning in U.S. public schools.

One of the many reasons that No Child Left Inside doesn’t work for educators is the fact that kids must spend so much time learning how to take a test that there are few hours - and few resources - for them to engage in deeper and/or varied learning. One of the casualties was science education, and along with it, nature and environmental learning.

NCLI would provide funding for any schools who incorporate environmental education into their science curriculum and also support learning in informal learning centers like zoos, arboretums, aquariums, etc.  Teacher training and state environmental literacy plans can also be put into action under NCLI. 

Regardless of the Act’s pros and cons, one thing is certain; teachers are bringing their kids outside less and less.  A 2008 study by the Center on Education Policy found that many school districts have sacrificed time previously devoted to social studies and science in favor of spending more classroom hours on test-worthy reading and math.  And teachers and parents report that children go on fewer field trips and spend less time on outdoor learning than in previous years. But that’s a problem.  Google the term “nature deficit disorder”and you’ll get a wealth of information, all about why getting out into the natural world is vital for the average child and an important tool for special needs students to cope with learning difficulties.  

Sure, nature play and conservation lessons might seem like acceptable casualties to make sure our kids can keep up in an increasingly globalized world.  However, when childhood obesity threatens kids like never before, and climate change looms in everyone’s future, it makes one wonder whether a child sitting inside doing multiplication tables is really all that better off than a child running around near a creek looking for wildflowers and developing his or her innate appreciation for the planet.  Just something to consider.

I keep trying to think of interesting things to post here lately, and i sure come up with good ideas…but I always come up with them at work.  I don’t feel right about blogging at work - I can validate some of the ways I kill minutes in the office, but not that one.  So, apologies for not being interesting.  I’ll try to improve upon that.  In the meantime, here’s whats going on inside my brain-matter-stuff.

1. I want to start another cross-stitch project, similar to grant’s pillow, but I have no real yay-awesome idea.  If anyone ever wants something stitched for themselves, let me know, I can hook you up.  You supply thread, I supply labor.

2. Our piggies are pretty needy little squeekers.  This doesn’t diminish their cuteness, but it does kind of grate on you when they start wheeking at 11:59 p.m.  I think we’re getting close to the point at which we can start some rudimentary training.

3. Enjoyed this random internet find: a column by a journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution satirizing the whole Bill Ayres scenario.

4. THERE. ARE. FOUR. LIGHTS!!!

In general, things have been hard to juggle lately.  Work is proving challenging given current economics, department politics and the like.  It’s no better or worse than any other office - it’s just that I never ran into it here before, so it was a little unexpected.  Then we have the magazine, which is undergoing some transitions that are filling up my yahoo inbox faster and with more urgency than I have free time or free brain space.  My coaching job picks up again next week, I’m going out of town the next 2 weekends, and I am in a holding pattern for egg donation, meaning it could be Go Time to start hormone treatments almost any day now.

On the plus side, I do love me some prime time TV.  If I can keep escaping into overly-hyped network productions, I think I’ll come out OK in the end.

What I find most obnoxious about being stressed is that there are others out there with lives that have unarguably been shaken up more than mine, and who are handling those transitions with grace and at least some amount of calm.  So, I say good job you guys, and may I one day have the serenity you seem to possess - or fake.  On that note, a public shout out of “Congrats, you persevered!” to Carrie from School, as she’s known by most readers here, and Jessi for both moving recently and having the relocations be successful.  Also to Vicki for the new job, Bert for the new job, Mark for the new job, and especially to Petie (who doesn’t read this blog but deserves accolades anyway) for being braver than any of us and moving to Uganda for the next two years to make a difference.  You make us all very proud.

Hey, would you look at that?  I didn’t expect this post to go much beyond that dumb list.   Turns out, kinda theraputic.  Huh, I think I’m starting to remember why I started a blog in the first place….