Our lovely Midwest city broke a 134 year record for rainfall yesterday. I think we got 6 inches in 24 hours or something like that. Enough so that our front yard looked like a pond and our basement got water in it for the first time ever. Tornadoes passed just north and south of us.
Schools were closed in all the surrounding counties, but ours seemed to escape the worst of it.
The good news is that I see a potential solution to these high gas prices. With all of this rain, the mosquitoes will soon be big enough to ride. Either that or we'll all just canoe down the streets. Yesterday, we could have.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Fears at Five
Last summer, our daycare provider's house burned down. No one was hurt, but she lost everything. She is like family to us, so we spent a good bit of time at the site of the fire in the immediate aftermath. I brought the kids, because they needed to be with her. But it was scary. It looked scary. It smelled scary. It felt scary. They were scared. Hell, I was scared.
Other parents kept their kids away. At the time, I thought being with her was the most important thing. Looking back, maybe they were too young to handle all of that. But, at the time, it felt very important to be there.
Almost a year later, the house is rebuilt. But the fears remain. We've been having lots of storms in the last week. Storms with lightening.
The other day, the child who is home with me during the day wouldn't leave the house. He was paralyzed with fear of lightening starting a fire. He worried that our house would burn down.
I had a lot to do. I needed to leave the house. (Groceries, for example.) So I started my usual parental mantra of "Oh, sweetie, that can't happen. I wouldn't let that happen" and then he looked at me with the full knowledge that not only can that happen, but it *did* happen and no matter what our intentions, bad things still occur in this world.
So, we curled up on the couch and postponed the groceries for a sunny day.
Other parents kept their kids away. At the time, I thought being with her was the most important thing. Looking back, maybe they were too young to handle all of that. But, at the time, it felt very important to be there.
Almost a year later, the house is rebuilt. But the fears remain. We've been having lots of storms in the last week. Storms with lightening.
The other day, the child who is home with me during the day wouldn't leave the house. He was paralyzed with fear of lightening starting a fire. He worried that our house would burn down.
I had a lot to do. I needed to leave the house. (Groceries, for example.) So I started my usual parental mantra of "Oh, sweetie, that can't happen. I wouldn't let that happen" and then he looked at me with the full knowledge that not only can that happen, but it *did* happen and no matter what our intentions, bad things still occur in this world.
So, we curled up on the couch and postponed the groceries for a sunny day.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Oh Hillary.
Maureen Dowd says it best:
"Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn’t met the Clintons."
It's time to concede.
And please, Obama, don't pick her for VP. Put her in the cabinet, sure. But get someone you can trust in the #2 spot.
"Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn’t met the Clintons."
It's time to concede.
And please, Obama, don't pick her for VP. Put her in the cabinet, sure. But get someone you can trust in the #2 spot.
Friday, May 30, 2008
lunch bunch
Laura and Elizabeth ask how the rising food/gas prices are effecting everyone.
As I was packing daughter D's lunch this morning, I realized that one thing we are doing is stretching out the time between grocery store trips. This leaves us with a few days of eating whatever is around. (The good stuff goes right away. Strawberries have a shelf life of about 30 minutes in our house.)
I really hope that no adults I know were in her lunchroom today. I'm also hoping corn chips will qualify as a vegetable. We were pretty much out of all things animal, vegetable or mineral. I searched through the pantry. "Aha! Pinto beans! I could pack those with some crackers!"
I didn't go that far, but her lunch was pretty much 100% out of the cupboard today. The fridge was bare. I did find some raisins. That's about all that had nutritional value in her lunch today.
Finally, we broke down and headed to the co-op this afternoon to get some supplies of the fruit/vegetable variety.
I'm just going to have to start rationing the strawberries.
(and yes, we are still splurging for the organic strawberries...so I guess we haven't been hit too hard. yet.)
As I was packing daughter D's lunch this morning, I realized that one thing we are doing is stretching out the time between grocery store trips. This leaves us with a few days of eating whatever is around. (The good stuff goes right away. Strawberries have a shelf life of about 30 minutes in our house.)
I really hope that no adults I know were in her lunchroom today. I'm also hoping corn chips will qualify as a vegetable. We were pretty much out of all things animal, vegetable or mineral. I searched through the pantry. "Aha! Pinto beans! I could pack those with some crackers!"
I didn't go that far, but her lunch was pretty much 100% out of the cupboard today. The fridge was bare. I did find some raisins. That's about all that had nutritional value in her lunch today.
Finally, we broke down and headed to the co-op this afternoon to get some supplies of the fruit/vegetable variety.
I'm just going to have to start rationing the strawberries.
(and yes, we are still splurging for the organic strawberries...so I guess we haven't been hit too hard. yet.)
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Opting Out
Over at BitchPhD, there is an interesting post about the flip sides of "opting out/opting in."
I work in a job-share and therefore make 50% of the salary of the position and work 50% of the hours. It's great - don't get me wrong. I love working part time and the flexibility it gives me to do other things. I'm really lucky.
So, yes. I've "opted out" of full time career stuff
But I've been amazed at how my previously full-time paid work (pre-kids) has been slowly and subtly replaced by completely unpaid volunteer work. I'm honestly not "working" any less. I'm PTA President. I'm a soccer coach. I bake for bake sales. I organize fund raisers. I attend school board meetings. I volunteer in the classroom. I'm a Big Sister. And so on.
And although I've never been one to measure my success by my monetary worth - it kinda gets to me - this doing so much work for free.
The parents who work full time can easily say, "No, I can't do that. I work full time." And I don't blame them. If I worked full time, I'd say that too. You probably can't be a high-power career person and volunteer in the classroom for an afternoon each week and go along on every field trip or commit to the BB/BS program.
I choose the volunteer work. I enjoy the volunteer work. It's a core part of who I am. It's a huge part of where I find purpose and meaning in life. I'm not trying to complain about the fact that I do it. That's not it.
Those of us who are lucky enough to have the ability to not work full time should do volunteer work whenever we can. I chose my schedule and really, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back to work full time.
But that doesn't change the feeling I sometimes get when I realize just how much unpaid work I do these days. Work that I do because I can, due to my flexible schedule. I'm not talking about the 'raising my kids' or 'cleaning my house' part of my life, either. Those are for my kids and my house. That's part of the package.
It's the 'making the world a better place' work that perplexes me. Why is there so much of it that is unpaid and volunteer? And why does one need to basically opt-out of a fast-track career path to do it? Why does it feel so devalued? And what happens to our society if people stop doing it?
I work in a job-share and therefore make 50% of the salary of the position and work 50% of the hours. It's great - don't get me wrong. I love working part time and the flexibility it gives me to do other things. I'm really lucky.
So, yes. I've "opted out" of full time career stuff
But I've been amazed at how my previously full-time paid work (pre-kids) has been slowly and subtly replaced by completely unpaid volunteer work. I'm honestly not "working" any less. I'm PTA President. I'm a soccer coach. I bake for bake sales. I organize fund raisers. I attend school board meetings. I volunteer in the classroom. I'm a Big Sister. And so on.
And although I've never been one to measure my success by my monetary worth - it kinda gets to me - this doing so much work for free.
The parents who work full time can easily say, "No, I can't do that. I work full time." And I don't blame them. If I worked full time, I'd say that too. You probably can't be a high-power career person and volunteer in the classroom for an afternoon each week and go along on every field trip or commit to the BB/BS program.
I choose the volunteer work. I enjoy the volunteer work. It's a core part of who I am. It's a huge part of where I find purpose and meaning in life. I'm not trying to complain about the fact that I do it. That's not it.
Those of us who are lucky enough to have the ability to not work full time should do volunteer work whenever we can. I chose my schedule and really, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back to work full time.
But that doesn't change the feeling I sometimes get when I realize just how much unpaid work I do these days. Work that I do because I can, due to my flexible schedule. I'm not talking about the 'raising my kids' or 'cleaning my house' part of my life, either. Those are for my kids and my house. That's part of the package.
It's the 'making the world a better place' work that perplexes me. Why is there so much of it that is unpaid and volunteer? And why does one need to basically opt-out of a fast-track career path to do it? Why does it feel so devalued? And what happens to our society if people stop doing it?
Saturday, May 24, 2008
long weekend
Just went to pick up my registration for the half-marathon tomorrow. I'd planned on doing the full marathon, but this winter destroyed my plans. No one should train for a marathon during a record-breaking winter. According to our local paper, we had 30 days where the temp was below zero. (not below freezing.....below zero) and we got over 100 inches of snow. Ice and snow and sub-zero temps are not conducive to long training runs. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
The registration fairs at marathons always amaze me. All those skinny people. Generally, in any random crowd - I'm typically one of the slighter people. I have no curves to speak of (despite desperately wanting curves for most of my life - they have only appeared during pregnancy.) But the minute I go into a marathon registration fair, I immediately feel like Anna Nicole Smith. Instantly, I am voluptuous in comparison.
Ironically, the Madison marathon ends in a brat fest. That always feels wrong, somehow. But perhaps if all those marathon runners would eat more brats they wouldn't be so damn skinny.
The registration fairs at marathons always amaze me. All those skinny people. Generally, in any random crowd - I'm typically one of the slighter people. I have no curves to speak of (despite desperately wanting curves for most of my life - they have only appeared during pregnancy.) But the minute I go into a marathon registration fair, I immediately feel like Anna Nicole Smith. Instantly, I am voluptuous in comparison.
Ironically, the Madison marathon ends in a brat fest. That always feels wrong, somehow. But perhaps if all those marathon runners would eat more brats they wouldn't be so damn skinny.
Friday, May 23, 2008
I read boring books.
Seen at Raising Weg and APL: Proof that I am old and boring.
Evidently this is a list from Library Thing - a list of the top 106 books that people have on their shelves but have not actually read. Evidently these are the books that people think they "should" read, but don't.....because the books are really only appealing for those who are stuffy and boring. like me.
I have never seen "Dances with the Stars" or "The Bachelor." I don't watch "American Idol" or "Survivor" or "Swap My Wife" or "Pimp My Ride." (Don't get me wrong - I like trashy TV. Huge fan. Just not the reality version. )
Sadly, this is pretty much a list of my favorite books in the world. There were all sorts of fancy meme rules - something to bold, something to underline, something to italicize. But I just bolded. I can't figure out how to remove the underlines or the italics - just ignore those.
Who knows if this is even real. But after spending a week at a conference with cool, hip, co-workers who were discussing the various contestants of various reality shows - and not being able to contribute a SINGLE word - this is refreshing.
So, I'm old and boring. But I'm well-read in the field. (and obviously have a liberal-arts education...if I'd studied something real like math or science, there is no way I'd have had time to read all this fiction!)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina (I made my book club read this.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (another bookclub book)
Crime and Punishment (college)
Wuthering Heights (loved it.)
Catch-22 (Brilliant)
The Silmarillion
Don Quixote (hated it.)
The Odyssey (college)
The Brothers Karamazov
Ulysses
War and Peace (college)
Madame Bovary (I made my bookclub read this too)
A Tale of Two Cities (high school)
Jane Eyre (high school)
The Name of the Rose
Moby Dick
Emma (love it. read it many times.)
The Illiad (college)
Vanity Fair
Love in the Time of Cholera (loved it. read it twice.)
The Blind Assassin
Pride and Prejudice (loved it)
The Historian: A Novel
The Canterbury Tales (college)
The Kite Runner (disturbing, but very good)
Great Expectations (high school)
Life of Pi (OK)
The Time Traveler's Wife (OK)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (I have this in my pile - haven't started yet)
Atlas Shrugged (college)
Foucault's Pendulum
Dracula
The Grapes of Wrath (one of my favorite books)
Frankenstein
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (clever)
Mrs. Dalloway (liked it)
Sense and Sensibility (loved it...seeing a theme here?)
Middlemarch (I loved everything George Eliot ever wrote.)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (Also have this in my pile, but haven't started)
The Count of Monte Cristo (college)
The Sound and The Fury (college)
Memoirs of a Geisha (OK)
Brave New World (high school)
Quicksilver
American Gods
Middlesex (fascinating)
The Poisonwood Bible (good, bookclub book)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Dune (not my cup of tea)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (high school)
The Satanic Verses
Mansfield Park
Gulliver's Travels (high school)
The Three Musketeers (high school)
The Inferno (college)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Fountainhead (liked it at the time)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (loved it)
Oliver Twist (high school)
To the Lighthouse
A Clockwork Orange (brilliant)
Robinson Crusoe (OK)
Persuasion (loved it)
The Scarlet Letter (loved it)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (OK)
The Once and Future King
Anansi Boys
Atonement (loved it)
The God of Small Things (loved it)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (book club book)
Cryptonomicon
Dubliners (loved it)
Oryx and Crake
Angela's Ashes (good)
Beloved
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (college)
In Cold Blood
Lady Chatterley's Lover
A Confederacy of Dunces (OK)
Les Misérables (college)
The Amber Spyglass
The Prince (college)
Watership Down (high school)
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (college)
The Aenied (college)
A Farewell to Arms (college)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Treasure Island (high school)
David Copperfield (high school)
Sons and Lovers
Possession
The Book Thief (reading now!)
The history of Tom Jones
The Road
Tender is the Night (love anything by him)
The War of the Worlds
Evidently this is a list from Library Thing - a list of the top 106 books that people have on their shelves but have not actually read. Evidently these are the books that people think they "should" read, but don't.....because the books are really only appealing for those who are stuffy and boring. like me.
I have never seen "Dances with the Stars" or "The Bachelor." I don't watch "American Idol" or "Survivor" or "Swap My Wife" or "Pimp My Ride." (Don't get me wrong - I like trashy TV. Huge fan. Just not the reality version. )
Sadly, this is pretty much a list of my favorite books in the world. There were all sorts of fancy meme rules - something to bold, something to underline, something to italicize. But I just bolded. I can't figure out how to remove the underlines or the italics - just ignore those.
Who knows if this is even real. But after spending a week at a conference with cool, hip, co-workers who were discussing the various contestants of various reality shows - and not being able to contribute a SINGLE word - this is refreshing.
So, I'm old and boring. But I'm well-read in the field. (and obviously have a liberal-arts education...if I'd studied something real like math or science, there is no way I'd have had time to read all this fiction!)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina (I made my book club read this.)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (another bookclub book)
Crime and Punishment (college)
Wuthering Heights (loved it.)
Catch-22 (Brilliant)
The Silmarillion
Don Quixote (hated it.)
The Odyssey (college)
The Brothers Karamazov
Ulysses
War and Peace (college)
Madame Bovary (I made my bookclub read this too)
A Tale of Two Cities (high school)
Jane Eyre (high school)
The Name of the Rose
Moby Dick
Emma (love it. read it many times.)
The Illiad (college)
Vanity Fair
Love in the Time of Cholera (loved it. read it twice.)
The Blind Assassin
Pride and Prejudice (loved it)
The Historian: A Novel
The Canterbury Tales (college)
The Kite Runner (disturbing, but very good)
Great Expectations (high school)
Life of Pi (OK)
The Time Traveler's Wife (OK)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (I have this in my pile - haven't started yet)
Atlas Shrugged (college)
Foucault's Pendulum
Dracula
The Grapes of Wrath (one of my favorite books)
Frankenstein
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (clever)
Mrs. Dalloway (liked it)
Sense and Sensibility (loved it...seeing a theme here?)
Middlemarch (I loved everything George Eliot ever wrote.)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (Also have this in my pile, but haven't started)
The Count of Monte Cristo (college)
The Sound and The Fury (college)
Memoirs of a Geisha (OK)
Brave New World (high school)
Quicksilver
American Gods
Middlesex (fascinating)
The Poisonwood Bible (good, bookclub book)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Dune (not my cup of tea)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (high school)
The Satanic Verses
Mansfield Park
Gulliver's Travels (high school)
The Three Musketeers (high school)
The Inferno (college)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Fountainhead (liked it at the time)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (loved it)
Oliver Twist (high school)
To the Lighthouse
A Clockwork Orange (brilliant)
Robinson Crusoe (OK)
Persuasion (loved it)
The Scarlet Letter (loved it)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (OK)
The Once and Future King
Anansi Boys
Atonement (loved it)
The God of Small Things (loved it)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (book club book)
Cryptonomicon
Dubliners (loved it)
Oryx and Crake
Angela's Ashes (good)
Beloved
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (college)
In Cold Blood
Lady Chatterley's Lover
A Confederacy of Dunces (OK)
Les Misérables (college)
The Amber Spyglass
The Prince (college)
Watership Down (high school)
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (college)
The Aenied (college)
A Farewell to Arms (college)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Treasure Island (high school)
David Copperfield (high school)
Sons and Lovers
Possession
The Book Thief (reading now!)
The history of Tom Jones
The Road
Tender is the Night (love anything by him)
The War of the Worlds
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