It's 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses... hit it

August 24, 2007 | Category: Family, It's a Trip

In a couple of hours and 2 days late, we pull out for for our annual August trip to see my family in Boston. We thought by making the trip much shorter this year (only 10 days) that it wouldn't be such a big deal.

We had no idea that the Apocalypse was coming in the form of endless rain. Tornadoes. Wind. And a mountain of laundry that has applied to the Hague for reclassification as a sentient being.

No my suitcase isn't in the car, why do you ask?

In point of fact, I can't remember if I brushed my teeth this morning. The storms have pushed the days together and at some point I remember it was dark and I was naked and the pillowcase was soft and my husband's hand was warm and then it was gray again and rainy again and Allstate was explaining how to amend our damages claim.

Bear and a friend are decimating his room constructing a Transformer-Magnetix monster that I am assured could devour THE CITY MOMMY. THE WHOLE CITY. EVEN THE TREES AND THE DOGS.

What are the dogs doing in the trees?

Silly rabbit.

I'll be in Buffalo for lunch tomorrow. Come Hell or ... well, not high water.

Any more water and I'm strapping pontoons to my house and buying a really big paddle.

Actually, if it rains every step of the way, I will not mind. My Zen now encompasses all form of airborne water.

It's the wind and the ginormous lightning that freaks me.

The little voice inside my head sometimes remembers to panic about this.

And the 7-foot long to-do list I'm ignoring.

But mostly it does Jello shots and naps.

And the rest of me?

Is going to go finish packing.

Me and Job, LikeThis

August 23, 2007 | Category: In My Life

We've had a tornado touchdown about 35 miles to the west.

Already we've had so much rain in the past month that our roof, ceilings, and walls are permanently wet.

It's too much.

Bear is, at this minute, saying prayers that 'only bad guys and mosquitoes' get caught in it. Oh, and that 'it doesn't water inside the house'.

If you're the type that likes to listen to the rain, or thunder, here is the view out my front door about 1 AM. I just let the camera record for a minute...

Nursing in the Conference Room

August 22, 2007 | Category: On The Job

A few weeks ago, I went to the BlogHer conference. Being in a male-dominated field like back-end IT, it was an eyeball-popping revelation to be around other corporate mothers.

First thing one of the reps from Yahoo asked me: "Where's the strangest place you've nursed?"

Their stories made me laugh at loud and nod with empathy.

Oh, sister. Sister.

Just having the covnersation made me want to bust out in some choreography from High School Musical.

I needed the conversation.

It was like being liberated from a tight corset I'd been wearing so long I'd forgotten I had it on.

When I went back to work, Bear was 5 months old and I was still nursing. Trying to, anyway, I never had a lot of milk.

I was immediately assigned to an office in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Not moved, assigned.

Which meant that on Monday mornings at 4AM, I would get up and quietly slip to the driveway. A car would take me to the airport, and I would be on the first plane out.

Home again on Thursday nights.

The first trip, I pushed my hospital-grade bright blue breast pump into my large laptop bag. With no room left for my laptop, I stuck that (wrapped in sweatpants) in my suitcase.

As I went through security, they pulled it out of the bag and inspected it down to its little plastic pores. I stood by, blushing.

By the time I got to my gate to wait for my flight, I was sore and leaking. I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I ducked into the big public bathroom. Found an outlet by the sinks and stuck the cups on my breasts under my blouse as subtly as I could (like a cow at a dairy) and stood, facing the wall, as the machine went 'WHOOSHA shug WOOSHA shug'.

With no way to keep the milk cold, and unprepared, I threw it out.

I was the last one on the plane, disheveled and jittery.

The temporary offices I was given didn't even have walls. Just a big room with desks. And there was no working outlet in the bathroom.

At a loss, I found one of the admins and confessed my problem. The only room with a door and an outlet was the conference room. She dutifully scheduled me in for half-hours throughout the days of that first week.

I would exit to a small crowd waiting each time, the bulky bag over my shoulder, and a small cooler over my arm.

The guys would look at me. I wouldn't look back.

At the end of the first week, I arrived home with two coffee thermoses filled with milk and a thousand unshed tears of frustration and embarrassment.

The next week, when I got to the airport, I marched into the American Airlines club and handed over my corporate credit card. 'Sign me up,' I said.

'We aren't paying for this,' my boss said over the phone. 'Policy is only Grade 7 or higher'.

'You're paying,' I informed him, something in my voice I'd never had before.

'Half,' he capitulated.

The manager of the club found me a private office and even reserved one at the North Carolina airport for my trip home. His understanding efficiency, once I was able to articulate what I needed, was fantastic.

But back on site, there just was no alternative. It was the conference room, or out in the open amongst a brigade of tan-panted Engineers and executives.

So it was the conference room. For over a month. Twice a day (I would go back to the hotel at lunchtime).

Everything I have been taught in the American Corporate culture of the technology field has taught me this: to break through the glass ceiling, women can never ask for any consideration or privilege that a man wouldn't ask for.

And as a new mother amongst so many child-free men or fathers of older-children, this standard was even more heavily applied.

If you want the luxury of having a new baby while navigating a career in the upward trajectory - then play it down, baby. Play it down.

But none of that tells you what to do when milk is leaking out of your breasts during a budget meeting. So I would just pop an Advil, discreetly head to the bathroom, trying to remember risks to the return on investment while stuffing toilet paper in my bra. Rinsing the wet spots on my blouse over the sink, and then sticking my chest under the air dryer.

It didn't make me smarter, stronger, or more hardened - in any way. All it made me, as I would slip back into the meeting (with my cell phone obvious in my hand, as though I'd just had to pop out for an emergency call), was a corporate mommy.

Playing Violins on the Titanic

August 21, 2007 | Category: In My Life

Since my powerful trip, fall, twist, and rise a couple of weeks ago, I have come to a very Zen place.

Somehow, believing him when he said that everything was going to be all right... made everything all right.

You'd be shocked.

SHOCKED.

I somehow took a shovel and cleaned the house. Gathered up the rest of the construction materials and got them put away. Emptied out, packed, trashed, and dusted the clutter. Got a couple of handymen in for quotes. Started pulling together the upcoming school year's homeschool materials. Dishes. Laundry. Play dates, swimming, meals of some kind (even though I have the dishwasher, the sink had to be pulled out again so the plumbers could get in). Even found the courage to open up all the bills and do the math with my bookkeeper.

"You're so calm," she noticed.

"And unmedicated," I added, a little surprised myself.

I have dutifully taken a sleeping pill each night with enough time to get that 8 hours. I have begun packing to drive out to Boston on Thursday. My son's teeth are brushed. The menagerie of animals is tended.

I mean, it's not all gleaming like in a movie.

But it is solid, and finished. Slightly disconnected but very decidedly productive. It is a shrug, and a 'keep on moving'.

Friday and Saturday night, the rains came and the patch on the roof gave. In it came, in it sprayed. Buckets and pots and pans overflwoing. Bits of plaster and lathe crashing onto my desk, trashing the fax machine and the speakers.

Yet somehow we got through it. Him climbing up to do what he could as I pulled things out of the wet and cleaned them up.

Sunday morning, I tracked down Bear's babysitter, who's been strangely out of touch for a couple of months. There she was, answering the door, with a timid smile and a huge bulge.

Due next week with a daughter I am only now realizing will be born.

I rested my cheek on hers as we left, trying to say all the right things. Intensely grateful I knew how to say 'I love you' in Spanish.

My Uncle and Aunt visited our home for the first time in my life on Monday and there were dirty dishes where the sink used to be and I just smiled and said 'Welcome'.

This morning after they left, I rested on the front stoop and watched the world go by over my coffee cup.

Thick warm mist floating above the grass.

Young couple walks by, holding hands. Their long legs in a matching stride as they head to the train station.

An older woman, with her little dog. She waves and I wave back. And her dog pees on my tree.

A couple of kids on skateboards and roller blades, down the middle of the street and shouting bits of conversation to each other.

It is not a refrain of 'In My Life'. It is the real shadows and sun trying to beam through.

And on this random Tuesday, it is the tidy house, it is the quiet of being the only one left awake, and it is the cat on my lap purring. And it is finally finishing a day feeling stronger than I started it.

Maybe this is what they were felling when they played violins as the ship sank. But even so, tomorrow I intend to play on.

Oh, the humanity!

August 17, 2007 | Category: In My Life

We go to this wonderful HUGE town pool that could easily fit 1000 giggling kids and their parents.

But there's this guy. He's got to be in his 70's. He's got a beer belly.

And as GOD as my witness, he wears itty-bitty day-glo daisy Speedo's.

Just...no.

No.

I have to go scrub my eyeballs in acid now.

Sometimes Bad Things Go Away (for a while)

August 16, 2007 | Category:

It was Bear getting sick, that forced me to evaluate my choices in life.

When his fever broke, I thought 'Oh, he's ok now.'

But he wasn't.

The next 18 months, Bear kept getting cold after cold and constant torturing headaches.

The triumvirate of his doctor, CD, and I suspected that he was showing some new and persistent allergies. We live in an old, crumbling house - so, mold, dust, dander, and sloth ("sloth's" a thing, right?) are our longtime companions.

But despite some relief from your usual allergy medications, Bear's quality of life (and our worry levels) was suffering. So guessing had to give way to knowing so we could treat him better.

Last March, we began making trips to Children's Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago for tests.

Specialists, Neurologists, MRI, blood tests, name it. We held his hand and prayed in test after test, surrounded by other children and other parents all praying and holding too.

The initial results came back: mildly allergic to mold and dust and pollens. Doesn't have an alphabetic list of really scary things. Had a profound sinus infection of unknown cause, and probably what was triggering the sever pediatric headaches.

The family doctor and CD and I put a stop to the testing at that point. Hoping there wasn't something else hiding under the bed, we took on 7 medications for what we now knew to be real.

And Bear's quality of life has steadily improved.

Yesterday, we did a follow-up. He's covered in strange bugbites (which are probably the strange bugs that just invaded Chicago but in case not, meant a script to ward off Lyme Disease), he's got purple and orange bruises from sundry activities, and there was the 'opting out' comment from sports camp.

She talked to him about that and then told us that the fact that Bear had had a great time at camp and had asked to go back for all 3 sessions this summer was a very good sign.

That if he was overwhelmed during things like dodgeball ('Dodgeball's just nuts,' she laughed. 'I wouldn't play it either.') he was finding ways to cope with that and still enjoy the other things he enjoys - like obstacle course races and king of the hill.

She looked at the bruises, bites, up the nose, and between the toes.

Listen, Elizabeth, she said, suddenly serious.

I put my hand over my heart and waited to hear the worst.

I've never seen him so healthy. she said. He looks like a kid should at the end of a busy summer. Then she turned to him. Any complaints? She asked. How about the headaches? Fewer? More?

Bear shrugged. I don't get headaches anymore, he said.

Our eyes locked over his head. I hadn't even realized, but then I did.

She looked down at his chart: height and weight are normal, his sinuses are completely clear, headaches abated, even the rough toes that bled from an allergic reaction to his Crocs are healed up.

You've been taking great care of him, kiddo, she said to me with a smile after she'd congratulated him for being so healthy.

I nodded, slowly.

Bear took my hand and we scrambled down the hallway and out to the parking lot and into the van.

Mommy? he called from the backseat. I'm buckled in. Let's go.

I nodded, slowly.

Mommy? Are you crying?

I shook my head. No, I'm... fine. We're fine, sweetie.

I started the engine to prove the point.

But it was a lie.

I know that a single good exam doesn't mean it's all cupcakes and roses from now on. I do.

But..... uh, well, when it's the first good exam in almost 2 years. So damn it, yeah, maybe I did cry a little. And maybe I still am.

(If only all those other families at Children's could have this moment, too...)

Bear doing a crescent kick at June's Karate/TKD tournament.



Do you see a puppy in that bed? I don't see no puppy...

Waiting for his 'Ups' during a t-ball game.

About to win a really big honkin' monkey at HolidayWorld, Mo.

Be Vewy, Vewy Qwiet....

August 15, 2007 | Category: This Old House

Shhhhh...

The plumbers are here.

We had to hock a couple of organs and take out a 3rd and 4th mortgage. Plus kill a fatted calf.

But they're HERE.

Right this very second, as I type this, there are ACTUAL plumber people in my basement making noise and stuff.

Huge milestone.

HUGE.

Of course, their green room demands included 5000-count towels for wiping their hands, a catered lunch from Hooters, a bowl of M&M's with all the brown ones picked out, and a 6-pack of a lovely Cabernet but .....who cares???

I was starting to lose all kind of hope. Now, I'm practically giddy with a sliver of it. IF I squint my eyes and pretend the next week has 16 days in it, I can almost see the end of the tunnel.

Joy is running water

August 13, 2007 | Category: Family, It's a Trip

Last night, we got home from seeing the matinée of High School Musical and having an early dinner after with Dee in Logan Square.

CD picked up that old cast iron sink from the driveway and brought it back into the house.

And a few hours later, I had running water in the kitchen for the first time in over 3 weeks. And a working dishwasher.

I am now halfway through washing and putting away every kitchen item we own. I have never been so happy in my life to do dishes. I can't even admit how gross it was living without.

Bear has had a slow day of sorting socks and watering tomatoes as I've pushed forward on my to-do list. The pool starts family swim in a few minutes and I've promised him a long stay.

After my raw and bleeding last post, I've had a lot of thoughts. When I pour myself out like that, it is usually a great release of steam and thought.

But afterwards, I remember - hey this my REAL name out here. How crazy am I?

But today, I am firmly wrapped in my flag of productivity. Rocking out as I rotate the laundry. And deciding to let the joy of running water wash away deeper worries until tomorrow.

Crash. Into Me.

August 10, 2007 | Category: In My Life

You've got your ball,
You've got your chain
Tied to me tight, tie me up again.
Who's got their claws
In you my friend?
Into your heart I'll beat again
Sweet like candy to my soul
Sweet you rock,
And sweet you roll
Lost for you, I'm so lost for you
Oh, and you come crash
into me*

It seems inevitable now, looking around me at all I have not done and wished I had and all I thought I could but never did.

Inevitable that so much wouldn't get done. That the race-fast years of having to be it all and do it all would give way to a quieter, slower, less-productive phase.

I am a failed SuperWoman. Failed.

Terrifying, to look around and see what needs to be done...stupefying. My energy sluices to my feet and the clock races with my heartbeats. Time, literally, flown.

Look back.

Listen to the song start. The up and down and strum of it. Sip iced coffee that drips into my lap. Shiver in the heat.

Remembering. In November, 2004, we hit bottom. The lawyer on retainer; divorce imminent. The life we'd built in tatters around us.

How we crawled back from that, I am still not sure. Slowly, painfully.

Who thought after all those times he rocked between failure and nothingness, wrapped up like blankets over his mind... that I would spend this summer failing him?

But I have.

I've been so lost for trying.

And then the stretchy skipped-along day curves into a soft afternoon. Bathing suit dripping in the shower. New freckles on our noses.

Then. Then, he comes in the door. Long and lean and his bag over one shoulder. Sunglasses reflecting the late summer sun, his strong jaw and the pressed neatness of his shirt.

Then he walks in and my heart leaps and then, I can.

For you, I can.

He crashes into me. And another slips between. And another. Lips and arms tangling. Fingers seeking. Giggling and kissing and that puppy's nose is....

"Daddy!" Rough shadow scraping our cheeks.

And he piles dog and boy in front of transforming television superheroes before coming back for me.

With those eyes naked to me now.

For you, I can.

I don't know how to even get there. To where we need to be. How to to get from here to there. And I have just about fallen apart in the past months, with fear of the unknown. Even though it was me that insisted we steer this ship in that direction.

Touch your lips just so I know
In your eyes, love, it glows so
I'm bare-boned and crazy... for you.
Oh, and you come crash into me*

What's next? I beg him, pulling into myself on the couch. Crumbling, shaking. At the end. Giddy with it, full of hope and loathing.

I don't know, he says.

Where's next?

I don't know.

I'm afraid.

Me, too.

I gave up on you once.

No, you didn't.

I gave up on us. How did I do that? God... I...

No, you didn't. I'm here. You're here. We're a family. Still. Again. We're a family. And it's going to be all right.

It's not. We're going to have so little left. Because I failed you. I failed....

Shhhh....

I'm so sorry....

No. Don't be.

I'm so sorry. I was so sure, and I made these decisions. And I said... and then, it was me, me who failed you. The spackling, and the laundry, and I was supposed to paint, and God....

No.

Look around! See what a wreck I've made of our....

Shhh. Don't look there. That's just stuff. That's just money. Listen.

I am so...

Shhh. Listen. Are we together? Are we a family?

yes.

Are we?

Yes.

Will we be together?

Yes.

And do you forgive me? For back then?

Yes. Oh, yes. And do you....

Yes. So we pack. We spackle. We ask for help. And we get as much done as we can. And we sell. And whatever is left over, we finish starting. Only, this time with some closet space - OK?

What if we have to rent?

So, we rent.

What if I have to go back to work?

So, you work.

What if....?

Shh. It's going to be all right.

But...

It's going to be all right.

Then he wipes away my tears and opens his arms to me. I nod. And a little, I believe. And a little bit, I can breathe. The lines at the corners of my lips are from the thousands of smiles we have shared. And from the thousands of times I have frozen, trying not to cry.

It's going to be all right, he promises.

We have had a lifetime, now, together. And I want another. And another. I hike up my skirt and give him a watery smile.

Everything is going to be all right, he repeats.

Long fingers catch my tears. I know he's as afraid as I am, but right now you can't see it. Right now, he speaks to me and everything that matters is in that faith.

I want to hide myself. For being weak, for being frozen, for all the days I have let us down. I want to say I'm sorry some more, as if it would matter.

And his face is forgiveness. And his skin is home. And his arms are still open, waiting.

And I crash. Into him.

*(Dave Matthews Band)

Help, I broke my blog

August 08, 2007 | Category: Well, That Was Random

In updating the blog, I broke my (2.6) MT Individual Archives. My Sidebar is floating somewhere in the Ukraine.

Clear here to see what I mean....

I will offer a reward to anyone who can help. I did save the working version, and I did restore it, and.... in a major WTF moment realized - even the original code template was having a hanging chad sidebar. I have added and subtracted div's, read over a dozen help files and message boards, and I am beyond stumped.

I have dropped about 40 hours, no not kidding, over the past week trying to fix this. I'm so frustrated that I actually started to cry last night.

Thanks.

Sitting it out

August 07, 2007 | Category:

Bear has been attending a Sports Camp this summer a few days a week. To afford it, we killed a fatted calf and left burnt offerings before the Parks & Rec. department.

After a brief police investigation, we discovered that money was actually the preferred mode of payment.

Lessons learned.

Bear loved the camp so much that we signed him up for all 3 sessions.

I would stop in an watch him, on occasion. Racing around on the field or playing dodgeball in the rec center. Pick him up and he'd be dirty, sweaty, and smiling. He seems to be well liked by the campers and the counselors.

So I thought... 'This Is Good.'

Then, yesterday afternoon, I was picking him up when the head counselor walks up to us. The head counselor looks a little like a young Cal Ripken Jr., so I'll call him Cal.

"Uh, he sits out. A lot," Cal told me.

I looked over at Brandon, Bear's favorite counselor. Brandon wouldn't meet my eyes. Neither would Bear.

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

Turns out, all summer Bear has been going off by himself during certain activities and playing in the dirt or sand.

"This has been going on all summer?"

"I probably should have told you, before," Cal said. I nodded.

It is the Last Week of camp. This information would have been helpful, you know, ANY TIME earlier.

"But it was really bad today," Cal told me.

Brandon nodded.

Bear looked at his feet.

If you add the ages of Brandon and Cal and my cat and some random strangers together, you still won't get legal drinking age. OK, maybe you will, but only if my cat buys.

Cal was clearly struggling, because Bear's behavior didn't fall into a black or white category. It had just crossed some invisible line the counselors had for participation.

After he'd made his announcement, Cal was clearly waiting for something from me, but I didn't know what.

"Bear, what's going on?" I asked softly.

He shrugged.

"He's an only child..." I said, as sort of a half-explanation.

Cal shook his head. "So am I."

That dropping sensation was in my gut, but Cal had nothing more to tell me and Brandon and Bear were looking at their respective shoes. Still.

Fascinating shoes.

I smiled and said "Well, we have to get going to a dentist's appointment, so..."

Bear has always excused himself and gone off when he's been overwhelmed at things like loud birthday parties and chaotic school functions (he did it once when I was being room mother during a Halloween party - when I tried to get him back with the group, he told me he had a headache and went to a quiet corner and colored.)

I don't know if we say 'Hey, you have to stay with your group/team even when you feel overwhelmed' OR if we say 'Well, Cal, he does that when the chaos gets to him. No big deal.'

Bear is doing very well in Karate and in swimming lessons. He's enjoyed the crazy loud insanity of the tournaments (although we do keep our presence to a minimum).

Then again, this has been a hard summer for Bear at home - the kitchen ripped out, the boxes piling up with our stuff in it, and CD and I more often than ever before pulling into private huddles to discuss things away from him.

But he also has this new puppy, Sara, who loves him to distraction.

I just don't know if I should be worried.

The Jews Killed Jesus

August 02, 2007 | Category: Family, It's a Trip

"So the Jews killed Jesus?" some kids asked in my white-bread Connecticut Sunday school.

"That's right," the teacher said.

And so my first indoctrination into the inheritance of prejudice was made. With a simple sentence, and no blurry soft innuendo.

It was a bald statement of why Jews.Are.Bad.

And it didn't take graduating the 17th grade with a Theology minor on top of 5 years as a chaplain to realize that my pastor with the rosy cheeks and rumbly sense of humor was teaching us kids to condemn.

I knew it right then.

At 13.

Although I didn't have the courage to speak up, just the cowardice to silently disagree.

And it was sheer luck of the heart and my family that I knew better.

I mean, no one runs around dousing a pan of flaming saganaki shouting "the Greeks killed Socrates!"

And what that pastor was saying seemed just as.... off.

Now of course I know it's much worse.

My parents worked hard to raise me without prejudice, which is an amazing feat in New England. Because that bastion of Abolitionism has the demographics of Wonder Bread, fought integration right up into the 1980's, and features a basketball team that, don't forget, found the one white guy in America who could jump.

I wanted to do more than that for Bear.

My point, and I do have one, is that this is the one great fear CD and I have about moving back to the East Coast (if that's what we end up doing... and it is certainly looking that way.)

We chose the Oak Park area precisely because of its wide mix of population.
It put him with a rainbow of other kids: ones whose Mommies wear veils, ones whose skin is different color from his, ones that have two daddies...

This area is by no means perfect, but it was the best we could find with our priorities.

Yes, kids (and adults) will be mean, and segregate, and clique up. It's a Lord of the Flies world, still.

But at least he SEES the rainbow world around him. Just being on a t-ball team that looks like a United Nations conference is, in and of itself, a powerful teacher.

Yet now, at the tender age of 6, we are packing boxes. We are counting fondue forks and donating some of the zabillion odd spoons we've found. We are looking online at towns and neighborhoods.

"What will it be like?" Bear asks, carefully separating the packing paper in a pile for me.

'White!' I want to scream. "You've been there," I remind him. "On vacation..."

My husband sees my distress and tries to comfort me. "You and I ended up OK," CD reminds me, his lips in my hair. "And we grew up practically in gallon jugs of white milk."

I sigh, and nod. "But we had overcome so much programming. When I think back to all the stupid stuff I used to carry around in my brain. And the assumptions I made..." I blush, even now, in shame. "If I'd married Darnell, the cab driver from Zimbabwe, this would be a whole 'nother issue."

"Didn't he want to take you back with him to meet his other wives?" CD reminds me.

"Details," I scoff, holding him tight. Instead I married this Icelander, and we built this life together....

With this child. Who will of course be exposed to all kinds of intolerance in his life. There never really was any way to avoid it.

But the little voice inside me says it will be harder now. Maybe this my own prejudice, wouldn't that be funny?, but this is what I am afraid of in moving back where I was once told that the Jews killed Jesus.

[CD would like to add that a) Yes, the strange and not-so-lovely 'Bunker for Christ' people also live in this area so let's not pretend it's nirvana, b) That prejudice lurks even in the seemingly most integrated communities, maybe is being taught right this minute at a Sunday School near us, and that it's our job as parents to teach differently, and c) That he strongly doubts his wife meant ANY slur at all (to which I heartily agree but reminded him that it just wasn't OK then or now to teach kids to condemn, wholesale, an entire faith population.)]