In memorial

My Grandma Betty died on Sunday. My grandma was the oldest of four children, and survived all her siblings. Her father left her family when she was young, and she helped her mother by working various jobs to help provide for her family. She never went to college, and what she wanted for all of her grandchildren was a college education so that we could have better jobs and easier lives than what she endured.

I went back to St. Louis for the funeral on Tuesday, and got to meet my grandma's best friend. I knew that my grandma had a friend named Thelma that she talked to frequently. What I didn't realize was that she and Thelma shared everything. Thelma knew everything about me and my siblings. When she asked where my sister Lindsey was, and I told her she was interviewing for a job in California, Thelma's face lit up and said that my grandma would have loved to hear that news. She was so proud of Lindsey. She was so proud of all of us.

As I sit here now, I can't write this without breaking down and crying again, so I'll end with one more thought.

Grandma Betty often said to me was also the last thing that she said to me when I saw her in November…"Take care of each other. Be good to each other. Respect each other." I think this world would be a much better place if we all lived these words with everyone.

Introducing Hashimoto

I find myself in an interesting internal dialog.

Yesterday I received a call from my doctor to say that I have Hashimoto's disease.

Hashimoto's Thyroiditis is a type of autoimmune thyroid disease in which the immune system attacks and destroys the thyroid gland. The thyroid helps set the rate of metabolism, which is the rate at which the body uses energy. Hashimoto's stops the gland from making enough thyroid hormones for the body to work the way it should. It is the most common thyroid disease in the U.S. Some patients with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis may have no symptoms, others encounter a range of symptoms. I essentially have no symptoms. I say "essentially" because the one symptom that I do have, is really not a big deal, and may or may not be related to the Hashimoto's.

Such a strange thing to one day be a girl with really wacked-out cyles, and the next day be a girl with a diagnosis. I'm taking a bit of time to review my options and think about which medicine I want to try out. I'm leaning toward Synthroid, so if anyone has got any experience with this, I'm interested in hearing it.

chickens are like dinosaurs, but more chicken-like

well folks, after a 10day myspace hiatus, I'm back. I've had a pretty hectic 2 weeks since returning from the Thanksgiving road trip, and have been pretty out of touch with everyone. i'm sorry for just now getting back on here and reading backlogged emails and comments. If you make it to the end, I hope you'll get a piece of the picture about why I've been MIA.

The semester is ending at my work, which means it is one of my busiest times of year. In addition to the usual end of semester stress, I'm on a committee that is meeting frequently and in the evenings (I'll be at work past 8pm tonight). I'm taking the morning off to take care of some business at the house, because today is my only chance to do so this week despite the extra-long days.

Home hasn't been much of a respite lately...there has been a lot of farm drama. We've got moms that are too caring, and won't wean their babies, so we have to do it for them. A week ago, we separated two of the babies from their moms. We put a year-old female (Samsara) in with them for company. They spent the last week in a pen away from the rest of the herd in an attempt to wean the babies. Every day for the last week, when I went to feed the babies, they were wimpering and crying...hard and draining.

This past weekend (2 days ago) we did routine vaccinations on the whole herd (everyone gets a shot in the arm!). While I giving a shot to the female baby (Brinca), the male (Amcharo) decided that I was in the perfect position to jump on and start humping. Since I was standing bent over and had a syringe in one hand, it was not easy to shove him off and smack him as hard as I should have. After we vaccinated all the animals, we put the girls (Brinca and Samsara) back in with the rest of the girls. Since Amcharo is clearly starting to act like an unruly boy and can't be with the girls anymore, he needs to move in with the boys. We were hesitant to put Amcharo in with the really big boys, because he'll most likely get really injured...boys play really rough. We decided to try putting Amcharo with Dash, our year-old boy. When we got the two in a pen together, Amcharo and Dash sniffed each other, and Dash promptly kicked Amcharo in the head. It must have really hurt, because Amcharo staggered away shaking his head. That's when I broke down crying...despite having been jumped on by the kid less than an hour earlier, it was just heartbreaking to think about the fact that he'll never be with his mom again, and he'll spend the next few weeks getting beaten up by Dash and eventually by the bigger boys.

When we finished with the herd, we started doing some repairs on the chicken coop. The hut was long overdue for a new interior ceiling. The old ceiling had been put together by attaching insulation covered in cardboard to the inside of the corrugated metal roof. After years of mice and pidgeons and chickens messing with the cardboard, there were several big holes in the ceiling with insulation falling out. We had a pretty easy time ripping out the old ceiling, and mucking out the hen house. Things seemed to be going ok--demolition is a pretty good for healing a broken heart. The chickens had been running around the yard while we were ripping down the ceiling. We decided to take a break, and when everything was quiet, the chickens decided to explore their house. While I was standing in the coop enjoying watching the chickens, one of my favorite little hens caught a mouse, killed it, and started playing with it...that was the second time I broke down crying this weekend.

I'll jump forward to Sunday night when I spoke to my dad. My grandma has been in the hospital for the last week, and is not improving. The doctor wanted him to start thinking about what he would want to do if she needs a feeding tube in the next few days. I wish that I knew how to best support him in making the difficult decisions that he'll have to make.

The Thanksgiving RoadTrip of 2006

Prologue

I was raised in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. My parents were both born in St. Louis, as were my paternal grandparents (and some of their ancestors). St. Louis is where my roots are, and where most of my family still lives.

About a month ago, my 94 year old grandma had a stroke. Up until her stroke, she had been living alone the last 18 years in the house that she's lived in since 1954. After being in the hospital for 3+ weeks, she was transfered to a nursing home for "rehab".

Chapter 1. The Journey Home

The alarm went off at 4:30am on Wednesday, November 22. I handn't slept very well. As a way of trying to reduce our guilt for leaving, we had decided the night before to allow our cat, Nemo, to come in the house and sleep in our bed. Nemo was thrilled, and expressed his joy by purring LOUDLY most of the night. It isn't easy to sleep when you've got a motor humming in your ear. When the alarm went off, I was exited. Today was the day we'd drive 900 miles across the country to make the journey home.

We left the house by 5am and drove 8 miles to our first stop, the Waffle House. I love going to a 24-hour truck stop greasy-spoons in the early hours of the morning. I always wonder what secret mission or exotic destination the other diners are coming from or going to. Why are THEY there? And what is it like for the folks who work those graveyard shifts? What are we to them...entertainment? an annoyance? or just another tip?

I savored my chocolate chip waffle and covered my side of hashbrowns in Waffle House salsa. (I don't know why, but I really love Waffle House salsa. Michael has convinced the manager on multiple occasions to sell us a bottle so I could have it at home.)

At 6am we were back in the car, and as the engine started, I started the stopwatch. We were back on the road with Michael at the wheel. He took us 400 miles though the barren landscape of Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas. We stopped in Hays, Kansas to re-fuel our bodies and our gas tank. I took the second shift and as the miles ticked by, I watched the flatness become gently rolling hills and slowly trees and started to appear alongside creeks and streams. I got through the snarl of day-before-Thanksgiving rush hour Kansas City traffic.

As the sunlight started to wane, I did too. Michael took over and drove the last hour to Columbia, MO. We met his parents for dinner at 6:30pm at an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet restaurant. We continued on in the dark for the last 100 miles. We stopped at Steak-n-Shake to pick up late-evening snacks to bring home…four junior milk shakes (three chocolate, one vanilla), a large order of fries, and a side of pickles to go. Michael and I became hysterical imagining the thoughts of the person taking our order. Who goes through a drive-thru and orders tiny milkshakes and a side of pickles? We arrived at my parents' house, with a round of tiny milkshakes 14 hours and 44 minutes after our departure from Waffle House.

Chapter 2. Giving Thanks

I spent Thursday morning making a pumpkin pie from scratch...starting with a pumpkin from my garden, and cutting it, roasting it, mashing it, and mixing in the rest of the filling ingredients. I made the pie crust from scratch too. I didn't bring a rolling pin, and my mom didn't have one, so the crust was a bit "rustic".

What a gift to be able to spend Thanksgiving with my family. This was the first time since I was in college that I was home for Thanksgiving with the whole family there. And while it was a quick visit, and I didn't get to spend as much time with my siblings as I would have liked, it was still great to see them all.

I also appreciated being able to visit my grandma in the nursing home. I don't know when I'll be able to get back to St. Louis again, and what kind of physical and mental condition she'll be in when I do. Her mind has clearly been touched by the stroke(s), and she would sometimes confuse me for one of my sisters, confuse Michael for my brother, but was very clear and present other times. When I went to see her on Friday, she was asleep. I spent about half an hour just standing at her bedside as she slept. It was like watching a child sleeping in a crib, only this was my grandmother in a bed with side-rails. I felt very peaceful just watching her and watching my own breathing as I held her hand. The staff woke her up and put her in her wheel chair to take her to lunch. We walked down with her to her dining room and as we were leaving she told Michael and I to take care of each other and to respect each other...that was when it was hard to leave.

Chapter 3. And then you drove where?

On Saturday morning we drove 12 hours to Marshall, Minnesota where our friend Richard now lives. Richard was a dear friend to us throughout our five and half years in San Diego, and it was so good to see him. On Sunday, Richard gave us the tour of Southwest Minnesota State University, where he's now teaching physics. SMSU is small (3500 students) as is the town of Marshall (pop. 13,000 people). We spend the day talking and playing games with Richard and his girlfriend, Tristen. It was a short visit, but wonderful to see them both.

On Monday morning Michael and I completed our journey by driving 13 hours back home to Colorado. We put about 2500 miles on the car over the holiday trip, and spent nearly 40 hours in the car. We really did have a good time together, and realized that we hadn't seen each other much in the last few weeks.

the joys of being human

Human bodies are pretty amazing. The amount of nasal mucous that can be produced by one head cold, for example, I find to be quite extraordinary. I'm sure there is some amazing purpose to all this junk that is clogging my nose, my inner ears, my throat and lungs...I am not really sure what this purpose is, but I trust it is important.

I am grateful that I work in a job where I can take a day to be home and be sick. I slept 12 hours last night...I can't remember the last time I slept so much. I can't remember the last time I blew my nose so much. ick.

As much as I hate being sick, it is a nice reminder to take advantage of my life and my time on this earth when I am healthy. So those of you out there who are in a good state of health, stop playing on the internet and get out there and do something amazing!

squeaks

You know you need to get out more when....

a. you go on a hike with your in laws and start cracking yourself up by walking like Mr. Peanut.

b. you start typing your blog and crack yourself up thinking about walking like Mr. Peanut.

c. the highlight of your weekend is fixing the squeaks in your floor

d. All of the above

So the in laws left yesterday. I finally got to the gym yesterday after nearly a week and a half. It felt great to move my body again, but I think I'm on the edge of a cold, and I pushed a little too hard and felt crummy later in the afternoon. Michael and I "celebrated" having our space back by fixing the speaks in our floor. We had purchased a floor-squeak removal kit a few weeks ago, and with his folks gone, finally had the time to move all the furniture out of the room we started on. This thing really works! You end up finding the floor joists and putting in these screws that snap off just under the carpet so the plywood is re-attached to the floor joists. I can't tell you how exciting it is to walk on the floor and have it NOT sound like you'll fall through the floor!

I'm working hard to get out more, and will be going out with my best girl Dol tomorrow to celebrate her b'day. I haven't been up for blogging much lately, but will try to come up with topics that are of more interest than cracking myself up.

remember, remember the 5th of November

Well, a few things in my rambling brain today:

today is the 5th of November, otherwise known as Guy Fawkes Day (commemorating the capture and execution of a revolutionary). We watched V for Vendetta on Saturday (again) and I'm feeling inspired to be more radical.

In other news...The Simpsons House of Horrors XVII had a bit about the golem of Prague, a Jewish legend. My in laws are still in town and they watched it with Michael and I. I was cracking up throughout the segment, and the rest of the good catholics were silent...not even a snicker. sigh.

6 eggs today. (and Andie you should tell Dan that they're CHICKEN eggs, not alpaca eggs!)

in laws

my in laws arrived today. michael is out of town until late tonight. I am working on doing a lot of meditation practice and tonglen for myself and for them. They are lovely people, really. They just drive me a little crazy sometimes.

But I have a few bright lights to keep me going...I had an awesome night with my cousin Paul yesterday. I miss seeing friends. I've been too much of a hermit lately, and sucky time for me to stop being a hermit, now that the in laws are in town for a week and a half. I also heard from my friend D that he won't be re-enlisting (or so he says now). I am so happy to hear this news because I worry about him a lot. He's scheduled to be on mission in the spring, and I just want him to get the heck out of harm's way. I appreciate so much the work he does to keep us safe, but want him safe too.

5 eggs today (and for Andie they are from the CHICKENS).

hooray for Ani

For those who haven't figured it out, I'm a huge Ani DiFranco fan. Well, I'm such an Ani nerd that on Oct 3 when I was home waiting for the vet for the new cria exam, I saw that the intern that runs her myspace site announced a contest requesting artwork. I freaked out and made a little photo collage and sent it off. I'm no artist, so I figured I wouldn't win, but thought I might be one of the first people to respond since I was actually home in the middle of the day.

I got an email today that I was one of the first 20 respondents, and I've won a free CD with Righteous Babe Artists...pretty cool, eh? Sometimes it pays to be a nerd. I guess it will give me something to switch out with my Reprieve CD in the car.

In other news, I have been so lucky this week. I am sitting in on a class at the university I work at, and the students all do 45 minute presentations on the major transitions in their lives. I got to witness the first two on Tuesday, and I'm so completely blown away by the beautiful, amazing people that I get to watch through their graduate school journey. I am really looking forward to the next few weeks when I'll get to see more of these presentations, and eventually present my own story. I'm sad that I will only be able to witness 6 of 18...and I once again get frustrated that I have to keep good boundaries with these people...the bulk of them are in my peer age group, but because I'm in a power/authority position and they are just in their first semester (of a 3-year program) I can't get too close.

sigh. time to change the laundry and get to sleep. 5 eggs today.

2:30 AM and 100th blog

According to my stats, this is my 100th blog. woo hoo. where are the balloons?

It is later than 2:30am, and I'm awake. Michael is out in the wilderness camping, and I'm awake. sucky home alone in the middle of nowhere.

I rented some flix tonight and finally got to see Transamerica. I highly recommend it.

i kept thinking I had so much to write about, but now that I'm here and it is nearly 3am, all those amazing thoughts seem to have evaporated into the ether. so I guess I'll try to go to bed.

hello Mr. Studly

The snow and cold yesterday was a true killing frost. The garden looks like a disaster, but we knew it was coming. Until yesterday, the grapevine was still green, the tomato plants still upright and producing, the pumpkin vines even had a little life in them still. Today...everything was brown and wilted and crunchy. The snow was pretty while it lasted, but it pretty much melted off. Ah, fall in Colorado

Today Pokie's new boyfriend came for a visit...I basically waited around all day for a booty call that wasn't for me. Since I had some time on my hands and I had a limited amount of work I could do from home (since I hadn't brought stuff home since I didn't know I'd be home) I baked bread. I've got a lovely loaf of cranberry nut bread now that I'll take to work tomorrow. yo ho! yo ho! a farmer's life for me...

First Snow and Practice Day

Today, October 17, 2006 we got the first snow! It's been snowing pretty steadily for the last several hours, but has only in the last half hour started to stick to the grass...no sticking to the other surfaces yet.

Today was also Fall Community Practice Day at Naropa (where I work). All classes were cancelled and offices closed. I took myself to breakfast in Boulder this morning and then sat (meditation) with the first year students from 9-10:30. I had to come home after that because Pokie's boyfriend was scheduled to come up for an afternoon visit, but because of the weather that got cancelled. I considered going back down to Boulder to do more sitting because I really wanted to, but I got stuck at the house...it is SO hard to leave a cozy home to drive 30+ minutes back to Boulder in crappy weather. This at least gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get myself on the cushion again.

I'd been pretty down on the coming winter, but seeing the snow...well, it is just so pretty :)

We picked another 2 cups of raspberries last night. The chickens have only been laying 3 eggs a day...this cold weather is hard on them!

First Snow and Practice Day

Today, October 17, 2006 we got the first snow! It's been snowing pretty steadily for the last several hours, but has only in the last half hour started to stick to the grass...no sticking to the other surfaces yet.

Today was also Fall Community Practice Day at Naropa (where I work). All classes were cancelled and offices closed. I took myself to breakfast in Boulder this morning and then sat (meditation) with the first year students from 9-10:30. I had to come home after that because Pokie's boyfriend was scheduled to come up for an afternoon visit, but because of the weather that got cancelled. I considered going back down to Boulder to do more sitting because I really wanted to, but I got stuck at the house...it is SO hard to leave a cozy home to drive 30+ minutes back to Boulder in crappy weather. This at least gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get myself on the cushion again.

I'd been pretty down on the coming winter, but seeing the snow...well, it is just so pretty :)

We picked another 2 cups of raspberries last night. The chickens have only been laying 3 eggs a day...this cold weather is hard on them!

pumpkins and urgent care

So they say things happen in "3s". Yesterday was one of those days. First, the truck died while Michael drove it down the street to take a check to one of our neighbors. Then in the afternoon while Michael was in Boulder playing soccer, I sliced my finger pretty badly while cutting up a pumpkin for a recipe I was making. Since the truck was dead, I had to call on a co-worker that lives nearby to take me to urgent care. When Michael did come home, he had gotten injured at his soccer game (soccer ball to the groin, pulled hamstring, and sore back).

My finger is slowly healing...but typing is hard.

hello out there

So until a few minutes ago, I hadn't even logged in since Tuesday. For those who left me messages, I do apologize.

This week has been an alpacapalooza week...a lot of farm chores and alpaca business stuff happened all week, and looks like it will be continuing this coming week. Don't get me wrong, hauling 50-pound bags of llama chow, giving enemas to the constipated baby alpaca, and attending a multi-hour alpaca association meeting where we spent way too long arguing about how to revise the committee structure were all exciting adventures!

This week I'll spend part of Tuesday watching Pokie getting knocked up. sometimes farm life is weird, eh?

well, maybe not so weird compared to my very nerdy alter ego, past life as a physicist. I am not embarrassed to admit that I LOVE the new song and video "white and nerdy". Can anyone else identify the equation in the background?

busy week

hello kind readers. I have been a very busy lady this past week. Here's the week in review:

Sunday: the new baby was born. We've decided to name her Amiya (a-ME-ah)

Monday: long day at work since I missed a lot of work the week before.

Tuesday: missed more work due to post-natal vet exam in the middle of the day...sigh, behind again!

Wednesday: after work went to visit my friend with cancer. She's doing great. I'll have more info to come.

Thursday: had my friends Brooks and Lisa to the house for dinner...we had invited them up after they got engaged (in July), and this was the earliest we could arrange it!

Friday: another long day at work followed by crashing out early

Saturday: had some work people up to the house to visit

Sunday (today): spent 3 hours (9-12) working with the herd (worming and toenail trimming); after lunch spending another 3 hours outside picking tomatoes. Then went to Boulder to our CSA's annual end-of-season celebration. When we came home we set up our construction work light and picked raspberries. Today Michael and I picked 5 gallons of tiny tomatoes and several cups of raspberries. (And 5 eggs today). We should have a frost tonight, so we wanted to make sure to get as much as we can. There are still TONS of tomatoes out there...we'll see what survives!

If anyone is interested in tomatoes (they are large pea-sized), please let us know!

I'm hoping for a calmer week this week and a chance to reconnect with friends I haven't seen in ages and ages (PB this means you!)

It's A GIRL

This morning Pokie had her baby, and it's a girl! Our little girl is 16 pounds, 7 ounces, and is light brown. She's got a little bit of white under her chin and behind her right front knee. She's very active and seems to be quite healthy.

This little girl is super feisty...she was standing within 30 minutes of being born and escaped twice from the pen we put her and mom in!

Any name suggestions are welcome!

false alarms and uterine torsions

Ok, so it turns out Pokie was not in labor, but instead had a uterine torsion. After a day of watching her suffer and not go into stage 2 of labor (water breaks, vaginal dilation, pushing, baby coming out), I called the vet. My hunky vet came out and after a very quick exam, said she had a uterine torsion. This means that her uterus was twisted 180degrees.

Here's a nice description that I found online:

If you think about your arms as the two horns and place them in front of you in the shape of a "Y" you

would be a normal (alpaca) uterus. In a clockwise uterine torsion your left arm would go over

top of your right. In a counter-clockwise torsion your right arm would go over top of

your left. The torsion can be anywhere from 90 degrees to 360 degrees and

beyond. The place where it twists is normally near the cervix. This prevents the

cervix from dilating and will prevent birth if it is not corrected.

So the way we fixed it: my vet gave her a shot of anesthesia and after she got sleepy, we helped her lay down. While he held the baby still by applying pressure on her belly, we rolled her over in the direction of the twist (counter-clockwise). She was out cold for 45minutes, but the procedure lasted only about 2. I stayed with her and kept the other alpacas away from her and held her head until she woke up. The whole herd was worried about her, especially her daughter, Samsara. They kept coming over and trying to get her to move.

Once she woke up and started eating, she seemed like a whole different animal...back to normal Pokie behavior! What a relief. Now we're on baby watch again. Apparantly her cervix is slightly dilated, and since this "procedure" was done, she could deliver tonight or tomorrow or in a few more days.

Thanks for all your thoughts and well-wishes :) I'll let you all know how things turn out.

wating on a delivery

I am at home this morning, waiting to see if Pokie will deliver. She was sure acting like it earlier this morning, but now I'm not sure. She was showing a lot of "classic signs" at 7am...straining, staring off into space, being separate from the herd. She has had a few nibbles of food, but she hasn't really eaten (a very un-Pokie like behavior). So I'm sitting around watching and waiting.

I think that my presence outside was distracting to her, so I came in to spy on her from the window. Strange, I know, but I'm not sure what else to do. at least this way I can check email and do some work-related stuff (and cook my bean soup for dinner!)

I'll keep ya'll posted.

bunny is a rooster

Bunny, our gender-nebulous chicken, is now confirmed to have rooster traits. Yesterday morning while eating breakfast, I heard a rooster crow...and the sound clearly came from our hen house! I went outside and there she was, flapping her wings and crowing a rooster crow. So I suppose I need to stop using female pronouns when I refer to Bunny. Sigh. We'll have to figure out what to do with her/him.

And this morning I found out one of my friends has cancer.

13 eggs yesterday (we had forgotten to collect them on Thursday). 4 more pumpkins harvested today and a few more cups of raspberries.

first frost

Saturday we had the first frost of the season. It has nearly killed the pumpkin vine! So this weekend I spent lots and lots of time in the garden harvesting...I'm excited about the haul:

-nearly 4 cups of raspberries from the raspberry vines in the front

-4 large pumpkins

-12 mini pumpkins

-a bunch of green beans (enough for 2 people for dinner some night)

-10 cups of tomatoes (and my tomatoes are the size of large peas, so this was a LOT of hours of picking)

There's lots more of everything ripening on their vines!

8 eggs yesterday, 8 eggs today

As I spent time in the garden this weekend harvesting, I had a moment where I had a flash of recognition and connection to all the people in the world who grow their own food as a way of survival, not as a form of entertainment and supplement. I thought about all the people around the world who would spend not a day, but many days on their hands and knees or standing with bent backs, getting scratched and poked and bitten by insects as they worked to gather as much as they could while the weather held and and even when it didn't. I had the luxury of running inside when the wind and rain got too be too uncomfortable, to make myself some tea to warm up. I think about the people all over the world who don't have such a luxury. I think about the ancestors all over this globe who didn't have the luxury of a weather forecast and would keep on picking not knowing that the weather would be better the next day. As I looked upon my green-brown dirty hands I thought about all the people whose hands were permanently altered by the toil of working the land. And I thought of how grateful I am for my life and my privilege and my garden.

I guess this is growing up

What a strange phenomenon growing up is. I feel particularly aged the last few days...

my childhood friend Bob and his wife had a baby a few days ago. I got some photos by email earlier this evening. Seeing my friend acting goofy while holding a teeny tiny baby, and knowing that it is HIS baby is a pretty strange feeling. A bit of pride, a bit of jealousy, and a bit of disbelief.

another childhood friend had major surgery yesterday. She had a very large tumor removed and will know by the end of the week whether or not she has cancer.

my friends L & B have picked a date for their wedding.

maybe this is why people freak out when they turn 30...new phases of life are springing up all over.

I'm not as young and springy as I used to be...and in fact am pretty exhausted today. Maybe this is growing up.

5 eggs today.

reprieve

why do boys have to smell so darn good? still working hard to find out how to be a girl in a girl body

and the lyrics to my current favorite from ani...

Reprieve

manhattan is an island

like the women who are

surrounded by children in a car

surrounded by cars

or manhattan was a project

that projected the worst of mankind

first one and then the other

has made its mark on my mind

it's sixty years later

near the hypo-center of the a-bomb

i'm in the middle of hiroshima

watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave

one of the very few lives that survived and lives on

remembering the day it was suddenly

thousands of degrees in the shade

and what all of nature gave birth to

terror took in a blinding rey

with the kind of pain

it would take cancer so many years just to say

oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded

a man's world in your little girl's head

the voice of the great mother drowned out

in the constant honking

haunting the car crash up ahead

oh to grow up hypnotized

and then try to shake yourself awake

cuz you can sense what has been lost

cuz you can sense what is at stake

yeah, so

it took me a few years to catch on

that those days i catch everyone's eye

correspond with those nights of the month

when the moon gleams like an egg in the sky

and men are using a sense they don't even know they have

just to watch me walk by

and me, i'm supposed to be sensible

leave my animal outside to cry

but when all of nature conspires

to make me her glorious whore

it's cuz in my body i hold the secret recipe

of precisely what life is for

and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it

is the same one making war

and i've said too much already

but i'll tell you something more

to split yourself in two

is just the most radical thing you can do

so girl if that shit ain't up to you

then you simply are not free

cuz from the sunlight on my hair

to which eggs i grow to term

to the expression that i wear

all i really own is me

yes to split yourself in two

is just the most radical thing you can do

goddess forbid that little atom

should grow so jealous of eve

and in the face of the great farce

of the nuclear age

feminism ain't about equality

it's about reprieve

Currently listening :

Reprieve

By Ani Difranco

Release date: By 08 August, 2006

reclaiming girly

Every once in a while I get pretty bent out of shape over the blatant misogyny, and oppression and repression of women that permeates our culture. Today is one of those days.

Saturday morning children's programming is one of the ways misogyny and repression of women is perpetuated in our culture…I turned on morning TV at breakfast today just in time for a tween/teen show in which one of the (male) characters was so excitedly showing off his first car, only to be taunted by his friend and his father for having a "girly" car. WTF? I remembered why I don't watch as much TV as I used to and started my brain up…

What does "girly" mean anyway? You never hear "girly" used in a way that is empowering or uplifting. And why is "manly" the opposite of "girly"? There is no "boy" equivalent that I can think of (ok, boyish, but that is something else entirely). "Womanly" is used, but so rarely I'm not going to include it here.

"Girly" is defined in the online Miriam-Webster Dictionary as "featuring scantily clothed women" examples are girlie magazines and girlie show"

"Manly" is defined in the same dictionary:

1 : having qualities generally associated with a man : STRONG, VIRILE

2 : appropriate in character to a man

In common culture, I rarely hear "girly" used to talk about scantily clad women. Since "manly" is strong and virile, "girly" must be weak and impotent (lacking in power, strength, or vigor). Girly is a derogatory term, particularly when applied to things that are considered be "male" (e.g., "Girly man" is not a compliment).

So this is all rather academic, I know. I'm working hard here to not use an excessive amount of F-words…I'm over compensating. Today I am angry. I am angry that I've spent the last year and a half trying to forgive myself for self-oppression, for my own misogyny.

I was a confidant, smart, strong girl and then woman until I was 21. Before I was 21, I was an honors student and loved science and wore make up and kissed boys and liked my body and found physics to be beautiful and never thought of myself as either a tomboy or as girly.

Before I was 21, I never personally encountered prejudice because of my gender. And then I became an engineering graduate student, and all that changed. I was sometimes the only woman in the room, sometimes there were 2 or 3 of us…but the rest of the students were men. And the classes usually had 20-30 students. So suddenly, I stuck out. I was struggling academically for the first time in my life…and I started to question why. None of the men in my class seemed to indicate any signs of struggle or weakness...and I started to buy into the shit that is perpetuated in our misogynistic culture. I slowly started eradicating all the things that made me feminine… my clothes got a bit baggier and I entered the "frumpy" phase…the better to hide my breasts and hips. No more earrings or fingernail polish or perfume…"girly" is weakness, right? Shit, I somehow talked myself into believing that I had to blend in and become a boy in order to be taken seriously. Instead of being proud of my accomplishments and successes, I instead saw anything less than perfect as a failure to my gender. So I stopped being a girl, because the disappointment was too great a burden to carry.

Well my days of being a boy ended a year and a half ago when I was meditating in a room that was so red, I was pierced through to my core, and my inner girl was reborn. I still struggle with my self-image…I'm fighting hard to remember what I was like before I was 21…to remember that in my mind girly and womanly were synonymous with "strong". So here's the deal…I'm reclaiming girly just like Eve Ensler has started reclaiming cunt. Girly and womanly are not pejorative terms in my vocabulary anymore.

Labor Day: a perspective from the AFL-CIO

In grad school I was a union activist: I told my story to literally hundreds of other workers, I lead a strike, and I was on the bargaining team where I helped negotiate the first ever contract between Academic Student Employees and the University of California. To me, Labor Day is more than just a day for a BBQ...it is a day to honor those who struggled and continue to struggle for fair wages, safe working conditions, and equitable treatment.

The below is from the AFL-CIO blog:

Labor Day is more than just a Monday holiday marking the end of summer.

At least it should be. For many of us in the union movement, its a time to hold Labor Day picnics and rallies and often, as this election year, move full-speed ahead in political action on the way to the November elections. Its also a time to reflect on the sacrifices of those U.S. workers who came before usespecially those who lost their lives in the fight for justice at the workplace.

While the radical origins of May Day are not contested, as labor historian David Montgomery notes:

Labor Day is more a complicated affair.

Only the United States celebrates Labor Day in September. Elsewhere around the globe, nations honor workers on May 1May Day.

And that historical quirk is no accident.

Ironically, May Day was founded by U.S. workersand taken away from them as a day to celebrate by a federal government fearful of the wave of large demonstrations for the eight-hour day and massive strikes for justice on the railroads, in the mines and factories that had begun in 1877.

Such an action may seem quaint now. But the symbolism of May Dayworking people challenging corporate powerstill causes fear among the top elite.

Just ask George W. Bush and the Republican extremists in Congress.

In 2003, Bush proclaimed May 1 as Loyalty Day when U.S. citizens should

express allegiance to our nation and its founding ideals, we resolve to ensure that the blessings of liberty endure and extend for generations to come.

That same year, Congress, designated May 1 of each year as Loyalty Day.

Proclaimed Bush:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2003, as Loyalty Day. I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance. I also call upon government officials to display the flag of the United States on all government buildings on Loyalty Day.

And while hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their supporters took to the streets for justice May 1, 2006as did their symbolic forbearers in the 18th centuryBush again proclaimed May 1 Loyalty Day.

Just when you think historical events are just thatthey come back stronger than ever.

May Day was officially founded in 1886, during a Chicago strike for the eight-hour workday. In 1889, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) delegate to the International Labor Congress in Paris proposed May 1 as international Labor Day. Workers were to march for an eight-hour day, democracy and the right of workers to organize. Delegates approved the request and chose May 1, 1890, as a day of demonstrations in favor of the eight-hour day.

On a separate track, U.S. labor leaders had agitated for creation of a labor holiday years before the Chicago rally. Among them, Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter and labor union leader, had proposed his idea for a holiday honoring Americas workers at a New York labor meeting in early 1882. (Others say the founder of Labor Day was Matthew Maguire, a machinist who served as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.)

Either way, New Yorks Central Labor Union began planning labor day events for the second Tuesday in September. McGuire (one of them) had suggested a September date to provide a break during the long stretch between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

Today, the union movement marks Sept. 5, 1882, as the first Labor Day, when 20,000 working people marched in New York City to demand an eight-hour workday and other labor law reforms. In the parade up Broadway, they carried banners reading, Labor Creates All Wealth. About a quarter million New Yorkers turned out to watch.

In 1887, Oregon became the first state to establish Labor Day as a holiday, which it put on the first Saturday in June. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York observed Labor Day on the first Monday in September that year.

The remainder of that decade and the early 1890s saw massive strikes, often put down with brutal violence by government troops. In the 1894 Pullman strike, led by the American Railway Union leader Eugene Debs, workers demanded lower rents (Pullman was a company town) and higher pay after massive wage cuts and layoffs. Railroad workers across the nation boycotted trains carrying Pullman cars. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and deployed 12,000 troops to break the strike. Two men were killed when U.S. deputy marshals fired on protesters in Kensington, Ill., and the strike was crushed.

But 1894 was an election year. As workers protested Clevelands harsh methods, legislation was rushed unanimously through both houses of Congress to create a holiday for workers. Yet the symbolism of May Day was too strong for U.S. politicians. In creating an annual Labor Day holiday in September, Congress at the same time declared May 1 to be Law Daypaving the way for the Bush administrations Loyalty Day.

Cleveland signed the bill creating Labor Day six days after his troops had broken the Pullman strike.

Writing of this years May Day protests by immigrant workers, historian Nelson Lichtenstein says:

these May Day demonstrations and boycotts return the American protest tradition to its turn-of-the-20th-century ethnic proletarian originsa time when, in the United States as well as in much of Europe, the quest for citizenship and equal rights was inherent in the fight for higher wages, stronger unions, and more political power for the working class.

Meanwhile, Montgomery points out that the day created in September to honor Americas workers was established precisely because of workers demands.

First state governments and then the federal government adopted the day in response to workers demands. The government did not create the holiday.

Some call May Day the real Labor Day. But workers in this nation shed their blood for a day of honor. And no matter what the date, they deserve our memory.

by Tula Connell

bonfire gone awry

Yesterday we had our 3rd annual Labor Day BBQ. We had some neighbors and some friends and a lot of food. We ended the evening with a bonfire...it was a much bigger bonfire than Michael has ever built, and I was a bit nervous about the whole thing (nothing unusual for me). This morning, Michael slept in, and I went out to feed the animals a bit later than usual, since I was having a lazy sunday morning. When I let the girls out, I noticed smoke, and thought it strange, so I followed the smoke and found that the bales of woodpulp that were stacked near the haybarn were on fire! I got the hose, started water on the pile, ran to the house, yelled "Michael I need you outside NOW" and ran back outside. We were able to put out the fire without too much trouble, but it was really scary. The wood pulp bales belong to some people that rent out some of our land to store their hydroseeder and ancillary equipment. I made Michael call them to tell them we burned up their bales.

We are very, very lucky. I'm not so certain I'm going to permit bonfires anymore.

8 eggs today (and 7 yesterday and 7 the day before)

the students are back, the students are back!

Today was the 2nd day of school, but the first day back for all my students (all 70 students had 2 courses today), and the first day for many of the instructors.

Only a few minor glitches, but I was so happy to have my returning students back and the new students really here.

I'm just so goo goo over all of them. Perhaps it is not appropriate to be so happy, but the students are really the best part of my job. I do need to be careful, because I've noticed that being on retreat with the 1st year students makes me a little more open with them than I normally would be with an entering class. I find that usually I start out warm, but tight with the 1st years and slowly open up and loosen boundaries as they progress through the program. We'll see how it goes. Tomorrow is a long, long day for me...we have our Internship Kickoff meeting with the 3rd year students tomorrow, and so I'll be at work until at least 9pm.

And my paulie is out of town for a week...I'm not sure what I'll do! I also realized today that I really need to go out dancing...

meandering happiness.

Back from Retreat

I got back from our 3-day Opening Retreat today around 2pm. What an amazing weekend, and an amazing group of students we have coming in. I went into the weekend with an attitude of trying to not get attached, but it totally backfired, and I'm already in love with this new class...I already can't wait for them to hurry up and graduate so I can hang out with them. This is really one of the biggest challenges of my job...I meet the most wonderful, amazing people, and I can't really get too close to them until they graduate, and then they usually move away. Ah, professional boundaries.

And the first day of school is tomorrow. There are very few Monday classes, so it should be a relatively light day, though I'll be spending a bunch of time getting syllabi and sourcebooks together. Tuesday is going to be the big one...all three cohorts have multiple classes on Tuesday. I'm really, really excited for the start of school even when it means that I'm busier than a one legged man in an ass kickin' contest.(thanks to BJS for that one!)

happiness is...

Happiness is...waiting up until midnight for your alpacas to come home.

We'd send one of our female alpacas (and her baby) to California to meet up with an old boyfriend and get pregnant. It seems crazy to send them from Colorado to California, but the last time she had a baby with this stud, the baby won all kinds of championships at shows...and we're hoping for a repeat! We also got a really good price on the breeding fee, and the cost of round trip transport plus the breeding fee was less than we paid to breed her to a similar quality local boy last year.

And right before midnight, the trailer pulled up, and I got to welcome home Maya and Brinca!

The next few days are going to be pretty intense for me, so I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to blog again until next week. Tonight is the annual department party (for which I manage a very small crew for all the set-up before and clean-up afterwards), so I'll be "working" until nearly 10pm tonight. Tomorrow is our big faculty meeting from 10am-1pm followed by an "inner circle" faculty meeting from 1-3pm. So I'm hoping to be done with work by 4 tomorrow. Friday morning I leave at 8:30 and drive to Shambhala Mountain Center and I'll be up there all weekend for our "Opening Retreat". And school starts next week! :) It is busy and crazy, but I love it.

Yesterday, when I got to work, I actually had to SEARCH for a parking space. And I thought "Happiness is....a full parking lot"

orientation day!

Today was the first day of Orientation. It was simultaneously exciting and bizarre. I love beginning with a new group of students...they have so much enthusiasm...and I do a lot of stuff to keep them excited, but I also have to be the rule monger and tell them all the things they can't do to get kicked out.

So, at least the bad rule lady has finished rearing her ugly head for now...and only good, supportive lady will be the face forward for a few weeks :)

And I finally got a hold of my neighbor who took on the newborn kittens last week. Here's the update from my saint of a neighbor:

"My babies are awesome. I feed them every two hours (yes all night too), then 1/2 hour after each feeding, I have to stimulate them to go potty or they wouldn't survive. Mama cat does that so, I use a wet, warm cotton ball and it gets things going. Then, I refill their hot water bottle. They have learned to purr at me. Their ears picked up on day two, so then they could hear and know my voice as "mom cat." They should open their eyes soon. This happens at one week of age."

So I'm in a much better space than I was yesterday...good news and a good day of welcoming in the new students.

follow up: smell found :(

WARNING: THE BELOW WILL HAVE SOME GRAPHIC DETAIL OF PRETTY SAD AND GROSS STUFF

I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier in the day, but the way to find the source of something stinky is to locate the largest mass of flies.

At least Michael was home when I located source of the smell...a dead cat. Given the state of decomposition, and my queasiness, I didn't flip it over to find out if this was my missing mama cat (the one that abandoned the newborn kittens a few days ago).

This is the 5th animal burial on the property in 2 years, (the 3rd dead critter that I've found) and the first time I ever came close to throwing up.

Michael dug the hole and I picked up the body and carried it to the grave...in mid-route I made the mistake of looking down and noticing the very large gaping hole on the cat's back that was oozing a surprising large and dense stream of maggots...at least that is what I think those little tan creepy crawly worms were. There was also a lot of clear-ish fluid coming out of the wound.

I think it was the maggots that put me over the top. I wasn't doing too badly just carrying the cat, but the sight of maggots (probably combined with the smell since I was now in very close proximity to the source) triggered my gag reflex...and it takes a lot for me to puke.

Hopefully a happier blog next time.

haircut, irrigation, and what IS that smell?

OK peeps, I did it! I cut off the hair. The plan began several years ago to fulfil my childhood dream of having my hair super long like the country singer Crystal Gayle...well, I didn't want floor-length hair, but I did want it to my waist. So after several years, I got there a few months ago! I'd only come close once before when I was in grad school, and when I was about a year away, I heard about donating long hair to make wigs for children who suffer from long-term medical hair loss (Locks of Love). So I cut it off back then, and kept it about shoulder-length for a year or two, then decided to start growing it again. So starting sometime in either 2002 or 2003 I made the decision not to cut. This time, I got about 16 inches taken off...a pretty big cut! I've got a few pics up in my photos area now.

Today is also irrigation day...hopefully there will be no flooding of the neighbors today! (See June 13, 2006 and June 15, 2006 for details on irrigation and the Great Barn Flood of 2006 respectively). Michael is gone the bulk of the day today playing soccer, so I'm in charge of the water during the daytime, and he'll once again be in charge at night. This is a good arrangement since tomorrow begins Orientation Week at my work. I'm really excited to have the new students arrive this week and the returning students show up next week...working with the students is what makes my job fun. I'm really not the administrator that wants to sit in silence behind a computer all day...I live for the interaction. Anyway, back to our story...

Today's other "surprise" is playing the game called "what IS that smell?!" There is a pretty strong, weird odor in our enclosed patio that wasn't there yesterday (or any other day, for that matter). Sometimes, I think that I have a sensitive nose, because Michael usually doesn't notice odors that I do, so I didn't mention it to him. When he brought it to my attention, I knew it was real and it was a problem. We've only just started to do some picking up out there...we typically use the space as a mud room--a place for dirty shoes to live so we don't track mud and alpaca poo in the house, and for a lot of storage of miscelaneous stuff (the little greenhouse for starting seeds, the alpaca store, all our bags of fiber, extra folding chairs, etc). So there is a lot of clutter that could be an easy hiding place for something weird to start smelling. My guess is there is a dead mouse someplace, but if that is the case, it could be in the baseboard heaters along the wall in that room. So, in between checking on the water, my job is to try to solve the mystery of "what IS that smell?". Can you see why I'm writing a big, long blog?!

ok, ok, time to check the water.

you know you're a single farmer when...

So, it really does seem to be that whenever Michael leaves town some farm drama happens.

I discovered yesterday that the chickens had made a nest and laid eggs under the hay rack we have near the house. Michael and I built the thing out of two large pallets and some other scrap wood, so it is pretty big and heavy. This thing holds up to 4 hay bales next to each other, and keeps them elevated above the ground to provide airflow under them and keep them from rotting if they get wet. Yesterday when I was feeding the chickens, one of them jumped straight up at my face, and startled and she got out of the hen house. She ran straight for the hay rack and went under (there is only about 4 inches of clearance between ground and the bottom of the rack), this is how I discovered the nest.

Today I planned to stay home in the morning to do some farm work. The timing worked out pretty well, because there was just enough hay left on the rack to feed this morning, so with all the hay off the top, I was able to move the thing and get tothe nest underneath. There was a second nest under there and I recovered 7 eggs total. I have no idea how long these eggs have been there, so I've got to go toss them in the back of the pasture and hope they don't stink too bad. This is annoying, but I don't consider this to be drama.

In the midst of this project my hunky vet arrived to do an ultrasound on Angel--she is pregnant! (this is good news, and is not the drama).

After he left, I went to the hay barn with the intent to retrieve a few bales to restock the rack (we do this because it is much easier to have a few bales near the house than to go to the hay barn twice a day).

At this point in the year, we've only got about 10-12 bales left in the barn, so it is pretty empty. As soon as I opened the door, I hear a weird noise and saw a little dark shape on the floor near the hay at the back of the barn. So, here's what you've been waiting for...Today's drama: abandoned newborn kittens in the hay barn. there were two tiny, tiny little kittens curled up together, crying and not moving much. They were pretty clearly less than a day old...their eyes weren't yet open and both of them together would fit in the palm of my hand (anyone that knows me, knows that I have freakishly small hands).

So my next step was to go inside and call my neighbor who runs a llama resuce (and has quite the menagerie of critters other than llamas that she's rescued). She told me to check back on them in an hour to see if mama cat would come back...and hour later, no mama and kittens were looking slightly more lethargic. She came over, and has taken them to go get kitten milk replacer and start feeding them. One of the kittens is looking pretty bad, and I'll be surprised if it survives. The other one was slightly more alert and active, but my neighbor doesn't have a lot of hope.

So, there's this morning's episode of Farm Life.

I've got to go shower and get to work.

being stereotyped sucks

Warning: this is going to be a rant, possibly with foul language. If you don't want to know, don't read it!

So there have been a few situations in the last week in which I've gotten really triggered.

On Friday, Michael and I went on a hot air balloon ride. There were at total of 8 passengers (including us). The balloon people (all guys) were short staffed, and asked Michael if he'd be willing to help do a few things. He was happy to help, and he was clearly the one person among all the passengers who would be most likely to be able to assist (6' in his 30s, and not obviously physically challenged or injured). The rest of the group consisted us plus of a family of 4 (the adults were in their late 40s, and the kids were a 14 year old girl and an 11 year old boy), and a grandma in her 60s and her 8 year old grandson.

At one point they needed more than just Michael, so they then turned to this very middle-aged, big-bellied, clearly out of shape man and the 11 year old boy to assist. I was slightly insulted that an 11 year old boy would be asked to help before me, but let it roll off.

At the end of the ride, we landed in the middle of a field, and they again needed help rolling up the balloon and putting it back in the stuff sack. The first person they turned to was Michael...this makes sense...but then they clearly needed more help than just him. I was standing right there, and I offered. The guy responded by saying that maybe I could help later on when there was less balloon and it was lighter. That was the trigger, and I got pissed, but not too aggressive. I then starting working to convince the guy that I was stronger than I looked, told him that I lived on a farm, told him about lifting hay bales, that I wasn't concerned that it would be too heavy etc. etc. After a lot of verbal back and forth, he finally agreed to let me help...turns out it wasn't that heavy, and we took turns lifting the load while Michael and the other guy pulled the basket. By the end, he was huffing and puffing quite a lot more than I was, and we were lifting equal amounts of weight (yay for me!)

So the trigger for me here was taking me back to my days as a graduate student engineer when I was told by research faculty that I wouldn't be a good fit for their lab because they had a lot of heavy equipment and their labs were loud, and that they only ever had 1 girl in the lab before. Fuck that. I never heard of any boys being told that maybe they shouldn't consider asking to work in a lab because the lab was loud and contained heavy equipment.

And then today I was at this group that I belong to that I really like. It is a group of business owners that gets together once a month and people talk about their businesses and we help each other brainstorm ways of doing things better. Typically 10-15 people come to the meetings, and I am one of 3 women participants. Today I was the only woman, and it was my turn to present my business along with one of the other men. Maybe it was because I've been thinking a lot about being the balloon and grad school episodes a lot the last few days, but it was really noticeable to me the dynamic in the room, and how actively I was working to not fall into one of my two survival tactics from grad school (either be one of the guys, or fall silent). I'm not sure I succeeded when the other person was presenting, but I think I did OK when it was my turn to talk about SanchoPaca.

fuck...why does it have to be so hard.

I made a choice to leave science...and now I wonder if I could ever go back. It is so much easier being a very competent administrator...most people in administrative jobs are women, after all. When I think about going back into science, I think about how hard I had to work all the time, just to be taken seriously.

sigh...time for some BVTS therapy. I've been watching a lot of Buffy lately (I got season 2 as a birthday gift from Michael)...that Buffy girl seriously kicks ass.

pain in my neck and the lashes

so I have a pain in my neck from being at a desk on a computer most of the day today. After dinner, I got on the computer at home to put together a talk I'm doing tomorrow night for a small business owners group I belong to. Now I'm bloggin...after this, I'll try to do something away from the computer.

This evening, when I went out to feed the animals, there was a runaway cow in my pasture. My next-door neighbors were haltering it up to take it back home. I had to put the alpacas and llamas away because the cow was scared of them...this gigantic cow was scared of my tiny (by comparison) animals. Not the sort of thing you expect to see walking by right after eating meat for the first time in a long, long while. OK, universe, I GET IT! I'm not going back to meat. Poor cow.

And I'm completely obsessed with The Lashes. Their CD "Get It" is all I've been listening to for days and days. The song on my main myspace page "Sometimes the Sun" is like my theme song for the summer...particularly given my frequent home alone status. Here's the lyrics:

"It's been so long since I've seen your face except inside of my head

Counting down the days 'til you're home hoping then we'll share a bed

Sometimes we fight about the little things, but now they seem like such little things

I woke up from so many dreams with visions of buying diamond rings

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now

It's been so long since I've heard your voice except inside of my head

Waiting for your phone call to ring replaying things that you said

Sometimes we fight about the little things, but now they seem like such little things

I woke up from so many dreams with visions of buying diamond rings

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now

Are you feeling just like me, feeling down, down, down

Wishing you were beside me nightly, down, down, down

I keep my eyes glued to the ground, down, down, down

I'll be there for your airplane touchdown, down, down, down

Sometimes the sun goes down, sometimes it comes back up

I'm wondering which one you are watching now "

see, totally a song for me for the summer. And I'm still waiting tonight for Michael to call...

7 eggs today.

insomnia

It is 1:30am, and I am awake. why am I an insomniac tonight? a few reasons:

-a 2-hour nap this afternoon

-michael is out of town (once again), and I usually have trouble sleeping when he's gone

-I was up until 1:30am yesterday, and didn't wake up until 8:30am, so my sleep cycle is off

-michael may have a job opportunity outside of Colorado, and there is a chance that he may apply and that we may leave and I am having a bit of a freakout about this.

5 eggs today.

anniversary

hooray for a hot air balloon ride on our anniversary! it was a pretty sweet ride, but we had to wake up at 5am to be at the balloon at 6, got done with ballooning at 11, came back to the house to change and eat a snack, then went to work from 12-6pm...long, long day. there are some balloon pics up in my photo pages now. michael leaves in the morning for San Diego. time to sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

oh, yes, 6 eggs today.

transgendered chicken

well, long time no blogging, eh?

My sister, Lindsey, was in town from the 30th to the 7th, and I'm still catching up on some things. It was a fun visit and we got to do some fun things (and well, some boring things too, but that is part of life). some of the fun highlights: a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day of hiking, a tour of Coors Stadium, getting stuck in my dead truck at Chataqua park, playing the game Life, baking cookies, and watching some good movies.

On monday night, Michael and I realized it was the first time we were both home at the same time without a house guest since my birthday (that's three and a half weeks for the mathematically challenged). We have a few days this week, and he leaves for another trip on Saturday morning. By the time he comes back from this trip, from June 18 to August 18, we'll have had 14 days together in 2 months! good grief!

And the farm news...the adolescent chicks are all laying eggs. Today our Arucana named Baby laid her first egg (it's a green one, Paulie!). In the last week it has become apparent that one of our chicks, Bunny, is probably not a girl chicken. Bunny is probably a rooster (a boy). I was pretty devestated when I started to figure this out a few days ago...lots of crying, as my sister can verify. The problem is that we don't want a rooster, and we don't really have enough girls to keep a rooster busy, and roosters are pretty mean. We selected chicks that were supposed to be sexed and sorted, and all this time we thought Bunny was a girl. In the last week and a half, she's gotten a lot taller, her tail has started to grow in with long shiny feathers, and she has started to jump on the other girls in the way that roosters jump on hens. I was hoping she was a lesbian hen, but her physical traits and her behaviors are starting to be pretty rooster-like. Our choices are not good: try to find a rooster rescue (pretty unlikely) or kill our transgendered Bunny (ok, ok, she's not a transgendered chicken, he's a rooster).

...horrible realization just now. The only animals we've given animal names to were doomed to die: Chicken and Duck were brutally murdered by a skunk, Pig (the chicken) was found in the hen house with a broken neck, and now Bunny is a rooster. too much crying at the moment...must go.

I'm home

I made it back home. This morning we got the whole farm tour at the B&B and got to ride a camel!

I then drove 8.5 hours (500 miles) back home today. Between the 9 hours yesterday and the 8.5 hours today, I'm pretty pooped. According to my trip odometer, I put 2041.4 miles on the car, round trip. My sister, Courtney, drove probably 400 miles of it. I'm pretty proud of this, I've never driven this much in one trip, EVER.

The garden exploded while I was gone...there are giant okras, greenbeans, soybeans, and strawberries ready for harvest. The cukes and pumpkins and tomatoes are producing...summer produce is in full swing!

It was a fun trip, and will be a good week...my sister Lindsey is here visiting until the 7th!

on the road again and homeward bound

I am writing this from Nickerson, Kansas. Nickerson is a teeny tiny little town smack in the middle of Kansas. I drove 9 hours today from St. Louis to get here, and I'm SO EXCITED to report that I'm staying with my sister, Lindsey, at a B&B called Hedricks.

This little B&B is home to a lot of animals including (in the order in which we've seen things so far today just driving in and walking around): camels, ostriches, llamas, zebras, chickens, peacocks, kangaroos, cows, horses, giraffes, bunnies, pidgeons, tortises, and capyrs. There may be other species around, we'll get the full tour in the morning. AND tomorrow I shall ride on a camel (in the middle of Kansas)!

I have to say, I am SO excited about this place. It is totally a dream for me to have something like this with a somewhat different assortment of critters, perhaps, but the camels are a MUST!

so this place has surprised me with its internet access, but it is slow, so I'll end here...maybe tomorrow night there'll be an update about the rest of the journey.

most optimum, inside and out

Today we took Courtney to the airport, and she is currently in-flight back to California. And yes, I cried when we dropped her off. I haven't seen her in two and a half years, and I don't know when I'll see her next.

And then my Dad asked us to review a flyer that he put together with some business collaborators, and my brother and I both gasped in horror at the phrase "most optimum". My brother put it best "it makes me cry inside" to see such writing. We proposed using the word "best" as a replacement for "most optimum". Ok, I'm persnickety, and it seems my brother is too. I've written before about my friend the persnickety lady, and on days like today, I think of her ranting about the differences between then and than, formerly and formally, etc. I think bonding with my brother over complaints of bad grammar has helped me get over the pain of seeing my other sib off again.

Well, lots of crying today inside and out

I am the future

There were some very bad storms in St. Louis right before I came out. As of today, approximately 200,000 people are still without power in the St. Louis region. My 93 year old grandma (who lives alone in the house that she's lived in for 52 years) has been staying at my parent's house since last Wednesday when the storms hit because a tree took down the powerlines to her house and ripped out the meter attached to the house.

Having my grandma at the house has changed everyone's routine and I think it has been a bumpy adjustment for everyone, including her. My grandma's health is failing: she is nearly blind, she has difficulty walking, she has back pain, and it seems her hearing is starting to go too. Despite all of this, her mind is still sharp...she remembers an incredible amount of detail. She knows that the younger generations (my parents and sibs and even me) get frustrated with her physical limitations and the fact that she can't be left alone in this house. Her lack of sight makes it very difficult for her to get around (so she can't come with to run errands), and it just isn't safe for her to be alone in unfamiliar territory (so it means someone has to stay home with her at all times).

This morning, she was drinking out of a mug that I think was mine from when I was a teenager that said "I am the future! Scary, isn't it?" I found the message, which was intended to be on a teenager's mug, very poignant.

my big loud family

Being back with my whole family again is an interesting experience. In some ways, everything is very familiar, and in other ways it feels like I'm in a foreign country adjusting to the culture.

I come from a family where the norm is: loud talking, strong opinions, multiple conversations happening at once in the same room, and sometimes overlapping participants. Yesterday, I realized, that I love that cacophony, and sometimes I miss it. Growing up, I often felt like my family was "dysfunctional" because everyone was always yelling at everyone else. I now realize that it is just the culture of my family. That the loudness doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem, and that underlying it all is love.

At the same time, it is a very interesting experience being back here, and it really does feel like I'm in a totally different culture from how I choose to be. They don't recycle, they shop at Wal-mart, and TV plays a much bigger role in day-to-day living than I'm used to. Yesterday, I kept thinking that I've changed so much, but I realized just now that these are things that always bothered me growing up. so maybe I haven't changed all that much, and neither have they.

Surprise! aka "knock, knock"

Greetings from St. Louis, MO. I've been silent on the blogosphere for a few days because there was a big surprise brewing, and I couldn't share the news here because my sibs are all on myspace.

My sister Courtney flew out to CO on Wednesday night, and she and I toured around Colorado all day Thursday, and I got to introduce her to a bunch of my friends too. (That was really cool, folks, so thanks for coming out to meet her!)

Early Friday morning she and I left my house and drove nearly 14 hours to St. Louis (arriving at 10pm STL time) at my parent's house. My parents were expecting Courtney to arrive on Saturday afternoon by plane and me on Sunday by car. When we pulled up to the house, I called my folks from my cell. My dad answered and I told him I had a joke for him.

me: knock, knock
dad: who's there
me: me!
dad: me, who?
me: no, no. you don't get it. let me try again. Knock, knock.
dad: who's there?
me: me! (massive laughter)
dad: are you drunk?
me: no, I'm not drunk. Let me try one more time (walking up to the front door).
me: Knock, knock (saying the words while knocking on the door)
dad: who's there (while opening the door)
me: SURPRISE! (my dad was still talking to me on the phone at this point while looking at me perplexed. He then got excited and continuted to talk to me on the phone even though I was standing in front of him. At this point, Courtney jumped out from behind a tree...and mass chaos and happiness followed.

It was a good surprise, I think. It took lots of explaining, but eventually everyone figured out that we were there early.

It is pretty cool because this is the first time in many years that my entire family (all my sibs) are togther in one place at one time. I will have to try to figure out how long it has been...I hadn't seen Courtney in 2.5 years, so it was longer ago than that when we were all together.

I'm going back to family time, now, but wanted to share the fun.

stress-induced spaz attack

Today I had a bit of a stress-induced spaz attack. I think there is a bit of pre-vacation freak out occurring. Somehow whenever I am getting ready to go on vacation, things just start exploding at work. I'm not really sure why that is, but it seems to be true for a lot of people I know.

The last few days have been hectic at work, which has actually been exciting...I realized that I function well and get more efficient with my time when there is a bit of pressure and some deadlines. Today, though, was a little over the top because I thought that two of my closest friends were mad at me. I had no real reason to believe this other than I hadn't talked to one of them since yesterday and I thought he wasn't returning my calls (which wasn't true...my phone was just being weird and wasn't showing that I had messages), and the other person wasn't feeling well on Saturday and so didn't come to bowling. Really, no reason to think anything was wrong, but in my newly re-found stress, I had a bit of a spaz attack.

I then started imagining that another friend was mad at me so I called him, and he assured me that he was not. Sometimes a dose of love and friendship from afar is what we need to snap back into reality and out of the spazzy mode.

babies

well, maybe it is the new 29-thing talking, but I'm not so sure I want to have babies. I spent 3 hours at the house of some folks I know through work who had a baby a month ago. I was one of the first to learn of their pregnancy and watched the development enviously throughtout the months. I really did have moments where I wanted to be pregnant too...not that I'm trying, because I'm not.

For a few months in the spring and early summer, having babies (and avoiding having babies) was the hot topic for me and my girlfriends to talk about. Not once this evening did I get any pangs of "I want a baby". This is somewhat of a weird experience for me, because I used to really want to have babies. I was a weird little girl by some standards, and never dreamed of being married, and never really thought I'd be married, but I always imagined that I'd have a child. So here I am, with a husband...and I'm not sure I want a child.

tonight one of my sisters was encouraging me to "pop out some babies" so that my family would stop pestering her about not having a boyfriend. sorry, sis, I may not be able to help you with this one.

so I've entered that phase of life. weird.

well, maybe it is the new 29-thing talking, but I'm not so sure I want to have babies. I spent 3 hours at the house of some folks I know through work who had a baby a month ago. I was one of the first to learn of their pregnancy and watched the development enviously throughtout the months. I really did have moments where I wanted to be pregnant too...not that I'm trying, because I'm not.

For a few months in the spring and early summer, having babies (and avoiding having babies) was the hot topic for me and my girlfriends to talk about. Not once this evening did I get any pangs of "I want a baby". This is somewhat of a weird experience for me, because I used to really want to have babies. I was a weird little girl by some standards, and never dreamed of being married, and never really thought I'd be married, but I always imagined that I'd have a child. So here I am, with a husband...and I'm not sure I want a child.

tonight one of my sisters was encouraging me to "pop out some babies" so that my family would stop pestering her about not having a boyfriend. sorry, sis, I may not be able to help you with this one.

so I've entered that phase of life. weird.

29 for real this time

Today is my birthday. I am 29.

About a month after I turned 23, I started lying about my age and told people that I was 29. Mostly the people that I told were my students. A month after I turned 23 I got married, started teaching physics at a community college, and also started working as the senior lab instructor in the physics labs at UCSD. And even though I had my Masters degree, I felt insecure with the fact that I was teaching people that were almost all older than me...so when they asked (and oh, yes, they asked) I told them I was 29. Nobody questioned it.

So today I am 29 for real.

How does a girl celebrate 29? Some good fun on Friday and Saturday evenings! And as for the actual day...today started out with an 8am cleaning frenzy...cleaning up the poop pile in the boys' usual area so that we could kick out the boys and make it pretty for Angel and her new boyfriend. The stud arrived for a conjugal visit (called a "drive by breeding" in the industry) at about 8:30am. The rest of the morning we did some work in the garden afterwards and after lunch we went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. After the movie, I drove Michael to the airport. He's now in DC until Friday night.

I've been pretty mellow today, just how I wanted to spend the day!

some human interaction please!

I am taking a 5 minute "lunch" break and following up on last night's blog. I am the only one in my department in the office today, and there are only 2 other people in the whole building today. I do have a bunch of things to do, but they are all paperwork/computer work things. It is extremely difficult to stay motivated and get a lot done. I know so many people who complain about the "distractions" of having students around. For me, not having the students around is like slow death.

I like my job precisely because I like working with people. The student "interruptions" are the work that is most important...they are my clients, the ones I am here to serve. Today I feel like I used to feel when I worked in a research lab when I was working on my Masters degree...isolated and alone. Does the work that I'm doing actually matter? Well, in this case, it does...but it won't mean anything to anyone for more than a month. But it keeps me thinking about what I could be doing with my time that could be valuable in such a different way.

Sigh. My 5 minute break is over, and I've got a few things to wrap up before going to a meeting at the main campus. I'm so excited to go to this meeting...I'll get a little human interaction! :)

making a difference...or is it hopeless?

so there is a major conflict going on between Israel and Lebannon, for those out of the media loop. I realized that no matter how we feel about Israel, knowing that Israel is involved in (or instigating) a war, is newsworthy in the Jewish community.

I heard the news from a friend who called to make sure I knew what was going on (I didn't). I got the call right after picking up a friend who is in Denver for a work event for a few days at her hotel. We hung out with her for several hours, and at several points during the evening, I would unconsciously flash back on "there is bombing happening in Israel and Lebannon, people are dying." And it feels very hopeless to me...is there really anything that I can do?

Maybe it is hanging around so many Buddhists that is rubbing off on me, but I can't ignore the suffering that is happening in this world. On the drive home I was thinking about my current job, and how I have very selfishly put myself in a position where I have very little influence on very few people's lives...I don't do very much to alleviate the suffering in the world. I feel like the things I did the years I was in San Diego (teaching and being a union organizer) had a lot of impact on a lot of people, but I also had very poor boundaries around keeping the work I was doing out of my "non-work" hours. I am an all or nothing person, so the things I'm passionate about I tend to spend all my time doing, and so it was when I was teaching and working for the UAW.

That workaholic life wasn't sustainable. When I moved to Boulder, I knew that I needed to find a job that would fit the kind of life I wanted to lead, find a job where I could have a balance between work and home. I have that now, and have really good boundaries around my work hours, and eventhough I'm in a salaried position, I do keep track of how much I work and when I'm over hours one week, I work fewer hours the next. But I've lost something...my work is not the kind of bodhisattva, high-impact, make a difference in people's lives kind of work. Well, I guess that isn't totally true...when the students are around I do have an impact on them...just not quite the same as what I was doing when I was teaching physics or teaching teachers how to teach physics.

I've got to find a way of eeking out some time to do volunteer work regularly...or do something much more radical. Michael suggested that I could quit my job and do something that would be very high impact, but not necessarily employable. I don't know...I'll sleep on it at very least and see how things feel tomorrow.