Video Games are Shifting Evolution in Reverse

When I venture into stores, I often have emotional reactions - especially when I'm in stores I'd rather not support. In Walmart, I'm generally overwhelmed by the sheer mass of crap, and disgusted at how easily I let myself wander from a very limited shopping list - "necessities" I just can't find in locally owned shops - to buy things I don't need. Also, having read Barbara Ehrenreich's excellent Nickel and Dimed, I'm hypersensitive to the aggregious working conditions. "Kids, take in all this plight!" but without the National Lampoon humor.

The other day I found myself in a Game Stop store. Holy schmoly what a creepy place. But first for my brief confession - I own a Playstation 2, purchased in the throes of Seasonal Affective Disorder last January when we had about 8 feet of snow and it was too cold to get out and enjoy it. I bought 3 games, all rated "E" for everyone: an American Idol karaoke game, a horse racing game and one based on the movie "Cars." In the past year the thing has probably gotten about 6 hours of play - not counting the times when it filled in as a dvd player. But it's cold and snowy again, so I decided to see if I could find a Harry Potter game. Lily is all things Harry Potter now, thanks to her Dad's nightly read-alouds of the books (about to start #4).

Back to the store. I had some difficulty finding the used Quiddich Cup game, overshadowed as it is by the shocking variety of violent games. Even some of the "E" rated games involve swordfights and the like, but I guess as long as there isn't any gushing blood it's considered okay for the under 10 crowd. When I saw the rows of used Grand Theft Auto I couldn't help but think about the young men who had been indoctrinated into this world. It's shudder-worthy. Then, standing in line I had some time to check out my fellow patrons. There was a decided lack of females, and the men/boys, well...let's just say there seemed to be some hygiene issues. Honestly, it was sociopath central. It was a good tonic against doing anything more than dabbling in this pastime!

Wanted: Leadership, not Bean-Counting

Vermont is a special place. One of the unique features that makes Vermont so special is our close connection to decision making; from the open, accessible State House, to the citizen legislature whose members we can easily contact and talk with about issues important to us.

On December 19th, the Joint Fiscal Office will vote on whether to submit to the Governor’s short-sighted plan and push through interim budget cuts without the full engagement of our newly elected legislators. To their credit, the committee resisted demands to cut even more, but the cuts they are proposing will have an impact on vulnerable Vermonters, including people with disabilities, the elderly, and low-income families. And perhaps more importantly, these cuts signal a policy direction that will impact many, many more Vermonters, without engaging in vigorous debate about whether our budget woes should be addressed by cutting spending.

A December 14th editorial in the Times-Argus questioned how, after six years of Governor Douglas’s “leadership” there could possibly be any budgetary fat to trim? His dogmatic unwillingness to consider serious revenue-side solutions runs counter to the best thinking of economists, not to mention historical points of reference. That’s right – this isn’t the first time the country or Vermont has experienced budget shortfalls and economic crisis. And every time, the way out was to spend more, not less.

A fairly high-ranking state employee recently told me that until the administration can see the light at the end of the tunnel, deficit spending and increasing revenue in a meaningful way are “off the table.” Thing is, it is government’s role to create the light at the end of the tunnel, to be the safety net when the free market fails. It’s time for the Governor to worry less about the 20,000 ultra-wealthy Vermonters he referenced during his appearance on Vermont Public Radio last week and put all options on the table for the benefit of the other 600,000+ of us.

This fall, Vermonters overwhelming sent a message that we want to do things differently. We elected Barack Obama by one of the highest margins in the country, understanding his vision for pulling the country out of economic free-fall would involve deficit spending –lots of it, and not just in response to collapsing industries. Around the state new faces were elected to the Legislature. These are the representatives we want engaged in a thoughtful dialogue about how to create light at the end of the tunnel. We need big, bold leadership and visionary thinking to prevent policy decisions that are at best penny-wise, pound foolish.

Shades of Ex-Pat

I recently returned from a stay on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques - a brief and relaxing stay in one of the most lovely and uncrowded beach destinations in the Carribean. I recognize the irony in being happy that I enjoyed such an unspoiled*, uncrowded beach.


Vieques seemed to have a moderate sized gringo ex-pat community. One of the transplants we got to chat with a bit had relocated from Key West a couple years ago when it became too commercial and overrun. She was looking for the next undiscovered, extremely laid back tropical home, and found it in Isabel II, the larger of the two towns on the island. She was friendly and forthcoming about a number of things, but had surprisingly little knowledge of the culture of her adopted home. As we sat at her sidewalk cafe, a young man rode by on one of the distinctive Paso Fino horses that roam the island in various states of domestication (or not), with their exagerated, quick, high step. One of my companions thought there might be a name for that step, so we asked our friendly hostess, who seemed quite befuddled and told us it was the horseshoes that made the sound. It was apparent that she wasn't in Vieques for the native culture, and hadn't bothered to study up for her hospitality role.



By contrast, my travel companion Z found a fairly comprehensive history book of the island (post-Columbus), read it on the beach one day, and became an excellent resource for the group - able to provide, for example, context for the military bunkers we drove by as we looked in vain for a remote beach.

I have other ex-pat friends who immerse themselves in the culture of their adopted home countries, and act as one-woman tourism offices, ethnographers and cultural attaches. I just can't imagine moving to a new place and not being remotely curious about the differences.

Then again, I also don''t understand staffing the tourism office with a non-English speaker who doesn't know whether hiking Mt. Pirata is safe and acceptable (the guidebook said to ask, as the rules governing access to the former military property are ever changing). But hey, it was too hot to hike anyway!

More later about the trip...


*except for the depleted uranium left from years of Navy occupation, testing and war games.

Life on a Desert Island

I am preparing to take a little vacation to the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. A grown up, women-only adventure with two of my best pals. In reviewing our itinerary, we discovered that it will be touch and go for us to make the 4:30 ferry from Fajardo to Vieques, and if we miss it we have to wait until 8:30. So we decided to streamline our transition from airport to ferry by packing everything we need for a week in carry on luggage.

At first, I thought this would be easy. My last trip to PR was a family affair, so there were books and blankets and toys and stuffed animals, oh my! When I visualized the essentials for one adult woman, it seemed like a little backpack would do it. HA!

Challenge #1: the snorkle gear. I really want to bring my snorkle gear, because: I'm cheap and don't want to rent gear, I'm averse to putting things in my mouth that have been in other people's mouths (not a fork/water bottle/ ice cream cone sharer, this one), and my poor snorkle gear hasn't seen water since January 2007.

Challenge #2: hair that really, really hates humidity. Or loves it, depending on your perspective. If you've seen the episode of Friends where Monica's hair morphs into a Diana Ross mega-fro, you understand. Not too long ago, I discovered the miracle of hair products, and not just any products. Through many years of experimentation I have the perfect 1-2-and sometimes 3 step process to keep my hair more or less in check, if not always styled. I am seriously not a high maintenance person - no hair dryers, no mani/pedis...but I gotsta have my leave-in conditioner and curl enhancing mousse, and these things don't come in travel size.

Challenge #3: Books. I am looking forward to plowing through a few, and maybe doing some writing and sketching. Books are heavy and they take up space. This could be a deal breaker.

So this has become a bit of an exercise like those quizzes "what would you take to a desert island if you could only bring five things." Today my travel mates and I will engage in the final negotiation around this. Stay tuned...

Politics + Family = KAPOW!

I came across this story online today that makes me feel ...not better exactly, but not alone anyway. From my own political alienation from my parents to my frustrating exchanges with the "young patriot," I know that I take these differences to heart. This election I've wisely steered clear of political discussions with my parents - but I think this is only possible because of the miles between us and the relative lack of contact. Frankly I think politics and religion (or the mess that happens when the two mix) are too important to ignore, and if I only talk about these issues with like-minded folks how will we ever sort it all out? But while I still take it personally there is danger that relationships will be damaged. So that's the task at hand.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27365905/

PORN is not LOVE

Burton Snowboards recently launched two board lines for men, the “LOVE” and “PRIMO” lines, which have rankled the ire of advocates for women, children, and the mentally ill. The PRIMO line features graphic depictions of self-mutilation; gruesome step-by-step images of making common hand gestures (peace, #1, etc.) by removing the unneeded digits. This line is condemned by mental health professionals and others who work with people who engage in self-harming activities, often times as a result of traumatic experiences like child sexual abuse.

The LOVE line is a collaboration with Playboy, and features images of nearly-nude women – apparently actual 1970’s Playboy pictorials. The bottom deck of the boards is adorned with a woman’s naked ass. The product description reads:

"Hi. My name is Love™ and I’m on the market for someone who’s looking to score serious action, no matter where they like to stick it. I enjoy laps through the park; long, hard grinds on my meaty Park Edges followed by a good, hot waxing. Whether you’re hitting it from the front or the back, my mid wide shape, supple flex, and twin tips like it kinky. Keegan and Mikkel love riding me, I hope you will too."

 

Yup, porn, from a business that claims to put innovation at the forefront. That’s right, porn, from an allegedly woman-friendly, Vermont-based business, whose co-owner Donna Carpenter has stated that the “overall mission at Burton is to be the brand of choice and an employer of choice for women and we see those two as very closely related. The more women we have driving the business and holding leadership roles the more we are going to appeal to women as a brand.” I couldn’t agree with Donna more, but I am confused by the approach Burton has chosen.

Burton has been unwilling to engage in dialogue, aside from brief, trite statements about artistry, blah blah blah, issued by email. So I brought my daughter Lily to her first protest rally at the Burton factory last Thursday. It was a beautiful, crisp Vermont autumn day. Protesters gathered in a park before walking the short distance to Burton headquarters. Burton let us know we were permitted on the first 3 feet of their property, which turned out to be a cattail-filled ditch. So we stood on the edge of the road, spread out 100 yards long. Organizers and speakers addressed us from the opposite side of the road, with a handful of Burton employees and/or supporters standing at the periphery. Cars and delivery trucks passed through the protest at regular intervals. But even with these less than ideal circumstances, the spirited group accomplished the goal of drawing attention to this gap in Burton’s social responsibility.

We heard from Mark Redmond, director of Spectrum, a nonprofit youth services organization that recently removed itself from a partnership with Burton aimed at getting youth involved with snowboarding (the Chill Program). It can be hard for nonprofits to stay true to their mission in the face of shrinking resources, so I commend Spectrum for their courage and integrity. Turns out others feel the same way, as individuals and businesses (including the Alpine Shop in S. Burlington) have come forward to donate equipment and passes so Spectrum’s youth can still get on the slopes this winter.

We invited someone from Burton to come speak with us, but aside from a silver-haired guy lurking behind the air exchange unit on the roof of the building and maybe this guy –

 

 there was no sign of an official Burton presence.

I think it was a great experience for Lily, and it felt good to me to finally take some concrete action. I’ve been talking to people individually and even trying to engage with some young Burton fans on a Facebook group page, but it’s been frustrating and disheartening to hear the ignorance and entitlement of some young men today. I think the march was as much about sending a message to Burton as it was to create a sense of community for the people working to hold businesses accountable for their $$-driven choices.

This Burton thing has been dominating my life of late. I recognize that this is a tiny drop in a huge bucket of corporate and media objectification of women, but it was a drop that landed in my backyard, so I felt compelled to get involved. I could write lots more – about how this isn’t about free speech, it’s a matter of judgment, integrity and social responsibility; about how you can’t get much LESS cutting edge than 70’s porn images; and about how there’s nothing comical about self-mutilation. But I need to put this to rest for a bit and spend time with my family! Speaking of which – I really love my husband, for how he “gets it,” for how he puts up with my obsessions and supports my passion about this issue. There is hope!

The Continuing Saga

What follows is my second "letter to a young patriot." I won't reprint his response to my first letter, but hopefully you'll get a sense from what I've chosen to focus on below. This has been a very challenging time - seeing at last the manifestation of his indoctrination into a fundamentalist Christian world view, and wondering how this could happen. I have some theories...maybe a post for another day...

*****


Hey, thanks for your reply. I’m moving past trying to change your mind about the vote, but would like to continue this dialogue if you’re willing.

My argument about the righteous anger of Rev. Wright was not meant to apply to Obama. I was just saying that in my opinion, there’s a lot of understandable anger out there, and that Obama is likely to be “associated” with lots of folks who are less than thrilled with the institutionalized oppression of ethnic/racial minorities and women. You can put me in that group, although I’m not able to claim any association with Obama. I think one of Obama’s strengths is that unlike me, he maintains a sense of optimism about being able to change the country for the better. I’ve never seen or heard anything that legitimately portrays him as harboring racial hatred toward whites, but as a member of a community, and as a community organizer, he has of course associated with folks with more radical views than his own. Again, I see it as a strength that he interacts with a broad spectrum of people, and is willing to name the inequality that is being exacerbated by current economic policy. I am so relieved to have a leader with the courage to talk about progressive taxation of the rich. By my value system it’s absolutely immoral that the richest Americans are getting richer while the middle class is disappearing, and the poorest are seeing critical government programs cut to fund the occupation of Iraq and tax breaks for wealthy corporations.

About the Ayers thing – I know they have had contact beyond the board membership. But the point of the white privilege article I attached is that what gets termed “bad judgment” when Obama’s involved doesn’t even merit a mention when it’s connected to McCain or Palin. There are a different set of rules being applied. I doubt McCain believes all the stuff that some of the people who have supported his campaign or pastors in churches he’s attended have said, but it’s not being transferred onto him as his belief system.

About racism in general - I don’t know about it going “two ways.” There’s not a universally accepted definition of racism, but most scholars agree that it goes beyond dislike of a particular race, and is related to the distribution of power, resources and privilege. So I think that racism can flow in a lot of directions, but I don’t think it can truly ever be directed at whites (as a group). You can be mad at your oppressors, speak out against them or even use violence against them – that’s not racism, it’s revolution. I don’t know if the dislike and prejudice of particular racial/ethnic groups can be eradicated, but I do believe it’s the government’s role to level the playing field as far as access to resources and opportunities.

People who hold the power are not likely to give it up all that easily. But when you do the math on the sheer volume of the working class vs the elites – 80% of “us” vs. 20% of “them” it’s a no brainer. That’s where these fringe issues come in. They divide us and distract us from what’s going on with the growing divide between rich and poor. And by fringe issues I mean those that are really more personal in nature (patriotism, gay rights, reproductive rights, etc.), and end up appealing to some core values we hold and can relate to more easily than the financial structures that perpetuate inequality. So you have an entire group, which I am beginning to understand that you consider yourself a part of – the evangelicals – who are willing to ignore these huge structural issues in order to focus on who can marry whom, or how to legislate morality. And that is very troubling to me.

You mentioned that I could guess that Obama’s “misinterpretation of the bible” wouldn’t be cool with you. I am not a religious scholar, but I researched the misinterpretation issue, and found a website about it that you might find interesting: http://www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com/#Info. There are quotes about Obama’s belief system that were very telling.

So you have to focus on your midterms, but when you are through why don’t you poke around a bit on the internet beyond the Focus on the Family website? I know from experience that things can always be taken out of context by the media, or twisted (or even completely made up) by detractors – so you always have to look at a number of diverse sources and consider the citations, go to the original source whenever you can, and look for independent analysis.

An Ode To Sean Hannity by John Cleese

Ode to Sean Hannity

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

This was the Poem of the week on one of my favorite blogs:

 http://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/

Letter to a Young Patriot (my own version)

This is my response to someone near and dear to me who recently proclaimed that he can't vote for Obama because he's "not fond of whites or America either" based on his associations with Rev. Wright, that Ayers guy and an incident when he didn't put his hand over his heart during the national anthem.

Dear One,

First, I can understand why this information is concerning, taken out of context and amplified by conservative media types with no journalistic integrity (FOX news, etc.). And I don't claim that Obama has never made any errors in judgment or associated with people who speak their truths a bit more plainly than we are used to hearing. I just want to challenge you to dig a little deeper about these issues before completely throwing your vote away. The Ayers thing is ridiculous - that's like me being held responsible for something done by one of my associates on one of the boards I sit on, or one of my organization's donors. It is being harped on by the McCain Campaign and FOX because they have nothing else, and they're getting desperate.

The Wright thing is more complicated. I actually think black people have good cause to be distrustful and angry toward white people. As a white, Christian man you don't have any experience with oppression - you are a member of the "ruling class," and while you may not personally be oppressing anyone, you are reaping the benefits of membership. As a woman, I have slightly less privilege, but still recognize my elevated status as a white, middle class person and the perks it brings. We cannot understand how it feels to be held down for generations. I think there is a lot of righteous anger there - and the solution is to hear it and acknowledge it and move forward toward healing (reparations?), not condemn it. For some people, including many of my friends, the symbols of the country - flags, anthems, etc. - have been use to silence dissension, invade countries we have no business being in, torture political prisoners, and protect the wealth and privilege of the elite - the 20% of Americans who own 92% of the wealth, while those of us in the bottom 80% fight over 8% of the wealth. I know people who I respect enormously who won't "pledge allegiance to the flag" because their allegiance is to values, not symbols. So we are patriots, but not the kind that walks in a lock-step believing everything we read.

The bottom line is that one of these guys is going to be our next president, so it makes sense to me to spend a bit of time finding out which one comes closest to my values. I went to a great seminar last spring by a man who works to end violence, racism, etc - oppression in general. This is an article by him about evaluating candidates based on who benefits from their policy positions: http://www.paulkivel.com/articles/assessingpolicy.pdf

I know you are busy, but if you have a chance to check it out, tell me what you think. You know I'm only having this "discussion" with you because I think you are very, very smart and the US needs smart, analytical young people to engage in the political process, hard and frustrating as it is!

 Love you. 

A few little gifts to myself

Today is my 37th birthday. I tied up some loose ends - paid an old parking ticket and my overdue water bill, mailed a care package to my stepkids with the tie dye shirts we made in August (!) and some running tunes for my stepdaughter's upcoming marathon, and submitted a poem to be published. Okay, I just submitted it to the odd (in a pleasing way) little local bi-weekly classified paper that has 3 pages of literary material tacked on the front, but if my poem is printed I can claim the coveted title of published writer, finally.

There's this thing that eats your memory...what is it again...?

Today in the dentist's waiting room I read an article that mentioned how sustained cortisol levels in your blood - a marker of stress - can lead to memory loss. This evening, a mere 2.5 hours later, I attempted to recount the main points of the article to my husband. This is a rough transcript of the conversation - imagine a grocery store with the after work crowd, both my daughters making "suggestions" for the cart, me battling a slight hormone imbalance...

me: "So I read this article today about the negative effects of stress on health, and there was this part about - No Lily we don't need Apples!!! Stop begging! - anyway there was this link to..."

lily: "I'm not begging, I just asked if we could get apples!!!!

Fritz: "Let Mom get what she needs. She doesn't need your input."

Lily rolls her eyes.

me: "Maybe you and Dad should wait in the car so I can get through this with my sanity."

Lily: "NO!"

me: "Okay, so anyway, something about the cortisol levels in the blood doing something bad. I can't remember what it is but it really resonated with me."

Crepuscule

My baby’s lapis eyes are quick to laugh, her soul
a magnet picking up the filings of joy in our lives,
pressing them together into solid chunks of goodness.
I don’t like to lie to my daughters, or even to dissemble.
But I yearn to protect the too short mirth of childhood,
keep the worst of the world at bay. Here in the gloaming,
anxiety sparks at the margins of my maternal smile,
shaking the foundation just a bit in spite of my assurances.
How do I explain war to a pure heart? Greed and hubris
to one who shares without hesitation?

I am buffeted by the sense of unknowing, unable to get
my bearings without the sun or stars. A feeling
like motion sickness without the certainty
of a distant horizon and firm footing.
This twilight offers no hint of what will follow:
a sheet pulled over the slack features of resignation?
Or incandescence, as the world springs to life.

Maybe she was on to something...

Okay - this morning my chickens were nowhere to be found. I walked all around the yard, to all their favorite haunts, even up the road a bit, calling and clucking. Nothing. About 20 minutes later my husband announced the the chickens had emerged...from the woods. Feral after all?

Feral Chickens

This summer, the lovely wooded hillside behind our house was transformed into a softball field for the private high school that also receives locals via tuition paid by the district. It's a good school, but very focused on attracting dorm students because that's where the money is. There are a lot of benefits to the town and community - I for one am glad that for at least 9 months of the year our little town (well, it's bigger than Wasilla, AK was when Sarah Barracuda was mayor, but that's another story) is pretty diverse, with students from Asia, Europe, Central America and the Carribean breaking up the homogeneity of the locals. So I guess we can look forward to more diversity, as a new dorm is slated for where the current softball field sits. And the hilly topography of the school's property apparently left them with no options but to decimate the woods and move earth around into a very unnatural looking configuration.

One morning I left for work, and arrived home to find an acre of forest gone - flattened by this amazing (horrible, actually) Terminator-3 looking gizmo. Within days, all the fallen trees were hauled away, and in the ensuing weeks the fairly steep, rolling land was redesigned into an even steeper amphitheatre with a little softball field at the bottom.

Here's what our backyard looked like before the trees were massacred:


And here's how it looks now:

Not the end of the world, but kind of a sad event. The woods were great for the girls to play in - there was a nice trail that the XC team used, which made a scenic shortcut when we walked into town. Last summer there was a skunk family back there - a really beautiful matriarch and maybe 6 babies who would wander onto our lawn and commune with our cats peacefully. I think the school may have exterminated them, as I heard a loud bang one day and never saw the skunks again.

Now to the story that inspired the title of this post...this spring we got six barred rock chicks, which stayed in our basement for a while but eventually moved to a coop on the lawn. When they were big enough, I began letting them free range during the day, and as time passed they became more and more adventurous. Finally they made themselves known to our neighbors on their short walks up the road a bit. One of my neighbors caught my attention one day and asked "do you have chickens?" I thought uh-oh, is there some zoning restriction? But I answered truthfully, and she said "Oh that explains it! All the sudden I noticed chickens and I thought they must have been driven out of the woods when the construction started!" Yep, feral chickens. I kind of wish we'd let that story ride for a while. Here are the beasts (the four that remain), looking all wild and ferocious while lounging on the deck:

I love 'em!

Finding the Silver Lining

Our family is still without a permanent child care solution, but the chaos that has ensued has had the effect of shaking us out of our stale routines, with some unexpected benefits. Prior to this, we had settled into a pretty even (but disturbingly traditional) division of labor. I cooked, shopped and handled child related duties, Fritz did kitchen clean up and household maintenance.

For the past couple weeks we've been trading child care and transportation duties, shuttling the girls to school in the morning, then picking up Hazel from preschool and getting her to her temporary child care situation (the nice old lady from an earlier post), picking up Lily from school a few hours later, and finally collecting Hazel at 5. Thursday and Friday of this week I was completely off child duties due to out of town meetings. What's more, I had to work both evenings to catch up on work that I had fallen behind on due to all the mixed up days. When I popped in between meetings on Thursday evening, Lily begged me to quickly make dinner so they wouldn't have to settle for Fritz's standard, spaghetti. Rude and insensitive - and as it turned out, unfounded. Fritz expanded his culinary efforts significantly both evenings, to rave reviews. When I arrived home at 7:30 last night, I found grilled chicken breasts that had been marinated in a tasty rub involving lime rind(!) and "other stuff." Of course the microplane grater is also a woodworking tool, so this wasn't as much of a stretch as it might seem, but still...I was impressed. And the salad! Lettuce, arugula, broccoli, feta, onions and tomatoes. Awesome. Plus, he did laundry.

I noticed that after only two days of not being the one connecting with the kids' other lives at school and child care I felt out of touch with them - more aware that they have whole lives away from me. They feel a little less "mine." A loss for me, but the benefits to Fritz and the girls more than make up for it.

Beauty Unsurpassed

I just came home from the grocery store, and a great Ani Difranco song (Half-Assed) was playing. As I pitched down the hill and rounded the corner onto my street, Ani sang the chorus:

Just show me a moment that is mine
Its beauty blinding and unsurpassed
Make me forget every moment that went by
And left me so half-hearted
Cuz i felt it so half-assed

and there before me, in the slanting late afternoon sunlight, were my girls playing happily together. Yes indeed.

A piece of me is missing!

Today I dropped Lily off at Camp Downer (named for its location in Downer State Forest, not for the effect it has on campers!) - a major milestone. We've been apart for five nights before, when I went on work trips or Fritz and I attended Courtney's high school graduation, but we were connected via phone, family and friends. I was actually sick to my stomach as we made the turn into the camp, a mix of my own dread at leaving my girl with strangers and a reaction to Lily's own palpable anxiety. Lily doesn't know a soul at Camp Downer - a point that was driven home for me when we discovered that half of her cabin mates are good friends who planned this adventure together. Why didn't I think of that? So I found myself playing social director, pulling Lily aside and suggesting that the friendly looking girl on the bunk adjacent to hers looked like she wanted to find a pal. I'm so worried about that queen bee and wannabee stuff...hold on, gotta go breathe in a paper bag for a minute. No, no, no. It's going to be fine. Lily is the most outgoing person I know - able to make fast friends with adults and children alike.

It was fun going back to Camp Downer - I was a camper there for four years - must have been 1980-1983. They clearly haven't done a thing to the cabins - I was tempted to visit my old haunts and check for familiar grafitti. Fritz had to work today, so the girls and I made the trek alone. Hazel wanted to stay - she would have gladly traded places with her very anxious sister. Here's a shot of Lily and Hazel in the bunk - I think their faces say it all:
And here's one of the little angel when I asked her to pretend she was happy to be there:

I promised Lily I wouldn't leave until she was comfortable, and sure enough, I was one of the last parents to leave. What a spectacle, in my tie dye shirt, digging through the minivan for a snack for my "starving" daughter. The only thing I could find - the dregs of a bag of trail mix of unknown origins - just didn't cut it next to the buffet of treats the other girls had. Tomorrow I'll put together a care package to make up for the shameful lack of snacks I brought along for her today. And on Wednesday the camp will post some pictures - I'll be eagerly awaiting some proof that my girl is doing okay.

What to Do?

As of now, I have no child care provider. I have known for a week and a half that my provider was closing, and have even visited two programs, but I feel paralyzed to be in this position again. This will make the fifth child care situation in Hazel's four short years of life - not counting the piecemeal care I have had to use when my regular providers closed for family health emergencies. Here is a brief summary of our child care history:

• Nice elderly lady next door. Pros: good food, $5/day; cons: antique toys, soap operas .
• Home based provider #1- good program, nutritious meals, good philosophical match...until her husband was diagnosed with an aggressive malignant brain tumor (39 yrs old). Complicated situation, but a simple decision after I arrived to find my 2 yr old shrieking, shut in a dark, windowless bathroom.
• Home based provider #2 - Constantly on the road, dragging Hazel on errands. Became a real issue when Lily got off the school bus and had no one to meet her.
• Licensed Center - another parent referred to it as feeling like you are dropping your kid off at Walmart, complete with teenagers in belly shirts. Pulled the girls when Hazel started throttling her dolls and saying "YOU GO TO TIME OUT!" through clenched teeth.
• Registered Home #3 - Nice environment, good curriculum. There was spam - yes, the mystery meat in can - and I was working up the courage to discuss this with my provider when unbelievably her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor (34 yrs old). Could my kids be carcinogenic? She wisely took time off when she needed to tend to her family and her own needs (as opposed to locking toddlers in dark rooms), but this creates financial hardship, so she understandably found steady employment with benefits.

So here I am again. Gunshy thanks to my horrific track record, finding the knowledge I have as the director of a child care resource and referral agency to be more of a liability than an asset. If I didn't know what quality care looked like, I wouldn't have all these nagging doubts. I'd be like every other parent with no options, find the least problematic place to leave my "baby" (Lily now attends the after school program, which simplifies things), and try not to think about it. I half-jokingly asked Fritz if he'd like to be a stay at home dad for a while. Not sure we could swing it (actually pretty sure we can't), but it's only for a year until H is in kindergarten...Maybe a parent cooperative?

I don't want to rush my girls' childhoods, but I can't wait to be done with the child care conundrum. This system needs help!

Oh say can you see?

One of my paternal inheritances is a love of (and sensitive eye for) wild animals. In recent years, I've become much more attuned to birds. I'm not a bird watcher, really, more of a bird noticer. I think it got started during the weeks following my younger daughter's birth. She was born May 11th, 2004, just as Vermont starts to come alive and birds appear from points south. Three days after Hazel's birth, we moved into a house along a river, with a beautiful maple tree just outside our bedroom window. During my maternity leave, two families of birds moved in and out of a single nest high in the tree - robins and cedar waxwings. I loved the waxwings. The following spring they came through, kind of an old home week. I was hoping that would become an annual ritual, but we haven't been graced with a visit since.

Ever since spotting a pair of bald eagles soaring along the Connecticut River a few miles from our house, I've become comically hyper-vigilant about eagles. The joke in our house is that bird identifications start at bald eagle and work back from there. A couple days ago I saw a large bird quite high up and there was a gleam to its head, and well...you can guess. It was actually a great blue heron - my favorite bird of all, and a sort of totem animal for me. On several other occasions, my "eagles" have turned out to be crows. Oh well, it gives my husband something to tease me about.

Misidentifying birds seems to run in our family, as my stepdaughter famously asked her dad if the bat that he'd chased out of her room was a great blue heron (she was 3). I hate it when great blue herons get in the house!

Good Morning Sunshine! No? Oh.

So no rays of sun awoke me this morning, but I had a happy awakening anyway, thanks to these two:

Jasper, 90 pounds of curly brown love - mama's boy.

Hazel, 33 pounds of chatty happiness - mama's girl (one of 'em, anyway).

Most mornings involve a nose poke from the big brown one, Jasper. Some lucky days include full on cuddling. Jasper waits until "dad" vacates, then moves in. He likes to be spooned. Haze, the blue eyed beauty, has been my joybaby since the moment she emerged, red and velvety, more than four years ago. She is a love-bug, but does not always permit snuggling. On more than one occasion when I think I'll cuddle her to sleep at night, I've been dismissed with a sweet but firm "you can go now, mama." So this morning, when she curled up beside me with her head on my chest and drifted back to sleep, I was in nirvana.

No Stones in my Pocket

Just returned from picking up my CSA basket for the week, and it put me in a much better mood. I feel a bit bad for Maryellen, the farmer/attorney upon whom I unleashed a torrent of woe and angst. Next week I'll let her know how her cucumbers turned my world around. If I can't have summer sun, I can enjoy the tastes of summer - cukes and tomatoes plucked from the vine this morning.

I'm cooking up a curry with the potatoes from last week's basket, and roasting the beautiful broccoli. Oh, and my love just delivered a glass of wine. A very, very good man.

Later, I think I will tie dye. Or maybe bead. Something creative!

Miss Misery

I am about 3/4 through my vacation, and after hoping, meditating, and even briefly finding Jesus, I have given up on having any sunny days. So my vision of mountain biking, hiking, kayaking and lounging on the beach has been replaced with a sullen retreat into a fantasy novel given to me by my pal Z, The Fifth Sacred Thing, which is basically new age porn. Seriously, the volume and variety of sex in this book borders on ridiculous.

Oh, and my child care is closed again, so I'm housebound with two loud, energetic kiddos. I tried playing Susie homemaker today - I vacuumed and steamed the rugs, and made cookies with the girls. All the while, I feel a sense of injustice rising in me like the muddy river outside my window. I am so miserable. This is how I feel:

I have also developed a theory about the 10 day forecast on weather.com. Everytime I've checked it over the past week or so, there has been 7 or 8 days of rain, with some tantalizing "partly cloudy" days dangled like rewards at the end. Those 7-8 days just keep creeping ahead, so we never reach the promised sun. Maybe they are trying to keep people from pulling a Virginia Woolf. Or maybe the joke is that we actually think we can forecast the weather that far in advance. They probably have computer models for a week or so, and for the other 3 days they just spin a wheel that has a variety of options.

Something's gotta give!

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

Day two of my mostly stay at home vacation. It hasn't been quite what I expected, as work invaded about 4 hours of my first vacation day, and my daughter stayed home sick from tennis and day camp. Today she had a "recovery day," so my plans of having a couple days to myself to decompress and transition into full vacation mode were thwarted. But today we made the best of it. Instead of a road run with my dog, we headed to the track so the girls could roam safely while I ran my 3 miles. I even did a little speed work, inspired by the monotony of the oval. Then home for a little time in the garden while my girls did some "creative reapportionment" of saplings in the woods behind my house, which will soon be flattened from a steep, forested hillside into a girls' softball field for the local high school. (Grrrr) They even rolled a nice sized stone that I had admired down the hill for me. Way to go, girls!

Next, I regrettably gave into an impulse to cut my own hair. It's not terrible - no one in my family even noticed - but it's not quite...right. Oh well. Then on to bread baking with a nap squeezed in between first and second rise. A risky move, but it paid off with my best bread yet.

The highlight of the day has been watching the river by our house rise, and rise, and flirt with the top of the bank, making me wonder if I should evacuate my five barred rock hens from their new chicken coop. This is the highest the river in the four years we've lived here - a good 9 feet above its standard summer depth of about a foot. It is something to see, with entire trees raging by, and our own trees along the bank cracking ominously. We watched a Merganser mama and her 6 ducklings navigate the swollen waters with amazing skill - flapping madly and skimming the surface when they crossed the racing current, but otherwise tracing the shoreline, making improbably quick progress upstream.

Mama Merganser plans her approach...Then shows the youngsters how to do it!

One of our less favored fauna, a woodchuck, found himself flooded out of his den, so in spite of the presence of a bunch of humans, he had no choice but to come out and join us on the river bank. He announced his displeasure with a series of chatters, but we soon made our peace.

The river began to recede while we ate dinner. I finally had enough food for my regular foursome plus my strapping young adult stepson and his buddy. It's taken me almost 2 weeks to adjust my shopping and cooking to accommodate those adolescent appetites! But I made it up to them with steak, corn on the cob, pasta salad with fresh mozzarella, veggies from our CSA basket, and herbs from my little garden. And of course the fresh homemade bread. Yum.

Chemistry Lab

Sometimes, in spite of instincts that try to warn me off, I mix things that ought to remain apart. Elements that conspire to be together, but really shouldn't. I had this realization yesterday when a heavy soaking rain made it all but impossible to go outside. I'd already been in my head a fair amount, reading poetry, staring at the rain, considering the possible fruits of this sodden state of affairs. I was kneading dough - pizza dough - a pleasant meditative task. Considering possible toppings that would break new ground and still be palatable for my fairly easy to please family. I was hit with a craving for Ryan Adams, and wouldn't you know it, Gold was right there on the counter.

Here's what I learned: a disposition prone to blues + Ryan Adams' trainwhistle voice + a saturating rain = a ticket to my not-so-happy place. The path here is well worn; once I head in this direction I'm pulled in like an unfortunate fish on a hook. Or like the tractor beam on Star Trek (or was it Star Wars?).

Anyway, the pizza was divine. One with scallion butter, mozzarella, prosciutto and arugula; another more experimental one with steamed beets, feta, olive oil and arugula. Sometimes chemistry experiments pay off.

Good Love #1

Stolen moments strung
between acts in our
three ring circus.
We unfurl at dawn to the little one
singing herself awake,
and the elder carefully
assembling – not matching –
another uniquely flamboyant
outfit, the likes of which
have never been seen
in her second grade classroom.

A moment of caffeinated bliss,
the freshly roasted beans our brief escape.
We explore the terroir of the coffeelands
from our snowbound bed
and dream of rickety bus rides
through mountain tracts in search of
an honest Huehuetenango.

“Time to brush your teeth!”
in my screechiest mama voice.
Pulling up tights for the umpteenth time
on those perfect, plump legs.
A frantic hunt for the fancy shoes
with the bows, or the sparkles.

Then it’s the blur of day, transitions
bookend the time apart.
Not the type to phone at intervals, us.
Needs met during the stolen times
when I wrap my arms around you
and you can almost hear
the click.

An out of season Poem

Just getting caught up here. Fortunately I haven't been very prolific...


November
The maple tree outside my window
disrobes by degrees. Long after
the others stand naked and stoic
in the face of what lies ahead,
she enthralls, burlesque;
her flamenco skirts cartwheeling
beside the buttoned-down
houses of my street.

As her plumage falls away, bony limbs
rattle in mournful percussion.
A bittersweet pall descends. The eye
longs to capture the last radiance
of the too-short season,
but the heart tightens at the approach of
darker days and restless confinement,
and is forced to look away.

Waterworks

I sat midstream, a river rock
worn smooth and rounded by
caresses of constant companionship.
Tickled by playful eddies;
hypnotized by the prismatic effect
of my good loves.

When the penstocks and sluiceways
went to work upstream,
the water disappeared with a shock;
diverted to some other purpose.
Exposed and achingly dry,
I felt myself cracking.

After a time the water returned, crystallized;
abrading edges and points.
After a dozen years of quiet contentment
I find myself rubbed raw.

I crave the natural cycles of flood and drought,
the surface of the water alternately
within reach, my fingertips dancing
just below the glassy mosaic;
then rushing far overhead,
the strong current carrying
artifacts from upstream
while I remain firmly settled
in my rightful place.

-oct 07

Taproot

An afternoon in the garden
Yields swathes of disturbed earth
Heaps of vanquished weeds
An hour of sweet solitude
And satisfying strain.

Loam infiltrates and settles in,
Emphasizing lines on my palm
Life line, head line, heart
The way gravestone rubbings
Highlight the parenthesis of short lives.

Long life, straight head, forked heart
Divided allegiances, delicious tension
Between orderly beds of cultivated beauty
And the riotous tangle of opportunity.

The struggle is layered;
While blooms race toward the sun,
Roots knit blind boundaries,
Or send a thick tap deep, deep
Staking claim to the salt of the earth.

--july 07