It's important to be warm

When people ask me “How’s yer dad?” lately, my answer is “Ubiquitous!” It’s really the most reasonable answer, in a slew of answers possible. He’s even on YouTube now! It’s way at the end of this great little Save Our Transit video:

But seriously, he’s been in the Post-Gazette recently, among many, many other times, been interviewed for this and that, is often on local TV for one issue or another. The man is simply, by definition, ubiquitous.

There is a ton more info on this amazingly important Pittsburgh issue, but because I cannot claim to be nearly as involved as I would like to be, I will merely link to the big mess of a mess. Sigh.

Filed by joy at 10:23 pm under politics
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The world seems to keep turning while we go on vacation, or sleep, or anything else. Fancy that. Some turnings bring more fallout than others. A dear friend/client of mine had a massive stroke and a co-worker in one of my mother’s organizations had a massive heart incident. Both are startling and disturbing, as both of these individuals have full, big and interesting lives. Nothing makes the fact that a bright, vibrant woman who laughed with me and playfully wrestled with Benjamin before we left town is now in hospital, unable to speak, unable to walk, unable to let me know that she recognizes me and a picture I brought to her of the little boy she enjoys so much.

I sit feeding Benjamin, feeling the plastic spoon hit his sharp little teeth and consider what it means to be nearly seventy and learning to feed yourself all over again. And then my brain wanders off, changes the channel.

Neither the stroke victim nor the heart-problem victim is ready to see what is next, nor are we ready to see them consider a change of address, but they are not children. I can contemplate what it means, however briefly. What I cannot even fathom for a moment are medical conditions in those not yet old enough to be responsible for their own health and well-being. My brain goes directly to shut down. I wrote about this during pregnancy, but it never ends. Being a parent has forged a stronger me, but also a weaker one, if only in the sense that I lack the stomach, the callous, to not take danger personally. The Cambridge cousins deal with medical fears constantly: Brave Mama blogs about their adventures great and small with wit, incredible grace, and the stubborn will required to make right the impossible. I am awed, not by what they’ve been through, but by how beautiful their lives are irrespective of the challenges they face just living.

Then I come back to my own little world, to the medical events unfolding around me, friends with ailing and dying parents, care-taking by loved-ones, and I just don’t know how to function. It’s not that I’ve never seen these things before; it’s simply too much, all in a tornado around me and my relative quiet. There are no answers; there is no real way to offer solace other than being present, which is, of course, the hardest task. Nothing feels sufficient; nothing feels like more than a gesture. It’s all we can do to have our manners, send a card, take on a few extra tasks, listen.

Here be dragons, and the dragons are wrapped in modern medicine, which is all shock and awe to me under the best of circumstances. I try to remember the perspective offered me by Benjamin’s beautiful, medical birth. It’s hard to hold onto it. It’s hard to hold onto anything remotely related to the cancers, the blood disorders, the strokes, the heart failings, the everything falling part.

I’ve been muddling with this post in drafts for over a week. I can’t manage to write it properly. I haven’t found the place between being speechless over the various situations and stating that I am deeply affected but pushing through, because through is the only way ahead. Coherency in this is something I cannot expect to have.

Filed by joy at 9:31 am under life
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I’m pleased to say that the new breastfeeding icon is the one I’d've chosen.
While on the subject, this article on nursing addresses a longer term than our convenience-based culture usually faces. I won’t predict when complete weaning will happen in our house; truth be told, I know better than to try predicting anything anymore. That said, I love that the boy is obviously so enamored with food, so weaning has begun, by his choice. He’s devoured papaya, injera, veggie burger, buckwheat noodles in lemon dressing, and all sorts of lovely things. His enthusiasm for food only matches my own. Now if he’d only put on some weight, that’d be nice.

A few comments on the recent travels: My personal highlights included a 2 hour uninterrupted nap on the most wonderful mattress I have ever had the pleasure of sleeping upon and a bath, complete with desert salts and flowers (!) in a gorgeous space. Ian even brought me a glass of dessert wine. I only left the bath mellow and pruney so that I could claim it uninterrupted later, thus savoring it for, oh, say, the next 18 years or so. While not of these highlights, all the travel pictures are up at flickr, in celebration of Benjamin’s 8th lunaversary yesterday.

There’s other stuff brewing, not so pleasant, in fact far more difficult. In the world, with people close to our hearts, but we’re happy and things are mostly quite good. I’m focusing on that right now, waiting for other situations to improve.

Filed by joy at 1:46 pm under baby, life, travels
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Tonight I was at an event helping out in a professional capacity. I had spent a percentage of the evening chatting off and on with the event photographer, a middle-aged sweater-and-slacks type. He seemed an ok sort, maybe with a little too much needing to be The Expert, though not so bad that I needed to avoid him all evening. At the end of the evening, as I’m helping tidy up the cheese platters, he says to me “I enjoyed your piercings” as a sort of goodbye. Um. Dude? I responded in my vague usual way to a potentially inappropriate comment that I may or may not have misheard: “Enjoy your imagination”. I’d hoped to have ended it, but alas, he needed the last word and returned with “My fiery imagination” to which I could only brush off with “Choose your own adjective.”

What the hell year is it? How old am I? Is he? And generally WTF? I don’t have HOTT piercings, which dude would know unless he’s lived under a rock, and frankly, who gets wonked out on a couple of very standard earrings anymore? and shares it?

I am out of practice dealing with random semi-sexual innuendo from near-strangers. Flirt openly, by all means, be my guest, but please don’t be a lame-ass freak about it. That’s just creepy.

Filed by joy at 10:12 pm under random
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Kari tagged me to do a 5 secrets meme. Well, um, ok. What haven’t I said that I could say here…
This is more 5 random things you may or may not know (or care to know) about me.

#1 This isn’t a secret I guess, but it is a policy. I don’t talk about work on this blog because, duh. I try not to cross the streams with professional and private life, and yet I have done work for friends’ businesses and have leaked this url to a few professional friends. I still do not know how I feel about people I don’t know reading this, though it has happened from time to time. However, primarily professional boundaries have censored what I write here. There are also a few things I just don’t feel public about and they are usually the things I don’t generally share with anyone, just stew over in the constant internal monologue. They aren’t secrets per se, I just don’t talk about some things. Maybe that’s why I ramble on and on about other stuff. Eh. Work stuff though, that bitching stays basically offline.

#2 Though I will admit this work thing: I used to daily, if not hourly, wonder if someone was going to call my bluff as a sham, a con artist and a fraud. Now I only feel that way on occasion. That’s progress I guess. Or maybe I just don’t care as much. I have so much less to prove than my younger self could imagine.

#3 I had my tongue pierced for years, which is no secret. I pierced it because I was aware that I had a sharp mouth and I needed to rein that in to be employable, among other valid reasons. When I had both the appendectomy in ‘98 and the c-section last May, I had to take it out as I was going under anesthesia and they don’t want any potential obstructions in the mouth. With the appendectomy, I felt I needed to push it back through, and did so. I had a lot to learn, and wasn’t done with the self-imposed lesson. Last May, I was over it. My tongue is now trained and not less cunning, but less cutting unintentionally. I have even been called diplomatic, a triumph with opinions as strong as many of mine tend to be! Now if I can only train my potty mouth so that Benjamin doesn’t end up with a NC-17 rating in pre-school, I’ll be set.

#4 I used to consider myself an excellent driver. This may be in part to the fact that neither of my parents are particularly good drivers. Not bad, per se, but not good either. I passed my driver’s exam on the first try on the day after my 16th birthday, much to my glee, especially as no one ever taught me to drive; I simply got behind the wheel and did it. (Not counting learning to drive stick shift in my mid-20s which actually involved a few teaching sessions.) However, in high school, a *very* cool, collected, punk boy appeared terrified upon me driving him home one day. At one point during the ride, his hat flew out the open window and I careened down a typical curvy Pgh street. I offered to go back and get it, but he was simply ready to be home. I now realize that I am not “an excellent driver” but I’m still respectably above average, though far above average in winter conditions, I must hasten to add.

#5 I’m not particularly happy about my body and mind betraying me, but otherwise, I’m really happy about getting older. I like the authority it affords me. When I first interviewed after college, I was told by a middle-aged male suit that I was “intimidating” just by being a young woman who knew she was smart and could go far instead of groveling at the feet of professional superiors. I’m glad that crap is well and truly over with. I like the lines around my eyes. I’ve always liked the expression “Scars make your body more interesting” and certainly life has given me a few of those. I mislike forgetting things or my knees creaking or all the other stuff that comes with age. I can’t exactly answer the old “What do you want to be when you grow up” any more than I could ten years ago, but I do know what I want my life to be about, I know who I want to be. The what is no longer as vitally important to my definition of self. Far from irrelevant, sure; I simply feel secure in the fact that age has brought me wisdom. Certainly not enough of it, so I intend to get quite a bit older and see if I can improve on the ratio.

I’m not tagging anyone else to meme, but feel free if the mood suits you.

Filed by joy at 8:15 pm under random
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We’ve been away, in both NYC and Boston, or more specifically Westchester and Nassau, then Cambridge. I took a mere 500 or so pictures (no exaggeration) and must do a little sorting before flickring many of them. Most of all, we had marvelous friend and family visits, cousins and more cousins, all of whom are precocious, remarkable and several other superlatives. That goes for both the smalls and the adults who made them.

Benjamin adores the big city, natch. He charmed all of Times Square from the vantage of his backpack, then hitting overload, fell asleep while we walked the calmer streets. NYC became the city of 8 million (or 18.7 metro) of the friendliest people you’d ever hope to meet. We were offered seats on trains, a businessman helped me clean up some Benjamin Cheese from the Metro-North, we were cooed at in a few languages (some of which may have been English, but it can be hard to tell), and generally just had a great time. He thrives on other people, smiling and glowing at them, flirting at the slightest provocation. I reported this via email to my mom, who was unsurprised. She found her notes on my first trip to NYC when I was 2 years old. Apparently, I took to the city as much as my progeny.

Once back at our base of operations, we sat around the kitchen table downloading the day’s events. Commenting on The Small Social Butterfly, Ian said, in his usual quiet way, “He gets it from me,” to which Cousin Rob, a fan of the driest humor, replied “That may be the funniest thing you’ve ever said.” I tend to agree.

Per usual, I was asked directions, and even was able to give reasonable advice. It thrills me to no end that everywhere I’ve ever been, someone has considered me either a native, or close enough to have relevant local information.

We hit Boston on the most stunning of days, a bright 70 degrees in January. Ian nearly decided he could manage a Boston winter, but was reminded that the experience we were under was a rarity when the cold wind returned later in our visit.

We did marvelous things in Cambridge, including visiting the MIT museum so that Eldest Wee Cousin could give the heart that he made to Kismet. Wee Cousin was concerned that Kismet didn’t have a heart nor did it have entertainment while the museum is closed, so he also made for it a sculpture. The docent was fantastic and truly presented the robot with the gifts with sweet grace. Robots are cool, but I was far more taken with the Gestural Engineering exhibition. There will be flickring of that as well.

For the record, Benjamin has now enjoyed trains, subways, taxis, planes, buses, and even took a river boat ride with my mom awhile back. He is mobile in so many ways, between all the public transit and the fact that he really can approximate a crawl. He can without a doubt heave and squirm his way across any surface, and gets closer to creeping every day. He also officially cut his first tooth.

It was a fantastic trip.

It is so good to be home.

Filed by joy at 11:29 am under baby, travels
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It’s off to a grand start. I didn’t end up sitting in dogshit and I’m not pregnant. That’s pretty good, especially considering my ass was planted on my own living room couch, thankfully shit-free.

All that good stuff said, I’m wearing the same jeans as last New Year’s. I think my only resolution is to not wear them for next year’s.

Filed by joy at 12:14 am under life
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