Dog Pancake

This was my Facebook update today:

Dear Friends,

It’s four months to the next election, and there are a lot of bruising political fights ahead. Some of us will be duking out our ideas here. If you post ideas I disagree with, I’m probably going to say so. You’re invited to do the same with me. I’ll ask you to support your positions with evidence, and I’ll expect you to expect the same from me. If you don’t have a solid reason for supporting something, you just feel it’s right in your gut, just say so, but admit that that’s the case instead of getting angry or changing the subject, but I’d suggest that you dig a little deeper and question your own motivations for taking that stance, as I will with mine. I’ll listen to you. Listen to me. Bottom line: what I care about is that the country most of us live in and that we’re raising our children in is a better place for all of them. Not just mine, yours too.

Here’s what I believe will make our country strong: I believe in public service, and I believe that the people working it deserve to be fairly compensated: teachers, firefighters, police, the military, librarians, sanitation workers, bus drivers, etc. We need them and we need them to be able to do their work well so our cities can function and be safe and have a future. I believe we need strong public unions that protect both their workers *and* the public they serve. I believe that in order to keep these institutions strong, I should pay taxes, and so should you. I also believe I should pay taxes to pay for research that can lead to new innovations and discoveries in medicine, engineering, science, education, social science, history…

I have never been opposed to anyone using their ingenuity or their hard work to amass a fortune. I’m not even against their children inheriting said fortune. I am against those with mass wealth using said wealth to twist the political system to their advantage and to the disadvantage of all that which makes their institutions and industries possible in the first place – government-funded innovations, publicly-educated workers, passable roads and waterways, clean air and water, security from police, low-interest government-backed loans, and so on.

I believe that everyone should have access to health care. I believe that businesses should not be in the business of providing health care insurance for their workers, as it’s a drain on resources and a huge cost of doing business. I think the best solution to our health care crisis is a single-payer system, and I would happily pay my share of taxes to make it happen for all Americans. I believe that women should have the right to determine their own reproductive future, and all that that entails. I believe that the unwanted pregnancy rate will go down if we start taking better care of women in the first place, from good, evidence-based (not abstinence-based) sex education to access to birth control to prenatal care and counseling. I believe that the decision to terminate a pregnancy should rest entirely with the woman and her doctor.

I believe that everyone should have access to education. I think our communities are strongest with excellent, neighborhood-centered public schools, and I believe that strong communities beget strong states beget a strong country, i.e. that strong public schools will trickle up to make a more united country. I believe that critical thinking needs to be foremost in schools, and that a good science education is one of the best ways to teach it. Evolution is part of a science education. Intelligent design is not science and should not be taught as such. I believe the evidence that strongly suggests that the rise in greenhouse gases is human-caused. I think that the more that can be done to stem the flow of greenhouse gases, the better.

I believe in freedom to practice religion in the original sense of the concept. That doesn’t mean freedom to make everyone else practice *your* religion. I’m nominally Christian, which means that I believe in my heart that Jesus had the right idea, but I don’t necessarily believe that he’s going to return and take us to Heaven. Or that there is a Heaven, or a Hell. I don’t believe that Jesus wants us to judge people for being gay or not from this country or faithful to another religion or poor. I believe that people who think we should be able to prove God’s existence in order to believe it are missing the point, because faith in itself is beautiful and inspires the faithful to live with more humanity. I also think you can be a beautiful, compassionate person without a professed faith in a higher power.

I believe that people should be allowed to love who they love in peace and without judgement from others, and that consenting adults should be allowed to marry each other, regardless of their sex.

I’m pretty liberal. I’m pretty open to new ideas. I think Hilary would have made a way better president than Obama, but he pushes for more legislation that I want than that I don’t want, while Romney stands for so many things I’m against, so I guess you know how I’ll be voting. I think people have a right to keep their voting choices private, but there, I’ve shared mine with you.

Let the political argument season begin!

This post is here so it hasn’t been a whole year since I last posted. Although some of the filler ones are pretty sad. This has to be a new low, though!

Jack: Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Potato sandwich!

Me: Potato sandwich who?

Jack: Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Potato sandwich!

Me: Potato sandwich who?

Jack: Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Potato sandwich!

Me: Potato sandwich who?

Jack: Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Banana!

Me: Banana who?

Jack: Aren’t you glad I didn’t say potato sandwich?

Me: No, Jack, you’re supposed to say “Orange,” not “banana.”

Jack: OK. Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Orange.

Me: Orange who?

Jack: Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Orange.

Me: Orange who?

Jack: Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Orange.

Me: Orange who?

Jack: Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Jack: Banana.

Me: Banana who?

Jack: Aren’t you glad I didn’t say “Orange?” Do you get it?

Me: No, Jack, you’re supposed to start with “Banana,” and then say “Orange.” Its “Orange you glad?”

Hannah: My turn! Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Hannah: Banana!

Me: Banana who?

Hannah:Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Hannah: Banana!

Me: Banana who?

Hannah:Knock knock!

Me: Who’s there?

Hannah: Banana!

Me: Banana who?

Hannah: Knock knock

Me: Who’s there?

Hannah: Orange!

Me: Orange who?

Hannah: Banana you glad I didn’t say “Orange?”

I give up!

Day 4 of meme: My favorite book

If I go by those that I’ve read the greatest number of times, it would be these:

I loved it so much I went and found a first edition of it. I love Francie as if I know her.

My copy was purchased in the gift shop of Green Gables itself on a trip to Prince Edward Island when I was 11. (Years later, Pat and I visited the house of seven gables in Salem, MA, so I bought a copy of that book at that gift shop, thinking I’d make a collection of gable books bought at gable houses. I don’t love The House of the Seven Gables the way I love Anne, though.)

I was reading this book when I was in labor with Jack. He came out a gentle soul. Ironically, as many times as I’ve read this book, I only picked up the sequel a few years ago. It’s nice that things worked out between her and Gilbert Blythe, but the first installment in the series really is the best.

A few years ago on a trip to Vermont, we drove to the town where Dorothy Canfield was living when she wrote this book. I went to the town hall and found some very nice people who helped me figure out where to find the farmhouse on which she based the Putnam cousin’s home, and we went and looked at it. It wasn’t like I’d pictured in all the times I’d read it, but it wasn’t disappointing, either. Dr. Canfield brought Montessori to the US, and the book is infused with its principles. Whenever I make myself make the kids do something they’re ready for but a little scared to do, I think of little Elizabeth Ann being sent out the door with a sugar cookie in one mittened hand, tasked to walk a miles down an unfamiliar road and find her new school all by herself.

If you’ve read all these books, too, you might be seeing a theme here: all about 11 year old girls, two of them orphans who don’t even remember their parents and the third who loses her father during the course of the story; all have wildly useful imaginations that they combine with stubborn determination to make their lives work for them.

What is it about 11 year old girls that makes such good literature? Is it that girls that age still operate on magical thinking? Is it because the world sees them as young ladies already but they haven’t quite realized it yet? Or the opposite? All of these books take place between 1900 and 1915 (and two were written then as well – Anne (1908) and Betsy (1917)), but I could still relate to them in the early 80s, even without having experienced their hardships. I guess I liked to think that if I were in their circumstances, I’d have the sand they did.

Day 3 of Meme-time.

My favorite musician… I guess I’d have to say my mom, because she’s taught me why music is beautiful.

Hearing the piece below brings back the strongest memories of sitting in our living room listening to my mom and my uncle, a clarinetist, play it. It’s the dearest of all music to me:

Attack of the meme day 2:

Favorite Movie:

Unforgiven

I have a soft spot for Clint Eastwood Westerns, and this is his best.  “You take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.” Shiver!

Right after this, you see him turn back into evil Will Munny as soon as he takes a swig of that whiskey. Best scene in a Western ever.

A River Runs Through It

Yeah, Brad Pitt, yada yada. I love this movie because my grandfather was born and raised in Missoula at about the same time Norm Maclean was. Grandpa wasn’t so much into fly fishing (although he could catch a heckofa perch or salmon), but there’s no doubt he loved Montana just as much. Forward to 1:48 to see the beginning of the part that makes me cry every! single! time!

OK I’ll do another meme, if only to get myself writing again! See here for the list – it’s the attack of the month-long meme!

Meme 1 – My Favorite Actor:

Katharine Hepburn

How utterly boring of someone who went to her college to choose her. Is it because every May Day we watched Philadelphia Story in Thomas Great Hall? Is it the Bryn Mawr accent? (Which, I might add, they were not teaching by the time I got there. Probably for the best, as it induces TMJ in the weak-jawed) Is it the pants in a skirt age? Probably none of those things. I think I love Katharine because she can do this:

It’s almost birthday season over here. Here’s Hannah’s list:

• A pink dress
• Black shoes with flowers on them
• A pink headband
• A purse

Hannah, wouldn’t you like a bike?

• Oh yes, a bike, I want a pink one.

Well, so much for passing her brother’s rusty green one on to her. Which still has training wheels on it, because Jack decided a year ago that he was going to be six before he learned to ride without them. He turns six the same time Hannah turns four, but a new bicycle is not on his list.

This is his list:

• A robot dog that flips backwards
• A robot that moves its arms like this <makes robot arm movements><not 80’s poppin’ robot movements, but unbent elbow, back and forth I am a robot robot movements>
• A How to Train Your Dragon dragon that flies with a remote (That sounds awesome, I want one, too)

Pat and I each have bikes. Mine was resurrected from my parent’s garage in New Mexico about a year ago, where it had sat untouched for about 20 years, since I went off to college. A few new brakepads, some new tires, and my 1983 blue Fuji was as good as it was the day I got it for my 13th birthday.  I spent a lot of happy and – in teenagerhood – angry hours on that bike. When I had energy to expend, I’d get on it and ride down to the University of New Mexico where a concrete bike path started that you could take almost all the way up to the mountains. I’d just put some New Order or some Cure or some UB40 into the walkman and off I’d go.

The bike that preceded it was my first 10-speed, and what an awesome day it was to climb on that yellow Sears Free Spirit – wobbling a bit as I got used to hand brakes and dropped handle bars – and go show off to my friend across the street who had 10 Izod shirts to my one, but still rode a bike with a banana seat. At the time, we lived in a small town in Ohio, and that bike was freedom. Freedom for me to go see friends who lived far away, freedom for my parents, who didn’t have to drive me to piano lessons or clarinet lessons or soccer practice or bell choir anymore.

The bike I had most recently, before the Fuji came back into my life, started off in a wonderful way, but has become rather a sad tale. Just after college I dated a guy who loved to mountain bike, and I discovered that I did, too, so I spent a few weeks test riding bikes all over town and finally settled on a mid-range burgundy Jamis Explorer with Cro-moly this and blah-di-blah forks that and a nice wide cushy gel seat for my female posterior. I spent a happy year rock-hopping before I moved to California – 3 miles from some great mountains, I might add – and I never mountain biked again. Occasionally I’d take my poor, sad little bike out for a jaunt, but I was always so depressed at how sore I was after not expending much effort, that it mostly sat abandoned in whatever storage space I could secure for it. Then we moved to this house, which has no garage, and the faithful Jamis was relegated to the dog run where – <gulp> the dog peed on it until the rims disintegrated. And now it’s just a very nice frame and a rusty chain, still in the dog run, although, to my credit, now protected by a piece of sheet metal. About 7 years too late.

The best bike, of course, is that first one. I remember everything about it. My dad and I were at the Flea Market. It was 1975 and we’d just moved to Albuquerque. I was five. My dad offered the lady $5 for it, and she sold it to him. It was blue and it would fit right in with the stylish retro beach cruisers people love so much today, although at the time it looked a little out of place next to the chopper handles and banana seats and handle bar streamers so de rigeur with the other girls. I didn’t care – my first bike was awesome. Insert here happy memory of that first moment my dad let go and I didn’t fall over. Freedom!

Hannah may not remember getting her first bike, but I hope some day she’ll remember the bikes of her life, from those tottery first moments without the stability of training wheels to the joys of hearing your own kids squeal with joy when they do it.

Tomorrow I’ll look longingly at the rain-greened mountains I drive past on my way to spend the day inside a gray cubicle, which is why today I told Pat that we must go for a hike through Eaton Canyon. Most of the year – and for the last several drought-stricken years, even during the “wet” season – hikers trip through the rocks in the dry riverbed and the kids must be discouraged from dragging sticks through the fine dust as they run ahead on the trail. Today, however, the canyon walls were verdant with fresh grass and the path was damp enough for Hannah to mark X on spots of treasure with her stick, and only the largest of the river rocks poked out of the rushing stream.

The dream of a hike through green hills is one thing, and the reality of it is quite another, and the reality involves crossing that romantically-imagined rushing stream approximately 57 times, trying to balance on those pokey-out river rocks while your ill-trained dog tugs you in one direction and your son, trying to follow your footsteps on those slippery pokey-out rocks, pulls you in the other, and you just pray that you and your camera don’t end up in the drink. And then it starts raining.

But it’s all worth it, because at the top is a beautiful waterfall, made all the more wonderful when the sun came out and lit up the raindrops that continued to fall for several more minutes. We sat under a live oak and ate crackers and apple slices and cheese and granola bars while the dog shivered in his sandy, wet fur.

On the way down, Jack started to complain because we promised him more playtime in the streambed, but Hannah was tired and we were sore from carrying her, and it looked like it was going to rain some more, so we told Jack that there wasn’t time for more play, and he sulked and said he never gets to do anything he likes. I gave him a lecture about enjoying the things one has instead of spending one’s life bemoaning what one doesn’t have, and then I spent a minute sulking that I have a five year old who isn’t enjoying a beautiful day out with his family. Eventually the irony caught up with me, and I laughed at myself and told Jack that whatever he wishes he had, I was glad to be there with him and lucky that he’s my boy.

When I think “bottle,” I think about going back to work after having my babies. I think of lugging an industrial-sized hospital-grade pump to the office every day, setting it in some vacant room (I’m all for public nursing, but pumping in my cubicle in an office populated predominately male engineers seemed to be taking it a bit far), taping a sign to the door – “pumping! :)” – and then tapping away at my laptop for 30-45 minutes, trying not to feel like a barn animal.

And it turns out that if I had been a dairy cow, I’d have been in an Alpo can pretty quick. My nursing friends with their freezers full of milk and their refrigerator bags filled with full 8 ounce bottles when they went home each day – feh! I was lucky to get 3 ounces total the whole day. Moo.

Jack somehow managed to make it to solid foods without needing more than I could provide, but I never really flowed. When Hannah came along, I redoubled my efforts – I pumped from day one! I took the herbs! I drank the beer! (OK that might have been partly for me) I woke her up and nursed her when I’d rather have let her sleep, just to get that milk flowing! But it was not to be. Just as she reached six months, I could tell she wasn’t getting enough from me, and with great sadness I mixed up a bottle of formula and put it in her mouth. She sucked that bottle down in about 10 seconds flat, and sadness turned to amusement at how happy she was, and relief that, well, at least there’s *something* I can give her.

Perhaps because the breastfeeding pendulum has swung so far back toward “going natural” since my mom’s generation, when she was breastfeeding me against social norms, the formula moms of my acquaintance often seem defensive when they first tell a friend why they’re not breastfeeding. “How’s the baby?” you ask. And they reply, “I had mastitis and I couldn’t nurse for a week!” or “I saw 3 lactation consultants but I couldn’t get him to latch!” or “They gave me this contraption, but after a week I still couldn’t figure out how it worked, so I threw it against the wall and made the baby a bottle.” They only seem to relax and recognize that I’m not going to judge them when I tell them that I fought my formula demons to no avail, and Hannah seems none the worse for it.

There’s always some element of these confessionals, though, that feels as if we’re sharing dirty secrets. Why should that be? We all just want our babies to go to bed without crummies in tummies, you know.