Orange Update

Wedding wedding and more wedding....

2011-07-01T18:24:00.000-04:00

It's all about the wedding about now. I'm enjoying it, and Scott and I seem to be on top of things, so I'm not overly stressed. But there is this tense little person in the back of my head screaming "It's only THREE MONTHS AWAY!!!" Yikes...

But I had my bridal shower at Kathi's two weeks ago, and it was *awesome*! See details on the wedding blog at www.scottandlara.com.

My birthday was two days ago, and it was really nice. I tell ya there's nothing like Facebook on your birthday! I don't know how many people actually said Happy Birthday or some variant, but I felt flooded with love! Scott got me new snorkeling gear for my birthday, mom got me clothes, and my sister got me this *awesome* little kit for writing thank you notes! I'm *totally* prepared for sending wedding oriented thank you notes now!

Scott and I are about to go see a friend of ours play a concert in the cool outdoor stage shell in the city park right behind our house. It's a beautiful day in suburbia!

Yummy Tasting at Biltmore!

2011-05-11T20:02:00.000-04:00

We had a great time at Biltmore this weekend at our official Tasting! The food was magnificent and the service was outstanding. We had Scott's parents along and we all had a great time! This is definitely one of the highlights of wedding planning!

We're struggling a little with the registries. There's a glitch in the system at Macy's that making it difficult to sync it with the registry360.com compiler we're trying to use.

Work continues to be hard but good. My weight loss is stagnant, but I love my yoga class and Zumba class. Happiness is a good yoga mat and new sneakers. ;)
--Lara

Back from Hawaii

2011-04-27T18:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back - have been for about 10 days. The trip back was only unpleasant in that my flight from Chicago to Raleigh was canceled and I had to wait another bunch of hours for the next one.

It was a great trip in that I did a lot of good work, I bonded with my Hawaiian teammates, and I got in just enough touristing for it to be fun.

Now I'm back in the swing of things at home. This past weekend Scott and I spent the weekend in DC. We did some cleanup/rearranging of furniture in the apartment, went shopping at IKEA, and spent time with Lisa and Mona. Lisa's got a new man in her life! We got to meet him! His name is John and he's a doll. He's an academic sort, kindof soft spoken, and very sweet. Mona likes him too, which is key.

Wedding planning is going well. We're a little less ahead of the game than I'd like to be since we lost a month to me being in Hawaii. We're reading lots of books on ceremonies since we'll be writing our own from scratch with the help of our officiant, my chosen Aunt Michelle. We did get almost all of the work done on the registries, and I'm glad that's over with. It's really hard to get used to the idea of asking for *stuff*. I know the usefulness of registries, but it took some getting used to. Scott and I picked out a set of beautiful towels for each of two bathrooms we have, and for those of you who remember my issues around towels, we can safely say I now have resolution. ;)

I hope anyone who's reading this knows about our wedding web site "www.scottandlara.com"! We put all the info there about hotels and stuff that the guests would want to know. Keep watch there!

I gotta go to my Zumba class now. The Bridal Diet continues!

Just two days left...

2011-04-14T04:07:00.000-04:00

It's late Wednesday night, and I'm leaving on Friday afternoon. I'll miss Hawaii a lot, but I'll also be glad to get home and spend some time with my honey. Here are some kindof random things I want to remember about Hawaii:
--There seem to be an equal amount of American tourists and Japanese tourists here. Everything is printed in both English and Japanese.
--The Japanese women have a strange kind of fashion sense that includes an odd way of layering their clothes that I would never have thought of.
--There are *just* Hawaiian license plates on cars here unlike Washington DC where every state is represented. I did see ONE license plate from Arizona. I took a picture of it to remember it.
--My hotel staff is really really nice. I adore the way many of them have come to know me and call me "Miss Coutinho." Most of them even pronounce it correctly!
--I *love* the breakfast buffet here. I think I'll miss it as much as I'll miss the ocean view out my window.
--Traffic here is bad during rush hour, but it's nothing compared to DC. Their rush hour is just about two hours long and the traffic still moves just slowly. Compared to DC where the beltway can be a parking lot and stay that way for a few hours.
--I haven't been able to spend much time at the beach while the sun is up, but I've been able to walk on the beach at night. There are a lot of tiki torches all along the sidewalks here. I love the way they look, but I'm amazed no one's playing with them and causing law suits.
--I've gotten to see a lot of hula dancing, and there's a little stage on the beach that I can see from my room. I can see the hula shows from my balcony!
--Buying stamps for postcards became a real trial. At first my hotel's front desk didn't have enough for the enormous stack of post cards I had, so they sent me to the drug store near the lobby, ... lets just say it was a wild goose chase but I finally got stamps and the postcards are in the mail!
--I have eaten way too much food while I've been here. Way too much. I'm not looking forward to Weight Watchers weigh in. I have eaten a world of sushi and as much fresh fish as one could see in the Little Mermaid's chorus line. I have to say that I think Honolulu is the United States capital for sushi. Maybe it's because of the huge Japanese tourist trade here. Whyever it is, I'm grateful it is because I've had some *really* awesome sushi. I had one called "Waikiki Roll" that had pineapple and macadamia nuts in it! Where else are you going to get such a thing!?
--I haven't read much of my Hawaii tourist books. Apparently extroverts don't need them as much in Hawaii. People here are so friendly you can actually trust what they tell you!

--I'm really going to miss Hawaii.

I have no idea what day it is...

2011-04-13T02:18:00.000-04:00

Wow, I'm exhausted, but I'm taking some time to update this thing.

Last Tuesday I had my one day off in 10 days and I spent it at the Polynesian Cultural Center, and it was one of the best days ever! The weather was warm and not hot, the center was full of dance and music, and I ate really well! The PCC is a park, not unlike Disneyland, where there are 6 neighborhoods that display the buildings, music, art, dance, games, and any other culture they can stick in there, of 6 of the island nations in Polynesia! It's beautiful! The islands are: Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti! It was amazing!

The rest of the week was the same long work days and coming back to the hotel to eat and crash. I keep meaning to get online and write, but I keep choosing to sleep when I get back from dinner. I'm exhausted, but it's still going well.

This past weekend I actually had the whole weekend off! I went hiking up Diamond Head crater, did some work, went snorkling at Hanauma Bay, and spent a good part of Sunday lounging by the pool reading a book. Bliss! Ok, well, it would have been bliss if the pineapple juice I was served would have been fresh squeezed. I've become a pineapple snob.

I finally got all my post cards written and addressed, and I'm about to take them down to the front desk to mail them. If anyone reading this wants a postcard, I'm more than happy to send one! Just leave a comment on this blog and I'll email you to get your address if I don't already have it.

I wanted to mention that this area around my hotel is *beautiful*. I may complain about being tired, but the beach, coconut trees, ocean, and tiki torches on the sidewalk are a lovely thing to come "home" to at the end of a day. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. ;)

Ok, I've got to get some food. My last day here is Friday, so I'm nearly done with my adventure!

Day 7 in Honolulu - Monday

2011-04-05T03:43:00.002-04:00

I’m very sleepy, but I’m going to make my blog post before I fall asleep damnit. Determination. Grr.

I had a kindof hard day at work. Lots going on and not enough hours in the day to make it all happen. I do, however, have my *one* day off tomorrow! And god bless the concierge – I love that woman! She had lots of very quick and easy answers for my tourism needs. Now, I’ve been asking around what I should do with my little tourist time, and I now have a plan that will get me the best bang for my buck. First, tomorrow, I will go to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It’s a day trip where I get a bus from my hotel and it takes me and the rest of the tourists up to the North Shore of Oahu. There is a kindof living museum with interpreters showing six different kinds of Polynesian villages. Think Conner Prairie but x6 and in the tropics. Then there’s an IMAX movie, a luau, and a dance show! I decided to get the super premium package for the day that is costing me $140, but that includes all the food, transportation, and entertainment for the day. I’m very excited to see this place!

So, that’s what I’m going to do tomorrow, and I may not have energy to write a blog post when I get back – about midnight. So, y’all may have to wait another day to get the full report.

The wonderful concierge also helped me figure out what I’m doing this weekend – snorkeling! There is a really great bay nearby here, and there’s a package I can get with transportation from the hotel and snorkeling gear rental for $18! Not bad! That will be Saturday’s excursion I think. Sometime this weekend I think I’ll hike up and around Diamond Head, and then after that I’m planting my butt on the beach and forcing myself to be a slug for a day.

So, I <3 my concierge and I’m going to finally get to be a tourist while in Hawaii! Yea!

Day 6 in Honolulu

2011-04-04T05:10:00.000-04:00

Today was much easier than the rest of the week has been. I'm pretty sure the jet lag has been ebbing away and I'm getting less tired as time passes. I'm also not eating like a pig as much as I was. That breakfast buffet they have in this hotel is like *heaven* to someone who loves breakfast food like I do - or hell for a weight watcher like me. *sigh* I'm getting better about saying No to the scones, but I refuse to deny myself the amazing fresh pineapple juice! Fresh pineapple is just so damn awesome! The last time I had this kind of pineapple was in Costa Rica during my study abroad semester in 1994. So, points be damned, I'm having the pineapple juice.

Today I went to the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor. It was amazing. It's that kind of sad sort of amazing you sense at memorials. The sheer size of the Arizona was enough to impress me, but seeing the portion that had been blown away gave it all a spooky realism. I also "enjoyed" the museum. It gave a much more detailed picture of pre-World War 2 and how the Pearl Harbor attack came to be than I'd ever heard before. A lot like my trip to Gettysburg long ago teaching me more about the Civil War than I'd gotten in any class.

So, I bought a bunch of post cards that I hope to send before leaving Hawaii. One of the cool things in the gift shop was a whole section dedicated to Rosie the Riveter! I got a magnet. I used to not like the image, but it's grown on me in recent years.

After the Pearl Harbor visit, I went to have dinner with Scott's Aunt Susan, Uncle John, and Cousin Jonathan! That was great! I have pictures up on Facebook. They took me to an amazing restaurant that's on a large deck on the beach where there are three long flat topped trees providing a little roof over the eating area! It was beautiful! The dinner was also amazing. I had the Mahimahi in something garlic with crab topping. I'm trying to eat a lot of fish while I'm here. Think global, eat local, right?

Susan was *so* damn sweet! She *made* a lei for me out of flowers from her own back yard! It was so lovely and made me feel like a queen! I doubt I'll be able to bring it back with me, so I just have to love it in the moment.

Now, I'm sleepy and about to get into bed. I think I'll sleep with the balcony door open so I can hear the ocean as I drift off to sleep. Much better than the CD recording I have of the ocean at home. The real thing is much better. Just like the pineapple juice. ;)

Days 1-5 in Honolulu

2011-04-03T04:26:00.000-04:00

Sorry, Mom, I haven't posted til now. I've been swamped with work.

Day 1 - Tuesday: I got to the hotel safely and all's well. I got a partial-ocean view room! Had dinner with my direct boss Jason and our team boss Brandon. Brandon's the local and took us to a great little bar where we met some of his computer geek/surfer friends. Really nice guys. I had a burger that was about three times too big for me. That was the beginning of the end of my hopes for keeping on Weight Watchers while I'm here. I stayed up as long as I could and finally crashed at about 10:00. My body thought it was 4:00am. It wasn't pleased with me, but it obeyed.

Day 2 - Wednesday: First day at work - sortof. I spent my first day getting badges and secret codes and handshakes. All the stuff you need to work in a super secret squirrel location. I got very lucky and got my new CAC (military all access card) likity split without having to wait in line or wait for the guy to process it. It was just like the time I got my name and arms passed immediately that one year at Pennsic. I got back to the hotel and was too tired to go adventuring to find dinner, so I ate at the nice restaurant in the hotel. It's called "Caio Mein" and it's a combo of Italian and Chinese food. Haha!! So, I ate at the bar by myself and naturally befriended the bartender. I gave him some pointers for his dream vacation to DC. After dinner I crashed hard.

Day 3 Thursday: First day of actually doing work: It was an intense day of getting down to business after I met all my teammates in person for the first time. But I have to say I wish I could stay here - not for the weather, but for the sake of working with these people. They're just the best team I've ever had the pleasure of working with! These guys are smart, high energy, and no one has drama issues. The team works really well together, and I'm lucky to be a part of it. This was a hard day tho since it was 13 hours long. I came back to the hotel and didn't even eat dinner. I just passed out on the bed, woke up 4 hours later, got into PJs and then slept the rest of my few hours before getting up to do it again.

Day 4 Friday: This was just a regular working day of 9 hours to my great relief. By now I've made friends with another guy on my team who's staying at my hotel. He's a sys admin that's been hired to help out short term. He's from Baltimore and used to live in DC, so we have a lot in common. We went to dinner together at a cute touristy place called "The Hula Grill" and had a perfectly touristy Hawaiian evening. I drank a froufy cocktail with a pink umbrella on top, we ate the awesome fish special, there was a music act with guitar and ukulele playing during our dinner, and they also brought out a hula dancer! We ate at the bar which was near the open air deck that had burning tiki torches. It was a perfect Hawaii scene! Again, however, I got back to the hotel and crashed hard.

Day 5 Saturday: It's a little easier today. It's the weekend, and we need to have coverage at the office, so myself and another teammate worked a regular day today. Now, since my luck has been so good on this trip, it shouldn't surprise me that one hour before the end of my shift, my team boss called in with some immediate tasks for us to do that couldn't wait until tomorrow. So, I worked an hour later and didn't get back to the hotel in time to catch any beach time with sun. I got to walk on the beach at sunset - which was beautiful! I finally made contact with Scott's Aunt Susan, and I'll have dinner with her tomorrow after work.

I had dinner tonight at this awesome little sushi dive called Morio's. This is the coolest little shop! The owner/chef stands at his station and makes sushi for the *7* people that fit into his shop. That's it! 7! There were a few tables outside, but they only sat another 4-8 people. And the waiting list on this place was *long*! I was lucky in that I was just one person, so I took the last lonely little seat at the end of the table. It was everything it should be tho - really fresh and soft and full of flavor! It's how sushi should be, and I was thrilled. I was even more amazed when I got the bill and it was just $15! It was a great little dinner.

So, now I'm finally updating my blog and I will very soon be crashing. Tomorrow should be an easier day since I'll be working a regular shift and seeing Scott's aunt and uncle for dinner. A nice mellow day. Wish me luck!

I'm going to Hawaii - for work.

2011-03-28T23:32:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm going to Hawaii on a business trip! The project I'm on has the main team in Hawaii, and I've been asked to come out and help them at Home Base. That Home Base is Camp Smith on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor next to Honolulu. I'll most likely get to visit Scott's aunt, uncle, and cousin who live in Honolulu, and maybe do something touristy on my one day off.

I promised my mom I'd post to this here blog regularly so she could keep up with my adventures. So for mom and the rest of my beloved support network... wish me luck!

Work, wedding, work, wedding, drive, clean house, drive, work, repeat.

2010-10-07T11:35:00.000-04:00

Things are going well on the home front. Scott and I are about to sign a contract for our wedding site and date, but I want to wait for the official contract signing before I publish to the world where and when it'll be. We are, however, confident that the event will be quite awesome.

I'm tired most of the time, worried about work all the time, and now I'm actually exercising some of the time. I broke down and got a gym membership at a gym that happens to sit right in between my office and my apartment in Alexandria. No excuses for not going. But I was thinking of my beloved Kelly a lot last night as I took my first yoga class at the gym. I was certainly the most fat, inflexible, unbalanced person in the room, but I tell ya I *did* do my breathing, did *not* hurt myself, and I got through the whole class! My goals now will be situated somewhere between the beautiful bending tree that was our instructor and the cream puff blob I am today. progress will be made. Damnit.

I also got to attend a dinner and conference for the Women In Defense professional association this week! It was amazing! One of the panels had 2 Admirals and one TWO star General...that were women!! There are apparently only about 30 Generals in our US Army and about the same number of Admirals... and we got three of them to come talk to us about how to be amazing! It was very inspiring.

I also got to see my beloved old boss Tamera! She's the one that believed in me and moved me from Indy out here to DC five years ago. It was so damn awesome to see her again. Very heartwarming and inspiring. Reminded me that the jerks I see every day that make me feel like I'm useless and worthless are just jerks and it's my job to just not buy into the message. What's that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt? "No one can make you feel bad about yourself without your permission." Was it ER? If anyone wants to correct me, there's a comment box at the bottom of this post.

AW, my job with APAN continues, my love for http://movebeyondgreen.com continues although I don't get to do billable work for them anymore, and my year of wedding planning has taken off like a rocket.

Wish me luck.

Summer hell at work, moving, new gig at work, Alan's 5th death anniversary, and Pennsic

2010-08-28T09:29:00.000-04:00

Life’s been hard these past few months. Remember that great web page I got to do at work, http://movebeyondgreen.com? Well, it’s still the greatest web page there ever was, but maintaining its greatness has been a lot of very hard work. Also, naturally, there’s never enough money to pay for our time in contracting, so I had to cram a lot of work into too few hours. That kind of situation creates intensity which breeds great stress. It is good work, and dear lord I still appreciate the opportunity to work on such a great project, I’m just recognizing how hard it’s been.

I’ve also had other work. MBG only paid for 20% of my time, so the rest was filled with the Great Crystal Reports Adventure and a few other small data management gigs. The Great Crystal Reports Adventure is the gig I’ve had since last summer to learn this new data reporting software, “Crystal Reports”, and somehow translate nine old reports from this antiquated version of PowerBuilder into CR. The hitch is that I was completely on my own. The folks that I was working for had just a tiny bit of time to help me, so I had to figure out a lot of problems on my own. Naturally, that kind of challenge created great self-confidence and pride, and a deep understanding of the CR program. So, I’m feeling very proud of myself on this one, but also very tired.

So, imagine if you will, a time when budgets are evaluated, time allowances are reallotted, and a new set of circumstances changes my world from comfortable and well managed to that intense stress I was talking about before. That time was the second week of May. From the second week of May until the first week of August, my life was a complete hell. Scratch that… I know what hell is, and this was not it. This was just a portion of my life that was intense stress. I keep having to remind myself of this. No one was dying, my loved ones were all perfectly healthy and disease-free, and I had enough money in my pocket to take care of myself. The hell came from work stress and from the fact that since November, Scott and I have been moving me from Fairfax to Raleigh.

This move has just now been settling down into something reasonable where we can be comfortable in the house. It’s taken nine months to move me from the Fairfax apartment, to a temporary oasis at my friend Cheri’s house, to finally moving into a cute little studio apartment 2 miles from my office *AND* into Scott’s house in Raleigh. Establishing this weekly commuter lifestyle has been hard, but boy howdy it has been worth it. Now that I’m settled, I am *loving* this weekly commute lifestyle! I get to have both my worlds – work in DC and home life in Raleigh with Scott. The drive is a pain, but it’s really just the escape from DC on Thursday evenings that’s a bitch. Anyone who’s been here will agree, the stretch of road on I95 on the south side of DC from the beltway down to past Quantico is like passing through a gauntlet of hell. There’s always an accident or hellish traffic or both. It usually adds a whole hour to my drive making it 6 hours instead of 5. Bleh!

So, for May, June, and July, moving and work have been hell, but of the death and disease free versions. My birthday was a royal *bitch,* but a reminder how much I love my friends. I had the worst day at work since I came to DC. So, I had a bad day that I just can't talk about in public on my birthday as I was trying to organize a birthday dinner for myself. Scott took me to my favorite restaurant the Saturday beforehand, but I wanted something nice for myself on the day of my birthday. (Now that I think of it, I should have just taken the day off.) The good news here is that my friends really came through for me, and eleven of them showed up at Maggiano’s for my birthday dinner! I felt really loved and supported for those few hours. I probably kept me from digging myself further into that hole of work hell.

So, my birthday was hell with a bit of bliss in the end, summer was hell but with no death or disease, and this brings us to the actual happy ending of the chapter. Remember how much I love my http://movebeyondgreen.com project? Well, I am now a happy member of a new team doing the same kind of thing, but on STEROIDS!! I am now working for APAN, the All Partners Access Network, a web page for setting up working groups with all the social media tools, blogs, wikis, forums, chat, etc. Our client is a military entity that’s *big*, so I’m pretty sure I’ll have enough funding to keep me out of that intense stress situation I’ve had all summer. Please do go check out http://community.apan.org and let me know what you think! My mission is to help them develop communities and train folks in how to use the system! How cool is that!? And it gets better…. They want to branch out into communities that will allow the military to reach out to non-military audiences…ones that are passionate about their work. Let me see… passionate communities of people who need to talk to the military… ENVIRONMENTALISTS!!! I have a massive plan to branch APAN into the world of environmental work in the military, and yes that includes the Cultural Resources community! All these folks I’ve worked with in my career supporting the military environmental world can now use this really awesome tool to communicate *across* the military and into the non-military world! “Stakeholder outreach” will have a whole new level with social media tools! I’m excited, but I’m also remembering that I was giddy with excitement when http://movebeyondgreen.com started, so I need to keep my head about me and plan carefully for time management.

I started with APAN on August 1, and I’m using August to transition out of http://movebeyondgreen.com. It’s not so bad because my main job was to design and build the web page, which I did so well I kind of worked myself out of a job. I can still create content and be a guest blogger so, keep watching http://movebeyondgreen.com for my brilliant articles!
Oh yes, and then there was Pennsic! Pennsic seems to be my own personal new year. It’s an intense physical time, and it’s an altered universe. So, this year’s Pennsic highlights include:
1) Sadly, my sister did not come, so that’s a lowlight
2) Many of my friends did come!
3) Francesca, Emil, Cerian, me, and a new friend from Oldcastle, Niccola, played Musica Subterranea music at the Casa Bardicci low-brow party on Sunday night – beautiful!!
4) At night, a friend in camp used his laser pointer to give us an astronomy lesson where I learned again where the summer triangle is (first time I learned was in college astronomy class)…
5) I chose to not to play in Who’s Line Doth It Be since I was exhausted by the heat and my brain just wasn’t in it. I auditioned, but told Midair to not put me in. I had a good time watching with Max and Gwendolyn and Noelle.
6) The Fool’s Parade was again a success, but since it was *SO* bloody hot, we were very low energy fools and I was just happy that no one passed out or got heat stroke. Another highlight was the magnificent Robyyan, beautiful Melonie, and one of their friends actually played pipe and tabor for us! Yes – we had music this year!! And Robyyan and Melonie are just wonderful people to be with in any setting.
7) Marvin helped out in Efenwalt and Aenor’s shop on Midnight Madness night – tho I think Marvin was less help than he actually could have been talking and schmoozing all night…
8) My commedia show with I Rosi Lioni was great! Remember Who’s Line Doth It Be? Well, one of the truly best people in the show was a guy named Tim who was just *HILLARIOUS*! I was lucky enough to get him to come play commedia with us as … you guessed it… Arlecchino! He’s tall, thin, juggles, and can do amazing physical comedy! How awesome is that!?! So, I had a *great* cast come play with me including Analeeda (CABBAGE!), Felice and her husband Michel, a friend of Caitlin’s who had just come off of playing *PETER PAN*!, my dear friends Celia and Erol from iScandali, my beloved Scott playing Dottore, and this amazing little girl, Rowan – the daughter of the magnificent Zof – playing the body guard! We put her in this hilarious huge bright pink gown but had her say in a deep, Italian, tough guy voice “You didn’t come to my pretty princess party!” and then proceed to break a lot of props including crushing a can upon her little head. This girl just *KILLED* me! Figuratively of course…
9) And the shining gem was Thursday night when we performed the iRosi Lioni show *3* times *PLUS* I played a Musica Subterranea gig right after! I did *FOUR* shows in one night! (Normally 2 would be a stretch.)
10) Another thing that happened on Thursday just about an hour before we had call for the show… That Thursday was August the 12th, the 5th anniversary of Alan’s death. I was handling the day just fine for most of it until one large brick smacked me in the face (figuratively)…. The Viking Boat. I’ve been hearing about this boat for *years* and yet I’ve never found it. It’s a wooden scaled down version of a Viking long ship. The folks that build it also make little wooden shields, and they let folks paint a shield and put it on the boat. The actual point of this boat is that it’s a funeral boat. Folks paint a shield for this boat in memory of a loved one who had died, and I swear I’ve been trying to find this dang boat project every year at Pennsic since Alan died, and I have not succeeded until this moment. No shit… there I was… in the marketplace giving a present to Niccola for working so hard to play with us on Sunday night… when I gave her a parting hug, I turned around, and *there* it was… the boat was on display off to the side of the main walkway. I went right up to a lady who looked like a host there, asked her if I could participate, and I proceeded to paint a shield for Alan while trying desperately to not cry my eyes out there in public. I managed to squeak out a “thanks” to the lady when I was done and I split. I walked away as fast as I could. On the walk back to camp I felt like I was so deep in grief I could just open up the earth and split the planet in half. But, naturally, when I got back to camp, Scott was there as his awesome self. I squeaked out “Viking boat” and he knew then why I was crying. Then as my friends started coming into camp to prepare for our iRosi Lioni show, I was crying but they were all right there for me. When I said that today was the 5th anniversary of Alan’s death, they were all full of hugs and love. It felt pretty damn good to go through that. Grief isn’t fun, but when you’ve got loved ones surrounding you, it’s healable.

So, now I’m working on APAN, tidying my home office a bit every weekend, and shopping for wedding venues with Scott. We’re still thinking that fall of 2011 will be the time to have the wedding. Maybe I’ll even make time to post to my blogs more than once a quarter. ;)

Wrenching my life back from the jaws of work hell

2010-08-01T17:15:00.000-04:00

1)Job
a) My job has been a roller coaster. Was hell, then heaven, then hell. It’s been real hell since May mostly because I didn’t know what new project I was going to roll onto after I finished the ones I’ve been on. The good news is that I did get a new project just in time. I bled and toiled many late hours to produce my final products on current projects, and I have to say, I’m rather impressed with myself. I created some really kick ass data bases and reports, and I helped people in really unique ways. I delivered on time and a tiny bit under budget. Everything that I could do to make my stuff great, I did, and it all turned out *really* great. I delivered by the end of the month deadline, and now I’m onto my wonderful new project.

b) “New Project?” I hear you cry? Yes, I’m about to enter the gates of occupational heaven again, but I’m wiser this time. The roller coaster of 2010 will not happen again by the hair on my chinny chin chin. Rose colored glasses are *off*, realism force fields are on, and jackass inhibitors are on full power. Want to know what this magical world-saving project is? Well, I’ll tell you…

c)The All Partners Access Network (APAN), http://community.apan.org, is a web page system built by some new friends of mine at Booz Allen. I fell in love with APAN when I first found it doing research for http://movebeyondgreen.com in February. It is a system where users can create their own online community within APAN using blogs, forums, wikis, profiles, chat rooms, and all the coolest features you can dream up! This system is an extremely robust tool for creating online communities, but not as limited as places like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. The users have many brushes to paint with, and they create their own product. (Number 1 coolest feature is a multilingual translating chat room!)

d)The amazing thing about APAN is who created it. Naturally, the coolest programmers at Booz Allen did the heavy lifting, but who paid for it? The US Military’s Combatant Command for the Pacific Region, “PACOM”! They then extended use of it to the Southern Command, SOUTHCOM, and they used it to coordinate relief efforts for Haiti! Since the military operates on all levels of security ranging from super secret squirrels to every day public people, APAN communities can establish whatever level of security the users need. A community can be built to do public outreach or strictly Top Secret (or higher) military missions. PACOM is now exploring ways to increase their return on investment by creating partnerships with other combatant commands like SOUTHCOM. And as they spread the wings of APAN further, what kind of staff are they going to need? Well, they’re going to need people who understand the technology behind the tools, have the communication skills necessary to reach the appropriate users, be capable of delivering training to users, understand the military culture, and are passionate about building communities of people! Sound like anyone you know!? :) So, this is a dream job and a shift in career. I won’t be doing traditional environmental work anymore, but I will be working within the environmental community to spread the use of APAN.

2)Scott & Moving
a)Life has also been unadulterated hell because I have been in a state of “moving” since December. Yep, for 8 months I put my sense of “home” on hold so Scott and I could morph my lifestyle into one where I can live with him in his house in Raleigh, NC and also keep my job that’s based in DC. The final product is rather awesome, I have to say, and I am THRILLED that it’s done (mostly). I’ve moved into Scott’s house most of the way, and we both still have a lot of stuff in 2 storage garages. The amount of stuff in said garages *is* dwindling consistently, so I have faith that we’ll be down to one garage before the holidays start. I have a mostly finished home office and a lot of my own personal stuff surrounds me and is findable when I need it. Also, the key piece is the perfect little studio apartment in Alexandria, VA just 2 miles away from my Booz Allen office in Crystal City! This is the most wonderful apartment because the rent is very reasonable, the management is very considerate, and I can bike to work! Scott and I have it set up with a full size bed so he can be there too when he wants to be. We also have a tiny but full fledged grown up kitchen, TV/VCR/DVD, and a comfy chair from IKEA. The crowning glory, however, is the nest of pillows and cushions I put together for my Egroup! I have just enough space for us to sit around in a circle on the floor and be comfy! I love it!

b)The weekly commuting lifestyle is actually great for me. Lots of people think I’m nuts, but I love having a 5 hour chunk of time Thursday evenings on my drive to Raleigh to catch up on phone calls. On my Monday morning drive back to DC, I get to listen to *all* the NPR news for about 2 hours, and then I get lots of quiet time to think about the coming week. Naturally, if that gets boring, I have 6 months of “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” mp3s to keep me entertained. :)

c)The major challenge this gives me is fitting in exercise. I have gained more weight than I ever have before, and it’s extremely hard to fit in exercise time. My biking to work on Tues, Wed, & Thursdays is great, but I need more. I am succeeding at losing weight with Weight Watchers, but it’s not fast enough for a girl who needs to fit into a wedding dress.

3)Wedding
a)Oh…. Wedding? Yea…um… there is that. Remember all that hell I mentioned before? Well, it brought me to the point where I had actually forgotten that I had a fun wedding to dream about. Isn’t that killer? I did manage to purchase two whole bridal magazines in the past month and flip through most of them in an attempt to remind myself of the fun part of my life. I’m thrilled that I got that far, 2 magazines, so let’s just use this as a basis for comparison. It won’t ever get that bad again by the hair on my chinny chin… yea you know what I mean. (I do *not* need electrolysis!)

b)Scott and I are thinking in terms of having it Fall of 2011 located somewhere on the east coast, but that’s as far as we’ve developed really serious keystones. Oh, and one of the colors in the wedding will be orange. ;)

4)SCA/Pennsic
a)PENNSIC!!! PENNSIC!!!PENNSIC!!! PENNSIC!!! PENNSIC!!! PENNSIC!!!

b)Tis the season for the most wondrous Pennsic War! This is my super awesome reward for working like such a horse all year. I will reunite with friends I often only see at this event, and I will remember what the heck Sophia the Orange was doing last time I saw her. Sophie taught one commedia class this year and attended three other SCA events in the company of Manus MacDahi, but she’s been MIA for what we normally would expect of her. And don’t even talk to me about Marvin. He never calls. He never writes.

c)Sophie’s performing schedule for Pennsic War Week goes thusly:

i) Who’s Line Doth It Be Anyway – Monday evening at the Barn. (If I make the cut!)

ii)Pennsic Fool’s Parade – Tuesday 4:00 Muster at the Barn. 4:30 launch. Backup muster location is the bathhouse. Everyone’s welcome! Minors must bring parent.

iii)Musica Subterranea – Tuesday evening at the Bardicci Low Brow Party. Anyone know a violinist that can sit in for my sister? (Yes, Lucia’s skipping Pennsic this year for work and sanity’s sake.)

iv)i Rosi Lioni – Commedia dell’ Arte troupe annually created for our beloved patron Duke Dagan du Darragonne! We’ll perform privately in camp for our patron on Thursday night, then we’ll move on to the Bardicci High Brow party to do the naughty version! (I’m so proud of my casting job! We have a lovely young lady actress to do the ingénue role for the family show, then she goes to bed and her understudy does the role at Bardicci’s naughty show! Want to know who the understudy is? I’ll give you three hints: He’s hairy, fights with a big sword, and looks great in a dress!)

So now I’m wrenching my life back from the jaws of workaholism. I’m flexing my work/life balance muscles, getting enough sleep, and counting points. I’m going to set myself to send out Change of Address cards sometime in August/September, so if you want to be sure to get one, please do let me know by sending email to the address you know or leaving a comment here.

Comments here are always appreciated because that's nearly the only way I know that anyone out there is reading this. Or call me! :)

I'm alive.

2010-05-28T18:47:00.000-04:00

I’m alive. I have no work/life balance. Scott and I moved me into my new little studio apartment near my DC (Crystal City) office a month ago. It’s been rough because I’m trying to move into this little space in the bits of “free” time I have after work. Weekends are in Raleigh with my honey and the kitty and that’s very good stuff. We’re also trying to move me into the Raleigh house, and that’s rough because we’re merging two fully loaded households of mature people who have been on their own for a long time. We’re getting rid of lots of stuff, storing lots of stuff till we can go through it, and spending most of our weekend time cleaning, moving, sorting, and trying to dig through boxes to find the crap we need.

Work is also very hard. I’m thrilled about my web page project (http://movebeyondgreen.com – please go click on it and make a comment!) but the money left on the contract for it has dwindled down to a trickle. And competition within my office for billable hours has become very difficult. Very intense. Doesn’t make for an easy time during the day that makes for a nice few hours in the evening to sort through moving boxes.

So, Scott and I are spending every free minute trying to organize our lives. This means I’m very out of contact with anyone besides him and my mother (who’s contracted for an hour phone call once a week). Even my sister has to make a phone date with me two weeks ahead of time. So, I apologize to my dear dear friends for not being in touch, and I promise I’ll reach out again as soon as Scott and I get settled in this new weekly-commuter lifestyle.

Wish us luck.

Back up! Movebeyondgreen.com repels back the forces of evil!

2010-04-12T15:11:00.000-04:00

I am so sickeningly proud of myself... After sweating bullets yesterday evening, my beloved fiance gave me a suggestion this morning that served as the last puzzle piece to completely fixing my beloved MBG blog! No shit, there I was, a fledgling webmaster facing my first complete hack from an actual hacker attack, on a Sunday evening with no support from my Booz Allen team in sight. My normally reliable hosting service, Network Solutions, had no actual solution since it wasn't really their failing, but they were doing their best to keep us panicking users pointed to updated and applicable forums.

Fast forward to this morning, after trying everything suggested by the forums, my honey comes into my home office and says "Try looking at the password here..." and lo and behold! That was the golden key of salvation! Passwords were changed, wp-config files were updated, databases were reconnected, and peace and prosperity once again spread throughout the land.

So, go forth yee masses of intellectuals and environmentalists and budget balancers and forward thinkers to the realm of http://movebeyondgreen.com and see the glory for yourselves! And please do add a comment! Let me practice my newly minted comment monitoring skills!

Site's down for the moment... come back later when all hackers have been put to death.

2010-04-11T18:12:00.000-04:00

http://techcocktail.com/home/2010/04/08/wordpress-hacked-virus-cloaks-search-engines

My beloved web page is down for the moment because someone out there doesn't have enough love in their lives so they're on the mission to make the rest of us miserable. *sigh*

A government site that will save the planet: http://movebeyondgreen.com

2010-04-02T19:34:00.000-04:00

My current project in my professional life will save the planet. I’m not kidding. My team has created http://movebeyondgreen.com for our client, the Army Environmental Policy Institute, to create a sustainability community of interest online. If you want to offer volunteer help, you can do tthree things: 1) click on the site, 2) forward our URL to your networks, and 3) suggest URLs to online resources that help leaders of large organizations actually find solutions to balancing environmental impact with their shrinking budgets and the needs of their people. Email the project directly via info at movebeyondgreen dot com.

My company is Booz Allen Hamilton, and I’m proud of the efforts the firm is making to reduce our environmental impact. My client is the Army Environmental Policy Institute, and I’m proud to work for people who have dedicated their lives to supporting both our military and our planet. This is not a place for loud activism, but rather thoughtful, informed, long term planning. This is a place where we can do hard work and get down to business.

Forward as appropriate.

It is now official, public, and subject to cheering: Scott and I are engaged!

2010-03-15T23:41:00.000-04:00

As you may have heard from other sources because I’m just pathetic about keeping my personal communications up to date…

Scott and I are officially, publicly, undeniably engaged!

Yep, the official ceremonial ritual of stating publicly that we are now engaged to be married, complete with a diamond ring being publicly stationed on my left ring finger, video recording of the event, plenty of joyful tears, and a toast with non alcoholic bubbly apple juice has occurred. On March 6, in the company of a good many of my loved ones including my sister, Scott declared his worthiness and I agreed with him. A perfectly awesome ring of white gold holding onto a fantastically orange diamond was placed onto my left ring finger and a beautiful pendant of white gold holding a blue sapphire was hung on Scott’s neck (with his own hand made lucet cord).

Yes, we’ve been planning this for months. Not the specific plan, but we’ve been figuring out between us how and when we want to publicly declare the agreement we’ve come to in very small incremental steps over a long long time. There was no single particular moment when one of us asked the other one if they wanted to get married. There were a good many deep, serious conversations (many of which took place at Panera Bread over lunch after Weight Watchers meetings), and over time we came to know that we both wanted to spend the rest of our time here on earth as partners. We started designing these two rings a few months ago, and I honestly don’t remember when. Since I’ve been moving since early November, I apparently have forgotten some details like when we first went to Goldworks Jewlers and consulted with our SCA fencer friend Charlotte who works at the store. Scott wanted to fly in the face of the traditional and defy the modern wedding industry by claiming his desire to also get an awesome piece of sacred jewelry. He didn’t want to have another ring compete with his eventual wedding band, so he went with a pendant modeled after another gold and ruby one in the store. It’s quite awesome.

So, we’ve been moving me into his house, attempting to merge two fully outfitted households, morphing me into a weekly DC commuter, and also designing rings and redefining our life management methods to work for two. Also, I’ve long owed my aunt and uncle in Cincinnati a visit, in person, with my car, to help deal with my late grandmother’s belongings. And since I’ve been working on the Annual Report to Congress which has a very *very* strict deadline schedule of final drafts due in late February, I decided to plan my trip to see my aunt and uncle immediately after those deadlines. It also just happens that early March is when my favorite SCA music and dance event in Cincinnati is usually held, so it was pretty easy to visit my aunt and uncle on either side of that event’s weekend. So, I planned to head out to Cincinnati on March 5, attend Ceilidh in the College of St. Joan of the (Questionable) Barony of Flaming Gryphon, visit my aunt and uncle, and hopefully my sister in there too.

Fast forward to the day (I honestly forget when it was) Scott and I put in the final order for our rings. We went to dinner at Scott’s favorite diner, and I said “We should do something special when we pick up the rings. It just seems so anti-climactic to just pick them up and then call our parents to say we’re officially engaged.” So, we batted around a whole bunch of ideas, and I have to say that my sweetie is a hell of a romantic. He suggested three beautiful places where we could have a special dinner and overnight away from all the normal life crap. I will likely dig up those discarded suggestions for some kind of celebration later – maybe when we finally get me unpacked? Anyway, they were beautiful, but I still felt kindof not excited. So, down I went into deep thought and consideration. After much meditation, journaling, and sweating, I managed to identify that the important thing here was that I wanted to share this ritual moment with my loved ones in *addition* to him. (Me = Hard Wired Extrovert.) Now, I never expected that Scott would want to drive the 10 hours cross-country into the boring Midwest just to hang out with my peeps. But call me lucky – my honey thought it would be just great to go on the road trip with me, hang with my people, and make our engagement announcement there!

So, Ceilidh = Musica Subterranea = evening of fun with loved ones including my sister = opportune moment to make an announcement when the band takes a break!

Now, I have to take a moment to shower praise and adoration upon my sweetie honey baby. I did ask him to think of what to say as this announcement on his own. I wanted to be surprised by one thing that we didn’t plan ahead of time. He was, as you may predict, sweating it because he’s not usually excited about solo performing outside of a bardic circle. But I tell ya… my baby is the most amazing poetical, romantical, sweetie gooshie boo boo there ever was. He made a speech that outlined why he was a worthy candidate for sharing a life with me. He listed a kind of “Hercules 12 labors” list of ways he’s supported me in the past 2.5 years, and I was crying long before he finished. I can’t remember all of it (I do have it on video tape), but the qualifications he listed included:

• hauling Musica Subterranea gear from one end of Pennsic to the other

• hauling i Marvini from one end of Pennsic to the other

• heralding the approach of the Fool’s Parade three years running (he also keeps water bottles for me and keeps me hydrated the whole way!)

• he helped me cope with the death of my kitty Bonkers as I helped him with the death of his kitty Lafayette

• he survived being snowed in with my parents and me in my tiny apartment during the blizzard of December 09 without a problem

And somewhere in there I just cried and couldn’t hear what he was saying. But there were a good many more excellent examples of how he’s been there for me like a husband should, and he “invited” me to join him in a life together. He presented the ring (which I had not seen yet), and I was actually completely speechless. I don’t remember who put the ring on my finger, but I put the pendant on him, and there were many tears and kisses.

I thank Paula/Abigail for videotaping, and my dear friend and drummer Phil for getting some good pictures. You can see Phil’s awesome work on his flikr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/master-phillip/sets/72157623504319151 and I suggest you look around at his awesome collections! Also thanks go to my dear friends Jason and Allegra for holding my cello and helping get the juice distributed. And I have to also thank my awesome sister for helping Scott set the stage. I am ridiculously blessed.

Naturally, my aunt and uncle were thrilled, and my aunt waved her magic Photoshop wand and made up some kick ass engagement announcements for us! Her Photoshop skills are quite extraordinary, and I’ll post her beautiful creation up here if I can figure out how.

So, that’s the story, I’m up way too late, and I’ve got to get this posted so I can get to sleep.

Snowpocalypse in DC, Wordpress and Thesis, slow unpacking, Ymir, visit to Cincinatti

2010-02-16T18:07:00.000-05:00

Snow in DC

I escaped the snowpocalypse by a hair. I drove down to DC on Friday the 5th, and I did actually stay at the office later than I should have. That's my workaholic monkey making trouble again. It took 9 hours to make the normally 5 hour drive from DC to Raleigh, but that's because I and the other nuts on the road were traveling at 25 mph all the way down I95. Safe but slow. And wet. But Scott was waiting for me when I got home, and I enjoyed by beautiful new bed.

I worked from home all last week and yesterday too. I learned that I have a really hard time balancing work and life when I'm working at home. Every day last week I would sit down at the computer and obsess over my work until late at night. Galahad the cat got more physical activity than I did. I got a lot done, but my body didn't appreciate the treatment. I forced myself to take a walk in the evening on Friday, but I've got to do better when working from home in the future.

I came back to DC this morning, and there are still mountains of snow on the sides of the road. Parking is an even more precious commodity now. I'm going back to Raleigh on Thursday night, and I'll pray that more of this stuff melts over the weekend.

Professional Blogging:
I'm loving Wordpress! And Wordpress THEMES! I picked "Thesis" as my theme because it's the most flexible one I could find. I'm loving this gig!

Unpacking in Raleigh:
The moving in and unpacking part is still slow as molasses. Between working a full time job, trying to invest some time in taking care of my body with rest and exercise, and driving, the energy I have for unpacking is minimal. I really didn't accomplish anything the whole week I was down there. *sigh*

Ymir!
Scott and I went to our first SCA event since September! It was a viking event called Ymir, I think after a Norse god of snow or something. I really thought it was going to be snowed out completely since most of Atlantia was genuinely under many feet of snow, but a good 300+ people came! It was a great site with heated cabins and flush toilets and a great kitchen. I ran the dancing, and had a lovely time. Just like riding a bike. And I met some really fun young people from college groups just trying to get dancing going. It felt really good to be able to give them advice and feel like I knew what I was talking about.

I also actually competed in a performing arts competition! I arrived on site about half an hour before it started, and Rose (the organizer) asked me to come. I had brought *nothing* with me, so I grabbed a pair of socks. A little brainstorming and searching the wooded environment for props later, I performed a recreation of what it could be like to be a viking snowed in with your family and your kids need entertainment. One of my big white socks became Sven the Viking who told tall tales about how he fought off enemy hordes - played by two other bards in the audience. A good time was had by all, and I patted myself on the back for having enough improv to pull something out of my ass at a moment's notice.

Visit to Cincinnati:
Yes - I'm coming out that way on March 5th for a week, and Scott's coming with me for the first half. I haven't got a schedule yet. Stay tuned.

Moving in, beautiful new bed, professional blogging, going back to Midwest for a visit

2010-02-01T19:57:00.001-05:00

Moving In

Moving in with Scott is a slow, painful process, but I can tell it's getting better. We've made at least some progress every weekend. We both suffer from bad habits around keeping too much *stuff*, and it's dramatically obvious right now. Scott's been in his house for 14 years, and no matter who you are there will be accumulation of stuff over 14 years. I've had the &&$&^*&)_(%$&^ blessing of two major moves in the past 4 years to "help" me cull out the unnecessary *stuff*, but I tell ya it's still hellishly hard. As hard as I tried, I still couldn't avoid labeling a box "Misc Stuff" this time. I found that box again this weekend. I still can't come up with a name for it.

This reminds me of a lesson I got on the subject of being a "victim" once while camping with my egroup. (Stay with me now... it will become relevant I promise.) This was my first egroup, lo these many years ago. We went on a camping trip for a weekend in lovely southern Indiana to bond and relax. As we sat and talked that night, we got to the subject of being a "victim." It was the opinion of everyone in the group but me that being a victim was actually a choice. I asked, "But what about people that are victims of...umm.. like... a hurricane?" (This was long before Katrina.) No one can control a hurricane! Anyone who gets hit by a hurricane is a victim! Tell me they're not!

The perspective I learned that night was that even if a person experiences some horrible, life altering, horror that takes away every physical thing they own, it is absolutely possible for that person to see their situation as an opportunity to learn. If you loose every earthly possession in a hurricane, you now get to experience what it's like to completely start over again from scratch. Maybe that person can learn to value beloved people more. Or maybe that person can see deeper into their own spirit after being freed from all physical possessions. That person certainly does have the opportunity to now choose objects to bring into their life that are of a higher quality or are more useful. Or choose to have fewer objects in their life...

I think about the trade offs as I stare at my Rubbermaid bin labeled "Misc Stuff." I'm attached enough to this stuff that I don't want to throw it away, but I have a hard time assigning a purpose to all that stuff. Maybe it could call it "Occasionally Useful Tools" or "Mildly Nostalgic Mementos."

Whatever that bin of stuff is, it is exactly what I would be freed of if I got hit by a hurricane.

AW...

Scott and I made a dent in the trailer that held the "Last Load" of stuff from my Fairfax apartment. We pulled out stuff I wanted in the near term and left in the stuff that I wouldn't need or want in the next few months. I pulled out my dumbeck drum, a huge box of December Holiday gifts I didn't get sent during all the moving hell, my computer printer, a box of books for Jewish class, and of course the box of "Misc Stuff." My study (formerly Scott's guest room) is now full of *stuff*, but some of it resembles computer parts and a table. There is order buried deep in their somewhere.

The big accomplishment of the weekend was settling the issue of our new bed. I'm thrilled beyond words that we have achieved this blessed milestone! This is the first honest to god new bed I have owned since my parents set me up with a new twin bed when we moved to Indiana when I was 8 years old. During college, I slept in whatever dorm room bed Barnard College saw fit to supply me with. After college, I used the super old queen bed that my parents changed out for a pretty new King bed.

That there old queen bed has only just now been retired to life in a landfill. It broke my heart to do it, but I did everything I could to reuse it. It was just too stained and old for anyone else to want it. So, it's history.

Also, my dear sweetie Scott finally let go of the bed he's been sleeping on for many long years. This one, however, I judged to be of the petrified variety of sleeping materials. Over I don't know how many many many long years he's been sleeping on that fouton mattress, it has slowly morphed into a hardened quality seen only in archeology labs. I just had too many mornings waking with horrible pain in my back, shoulders, and arms. So, between the two of us, we let go of our old beds and started anew.

This new start to better sleeping included a great search of mattresses that ended two weeks ago at the Mattress Factory in Cary, NC: http://www.originalmattress.com. They have a factory in Raleigh, so they can reduce the price some. They also had lots to say about the high quality construction and materials and blah and blah blah blah. All I cared about was the sweet heavenly cloud that was supporting my back as I test flopped my hundredth mattress. I was in love. Scott was too. And we would all sleep together in blissful harmony.

Funny thing was that the high bed Scott had built himself to house the painfully thin rock of a futon mattress was not a good match for the blissful cloud of love that got delivered two weeks ago. Scott The Woodworking Master had built himself a bed that would allow big Rubbermaid bins to slide underneath for efficient storage. Brilliant, yes, and functional if you're a hardened manly man who likes sleeping on rocks.

So, fast forward to this weekend when Scott and I cleared out the storage bins, cleaned up all the evidence of kitty cats finding cute little hidey-holes in between said bins, and exchanging Scott's woodworking masterpiece for the metal frame that until recently held my ancient queen mattress and boxspring a mere 6 inches off the floor. Short frame + new half size box spring + blessed new cloud mattress = happy Lara!!! Scott is now planning his next bed frame masterpiece. It will still store Rubbermaid bins underneath, but they'll be the half size ones.

And now onto other topics...

My job has given me a shining light of joy like I have not seen in years! I am, henceforth, spending half my professional billable hours doing that which I never thought I'd get paid to do in my life! Blogging!! (No, not puppets. I know. *sigh*)

But Blogging! I am venturing forth into the world of Wordpress and respectable social media professionals worldwide! I don't want to go into it in detail here until I'm ready to present something, but I'll say that the topic is "Sustainability" and the client is the caliber of client that I came to DC to find. Many pieces of my professional dreams are coming together, and I can sense greatness in the air. I don't want to jinx it, so I'll stop here. Just wish me luck and send me any URLs of good Wordpress support communities.

For a grand finale, I'll announce that I'm coming back to the Midwest for a visit! I owe my aunt and uncle in Cincinnati some quality time, so I'll be headed out there the second week of March. Email me if you want details.

PS: In two weeks, I'll be leading dancing at Ymir! Anyone in Atlantia who is willing to be a gentle audience for my first time back in the saddle of Dance Mistressing in over 4 years should come!

October 2009 - January 2010

2010-01-24T20:56:00.002-05:00

October 2009 through January 2010

October 1: I start a class called “Intro to Judaism!” I’ve been wanting to take this class since I came here and got involved with Cantor Steinberg at Beth El Hebrew Congregation. She’s the one that ran Alan’s memorial service with Rabbi Aft and did the Sh ‘loshim service on her own for us. I’m seriously considering converting to Judaism officially, and this class is a commonly accepted requirement. I’ve been loving it although it’s a heckuvalot of reading. The teacher is Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein, and I have the greatest respect for her. She was a psychotherapist before becoming a rabbi, so she has a perspective I value a great deal. More on this subject later for sure.

October 5: I had surgery for two things that were very unpleasant. One was life-inhibiting and the other was occasionally activity-inhibiting. I’ll share the details with those who wants to know, but my more squeamish friends have sometimes regretted asking. These aren’t unusual or even horrible things, and some people could go so far as to call my squeamish friends total wimps who should just grow up, but I’ve had enough pushback to just say on my publicly accessible blog that they were simply “unpleasant.” I was ill for about 6 months, sluggish, sleepy, and crabby, but it’s over now. October and November were still slow going and extremely low on the activity scale, but I got back on my feet just in time for the holiday insanity.

Mid October: At work, I dove with two feet first into the adventure of the Annual Report to Congress (ARC) at work. Our client, one of the Department of Defense’s many offices that handles environmental issues, produces their own report to Congress every year, and my Booz Allen team creates it! It’s actually a thrilling project because I used this document a lot when I was farmed out to the Corps of Engineers for three years. Now I get to work on the team that produces the document! It’s like getting the backstage tour of a favorite show and getting hired to be on the theater staff!
Now, when I say “document,” keep in mind that the final product barely fits into a huge 4” three-ring binder. The best way to view it is online. I’ll post a link here to the finished product when it’s all done.

October 17: I got to be a mentor again in the Booz Allen & Girl Scouts “Make The Connection” program! This is an awesome program that brings together volunteers from Booz (usually young women who remember being Girl Scouts) and the Girl Scouts National Capital Council to produce a mentoring program. This isn’t mentoring where we get matched up one on one for deep philosophical teachings. The program is 4 events where about 150 Girl Scouts come to a Booz Allen office on a weekend day to go through presentations and exercises about career exploration. The Booz Allen mentors (about a dozen of us) split up and lead groups of the girls through the exercises. The goal is to allow the girls to see us in our grown up glory, ask us whatever questions they want, and get thinking about their careers outside the environment of their parents or school. I really wish I’d had something like this when I was a kid.

We work out of some Girl Scout sources, but a lot comes from the book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens” by Sean Covey, Stephen Covey’s son. I cannot recommend this book enough! It covers all sorts of issues that teenagers struggle with and helps quantify and focus their skills and desires to career paths. Again, a book I wish I’d had twenty years ago.

I deeply love this program, and I have dreams of spinning it off to the Booz Allen office in Indianapolis. Having my sister work for the Central Indiana Girl Scout Council has to have a perk in there somewhere. (No I don’t get free cookies.)
October 22 & 23: Crystal Reports class! One of the big new challenges I have at work is to learn this new (to me) software, Crystal Reports, and create more tools for us to perform QA and data mining on our ARC client’s database. This is very cool because I love data and the mining thereof, but it is extremely challenging because I’m the only one doing this. There are only three people on my team with *any* experience on our client’s database, and none of them have any experience with the Crystal Reports software. So, even getting the thing connected was hell. Many thanks again to my sweet and supportive boyfriend who helped me get through that one! Dating a computer geek has a few perks. I highly recommend it.

October 24: Fundraising Walk for the American Diabetes Association. This was a sad day really. Every year I do this fundraiser, and my friends and family are very generous to the cause. I raise a few hundred dollars in honor of Alan and my SCA friend Gyrth Oldcastle (who died 10 months before Alan from diabetes complications). But every year I dream that I’m going to get a whole lot of people together to show up en masse to the walk and create a physical presence to honor Alan and Gyrth – and it never happens. Part of it is that I’m just a very busy person, but so far, I just haven’t been able to engage the Sophie Super Energy Powers that have served me so well in event planning before. I can’t break through the depression muck to inspire other people enough to take a couple hours on a Saturday to travel to some place in downtown DC and walk a mile with other fundraising people. The whole experience is deeply depressing.

The good news is that my dear friend Randy and my extremely supportive boyfriend Scott both came out with me! I was determined to make something happen this year, and I had dreamed of getting my SCA friends to come out in garb to create something like a procession even if no one showed up. So, we were a procession of three, and I was just grateful that it was the week before Thanksgiving so that we didn’t look totally insane being in costumes. We did have one guy who liked what we were doing take our picture and say he was going to caption it: “We hate diabetes in any era!”
So, it was another year of half-hearted foot dragging for the ADA walk, but I’ll still keep doing it every year. Watch out for my donation request next September!

Somewhere in here at the end of October, I had an interesting turn of life events with a friend of mine from Judaism class. This friend of mine got a job in New York and needed someone to housesit for 6 months. I happened to be giving up my apartment on January 4th, so I offered to go housesit. We had 2 months of overlap, but I considered that time to adjust and get used to living at her house.
To summarize: She quit the job in New York, came back to her house, and now I’m living with her as a guest/roommate. She’s a sweetie, and we just decided to keep to the original plan, I’ll keep her company as I search for the perfect little studio apartment near my office in Crystal City, and I’ll move into this perfect-yet-to-be-found apartment in April. We are having a lovely time, and I’m sincerely enjoying the 15 minute commute from her house to my office. (Big improvement over the 1 hour metro commute.) She’s also a great cook, and the daughter of a professional chef, so I’m seeing more creative ways to cook healthy from her! This morning she made oatmeal-ricotta-chocolate-chip pancakes for us! YUM!!

More to come on the big picture of where the hell I’m physically living, but for now, let’s stick to chronological order of events…

October 31 – HALLOWEEN!!! This is one of my favorite holidays and since I’ve been in DC I’ve been lucky enough to share it every year with Lisa and Mona. They love the holiday too, and this year we got to party with some of Mona’s friends! It was awesome! Scott came up and we had an equal number of adults as kids walking around a really nice DC neighborhood trick or treating! Scott wore his great kilt, I wore my American Colonial period dress, Lisa went dolled up in a cool black dress with sparkles and orange fishnets (AWESOME!), and one of the dads went as a pirate! Mona was a purple and black witch, one of her friends was a goth princess (in a dress custom made that was won at a school auction), and the big surprise for me of the evening was one of the girls as Yoman Rand! Yes! The old school Star Trek blonde in the tiny red dress! (Not the nurse, that was Magel Barrett, Gene Roddenberry’s wife.) This girl’s parents were doing their sacred duty (as all parents should) in educating her by watching all the old school Star Trek episodes with her! So this kid actually knew who she was dressing up as! It was awesome! Ok, awesome for a geek like me. The rest of you can go back to watching House, or Garage, or whatever.

November 3: I voted; did you?

November 7: I had the pleasure of watching Mona play soccer! She’s joined a soccer league, and I got to watch the last game of the season. It was great! I got to hang out with the parents and learn all the new etiquette. Apparently parents are not allowed to shout from the sidelines. Parents, and fans like me, are allowed to yell only generic encouragement from the sidelines that can be encouraging to both sides. Things like “Go girls go!” and “Way to go!” are allowed. Things like “Get your ass over there for defense!” or “Go !” are not allowed. I’m betting anything concerning the referee is not allowed either, but the moms in attendance didn’t cover that.

This is one of the things I love about being an aunt! I get to be involved with kid stuff, support the kid I love, and do things completely unrelated to earning my paycheck.

I think this was the weekend when Lisa, Mona, and I went out to see the movie Where The Wild Things Are. It was awesome! It was amazing to me how different a movie it was. I heard that they tried to capture what it’s like to be a nine year old boy, and they achieved it! The movie was confusing and had an awkward, exploring, desperate feel to it in places. It was definitely “inspired by” the book and did the book honor, but they built a whole new story on top of the book’s foundation. Anyone who has ever been a nine year old boy, been close to a nine year old boy, or been the parent of a nine year old boy will enjoy this film.

November 26: Thanksgiving! I spent Thanksgiving with Scott and his parents in Raleigh. Last year, Scott gave up his Thanksgiving with his parents to come to Indianapolis to have a big Thanksgiving hoopla with my parents, my sister, her fiancé, and his family. At the time, it was a nice thing. Events have progressed since then. This year, to balance it out, I gave up my Thanksgiving with my parents and sister to have it with Scott. It was sweet and quiet. The best part was having Scott, his mom, and me all pitch in to make the dinner. The group effort was very rewarding in that no one was beat and tired at the end of the day.

December 4: My women’s circle (“Egroup” for the cognoscenti) did a big work night lead by one of the very wise women in our community, Teresita Fawcett. She’s amazing in her ability to lead women’s groups and facilitate emotional work. She helped me a lot in my healing work after Alan died and in a number of other issues since then. We hired her to teach our group some advanced facilitation techniques, and it was *awesome*! The more I do this work, the more I think this is the path to world peace.

December 8 & 9: “Leadership With Presence” class: Now, I had a very awkward annual assessment in Mid October for work. The final result was a pretty normal raise and a rating of “Meets Expectations” which was satisfactory for me. There was, however, a “development action” that required me to take a class in leadership, although I don’t really know why this class was chosen for this particular issue. This awkwardness isn’t blog material, so if you’re interested in more detail, ask me next time you see me. The interesting thing is that regardless of *why* I ended up going to this class, this class was an AMAZING AWESOME EXPERIENCE!

I’ll tell you why…

Set the way back machine for fall of 1994. I’m in New York City attending Barnard College and enjoying my opportunities to get student rate tickets to Broadway shows. That year, none other than the legendary “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast” opens and sends me into Disney geek heaven. I saw the show three times before graduating in spring of ’95.

Remember the villain “Gaston?” (“I use antlers in all of my decorating…”)
Remember his sidekick “Le Fu?” (“No one spits like Gaston…”)

Well, in the movie, Le Fu was just another amusing Disney sidekick. Nothing to write home about. Certainly nothing like Figaro, Meeko, or Iago. Now I’m telling you… the Broadway show was a *whole new world!*

Not only was the stage show a whole new bunch of wonderfulness for Disney geeks like me, but the character Le Fu was absolutely MEZMORIZING to me! The actor playing him *flew* across the stage! Fought and flipped with the servant-turned-rug! He leapt and flipped and prat-fell ALL OVER THE PLACE! This guy was a modern day Arlecchino of the HIGHEST CALIBER! Not even Danny Kaye could out-jester this guy! So, me being the big jester fan that I am… I was enthralled!

I read his bio in the program, and it said he’d had training with Cirque du Soleil among other cool stuff. I thought to myself “Ok – that explains why he could do that flip and land on his ass perfectly at Belle’s feet.” I left the theater, and college, being inspired to be as cool a jester as that guy.

Fast forward to my days building i Scandali and reveling in as much commedia dell arte as I could get my hands on…

Fast forward again to this class in leadership I was sent to for unusual and awkward reasons…

You’ll never guess who was teaching this freaking class…

LE FU!!!!! YES – the man who was the actor that was LeFu in the original cast of Beauty and the Beast who’d inspired my idea of the perfect jester WAS TEACHING THIS CLASS!!! I ask you… how in the name of God do you explain this one? You don’t. You just sit back and enjoy the ride. At least that’s what I did.

So, I chat this guy up, we have a great time in the class, I learn all about what a great leader I already am (ok, some ups and downs and places for improvement), and I have the time of my life actually *learning* from one of the actual inspirations of my life.

His name is Kenny Raskin, and I actually found my old Playbills from B&B in 1994 that have his name in the cast list. He went out to have beer and wings with me after the class, and we had a good old time yakking about performing arts and careers therein. Apparently, this cool company he works for, The Ariel Group, (nothing to do with Disney’s Little Mermaid) was contracted by Booz Allen to teach this leadership course. Kenny moved from acting to teaching for a variety of reasons, but essentially, this company hires actors to teach leadership because of the incredible skills overlap! So, Kenny is my new official Hero ™ and I encourage you to look at his web site: http://www.kennyraskin.com and hire him if you can at all afford it.

December 11: Hanukkah, Jewish class, and The Princess and the Frog! What do these three things have in common, I hear you cry? Well, they all happened on Friday, December 11. My Intro to Judaism class had a nice Shabbat dinner (that I had to be late for because they started at an ungodly early hour for anyone who’s working for a living) that was a nice thing. Lisa and Mona joined me for that and got to meet Rabbi Bernstein and my classmates.

Lisa and Mona, not being complete Disney fans like me but being very supportive of me and not entirely against the idea of a Disney movie, joined me for the long awaited premier of The Princess and The Frog!!! Now, if I’d had my wish, I’d have attended this event dolled up in an old bridesmaid’s dress and tiara with a dozen friends and my sister equally dressed up to welcome in our new sister princess. Mona would have killed me, tho, so I left the tiara and dress at home and attended the movie like a normal person. I didn’t have the time or energy to organize a fully dressed Princess Invasion anyway. I did, however, *LOVE* the movie! Mona and Lisa did too! I’m thrilled to see a Prince and a Princess get to their happily ever after through hard work. And the support of a large alligator.

Ok, this is where the easy part of life ended. Princesses, Kenny, leadership, Mona, holidays, and all the rest of it fell completely to the wayside starting December 12. Not that having surgery, keeping up at work, and living through my life’s adventure was *easy* before December 12, but that’s when there became no time for games. Or sleep.

Christmas did happen in there somewhere. My folks, my sister, and I spent it in beautiful Hilton Head at an RCI trade-in condo from my parents’ RCI membership. Scott came to join us on December 26th, and his parents came for lunch on December 27th. Yes, this was the first official meeting of the parental units. Everything went fine. *whew* This was a nice week long break from the moving hell, but the moment the ball dropped after midnight January 1st, the hell started up again.

Remember how I said before that I was giving up my apartment on January 4th? Well, I did.

THE MASTER PLAN:
Scott and I have been driving back and forth between DC and Raleigh for 2.5 years. In order to move our relationship further, the fishing part of the “Fish or Cut Bait” philosophy, we decided to move in together finally. We also decided that it was better for me to move to Raleigh rather than him move to DC. Many variables in that decision: his job is with the State of NC and mine is with a contracting firm, he has a house in Raleigh, and he has a lot of friends in Raleigh and I have a few too. He has no friends in DC, and mine are a small elite group.

So, I moved 95% of my stuff to Raleigh. The movers came on December 21st to move my piano and furniture and any other boxes that Scott and I didn’t manage to move before then. We have been packing up my belongings into boxes for many weeks already and Scott has been bringing them down to Raleigh in his Pennsic trailer. We now have 2 garage sized storage units in Raleigh with most of my stuff and some of his stuff that he moved out of his house to make room for me.

The remaining 5% of my stuff (possibly more like 1-2%) is at my friend’s house here in DC until April. Come April, I’ll move into a small studio apartment near my office. That will be my “Satellite Home.” I will live there Monday – Thursday and drive back to Raleigh for Friday – Sunday. This is the weekly commuting lifestyle that a lot of DC workers live – including a lot of Congress. I’ll telecommute on Fridays, and I may expand that if my work allows it over time.

I’ll drive to DC Monday mornings and be in the office by noon. I’ll drive to Raleigh Thursday nights and get in by midnight. I did this schedule once this past week, and it worked out pretty well. The Thursday night drive to Raleigh was *HELL* because I had hell to deal with at work and I didn’t get to leave the office until 9:30pm. That part sucked big time. But the drive back to DC monday morning was great! It was beautifully sunny, I got up and out on time, I listened to NPR for about 2.5 hours and talked to my sister for the other 2.5 hours. She had the day off work since it was MLK Day. So far, I am liking this schedule. I’m not liking the lack of being completely moved in anywhere, but that will change with time.
Many people have poo-pooed me on this plan. I acknowledge that this is a tough lifestyle, but it is honestly better than what Scott and I have been living with for the past 2.5 years. I also believe strongly that “Life Is Change” and this lifestyle choice is good for now. So, don’t tell me “You’ll only last a year!” Attitude is Everything! I plan to keep my positive attitude about this and rely on my sweet man to keep reminding me of why I’m doing this.

So, at the moment, I’m feeling the first hints of being able to breathe. I’m doing a hell of a lot of emotional work *and* physical work, but the worst is now over. Now, Scott and I have to try to merge our two households into one and figure out how to really live with each other. After 16 years of serious independence, this merge is a lot of work for me. But he’s worth it. :)

Surgery, finishing a project at work, and looking for a new apartment

2009-10-04T23:03:00.006-04:00

I'm having surgery tomorrow. Removal of uterine fibroids. I'm actually very excited about it, tho I'm also managing some anxiety at the moment. I strongly believe that once I've healed from this, I'll have control of my body again! I'll no longer be losing blood in huge amounts at random times, and I'll get back the ability to exercise, ride my bike, and walk up a flight of stairs without wheezing! Woo Hoo! Balance that with the first ever total knockout anesthesia experience of my life, and you have the kind of anxiety that I'm grumbling about tonight. Thankfully, my sweetie brought me a prescription of Chocolate from Dr. Haagen Dazs, so I feel like I'm handling it.

Scott is being a completely awesome Primary Caregiver, and my dear friend Randy (who's living in my extra room while he's job hunting) will take over after Wednesday when Scott has to go back home. I'm hoping that I'll be healing quickly enough to put in a few hours of work on the later half of this week although I'm clear that that's a goal, not a requirement.

My co-workers have been pretty darn supportive, and they're ready to deal with my unpredictability this week. Work's been hell the past few weeks, but I kicked ass this past week, especially on Friday, and I got all the ahead work done I could do. I also wrapped up a very difficult project that included a number of difficult people, politics, and databases. I did my best, and I'm satisfied with my work, and I was able to let go with grace when I finished up at about midnight on Friday. I had dreams of rescuing various people and projects, but I had to accept only a portion of dream realization. Some people really don't want to be rescued even when they're steering the Titanic. I waved my red flags, sent up my red star clusters, and talked sincerely to all the mentors I had. So, I did my best and I'm moving on.

And speaking about moving... I will be moving out of my current apartment this December. My lease is up on January 4th, and I'll be moving into a "satellite home" in time for that. I was going to move in with my buddy Caitlin, but her situation at home and my situation at work changed and now it won't be an advantage for both of us to room together again. *sigh* I was looking forward to it, but it's not meant to be this time. So, I'm on the hunt again for a new place to live. I'm looking for a room with a private bath, but roommates and shared common areas are fine. Must be near Crystal City, preferably near a metro or VRE station, and absolutely no more than $800 per month including utilities. I really want to move in before Christmas. Let me know if you have a lead for me.

Wish me luck in surgery, managing my utilization at work, and finding a new apartment. And Happy New Federal Fiscal Year to you all! ;)

catch up weekend

2009-09-20T16:00:00.003-04:00

I won't tell you how many emails I had in my inbox today when I dived in to try to catch up... but let's say I was at 99% of the capacity that Earthlink allows for storage before downloading to my hard drive. *ugh*

I did catch up on the really critical/time sensitive ones tho, so if you're waiting for an email response from me and you didn't get one today, please be reassured that it will come soon. It does mean that I'm getting back into a swing that's healthier. I don't want to jinx it by talking about how my health has been better in the last two weeks, but I will say that everything looks good so far for my October 5th surgery.

Work is hell right now. I'm working with a lot of different people, different projects, and different personalities. Deadlines abound, and where we don't have deadlines, we have amorphous blobs of uncertainty. I will be changing projects at the end of this month - just in time to cope with it at the same time as surgery. *ugh* Again I say *ugh*.

I am, however, deeply grateful to God and all his helpers that I have a job and it pays me enough to pay my bills, keep me out of debt, and still visit my beloved support network people every so often. I have health insurance, a body that's free of horrible cureless diseases, and I live in a land of plenty.

Scott and I are about to move a lot of stuff from one storage facility to another, so wish us luck and healthy back movements.

I'm still planning on moving *most* of my stuff into Scott's house sometime in November. The remaining stuff will establish a satellite home for me in DC that will allow me to keep my beloved job. Come January 2010, I will be working in DC Monday - Thursday, tellecommuting Fridays, and commuting to and from Raleigh on Monday mornings and Thursday evening. My first satellite home will be with my dear friend Caitlin. She's returning the favor of my putting her up for about six months when she was transitioning *from* Raleigh to DC last year at this time. She's giving me the spot formerly occupied by her former boyfriend (who is now getting a job as a pest control operator which I think is rather cool since I nudged him towards it as a good fit for his brain and prior experience in construction). He's moving on, I'm moving in, and Caitlin and I will be roommates again for 6 months. After that, I will move into a small apartment somewhere in Alexandria, VA near my office. If you know of good places to look for people renting out a small room with a private bathroom near Crystal City, please let me know. :)

Other bits:
-- Happy new baby thrills to my beloved Cat and Preston!
-- Happy Birthday to my Uncle!
-- Happy Birthday to my new first cousin once removed!
-- Happy Anniversary to my beloved Kirsten and Dylan!

And still prayers are requested for supporting Scott's ex-wife Muir who is still with her father in New Orleans. He made it through his surgery, is now home, and I believe is receiving hospice care at home with his family around him. This is the worst of times for this family, so all prayers of strength and support are appreciated.

My surgery is on October 5; I hate faux little girls

2009-09-17T12:30:00.003-04:00

I'm having surgery to fix my malfunctioning uterus on October 5! Yea!!! I'm actually extremely thrilled about this because I've been waiting for the secretaries and doctors to do their thing and tell me when my damn date is. I will *finally* have the surgery which will eliminate the extreme blood loss, the suprises of said blood loss events, and the associated mega cramps. I'm thrilled and excited, and I can't wait to get into that OR!

I'm feeling cranky at the moment because of my growing hatred for little girls - not actual little girls (there are a great many littel girls that I adore), but rather young adult women who are actually little girls inside but they're going around masquerading as grown ups who are responsible, reliable, and deserve the paycheck they get every month. I'm so god damned sick of working with people who have a poorer work ethic than I do, and so many of them are young Generation Y women who don't understand the extent of their responsibilities and *I* HAVE TO FREAKING MAKE UP FOR IT!!! If they were just screwing up their own lives, I wouldn't care so much. It's when their lack of work ethic makes my job harder is when I get pissed. When I rely on them because I'm supposed to and they slack off or just go around thinking that they're doing just fine and I *DON'T* have the position or power to counsel them, I just get stuck with an idiot on my team that drags me down and causes me more late hours at the office! ARGH!!!!

I know... I know... we've all been there. Ever since our first group project in Junior High School we've all had idiots and slackers on our team. I just hate it and today it's annoying me a great deal.

So, to throw some funny on an annoying situation, I will link to a page where you can see the magnificent song from the musical "Annie" entitled "Little Girls!"
If I do this right, this text will hold the link.

Alan's 53rd birthday is today

2009-09-16T15:07:00.003-04:00

Alan's birthday is today, and he would have been 53 years old. He's been gone for four years now, and I'm constantly amazed at how the passage of time seems different depending on my mood. Sometimes it feels like it was just a few days ago that I was in the ICU feeling my brain twist into a pretzel shape, and sometimes it feels like there's a whole huge world of time, history, events, aches and pains inbetween his death four years ago and now.

Welcome to life on earth.

Prayer Request

2009-09-14T22:39:00.001-04:00

Scott's ex-wife, Muir (SCA: Mistress Francesca) , is currently on an all night vigil with her father in New Orleans in the cardiac ICU. He had major surgery today that did not go very well. I don't know any details other than that, but now's the time for prayers if you're in that business.

Muir is a gem of a woman. She's been in a very positive, healing relationship with Scott since their divorce in 2004, and I've rarely seen a couple so dedicated to building a friendship of sincere mutual support after a break up. Muir has welcomed me lovingly into her life, and I have genuinely enjoyed my growing friendship with her. She is a strong woman with a lion's heart, and now she is facing a major challenge in watching her father go through this process. No one knows what the next few hours or days will bring.

I pray for her to feel strength and know that there are many people sending strength to her from far away. I pray for her to feel not alone even in the midst of some dysfunctional people who may react to this stress in ways that make Muir's coping more difficult. I pray that she may know in her soul and foundation that she is loved, she is worthy, and she is just fine the way she is.

If you're a praying person, please pray for Muir Dean, her father Donald Bradburn, and the rest of their family and friends.

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!

2009-09-09T18:36:00.002-04:00

FINALLY!!!!! My dear dear dear beloved friends Cat and Preston have finally had their baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M SOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!

Most births are happy times that I applaud for my loved ones who decide to become parents, but this one is super particularly special. This is a baby who has been many many years in coming. This is a baby who has come to parents that are very particularly in need of becoming parents. The world needs these people to be parents, and now that they are, I feel like my faith in God and all that's good in the universe is reinvigorated!

Cat has had more than her fair share of physical challenges and heartbreaks on this journey, and Preston has been right there along with her. Their marriage has been tested and strengthened by every new mountain to get over, and it has been a roller coaster of successes and failures amazing to witness. These two people have shown extraordinary commitment to each other and to their goal of creating a family like few people are required to show. Other words I can use to describe them include but are not limited to: endurance, passion, resilience, determination, doggedness, and sticktoitiveness! They now have the most powerful and precious reward they could ever want, and my heart is bursting with thanks to the universe!

Cat and Preston were mourning one of their own losses when they joined me for the memorial ceremony I held at Pennsic the year after Alan died. I was amazed at how they kept going, putting one foot in front of the other, even to come join me in my horrible grief. I remember that it rained like hell that night, and it was the only rain we had that Pennsic. Cat sat on the ground in the little tent we had, and I felt so powerless to do anything other than hate the universe for all the unfair losses it caused me and my loved ones.

This new birth is undeniably a huge piece of the balancing act the universe is giving us after that horrible time. It touches me in that place way deep down where my grief for Alan is. It’s a piece of light brought into the black cavern of pain in me that was created when Alan died. Very few things bring light down there, and this new baby is one of them.

Welcome to the world little baby!!! We have SOOOOOOO been waiting for you! :)

Uterus, weekly commuting, Pennsic, pet sitting, work, Woman Within, Scott's family

2009-09-08T11:54:00.001-04:00

Quick update:
I’m having health problems. My uterus is malfunctioning. I have one big problematic fibroid and two polyps. There are other fibroids that aren’t causing trouble at the moment, but I’m wondering what they will do in the future. My GYN office is scheduling the surgery, and as soon as I get word on when that surgery is, I’ll be a much happier camper. I’ve lost a lot of blood and I’m feeling tired all the time. I get painful cramps on and off, but so far Aleve has been able to keep them from putting me in bed. What’s really bugging me is the unpredictable nature of the huge blood losses that surprise me at various and random moments. I’d really love it if I could just stop bleeding. I’d love to go back to the days of relatively predictable bleeding that I haven’t seen since early spring. I will someday soon, I just have to wait for the doctor’s secretaries to do their job. Apparently the two business days we’ve had since my last appointment weren’t enough. *sigh*
I’m moving in with Scott and adopting a lifestyle of a Washington DC weekly commuter. This is apparently a relatively popular lifestyle in DC where people want to work here but live somewhere else. I love DC – even with the tourists and traffic – but Scott and I want to move our relationship along in a forward direction. That means taking some action to move one of us closer to the other one. Scott owns a house in Raleigh (specifically Cary, NC), and his job is 100% tied to his location at the University of North Carolina. I do not own a house and selling a house nowadays is just stupid if you have another option. My job is a little more flexible than his, so I’m going to take on the stress of commuting, and he’d going to take on the stress of more laundry and food shopping. I’m going to keep a “satellite home” in Washington DC, the first of which will be sharing some space in my friend Caitlin’s apartment. Caitlin stayed with me for about 6 months last year, so now she’s going to put me up as I try out this new lifestyle. Next summer when her lease is up, I’ll find another tiny studio apartment or roommate situation close to my office. When my current lease is up on January 4, I’ll start commuting from Scott’s. I’ll drive into DC on Monday mornings, missing the regular rush hour traffic, work long days Monday through Thursday, drive back Thursday night, and telecommute Friday. This means I also get to keep meeting with my egroup on Tuesdays and stay connected with all my Washington DC loved ones. November is the month of moving, so I’ll be able to take my time and not have to move in one horrible, painful weekend.
Pennsic was great, and I can’t believe I didn’t post anything about it yet. The most significant thing for me was that I decided to *not* produce my own commedia dell’ arte show. My malfunctioning uterus was giving me enough stress that I knew I couldn’t keep up a normal “Sophie At Pennsic” energy level all week. The truly lucky thing was that iSebastiani was doing a show for the Casa Bardicci low brow party on Sunday night, and Anton wrote a whole new show for that event that I got to play in. I then reworked the show a bit for a slightly different cast and redid the show for the Thursday night high brow party! It was wonderful and a fraction of the work producing my own commedia show at Pennsic usually is. I was so happy to roll with the punches and just work with what I had. I had a ton of fun playing with Anton and the iSeb gang, and my sweetie Scott also joined in! He played Flavio and was absolutely hilarious in his attempts to woo Isabella. I was the lusty Columbina, so I was flirting with Arlecchino instead of Flavio. Actually I was flirting with anyone I could – it’s commedia!
Pennsic was also a wonderful time to reconnect with friends. I cherish the annual “family reunion” feel I get at Pennsic.
I also got to play great music with my beloved Musica Subterranea! My favorite gig was playing Casa Bardicci, but it was really crowded with performers and this one “band” that played for belly dancers was trying to kick us out of our spot after we played just one tune! We played for about 45 minutes, and a bunch of the dancers from the regular dance tent came to give us a really authentic feeling to the actual practice of playing for dancers at a big party. It was crowded, full of rude people and high ranking people, but also full of people who loved what we were doing! It was a beautiful environment and loads of fun!
We also played the Knowne World Crown Heads dinner at Midrealm Royal encampment, and that was ok, but less fun. We played because our beloved friend Zof (who was on Royal staff this year) asked us to come and make the Midrealm King and Queen look good by having their kingdom’s coolest music group provide dinner music for all twenty-some royalty pairs from all the kingdoms attending Pennsic. But as Pennsic luck would have it, the light was bad, they didn’t feed us, and we ended up playing for 2.5 hours instead of 1. I had just run the Fools’ Parade (over an hour on stilts corralling 20+ crazy Pennsic Fools) just before hand and only had time to scarf down a sandwich before dressing and prepping for the royalty gig. And I had to completely miss the iSebastiani ICOD performance.  So it goes at Pennsic – there’s always too much fun to be had and too little time to take care of oneself. The King and Queen of Calontir were absolutely wonderful, tho, because after we’d played a few tunes, they sent over to the band their own glasses of mead! I credit my beloved sister, Scott, and Francesca with taking care of me after I crashed hard when we were done playing that gig. They took me back to camp, fed me, and put me to bed. They were awesome!
Other wonderful things include but are not limited to: Midair’s annual improv comedy fest called “Who’s Line Doth It Be Anyway?” where I got to play with many good old friends including Paul Hudert (Paulo Garbonzo) who taught me by example much of what I know about performing as a professional, meeting Accolon’s sweet new wife, helping to launch the new Club Cunradus in camp Spartii, seeing many of my friends including Kat Kinney and Accolon in Zof’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, and ending up the week with a proper Peeps Sacrifice on the campfire with my sister and the rest of the Red Winged Lion gang.
Going back to work wasn’t bad at all because I was happy to get back to air conditioning, flush toilets, and I do love my job. For the week and a half after Pennsic I housesat/petsat for Lisa and Mona – actually for Cobber and Rambo! Cobber is a sweet doggie of medium size and very puppy like temperament. He does really well with the walking and peeing only in places he should, and he likes to jump up on people and pretend he’s small enough to sit in one’s lap or cuddle in one’s bed. He’s only slightly too big for such activities, but I didn’t mind. His eternal sweetness and doggie love easily overcame the awkwardness of his size. I did, however, learn really quickly to quit with the cute baby talk voice when he jumped up on me. I discovered a new voice for animal discipline. I think it surprised me more than it surprised him! But it got the job done.
And Rambo is the coolest cat there ever was! He is *huge* as cats go, and completely mello – even when the dog is trying to eat his head. He defends himself from Cobber’s attempts to play very effectively, but I still feel sorry for him when he looks like he just wants to cat nap and Cobber’s jumping all around him and trying to eat his head. I rescued the kitty as much as I could, and it was really wonderful having kitty loving around again.
Work has been good, and busy as all heck. I’ve had to take some time off here and there to cope with my uterus problems, and I’m now juggling three projects! My favorite new one is the Annual Report to Congress for the Defense Department’s Environmental Programs! I get to lead the chapter on FUDS (Formerly Used Defense Sites) since I worked in the HQ for that program for the past three years. I also get to just be part of this incredible team that’s actually pulling together the data and narratives for *THE* *BOOK* that congress uses to learn what all’s going on in the environmental programs for the Department of Defense! This book is available in a searchable format to the public, and I’ll post the link here as soon as I can, but the coolest part is that I just get to work on this project!! Woo hoo!! It makes me feel like I really can make a difference in this world. I’m a key part of a team that feeds data to the people who make the decisions for our whole country! I’m a tiny cog in the great machine, but I know that what I do makes a difference in the vast mechanism that runs our lives. This is exactly why I love Booz Allen!
I also happen to have gotten into a really wild tiny gig at work supporting the Systems Resource Center – an internal Booz Allen group that focuses on technology trends of the moment – and I’m doing voice recordings for their podcasts! I’m actually standing in a sound booth reading/performing scripts about what Booz Allen is doing in current technology for the internal Booz Allen communication structure. It’s only about 1-2 hours of work per month, but it’s cool!!! I’m actually getting *paid* to do performing work! It’s a tiny tiny tiny amount of my work, but it’s wonderfully fun to be able to say that I am actually doing voice performing for real money!
In other news, Scott went with me to a really awesome workshop done by one of my favorite wise women in the world, Judith Pauly! Judith held a one day, Saturday, workshop about how to actually connect with one’s soul and make changes that really heal and improve a person’s life. Judith is one of my favorite people in the whole world and one of the best leaders and workshop creators I’ve ever met through the Woman Within program. Scott earned Boyfriend of the Year again by just agreeing to go with me, but as we went through it, I was enheartened beyond belief to see him understanding the exercises and actually getting some good stuff out of it! It was wonderful to see him enjoying this work that means so much to me and makes up so much of my life. I got a lot out of the workshop too, but just sharing it with Scott was the most significant piece for me.
I’ve been wanting to blog a lot about “What is this Woman Within thing anyway?” I really don’t have time to do it right now, but I do want to write something here to remind myself to make time to do more of this. Woman Within is just one program out of many that has been created by people involved in the mental & emotional health industry to do something for personal growth that’s different than regular talk-therapy. There is plenty that a person can do with a professional therapist to heal the emotional crap in one’s life and get through emotional challenges in life. This program, however, does different things along the same line. It’s based on many of the same theories, but provides a more experiential learning experience than sitting on someone’s couch and talking to them for an hour a week. It’s no better or worse than talk therapy, and I’ve found that it provides a different method of learning how to cope that works well for lots of people. Ya know how people learn in different ways? Some people are more visual and like PowerPoint slides with graphics a lot? Some people prefer to read a book and think about it for a few weeks? This is an experiential method of learning that has really worked amazingly well for me. I’m going to write more about this concept here on my blog, but I wanted to at least get that thought down. More to come soon.
I just spent the Labor Day weekend with Scott’s family, dad’s side, at a family reunion in Madison, Wisconsin. This completes the summer of getting to meet each other’s families. Scott met my whole family at my grandma El’s funeral this March, I met his mom’s family at their family reunion on the outer banks this June, and then I met his dad’s family this Labor Day weekend. It’s truly amazing how our families are different in size. My mom is an only child and my dad had just one brother. I have just the one uncle who married my wonderful aunt and they had three kids, so my extended family that I grew up with – excluding the marriages and babies that ensued after adulthood – is a grand total of 5 people. If you include my parents and my sister, my blood related family is a total of 8 people. (I’m excluding grandparents since all of ours are dead by now and we had the same number growing up.) Scott’s mom is one of 6 siblings, and his dad is ALSO one of 6 siblings! Scott has 10, count em *TEN* aunts and uncles!!! Each one of them got married at least once – some more than once – and each of them had kids!!! That’s 20, count em *TWENTY* people who all have professions and lives and other families and kids – and now some of those kids have kids!!! It’s HUGE!!! Scott’s family tree makes mine look like a twig! I have, however, worked very hard this summer to memorize everyone’s names, and I’ve done a good job. I can recognize all of them by face now, except for the one uncle/aunt couple from Scott’s mom’s side that didn’t make it to the reunion in June.
Scott has is *SOOOOOOOO* easy! He has ONE aunt/uncle pair to memorize. *ONE*! And just three cousins! I swear to you that I cannot, seriously and honestly, at this point even *count* all of Scott’s cousins! I can rattle off all the aunts and uncles, and for the most part I can name off their kids names, but I know I’m still missing a few in my memory files. Naturally, those are the ones that couldn’t come to the reunions this summer so I didn’t actually meet them in person.
So, it’s been loads of fun to meet Scott’s *HUGE* family, and I do like them. They’ve been very sweet and welcoming to me, and everyone is impressed that I’ve managed to memorize the aunts and uncles! They all took time to chat with me and ask about my life and how Scott and I came together. I felt like they were genuinely interested in me and how I am affecting their beloved Scott. I really appreciated how they reached out to me and consciously connected with me on a sincerely genuine level. Our families are very different in size, but I feel very much at home with both of them.

Facebook...O...M...G!!!

2009-08-26T09:21:00.004-04:00

I joined Facebook yesterday upon a whim of distraction in the middle of the workday. I spent 18 minutes on that web page, and now, less than 24 hours later, I am discovering deep new things about myself as a human being.

I have always identified myself as a hard wired extrovert who lives vivaciously in the connections I have with other people. Since Alan died, I have discovered a growing appreciation for introverted times when I really want all those connections to go away. It's been a piece of work for me to learn to accept and roll with those times when I really need to disconnect and spend time alone just for the sake of spending time alone. This all seemed like pretty understandable life processing, though, and I have always felt that my connections to other people is what gives me reason to live. I love reveling in the shared energy of my connection with loved ones, and I never thought that there could possibly be an end or a limit to my enjoyment of that connection.

Then I joined Facebook.

I am reminded of the times shortly after Alan's death when I discovered the meaning of the word "can't." There were times when I had to say "I can't" do something or be something or accomplish something. This is understandable for anyone with an ounce of real world experience and compassion. Grief fucks with a person and takes the grand majority of a survivor's life energy to process, cope, heal, etc. But Facebook??? Why does Facebook now bring to mind the evil four letter contraction???

Because there are only so many hours in the day. I have to spend at least and often more than 40 hours a week working on making a paycheck, I travel to and from work which typically takes about 2 hours out of each day, I have to perform a long list of life maintenance chores, and I absolutely must get at least 7 hours a day of real, healthy sleep. Time invested daily in my relationship with Scott is also a place where some of those 24 hours goes, and that's a joy that does feed my life's energy. Same goes for the blessedly long list of friends and family in my support network. So, please hear me gently when I say...

"I may not respond quickly to anything you say to me on Facebook. The speed of my response to you is in no way related to any judgment I have made about you, how important you are, or how much I love you."

Facebook is officially, in my world, icing on the cake of my life's communications. The real meat of my connections with people outside my brain (which is everyone except my sister) will still live in the times when we genuinely connect - and that quality time will still be juggled and fit into our lives as best we can. Facebook may help add some more quality time into my day, but for the love of all that's good on this planet, please do not take a lack of my attention to you on Facebook as a negative event in any way.

Now if I could just figure out what the difference is between my "wall" and my "profile" I'll be happy...

I figured it out

2009-08-15T19:24:00.004-04:00

Ok, well, I simplified a concept I already understood, considered it in my present situation, and felt better about my life by the time I finished the mental process. No real new stuff in the world, but I feel better.

The simplification is this: Every August 12th I'm going to be returning to August 12th 2005. I'm going to remember. There's just no question about that. And since there was just SO much god damned shit hitting the fan because of Alan's death and the secondary, tertiary, and cascading losses and challenges I experienced afterwards, I have about a lifetime of emotional work to do to get through it.

I haven't been doing a lot of work in egroup over the past few months. Admittedly, it's been easy to just pass because my egroup sisters have a lot of work to do too, so we're never bored. But I feel like I've been slacking off on my homework. I've been letting the reading assignments pile up, often with good reason (like going anemic) but I'm still feeling behind.

Now, I'm cramming. There's no test with a deadline, but I only have so much of a cushion/margin/bandwidth and it got full to bursting last week. Alan's 4 year death anniversary, the train suicide, and plenty of Post Pennsic stuff to take care of was apparently more than I could handle. I was extremely exhausted by the end of the week - and I still hadn't gotten anything done. No journalling, no egroup. But I did get in a few good phone calls. That was good.

A lot of people, a sad majority of the people in our glorious modern american society, resist emotional work. It's hard, and getting through life is hard enough, and you can really really get quite far in life here with a rather messy emotional makeup. People treat each other - and themselves - with a lack of respect and honesty as a way of life very often, and we have for millennia. We talk about lofty moral goals, but the status quo is full of lies, fakery, fear, cowardice, shame, and laziness. This is why it's hard for me to do emotional work on a Wednesday. I have to get up, go to work, think and act like a professional, produce something that's worth paying for with taxpayer dollars, and go back to the metro station only after I've done that for at least 8 straight hours. No, I don't get enough Paid Time Off to really take time off when I need to do emotional work. I can't just call in sick. Not if I want to take time off to go see the doctor when I'm physically sick and also go to Pennsic and go see my family at Christmastime.

This is why I was so bothered by being on that train that guy committed suicide on. I only have so much bandwidth, and I was already stretched thin. Now that I've had a day to myself to be not at work, to be in my own home, in the air conditioning (*see later story about AC), I'm feeling very rejuvinated.

Muir was right on the money when she said "Don't take it on." My mom was right (dear god I'm agreeing with my mother) when she said there was simply no call to action that day. I looked, I was available, and there was nothing. No call. Someone else's llama. So, my lesson was to remember to not take it on.

This brings be around to the great question of "What is my lesson for this life?" I like to believe in reincarnation and the concept that we come down to earth as souls looking to learn a lesson about "LIFE" (tm). I'm leaning more and more towards deciding that my lesson for this time around (the big one, not the only one) is to learn how to deal with death - in all its forms. Maybe I've been so damned afraid of dying or of my loved ones dying that I decided once and for all to go and figure the damn thing out.

I can see it all now: Me in my pretty white flowing robes chatting with God in his office. God's flipping through his manila file folders and skimming down a check sheet on his clipboard.

God: "Now then, you've covered a lot of ground in the last few centuries. Not bad for a young soul like yourself. You've learned a lot about love and families, you've gotten started on contributing back something to your society, but you haven't made much progress on the understanding of spiritual existence. You've never had a good relationship with me when you're down there on earth - you never pray, you never write - and you're still letting your mortality slow you down. You don't have much time to be down there in any one life, and you're still holding onto the fear of finishing a life and coming back home. You've got to do something about that or else you'll just keep wasting time."

Me: "Well, I keep ending up in societies where there's not enough food all the time, and I keep getting sick. How am I supposed to get any work done on studying spiritual life if I'm always trying to just keep my body fed and healthy?"

God: "You know that's just an excuse."

Me: (gives God a well practiced puppy-dog-eyes look)

God: *sigh* "Oh all right. If we put you somewhere where you're sure to have enough food, no life threatening diseases, and enough shelter and safety that you can concentrate on your studies, will you go learn how to get over your fear of death?"

Me: "Yea, I think I can." "But I really don't know where to start. I mean, how am I supposed to know what's going on down there if I'm out of contact with you?"

God: "Well that's your first step! Learn to get out of your head and listen for me once in a while! I can't tell you how many times I've been screaming my head off at you from up here and you're just all 'La dee da! I wonder what I'm doing here on earth? Where is God and why won't he talk to me?' If you'd learn to listen, you'd have an easier time down there. And don't worry about figuring out where to start. You'll find plenty of soul mates down there, and plenty of them are going to have to come back here before you do, so you'll be watching a lot of death before you have to face your own."

Me: "Really? Plenty of soul mates?! That sounds great!"

God: "Sure, you've been around long enough to get connected to a lot of souls. It'll be great while you're all down there, but it's going to be hard for you to say goodbye. That's your lesson this time, and I'm not letting you back up here until you get it. I mean really get it."

Me: "Wow. Ok. So, this life is going to be painful?"

God: "Geeeeze.....Add "Balance" to this life's lesson plan and surround yourself with yin-yang symbols once you get there. Don't you get it yet that in order for it to get painful, you get the joyous love part first?! Man! I give you guys the blessing of getting good and bad, both guaranteed, and you *still* complain about the bad! Right up front! How would you like it if I took away that universal balance thing? Huh? Then if it was bad, you'd never know if you'd ever get any good again! You could have a whole life, many whole lives, of just BAD BAD BAD!"

ME: "OK OK - I'm sorry! Thanks for the balance thing. I'll make sure to keep that in my lesson plan. I'll watch out for the yin yangs when the pain comes around."

God: "And if you listen to me when you're praying, I'll remind you that you got joy first - before the pain - and you'll get joy again if you keep your head about yourself."

Me: "Yes sir."

God: "Ok, kid, now get out of here. You've got a life to go live. And if you don't get the lesson this time, you're just going to have to go back and do it again later. I'm not letting you out of this one. It's key."

(I hesitate...)

God: "Now what?"

Me: "Um, it's an awful lot of work to do...and, um... I know I'm going to do my best...but could I have a little help?"

God: "You'll get by with a little help from your friends."

Me: "Well, I'm taking on a lot this time... I was hoping for someone in a closer position."

God: *sigh* "Ok. I'll give you a sister. I'll see if anyone in the Saint Pool is available. If they're booked, you may get a Saint In Training."

Me: "Oh! No problem! If they're in training still, they're sure to get enough experience with me to warrant getting their wings!"

God: "Play nice."

Me: "Yes sir."

God: "Get going."

Me: "See you soon, sir."

God: "Not too soon."

Brought to you by the infamous Voices In My Head Players! ;)

Anyway...
The air conditioning bit I mentioned before is that I'm house sitting/pet sitting for a loved one, and there's only one room that's air conditioned. It's not a massive problem, but it does mean that by the time I'm done with work, doing pet duties, feeding myself, and cleaning my sweaty body, I hit that air conditioned room and feel like passing out. All it means is that it's very hard to get work done - personal, professional, or emotional - after I leave the office. This means that I'm going to devise a different plan for this next week. I'm going to set up a few specific tasks for the evening hours, and make them short and easy. If I plan ahead, and do all my thinking while in my comfy air conditioned office, I should be able to still be productive in the evening.

Washington DC is a swamp and it's August. And I'm part of a modern American society where air conditioning spoils those of us who live with it all day every day. But I must say that it's better than New York City in the summer. :P

Healing.

2009-08-13T13:44:00.002-04:00

This is what the Washington Post has to say about the metro death yesterday:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081201791.html

I appreciate the feedback I'm getting from blogging friends. I'm sure now that there was no immediate call to action from the universe for yesterday, and I'm just going to keep my ears perked for one to come in the future. One friend made the comparison that I was just as out of control and powerless to change the outcome as I was sitting on the train yesterday as I was watching Alan die four years ago. This may have been an event where I can simply see the lesson repeating in my life - but in a more gentle fashion this time. This time it's not one of my own loved ones dying, but I feel the death's significance because I was physically close to it.

I'm in the zone. Watching for lessons. More to come.

August Twelfth is a really fucked up day.

2009-08-12T12:13:00.004-04:00

Alan died on this day four years ago. Because of this fact, I was moving as slow as molassas in January this morning, in a mental fog. For an as of yet unknown reason, I felt compelled, I mean *compelled*, to do laundry. I had the typical 3-4 loads of Pennsic laundry that I'd started last night, but I just felt absolutely compelled to continue the process, including the sorting of the clean laundry that I normally hate to do. Anyone who's seen "Mount Laundry" on my bedroom floor knows how much I hate sorting and putting away clean laundry. Don't ask me why.

So, long around 11:00am I ask my new temporary roommate Randy (dear friend from Indiana who's currently unemployed/job hunting) to drive me to the metro station. This is another unusual circumstance because I normally take the bus, but I was just feeling so awful this morning I decided it would just be nice to get a ride, and Randy's been awesome about jumping at the chance to do little favors like this since I'm putting him up. Randy's always been an awesome friend, and getting a ride from a person whose company I enjoy is a nice little thing on a difficult day like today.

So, imagine my suprise when I'm on the metro train, the orange line headed in the direction of New Carrolton, into town to get to my office for a half day of work, and it stops at West Falls Church station. The train powers down and all of us sigh that frustrated sigh of "Not again. What's wrong with Metro now?" A metro employee saunters into our car and presses the red button for the speakerphone intercom. She looks as calm as anything. She walks through our car to the next car, and we can hear her say "Everything alright in here?"

We have to wait a few minutes for any news. Next thing we hear on the intercom is something like "We have a situation." I hear the same female metro employee that'd just been in our car yelling at the folks on the platform "All passengers down here!" Apparently she was ushering folks away from the front end of the train.

Next thing I remember is hearing over the intercom "Someone's jumped in front of the train." The same male voice also announced something about us exiting the train, but it took a few minutes for the train doors to open. All my fellow passengers were calm, slightly frustrated, curiously looking at each other, and standing waiting to exit the soon to open doors. Once they did, about 200 people were milling about on the platform. The metro employees were walking up and down the train, looking down through the crack between the train and the concrete of the platform, and periodically huddling.

A new train came into the middle track, eventually opened its doors, and a metro employee yelled into the crowd that we should all board the train. Again, it took a few minutes for the doors to open, a few minutes for the people to board, some more minutes for us to wait for something unknown, and then the train went on its way like normal.

Now I'm wondering, why did all this happen? The metro web page has this to say:

http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/PressReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=4008

"Trains single-tracking, expect delays.
Emergency personnel are on the scene at West Falls Church-VT/UVA Metrorail station where a man has reportedly been struck by a train today, Wednesday, August 12, at 11:18 a.m.

Preliminary reports indicate that a six-car Orange Line train headed in the direction of New Carrollton struck a male customer who was on the tracks intentionally as the train pulled into the station.

Trains are sharing one track through the station to allow train service to pass through the area. This is likely to result in delays of up to 30 minutes in the area of the incident as well as some other delays along the Orange Line until mid-afternoon.

(This is the second update to the incident.)

Media contact for this news release: Lisa Farbstein at 202-962-1051.
For all other inquiries, please call customer service at 202-637-7000.
News release issued at 12:03 pm, August 12, 2009."

So, why was I there? Why did my unusual morning put me on this train where someone seems to have been trying to commit suicide? Was I supposed to go help somewhere? Am I supposed to take up the fight against suicide? Am I supposed to serve as the mysterious guardian angel that someone needs at just the right time? Or do I just post the story to my blog, reassure my friends and family that I've avoided yet another metro train accident, and finish the data evaluation I'm supposed to have done for my boss by tomorrow?

I have no idea at present. Suggestions welcome.

I've been ill; I am going to Pennsic

2009-07-29T11:05:00.004-04:00

"She's lost a lot of blood!" is a line spoken in many a dramatic movie & TV scene, especially vampire themed shows like Buffy and Twilight (which I just rented and enjoyed enough to want to read the books.) Naturally, Hollywood, and even our beloved Joss Whedon, are far from representing exactly what happens to a young woman's body when she looses a lot of blood. I guess Twilight did an ok job, now that I think of it, given that after she was served as a vampire snack, the next time we see her she's on an IV in a hospital. Anyway...

I lost a lot of blood in early July from having a malfunctioning uterus. Both fibroids and polyps showed up on a uterine ultrasound I had on July 14th, but the detail wasn't enough for my GYN to go ahead with any surgery. I have another slightly more advanced type ultrasound ("Sonohistogram") scheduled for August 19th - which had to be scheduled so late because my body had to cycle again apparently. After this ultrasound, my GYN is sending me to a partner of hers who does a lot of polyp removals. I expect he's going to look at the test results and have what he needs to put me through the proceedure to remove the polyp. They say it's a rather quick and easy outpatient procedure, so I expect to take minimal time off work.

Besides the obvious hassle and severely annoying cramping, this illness has caused me to enjoy a mere fraction of the energy I usually have. The weekend of July 18 & 19 was spent entirely in bed or on the sofa, I've taken portions of days off work, and I can barely keep a normal schedule going. What this means for you, my dear friends and family that occasionally click over here to see what's up in my life, is that I've fallen off the face of the earth. Communications that are not critical to keeping my life and job functioning have had to take a back seat and just not get done. I'm deeply saddened by this, so I'm apologizing sincerely and publicly, and I'm asking you to hear that you mean no less to me just because I've been out of touch. I'm returning phone calls and emails... just at a snail's pace.

I am eternally blessed with the support of my sweet honey Scott, who has been a trooper of massive support this whole time. He's been doing the lion's share of hard labor for Pennsic prep, and I predict my Pennsic would be severely abbreviated if not cancelled entirely if it weren't for his support. So much public applause goes to him for being Boyfriend of the Year - again!

Public appreciation also goes to Caitlin who took care of me all day one Saturday when I needed to get car repairs done. Y'all can rest assured that I have a sturdy support network with Scott, Caitlin, Lisa, and Shannon nearby and a mother without a paycheck-job who's ready to come to my rescue at a moment's notice. I have a good rapport with my GYN, I've researched my condition, and I'm doing everything that seems reasonable to do. Your positive thoughts are always appreciated, but don't worry overmuch about me. This is dealable.

I *AM* going to Pennsic, and I expect to get on the road with Scott after work on Thursday - tomorrow - stay at a hotel, and arrive at Pennsic Friday around noon. Camp Spartii as always. Fool's Parade is Tuesday at 4:00 at the barn, and that's my only scheduled obligation at the moment.

NB: Commedia will happen! If any of my commedia buddies are reading this, and dear god I hope a few of them are (Johannes? Jess? Paula? Anton?), you should know that I do in fact have a plan for implementing mayhem via i Rosi Lioni again! Wackiness will ensue, and if you want to come play, please let me know via email. We will most likely perform once for Camp Spartii and Duke Dagan, and once for Casa Bardici - likely both will be Thursday night. My plan to cope with my unpredictable energy level is to just direct the show if I'm on low energy. I can at least sit in a chair in the shade and shout directions. I'll be damned if I will miss out on doing commedia completely. Laughter is the best medicine, and I need all I can get.

Jess - I haven't forgotten about you and i Greeni Whatevers... I'll be there for you and we'll see what mischief we can manage when we meet up.

So, think positive thoughts for me full of iron, protien, and plump healthy red blood cells!

Love, Sophie/Lara

Life is hard

2009-07-19T21:43:00.002-04:00

There is a lot of life going on at the moment. Sure, that ain't news, but I'm particularly aware of it tonight. I had some health problems come up since the July 4th weekend. There's been more death around my orbit lately than I care to deal with. My psychiatrist changed my anti-depression meds, and I don't think the new ones are doing as great a job as the old ones. So, I know I'm in an altered state of mind as I type this.

I've been trying to post to my blogs and failing miserably. I'm having a hard time, but I know my times are no harder than most others. I at least have my job, most of my health, and a roof over my head.

At times like this, I remember how bad it was at the worst of times right after Alan died. I learned something then that I pull up when the going gets rough: What *do* I have and what *can* I do?

What do I have?
- a network of loved ones I know I can count on, and I know what I can count on them for.
- a body that's young and mostly healthy and able to heal
- a brain that's still pretty capable
- a job that provides me money to take care of my body and brain in this society
- a roof over my head that I can keep in livable condition
- a car to allow me to function in this society

What can I do?
- I can keep making decisions and performing tasks to maintain my health and physical healing
- I can keep working at my job enough to keep that job safe and maintained.
- I can keep putting one foot in front of the other every day.
- I can post to my blog to tell those of my loved ones that read it that I care about them. You know who you are, and I wish deeply that I could reach out to each of you personally, thoughtfully, and individually, but I haven't been able to recently and I can't do so in the next few weeks. Please take this as a tiny attempt to reach out to you, my loved ones, and tell you that I love you. I think about you all many times a day, and I miss you all terribly. I wish I could be in touch with you all better, and someday I will get there. Just not right now. You all mean a great deal to me, I care about you, and I hope that you're coping with your own lives as well as possible.

I'm fine, I wasn't on the Metro yesterday.

2009-06-23T17:54:00.004-04:00

It's really heartwarming to know I'm loved by so many people, and that those people pay attention to the news. Sorry to be so out of touch. My job has kept me busy like I've never been busy before.

I wasn't commuting on the metro trains yesterday because Mondays are my day to work in the McLean, VA office of Booz Allen for one of my projects that has a workspace there. When I'm there, I drive about 15 minutes north on Gallow's Road from my apartment. No public transportation helps me out on that route.

Normally, I ride the Metro orange line (yes - very cool for me) and the blue line into work. The crash was on the red line. I ride the red line sometimes to go to my grief therapist, chiropractor, the Corps of Engineers office, or Dupont Circle. I was lucky yesterday.

So, there's another reminder for y'all. Life is short, delicate, and very easily snuffed out by suprise.

I HAVE MY OWN OFFICE!!!!! WITH A WINDOW!!!!

2009-04-01T15:38:00.006-04:00

Yes, I have finally made it. I have my window office in a big city skyscraper. Dreamed of this since I started dreamin.

At least since I started dreaming of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm not quite as thin or fashionably dressed as I was in my teenage visions, but the stability I've built myself here is looking pretty darn good.

I left the Corps of Engineers behind yesterday, and they threw me the most wonderful going away party! We went to lunch at my favorite place in Chinatown, Clyde's, and came back to the office for cake and presents. The folks from the Army Reserves that I work next to gave me a teddy bear in an army uniform! :))) How cute is that?! My friend Sylvia gave me a beautiful box of awesome truffles, and my friend Hilda gave me a huge bouquet of flowers! Then, as if that weren't enough, Hilda produced two photographs of our beautiful building with mats that had been covered in signatures and little good luck notes. I was seriously near to tears. It's been three years since I first came to the Corps, and I will seriously miss the folks I work with.

And now... the next morning... after staying up until 2:00am finishing the last dregs of work I needed to do for the contract... I am now freed to be a regular Booz Allen consultant, fully and completely supported by Uncle Booz and his never ending office supplies. I'm not even really joking. Office supplies are hard to come by in federal buildings, and I always had to just grab some pens and post its when I went to meetings in Booz offices to bring back to my corps desk. No April Foolery here - I'm serious. If you think the federal government wastes money, don't look for the leaks in the cube farms of the hard working desk folks. Also, the coffee at the Corps office was a co-op kind of club where one poor shmoe had to go do the shopping and collect money. Here at Booz Allen, coffee and tea and cocoa are part of the regular office supplies - and in abundance!

There's always copy paper here. There's always someone working hard at fixing the copiers and printers when they're down. There's always enough toner. There's always someone to call to get computer help. There are janitors to do the cleaning and admin people to help keep everything straight. All the stuff an office needs to run smoothly is here in abundance and it's so not there in federal offices. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders just knowing I am not on my own for making my office logistics work.

And did I mention my window?? ;) And the fact that I don't have a roommate? Usually we share 2 to an office, but sometimes someone gets lucky and no one's assigned to the other half of your office for a while. So, for the moment, I have my own office, with a window overlooking Crystal City, and I can revel in my stability. I worked hard to get here, and I'm damn proud.

I also experienced actual hunger for the first time in four days today! The grumbling in my stomach and intestines has come down to a dull roar, the gas production seems to have stopped, and my tummy actually feels like a tummy again! I had a whole can of chicken noodle soup for lunch and it actually tasted good!

So, I have some challenges ahead that are significant, and I feel prepared to deal with them. Juggling more than one contract is new to me, but I have loads of support from my truly awesome Booz Allen team. I am looking forward to my new work, I'm magnificently blissful about my glorious office, and I'm relieved that I have control of my body again. And on top of that, the next Battlestar Galactica DVD just came in from Netflix. The clouds from this latest storm are parting, and the next chapter is beginning. Re-freakin-birth is here baby.

I'm back in DC, but not plugged back in yet.

2009-03-30T19:45:00.002-04:00

I'm physically back in DC, but I haven't checked email or voicemail anywhere, and I probably won't until Wednesday. Scott and I had a lovely time in Disneyland Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday. Then somewhere in the LAX airport on Saturday evening, I ate something that gave me food poisoning. I started vomiting violently when our plane into Atlanta started the downward approach, and I ended up having to go to some unknown Atlanta hospital - whichever one was the closest to the airport - and spend the afternoon in the ER. The nurses did not have much in the way of positive bedside manner, and I won't recommend this hospital whenever I figure out what it's name was.

So, I was treated for severe vomiting and diareah, managed to stop puking, and Scott and I returned to the LAX ticket counter to try to reschedule our flights. I spent the next stretch of hours curled up on a pair of airport seats waiting for my 10:00pm flight home. I got home, luggage was at Dulles instead of National, and I drove home at about 1:30am.

This evening, I'm at work trying to finish the tasks I am contractually obligated to do by the end of business tomorrow, so I won't be thinking about anything else except getting my work done and getting some sleep and food in me at appropriate intervals. So, please don't take it personally if you're trying to get ahold of me and I don't get back with you. I'm not checking messages anywhere, and I won't until I get my own life back to a stable condition. "Put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others."

And BTW: Scott was an absolute *angel*! He was the only reason I kept going through the ordeal yesterday. He handled the tasks like telling the police, ambulance people, and ER people what my name was and giving them my insurance card. He was there for me *every* single moment, even the gross ones in the bathroom. This is a brave, selfless, dedicated man who stepped up to help me without an ounce of complaint or hesitation. I know from experience that not every man does this for his partner regardless of what title he has - boyfriend, fiance', husband, unmarried life partner, etc. Scott's just *awesome*. :)

Talk to y'all later.

In California til Sunday

2009-03-26T03:36:00.002-04:00

Mickey is throwing Scott a birthday party on Friday, and he went to the trouble to put together a parade, fireworks, the whole nine yards! Scott's conference finished up today, and I performed a photo finish of my own To Do list for work before hopping a plane to LA. I'm here safe and sound and about to crash in a nice warm hotel bed with my sweetiemuffingushiboo.

Don't come lookin' for me until Sunday.

Lara "I'm taking a damn vacation and no one can stop me" Coutinho

No wonder we have addictions...

2009-03-22T22:47:00.000-04:00

Not that I’m going to go start smoking, numbing out with alcohol, or emptying out my Rx bottles all at once, but days like this make me really understand why some people do. I just spent a chunk of hours cleaning out that pile of upturned boxes from three weeks ago, culling out lots of old papers from pre-DC days, and I am amazed I haven’t turned to some substance to numb out from all the crap I’ve brought into my life.

I had kept some old email printouts as CYA documentation for three specific dramas I had in conflict with people who were friends at the time. I read them over again and threw them away finally. There was just so much horrible, painful, immature crap going on between us I’m amazed that no one actually got arrested (as far as I know – those doors closed way before Alan died).

I worked a lot on letting go of old crap today, and I still only made a dent in that pile. I still have so much work to do, I’m absolutely boggled at how I’m supposed to clean out all this old crap, eat and sleep a healthy amount, still go to work 40+ hours per week, pay bills and still get in some exercise. There’s just no way.

So, I quit with the boxes and papers and turned to making myself a dinner. I’m currently waiting for the potato boiling to finish. As I was cutting up the potatoes, I was craving some TV time with something completely non-real life oriented like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. (No, I haven’t seen or heard anything about the series finale that just aired, so don’t tell me anything.) As I was wishing I could pop in a DVD of escapist sci-fi, I realized that my Netflix disc won’t show up until tomorrow, and the Season 1 set I have borrowed from Caitlin has been committed to memory at this point.

At times like this, when my craving for escapism is powerful, my normal resources are dry up, and the mountain of real life crap is depressingly overwhelming, I can really understand why some people turn to alcohol and drugs. Or chocolate. Or curling up in a ball and neglecting to get out of bed.

The potatoes are done, however, and I have chicken sausages in the microwave. I have three Dove bars in the freezer that are 6 points a piece and low risk for overeating triggering if I have one late at night with a cup of sugar free cocoa. I am coping by typing shit out here and releasing it to the universe and committing to counting my points. I am grateful for my job, my lack of disease, and the loved ones in my life. I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful. And I’ll be more grateful tomorrow when my next BSG disc arrives.

Laughter must win.

2009-03-22T15:07:00.002-04:00

Ok - so the message from the universe today is "lighten up!" At three in the morning Saturday morning (yesterday) someone posted the URL below to my the LJ posting my sister did for me when Bonkers died. It's anonymous, which I don't like, but I accept the beauty of the picture it led to anyway. I had no idea that the week before Alan died my Bonkers was so busy! She must've been happier than she let on about moving to DC. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/37503

Don't let the spoiled brats get you down.

2009-03-22T14:48:00.002-04:00

I sit here today at home, quiet, allowing myself a weekend of time dedicated to my own needs for the first time in a very long time. I don’t regret spending the time I have on helping Scott with Lafayette or my blood related family with the passing of my Grandma El. I chose very clearly to spend my time this way, and it cost me in some ways. My own Life Maintenance has been sorely neglected, my laundry is clean but spread over the bedroom floor instead of neatly put away in drawers and on hangers, my bathroom is a collection of artfully distributed toothpaste speckles, and the paper that enters my life through the US Postal Service is covering nearly every flat surface in my apartment.

My Christmas trees, both of them, are still up and sparkling. The piles of upturned file boxes I made a mess out of in a fit of rage one day are still sitting there waiting to be cleaned up. Dust has collected on large swaths of my computer desk, and various piles of art supplies, presents needing to be sent, and sentimentally valuable objects fill in every nook and cranny of non-walking space. I have extra weekend hours of work to do for my actual paycheck oriented work, and I honestly don’t know how I’m going to prioritize my To Do list today. What I do know is that it’s Sunday afternoon already, and I have to put an end to the quiet time I’ve allowed myself so far since Friday night services. It’s been clearly not enough quiet time, but it’s been at least some.

I know life can be worse. Much worse. I’ve lived it and I’ve seen it be worse for other people. I know someone who just had to kick out a spouse/parent from the family home because of a slip up in addiction rehab while also dealing with a loved one with Alzheimers. I know a lot of people who are jobless and cannot live on the money they have in savings. I know a few married couples who are struggling with the realization that they cannot bear their own children. I know a few people who are struggling with the realization that the person they relied on for primary emotional support is incapable of performing that job. And I know there are people every day joining the Griefnet email lists for “Young Widows” and “Young Widows with Kids.”

I know life can be a lot worse, especially for me. I am currently enjoying a complete lack of disease, my primary support pillar people are all for the most part free of disease as well, and the deaths that are happening around me are people and cats that have lived long lives and are passing on in relatively peaceful and predictable ways. No sudden tragedies are happening, and I am continuing to ask the universe to please keep sudden tragedies from happening to me and my loved ones. I also know of some very happy couples who have had babies and are having babies completely free of disease, critical family members, or unemployment. These are folks who have worked hard for their security in life, and they are far from spoiled or unappreciative. Yea for them!

And right now, I’m hung up on jealousy. I’m angry with spoiled people, and I’m having a hell of a time letting go of this hang up.

I hear in the hallway of my apartment building the screaming of children in foreign languages. My apartment complex is highly populated with young families, many of whom have very little money, don’t speak much English, and have lots of children. Most of these neighbors I actually get to meet are sweet, polite people, and their kids are well behaved enough to not cause trouble for me outside a little noise. However, when I look into their eyes, I see people who are nervous. They’re afraid. I’m polite and sweet to them as I smile and say hello, but I know these people are struggling. I also ride the bus with lots of low-income minorities, and every one of them looks profoundly sad.

I live in a wonderfully diverse large city, and I love it, and it shows me loads of suffering every day. I also know many people directly who are struggling painfully every day to just carve out a peaceful if not prosperous existence. I’m struggling, and I also know I have little to complain about compared to these people. And I also know people who are cruel in their ignorance. They have been spoiled by having an easy life, and they have no appreciation for the blessings they swim in. It’s these people that are my challenge right now.

Most of these people are Caucasian, many are women who married early to men who take care of them, and many have peaceful suburban lives. Some are men who got lucky enough to land jobs that pay well without having to expend much effort or take much risk. Most of these people have never had a disease, major loss, or any kind of tragedy mar the peaceful Norman Rockwell image of their lucky lives. We all know someone or some people like this, and in my awesome, big, international, crossroads city of mine here in DC, I get to see a lot of them.

And then there’s the woman with one leg who rides the same metro train I do. She uses crutches instead of a wheelchair, and she crutch-swing-steps her way down the metro platform and across the parking lot like the rest of us. I honestly have no idea what kind of a person she is, all I know is that her handicap is particularly noticeable. And it reminds me how good I have it every time I see her. At least I’m not missing any limbs.

And then I see the fat Caucasian tourists with kids that are rude – both the parents and the kids – on the metro. And I think of the spoiled people I know. And I feel the hatred for them. And I feel jealous because I wish my life were as comfy as theirs. I wish I didn’t have to live with the deep wounds I live with. And then I see the woman with one leg again. And I feel ashamed.

I’m living in conflict. I’m simply there. I’ve had it bad, and it could be worse, and I wish it were easier. I value the perspective I’ve gained and the appreciation for my blessings I’ve learned from the deep wounds I’ve suffered and healed, and somehow I’m still living in this conflict.

I resent that God didn’t give me any more than he did, and I’m also thankful because I know I’ll never be one of those spoiled brats who thinks their life is so hard because they can’t go on a cruise this year. I’ve never been on a cruise, and I think if I ever did go on one that I’d be marveling at all the luxuries. I’d also probably feel conflicted and guilty about them.

There is a woman who shall remain anonymous on this blog, but she probably knows who she is, who is a life-long inspiration to me, and today I am choosing to think of her as inspiration to keep from getting stuck. This woman is the mother of a friend of mine, and this mother married early to a man who brought home all the bacon a human could want. He made a very good living, and so this mom didn’t need to earn her own paycheck in order to support the family. But dear lord that didn’t mean that the woman didn’t work. She devoted her life to volunteer work in addition to raising three kids, and I’ve never known a more hard working person than her. The volunteer work she did wasn’t easy either. She helped battered women and at-risk teenagers. She created programs out of thin air that continued for over twenty years and benefited thousands of people – including me. She still has me on her Christmas Card List and includes a personal note every time. She’s had her own share of losses and diseases throughout her family, and she still decided to make a life of passing on her blessings. I’ve told her what an inspiration she is, and her kid that’s my friend, and I think I need to sit down and do it again.

When Alan died, this woman was there for me, and so was her kid/my friend even though they were full up with their own life challenges in August 2005. Certainly other people were there for me too, but this woman was particularly inspiring my whole life so when Alan died I saw her just doing what she always did – sending along energy and love to those who needed it. I really wish wish wish more people in this world were like her.

Life is not clean. Life is not fair. Life is full of conflict. Life is full of selfish, spoiled brats. And maybe I don’t know why they seem spoiled from my little speck of a view of their lives. Maybe I’m just catching them on a bad day. We’re all on this planet to just live and try to survive and try to steal some happiness before we die, and I certainly won’t know the circumstances that brought these guys with easy jobs and spoiled young wives to the cushy spots in life that they’re in. Maybe they were beaten slaves in another life and this is their karmic payback. I don’t know, and I probably won’t ever know them well enough to really know.

So, maybe I won’t ever know enough to really judge if someone is right or not to assume their spoiled lifestyle. Maybe they’re just serving a purpose in life to challenge me so I’ll learn the lesson of telling them to fuck off and really letting go. My grief therapist is constantly reminding me to focus on what is instead of what is not. Invest my life in those people who are invested in my life and let go of those who are not. The spoiled brats of the world are certainly not involved or invested in my life, so I need to let them go and not look back. What they do with their lives is their business, and they are not truly connected to me in any way.

I believe we are all connected to each other on a spirit level since we are all living together on this planet, so it’s hard for me to really draw a line in the sand and say that I won’t connect with spoiled brats at all any more ever again. And some people I’ve loved in my life turned out to be spoiled brats once I got to know them at a certain level, so they’re even harder to let go of and really mean it. And there are some things I truly believe in, and one of those is that if someone’s going to stay stuck in their own shit to the point where they behave like a spoiled brat who’s blind to their own blessings, then I do not want them in my life – stranger on the subway or not. I may have to live with them on the subway, but that doesn’t mean I need to allow them into my life.

So, I’d better go practice what I preach. Don’t stay stuck in my own shit, value my blessings, and don’t let spoiled brats into my life – even if it’s just the idea of them getting me depressed on a Sunday afternoon.

More death. Death death death. Oh that death. The Kitty Lafayette has gone.

2009-03-15T21:32:00.002-04:00

More fucking death. We are not pleased. It was as good as it can get, but dear God, I'm wondering why all this death is here in my life.

Scott's kitty, Lafayette, has now passed. He had a year and a half with cancer in his bladder, a kidney infection that wasn't succumbing to the antibiotics, and just this week we found out the poor little guy had a strange hernia complete with loops of intestine poking out into the wrong places and causing problems. He was peeing blood on Friday night, the vets wanted to put him into surgery for the hernia immediately on Saturday, and Scott chose to just take him home with hospice style big ass pain meds for a few days. I had had the same choice with Bonkers back in November, and at the time I'd chosen to take advantage of the amazingly wonderful services and support I got at the Hope Center and go ahead and assist Bonkers in passing painlessly instead of taking her home for more wobbling around on heavy pain meds. Lafayette, did, however, really enjoy a final day of massive cuddles and scritchy scratches. He got loads of lovin' from Scott and me all Saturday and most of today. He wasn't much interested in eating, but he did eat a little Fancy Feast, some milk, and some Pounce treats. When I saw him trying to pee, twice, and nothing was coming out, I myself knew that it would be the most humane thing to just help him pass as soon as reasonbly possible.

Scott's ex-wife, M, who had originally adopted both Lafayette and his adopted brother Galahad with Scott about 12 years ago, came over Saturday evening to hang out with us and add to the Team of Love for Lafayette. The kitty took turns in all our laps as we watched bits of amusing movies on cable (Revenge of the Nerds, Empire Strikes Back) and M's copy of "Kung Foo Panda" which I'd been dying to see for a while. It was a really lovely evening of comfort food, kitty loving, and quality time. M knew what the deal was, and I'm really glad she could make it over that evening.

So, this morning was certainly strange. It's not strange for me to be waking up around noon on a Saturday, but for Scott to be there in the bed with me at that hour is strange. He's usually up and attam before 9:00am and bringing me coffee and wake up kisses by 10. Scott was snoring next to me, and both kitties were sacked out with us. We had a nice long slow morning of kitty scritchy scratches, then I got up and got into nurturing mode. I knew Scott would be struggling with the concept of when exactly to call the vet for a home visit for euthenasia, and I was struggling with what I thought would be "good timing" too. I decided that pancakes should take priority (comfort food), so I managed to not entirely burn a nice stack of them for Scott and me to eat with the kitties watching TV.

The process that got us from pancakes to calling the vet was long and awkward, but I am convinced yet again that a person can and will come to their own correct answers if given some space, time, and food. Somewhere in there Scott did decide that Lafayette's current level of suffering and probable future level of suffering was certain enough that helping him pass over now would spare him a lot of suffering without sacrificing non-suffering quality time. The way he put it, it was as if Lafayette was at the top of a tall ski slope hill. He was about to start going downhill, and now was the time to call the tradeoff even. It was nearly identical to the decision I felt myself make in the Hope Center office with Bonkers. I heard Scott speak with grounded clarity, and I could tell that the shift had been made.

So, I cannot say enough good things about the Bowman Animal Hospital (www.bowmananimalhospital.vetsuite.com) and the lovely vet and tech that came to Scott's house to perform the euthenasia. They were compassionate and professional, and I couldn't come up with a critique for improvement. They were perfect. I have huge respect for people who can do that job, so whenever I can look up the names of the women who came, I'm going to rock the world and actually send a handwritten thank you letter. They were that good.

Tonight I was surfing a little on "pet memorials" and I found a forums site called petmemorials.com, and there was a poem someone posted there that I'm going to post here. His user name was Charles214, and if I can figure out how to get ahold of him, I'll complete the process of putting credit where credit is due. His piece was just so damn perfect, I want more people to see it. He put words to my own feelings about pet death, so please consider them as you remember the value of your own fuzzy, feathery, scaley friends.

"My beloved dog Bessie died 2 days ago - riddled with cancer. Not the first time my best friend has ended his/her life on a vet's table. Here's something I wrote, as much for myself as for others:
-----------------

On the Death of a Beautiful Animal.

The pain is there. The tears are there. And there is nothing,
absolutely NOTHING you can do about it.
Let it be.
Let the tears come.
Let it be.
Accept the loss.
Hard, I know, but there's no choice anyway.

And the emptiness, the great gaping hole in your heart - let that be there also.
Let it be - don't try to fill it.
Don't try to escape it.
Don't try to do ANYTHING with it.
You can't anyway.

And then something dies in you.
Something dies, and already the healing begins.
And there will come a time when you can remember, but there will be no bitterness anymore.

And what you loved about them - the strength, or bravery,
The gentleness or playfullness.
The unquestioning love they gave.
The absence of pretense and artifice - so lacking in humans.
THAT is not lost.
No - THAT is not lost.

There will come a time when you see those very things are now in yourself.
They are a part of YOU.
It is your friend's bequest to you.

So I thank you, you beautiful animal
For what you gave me
In life
And in death.

So, please join me in raising a glass of your favorite fat level of milk in honor of a beloved kitty cat named Lafayette. He's been a blessing for 12 years to Scott, M, me, Galahad, and other family friends. He will be sorely missed.

And a word also to Bonkers, Nutmeg, Daphne, Max, Wiggles, and Louisa: another kitty in your soul group is now needing your help. Lafayette is the name us humans called him, and he is a stalwart warrior worthy of your company. Please help him aclimate to his new surroundings and remind him to say hello to his humans down here and reassure us that he's made it alright when he gets a chance.

With many thanks,
Your staffer,
Lara

Grandma's funeral last Friday was fine.

2009-03-12T13:58:00.001-04:00

Grandma's funeral last Friday was fine. No major dramas. The cookies were appreciated, Kathi made it to the event, and no one got into any heated disagreements.

When it came time for Kathi and me to play our violin/cello musical contributions, the ice cold chapel contributed greatly to my horrible out of tune performance, and so that part sucked, but that was the worst thing I personally experienced. Not bad.

I've been trying to post since I got back, but I haven't had much energy for it. There's a lot more to say about it, but I don't have time right now.

Grandma's death was actually the best one can hope for. Relatively painless and gentle. Plenty of warning. Everyone had a chance to say goodbye over the preceeding year. Her family all survived her except Grandpa, so she never lost a child or grandchild. She never suffered some horrific disease like cancer, diabetes, ALS, epilepsy, and all the rest you know. She always had all the food, housing, vacations, and life maintenance resources she ever needed. She had enough to pass on lots of support to her loved ones, and her memory continues on with a bunch of us. She's a person who had a really great run, hit all the marks, and finished gently. Her death was a thousand times easier than any I've witnessed so far. One of her sons was with her just hours before she passed, and that was a moment not uncommon for her - supported and loved and remembered. Way to go, Grandma. I'll miss you.

Codependents Anonymous, Funeral Eve, Cookies Accomplished

2009-03-05T11:57:00.005-05:00

It's the eve of the funeral, and cookies have been made. I had set myself a mission of baking a bunch of chocolate chip cookies in the style that my Grandma El did to share around at the funeral. Caitlin and I had a really good time last night baking, and I can't tell you how theraputic it was. Caitlin's an uber-nuturer in the first place, but we were baking cookies, in her nice clean kitchen, with her extensive cooking brain at my disposal. We also used her Kitchen Aid mixer which I predict my grandma didn't use, but it did produce the extremely well creamed butter that my grandma did use.

We tried to stick to the method grandma used as closely as possible:
-- use the recipe on the back of the Toll House Chocolate Chip bag
-- use real butter, no margerine
-- use exact measurements
-- cream the butter really well
-- reduce the heat in the oven for the last (about) half of the cooking time to increase crispiness
-- be consistent in cookie size.

I made some boy and some girl cookies. With and without nuts. ;)

I think we produced about 10 dozen cookies, which I think is a record for me. We actually probably made dough for 11 dozen, but I was insisting on quality control tasting on a regular basis at all phases of the process. Points be damned. And we did wrap them in sandwich baggies 2 per bag. This is what I remember from when grandma sent me care packages in college - and even once when I was in Holland! I'll never forget my host mother exclaiming repeatedly "Die Oma van jou!" ("That Grandmother of yours!")

The cookies didn't turn out exactly like Grandma's but I tried. Hers were always a little whiter than anyone else's, and I didn't get that accomplished. I think I did get the crispiness right, and my size of cookies varied a lot, but they're a close impersonation of Grandma's cookies. Maybe that's just cool as it is to honor her and acknowledge that no one could do it quite like her. :)

So, now I just need to finish packing, get my music stuff together (and maybe practice a little of the tunes we'll do tomorrow if Kathi's hand it up to it), pack up the memorabilia I'm bringing (White House Easter Eggs, Christmas Tree Ornaments, and flower vase, and my Queen costume she made me when I was a kid) oh and a few tablecloths just in case we need them. I was going to try to get in a haircut, but I think I'm going to ditch that.

I also wanted to get something down here mostly for my own reference so I don't forget. It's been recommended to me, and I'm finding great help in, the web page for Codependents Anonymous (CODA). This is the 12 step group for codependents - people whose lives are out of control due to control/approval/denial issues with other people. http://www.codependents.org/

Specifically - the first step: We admitted we were powerless over others - that our lives had become unmanageable.
http://www.codependents.org/foundation-docs-12-steps.php
In Egroup, I adjusted my First Step statement because I don't believe my life is out of control, but my life has suffered from this ailment. So, my First Step statement is: "I admit that I am powerless over other people and that my life has become more unmanageable than I want it to be."

The feeling I get when I speak the words "I am powerless over other people" is palpable. I feel it in every fiber of my being. It ripples through so many of my relationships it's amazing.

I also get a ring out of the Affirmations: http://www.codependents.org/foundation-docs-affirmations.php The one saying "I am enough, and I have enough" was amazing for me to read because I've used that as a mantra for *years* already! I found that one doing a High Ropes course with Taneah.

I believe a lot in the 12 step programs even though I know they have a strong "God" component. That doesn't work for everyone, but I do belive there is a higher power of some kind that everyone can believe in. Even if it's your own self - the part that sometimes does know what to do - you still have something you can look up to.

There are parts of the 12 steps that ring true for everyone. Mine in particular include the parts about doing a fearless moral inventory of onesself and making amends with other people you have "wronged." Now, I don't believe that "wronged" is a great word because we're all on a journey of learning down here, and oftentimes people just don't know that something is wrong when they're doing it. It's really hard to learn everything you're supposed to learn by the time you're 18 and set free in the world. I don't know what word to use in place of "wronged" but I'm working on it.

I know so many people who have benefitted from the 12 steps, I'm amazed more people don't use them. They work for any addiction, even when that addiction hasn't pulled you down to a horrific "rock bottom." A friend of mine says that "You choose your own bottom" meaning that you can choose when the time is that you will turn around and no longer numb out or hide behind your addiction of choice. I have a friend who used the 12 steps around chocolate. It doesn't have to ruin your life before you throw away the crutch.

And of course, the 12 steps do not work for everyone. It's extremely common in the Woman Within program and Man Kind Project because people who are attracted to those programs are already people who are attracted to self healing. The 12 steps are as common in these communities as The Princess Bride is to the SCA. To say "Hi, I'm Lara and I'm an addict" in a Woman Within gathering is a lot like saying "I am not left handed!" at an SCA fencing tournament. It's so damn common that it might get a flicker of a smile reaction from people around you, but for the most part, the reactions will be "Yea, what else ya got?"

I love them, but not everyone has to. Your mileage may vary. If you don't get help here, get help somewhere.

Life can always get worse.

2009-03-04T13:57:00.000-05:00

There was a blind guy on the metro this morning with a very sweet service dog. It reminded me of the one legged lady that I sometimes see at my metro stop. The metro is a great place to go to be reminded that my life can always be worse.

Rumor has it that Kathi will be released from the hospital today. Mom promised to call me once she's been sprung. Things look good for her arrival in Baltimore tomorrow for attending Grandma El's funeral, but god only knows if she'll be able to play the violin. She won't even know until Friday morning.

I honestly tried to think of something I could play as a solo, and I just can't. If anyone reading this has some idea of a *simple* and *short* solo cello piece - and can point me to sheet music on the internet - please do. I think I'll call Bethany.

Work Grace Work Group Work work work work work

2009-03-03T22:39:00.002-05:00

I went to work today and did a pretty darn good job. My grief therapist, Grace, calls me out of the blue to tell me that she had a cancellation today at 5:00 and asked if I wanted it. I've been meaning to call her for about 2 weeks to get an appointment, but frankly I've been letting other things get in the way. So, these are the times when I know God's nudging me in the right direction.

So, Grace is awesome, as always, and helps me through a big piece that's been weighing on me for a *long* time that's been just *poked* all to death from recent events. I felt that wave of relief when I know I've let go of an old concept that was killing me. It's not easy, and it is painful, but it works a lot better now. I'm choosing a much more truth oriented lifestyle. Grace pointed out one way in which I give away my own power to determine my own life. It's frightening when she can do that. It's also frightening that I still have times when I do give away my power - after all these YEARS doing empowerment work!! You'd think I'd be all fixed up by now. :S

And after grief therapy with Grace, I had Egroup at home. And lordy did we rock tonight. Only one of the five of us did *not* have huge life altering work to do, and she helped with everyone else's. I am constantly amazed at how much life insanity we can handle in my Egroup. I really don't know how some people cope without it. I think a lot of people just suffer alone.

So, now I'm kindof full. My brain can't hold much more. I'm eternally grateful that the work I have to do tomorrow at the office - ya know that work that I do that I actually get paid to do - is painfully simple. I won't have to use any creative brain cells at all.

Time for sleep.

Doing Better.

2009-03-02T21:23:00.001-05:00

Getting a snow day out of no where really does a body good. I got up at normal time this morning and proceeded to enjoy one of the perks of being a contractor by emailing my boss and clients to say I was working from home. I thankfully have data and stuff to work on at home, so I can legitimately stay billable, but that's a kind of billable that's in sweats and slippers. Sadly, no more kitty cat to sit in my lap on snow days, but it's still nice to just hang around the house in sweats, farting whenever I please, snacking on whatever I want, and hacking away at my spreadsheets listening to Carbon Leaf.

This is Day #4 of my cloistering. I haven't left the apartment since I went to services Friday night. I think this is good. It's good because the evidence is that I'm much less insane than I was yesterday or the day before. Reduced insanity is good hard data.

Actually, it's not hard data. Ok, so what *is* hard data? Well, I have managed to clean my dishes, finish doing my laundry, and cook an actual meal from scratch. I also did decent work on spreadsheets that kept me billable for a full 8 hour workday. I actually have a product I can show someone if anyone cared to hold me accountable tomorrow. Not that anyone does, but I always play it safe.

I also talked to Kathi this evening. I'm continually bummed that I can do nothing to help. Mom just has it all *handled*. Good luck trying to get a contribution in when you have SuperMom in charge. At least Kathi is getting what she needs. She's working on farting now which Dad was working on a few weeks ago. Apparently when you have surgery, your bowels shut down enough that they have to be kickstarted or something when you wake up, and so your first duty to your own intestines is to do everything you can to allow them to fart. She did let one really good one go that apparently cleared the room, and she's working on a second. I'm so proud. :)

And there's another piece of hard data. I can joke about farting. Admittedly this is an easy reach, but at least it's better than screaming and crying my eyes out.

I still can't apply any intellectual steam to this experience. I don't know why I'm such a mess. I'm hoping that I can get back on my feet this week and figure it out later.

Wish me luck.

I'm not "fine"

2009-03-01T23:01:00.000-05:00

I really don't understand intellectually what's happening to my life, but I know it's big. Big enough that I'm currently in process and unable to really summarize or interpret. Here's what I can identify:

1) My Grandma El died on Tuesday. My valiant aunt and uncle clicked into gear for implementing the plan for putting on Grandma's funeral as had been planned head of time. The plan is now for a funeral this coming Friday here in DC at the cemetery where my Grandpa John, his parents, and his sister are buried. This is heartily convenient for me since I live here so I don't have to buy a plane ticket. Scott can also easily come up too. This will be his first meeting of the whole Coutinho Clan.

2) Friday morning I had a severe grief breakdown. Came out of nowhere. Alan always said that this shit ambushes you when you least expect it. As it is, I can see it as kindof logical that a death event like Grandma's death could trigger memories of previous death events, but this is not a logical thing going on. I felt overwhelmed with anger. Down to my core. It was the same anger I felt when Alan died. It was as if it had broken out of whatever mental tupperware I had stored it in.

3) Friday afternoon I called to cancel my participation in a Woman Within workshop in Philly that I'd been signed up for. There was just no way in hell I was going to be able to focus on anything besides my own emotional volcano.

4) Friday evening I went to services and said Kaddish for Grandma. There was blessedly no Bar or Bat Mitzvah going on, so there was a small showing of the congregation. There were three other deaths that week being honored, so I felt like I was in good company.

5) Saturday, I slept in and felt numb when I did get up. I got a call at noon saying that Kathi was in the hospital for an emergency appendix removal. I spent the rest of the day either on the phone or fighting the urge to entirely flip out. By the end of the day I did get confirmation that she was fine and got through surgery with flying colors.

Now, I may be frightfully paranoid, but I know... I mean I *KNOW* that if my sister leaves this earth before I do, I will cease to live. Healing from Alan's death was hell, and will never really be done. I won't go through it again. I've seen too many real people who lost someone they love through seemingly non-threatening events. Sudden heart attacks. brain aneurysms. Motorcycle accidents. Some crazy accident that "wasn't his fault."

There's just too much of that harsh reality that's part of my real every day life for me to not consider Kathi's entirely routine surgery as sincerely life threatening. And if Kathi goes, I go. She's my soul mate. I don't want to be here without her.

So, I'm surrounded by death. I'm feeling overwhelming fear and anger, and I'm exhausted. I'm going to go back to work tomorrow, and it feels a lot like when I had to haul my sorry grieving ass out of bed and go to work at Camp Atterbury after Alan died. It's a hateful and horrible situation, but I only get so much time off and I have to keep working to pay my own rent. This is the situation, and it's the best option I have.

I don't really know what's happening. I don't know what to say to anyone. I know I'm angry, aching, and tired, and this is just part of my journey.

She's fine. Thank god.

2009-02-28T16:58:00.000-05:00

Here's the latest update from Mom:

"Kathi is out of surgery and doing well. Roy & I just talked with the chief resident who assisted in the surgery. The surgery went well and they removed her inflamed appendix and some stuff that had leaked out but was contained in a small area of her lower right abdomen. Prognosis is excellent. If she heals well, she MIGHT be able to be Grandma's funeral on Friday. A lot has go right for that to happen, so keep her in your prayers, please."

*whew*

Kathi's in the hospital. Appendix. Methodist.

2009-02-28T15:38:00.002-05:00

Kathi called me at about noon today. Here's how the conversation went:

Kathi: "Hey La. I'm in Methodist about to have my appendix taken out."

Five long seconds of silence.

Me: "Ok."

Kathi: "I'm ok. Sam and Shel brought me to the hospital last night. I've actually been having tummy problems for about a week. At first I thought it was overdoing it on some sauerkraut, then I thought it was constipation from my iron pills, then I looked it up on Web MD."

So, the public service announcement for the day is to make use of Web MD when you have a health question. Then call your mom.

So, our mom is on a flight this afternoon headed to Indy, Elliot is on the road and about to arrive as I'm typing this, and Kathi has been awesome in sending out all the requests for help. She's got her E group (which used to be my E group) in Indy on alert, she's got her circle of friends in Indy already helping (Ellen's at the hospital now, Sam and Shel are on alert, and therefore the SCA crowd is bound to be on alert too), and she has me and the folks updated and ready to act. I swear that Kathi is the most amazing human being I know. Takes care of herself in a crisis, asks for help from the support network she's carefully nurtured, and faces her fears head on. I really want to be her when I grow up.

Oh - what about that funeral I was just talking about? Fuck if I know. We get to play the "Wait and See" game. Kathi's in surgery as I type, and we don't really know if her appendix is a classic case, a "perforated" case, or some other wild card no one expected. Ya know, I really hate looking at those words "Kathi's in surgery."

God, here's what I want you to hear: "I GOT IT ALREADY!!!!!!! I value my loved ones above all else in the universe and I know I'd give my life or any valuable organs to them if it becomes at all useful for them. I have my priorities clear and straight, I donate as much of myself to charitable causes as I possibly can, I extend myself to helping others less fortunate than me as often as possible, and I've lived a life devoted to humble self-improvement. I just cannot imagine what other lessons you want me to learn by continuing to put such massive stresses on me and my loved ones. If I'm not getting something, please please please find some other way to communicate that lesson to me *BESIDES* fucking with my family."

*ahem*

I was going to be at a Woman Within workshop in Philly today, but yesterday I had my own little grief breakdown and chose to postpone until the April 25 workshop. There was just no freaking way I was going to be able to focus on circle processes. So, I chose to stay home and spend the weekend attending to the many Life Maintenance tasks I've been putting off for the last month so I can go to Raleigh on the weekends. I actually did get to go to services last night to say Kaddish for Grandma El, and it felt good. Grandma was very Catholic, not anywhere near Jewish, and probably wouldn't know what Kaddish was if you asked her, but it felt good to me to do it anyway. This grief ceremony stuff is for the living anyway. And I got to meet two other families who were grieving losses this week: a mother/grandmother died and someone else's mom too. We all agreed that they must be partying together at some newcomer's reception upstairs.

So I slept in this morning, ate breakfast, started watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica (the Sci-Fi bubble gum mental vacation method of the past few weeks), and then Kathi called. *sigh* So, now we get to pray that Kathi's experience in the hospital goes smoothly, that my mom and Elliot operate smoothly as her support team together, and she heals quickly enough to attend Grandma El's funeral this Friday.

Wish us luck.

Grieving vicariously; taking on other people's stuff.

2009-02-26T16:03:00.006-05:00

I'm getting clearer on why I'm feeling so angry and conflicted about said anger. I'm not directly devastated by my grandma's death - I'm actually partially happy for her that she got a peaceful death with her son nearby her and she's now free of the suffering. But the closest circle of people in my life - they're the ones I'm concerned about. My folks, my aunt and uncle, and my grandma's remaining sister and sister in law are the ones who are hurting the most, and they're the ones I'm thinking about. Last night I was talking to my mom and I could feel pain in my throat and chest as she talked about how my dad is coping. He's a trooper like no other, and if there's a man in the universe who knows how to and can get emotional support - it's my dad. Over twenty years in the Man Kind Project had better be worth something when your mom dies. It just still clogs me up to think about what he and the rest of the inner circle are feeling.

It wasn't like this when grandpa died 4 years ago. I remember making an intellectual effort to try to put myself in grandma's shoes back then - to try to be aware of her needs - and it was hard. I remember hearing how challenging it was for grandma to go through the steps of logistics with the funeral home the day after grandpa died, and believe it or not, I thought, "Gosh, why is it so hard for her? We've known this was coming for many months, haven't we?" Well, I guess I got that question answered for me over the next few years. No matter what, this death shit is hard. No matter who you are, what your relationship was, how the death happened, or how long you had to prep for it, the death is never easy peasey no problemo.

Why? And why is it so constant for all humans across race, nationality, religion, and all that?

I think it's because our relationships with others is what gives our lives meaning. And when those relationships end because the person died - or you might say "transformed" into a relationship where you can't talk or interact with the person or get feedback etc - it's like one more reason to live has been eliminated from someones life. So many people claim that a pet, lover, or other important person was the reason they did not commit suicide. Their own life wasn't important at all unless the other being was in it.

Naturally, since all life boils down to something I can relate to either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Weight Watchers, I will point out a Buffy episode I often refer to as an excellent example of why we bother to heal from grief at all in the first place.

Remember when Tara died and Willow became the evil hopped up uber-witch? During the great battle between Evil Willow and Giles, he asked her if Tara's death meant that all the other loved ones she had were worth nothing now. The climactic end had Willow's best friend declaring his unwavering love for her. The concept that other loved ones did in fact matter to her even though her true love was now dead was the beautiful, climactic, dramatic, universal truth ending worthy of a Joss Whedon season finale. It also happened to get through my thick skull and help me decide that life was worth living after Alan died. Other people still mattered. I'll give you one guess which sister of mine made the biggest difference. ;)

So, our lives loose meaning every time a loved one dies. If we stick around, we may create more loved ones that can become more and other reasons to live. We continue this process until we ourselves die, and then maybe we even try it all again if reincarnations truly happen.

So, it's painful. It's like the great cafeteria lady in the sky takes a huge ice cream scoop of your soul and splats it on the lunch plate of "Sucks To Be Human" and you get to go try to grow that hole back again. Lucky us.

And I seem to be taking on the pain of other people's ice cream scoop holes. This could be called compassionate, or co-dependent, or caretaking, or wasteful, or generous, or lots of other pretty vocab words from self help books nationwide.

And the first step is admitting you have a problem. *sigh* Welcome, Lara, to another fucking opportunity to grow.ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Death is so wierd

2009-02-25T15:16:00.002-05:00

I am all over the map. I'm angry, sad, happy, fearful, proud... the whole nine yards. I just took 15 minutes to respond to an email asking about SCA dance music. I haven't chosen to face my email in weeks, and now I take time for dance music? wtf? I'm nauseous, I have a killer headache, and I keep farting a lot. Thank god no one's in the cube next to me.

Every death is unique just like every person and every relationship is unique. I know this, and yet I'm suprised at my reactions. I'm more angry than anything, yet I can chat with my co-workers just as pleasantly as can be. I just chatted up this lovely young lady who's a new addition to my office from the LA Corps District in California. She's got lots of great ideas about how this office can move in a more politically correct and professional direction, and I'm really enjoying talking with her.

This morning I was noticing that I'm not giving myself permission to just have whatever emotions I want. Anger seems fine, but not all the time. Grandma's death is *way* easier to cope with than Alan's or even the kitties', probably because we've been watching Grandma dwindle away to nothing for a few years now. The "Anticipatory Grief" has let us down slowly to the point where I was expecting this phone call from my folks. And Grandma was someone I reached out to every so often when I made a visit to the Midwest or when I could carve out time to send something in the mail. And my aunt and uncle actively kept the whole family connected to Grandma by reporting on her life and medical issues via email. So, Grandma was a dwindling presence in my life, but still critical, so why do I have a hard time giving myself permission to break down?

I don't really feel like I have a right to break down. I want to more than anything, I want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week, but Grandma's death is such a gentler transition than Alan's, and other family members of mine have more reason to suffer from her passing than I do, I feel like an idiot for even having these headaches. I've been through so much worse than this. Why in the name of god should this be "hard" at all? This should be a "been there done that" death. Not a "be sure to call Lara so she has a reason to get out of bed in the morning" death.

I dunno. I have no answers. I'll just keep journalling and see what develops.

My Grandma El has died. Break out the crash helmet.

2009-02-24T15:21:00.006-05:00

He we go again. Grandma's died this time. The upsides to this one is that her life had dwindled down to nearly nothing, and she was suffering with Alzheimer's and a stack of illnesses. Not that that's positive, but the suffering is over.

My aunt and uncle are also going to get their lives back. They've been the primary caretakers of my grandma since grandpa died (almost exactly) 4 years ago. There will be some work to be done for wrapping up grandma's estate and distributing her belongings, but I know that is different work from the constant trips to the hospital, nursing home, and pharmacy. It all sucks, but from here on out it can only get better.

So, how does this affect me? Hrmmm. I don't know yet. No, I do know some things. I'm worried about juggling my job issues right now since I'm in transition already, trying to solidify my professional life for after March 24th. I get a week of bereavement leave - because of course a grandparent's death is "worthy" of the damn policy - but it's inconvenient as hell to take it before my current contract is up. This is, however, just another little thing that comes from death being on God's schedule, not mine. Nothing anyone can do about it. I'll take it when it's really the most reasonable to take it and cope with the fallout. I have supportive teammates at Booz Allen, so now's the time to count on them to be supportive.

I'm worried about my family, especially my dad. This grandma of mine is his mom. He's been unemployed for a year now, the job he's on the brink of getting is being help up by bureaucratic bullshit, and my parents are still trying to close the sale on their house. The headaches just keep on piling up, and now we have a huge transition to go through as a family. God's just not going to make this an easy time for the Coutinhos. Now we get to find the lesson and learn it so it doesn't come back again. Lucky us.

And this is where I get angry. I mean, I've been working my ass off to learn as many life lessons as I can, improve and heal myself as fast as I can, and accept all the crap life sends me as lessons that are good for me. And so where does it get me? People still die. Government is still full of horrid mountains to climb just to participate in society. People who do get to stay alive are still jerks, idiots, and self serving monsters. We continue to be idiots as a society, and even with the increases in enlightened folks who try to make a difference, idiocy still reigns.

I actually talked to a woman who works a few cubes down from me about recycling. She was impatient at the printer and threw away the document I'd printed out a few minutes prior to her print job. I said it was no problem as long as it was in the recycle bin. I didn't think I'd left it there on the printer for very long, but I was willing to take the hit for the sake of etiquette. And then she said she didn't know which bin was the recycle bin and which was the trash. After a few minutes of conversation, she said that she doesn't recycle at home at *all*. She can't be bothered. She said it's everything she can do to get her teenage son to take the garbage out, she's not going to make it harder with trying to figure out what needs to get recycled. Now, this woman is a fully employed, intelligent federal employee who seems to be just as capable as the rest of the employees around here, and there are huge blue bins everywhere with "RECYCLE" printed on them and signs telling you what you recycle and what you trash. What in the name of god makes it ok for this woman to just *not bother* to learn and practice recycling??

This is the same thing that pisses me off about emotional work. What entitles some people to just not bother to grow the fuck up? I read an article about people complaining about the stimulus bill because they felt that they as taxpayers were bailing out idiots that simply didn't live within their means. A guy was spouting about how he lived within his means, saved money, and worked hard to keep himself employed, so why should he be bailing out people who chose to not live within their means? I know it's more complicated than that, but I feel his pain.

I go to my women's group every single week. I still see my grief therapist once a month (and yes I'm calling her this afternoon to make my next appointment). I take self-improvement workshops and read books constantly with the aim of cleaning up my act and living as well as I possibly can. I journal, talk to loved ones, and meditate instead of loosing my temper at people who may or may not deserve to get yelled at. I do everything I can to keep self-improvement at the top of my priority list, and where does it get me?

People still die. People still leave me. People still become jackasses.

Grandma El. February 2009
Bonkers. November 2008
Nutmeg. March 2007
Alan. August 2005
Grandpa John. March 2005
Grandma Alice. June 2004

Grandma El just put me over the average of one per year. And only half of these are worthy of bereavement leave. Jackass policies.

So, it keeps happening. People still keep dying. People still act like jackasses, and I keep going to E-group. I think I just don't accept the pain of death. It's not fair. It shouldn't be this bad. It shouldn't put a knot in my stomach and a rock on my head. I keep thinking about what could possibly be the lesson I was sent into this life to learn, and it's got to be about loss. Something about accepting loss and being ok with it. I'm not getting it right now, and I'm feeling so damn angry I don't think it's going to happen soon.

Ok, so enough with the pity party. Back to work.

Coping

2009-02-19T12:18:00.004-05:00

Ok, so life is hard. Remy said it best. "First of all, I'm a rat, and that means life is hard." Ok, so accepting the universal rule that life is hard, no matter what life you've got, from your perspective - it's hard.

I got a few lessons today in coping - reminders of what I already know really - that I'm forcing myself to write down in a place where I'll be reminded of them later. Here in blogville.

I started out today in a slightly better than normal fashion. I got out to the bus on time, on the metro, complete with gym clothes, dried hair, and neat looking professional attire. I'm thinking I'm doing well this morning when the train stops. Apparently we're "single tracking it" because the early morning maintenance train-buggy-thingy *derailed* therefore causing a rush hour headache the size of the national deficit.

A full hour later I finally arrive at the stop that normally takes me 25-30 minutes to get to. The train I transfer to is full of teenagers headed to the National Buildings Museum with a chaperon who thinks it's important enough to bring the advertisement for wind power to the attention of a particular student named Neil that shouting down the length of the car is necessary.

Fast forward to the office where I'm welcomed by an email from Defense Environmental Alert - an online news source - that the EPA is all of a sudden deciding that the new administration is a good reason to reprioritize munitions cleanup guidance to the top and trying again to put pressure on the DoD to bend to the EPA's will. I'll spare you the minutia, but basically this is a bad sign for my client - the Formerly Used Defense Sites program. They actually already have a monsterous amount of pressure on them to perform their mission, so the EPA isn't really going to help. I can always pray that the people the EPA assigns to this task are reasonable and focused on the common goal of getting the land actually cleaned up, but if we end up with political appointee bureaucrats who care more about the press they can get than the actual performance of the program... well... don't blame me.

Oh - and speaking of blame... I'm currently working on documenting my whole life here at FUDS muchly for the sake of ensuring that my work is documented in writing - therefore providing *HARD DATA* of what I did to support my client, so that when I leave next month I won't be blamed for any failings in the program simply because I'm not here to defend myself.

Thankfully, I'm not getting fired and I will still have a paycheck, but I am loosing my contract. A guy three levels higher up than me - and therefore pretty unaware of my value in the context of our work in the trenches - decided that I was a budget item that could be easily cut. See, everyone here, I think Corps wide, has to reduce their Management and Support budgets by 25% this year - after a 17% reduction requirement last year. Therefore - it's easy to cut a contractor and simply increase the workload for the permanent federal employees. Things will be rough for my co-workers, but I understand what budget pressure does to a program. People get cut. And frankly, when I get cut, I just go back to the Booz Allen office and find another assignment. I don't actually loose my paycheck like it would be if one of my co-workers were cut. So, if someone needs to go, I can accept that it's me.

What this means tho, is that I'm now job hunting internally to Booz Allen, and it's rough. My team has been torpedoed by an exodus of about half our people. Our fearless leader, her second in command, and then a slew of other middle managers have all left the firm or our team since October. These are the people that normally would be working to find me another gig once I finish the one I'm on. As you might conclude then, this adds to my stress. I must say tho that I have a really great direct supervisor that I respect who is working on my behalf to help me find my next gig. She, however, is in much the same boat since she's loosing her part of my contract as well. She is working hard tho, with an 18 month old cute little girl at home, and I have faith that she and I will succeed somehow.

So, this is all very unpleasant, stressing me out a lot, and I really have to put on a very happy face at work that says "I'm not taking any of this personally!" "I have absolutely no problem at all with being cut from my job regardless of the high quality of my work and having my upper management abandon me in my time of need. No problemo!! See I'm fine!!"

Sigh...

So, this morning when I got into the office and faced my To Do list of documentation and chart building tasks, I sincerely couldn't put one mental foot in front of the other. My brain was in a fog like I haven't had in... well... I don't want to think about when I last felt this way. However, in order to build the drama of this story and increase the payoff of happy resolution at the end, I'll list the mountain of crap I was slogging through in my attempt to become professionally viable this morning:

1 - internal job hunting is slow and difficult and I have to have something reliably in place by March 24th.
2 - Scott's truck is on the fritz so I've been doing the driving for the past month so we can see each other on the weekends. This also means that I'm getting no life maintenance chores done on the weekends. We are working on Scott's stuff, and we'll shift back to my stuff in a few weeks, but this is just the time in the process where the pressure is high on my end.
3 - Caitlin has moved into her new apartment - which is *GOOD* mind you! But it means that my driving buddy for Raleigh trips and my dinner cooking food shopping kitchen cleaning dishwasher filling Battlestar Galactica buddy is no longer conveniently located in my home. It is absolutely the right and proper thing for her to be out of my place and into her own and on the road to further successes - but I do miss her.
4 - Weight Watchers is not going well. I now weigh 162. I started the program three years ago exactly weighing 156. My goal is 130. This is driving me nuts. Fitting in exercise is a *bitch* when it's too cold to ride my bike.
5 - I haven't kept up with the commitment I made to support my spiritual life by meditating three times a week. This is the tiniest of efforts, but I've still found it near impossible to fit in 15 minutes of quiet time on any given day. Scott got me this ultra cool orange meditation pillow that's shaped to help me sit and lean forward further open up my chest so I can breathe deeper, and it does help, but the pillow isn't going to cook dinner for me or keep other pressures at bay.
6 - My dad is currently coming up on one year of job hunting, my folks are selling their house on Long Island and moving into the house my grandma left mom up in the Catskill mountains, and the sale of said house is such a cascade of dominoing headaches I just can't type it all out. My sister's also stressing out - and this just means that my whole family is feeling pretty needy right now. I'm actually the one doing the best at the moment. That's scary.
7 - I have no kitty. I can tell that I do have more time on my hands now that was the time I had been spending taking Bonkers to the vet, medicating her, and stressing out about her. And I don't have the drain on my finances from her medical care. And I don't have to worry about her whenever I leave the apartment. But I also don't have the obvious support and warm fuzzies that I loved so much. I do visit Scott's kittys, and I got in a good long cuddle with Caitlin's kitty in a visit to her new place last night, but it's really not the same as having an insistent little MEOW! Where've you been?! Feed me! greet me at the door.

I'm beginning to think I went to Warrior Monk at the wrong time. I went a week after Bonkers died, and while the experience was an emotional retreat where my loss and grief were honored, it was a lot of freaking work. I went from intense hospice care for Bonkers, to Bonkers dying, to Warrior Monk, to Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's, then learning in early January that my contract was going to be not renewed when it was up at the end of March. While I loved what I got out of Warrior Monk, it was rather more hard monk-like work than the nurturing warm squishy supportive environment at the Woman Within events. Lotsa good there, but hard.

So, let us return to this morning where I'm in a fog of metro-induced stress and self pity. I'm reading my work email, and I have to re-read every sentence about three times before I grok it. So, who do I think might be able to help me?

I called my sister. :)

She told me the following joke:
"So, two atoms walk into a bar. The first one says to the second, "Shit! I've lost an electron!" The second one says "Are you sure?" The first one says, "Yes! I'm positive!"

Bu-dum-ching!

She's here all week folks! Tip your waitress! Try the veal!

This reminded me of another joke she left on my voicemail a few months ago that I think is still there:
"So, a neutron walks into a bar. It orders a beer and puts a five dollar bill to the bartender. The bartender gives it the beer but gives back the money and says, "For you - no charge!"

Grooooooooooooan.

This is why I call my sister in a spiritual mental emotional self-pity crisis. She cuts through the fog and reminds me why I'm on this earth. To laugh.

So, I typed & printed out these jokes and posted them on the bulletin board in the coffee room. I also gleefully enjoyed the make-your-own pasta bar in the cafeteria downstairs that surprisingly was going on today instead of the traditional Wednesday - which I had missed yesterday for a lunch meeting at Booz Allen.

And I chose to remind myself that I still have the tools that matter to me. I have a job that I can maintain with mostly good work to do and people to work with. I am no longer trapping skunks at Camp Atterbury (this is always a good cheer me up). I have a fully functioning body and no major life threatening diseases. I have, and I can continue to provide myself, a good living condition with a roof over my head and enough money to buy food and necessities and the occasional present for someone I love. And I have a list of over 200 people that I know would miss me if I left. People I love are sick and some dying, but the unburdened love is there. I've gotten used to the concept of saying goodbye on God's schedule instead of my own, and I know I've taken care of all the business that could have remained unfinished and haunting if hadn't done the work.

Scott is a wonderful part of my life, a kitty can be added if and when I decide I really need it, and my sister can always be counted on for a juicy bad joke. My folks are capable grown ups that do have a home to go to even if it is in BFE. My egroup is solidly present, my grief therapist is confident in me, and I have an extensive puppet collection. I have also been much lower than this with much fewer resources and I clawed my way out of that pit pretty well. Life can be worse, and it is not right now.

Please send me this URL in the future if I forget.

going nuts

2008-12-19T10:18:00.003-05:00

Pressure is building up, and I know I'm going to crack soon and just tell the rest of the world to fuck off. I'm not saying this in a passive agressive attempt to get pats on the head and someone to say "Oh honey, you poor thing!" I'm saying this, on my blog, because I'm at work and I haven't been allowing myself the time to journal, blog, talk, meditate, or get grounded in the ways I need to. This is a pressure release valve for me. It's my emergency step. If I post something here, I can look back on it myself hours/days/weeks later and kick myself in the ass. I have to take better care of myself. If I don't, then I crack. Then I say things I don't really mean to people who don't deserve to be vented upon. I can vent in egroup, and I can vent to my close loved ones who know me well enough to know this part of the process towards healing. It's not something I want to do to ask other people to just cope with my shit if I crack and vent and they're just walking by. It's a choice. No one's dying here. This is stuff within my control.

I must remember to use paper. Write down the crap so it doesn't leak onto undeserving innocent passers by. Get the help through healthy chains like loved ones, egroup, and that part of me that shows up when I'm actually grounded.

I'm tempted by the dark side. I have left behind the lessons that used to keep me in a healthy way. I know what I need to do, somewhere in the depths of my brain, and I am letting my brain get mucky and dusty and cloudy.

Ya know how Luke left Dagobah after he'd learned all this great stuff from Yoda, and then he went and screwed himself by not *really* integrating it into his lifestyle? He went off passionately to fight for what he thought was the right thing, got his hand sliced off, and had to ask his sister to rescue him. He then spent some undetermined number of months/years remembering what Yoda taught him and practicing. Then he came back and did some good work.

I feel like I'm fighting Darth Vader on the catwalks above the windy something unknown below. DV could of course symbolize the evils of the world, or just my own inner demons - depending on the point of view I want to take. Point of view my ass Ben.

So, what *can* I do? I preach this idea to other people all the time. What's on the "can do" list?

Can: perform my job tasks to the best of my ability so I can keep my paycheck coming in. Find, purchase, and bring christmas presents to those people for whom it's an enjoyable experience to exchange presents so I can enjoy this festive season. Love my loved ones and talk with them honestly. Do the things that truly fulfill my sense of joy, and fuck the rest. Fuck em. All Small Stuff (tm) - let it be fucked. Fuckedorama. Befucked. Fuckedodidiliishious. Fuck the halls with Small Stuff Shit that doesn't really matter and let it be purged into the black unknown like so many cheezy sale ads in the newspaper. Somebody else can spend lots of money and energy on that stuff, and I will not. I do not. Not me. Nope.

*whew*
Ok. A few more of these and I might feel grounded again.

Slightly cooler than Jedi Knights

2008-11-24T19:40:00.002-05:00

Warrior Monk

I just got back yesterday afternoon from a workshop entitled “Warrior Monk.” It’s a 4 day retreat designed by the folks who brought us the New Warrior training and the ManKind Project (www.mkp.org). Warrior Monk is a program intended for people already deep into their own emotional growth work, often but not required to be graduates of the New Warrior or Woman Within trainings, who want to deepen and expand their work spiritually. It’s often been informally considered “advanced” training, or at least “pretty deep stuff.”

The central concept of Warrior Monk is “Where are you going in life and with whom?” They bring together concepts from many deep spiritual practices like Buddhism, Sufism (a sect of Islam), and some Native American tribal traditions. They create a path of deep decent into oneself via meditation, journaling, group sharing, and emotional processing exercises (carpet work). It’s not as fast and dramatic as the MKP and WW weekend trainings, but that’s understandable since it’s twice as long. It is just as deep, if not more so, because you spend a lot more time actually “down there” in the depths of yourself. You get many more opportunities to look at your deepest parts and make new choices.

I think I’m going to be processing its effects on me for quite some time. I made some big ass choices, and I’m pretty sure there are going to be some people in my life that will be happy, and some rather unhappy. Big change is never comfortable.

But people outside my brain – which means everyone in the world except my sister – may not even notice. I didn’t decide to dramatically change my career path or go have babies or go join a Buddhist community and donate my goods to the ADA. I made decisions about where I spend my precious life energy, and it feels very different to me.

We did lots of work around becoming detached from the crap we create emotionally. There’s so much of our lives that we really do just create and build all on our own that it’s boggling that we don’t realize it more. There’s so much in the world that can be released for the sake of just doing something better with your life energy that I deeply believe more people should do what I did. Which brings me to my mission statement…

At the end of the workshop, you’re supposed to leave with a shiny new Mission Statement and a set of goals. I discovered my mission statement after much hair pulling and grumbling about wanting to include all sorts of important things like my art, my humor, my commitment to truth, and wanting to save the planet. I am grateful to whatever powers in the universe (my spirit guide??) plopped the sentence into my head when they did, and I’m patting myself on the back for being open enough to take it and run. My Mission Statement is:

“I create healing by living in my power.”

Simple? Sort of. When I say “create healing” I’m referring to emotional healing for myself and others, healing for the planet, and any other kind of healing I can get myself into. The concept just jazzes me. And when I say “living” I mean every freaking single moment of every day. Not just when I have enough energy to, not just on Woman Within weekends, and not just when I’m in a safe place. I mean *LIVING* every single moment I’m alive until I cross over into the whatever shiny place is next. And when I say “in my power” I mean this huge, flowing, brilliant, yellow (surprisingly not orange), joyous energy that shows up when I’m talking about my passions. Everything from puppets, theater, music, producing CDs, dancing, connecting with people, quality time with my loved ones, emotional healing work, mind expanding workshops, and anything that gets my juices flowing. It’s unmistakable when it happens. Many people at Warrior Monk last week witnessed it, noticed it, and told me about it. It was like a gang of angels poking me, or throwing rocks with little messages tied onto them. It was like getting hit over the head a bunch of times with the message “PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE TELLING YOU!”

The essence of which was: love yourself for what you are, not what other people think you should be – even your family. This is much harder than I ever dreamed. Not everyone likes my humor, and not everyone likes what I have to say. Many of my loved ones accept me and love me unconditionally no matter what activities I’m doing or soapboxes I’m preaching from. Some people tho still suffer from roadblocks on the path to that sparkling nirvana. And loving myself for what I am deep inside means letting go of their judgments. Even if those judgments are things I’ve depended on for self-identity before. They’ve got to go, the bad ones and the good ones too. I can’t depend on someone else’s applause to help me identify myself – cause what if they change their minds? What if they get distracted and go watch another show? Am I going to wait until they come back before I’ll consider myself whole again? I think not.

All that *attachment* to the judgment of others had to go. It doesn’t mean that I ignore everything anyone has to say, but it does mean that there is no more emotional hook tied to others’ words. My emotional reality is created, consciously, by myself. With no apologies.

There was a time in the workshop when I was feeling nauseated, faint, frustrated, impatient, and like all I wanted to do was go back to bed. I had just done a crap load of releasing work the night before, and in the morning I was still working some issues out. Our circle was meditating, journaling, and following the processes our lead staff guy, Dan, was taking us through, and I none of it satisfied me. I was pissed and wanted to just stop the whole workshop and say “FUCK YOU ALL I’M GOING TO BED!” Now, the staff on any other workshop would probably have said, “Well, then, go to bed!” but this wasn’t that kind of workshop. I read a poem out loud to the whole group about how horrible I was feeling, and I got nothing but blank faces. One of the staff guys came over to see if he could help me with my meditation position, and I said how badly I wanted to lie down, and he said he couldn’t give permission for that. I had the choice of going ahead and sharing in our foursomes that’d just been formed about our goal journaling, or sitting by myself, and the last thing I wanted to do was be by myself. Abandonment. Not a good idea to recreate. So, I crawled over to a group of three people I’d connected really well with so far and asked them if they’d mind if I didn’t share much but just listened. They were naturally accepting and went on with their talking about goals…. And then it just happened.

I lied down. Right there on the carpet in the middle of our small group session about goals. It was not a conscious thinking choice, it was an emotional decision that the most important thing in the world right then was for me to lie down. It was as if God had turned my brain off long enough for an angel to push me down onto the carpet.

And then I felt the release. The rock solid surety that my needs came first, and as long as I wasn’t causing unneeded problems, I was going to get myself what I needed. And I felt bliss.

The goal groups finished up and went on break to go walk around the forest outside, and I stayed there in our main room, on the carpet, staring up at the chandelier, feeling the lesson seep into every pore of my body.

And then I laughed. I started giggling, and then I laughed so hard I was crying! It was so fucking simple! I JUST HAD TO LIE DOWN!!!

That’s the paradox of a lot of these emotional choices. They seem like mountains you just couldn’t move if your life depended on it, but then when you just can’t take the pain anymore, it releases itself like a balloon. Phrases come to mind like “Well, of course!” and “this is how life should be” and “I coulda had a V8!” It’s so simple when you’re on the other side, but getting there is a million mile hell.

And then again, it doesn’t have to be. All this stuff is our own creation.

I strongly recommend clicking over to www.warriormonk.org. And while you’re at it, check out www.mkp.org and www.womanwithin.org. And there’s another one I’m getting interested in at www.womeninpowerprogram.org.

A lot of this stuff seems kinda newagey, out-there, anti-Jesus, or “woo woo” to a lot of people. Most of these people are the kind that don’t believe in therapy, antidepressants, or the power of journaling. I feel sad for those people because there’s just so much healing that can be had by opening up to these kinds of guides. They don’t make it all better, but they do make it better.

I create healing by living in my power. Forever.

American Diabetes Association fundraiser walk continues!

2008-11-12T17:16:00.004-05:00

We have until November 28th to send in donations for the ADA's annual fundraiser! Remember to *NOT* send the rent money, but if you have a portion of your philanthropy budget still available this year, please consider sending it to the American Diabetes Association. They're saving lives, really.

This note is from the local DC office for ADA: "While we thank your for you many contributions to our organization, we still have a goal of $580,000 to reach, and currently we are at $500,000. Please consider making a donation to help us reach our goal."

Click here to donate in honor of Alan:
http://main.diabetes.org/goto/alanwormser

or try this one: http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR/StepOut/StepOut106218010?px=3027905&pg=personal&fr_id=5406

If nothing else, go to the Step Out portion of the ADA web page, search for the Washington DC event, and search from there for me by last name "Coutinho." The page is still up.

Click here to donate in honor of Gyrth:
http://main.diabetes.org/goto/oldcastle

And click here to see the story of mine that they published on their web site - just in case you need to see some inspiration...

http://main.diabetes.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr009=1p1bpb2861.app10b&page=NewsArticle&id=10676

And click below to see pictures of the big event! I'm not in any of them, but I was there!
Step Out Photos Available!
Click here for the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/aldonunston/AmericanDiabetesAssociationWalk?authkey=QLgmqba06QE

Physical symptoms of grief and dressing for the occasion

2008-11-11T18:16:00.004-05:00

The physical symptoms of grief that are coming up for me are familiar and annoying. I feel like a huge portion of my brain has been set aside for grief processing and I only get to use about a quarter of it. This morning I felt nauseated (thx Caitlin) after I ate breakfast, and I felt like fainting, choking, and vomiting for most of the day. I feel like I'm play dough in the spaghetti press again. Squishing me into a new version of myself. A non-cat-owner. *sigh*

I'm constantly finding myself doing mental checks as I think I'm going to do something to account for Bonkers, but she's not there. Closing the apartment door on my way out, getting out of bed in the morning, closing the bathroom door, and all the walking around my apartment I do. I'm constantly doing the "Watch out for the kitty, oh no wait, you don't have to watch out for the kitty" dance. I used to have to be careful of where Bonkers was on the bed in the morning so I didn't kick her or bonk her by mistake. I used to say goodbye to her every time I left the apartment. I used to struggle to not step on her as I came in the door to the apartment and she dutifully welcomed me and my ankles. I know this is all part of the process, and I still hate it.

I plummet when left alone. This is thankfully helped a lot by the circumstance that Caitlin's living with me. By the time she finds her own place and moves out, I'll probably be back on my feet. At the moment, tho, when I'm left alone, I start to spiral down into that bleak, dark place of just wondering why the hell I bother connecting and loving anyone if everyone's just going to die anyway. It comes in waves, so I'm not always thinking that, but it's there. Makes me nauseated.

I'm constantly wondering if people really have sympathy for me or not. I wonder if they're saying "Why's she so down? It was just a cat!" or "Let her be, she's just lost her best friend." I particularly wonder about the people I work with. Most of them have expressed genuine sympathy, but some of them seem reserved. I'll never know until I ask, so it may be a while before I really know anything. I'm just not up to having any challenging conversations right now.

I dressed this morning for the sake of self support. Yesterday, Caitlin directed me to wear my orange blazer because it would cheer me up, and it actually worked. I was not completely cheered up by the jacket, but seeing it's bright cheeriness in the mirror did actually poke at my cheery buttons. So, today, I wore a bright pink turtleneck, the pink princess bracelet my sister gave me long ago, and the necklace she gave me when Alan died that has a celtic knotwork on it. The knotwork on it is supposed to represent the many twists and turns of life. It feels validating.

Some tidbits on my mind today:
-- Caitlin cooked this morning and I was amazed. I can barely dress myself in the morning, but she was floating around the kitchen effortlessly setting up our crock pot stew for tonight.
--The G20 worldwide economic summit is happening in the Building's Museum - dorectly across the street from my office! How cool! They're raising semi-permanent tents on the lawn as we speak. I must bring my camera to work on Thursday and see what I can see out the window.
-- I have a bunch of stories about Election Week in DC, but I don't have time to post them right now.

I'm going home to that crock pot now.

mourning again

2008-11-10T15:49:00.002-05:00

I'm nauseous. Nauseated? If I felt better I might look it up.

Last Friday I went to services and Cantor Steinberg rolled her eyes, at G-d I assume, and told me that I should not have to grieve anymore for the next fourty years. That was very sweet and validating. She's a great lady. She also said that the synagogue has in the past had memorial services for pets where everyone gets together and shares the experience. I'm not explaining this well, but it's for everybody and their pets on one day. Not a huge bunch of memorial services one after the other for each pet. I hope you get the idea...

I do feel like I'm getting the support I need, and I am grateful. This is a very different feeling from when I was grieving before and felt like I wasn't getting what I needed. This grief is smaller than when Alan died, I had three months to prepare for it, and it's more understandable by the general public than when Nutmeg died. I can just say "My cat died. Cancer. She was twelve." and people just nod and say something like "Aw, I"m sorry to hear that. It's always hard when a pet dies." and then talk about their last pet loss. I don't also have to explain that this was my dead fiance's cat who was playing a great role in my grief process. Cancer people understand. Dead fiance's cat, not so much.

It's also hard to beat the fact that I have a super supportive and available boyfriend and one of my best friends is living with me right now. I did drive myself home from the vet office on Thursday afternoon after saying goodbye to Bonkers, but I knew that if I needed it, I could have called Caitlin to come pick me up. But, she was there when I got home, and she was perfectly nurturing. She lived with and adventured with Bonkers plenty herself, so I knew she was super empathetic and I didn't have to explain anything. Hell, she was there through the worst of the Alan death adventure, so she *knew* what was going on for me emotionally.

So, Caitlin made me tea, a peanut butter sandwich, tomato soup, and checked on me regularly as I curled up on my sofa watching the fluffiest and shallowest and non-heart string tugging movie I own: Cinderella, the live version as done by Brandy & Whitney Huston. There are no cute fuzzy animals involved, the emotional scenes contain only a few moments of instant character development, and the costumes are pretty to stare at. Having Caitlin there was magical. That was exactly what I needed when I needed it. It's a rare feeling, and I hope to use this as a barometer in the future.

Also, my super awesome boyfriend Scott immediately came up to DC when I called him. I warned him that I was headed to the vet office when the vet called me to say I should come home immediately. Then I called him when it was all over and asked him to come up. I knew it meant a bit of fenagling for him to get a cat sitter for his boys, get the day off work on Friday, and prep for being instantly gone for three days. But this is exactly the kind of thing I want support for, and I asked for it. He gave it, and I felt deeply deeply supported. The man is just awesome.

Then, for the next three days, I felt like I had two columns of support under me when I was alone before. I think I'm learning about myself that the physical presence of my loved ones means a hell of a lot to me. This is crappy since I have so many loved ones physically so far away from me, but at least I can see this tendency of mine clearer now.

So, I'm back in the nauseated, groggy, foggy-headed, heart-stabbing, confusing, handicapped feeling of grief, but it's different this time. I'm better at knowing what I need, asking for it, and coping with what I can't get. The silver linings include a much cleaner bathroom, no more walks to the dumpster with heavy trash bags of used litter, and an end to the truly horrific vet bills. The bathroom floor looks *expansive.* I had two litter boxes in there for Bonkers, and it's a small bathroom to begin with. Now it looks like I have great tracks of white tile. And I can look forward to an end to the many thousands of dollars racking up every month for her tests and treatments. I pay this money happily, and I'd do it again, and it's also good to know that my debt can now turn around into the paying down phase instead of racking up.

And, as strangely as fate would have it, since I put most of the vet bills on my Air Tran Visa card, I have earned enough frequent flier points for a free round trip airline ticket. Scott and I have been planning a trip to Disneyland in California to coincide with a business conference he has out there in March 2009, and now I know where the money is coming from for the plane ticket.

One of my biggest lessons from grief is to value what you have. I have a great relationship with Scott, and Disneyland has not yet been taken from us in some horrific unforseen tragedy, so I'm going to not resist the opportunity put in front of me to revel in the joy that I do have. I think by March I should be far enough away from the grief of loosing Bonkers that I'll be ready to be joyful and Disney-esque again.

Now how wierd is this... I just did a count for the days from now until March 25th when I'd be theoretically flying out to Disneyland, and it's exactly 100 days! Does that matter? Big round number vs. normal run of the mill middle of the line number? Oh well. It's always nice to have a goal to look forward to, and this will be mine. Get through grief, get through winter, get into Disneyland. With Scott. Yea us. :)

And a big Thank You to my sister for posting in honor of Bonkers's passing on Thursday for me. Isn't she a great writer? Hug your furry, scaley, feathery friends again just for her today. :)

Bonkers is gone too

2008-11-07T06:14:00.000-05:00

Hi all - this is Kathi jumping in and posting for the usual Orange one.

After almost four months of vet visits, tests, chemotherapy and acupunture, Lara's beloved companion kitty Bonkers lost her battle with the inoperable tumor yesterday.
I'll let Lara tell the whole story, but the short version is Bonkers hadn't been eating or drinking for several days after her last chemo treatment, and wasn't looking good. The wonderful folks at the Hope Center were able to help get her re-hydrated a bit, which actually made her heart murmur worse. The vet said they could do a few things that might extend her life a few days, but no more than a week. So Lara made the very difficult decision to let her go. I'm happy that at least the vets were able to make Bonkers comfortable, and she was with the person who loved her most, and had these last few weeks of being absolutely adored and treasured.

Her gushi-boo and her roommate are taking good care of her, and she's sounding sad but stable. If you've read her blog(s), you probably know Lara most treasures being in connection with friends, and not shying away from all the feelings around death, even if it's as simple and non-Emily Post as "Death sucks." Please do post something, or call her or visit her. And if you have your own fuzzy/scaly/feathery non-human family members, give them a special hug today.

Please do not vote for the McCain/Palin option - any other option is less risky for our federal government's stability.

2008-11-02T13:24:00.005-05:00

McCain has a 20% chance of dying in Office, and Palin is not equal to other world leaders.

I am not a drinker of Obama Kool Aid. I am not an Obamabot. I never wanted him as President. I am, however, a profoundly concerned, intelligent, single, earning-my-own-rent-money woman. I have done a profound amount of research, and I present to you here my extremely carefully thought out arguments for NOT voting for the McCain-Palin option, and I implore you to read what I’ve typed, forward it to your undecided friends, and by all means read my back up information. I have kept my sources as non-partisan and unbiased as humanly possible. I implore you to read carefully, think A LOT, and then if you still believe that voting for the McCain-Palin option is the BEST option we have available, then please present your argument here by commenting.

Please do not vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Think. Read. Cut through the chatter in the media. Put aside your emotional reactions and dig up the hard data that can support your decisions. Do the painfully honest self-evaluation that prepares you to take your life and the lives of your loved ones into your hands when you vote. No matter who you vote for, do your homework first.

My friends in Ohio, I’m talking to you.

Indiana – for the first time in a very long time you can be more than simply a “Republican Stronghold.” Assumptions about Indiana are now all off the board. Think carefully about your new power.

I believe strongly that voting for the McCain/Palin option is sincerely more risky than Obama/Biden. It is risky because McCain has a higher risk of dying in office than we’ve ever seen before, and Palin is simply not prepared to function successfully on the global political arena without him. My reasons here are not about the issues because I am not trying at this point to change your minds about abortion, gun rights, taxes, economic plans, or anything else. I am focused on the one issue I doubt enough people are devoting energy to, and that’s DEATH. Palin’s preparedness is LOW. She has been successful only in arenas where the population is small and homogeneous by comparison to the rest of America! She is not equal to other world leaders – women or men.

Sarah Palin’s supporters are deeply loyal. They love Palin’s empowered woman image, conservative beliefs, and her image of the common mom many people can identify with. They feel that they finally have a champion, like them, who will fight for what they believe. She will get their votes because of her beliefs in supporting socially conservative issues like abortions as crimes, right wing morality, homosexual people as legally different, and lightly controlled gun ownership rights. I am making an argument here for why those reasons to vote for her – and therefore McCain – must be overwhelmed by the reasons to NOT vote for her – even if you share her beliefs.

I.John McCain has a 20% chance of dying while in office. The risk of a person dying increases with age, and here is a source of hard data to prove the amount of risk John McCain is facing for dying in the next 4-8 years:http://www.pr-inside.com/sarah-palin-40-chance-to-take-r781355.htm

If you don’t have time to read that, here’s a summary:“Male former smokers who are 75 years of age have a greater than 50% chance of dying during their next ten years, whereas those who are currently 70 have a 10-year risk of death over 35%. McCain, who is 72, has a statistical risk of death somewhere between these two figures, which Banzhaf estimates could be as high as a 20% chance of dying during the next 5 years. These figures do not include his increased risk of death from his multiple bouts of deadly melanoma skin cancer.”

“One potentially disabling disease McCain could face is Alzheimer's, where advancing age is the major risk factor, and the odds of coming down with the disease double every five years after the age of 65.”

McCain is a former smoker and has already had repeated bouts with cancer. He is currently at a higher risk than any US President ever for Alzheimer’s, stroke, and heart disease. What do we know about this man’s eating habits? Exercise? How might his eating and exercising habits change once he’s assumed the hardest job on the planet? Do you think the high stress will not have any effect on his health?

From FOX news:

“Hannity asked McCain what he is looking for in a number two, “Someone who shares your priorities. Your principles, your values and I’ve got to also say priorities. One of the toughest decisions the president makes is setting priorities. And so, that has to be those obviously important characteristics. And one of them of course is, someone who can take your place immediately,” McCain then chuckled about his age, “That’s maybe the advice almost even more important in my case.”” I’m telling you that John McCain has a higher risk of dying in office than any other President in modern history, so we’d better approach voting for our VP just as we would vote for the actual President.

II.Palin was not chosen because her ability to perform the job of Vice President and President was the highest of all possible Republican women candidates. She was chosen for fluffy reasons. And by “fluffy”, I mean media oriented, political, and short-term. She was chosen for her ability to help McCain get votes in the last three months – not for her ability to actually do the job of President. Sarah Palin was not selected for VP candidate because of her ability to perform in the job. If ability to perform in the job was the top criteria, many other people would have been chosen over her. A partial list of other VP possibilities for McCain follows here as presented by FOX News, a significant republican-leaning news source:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Former Office of Management and Budget Chief and Ohio Rep. Rob Portman, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Independent Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Also, a few women were mentioned along the line.

Click here to see the long list of all VP possibilities McCain had: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)_vice_presidential_candidates,_2008

Reading up on the following women pissed me off because each of these Republican women is more experienced, better educated than Sarah Palin, AND THEY ALL HAVE KIDS! Why is Sarah Palin such an icon of the empowered professional mom when we have these other women who are more established than her and also live the empowered professional mom lifestyle?

Christine Todd Whitman – former NJ Governor and EPA chief; Bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in 1968 in government. Two kids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Todd_Whitman

Kay Hutchison, US Senator for Texas from 1993 to present; Texas State Treasurer from 1990 to 1993; Law degree from University of Texas in 1967. Two stepdaughters and two adopted children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Bailey_Hutchison

Carly Fiorina - former Hewlett Packard CEO, former VP of AT&T, and currently an economic advisor to McCain. In 1998, Fortune magazine listed her as #1 "most powerful woman in business.” She earned a Master of Science in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Two stepdaughters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina

Meg Whitman – President and CEO of eBay from March 1998 until March 2008; MBA Harvard Business School 1979. Two kids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Whitman

Several sources, none of them pro-democrat, provide hard data that Sarah Palin was not chosen as VP candidate because of her superior ability to do the job of President. Reasons for her could have been her TV friendly beauty, her fiery personality, her willingness to do what she’s told by McCain, and her image as an anti-Bush-establishment fighter. I do not believe these reasons are enough to elect her to be President. They’re all political image reasons, not practical get-the-job-done reasons.

From the Houston Chronical online edition www.chron.com

III.Palin’s experience so far is not enough to make her equal to the other world leaders.

I present Palin’s lack of awareness of American national legal history – from the Couric interview as posted by CNN:

“Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin had difficulty naming a specific Supreme Court case she disagreed with besides Roe v. Wade in a long-awaited clip CBS News aired Wednesday night.

"Well, let's see. There's –of course –in the great history of American rulings there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American," Palin said. "And there are–those issues, again, like Roe v Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know–going through the history of America, there would be others but–"

"Can you think of any?" Couric interjected.

"Well, I could think of–of any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level, maybe I would take issue with," Palin responded. "But you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today."

McCain says that in the face of this blunder, he’s happy to lie to make her look better: "I know that there have been attacks on Sarah Palin that have been remarkable to me in many ways, but I have total confidence in her," he said. "She's very comfortable in her own skin. She's had more experience in leadership than Senator Obama and Senator Biden put together."

Any person who has this weak an understanding of the American legal system, its history, and the impacts of thousands of key decisions over many decades, will have to “read up” on it in order to make powerful arguments with global leaders. Can you imagine the amount of “reading up” Palin needs to do in order to become fully versed? She does have a great deal of understanding of Alaskan law and the federal laws that have applied to her work so far, but that work covers an extremely small percentage of the topics America as a nation deals with on the international stage.

Sarah Palin cannot possibly have expertise outside her stated interests of family management, special needs child rearing, hunting and snowmobiling, Alaskan law, and the oil industry. She simply is not a renaissance woman. She cannot cover all these bases with expertise. McCain can, so look at his abilities to understand the many issues a President needs to, and compare that to Palin. She pales by comparison.

Look here: http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/

Compare Palin to Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Mary McAleese of Ireland, Governor-General Michaëlle Jean of Canada, Executive President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, President Pratibha Patil of India, President Borjana Kristo of Bosnia, Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko of the Ukraine, Governor-General Dr Quentin Bryce of Australia, Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis of Haiti, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, former Prime Minister Golda Meïr of Israel, former Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Dr. Maria de Lourdes Ruivo da Silva Pintasilgo of Portugal, former PresidentBenazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Edith Cresson of France, Hanna Suchocka of Poland, Kim Campbell of Canada, Jenny Shipley of New Zealand, and many more where they came from...

They were all mothers, and they all kicked ass in male dominated professional fields. How prepared were they in the three months before they were elected?

IV. The issues can be fought out in other arenas.

Congress is there for a reason. Vote for your local Republicans to serve in Congress, state government, city and county government, and then get your ass out there and be a political activist. Join like minded people in groups that already exist to promote your beliefs in rights for abortion, guns, marriage, stem cells in science, the war, the economy, and everything else you believe in.

Just don’t put us in a position where our #1 leader is at higher risk than ever of dying in office, and his backup is a newbie. I’m telling you that the death factor is real. The stability of our government must come first. The unthinkable has been happening all around us lately, and social chaos is a very real possibility. Consider what life would be like if McCain died and Palin simply got surprised by some global issue she wasn’t prepared for.

Colin Powell: respected, experienced, educated, Republican war hero, has this to say…

From www.haaretz.com quoting Colin Powell: "But I firmly believe that at this point in America's history, we need a president that will not just continue, even with a new face and with the changes and with some maverick aspects, who will not just continue basically the policies that we have been following in recent years," Powell said.”

Also From www.haaretz.com: “Powell also expressed disappointment in the negative tone of McCain's campaign, his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, and McCain's and Palin's decision to focus in the closing weeks of the contest on Obama's ties to 1960s-era radical William Ayers.”

So, how do you compare yourself to Colin Powell? Think you’re smarter than him? He broke with his own political base. Why? Do you think your reasoning is more thorough than his? Just think about it.

Now here are some more arguments, details, clips, and URLs. I encourage you to read, think, debate, and work your tail off in making your decision. Don’t vote without knowing you have done everything possible to educate yourself and know without a doubt that you are making the right choice. And remember, there are third party candidates out there that you can still vote for if both major parties make you sick.

Additional Crap:

*Special note about diversity*

Palin has been successful only in arenas (Wasilla – population 7,028 and Alaska –population 670,053) where the population is small and homogeneous by comparison to the USA as a whole!

Alaska is 70% WHITE and 82% CHRISTIAN!!!

Palin has never had to deal with populations of people that have even remotely diverse populations. After having moved myself from mostly white and christian Indiana to the very diverse Washington DC area, I know without a doubt that the culture shock is something Palin has never worked with before. She simply does not know what’s going to hit her. Can you imagine her making a mistake that insults a non-Christian foreign leader because she was under pressure and did something like she did in the Couric interview? Can you imagine her surprise when she has to negotiate with populations where whites or Christians are in the minority? It’s a whole new ballgame, and you can only learn the rules by experiencing the change in environment. Any exchange student can tell you that. She has NO experience in working with diverse populations. There is no doubt, argument, or fuzziness about that.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/02000.html and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Alaska#Religion

+Palin vs. Biden+

From www.haaretz.com (Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.):

“For those expecting to see Senator Joe Biden field dress McCain's VP pick on the Washington University stage based on her less than lackluster performances before the national media, there was no train wreck in St. Louis, though that could be because her only appearances before the mainstream media in the past weeks had set the bar for her debate performance so low that she could have jumped it with a snowmobile.

Against all odds, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska put on a performance at the debate that made her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric and the Tina Fey videos now making the rounds on YouTube pale by comparison. The governor had a rough couple of weeks before the debate, becoming a late night punch line and having to see even stalwart conservatives like Kathleen Parker and George Will

questioning her place on the presidential ticket. Her case for being ready at day one to serve if something were to happen to John McCain was also not helped by the release last week of a new YouTube classic video of her "Bristol Baywatch" one-piece swimsuit competition from the early 80s Miss Alaska beauty pageant in which she won Miss Congeniality. Adding insult to injury for Palin was the release of her Jethro Tull-meets-Northern Exposure flute-playing performance from the talent portion of the same pageant. From the beginning it was almost a lock that Biden should win, but in a sense couldn't. He obviously knew the issues better, but as anyone who has followed presidential elections would know, knowledge of the issues is almost worthless, eclipsed entirely by a candidate’s ability to speak to "Main Street", a nebulous locale which was mentioned repeatedly Thursday, first by Biden within his two minute opening remarks.Palin faced what seemed to be the crashing back end of a soaring rise to fame since she was tapped for the VP spot, a star turn that gave the McCain a serious bump only to have her become a liability the more people actually got to see her and hear her speak. Palin had spent much of the week before the debate in red-rock isolation at McCain's Arizona ranch being coached by the campaign , presumably learning the differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites, Slovakia and Slovenia, and Hamas and hummus. She stated in the days before the campaign that the media had been "censoring" her, and she expressed her desire to speak to the American people, a humorous contention if you consider the way she was lampooned for her few performances before the national media and the fact that the McCain campaign has not let her come within a country mile of a press conference since she was named as his VP pick.
In retrospect, the Palin strategy was easy, she didn't have to prove she knew as much as Biden and any attempt to do so would have been a failure. Staring straight at the camera like a moose in the headlights wearing a jet-black post-Goth top and skirt, she stuck to general statements such as saying on the issue of the economy that if you want to know if it's a good time or a bad time in America, go to a kid's soccer game on a Saturday and listen to the fear in peoples' voices. Basically, she kept things simple and tried to show that she understands the concerns of soccer moms, even if they have been usurped in this election by the sudden rise of hockey moms. Palin was probably further helped by dolling out a healthy portion of "aw shucks" down home corn pone, using phrases such as "darn right" and "dog gonnit" with aplomb.
Biden seemed to hold back, repeatedly cracking a broad, impossibly white-toothed smile in response to Palin's statements and shying away from the intense, loquacious, and often hot-headed speaking style he has become known for. He also made a point of clearly repeating specific contentions on policy, including McCain's voting against funding for troops that included a timeline from withdrawal from Iraq. He also surely scored some sympathetic points with viewers for his comments on the loss of his wife and year-old daughter in a tragic car accident shortly before he first entered public office. Biden gave a nuanced response to how the United States should handle a nuclear Iran, saying that while we should not let them get nuclear weapons, such weapons are years off, and stressing that Ahmadinejad is not the supreme leader of Iran. To his credit, he didn't try to distance himself from claims that Obama would sit down for talks with Iran with no preconditions saying that our friends and allies "have been saying, talk, talk, talk." Palin for her part again tied instability in the Middle East to the war in Iraq, and said there is no way Iran can have no nukes period, sighting Ahmadinejad's statements calling Israel a "stinking corpse". She almost managed a very adept pronunciation of "naivete." She also said she believes that a two-state solution is the key to a political solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and after Biden gave a spirited response about his support for the state of Israel, she expressed her joy that "we both love Israel," to which the Jewish state rejoiced. In what was easily the most talked-about Vice Presidential debate of all time, one for which over 3,100 press credentials were issued, the maligned Alaska governor showed her ability to use "aw shucks" plain talk and an accent straight out of Fargo to make up for a glaring lack of foreign policy and legislative experience, showing again that in American elections, style and low expectations can make up for any shortage of substance.”

Palin cannot provide hard data that supports her ability to understand global issues. Her experiences in “shoring up her policy portfolio over the past two months” are newsworthy! I got this from CNN http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com:

“In an effort to address voter concerns that she is not prepared to step in as commander-in-chief, Sarah Palin will meet Thursday in Pennsylvania with a group of the campaign’s national security advisers. Palin will meet with former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge; former CIA director James Woolsey; former Navy Secretary John Lehman; Richard Williamson, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan; and retired Navy Rear Admiral Marsha Evans.

“With the election coming on Tuesday, Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain are reviewing national security priorities with their top national security advisers,” an adviser to Palin said of the roundtable. Thursday’s meeting in Erie will be the third policy-oriented campaign event for Palin. Over the last week, the vice presidential candidate has given two policy speeches focusing on special needs children and energy issues. Aides to the governor say she has been dedicated to shoring up her policy portfolio over the last two months and is eager to demonstrate her grasp of substantive issues, despite the few remaining days in the campaign. Unlike her two policy speeches, reporters will not be allowed to observe the roundtable. The governor and her advisers will participate in a “photo spray” for television cameras before the meetings, and she will make a statement to the press afterwards.”

Actions speak louder than words do, and Palin’s actions prove that she wants to show the voters that she’s doing something about her obvious weaknesses in understanding issues outside of Alaska. She’s doing this by advertising a last minute meeting with a collection of former and retired big wigs – any one of whom would be better prepared to be President than she is! I don’t want someone as President who has to “shore up” anything at the last minute! Palin cannot publicly speak as an expert – or even as a reliably knowledgeable person - on issues outside her established scope of Alaska, Big Oil, professional working-for-a-paycheck moms, and rural Caucasian Christianity. I’m stating facts here, not the rantings of Obamabots. If elected, she would be too close to really having to take over for my comfort.

+Abortion+

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in our country. Life and death. Morality and judgment. Religion. Spirituality. Individuality. Free will. All of it plays in.

My personal belief about it is that the federal government should not be the entity that makes the decisions about abortions. Other entities work much better, more close to home, more according to American sub-cultures, and more efficiently. I won’t state here what I think about abortions personally or what I would do if I became accidentally pregnant – even though many people will decide that they know what I think without talking to me about it first. I’ll live with that possible unwarranted and uninformed personal judgment in exchange for focusing on what’s more important: what entity makes the call.

On Abortion from Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122005503104485161.html:

“Since that birth, Ms. Palin "has taken on a heroic status among people who value the sanctity of life," said Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "Not only does she talk pro-life, she lives pro-life," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission.”

I’m telling you now that you can still value the sanctity of life and not vote for McCain/Palin. There are MANY other ways to support your beliefs than putting a high risk President and an unprepared backup in the White House.

Ok, she’s pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-choice, you choose the moniker. Believing abortions are wrong is not going to help us get out of the economic crisis, deal with world issues, global warming, and the war. Don’t let this personal issue get us into a risky situation with a high-risk-for-death President. Imagine if you would, Hagrid from Harry Potter ™ chasing a baby dragon flying around throughout a china shop. Most plates would be broken, and he might actually catch his baby dragon to keep it safe – and maybe not. That’s what Sara Palin would be like as the Vice President in terms of all non-abortion policies (the china) and the “sanctity of life” (the baby dragon).

Palin said that “the Vice President is in charge of the Senate” while answering questions, one of which was from a third grader asking “What does the Vice President do?”

The VP only votes as Senate Pro Tem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_pro_tempore_of_the_United_States_Senate

when there’s a tie. This is highly unlikely. The median and mean numbers of tie-breaking votes cast per Senate President are 3 and 5.30 respectively. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Vice_Presidents%27_tie-breaking_votes

Are you willing to put us all in the scenario that this newbie on the global scene will be our President in a time of global crisis just because she might get the chance to vote on a tie breaker in the senate on your chosen issue? She won’t be as effective as she thinks as VP in fighting for her beliefs in the Senate. She’ll get pro-lifers an emotional boost, but not truly effective political results. Palin does not represent actual change in favor of pro-lifers.

I’m not a pro-lifer, but if I were, I would not consider the Vice President a powerful ally in overturning Roe v. Wade. John McCain also is pro-life/anti-abortion/anti-choice. If he’s the President, with all that power, he would do his best to overturn Roe v. Wade. This is what his web site has to say about his stand on abortion: “John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench. Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.” McCain is exaggerating and insulting what the Supreme Court did in Roe v Wade by calling it “judicial fiat.” They did their job. The three-branch government system we have here in America works. Let it work. Be educated voters and don’t let your vote for President be determined by extreme adjectives used in campaign speeches.

It’s still going to take a lot of congress people to make this huge shift. The President does not have the power to make that change on his or her own. If you want to support the overturning of Roe v. Wade, you have other options. Go vote for your pro-life Senators and Representatives. Make it a fair fight on the congress floors. Just please don’t set us all up for the riskier of two Presidencies because of one personal issue that can be dealt with elsewhere.

+Palin’s positive points+

She’s got some positive things going for her that I recognize: she’s succeeding in a male dominated field while participating in raising her five children, she’s presenting a confident image in overwhelming negative circumstances, she’s presented a successful working mom image to millions of young women who will hopefully be inspired by her to go ahead and take on careers in male dominated, high pressure fields without thinking that they have to sacrifice motherhood, and she’s presenting an image of a completely empowered woman who makes her own bold statements without apologizing. I respect her for these achievements. I don’t agree with her beliefs, but she’s presented an image with some positive aspects that I do support – just not the whole package. She is not enough to be my President.

+Palin’s experience compared to Obama’s+

This is what one Palin supporter posted regarding the VP debate on a CNN blog: “Sarah Palin was fantastic - as I fully expected. Here's my fave: "SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE!" Soooooooooo perfect! Joe Biden is a good guy but same old same old. Sorry. Typical of the DO NOTHING CONGRESS. Our MAVERICKS will go to Washington, courtesy of the voters - not the NEWBIE and the OLDIE. Let's put it this way: Sarah Palin has more experience than Obama and she's not the one running for President.”

Now, let’s THINK about this… This supporter is praising Palin’s use of dramatic one liners. I say that dramatic one liners do not help you build economic strategies and negotiate with world leaders. This supporter is claiming that Joe Biden does nothing. I say that Joe Biden has accomplished a lot regardless of if you like what he did. This supporter is praising the buzz word “Maverick.” I say that buzz words are meaningless. This supporter is claiming that Sara Palin has more experience than Obama. I say that hard data proves that Obama has more experience than she does.

Here is the hard data from Alaska’s web page http://gov.state.ak.us/bio.php, the US Senate’s web page http://obama.senate.gov and www.answers.com:

PALIN: (Ten years of rural town level government &, one and a half years Governor.)

·Bachelor of science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987

·Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996 (quit in 1996 to run for Mayor)

·Mayor of Wasilla, current population 7,028, from 1996 to 2002

·Chair of Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (appointed to job by Governor) sometime in 2003 to January 2004 – quit the job after less than one year claiming “lack of ethics” from Republicans.

·Governor of Alaska starting December 2006 to present.

OBAMA: (Nine years state level government & just under three years national level government)

·Bachelor degree in Political Science from Columbia University 1983

·JD from Harvard Law 1991 magna cum laude

oPresident of the Harvard Law Review (one of the most cited law reviews in the United States and considered by many to be the most prestigious)
·Civil rights lawyer and community organizer in New York and Chicago 1991-96

·University of Chicago, lecturer, early 1990s-2004

·Illinois state senate 1996 - 2005

·US Senate 2005 to present.

So, even if you ignore Obama’s academic achievements that far outweigh Palin’s, and you stick to comparing just those jobs one must win an election to get, you have this:

Palin: 10 years at small town level, 1.5 years State and kind of National level as Governor.

Obama: 9 years at state level, 3.5 years National level as US Senator.

IT IS SIMPLY INCORRECT TO SAY THAT PALIN HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN OBAMA.

+Supplemental Reading+

If you’re starting to accept McCain’s death as a real threat to our security, or at least if you’re seeing real doubt in Palin but you just can’t bring yourself to vote for the Obama/Biden option, then I sincerely encourage you to vote for one of the third party candidates for President that are actually running on non-Democrat/non-Republican tickets. This is what we call a Protest Vote, and it’s better than voting for an unprepared person to be our President. I guarantee you that all these candidates and their VPs are more prepared than Sarah Palin is to be US President. Look at this list and read their resumes: http://www.votesmart.org/election_president.php.

More links for you to consider are listed below. Please read A LOT before you go vote. Don’t make a poorly informed decision. READ. THINK. THINK SOME MORE! AND CONSIDER YOUR SOURCES! IS IT HARD DATA OR CAMPAIGNING LANGUAGE? BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!

1. START HERE: www.vote411.org is the page maintained by the League of Women Voters full of info on voting. My beloved Alan always referred to the LWV as an excellent unbiased source of information for politics. His mom was very involved with them in her time, and Alan was a lifetime supporter. Alan was constantly respected for his well thought out arguments, and this was one of his favorite sources of hard data.

2. Look at www.votesmart.org for the political courage test. Palin refused to answer questions from it in 2006 even though McCain was on the committee making the request.

3. http://www.comparepresidentialcandidates.com

4.For your HARD SCIENTIFIC DATA needs click here: http://sharp.sefora.org/about/

Scientists and Engineers for America, SEA, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization with 501(c)(3) status. Our mission is to renew respect for evidence-based debate and decision-making in politics and at all levels of government.

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Russert

6. http://www.tubethevote.com

7. http://www.ontheissues.org

8. http://www.speakout.com

9. http://www.squidoo.com/2008presidentialcandidateelection

10. http://www.mahalo.com/How_to_Choose_a_Candidate

11. http://www.ehow.com/how_2148456_choose-candidate-president.html. I love this site For all sorts of lessons I never managed to get from my parents or teachers growing up. It takes a village…

12.Look at the cnn.com video section http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/10/22/sot.palin.vp.role.kusa to see Palin make a clear mistake in describing the role of the VP. Her spokesperson said that Palin was trying to answer the question in a way that a third grader could understand because the question was posed by a third grader “What does the VP do?” but I watched this thing and Palin’s response was not - as a whole - aimed at third graders. She was speaking in a tone and using words like “executive experience” and “energy producing state” that was (in my vew) aimed at adults – not kids. I think that since Palin was under pressure in this live interview, her brain filter wasn’t working as well as it could and her true feelings were exposed. She really believes that she will be able to influence policy as the VP, and her legal role definition clearly states that she will not – at least not leally. When you click on this link, read further down for the analysis of the VP role by the Senate’s History Office representative. I’d think that person probably has as good a chance of getting the VP job description right as anybody.

13. Girlfriends Appalled about Sarah Palin: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1264001.html

14. Virginia State Board of Elections page for instructions on how to ensure your vote counts. This advice applies to all states – and if you find that it doesn’t, then post your findings here so we can all see where Virginia differs from your state: http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Voter_Information/Tips_to_Get_your_Vote_Counted.html

15. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/default.stm The BBC News web page for USA 2008 election coverage

16. http://www.economist.com The web page for The Economist magazine – another British news source, but this one focuses on economic issues. Dare I say that this is as non-partisan as it gets.

17. And for your laughter medicine, read this, especially if you’re a gamer: http://somehedgehog.livejournal.com/245807.html#cutid1

So, as you go to the voting booth on November 4^th or as you make out your absentee ballot and send it in, please consider these things before casting your vote:

-Palin is far less capable than all the other candidates in negotiating the global arena.

-Palin was chosen for political campaigning reasons, not get-the-job-done reasons.

-McCain has a higher risk of dying in office than we’ve ever seen before.

-Abortion, gun ownership, marriage, budget, taxes, war, and all the other issues can all be dealt with in arenas other than selecting a President.

-All our options suck. None of these politicians are really what we need. Either Obama or McCain will win, and McCain brings with him more risk of dying in office, creating global crisis, and being replaced with a much less prepared person than we’ve ever seen before.

-Voting for Obama sucks slightly less than voting for McCain.

If you have a well thought out counter argument for me, please do post it. You must include hard data from unbiased sources. If you do not, if you do not seem to have read my post completely, or if you use my space here to rant, I will only read far enough to make that determination and then I will delete your message.

Debate on.

Special thanks to my beloved Lisa Schamess, Editor Extraordinaire, for helping me edit out my ranting and focus on the real points I’m trying to make.

Third Year for the American Diabetes Association's fundraising walk!

2008-10-24T22:01:00.004-04:00

Check out the slick web page the ADA helped me build!

http://main.diabetes.org/goto/alanwormser

And they still have up the tribute I wrote last summer! Keep in mind I was in the mood to inspire folks to fight the good fight...

http://main.diabetes.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr009=1p1bpb2861.app10b&page=NewsArticle&id=10676

If you're an Oldcastle fan, I did republish the site I built in honor of Gyrth last year, but I haven't heard back yet from Mel this year, and I think it's only polite to touch base with her before making it public. So, if you're a fan and would like to donate in Gyrth's name instead of Alan's, substitute "oldcastle" for "alanwormser" in the URL above, but don't tell Mel I told you until she gives me the official green light! ;)

Don't send the rent money, but please do consider donating a few bucks this year. The ADA is hurting with the rest of us, and they're giving up a lot of their market share on philanthropy to the political campaigns this year. People still die from diabetes even when there's an election going on, so don't make it painful for yourself, but see what you can do.

I'll be going to the walk tomorrow morning - even though it's supposed to be cold and rainy - so if you want to actually show up in the flesh, please look for me! I'm going to try to wear something really noteworthy so I can be found by someone looking for me, but dressing for the weather will take precedence.

And keep some people in your prayers nowadays: the Crow family, my dad and my friend Shannon recovering from surgery, and my kitty Bonkers who is coping with cancer but hanging in there like a trooper.

Just a moment for a laugh... Out of the mouths of babes....

2008-10-15T10:48:00.003-04:00

No time to blog... too much juggling... but must make time for a laugh! A co-worker sent this to me, and I have my own testimony to add at the end!

Think before you speak...
Here are six reasons why you should think before you speak -

the last one is great!
Have you ever spoken and wished that you could
immediately take the words back...
or that you could crawl into a hole?
Here are the Testimonials of a few people who did....

FIRST TESTIMONY:
I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow
and asked loudly,
"How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?"
I turned around and walked back out and never went back
My husband didn't say a word...
he knew better.

SECOND TESTIMONY:
I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls.
I was unhappy with the women's type I had been using.
After browsing for several minutes,
I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen who works at the store.
He asked if he could help me.
Without thinking, I looked at him and said, "I think I like playing with men's balls."

THIRD TESTIMONY:
My sister and I were at the mall and
passed by a store that sold a
variety of candy and nuts.
As we were looking at the display case,
the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help.
I replied, "No, I'm just looking at your nuts."
My sister started to laugh hysterically.
The boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away.
To this day,
my sister has never let me forget.

FOURTH TESTIMONY:
While in line at the bank one afternoon,
my toddler decided to release
some pent-up energy and ran amok.
I was finally able to grab hold of
her after receiving looks of disgust
and annoyance from other patrons.
I told her that if she did not start behaving
"right now" she would be punished.
To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening,
"If you don't let me go right now,
I will tell Grandma that I saw you
kissing Daddy's pee-pee last night!"
The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange.
Even the tellers stopped what they were doing.
I mustered up the last of my dignity and
walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow.
The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me, were screams of laughter.

FIFTH TESTIMONY:
Have you ever asked your child a question too many times?
My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly.
One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch, in between errands
It was very busy, with a full dining room.
While enjoying my taco,
I smelled something funny,
so of course I checked
my seven-month-old daughter, she was clean.
Then realized that Danny
had not asked to go potty in a while.
I asked him if he needed to go,
and he said "No" .
I kept thinking
"Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don't have any clothes with me."
Then I said,
"Danny, are you SURE you didn't have an accident?"
"No," he replied.
I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse.
Soooooo, I asked one more time, "Danny did you have an accident ? This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants,
bent over, spread his cheeks
and yelled
"SEE MOM, IT'S JUST FARTS!!"
While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing,
he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down.
An old couple made me feel better,
thanking me for the best laugh they'd ever had!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST TESTIMONY:
This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days
and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will,
in the future, likely think before she speaks.
What happens when you predict snow but don't get any!
We had a female news anchor that,
the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't,
turned to the weatherman and asked:
"So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?"
Not only did HE have to leave the set,
but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!

Now, didn't that feel good?
Pass it on to someone you know who needs a laugh
and remember
we all say things we don't really mean,
so think before you speak!!!!!

*************************

Ok, so here's my testimony:
Long ago in a state far far away, I was a young teenager (tween?) in a car with some members of my family I think including my mom, sister, aunt, and possibly some cousins. It was one of these family weekend gatherings we used to have with the Cincinnatti and Indianapolis branches of the Coutinho family. I think we were going out shopping or to a movie or something.

Now, I've always liked a good joke and making people laugh, even as a kid. At the time, I was daily enjoying this morning radio show with two guys who really should be rated PG-13 at best for their potty humor and adult oriented comedy. I didn't know they were really a more adult oriented morning show, and my folks didn't really either. At least until this weekend...

No shit... there I was... telling this funny joke I heard on the radio to a car of family members on a relaxing little jaunt on the weekend...
Me: "Hey guys! I have a joke! What's six inches long and girls love to blow?"
Dead silence...
Me: "A Dollar Bill! Haha!"
More dead silence.
I look out the window in my blissful ignorance wondering why no one got the joke.

Later on, my dad (likely having drawn the short straw) came to my room and walked through the process with me and let me come to the realization in relative privacy and safety. As my little brain nurons finally connected around the implications in that joke involving male genetalia and grown up humor, my world came crashing down around my ears. My dad had the decency to laugh and say it was no big deal as long as I understood what had happened and knew to be more careful next time.

I swear I'll make time to post a real life update yet this week...

Change. Death. Taxes.

2008-10-02T11:39:00.002-04:00

The only constant in the universe is change. The only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. Anyone got any more cliches along that line?

I'm reeling. I'm coping, but the past week has brought a hell of a lot of change to me. I'm still working on embracing it.

Change #1) Monday. My team boss at Booz Allen, Eric, resigns from Uncle Booz for a different job. One where he can *make* the kool aid.

Change #2) Wednesday. I get promoted! Yea me! :)

Change #3) Thursday. Finance Training 101 at Booz Allen University. Worlds of truth and clarity are opened up to me about the magic behind government contracts. I start feeling the weight of my new responsibility as a new Level 3.

Change #4) Wednesday. Yesterday. My beloved Uberboss, Tamera, tells me she's resigned from Booz Allen and is taking another job where she'll be queen of something. She said what that was, I just don't remember. She will, however, have much better power over her own destiny.

This one really rocked my boat. Tamera and Eric hired me three years ago and made it possible for me to take care of myself and heal from the hell of Alan's death. This job has been my lifeline, and Eric and Tamera have been my keystones. They really both seemed to be career Booz Allen people, and they were both *awesome* leaders, bosses, and mentors. Loosing them both at the same time, just when I'm stepping up into a scary new responsibility place in my job, well it's just damn unsettling.

Thankfully, both of them have certainly made good choices for themselves, and I don't feel like they're ditching us just for more money or something shallow like that. These are really good career moves, and it's good for me to witness. I genuinely care about these two people, and I'm happy for them that they found good next steps for themselves.

I'm just adjusting, and I can feel the uncomfortableness physically. Nothing bad is happening to me, thank god, and my job is secure with plenty of pretty possibilities in my future dancing around like little fairies just waiting to be grabbed and shaken upon me so I can glow with their pixie dust.

*ahem*

Ok, see? I'm not all together here today.

So, I'll be journalling more, and I can see some serious meditation time in my future. Wish me luck.

AND THE NUMBER OF THE COUNTING SHALL BE THREE!!!

2008-09-29T17:33:00.003-04:00

I got the promotion!!!!!!!!!!
Wooooo Hoooooo!

Whew - that was a long time in coming.

I actually found out last Wednesday, so if you felt a tremor in the force, that was me. I just haven't been able to carve out any time for blogging. I don't even have much time now, but I gotta get the word out...

So, as of October 1, Booz Allen Hamilton will consider me a Level 3 instead of a Level 2, and that's out of 5 levels (the higher the better) you can be before they start calling you "Vice President" and "Partner." I get one more week of paid time off to use as vacation or sick leave, and I get slightly more easy access to information about contracts I'm working on. Now I can do it myself instead of going through another level 3. This doesn't mean much of a raise, tho. I hear that when you're really doing well, you either get a big fat raise or a promotion, but not both. I'll take the extra 5 days of sick/vacation time tho!!

So, I've been spending the past three weeks catching up on all the mountains of life that I had to put on hold to manage the two deadlines from hell that DID get met on September 5th. I didn't sleep much that week, but the damn deadlines got met. And both of them got met with excellent quality submissions, I might add! One of them was a proposal for which I was the #2 on the team, and it looks like we really will get the job! I now can say I know the hell of proposal work and why people complain about it so much. ;)

So, where the hell did September go??? Alan's birthday was the 16th, I still haven't gotten to services to say kaddish for him, and now it's Rosh Hashanna. I honestly tried to deal with my issues on trying to officially join the Beth El synagogue, but I apparently have to contact the office more than three times to get a response. Arg. Massive frustrations on the judaism front.

Last week I sent out 22 greeting cards. I'd been collecting them with the intention of sending them over the past few months, but I kept getting sidetracked. So, I finally had a calm evening a week ago Thursday and I sat down and addressed, stamped, and mailed each and every one for it's intended purpose. Some of them were cheer-up cards for various people, and I sent those in phases. It really did feel awesome to finally get that piece done. I've been in total panic mode since mid July, and it only really let up on about the middle week of September.

I did get to go to Lisa's birthday party on the 13th, and it was awesome! She's redecorated her house, including a snazzy completely re-done bathroom, and she had all her friends and loved ones over! Scott came with me, and we all had a lovely time just snacking, chatting, and enjoying the lack of need to be anywhere. I don't think Lisa's had a good day like that in a long long time. It was awesome to see her so relaxed and happy. :))) Sometime in October, Lisa, Mona, me, and Stewart's daughter Samantha are going to have a "girlie" night sleepover! It was an idea someone had once, and Samantha insisted we not wuss out and neglect to do it. Since we're probably not going to do the ren faire this year (gets expensive to do every year) this is going to be an awesome fun bonding time! Pigtails, pjs, and Disney movies! :)

The news on Bonkers is good - at least for a kitty who was given a death sentence two months ago! She's pretty much holding her own, and it seems like the chemotherapy and medication and loads and loads of tender loving care has made it possible for her to still live with the tumor and keep up a decent quality of life. She still jumps up on my bed, chairs, and the sofa, still eats, sleeps, pees, and poops normally, and she even paws at my face at five in the morning if I didn't leave her enough food for overnight. Have you ever been brought back awake from a dream to your face being scraped with tiny claws and a big furry mass threatening to smother your nose with fur? It's an experience I think everyone should have before they die.

I've been wanting to post some bloggy thoughts about the presidential election, but every time I do, I seem to struggle to put my thoughts into words that other people can understand. I have very strong feelings and opinions, but I don't want to just blather about them. This year's election is important enough for the direction our lives are going to take over the next big bunch of years that I know I need to take some action. Just how to do it tho? I'm still not sure.

I was voting for Hillary. I am absolutely one of those Hillary supporters who is smarting after the rest of the democratic party chose Obama. I'm hating politicians right now quite a lot just for being politicians, but we have to pick one of them now don't we. *sigh* Lucky us.

In other news, keep Caitlin and Kathi in your thoughts and send them strength vibes. They're both managing big life challenges right now, and the best thing I can or anyone can do right now is just be emotionally supportive. And if you're the praying type, the rest of my family could use some help there too. My grandma is suffering with Alzheimers and my aunt and uncle are her caretakers. My dad is still unemployed and facing major surgery to have 4 proceedures done next week. I think it's my turn to have an up here in life, it seems, even tho it's sobering to see so many of my loved ones having hard times.

Oh, and then there's that economy...
I think I'm going to go home and cuddle with Bonkers over a Disney movie.

August Hell, Bonkers's medical issues, Kathi, Elliot, Caitlin, and praying for my promotion

2008-09-22T17:45:00.001-04:00

September 22, 2008
Wow – long time no post. Life’s been tough.

Since mid-July life’s had some hellish aspects to it. Work has been hell and Bonkers has had major medical issues. Things with Scott are going well though, and he’s giving me a lot of emotional support. So, it could be better, could be worse.

Starting in early June, my job at the Corps of Engineers turned to my annual QA project of the document management system the FUDS program uses nationwide and the cleanup efforts managed within the FIIP program: FUDS Information Improvement Program. It’s an acronym within an acronym. Isn’t that cute?

So, this project consumes my life from about mid June until it’s done, and it needs to get done about the first of September. I got some helpers from Booz Allen, and they did a great job producing the lion’s share of the actual evaluations work, but there was one hiccup when one of them neglected to get done anything substantial while I was gone at Pennsic. It put a great deal of pressure on me and created an environment where I had no wiggle room or room for error. My stress level skyrocketed just in time to enjoy the beautiful month of August, chock full of anniversaries from Alan’s death three years ago. I got back from Pennsic to find my project behind schedule on August 11th, and that meant that my hopes of taking off work on the third anniversary of Alan’s death were thwarted. Grrr. Also, being so busy and working overtime meant that Lisa and I never got time together to go say kaddish for Alan on or near his Yahrzeit. Mona’s in school now, so it’s really hard to get time in to do things like this without putting schoolwork at risk or creating additional stress. So, I still haven’t gotten to Beth El to go say kaddish by myself on some Friday because half my Friday evenings I’m on the road to Raleigh to see Scott. This is a good choice to make, I’m just really frustrated that I still haven’t made time to go to synagogue and perform a small but reassuring ritual that Alan liked and I like doing. It means something to me, and I hate that I’ve let my life get so stressy and busy that I haven’t done it yet.

So, anyway, back at work, the deadline for my FIIP QA project became September 5th. This meant that Labor Day weekend was shot for me since every available chunk of free time I could manage to allot to “overtime” was going to have to be invested. I got the comp time off, it’s just annoying.

Then, lo and behold, the Curse of the Capable unleashed its awkward compliments on me in the form of my beloved Uberboss, Tamera, calling me to invite me to help write a proposal for a cool new piece of environmental work. This was a super cool opportunity, and I’ve been working my ass off trying to make a case to promote me this fall, but the bitch is that the deadline was September 5th! Does that date sound familiar?? Oh yes – it’s the same date as my other huge stress monster. Greeeeeeeeeat.

So, instead of spending August gleefully going through Pennsic pictures and spending contemplative time nurturing my old grief wounds and taking good care of myself, I spent most of my evenings, some of my weekends, and all of my mental cushion space on getting these two bitchy deadlines met. I know I also missed a number of birthdays and other occasions of note that would have been really good for me to pitch in on, but it just has been too much life stress for my abilities to manage.

The good news is that I did it!  Yea for me! So, I got to enjoy about three hours of lovely partying with my BAH team at a happy hour on Friday September 5th to celebrate finally being able to relax after a month of pure hell, and then other shit hit the fan because Murphy’s Law is a constant in the universe. There’s always something. But that’s another story I won’t be going into right now…

Remember how I said that Bonkers has had some major medical issues? Well, set the way back machine to mid July about 10 days before I’m supposed to leave for Pennsic. Bonkers had been diagnosed with diabetes (my favorite disease) in mid-June, and something still was funky. She seemed to have a more rounded belly than I’m accustomed to seeing on her, and she was a little more lethargic. My vet said that we couldn’t go any further with diagnosing her until we did an ultrasound, and that was expensive but would provide us with more data. So, I agreed to the $600-ish ultrasound, and we discovered that Bonkers had a 6cm diameter tumor right between her kidneys and under her aorta. A visit to a cool kitty oncologist brought us to the need for a biopsy-like procedure which then told us that her tumor was particularly aggressive, malignant, and inoperable. If we cut it out, we’d have to cut out some piece of her intestine and blood vessel structure, and then the damn thing would come back anyway.

So, we went with the option of doing chemotherapy, and that has actually worked out quite well. Bonkers had her third chemo treatment just last week on Thursday. She’s taking the treatment pretty well, and she’s continuing to eat, sleep, pee, poop, walk, cuddle, and live mostly like normal. The down side is that she’s got this lump in her gut that’s getting bigger *very* slowly, and it’s causing her to waddle a little now. The poor baby has a hard time lying down. I’m giving her pain medication every morning and every evening, her insulin shot every morning, and an appetite stimulant every three days.

Last week I rolled the dice again and tried something that Scott’s had some success with – kitty acupuncture! There’s a holistic vet around the corner from my kitty oncologist, and so we tried acupuncture for pain management last Tuesday. I saw a major difference in Bonkers after the treatment that makes me think that she really did get some benefit from it. She was notably perkier on the ride home and later that day. I’ve got an appointment for her second acupuncture treatment tomorrow morning, so I’ll be excited to see if the benefit is as easy to see this time.

So, work has been hell, but I’ve gotten pretty well caught up over the past two weeks. I’m constantly worried and stressed about Bonkers, and I’m constantly fighting my urge to panic at facing her inevitable death. There’s nothing new here, and I’ve been through much worse, but saying goodbye to Bonkers is a thing I just can’t face right now. She’s been a constant part of my life for the past 12 years, and she’s been ALWAYS there for me through the hell of Alan’s death and the cascading secondary losses, and she’s also just so damn wonderful all on her own! She’s a professional cutie kitty, and she makes my pain go away better than any Tylenol when she sits in my lap and purrs. Life’s just going to suck massive wankers when she has to go there’s no two ways about it.

In other news, Lisa, Alan’s sister, has recreated her house! She did some major renovations on her bathroom and a few minor changes in décor and furniture all over the rest of the house, and now it’s like she’s got a whole new home! It’s really beautiful, and I’m not just talking about her orange kitchen. The whole place looks like a creative, warm, homey place where lots of people come and have fun and lots of wonderful things happen. It’s just so open and beautiful; it’s a joy to see. Her healing has been going well since Alan’s death too, and I’m just thrilled to be able to see her keep healing and growing. She gets happier and happier as time goes on. This happiness is the reward she and I both get for working so hard to slog through the hell of Alan’s death over the past three years. Being able to just have dinner together, take Mona out somewhere, or just play scrabble without the cloud of Alan grief and estate nausea hanging over us is just amazing. Makes me feel like we won gold medals. Well, Lisa won the peace of mind that comes with creating your dream home, and that’s more precious than gold any day.

In Kathi and Elliot news, Elliot got a job!!! WOO HOO!! The only downside is that it’s in a St. Louis area rural one light town called … ummm….. crap… I forget. Let’s just call it Passamaquoddy. I’ve heard very little other than he loves the job, and it’s a good match for him. It does, however, imply that Kathi would have to sell her house in Indy and move to this rural land of opportunity. How that’s going to work out is an upcoming episode I’m sure you’ll be wanting to see as much as me. I’ll direct you to Kathi’s blog for more details. At least I would if I had the link.

Caitlin is now living with me temporarily during the work week. She commutes back to Raleigh where her apartment is with her brother and boyfriend and cat on weekends, and sometimes she and I carpool when I go down to see Scott. She and I have put together a little system that I deeply adore where I buy groceries, and she cooks awesome dinners! This was something I dreamed about when I first forwarded her the lead for the Booz Allen database guru job and thought maybe she’d be up here in DC someday! So, now she and I are taking good care of our diets, teaching me bits about cooking, and following the great American shift towards eating more at home. With rising gas and food prices, there’s a major shift happening towards eating at home. I read an article about it in the paper where they were bringing in nice hard data about the cookbook and kitchen implements industries skyrocketing in the face of declining sales at restaurants. So, much yumminess is happening in my kitchen nowadays.

I would love to type about a bunch of other things, but I’m out of time. Sarah Palin, the experience of being lied to, the latest miscarriage in my circle of friends, and the movie “Rein on Me” are topics for another day. But don’t let me forget.

One last thing…
Remember how I said I’d been working my ass off so I could get promoted this fall? I honestly didn’t do much I wouldn’t normally have done – I probably got more involved in marketing stuff than I would have if I weren’t looking at getting promoted. But I have been asking lots of wise women mentors what I can do to make the case that I need to be promoted, and I’ve done everything that’s been suggested to me. Well, the wonderful woman, Amy, who did my annual assessment this year, presented my case to the committee of Booz Allen people (I have no idea who they are) in charge of such things last week on Wednesday. Amy said that it all looked very good, but she hadn’t heard anything definite or official as of Friday. So, now we’re all waiting on pins and needles for the news that Uncle Booz agrees that I’m cool enough to promote to a Level 3!

I have every expectation that I will get promoted, but I cannot count my chickens until I see the direct deposit slip. My Paid Time Off accrual will increase for sure, and I will officially be a Level 3 “Associate”, but I don’t think it means any more money than a normal “Good Job” annual raise. That’s fine with me because my goal was promotion this year. Cross your fingers for me, and think lots of THREE oriented thoughts for the next week!

Alan's death anniversary was yesterday, I'm home safe from Pennsic, and Bonkers is doing fine.

2008-08-13T12:14:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, August 12, was the third anniversary of Alan's death. Considering the extraordinary circumstances, I'm doing remarkably well. I came home from Pennsic to find that the woman who works under me had accomplished *zero* in the 6 working days I left her alone, and this created huge work for me upon return. I couldn't take yesterday off as planned, but I did have egroup for support in the evening.

Caitlin is living with me during the weekdays, so she was around for egroup, and two of the four of us regulars couldn't be there, so I was having an unusual egroup with me, Val, and Caitlin. I decided that I needed to do something to honor the day that was Alan's death anniversary especially since I'd spent the whole day working on federal programs documentation. So, an idea came to me that worked out really well. I asked Val and Caitlin to just witness me tell my whole story about Alan. I actually took about 2 hours to tell it, and I had to stop when I came to the part where he died because we really ran out of time. Caitlin and Val, however, know most of that stuff, and that's a different kind of story, so I was satisfied that I'd honored Alan's life and our story of our time together. I was really fun and energizing to relive the fun times like when we were falling in love, deciding to move in together, meeting each others' families, and our plans for the future. I didn't get around to talking about our talk of getting married and how we wanted our wedding to look, what living with each other would be like, and how we'd handle the fact that he was 17 years older than me and diabetic. We knew he'd die earlier than me given normal circumstances, but we sure didn't think it would be *that* much earlier.

So, I honored Alan's death anniversary in a rather satisfactory way, and I still want to go to services this Friday. I hope to hook up with Lisa, but I haven't called her since before Pennsic. Gotta do that.

Pennsic was wonderful, and I'll talk about it later. The big thing about returning was that I found Bonkers to be just fine and enjoying her kitty life pretty much just like she had been before I left. This is what I had prayed and asked for, so I'm grateful beyond belief that I got what I asked for. Everything else pretty much pales in comparison. Now I can see her off when it's her time and not feel so desperately stretched thin in doing so. I feel rejuvinated from Pennsic like I'd predicted I would, and now I'm going forward feeling stable, connected, and capable. (*Note to God: Please don't take this as an invitation to give me more shit to handle. I'm at a good balanced place right now, and I'd appreciate some time to enjoy that. Thanks.)

What? WHAT?!? WHAAAAAAAT???!?!?!?

2008-07-30T15:15:00.003-04:00

I'm here on this earth to learn lessons, right? We learn and grow and become more advanced spirits while we're here and then maybe we do it again and again and life just goes on. Right? So, if I'm supposed to learn so much about death, why the fuck does it have to happen all at once!?!?!?!?!?

I just got news that my client/boss has a terminal cancer diagnosis. So there I was in a small group of co-workers learning that his days are numbered and I was thinking that this must have been what it was like for Eric Andersen, Alan's boss, on the next working day after Alan died. Would've been August 15, 2008. That was also my dad's 60th birthday. Not that anyone did anything for my dad then.

So, I'm looking around, seeing nothing but death around me, I'm trying to keep my head on straight, and I know I can't take off any time today or tomorrow because Jana's leaving my project and I have a hell of a lot of work to do to cope with that. And it all has to happen this afternoon and tomorrow.

I went to my grief therapist yesterday with the question "Why bother?" Why bother making any deep connection with anyone if they're just going to die and you're just going to have to say goodbye and go through hell and pain? Why bother making anything happen in life if you're just going to die and people are going to blow you off? Tons - in fact the majority - of what Alan did in his life has been blown off. The National Guard Bureau blew him the fuck off while he was alive, and as far as I've been able to tell, they did not keep any of the lessons that he taught them in his near two decades of service. His friends barely did anything to even recognized that he died much less do anything to keep his influence alive somehow. So why the fuck should anyone bother doing anything if this is the way we treat each other when we die???

My boss is going to die, and I'm praying that I don't come into some conflict where the rest of the team is trying to fill in for his absence and we all compete for interpretations of "What he'd want us to do."

Ok, so you fucking god thing up there I get the message that I'm supposed to learn a lot about death in this life. I've been open and I remain open to hearing and learning, but you'd better back the fuck off before I fucking crack. Then where will all your hard work go? Nowhere. If I crack then you're hard work in teaching me and advancing the human race goes down the toilet. I can't imagine that that's part of your freaking plan, so give me a fucking break already. Some breathing room would be nice.

Fucker.

Bonkers is dying, Jana is leaving, Pennsic is coming, and my stomach is turning.

2008-07-28T14:48:00.001-04:00

I rarely turn to Pepto Bismol, but when I found the travel tablets I'd left in my desk drawer "just in case" this morning, I was singing praises to God.

When it rains it pours, and the only positive thing I can point to about that is that it does remind me to let go of the results. Let it happen, stay grounded, and remember my priorities.

Bonkers is doing ok, and she's got ups and downs. She was feeling good enough last night to play with a ribbon for a while, but then she was having diarrhea and looking uncomfortable. I'm trying to put myself in her shoes (paws) and watch for signs that she's *really* unhappy. So far, she's not at death's door, that I'm sure of, and nothing else. She's doing ok: eating ok, cuddling a lot, walking around the apartment, jumping up on the bed/sofa/chairs, and jumping down from the bathroom sink on her own. She's taking her meds without fussing a lot and without completely giving up the fight. She really seems to me to be in a coping zone, and I'm watching for signs that she's moving from that zone into a more painful one.

I would never presume to really know what it was like for my beloved Alan to watch his wife Kerynn die over 18 months of suffering with ALS. I am, however, thinking a lot about that sensation as I watch Bonkers nowadays. I'm working hard at enjoying all the time I have with her cuddling and scratching and talking with her, and I have to work at putting the impending grief out of my head. It's like the mental tupperware I always use to temporarily put aside difficult thoughts and feelings is not sealed and it's bulging and overflowing with goo. I know what's coming, I hate it, and I have some really bad moments sometimes anticipating it.

The really good upside is that I'm a thousand times better off now than I was when Alan died or when Nutmeg died. Scott's in my life in a big way and he's an amazing nurturing supporter. Kathi's doing better every day in dealing with her life's challenges, and her fiance' is alive and kicking. I'm in a much much much better job with a much better professional life around me than I was in three years ago. And also, horrible as it is to say, I have Alan's death and Nutmeg's death to look back on as experience. I learned a lot from those experiences that will help me as I face Bonkers's passing. The fact that the three year anniversary of Alan's death is happening right on top of the time Bonkers is looking at dying is a painfully sick and twisted crappy shitty coincidence, but I can't really do anything about that except cry some more and make an appointment with my grief therapist.

Which I did. I'm seeing her tomorrow at 10am. I was on the brink of wrapping up with her and "terminating" and now it looks like I'm going to be putting that termination off for a while.

In other news, my faithful junior consultant that works for me at my client site, Jana, has just been offered a cool new job within Booz Allen in the Colorado Springs office. This is great for her career, but it really leaves me in the lurch. She's right in the middle of a big database QA evaluation for me, and I was designing a long term plan of getting her more work here at my client site. Now it's a big old chaos fest, and I get to handle it. While I watch my cat die. While I attempt to manage Pennsic.

These are the times when I wish Marvin would just take over.

My baby Bonkers will be leaving soon...

2008-07-28T14:43:00.001-04:00

(Copied from my LiveJournal on Friday July 25)

My beloved baby Bonkers is in the last weeks of her life. I really must take it day by day because I don't know when she's going to want to go. I got the diagnosis on Tuesday after the biopsy. The good thing is that I've got the best pet oncologist ever whose "bedside" manner is excellent. I know I'm at least doing everything reasonable I can for Bonkers.

I had three choices:
1) Hospice at home - Just try to make Bonkers comfortable
2) Operate - not likely to be easy in the first place and the tumor will grow back - quickly.
3) Chemotherapy - a crap shoot if it'll slow down the tumor's growth.

I went with Option 3 in order to attempt to help her live reasonably for a few more weeks. I have no idea if it's going to help, but I chose to take the chance that it might.

Everyone has a different opinion about putting down pets at this stage in the game. I personally cannot do it. I might have been able to long ago, but I can't do it now. I can't voluntarily bring on death for her unless I'm pushed a great deal. Now's not the time. I'm currently watching out for any signs from her that the time has come, but I'm certain it's not now.

God only knows if I'm going to Pennsic. It's a horrific feeling to be dealing with death on top of Pennsic yet again. I'm actually actively engaging in numbness. If I let my emotions flow, I'll be back to freakville in a motorcycle death second. So, I'm intellectualizing as much as I can, and I'm allowing my self until next week to make any certain decisions.

This is the 5th significant death I've dealt with in 4 years:

Grandma Alice - June 2004
Grandpa John - March 2005
Alan - August 2005
Nutmeg - March 2007
Bonkers.... sometime soon.

I hate death a lot.

Bonker's biopsy, Pennsic Prep, Kathi, Caitlin, etc

2008-07-22T16:15:00.000-04:00

I'm actually attempting to journal here....

My cat's at the vet's getting a biopsy today. :( It's been veterinarian drama here since last Wednesday. Bonkers has been under treatment for what we believe is diabetes (my favorite disease) for about a month now. Last week I brought her in a few days early for her checkup because it looked like her swollen belly (vetspeak = "distended abdomen") had not gone down at all, and she was acting like she was uncomfortable - unable to sit in one place for long. My beloved Dr. Rosen recommended an ultrasound in order to find more info on what could be happening, and I decided to go for it regardless of the steep price tag ($400 ish).

Mr. Ultrasound tells us that Bonkers has a "mass" that's about 6cm in diameter plus a bunch of cysts that are as large as 1cm diameter in her kidneys. Ugh. I've spent about $3000 in vet bills already, and I'm in for another $1300 today plus the actual treatment of her "mass" that's yet to come.

The silver lining here is that I'm certain of my choices. After going through my adventure with Nutmeg, I'm certain that I do want to spend the money getting Bonkers medical care. Maybe it's because I don't have a family around me or I'm still licking wounds from Alan's death, but I just can't face death that's not absolutely necessary. If Bonkers chooses to go, I'll watch out for signs as best I can and let her go when it's really necessary. I can't do that early. Some people really do choose to put down their pets if they're old and get sick. They can't justify the expense, don't have the money in the first place, or can't manage the logistics. I've been through kitty medical hell already, so I know I can manage and I know that when it's all over I consider the money well spent. So, it's not easy, but I'm certain I'm doing the right thing.

So, think good healing thoughts for Princess Bonkers!

In other news:
1) Pennsic Prep goes well, and Scott is making me feel completely spoiled. I have to do a hell of a lot less prep work than I ever have needed to do before because he's got the tent/stove/bed/furniture/stuff covered. I'm somewhat benefiting from dating a man who used to be married to a Laurel. He's also extremely handy in his own right, I'm just sure that his ex-wife's attention to research and detail was greatly supportive of how Scott's Pennsic stuff ended up getting made. For the first time in my life I'll be camping at an SCA event in a spacious canvas tent, and I'm kindof giddy! No more struggling to keep the tent windows open so air can get through to cool my overheated body while also not putting on a free naked wench show while I'm dressing! Regardless of what anyone thinks of my performing, I do not do naked wench shows for free - except for Scott. And there's barter involved there. ;)

2) All's going really well with Scott. We just celebrated our 1 year anniversary! Can you believe it? I have a hard time believing it. This last year has been so damned much easier and happier than the previous two that I find it really hard to grok the passage of time.

Scott and I went to Virginia Beach for a beach/sun/ocean vacation over July 4th weekend, and it was lovely! I do not recommend the Wyndham resort hotel there due to the questionable service we got from the staff there, but I won't waste time retelling the tale. Just find another hotel there. There are plenty.

I *DO* recommend the awesome restaurant Scott and I *happened* upon! It's called "EAT - an american bistro" and it's filled with the the most wonderful food I've ever eaten! Now, I'm not particularly hard to please when it comes to food, but this blew me and Scott both away with many many extraordinary dishes! We ate: greek salad, mexican spiced corn on the cob, veggie lasagna, lamb meatloaf & mashed potatoes, creme brule (sp?), and the most amazing darkchocolatetortefudgey bits with mint and raspberry sprinkled in! It was a dessert that was worth the many thousands of points without a question! I'd happily do three aerobics classes to work that puppy off.

3) Kathi and Elliot have finally set a date for the wedding!!!!! Apparently, I'm behind the times and this happened a while ago, but Kathi and I are having a hard time keeping up with each other nowadays. She's got enough on her plate for at least three people.

The date is April 19, 2009, and it'll be small but protected from the weather in the Indiana Roof Ballroom in downtown Indy instead of at the mercy of the rain gods in the also very pretty Oakwood Mansion in Carmel. That was a big choice for her. I'm personally in favor of the Roof Ballroom because it has a kick-ass dance floor! I dutifully support Kathi in whatever she decides to do for her own wedding, but this is one thing that's super easy for me to support her on. ;)

4) Caitlin got a job with Booz Allen! Here in DC! I'm thrilled to pieces because I put her up for this job! I've been keeping my eye out for a good job for her at BAH, and this one job came across my team's email list looking for a database guru that had decent communications skills. She's a database guru *and* technical writer, so she's perfect! I sent the BAH guy who posted the job her resume, and just last week she was offered the job! Now she gets a nice healthy salary increase, better benefits, $10,000 in a moving package to get her and her stuff from Raleigh to DC, and a much better working environment where she's appropriately compensated for her work. She starts the first week in August if all goes according to plan - and then she'll be rooming with me! From Monday - Friday, she'll live in my guest room, and on the weekends commute back to Raleigh. Naturally we'll commute together sometimes when I'm going to Raleigh to visit Scott. And while she's living with me, she can cook dinner! Naturally I'll clean up the kitchen since that's the kind of deal we have both enjoyed in the past. ;) Good food, company, and extra company for Bonkers! I'm thrilled! :)))

5) I finally upgraded to a smartphone!!! I'm now the proud owner of a Palm Treo 755p! I got a kick-ass deal after months of shopping and agonizing over the decision. The phone normally goes for about $400, and as high as $600, and with a 2 year renewal with Verizon, I got it for $150!!! I finally got my Palm and phone combined into one gadget and added an MP3 player and camera! I'm not paying for the data plan, so I don't have internet access yet, but maybe after a while if my budget allows, I can add the data plan. I never thought I'd care about a camera in my phone, but after taking about fifty pictures of Bonkers and a few impromptu pics of Mona and me at the museum yesterday, I'm changing my mind. A camera on your cell phone can be a really handy and fun thing!

6) Lisa, Mona, Scott and I all took a trip to the Smithsonian's International Gallery on Sunday to see the Jim Henson's Fantastic World exhibit! It's awesome!!! They've got darn near every single film or tv recording that Jim ever made! They've got his commercials and experiments from the 70's and some stuff from film school. They've got lots of his own notes & drawings, and tons of do-it-yourself storytelling stuff! And of course... an awesome puppet theater!!! Complete with a camera aimed at the theater and a huge assortment of puppets. Totally awesome. :)))

7) My egroup finally had a necklace building commitment ceremony! We've been trying to get this together for over a year. Now there's 4 of us, and I'm really enjoying the synergy we have together. We have a great range of life experiences between us, and we share the same goals for doing our emotional work. Namely, to do it. ;)

8) I'm sort of wrapping things up with my grief therapist. I feel extremely conflicted about it because I feel like it means taking away one of the major support pillars I've had in my life since my grandpa died - 5 months before Alan. That's 3 & 1/4 years. I had one break in there when I moved from Indy to DC, before I found the Wendt Center, and that was horrible. My therapist believes I'll be fine from here on out whenever I decide to "terminate" but I'm really really scared.

Weather or not I'm done, I need to wrap up this journal entry. And go do some stuff for Pennsic....

Anti-intellectualism, humility, and dying.

2008-07-17T14:37:00.003-04:00

What would I say if it were time for my last words? What about if they weren't my last, but I had a powerful microphone and a big audience? What about if that audience was just one person, but it could be anyone?

Many of my loved ones have noticed I'm not posting on this blog much at all any more. Some of my loved ones have come back into a stronger connection recently after being far away for a long time. Some people have absolutely popped up out of nowhere to say hello again after a long silence between us. This phenomenon of re-establishing contact with loved ones has occurred in a real honest to god surge in the last few weeks, and so, naturally, this blog becomes useful to me again.

I know why I became severely less interested in using this blog. My focus was elsewhere. I was processing a lot of emotional work. I was asking myself a lot of questions. I was choosing to go into a very vulnerable, honest, growing emotional space. I've learned that being vulnerable on my blog means accepting that pain will follow. This is a very risky form of communication.

Today I feel a significantly increased desire to connect with my loved ones for a long list of reasons. Those reasons have piled up in a short amount of time. Some people have become more involved in my life for their own reasons, and that phenomenon makes me wonder what's going on on those higher planes that I can't see. At the same time, I've made some significant choices, had some significant conversations, and written some significant letters. Something's in the air nowadays, and I don't think it's finished yet.

Life can end at any moment, and I feel a need to say what I want to say in the world just in case I die tomorrow. Alan entered the hospital without realizing that his last lucid words would be spoken on August 7, 2005. I know for a fact that he died without having said everything he'd wanted to say, and I refuse to suffer the same regret after having been given such a warning.

I've learned a lot in my 35 years on this earth. I know I've learned more than a lot of people. I've had more opportunities placed before me than most people, and I've also invested effort into those opportunities when some people have not. I feel really lucky and proud to have learned so much, and I also feel an avalanche of shadowy feelings. I feel guilty, embarrassed, and scared. I think of all the times I've had someone vent angrily at me because I expressed an opinion or displayed my intelligence in some way that was fueled inarguably by some lessons I'd learned along the way, and I think of how confusing it was to receive crap for having learned something and let it show.

Today I learned a word that validated my confusion. The word is "Anti-intellectualism" and it is used in an article written by the recently former president of Barnard College, Judith Shapiro.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/06/13/shapiro

When a person joins the club of severely wounded grievers, there is an extraordinary, unconditional acceptance given to that person from the existing members of that club. I've seen and experienced that unconditional acceptance on both sides of the fence. Occasionally, it goes sour, and the yet-to-heal grievers resent the wisdom gained by the healing grievers.

"You don't know what it's like!"
"You don't know what I'm going through!"
"You don't have it as bad as I do!"
"You're lucky you have ___________! I don't have that!"
"It's easy for you to say _______ because you had _________ and I don't!"

Even griever to griever, this kind of shit gets exchanged. Our deepest wounds are stomped on again even though you'd think it was sacred ground to be cared for with the utmost respect.

So many of us shit on each other because we're jealous, confused, lost, insecure, afraid, or just wounded. We hang onto mountains of resentment and we leak crap onto people around us just because the pressure is high and the crap has to go somewhere. A beloved friend of mine once told me a lesson she'd learned after healing a lot after a divorce: "Resentment is like drinking poison and staring at someone else hoping they'll get sick." I would like to add to this thought that if you're drinking poison, the people who *are* paying attention to you are going to have to deal with a sick person.

Healthy communication is very different from letting your pain leak onto others around you who don't deserve it. How you discover if you're leaking or not is up to you. How open do you want to be about that? How badly do you want to fix your leaks?

*************************************************************

Alan will have been dead for three years as of the upcoming August 12th. I remember all the pain, hell, and lessons that came to me because of Alan's death, and the only thing I want to do is teach. I want to spread what I've learned throughout the whole earth, to each human being, into each heart and mind of the billions of people on this planet and beg them to learn the stuff that I learned the hard way. I want that hell I went through to never happen again. Of course it will, so I want to minimize the occurrences as much as my human existence can manage.

Because when I see it happen, I go through it all again.

***************************************************************

So what would I say if they were my last words? Or they would reach every human on the planet? Or the one person I wish I could reach would really stop and listen?

Be humble. Really humble. Be painfully honest with yourself and then be humble. Assume you know something but never everything, and you always have room for improvement. Then get it. Go improve. Ask for constructive criticism from wise people you trust, and then go make use of it. Put your pride aside, put your safety zone aside, and remember that you could die tomorrow. Put aside the crap that other people do, have, and say. They don't matter in the end unless they love you. You take the love with you when you die, but not anyone else's praise, shame, comparison, leadership, responsibility, disappointment, gifts, or anything else. Just you and your love. You and the creation you've made of yourself in the time you had here on earth.

***************************************************

I have a list of people I made a little over a year ago of people I know who would be deeply sad if I died right now. I've added a few names to that list since I wrote it the first time, and sadly I've taken a few off. I have been devoting the majority of my free time to my deeply loving no-longer-"new" boyfriend Scott over the last year, and I've noticed that I'm less in touch with my list of loved ones than I'd like to be. If you're on that list, you know it already, and not because I said anything about it to you. If you're on that list, and especially if you're wishing we were in contact more, please learn now that I'm working on this issue. I'm working on time management and how I invest my energy according to my grand-life-size priorities. You know how big a challenge this is, so please remember patience if you don't hear from me as soon as you'd like. Have faith that it will happen when it's right to happen.

Returning to the basics

2008-03-06T16:46:00.000-05:00

I must remind myself of some of the basic rules:

1) The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

2) I will *never* know *really* how green their grass is.

3) The greenness of grass is a subjective judgment call.

4) I must remember to reserve judgement until I've had the opportunity to have a complete, frank, honest, and safe conversation with the subject of the judgment. And even then I probably won't have a complete enough picture to really rely on any judgment I make about a person. Only that person can know the truth.

5) Each person's suffering is the worst suffering in the world *TO THEM*. There's no good to be had in comparing my suffering to yours or back again. There is no better or worse pain.

6) One of the best things we can do for our loved ones is to forgive them their faults and accept them for who they truly are - complete with their shadow side. Warts and all. Scars, mistakes, and weaknesses. To love them with all of that is unconditional love. That's the only gift you can take with you when you die, so you'd better get as much of it as you can.

7) What someone says about me tells more about them than it really tells about me.

8) The best things I can do for myself are to love myself, value myself, defend myself, nurture myself, accept myself, and take other people's opinions with a big ass grain of salt.

9) If I don't get enough sleep, the rest of my life falls apart.

10) No one else is going to take care of me, so I'd better do it myself. I can get help from the outside, but the buck stops with me.

Ranting: Politics, Headache, and Arguing For Your Limitations :P

2008-03-05T14:07:00.005-05:00

1) Politics
I'm glad she won Texas and Ohio, and let's not forget cute little Rhode Island. I would really love to see a Clinton/Obama ticket for November. It's traditional, isn't it, that Vice Presidents are often the nominees for their party's next presidential bid after the one president has their two terms (if they're lucky enough to get re-elected)? Obama's the youngn, so why not have him partner with Clinton to effect change with all his brilliant ideas, Clinton's political machine behind them both, and then 8 years later, he can run for president again, when he's as old as she is now, saying that he's still got the values of a person who doesn't believe in the old ways of Washington, but now he's got 8 years of experience learning from a mastermind. I think this is a fine solution that allows our country to benefit the most from the resources these two people have to offer.

No, I don't care at all for McCain. I'm not a Republican. Is this a surprise to anyone? I'm registered as a Democrat in the state of Virginia, and I'm exploding with pride that I was able to actually cast a vote for a woman for president. It was in the Potomac Primary, which she did not win, but it was an historic moment for me to be able to cast that vote. Yes, I voted for the gender minority instead of the race minority. I am also truly thrilled that I had a choice between two minorities. Even with all this bickering, we're bickering (on the Democratic side) between two candidates who are not the traditional fat, white, balding, old man that we usually get as president. Both these candidates had to work harder than any human ever for their job, and dare I say it, I think both of them have worked harder than McCain has up til now.

Obama's and Clinton's positions are very similar on most subjects and lean towards the same directions I lean in. At least more so than McCain. I won't be horribly disappointed with either Obama or Clinton as president, with the understanding that we only have the three choices at the moment. I'd actually rather have Al Gore as president, but he's busy being effective, so I'd rather not distract him.

I've dedicated my professional life to environmental work. Naturally, I therefore hate Mr. Bush and his administration based on his choice to prioritize environmental health right down there with Britney Spears's parenting morals.

I also believe strongly that gay couples should be treated exactly the same as heterosexual couples in the eyes of the law; freedom of speech, religion & press should be defended completely against erosion and apathy; abortions should be left out of american law and left as an issue for people to handle with their doctors, parents, priests, rabbis, and other moral support people; and open, honest, considerate communication can really solve a lot of our problems. I guess that makes me a liberal. Alan would have been proud.

I've spent the majority of my adult life working for the government and non-profit groups in an attempt to push our society into a more healthy & sustainable lifestyle. I really believe that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. As for our three charming presidential candidates, it's a crap shoot if any one of them can do any good or will keep any of their promises, but at least they're devoting their lives to being part of the solution.

2) Headache
I have the headache from hell that just won't go away. I've had it since I had that insane 16 hour sleep Saturday night and Sunday. Drugs help a little, but it still keeps coming back. I had a hell of a time getting to sleep last night. I was sleepy when I got off the phone with Scott, but I couldn't actually get to sleep. I got up and watched the second half of The Incredibles for about 45 minutes, and then I did drift off. I woke up ok this morning, but I tell ya this headache thing is getting old.

3) People who argue *for* their limitations.
I was just in the lunch line chatting with the woman next to me. She went on and on about her medical problems, her food choice problems, and a thousand excuses for why she has to order cheese ravioli with Alfredo sauce, sausage, meatballs, chicken bits, olives, and mushrooms. But she was complaining that dairy didn't agree with her, she had trouble getting enough protein, and she had trouble loosing weight. *sheesh*!

There are few things I hate more than a person who argues *FOR* their limitations. "I can't do thus and such because blah blah blah", and NO ONE can tell them different! They are absolutely clinging to their beliefs that life is just the way they see it, and they have no options other than the crap they see in front of them. They blow off positive thinking, researched solutions, and opportunities to change their lives. It happens so damn much that it's driving me nuts. I hate having that energy around me.

If I had indulged in that kind of thinking, I would have committed suicide around the end of September 2005. In order to survive, I had to work my ass off to keep thinking positively, focus on the things I *could* do, focus on the people who loved me who were still alive, and let go of the crap that was dragging me down at all. I did indulge self-pity thinking in my low times, and then I would have to work at getting the hell out of the hole. It was either work or die. Went on like that for two years. Still comes back sometimes. I really wish I were exaggerating.

This comes up in Woman Within a lot. Some women get some really good healing work done after their weekend, then they come into conflict with loved ones who are still staying stuck in bad habits. It often falls to the Woman Within woman to create the safe environment for her to work out her conflicts with her loved ones, which often does work, but after a while she starts to say things like: "Why am I always the one stuck being the grown up?"; "Why doesn't So-and-so ever have to keep their temper but I do?"; "I'm sick of always being the one to initiate our clearings."

It does suck, and there is no single, reliable solution. The woman is stuck re-evaluating her relationship with the stuck person/people and having to decide if the relationship is worth the cost/benefit ratio she's experiencing. I've seen some women leave husbands, parents, and best friends because of this process, and it just sucks. But it's either that or continue to suffer with a relationship that sucks more energy than it provides.

I'm going on about relationships, but this particular rant is really about "Arguing For Your Limitations." It's a horrible thing that loads of people do *ALL* the time, and I hate it hate it hate it!!! Why do they get to do it, and I had to work my ass off, and I still do, to keep my head above the emotional health water line, but these other people look so much happier than me??? Why do so many people have it easier than me??? They get happy, get married, have babies, have nice functional families, great jobs, happy lives, and yet they get away with so much less work than I have had to do!!! ARGGGGHHHH!!!!! And then they show up in the lunch line and bitch about how horrible their life is while I'm waiting for my whole wheat veggie pasta!!!

*ahem*

*deep breath*

*ground with mother earth*

*anger flows through and away from me*

*deep breath*

I recently got a post-it note pad at Wegmans with a phrase that summarizes today for me. I got a copy for me and for my sister. I should get a copy for my whole Egroup. It says: "I meditate. I journal. I burn candles. I still want to smack someone."

My Grandpa John died three years ago today.

2008-03-04T16:23:00.004-05:00

My Grandpa John died three years ago today. March 4, 2005. He'd been suffering for many months in his last fight with kidney cancer, and my family had been patiently holding him and my grandma up for as long as he had wanted to stay. He finally left one day, and then the next phase of hell began.

My grandpa was really well prepared to die, and I thank him a million times again today for his foresight and willingness to take action on this normally avoided subject. Grandpa and my Uncle Al did an amazing job in establishing financial and practical plans for grandpa's assets so that grandma would be taken care of without question and grandpa could feel like he was supporting his family even past death. I sincerely hope that I will learn exactly how they did it someday so I can prepare for my death as well as grandpa did. His is the only story of successful estate planning that I can point to as a good example. Lord knows we can all point to examples of how the world comes crashing down when a dead person didn't plan.

When grandpa died, the stress in my life and the lives of my family members increased yet another notch. I don't really know how my family members coped, but they did somehow, and I just didn't. I cracked. The first real evidence of this was that about 2-3 weeks after I returned from grandpa's funeral in DC, my boss at Atterbury wrote me up for having a bad attitude. My old boss was new at this whole leadership thing, and I have no idea what was going through his head at the time, but there he was making a written record to go in my employee file that said that I was snapping at co-workers and I had a negative attitude.

I took this as proof enough that I needed to get into therapy for depression. I did, and I had great success with this really awesome therapist I found who was also a member of the Woman Within community in Indy. She was extremely understanding, wise, and did not molly coddle me. When I go to therapy, I do not want to be babied, but I do want to be challenged, held accountable, and shown how I can improve through emotional processes and work. She and I did a great amount of work, and we made a lot of empowering progress throughout the summer.

I was frustrated as all hell with my job - ya know,the one where my boss required me to trap live skunks and release them a mile away so that they could just come right back and hole up again under our building because the maintenance department refused to fix the animal holes. I was frustrated as all hell with my relationship with Alan because we were so desperate to move in together, but my job hunt was constantly coming up dry. We'd been trying to find me a job in DC and move in together since the Labor Day 2004 trip to see his sister in Texas, so by summer of 2005, I'd been banging my head against this crap job hunt, crap current job, and once a month visits with my beloved Alan. All this crap piled onto the grief of finally seeing my grandpa pass on and the new stress that created for the rest of my family members was all just too much. My therapist and I worked on letting go of a lot of old priorities, focusing on the things that I *could* do, and peeling away the crap to find the wounds underneath and heal them.

We did good work that summer, and I'm thankful that she was in place when Alan died. It was five months after grandpa died that Alan died, and I remember my therapist saying that if anything else happened, my psyche probably couldn't take it. She was preparing for the worst when I finally got the job offer from Booz Allen. That job offer was the thing that saved me from whatever happens to a person when their "psyche can't take it."

So, I remember the season when grandpa died in '05 as the beginning of the worst hell of my life. The same goes for my grandma, I guess, because she's been suffering a lot since then. She's been in and out of the hospital a lot, in and out of denial a lot, and in and out of other crises a lot. She and I took very different paths out of our respective griefs. I remember talking to her about how we were both going to keep going after loosing the loves of our lives, and we both agreed that our families were the reason we would hang on. For me, it was always Kathi. She was my undoubted rock. If I were to give up on life and jump in front of a bus, Kathi would suffer an irrecoverable hell. She wouldn't come out of it for years, and she'd never be the same, perky, creative, generous, amazing saintly woman she is now. There's nothing that would cause me to allow that to happen, even my own hell, so I considered her my reason for living. Grandma had my aunt and uncle, my parents, and her slew of grandchildren and increasing great-grandchildren. I tried to list them as completely and as often as I could when I talked to grandma about why we both had to keep going. Even though the Alzheimer's is slowly taking away grandma's short term memory, I think she still remembers that she has family and they're worth living for. I think everyone is doing everything they can to re-enforce that to her by visiting, sending cards, and sending pictures as often as possible.

Grandma's still suffering. She's had physical ailments along with the memory problems. The Midwest Coutinhos are giving her all the support humanly possible, and my aunt and uncle are leading the effort, doing the lion's share of the labor, and earning their sainthoods again for the umteenth time. They're all working very hard, and it's amazing to see.

The sadness I'm swimming in right now is because the damn suffering never seems to stop. I've managed to get my life rebuilt to the point where I can consider myself relatively stable, but I'm overcome with stark raving terror at taking any further steps forward. While I'm just getting stable, every single other family member of mine is suffering in some horrible way. I just got news this afternoon about one more nasty blow to someone, my dad's only three months out of major surgery and pushing his limits, and there are emotionally draining challenges for everyone that I just can't talk about here on my blog. I remember back to when grandpa died three years ago, and I wonder if this hell will ever stop.

I remember when a friend of mine was left all of a sudden by her jackass husband. I remember when another friend of mine lost his wife to breast cancer at the ripe old age of 32. I remember when a friend of mine told me her baby died. I'm really swimming in the memories of crap right now, and the more I think about it, the more I think I'm in some kind of phase that's beyond my control.

This weekend I slept for an unscheduled 16 hours straight starting Saturday night. It caused huge problems for Sunday, but the thing that I keep coming back to is how completely out-of-this-world it was. I *never* sleep for 16 hours without any wakefullness - to go to the bathroom, or hearing someone in the hallway, or having a simple end of a sleep cycle. Even when I'm sleeping in or when I'm sick, I never go a whole 16 hours, or anything close to that, without waking at all.

Now, all I can do is feel the suffering part of life, and I have a hell of a time digging up any positive feelings without saying "Oh, that's just a little thing. The suffering is so much more important!"

Now that I think about it and I'm writing it down, there is one idea I have. My psychiatrist recently reduced one of my antidepressants by half since I was doing well and I was having some unpleasant side effects. It is entirely possible that I need to seriously re-evaluate this medicine change with my psychiatrist. I would hate to go back to the full dose because the side effects were really annoying, but that's why the man is a doctor. He's the one that makes the decision based on my data. So, I guess I get to go back to a daily mood diary to collect more data for the doc.

*whew* That actually makes me feel a little better. A new idea for a possible explanation for the mysterious 16 hour sleep and the obsession with suffering is definitely uplifting.

So, wish me luck, and if you send me prayers or vibes, make them positive for remembering the yin part of life.

Before I sign off, I did want to post something about good memories of my grandpa John. He was an amazing man, and I always considered him the embodiment of my goals for intellectual achievement. If I could earn a PhD, work for the space program, and make new leaps in the technology I study, I'd be just as amazing as my grandpa. Grandpa, however, never got into music or improv, so he never had those distractions. Therefore, I probably won't be getting a PhD, but I may yet work for the space program. They'll need puppets on the moon station, won't they?

So, grandpa was an amazing aeronautics engineer. His key word was "reliability" and he took his German engineering education and his Portuguese stubbornness and forced some cool new reliability concepts into the lunar landing module designs of the Apollo program. From this comes one of my favorite stories about my grandpa...

Remember the Tom Hanks movie "Apollo 13?" It was all about how something had gone wrong en route to the moon, and the lunar landing module (LM) was used in an unplanned way to get the astronauts back to earth. Remember how dramatic it was? Even though we all knew the history of the event, we were all on the edge of our seats waiting for the capsule to come into view from the earth?

Well, grandpa said in response to the movie "It wasn't that dramatic! We knew we were going to get them home. If they had just read the report I wrote years ago on this very scenario, they would have been fine!" So, apparently, my grandpa, being the reliability engineer for the LM, had written a bunch of reports about things that could possibly go wrong at any time during the mission with accompanying solutions. The only problem was that no one had his report handy when it was needed. Back in the days before computer filing systems, this was a common problem. Oh well, grandpa would have been able to save the day if he'd had Windows Explorer on his side. ;)

When grandpa died, my dad wrote a really awesome eulogy. My dad has a creative side to him that's pure genius when he brings it out. He's also an awesome presenter, so I'm really glad that he was able to write and present grandpa's eulogy. Here's a bit of it to give you an idea:

"John has now joined that list of ancestors. My mother, Eleanor, will miss her loyal and generous husband. Al, the grandchildren, and I will miss the dedicated, caring father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and the world will miss a skilled, intelligent engineer.

He was very interested in the achievements of every person in the family. He was very proud of us each time a person in the family gained recognition, especially if they received a certificate, and most especially if it was a diploma.

Dad got his greatest enjoyment from going to parks, large family gatherings, and warm sunny beaches. Some of my earliest memories are of Dad and Mom taking me to Belmont Park, and riding the seesaw at Hempstead Lake. When the cherry blossoms bloomed at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden or the Washington Mall, they took me to play in the flower petals and I learned it was a wonderful and important event. Dad planted his gardens with the plants of his favorite parks: rhododendron, azalea, pachysandra, and dogwood.

Dad recharged himself on the beach. When I was little, it was Jones Beach, and then it became Fort Lauderdale or Pompano in the winter. We rented a summer cabin at Riverhead, and Mom kept Al and me out there while Dad worked then drove out to us in the evenings. After Al and I were on our own, Mom and Dad started vacationing in Acapulco. His thing about beaches was no passing fancy. It was one of his necessary rewards for hard work."

I agree with grandpa whole heartedly in getting necessary rewards for hard work, making one of those rewards a beach vacation, and going on outings to parks and gardens. When the cherry blossoms bloom this spring down by the water here in DC, I will be thinking of grandpa and grandma taking my dad and my uncle on the same paths so many years ago. I doubt they had as many tourists to contend with as I do, but that's a piece of suffering I can cope with. ;)