...but I only need to travel a few miles, to downtown Seattle, to see them this weekend! This concert is Tom's and my holiday-season birthday gift (his is a few days before Christmas) to each other.
The deadline for the "early options" application for the University of Washington is tomorrow, but Kat is leaving for a trip to San Diego with her sister this afternoon (Elisabeth's birthday gift to Kat), so Kat's application is actually due today. The application consists of 12 pages of questions about academic courses, family income, and various other tidbits, along with a total of seven essays -- five short paragraphs about extra-curricular activities, a medium-length essay about cultural experiences, and a longer essay about how one event or experience has shaped the applicant. (Kat is writing about saving Steve's life and Aleks is writing about his decision to change his name from Alex to Aleks.)
Times two. That's 24 pages and 14 essays. Due today and tomorrow.
So guess how I'm spending my birthday? Which is fine, actually. They've worked hard on their applications, so my end-of-the-process review and edit is the least I can do.
Now cross your fingers for a positive outcome. The worst would not be if both are rejected; the worst would be if one is accepted and the other is rejected. That would be devastating.
Today is my (gasp!) 51st birthday. When I read those words, "my 51st birthday," I feel completely disconnected from them. They can't possibly refer to me because 51 has always meant old, ugly, washed-up, and pathetic -- and call me delusional, but I refuse to believe that any of those things apply to me.
To commemorate the day, I've decided to attempt an idea that I saw over at Mighty Girl's blog. She wrote a one or two-sentence description for each year of her life. The fact that my memory can dredge up 51 specific memories for 51 specific years means that I'm still young, quick and spry, doesn't it? (Or does the fact that I just used the word "spry" negate any and all claims to youth?)
So, to wit:
Age 1: I arrive 10 1/2 months after the birth of my brother. Guess who was a boo-boo?
Age 2: My oldest brother was pulling me around the garage in a wagon. Something caught his attention and he let go of the wagon, sending me down the steep sloped driveway and into the street, right into the path of an 18-wheeler, narrowly missing it.
Age 3: I became a big sister. I wanted a sister, but I got another brother. That made three boys and me.
Age 4: I started kindergarten, along with my brother who, at 5, was still young but a more appropriate age than me. I've always assumed Mom wanted us both in school ASAP. I can't believe they let me start school that young!
Age 5: Ricky, a family friend, gave me a ring from the Elmwood Dime Store and asked me to marry him. The "sizing" on the back of the ring pinched my skin so I took it off.
Age 6: My baby brother and I went to live in Sacramento with my aunt and uncle while my mother took my older brothers to Germany. Dad stayed in Berkeley. I later learned that Mom had an affair with a family friend in Germany, unbeknownst to anyone at the time.
Age 7: My second 2nd grade teacher (of course I ended up paying for starting school too young by repeating a year!), Mrs. Burnett, insisted that I hold my pencil way up by the eraser. Or at least that's how I remember it.
Age 8: I had an African-American third grade teacher, who I adored. I think she was the only African-American teacher in Berkeley, certainly the only one in our very white school, even though integration was on the horizon.
Age 9: I remember looking down my dress while the teacher was reading a book to us. 'I'm sprouting something,' I thought to myself. The teacher yelled at me, telling to get my "head out of my dress." I felt ashamed and embarrassed.
Age 10: I started my period waaaay too young (I thought), in 4th grade. That day, Mom announced it proudly to my dad and brothers at dinner. I was mortified!
Age 11: I'd wake up early and sneak into my brother's room to steal not one but TWO white t-shirts from his dresser. They hid my bra strap under my white see-through blouse. Are you catching that I resisted my budding womanhood?!
Age 12: I was a serious flautist and very much into classical music. Just a typical 7th grader. NOT. I existed for Peter Jaffe, who never even spoke to me! My first thought when my parents told me that we'd be moving from Berkeley to the Peninsula, was that I'd never get my chance with Peter -- and I was right.
Age 13: I received my first kiss from Ken Johnson. (Many years later the story of that kiss was published by the Seattle Times, and also won a contest here.)
Age 14: My teen rebellion took the form of being very straight-laced and conservative because that was the most dramatic way I could rebel against very liberal Berkeley parents. Think Alex(a) Keaton!
Age 15: In continuing teen rebellion, I tried out for the varsity cheerleading squad at school (a high school extra-curricular activity -- how American!). When I made the squad, my first thought was that'll show them that I'm no hippie!
Age 16: Because I repeated 2nd grade years before, I was the oldest in my class, thus the first to get my driver's license. This was very cool!
Age 17: I joined Young Life asked my parents for a Bible for my birthday -- (organized religion -- how rebellious!).
Age 18: I graduated from high school in the Bay Area and started college in Santa Barbara. The beach and sun every day? And cute boys too? This was bliss!
Age 19: I met Tom, my husband, when he was an Resident Assistant in my dorm. He used to think it was funny to stuff me in cabinets and drawers. I think it's funny (looking back) that I fit in them! Lost of giggly girls had crushes on Tom, but I was definitely most persistent.
Age 20: I went to Disneyland for the first time, even though I'd lived in California all my life.
Age 21: I was taken out for my first legal drink at a restaurant called "1129" on my birthday, which falls on the date 11/29. I always felt a kinship with that restaurant on State Street in Santa Barbara and wonder if it's still there.
Age 22: I graduated from college with a degree in psychology and absolutely no clue what to do with it, except that I knew that I wanted to work with kids.
Age 23: I went to Germany alone for 8 weeks and fell madly in love at first sight. The romance lasted almost two years; the friendship has lasted a lifetime.
Age 24: I went to grad school at Stanford and got a Masters degree in education with an emphasis in educational media. This is still my "chosen field."
Age 25: I had my first career job, at Walt Disney Educational Media Company (WDEMCO), producing stuff like educational filmstrips and comic books for kids.
Age 26: Tom and I got married at the Wayfarer's Chapel in Palos Verdes, CA.
Age 27: Elisabeth was born! It was a crowded weekend at the hospital with something like 30 babies born over the long Memorial Day weekend, and OUR baby was voted "cutest on the ward" by the nurses! Cutest, yes. But they voted her fartiest, too (Some things never change!)
Age 28: Surprisingly (since I had a new baby at home), this was one of the most productive years of my career. I designed and/or produced three games with Sierra Online, two with Looking Glass Software, and TEN with Panasonic. The Panasonic games never saw the light of day because the company decided not to go down the personal computer road. We still have the prototype keyboard under Aleks' bed; it weighs a ton!
Age 29: We live in a rented house in Westchester, CA, less than a mile from LAX. The cadence of our conversations allowed for 747s to pass overhead -- talking, silence/waiting, resume... repeat. We thought $150,000 was just too dang much to spend on a tiny house that was built in 1946, so we didn't buy. (We also didn't buy because we didn't have a down payment.)
Age 30: Peter was born. Unlike Elisabeth, who was feisty, active and verbal, he was calm, quiet and reflective, right from day one.
Age 31: I opened my own business, Sandcastle Designs, and created games for The learning Company. But mostly I was a mommy -- and absolutely loving it!
Age 32: We bought a house in the 'burbs and moved from LA to North San Diego county. I quit all work and immersed myself in the joys of motherhood, from Mommy and Me classes to swimming lessons.
Age 33: After a crazy pregnancy, Aleks and Kat were born on the exact day and the exact moment that the Berlin Wall came down! Now we have four kids under the age of five!
Age 34: I have no clue. It's all a blur. But I do know that this was the beginning of being completely out of touch with popular culture -- music, fashions, TV shows, all of it. I did mommying and little else -- and I adored every minute of it, even in the throes of it all.
Age 35: I had surgery (an abdominoplasty) to repair the abdominal damage due to the twin pregnancy. They removed a bunch of skin, repaired the muscles, and stole my belly button, replacing it with a fake one. I had looked 6 (or more?) months pregnant until the surgery.
Age 36: We went camping at the beach with all four kids. I remember coming home completely exhausted, vowing never again. It took four days to pack and four days to unpack and do laundry for a two-day trip. (Think camping gear plus an incredible amount of kid gear, from clip on high chairs to cribs to strollers.)
Age 37: We moved from San Diego (sun, water, palm trees) to Eastern Washington (tumbleweed, dust, extreme temperatures). We buy our dream house, which we love, but when we open the door, we're greeted by -- well, by tumbleweed, dust, and extreme temperatures. Tom hated working at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where his masters degree in Environmental Engineering was touted and shown off to federal officials, but he actually did nothing and was bored stiff.
Age 38: I studied to become a Certified Childbirth Educator and I taught childbirth classes at the local hospital.
Age 39: We moved from what Tom calls "the armpit of Washington" (the dry Eastern side) to the lush, green Western part of the state. As soon as we closed escrow on our new house, Tom fell victim to a company wide lay-off at the consulting firm that had just hired him. Two weeks later a huge tree from two properties over fell on our house, rendering much of it unlivable and totaling both cars in the driveway, one of which contained all the kids' Christmas presents.
Age 40: I went back to my educational media career, working at Edmark, and designed a cute game called Carnival Countdown.
Age 41: I taught childbirth classes at the very progressive local hospital and certified to become a doula with esteemed educator and writer Penny Simkin (I'll bet she wrote the textbook for your childbirth class!), who was also on the board of the hospital's Family Maternity Center.
Age 42: I was the Lead Educational Design Consultant for the Blue's Clues computer games. Possibly as a result of working on such fun, youthful games, I was carded at Rite Aid! (Never mind that the sales woman wore glasses as thick as a Coke bottle... )
Age 43: I'm caught up in the Seattle start-up frenzy, hired over lattes and promised fame and fortune. In one year, I work for three different start-ups, each promising more than the last. In the end, I come out with nothing but worthless stock certificates and an unemployment claim.
Age 44: My mother and I plan a trip to Germany, just the two of us. It's the first time I'd leave my family for more than a few days. Two weeks before we're to leave, Mom is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. We postpone the trip, saying we'll go next year. I secretly don't believe we will.
Age 45: Mom goes into remission and we go to Germany and have the most amazingly fabulous, wonderful time. We feel like sisters. I start work as a producer and product manager at a local health education non-profit.
Age 46: At my brother's wedding, a dear friendship from my childhood is rekindled and Luki and I share a wonderful e-mail correspondence. My husband thinks it's fine and supports my old/new friendship; his wife, however, forbids him to communicate with me in any way. I still miss him every day.
Age 47: I am the Executive Producer of FUEL, a DVD series for teens about body image, self-esteem and the media, as well as nutrition, activity and positive activism. My kids, teens by now, help by telling me what's cheesy and what works. It wins awards and I'm proud.
Age 48: FUEL's sister product, CHILL, which addresses teen stress, wraps production. I feel completely in my element and love producing. Who cares about the 2+ hour daily commute?!
Age 49: The non-profit decides to eliminate their product development department to focus on a new non-product-oriented venture. I am laid off and heart-broken.
Age 50: I work a contract job as a Program Manager at Microsoft. Odd place! Now that the kids are almost adults, we decide to take a family vacation to Hawaii. We have a blast!
Age 51: The kids are now officially grown (but thankfully often still around) and, after a short stint as a Senior Program Manager with a Gates Foundation partnership company, the year is spent mostly unemployed.
I'm glad for my hopeless optimism...
And now I think I'll take a long bubble bath, something I've done every single night for as long as I can remember -- most likely for all of my 51 years. I'll soak especially appreciatively in the gardenia bubble bath that Kat just gave me, well aware of the blessed life I have lived and the the wonderful family that surrounds me.
I absolutely dread the possibility that next year I might have to add "Age 52: Empty nest..."
No time to post today, for I have discovered either the greatest time-waster or the greatest knowledge-seeking tool of all time -- Stumble Upon.
I had to pry myself away from that damn "Stumble Now!" button and I finally headed to bed around 2 AM last night after hours of clicking, each time bringing me to a new discovery, each time about something I'm fascinated with, thanks to Stumble Upon's customization tools.
Go ahead and try it, but I warn you, the end of the month is near and your NaBloPoMo standing -- not to mention your marriage, your job, and your personal hygiene, will be in great jeopardy if you do!
I've been unemployed for seven months now.* While I understand that the more senior and specialized one's career focus is, the longer it takes to find the right position, I'm just plum discouraged and exhausted at this point.
I have approached looking for work as a job in itself, spending at least a few hours each day networking, looking for listings, and applying for various positions. Other than "the age thing" (which I'm sure is huge and in two days I'll be yet another year older), I cannot for the life of me figure out why I haven't landed something -- especially the right thing. I have had gobs of interviews, most of which have gone swimmingly by all accounts, but it seems that I am consistently being told that the other guy -- the other finalist for the position -- was offered the job.
I have always felt that the right job is seeking me as fervently as I'm seeking it, and that the perfect fit looms right around the corner, but maybe that's the "hopeless optimist" in me. Still, I can't think of anything that I should be doing to find that job that I'm not doing now.
Maybe it's a bit like trying to get pregnant. You know those people who focus so heavily on getting pregnant, and then when they finally decide to just relax and back away for a few weeks, they miraculously become pregnant? (OK, maybe not miraculously...) Maybe I need to do that.
No, not the getting pregnant part; the relaxing and backing away part.
But first I need to send out one last "broadcast batch" of feelers to my hundreds of network contacts because, according to the many job seeking professionals who appear in my in-box daily (who are all practically my best friends by now), it's important to consistently remind people that you're still looking and available. (Geeze, what is this parallel with dating 'n' stuff?!)
And yet, all I can think of today is what I COULD have accomplished in the past seven months, but didn't:
You'd think I'd know better, wouldn't you? But nooooo! I had to head straight back into the throngs of holiday shoppers today. Why can't I just learn my lesson and shop online -- or better yet, get into the great "give adventures, not stuff" mentality?
My first stop (shhh -- don't tell Tom; he hates this store... and with good reason!) was WalMart. I couldn't stay in that store for more than 20 minutes. Know why? Because there seems to be some frikkin' contest for decibel level and cheerleader mentality among the "associates" using the store's public address system! I swear, every 20 seconds there was a loud, vivacious (no, maybe "obnoxious" is more descriptive), urgent announcement, mostly between WalMart Associates, but a few were even addressed to us lowly shoppers:
"ATTENTION, ALL WALMART ASSOCIATES! IT'S TIME TO GATHER CARTS FROM THE PARKING LOT! VICTOR, I REPEAT, VICTOOOOOR, PLEASE MEET YOUR SUPERVISOR IN THE PARKING LOT!"
ATTENTION, WALMART ASSOCIATES! WE NEED AN ATTENTIVE ASSOCIATE AT THE WOMEN'S DRESSING ROOM. BECKY, THIS MEANS YOU!"
ATTENTION WALMART SHOPPERS! TODAY AND TODAY ONLY, GET 70% OFF ALL JEWELRY! HOW CAN YOU RESIST...?!"
After 30 minutes I could take no more and I left the store empty-handed, thrilled at the relative peace and quiet of the WalMart parking lot (where I found Victor gathering shopping carts).
Don't ask me what misguided holiday shopping spirit (demon) got into me at that point but, stupid me, I headed straight to the mall where our misadventures had taken place on early Friday morning. You know -- in which I nearly died?! I approached the mall from an unfamiliar direction, since I was coming from WalMart instead of from home, but I had no problem finding my way to my favorite familiar parking structure.
As I walked from my car to the door of the mall, I remember seeing the Salvation Army bell-ringer at the door and I stopped to scrounge some money from my wallet, dropping it into his red bucket as I entered the store. I had an hour's worth of frustrating shopping experiences in the mall (you'd think I'd have learned my... oh, never mind!) before returning to my...
Oh my god, where's my CAR?! I paced the row of cars where I was sure I'd parked, but didn't see my car. I pressed the "lock" button on my key fob, which causes the car to emit a very brief honk, but I heard only silence. 'This makes no sense at all,' I thought. 'I'm absolutely positive that I parked right here!' I retraced my steps, even knowing exactly where I had dug money out of my purse and exactly where I had crossed the street. For 20 minutes I wandered the parking structure, clicking my key fob and shaking my head. By this time I was fairly certain that my car had been jacked! And it wasn't such an outlandish notion; we have a Honda Accord, one of the most frequently stolen cars in America. I called Tom, not sure if I should laugh or cry.
"So I'm at the mall..." I began.
"You didn't learn your lesson early on Friday morning?" he teased.
"Not only did I venture back here," I replied, "But I think the car was stolen!" I was still in total disbelief.
"Well, maybe you should just go back into the mall and grab a latte and relax. Maybe it'll come to you where you parked your car as you sip..." What good, solid Seattle-ite advice! (Or was he secretly snickering, confident that I the car was just fine and I was lost?!)
But I couldn't relax. I had to find the car!
I went back to the bell-ringer, telling him that I couldn't find my car and asking whether he'd seen anything funny right over there where I'd parked my car. "No," he told me. "But maybe you parked in the other garage; is that a possibility?" he asked.
"No way. I know I gave you a donation because I thought you were really friendly, opening doors for everyone and wishing everyone happy holidays."
"We all do that," he assured me.
"Well, but I remember thinking that you look like Santa with your white beard," I insisted.
"All of us at this mall look like Santa," he said. "And you did know that there are two parking mirror image garages, didn't you?"
"Um... nooooooooo!"
I thanked him and went back into the store, heading to the entrance directly opposite where I was standing, snickering to myself, almost breaking into a whole-hearted laugh as I walked.
As I exited the store, the white-bearded bell ringer held the door open for me. "All you Santa bell-ringers look alike," I said, by this time laughing. "Happy holidays, Santa!"
"Happy holidays yourself! Have a nice drive home!" He laughed with me. No wait -- I think he was actually laughing at me -- though I'm not sure how he knew what I'd been up to for the past half hour.
I walked directly to my car, clicked my clicker and greeted my car aloud. "Hello, you silly car! Very funny! Very, very funny!" And I drove home, never to return to the mall this holiday season! My shopping will be done entirely online from now on!
Why is it that every generation believes that their parents' generation consists of fashion-ignorant and completely clueless idiots who have no idea how to dress in style?
Our kids, who are quite up-to-date when it comes to fashion, and that means they know every nuance of every changing fashion (at least of fashions in the 20-something world -- and therein, I believe, lies the crux of the issue) have begged each other not to allow them to fall victim to the plague of their parents: something they refer to as fashion-decade-paralysis. In their minds, there's absolutely nothing worse than parents who are "stuck in the 80's," the decade in which we became parents. To drive home the point, the kids draw attention to their grandparents who, they insist, have a bad case of fashion paralysis of their own, stuck in the 50's, the decade in which they became parents.
To illustrate the point, Elisabeth showed me this:
Mom Jeans - More free videos are here
I must admit that I secretly thought to myself, 'I dunno... they're not so bad, are they?' And I heard myself asking aloud, "The vest is kinda OK, isn't it?" Elisabeth was horrified. "MOM! Please tell me you did NOT just say that!"
Now, I have to say right here that I dress in "approved" fashions, meaning that my daughters have deemed most of my clothes acceptable to be worn in public and even, in most cases, when I'm actually with them. (I know; I'm so honored!) But I fear that, if I didn't have daughters, I might actually find nothing all that horrendous about nine inch zippers, front pleats or even (shudder!) appliquéd vests.
And we won't even go into something called a "camel-digit"! (OK, that's not really what it's called, but I can't post exactly what it's called because I don't want to invite porn searches to my blog...)
I reminded Elisabeth that when I was her age, I thought that nipple-hiding padded bras (which are fashionable now) were only for old ladies and that my friends and I chose to wear more racy bras that revealed some nipple because, after all, we weren't as sexually repressed as our parents were! So I guess that each generation chooses to flaunt something and hide something -- and make fun of other generations' choices of what to hide and what to flaunt!
I also reminded her that, in the same way that she makes fun of me for wearing underwear that consists of more than a skimpy string, her kids will likely harass her and her generation for wearing strings as underwear. ("Eeeeew, Mom," they'll say.)
And Aleks' kids will harass him about sagging his pants all the way to the top of his thighs, no doubt!
In the same way that the SNL Penny's commercial made fun of "Mom jeans" from the 80's, Elisabeth's kids might well make fun of her and her entire generation for wearing waistbands so low that little is left to the imagination, in much the same way that my generation's "camel-digit" jeans or unpadded bras apparently left little to the imagination. My kids' kids will show their parents pictures of thong strings peeking -- no, announcing themselves -- along the top of jeans so low that, well, that little is left to the imagination! And those siblings will beg each other not to allow them to fall victim to the plague of their parents: something they'll refer to as fashion-decade-paralysis. Oh, the hilarious irony!
And I, being an old granny by that time, will sit back in my cozy parachute pants and giggle silently as my grandchildren point to what I'm wearing and announce to their mom that "even Noni's (which is what I want to be called) pants are cooler than those no-waist/sagging pants you still insist on wearing!"
Next year Peter and Danelle are planning to attend Washington State University ("Wazzu") and Aleks and Kat are planning to attend University of Washington ("U-Dub"), so you can imagine the uproar today while we all watched the Apple Cup, which is the end-of-season match-up between the two teams.
It was a great game, with the lead going back and forth throughout the game. The score was tied at 28 for a while and then tied again at 35, and it was only in the last few minutes that the Wazzu Cougars made a final touchdown and won the game, defeating the U-Dub Huskies 42 to 35.
As a past cheerleader in my own right, I hereby nominate Danelle to be a Cougar cheerleader next year. What spirit she has! And Kat, a dedicated Huskie fan, is such a gracious fan of the losing team, eh?
Of course Tom and I had to be careful not to play favorites and cheer for one team over the other because at this point, that's even worse than giving a fancier Christmas present to one kid or taking one kid to Starbucks more often! I have both a Washington State and a University of Washington sweatshirt and if I wear one more often than the other, I definitely hear about it! So of course Tom and I put our enthusiasm into what an exciting game it was and let the kids do their own rooting for the specific teams.
In the end, Peter and Danelle were the ones who were a'whoopin' and a-hollerin' around the house and "drank" to the winning team -- with Martinelli's sparkling cider from Thanksgiving.
Swenglishexpat, of Fruits of My Mind, has been kind enough to bestow upon me the "Roar for Powerful Words" award. I'm honored!
I wish I were truly an accomplished writer, but all I can say is that I must write; when I don't, I feel like I'm suffocating! Of course, that doesn't mean that my writing is great by any means, only that I love it. And really, I think that's the one ingredient that all great writers have had at some point, so there's always hope.
In the movie Amadeus, Salieri is an aspiring musician with a passion for composition and music, but without the raw, natural talent that Mozart possesses. That's how I feel about my writing: I recognize and appreciate great writing and I aspire to it, but it's hard work and often a struggle and I'm so envious of those to whom great writing comes naturally. So when someone recognizes my writing as worthwhile, it more than makes my day!
So here are the rules:
List three things you believe are necessary for good, powerful writing and then pass the award on to the five bloggers you want to honor, who in turn should pass it on to five others, etc. Let's send a roar through the blogosphere! (The image above can be copied and pasted onto other blogs.)
Three qualities I believe are important for good, powerful writing:
It's 2:30 AM and I'm lucky to be alive!
OK, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but there really was a period of time between midnight and now when I wondered if I'd come out of this alive.
Out of what, you ask? Out of the MALL!
The day after Thanksgiving is called "black Friday" in the retail world because austensibly that's when most stores go from being in the red (in debt) to in the black (making a profit). In what's become more and more ludicrous over the past few years, stores have started to open their doors in the wee hours of the morning -- like 4 or 5 AM. As if those hours aren't crazy enough, our local mall decided to bring "wee" to the extreme, opening at 12:01 AM.
I repeat: 12:01. AM.
Tom had wanted to get his mom a specific Christmas gift that was advertised at one of the stores in the mall -- which also happens to have a store in our town, but that store wouldn't be opening until the oh-so-late hour or 5 or 6 AM. So we thought it would be an entertaining adventure to drive to the mall and quickly pick up the gift for his mother, expecting to see maybe a few other crazy late-night like-minded shoppers.
As we approached the long line of cars turning into the mall and saw giddy teenagers flocking toward the entrance from off-site overflow parking lots, we knew we had misjudged the situation. We laughed about crazy, materialistic Americans, realizing full well that we were among them! Did the crowds prompt us to turn around and go home?
Noooooooooo.
Tom dropped Elisabeth and I off with the intention of parking and then meeting us at the store. We joined the crowd flocking to one of the few open mall entrances. That was the first mistake -- ours, as well as the mall officials who allowed only a few mall entrances to be open. As we zig-zagged toward the center of the mall, we again laughed at the density of the crowd.
At that point it was still funny.
We pushed our way through the crowd, intending to meet Tom, who had dropped Elisabeth and I off earlier, at the store that sold the gift for Nana. We suddenly found ourselves in a mass of unmoving bodies. The crowd had very suddenly gotten too dense in too small a space for anyone within it to move. In an attempt to escape the crowd (because, to be honest, I was beginning to panic; I've always had a problem with claustrophobia), we pushed our way into a small alcove where we had some room to breathe.
At this point, my imagination began to go wild and I imagined a variety of possible scenarios: a fire, a fight, a weapon, a riot... any of a number of situations that incur a mass mentality could have tipped the delicate balance from people laughing at the ridiculousness of the crowd (as most were then) to a sudden realization of the true helplessness of their situation, i.e., total mob mentality.
Elisabeth saw in my eyes that I was becoming terrified and she instantly became the mom, bless her heart! "Mom, this will balance out and people will leave," she assured me. But I didn't believe her and told her (calmly, I thought, but apparently not...) that I really just need to get out. At this point the crowd was becoming both stronger and more densely packed and we were being pushed further and further into the corner of the alcove, with nowhere to go. I was sure that within seconds we were going to be pinned to the wall with no possibility of getting out. Just then a woman appeared and told us to follow her because she was following "that big man who's pushing his way through." It seemed to be our only option -- and poor Elisabeth! At that point I think she was really worrying that I was gonna flip out!
I held Elisabeth's hand and we moved back into the crowd, staying close the "big man," whoever he was. After what seemed like forever, we found ourselves with room to breathe and to walk. We had called and texted Tom not to come into the mall, but he hadn't replied at all and we didn't know where he was. When we emerged from the mob and were finally able to call him to see where he was, we realized that he was right in front of us. He, too, had been gobbled by the throngs of people, but had fortunately found his way out too.
We fully expect to see a story on the morning news -- and we fully expect that there will be some corporate review of what happened tonight. I'm sure things could have easily gotten catastrophic!
Tom was still determined to get Nana's gift, so we walked around the outside of the mall until we noticed a few people exiting through an unmarked door. Turns out it was the emergency exit! We asked if the crowds were bad at that part of the mall and we were told that they had thinned considerably, so we let ourselves back in -- luckily right near the store we needed to go to.
We found our way to the store through (comparatively) reasonable crowds, made our purchase, exited through the same emergency exit and headed HOME. And now, I really should go to bed because you know, the stores will open in just a few hours and I intend to be there!
JUST KIDDING!!! (What? You think I'm that crazy?!)
My brother sent us iPhone photos of today's Thanksgiving celebration with my dad, Lou, my three brothers and their families in the Bay Area. I'm returning the greeting via a blog post. Are we, like, sooo 2007, or what?!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I was digging into my photo archives to find a few pictures of various past Thanksgivings, but never made it past Thanksgiving, 2005, the year when Laura was with us, and when my dad ("Opa") shared the holiday with us.
What fun we had introducing Laura to this most American of holidays! We miss Laura so much this year. And my dad, too; he's spending the day in the Bay Area with my brothers and their families... I miss them all!
I won't even try to line photos up with text anymore (dang Blogger!), but here's a little taste of the preparations as well as that after-dinner triptophan-induced coma:
Dear Margaret,
Thanks you for the holiday wishes. I know you would have extended your greeting to each AFS volunteer individually if you could. And, since I have a feeling this greeting doesn't come from your personal e-mail address, I can only hope that you get this!
AFS -- but especially the amazing kids we've met through AFS -- has been an important part of my family's life since late in 2004 when my father, my then 14-year-old twins and I returned from my a visit to mother's native country of Germany just months after she died of ovarian cancer. We returned with the strong desire to welcome a young German girl into our homes, perhaps (I now realize) to, in a very small way, bring a tiny piece of Omi -- or at least of her heritage -- back into our home.
Fueled by our desire to open our home, we called AFS in February of 2005, and requested information about becoming a host parent. Within a day we were sent the bio of Laura, a seemingly wonderful girl from central Germany and within a week, an AFS volunteer came to our home to "seal the deal." From that moment on, our family grew by one. We e-mailed and IM'd Laura regularly and, by the time she arrived in Seattle six months later, we already knew and loved her and she already knew and loved us. The six months before she arrived were, in many ways, as important as the ten months she lived with us and I can only equate that anticipatory time to a pregnancy: you know this person will be a huge part of your life soon, and you can hardly wait to welcome her with a hug. The waiting seems endless, but you are rewarded with the smiling face and long-awaited embrace of this new member of your family. You go home and begin to settle in, knowing that life -- at least for a year, but in actuality, forever -- will not be the same because you will forever be so much richer for this experience.
Needless to say, the year that we had Laura in our home was wonderful, and saying goodbye to her in June was excruciating for all of us. Fortunately, we were able to visit her in Germany this past September and meet her family, who we came to love as much as we loved Laura. And since welcoming Laura into our home for a year, I have been a liaison to two other AFS students, last year to E from Germany and this year to M from Brazil.
For us, the AFS experience was and continues to be full of joy and happiness and we are so grateful to have the opportunity to be part of the organization. But I'm beginning to realize that we might just be the lucky ones, for I know that not all AFS experiences are this happy and I think I might know why.
Whereas we initiated contact with AFS and asked to welcome an international student into our lives, fully aware of the financial, time, and emotional commitment that request entailed, many AFS students are not so lucky as to come to America (or any country) with someone on the other side waiting to greet them with open arms. I can't even imagine being the parent of an AFS student (or certainly the student him or herself) who steps onto a plane bound for an unfamiliar foreign country with absolutely no welcoming family. Whereas we already loved Laura by the time we met her, many students get on that plane with only fear, anticipation, and trust (all healthy emotions) but it's at this point that I feel that many AFS students (and their native families) are betrayed. For some reason that I can't fathom -- and I'm sorry, but I can only assume that it comes down to money -- more than a few students are allowed to come to their new country with no one other than an AFS official to greet them. They are put into a temporary home ( and sometimes multiple temporary homes) which, in many cases, is the home of a person or family that has only relented to continual pleading from AFS to open their home, if only for a week, and has no intention of being any more than a temporary placeholder for this poor, lonely international student who fully deserves (especially for the thousands of dollars their native families pay) to be placed in a waiting, enthusiastic family.
I have seen this repeatedly and it breaks my heart each time. Why can't AFS accept only the number of students for which it has families to wholeheartedly "adopt" them? For two summers in a row, I have been getting desperate e-mails, begging me to consider hosting a student again or to ask my family and friends if they might host a student who "will be arriving in just weeks." While I believe that family and friends is a wonderful way to recruit host families, this isn't a magazine drive or a puppy adoption; this is a very serious commitment that will change a family and require full emotional and financial dedication. By late July, the e-mails I get from AFS reminds me of someone who has a stray puppy to give away and begs someone to take it before it is sent to the pound.
It just shouldn't be this way! Don't you agree?
The solution doesn't seem that complicated to me -- though I'm sure it has financial repercussions that might be unpleasant to AFS. (Yes, I am curious what the many thousands of dollars students pay to go to a foreign country covers, other than insurance, since most AFS staff are volunteers and the host or native families cover almost all other expenses... but that's another letter.) Isn't it possible to MATCH UP STUDENTS WITH HOST FAMILIES WHILE THEY'RE STILL IN THEIR HOME COUNTRY and only finalize travel plans once that match is made? The commitment to take a student into one's home for a year is just as serious as the commitment to travel to another country for a year, and I believe that both should be approached with the same sense of dedication and with a strong emphasis put on a great fit for all. When you accept a student's money and then put them on a plane with no one to welcome them with open arms on the other side, as happened to the boy for who I am currently a liaison, I believe you are performing a disservice for all involved. The student certainly deserves better. Until AFS can find a willing -- no, an enthusiastic -- host family, I don't believe that the student's money should be accepted and I certainly don't believe that s/he should be put on a plane. This might mean that you can accept fewer students, but I believe that that is a justifiable and important trade-off to assure positive experiences for all involved.
I'm sure that there's a business-oriented explanation for why students are accepted for travel without permanent host families to greet them, but I can't for the life of me understand what reason might justify the loneliness and confusion I heard about as the student I'm currently a liaison for described his first few transient, lonely, and confusing months in America. Fortunately, he is now with a committed, loving family, thanks to a girl who was in one of his classes and took him home, begging her parents, "Can we keep him? Pleeeease?"
I know that, for each lonely, confused student who stands on foreign soil awaiting a committed host family, there are many more who have experiences like Laura and we had, and for that I thank you and AFS. But the question regarding pre-travel matching of students with families begs to be asked and I do hope you find the time and the interest to answer it. I know that I am not the only AFS volunteer who worries greatly about this issue.
Warm regards,
Carol
Elisabeth had her wisdom teeth extracted during her college winter break two years ago. It was a relatively simple procedure and, true to form, she embraced it with all its opportunities, such as conducting her own little science experiment in which she asked the doctor to tell her both a number and a color while she was under Versed anesthesia and she'd try to remember it when she came to. (Didn't work; she failed her own test!) Her recuperation consisted of one really bad day and a few annoying days, but she was able to go back to school within days of the surgery.
Now, it seems, Peter, Aleks and Kat ALL need their wisdom teeth out and winter vacation is the most reasonable time for this to happen. So I'm bracing for some surgical craziness on December 28th, followed by some whining and whimpering (mine!) that weekend.
Tom watched a portion of 2 Weeks with me and it prompted a short discussion about "the best way to die" (with the full understanding, of course, that there is no "good" way to die). His father died suddenly in a car accident in 2001, while my mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and died four years (to the day) later, in 2004.
Ironically, shortly after we had that discussion, the phone rang. It was my father and I could tell in his voice that something was terribly wrong.
Our dear friend, Beatte, who my parents met in Germany in the early 50's before immigrating to America, and who followed a few years later and settled in Berkeley just a few blocks from my aunt Ulli, was like an aunt to me and was a huge part of my childhood. She was a healthy, active 70-something-year-old woman who loved her three children and numerous grandchildren, who traveled extensively, who loved to walk and ate healthfully, and who was an excellent and devoted classical violinist.
Yesterday, as Beatte was playing violin in a quartet in a friend's livingroom as part of a casual "concert among friends," she collapsed. She never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at the hospital. It was a massive heart attack.
This is the second time this year that a woman who is like family to Tom or me has died suddenly, with no opportunity for anyone to say goodbye.
I am so scared that this is how my father will die (though, after experiencing what Mom went through, I think he'd prefer to go this way). I guess the lesson here is to tell the people that you love how you feel about them, how much you appreciate them... and never to hold back.
A few months ago, a film called 2 Weeks, starring Sally Field and Ben Chaplin, lasted for about a nano-second in theaters. (Oddly enough, I can't even find an Amazon or IMDb link!). It was, very coincidentally, about the last two weeks of a woman's life as she succumbed to ovarian cancer (like Mom). The focus of the movie, though, was really on the relationships between Anita's four children, three boys and a girl (like my siblings and me), who came together from out of town (as we did) to be with their mother at the end of her life.
I never had a chance to see the movie in theaters last spring, but I rented it from Netflix recently. I watched it twice, once alone and once with my daughters. I am still just amazed at the similarities between what Anita's family experienced in her last days and what we experienced during Mom's last days.
The movie depicts quite a few similarities to what my brothers and I experienced (along with our dad) when we all met at my parents' house to "help Mom die." (This photo was taken during that time, a week or so before Mom died. She was completely enveloped in her children's and husband's unwavering love and, in addition to deep sorrow we all felt, there was an unexpected and inexplicable joy between us as well. I love this photo because it depicts all the emotions we shared that week.) It was the first time the six of us had been together alone, without spouses and grandchildren, for over 20 years and, similar to 2 Weeks, that time was as much a time for us siblings to get to know each other again as it was a time to say goodbye to our mother. The sister in the movie is in many ways the teacher and organizational soul of the group; she's the one who reads Death and Dying and who, in turn, suggests that her brothers "read up" too. In our family my dad and I shared that role, but the similarities were still striking as the sister organizes 2-hour, round-the-clock "watches" so her mom is never alone during her last days.
In the movie, Anita goes through some of the things that we witnessed with Mom. At one point Anita stared ahead and tears began to run down her face. "Hi Dad," she whispered and mumbled through a (seemingly one-sided) conversation with her dead father. Similarly, my mother asked my father at one point, "Who's she?" and a few minutes later she whispered to me, "My mother..." trying to continue but unable to form words after that.
In 2 Weeks, one of the brothers comments that his mother's soul seems to have taken leave of her body after she slipped into a coma and as she neared death. I remember thinking the exact same thing when Mom passed through that stage. In fact, I wrote about it: "She’s not my mother. She doesn’t look anything like my mother. She looks like a skeleton. No character, no spirit, no personality. Now we’re just caring for her body until it gives out – likely within hours."
After Anita died, her daughter did something that I did after Mom died, sure that I was the only one who ever did this and that I was being morbid and weird: we both took photos of our dead mothers. I can't tell you why I did it, except that it was the only way I could think of to hold on to her for a bit longer. (Similar, perhaps, to the dream I had during that week when I was severely sleep-deprived: "I had a thought/dream in the middle of the night: Miss Saum, my kindergarten teacher, used to pin “notes to go home” on our clothes. I dreamed that I pinned a picture of Mom at her most beautiful to her body so the mortician could see how beautiful she was before he cremated her. I wanted those who would care for her body to know that she was SO not just another skeletal cancer patient.")
In the movie, Anita's body is put into an unmarked car in the early hours of the morning, as the morning paper is being delivered around the neighborhood. Two of the brothers comment that it's hard to believe that regular life goes on, even after their lives have changed so dramatically. I remember thinking the same thing as Mom's body was wheeled down the path and into the very unspectacular white Ford Windstar.
I knew that moment marked not only the moment when I had to say my final goodbye to Mom's physical presence, but it also marked the moment when I began a new stage of my own life -- the stage in which I had to learn to be motherless. It's now almost four years later and I'm not sure I've learned yet how to be motherless.
My niece, Dawn (that's her on the sand dune below) has been in India for a few months, on a journey of self and cultural discovery. Her mother has been with her for a few weeks now and they have left behind the loud and dirty cities to travel the Indian desert on camelback. Dawn is an amazing writer and photographer and has been nice enough to allow me to share her thoughts and adventures on my blog. Here is her latest installment. (As with her previous writing and photography, please respect her copyright!)
If you are ever so inclined and your wildest dreams lead you to decide it would be a good idea to go on a four day camel safari, in the Thar Desert of India only sixty kilometers from the Pakistani boarder, for four-days with your mother and a young Indian guide, here are some things to keep in mind: 1) Never, ever, even for a moment forget to laugh at yourself (or the camels, or someone else). 2) Don't expect instructions; this is India after all. You are on your own, baby! 3) Be grateful that your mother is actually that incredible, that she, at the healthy age of 56, will think nothing of riding a camel around the Indian desert in 90 degree heat for four-days. 4) Pack your own TP, and if you find a rock, or a bush to hide behind for that matter, be sure to mark your territory while you have the chance! 5) Realize that saddle sores are real before you go, that way you wont be a complete mess when you can't walk for two days after. 6) Don't forget sunscreen. 7.) Try to be alright with sleeping in the camel blankets, because it is them or nothing at all.
What can I say, it was a blast! I think it is quite possible that a four-day trail ride is my idea of just about the most fun I could possibly ever have in my life. As a former rider, I can honestly say there is nothing in the world I would rather do than this. Now, let me modify this statement, just a slight bit. Riding a camel is, in actuality, quite different from riding a horse, but still I think, comparable. On a horse, you don't have the breathtaking seven-foot high view, however on a horse, you also don't have the never-ending stream of camel farts. (Yes it in NOT a myth, camels fart, burp and 'gargle' constantly.) The difference of Sonoma's grape vine covered hills is quite the contrast to the Thar's dunes and cactus shrubs. The camel safari was no first class trail ride through the comforts of California, but in all honesty, the desert was, strangely, monotonously beautiful and peaceful. After spending almost two months in the cities of India it was amazingly refreshing to hear silence and experience the slow rocking of the strangely clumsy camel.
Top 10 Best Things About Our Indian Camel Safari:
There really isn't a whole lot I can say that encompasses the entire experience, except that it was all around fun and just hilarious. Camels, and if you have ever been on one you know this, are quite interesting characters. They look funny, they do funny things, riding them they make you look funny, and they are just all around strange creatures. The desert and the people and the scenery in general was just exquisite. It was a very needed and helpful break to get away from all the mess and fuss of the world and see the simple lifestyles and everyday wonders that the village people experience. I found the quiet relaxing and revitalizing. Moving so slowly there is much to see and take in.
Although there were many great aspects of the trip I have to confess that the best part for me was escaping this ever-serious space of mind I have found myself so comfortably living in here in India. Forget the camels, it seems that I have been constantly struggling against my own reigns. I have begun to take life and everything so seriously here in India, opening myself to it all so profoundly and most of the time finding laughter to be a distant and forgotten memory. I have been caught in a net of seriousness and I have forgotten the humor and craziness of my own existence. The desert and the camels, the guide, my mom, or maybe just being on such a touristy exploration, I don't know what it was exactly, but somewhere along the way I forgot it all and let go. I relaxed and I didn't worry about the world or the people who inhabit it, or myself or anything. I was riding a camel, for crying out loud, how could I have? It was like breathing in a huge breath of clean air after being in Delhi for too long.
It was very much needed, but still, although after I feel better, I was left with a sort of guilt about it all that I had to examine. How could I have just let go that easily? Haven't I been affected? Don't I have a new outlook on things? Haven't I learned anything? Haven't I grown up at all? I don't know how this sounds to all of you, and I know it may sound ridiculous, but in all honesty it is a weird balance to have to sort out in oneself. I realize that it is very important to see and understand all aspects of the world and I intend to do so, however difficult that may be. It is, of course, important to be aware while being light, to be helpful but not obsessed, to be caring as well as being carefree, to be heartfelt but not a mess. Balance, I suppose, is the key and now I must tern my focus to that. It felt great to laugh and forget my prodding dissatisfaction with my own efforts, but I cannot abandon my drive to help or make light the issues of the world that have become such a concern for me.
So how do I enjoy the humor of a camel's company or the joy of a beautiful sunset and also feel the immense importance of the pressing issues of the world? I do just that I suppose, both. I enjoy, but I also hold the sadness in my heart along with the joy. I don't forget, not even for a moment, the beauty and the sorrow of the world. I see the whole picture, everything at once, and take it all in as it really is. Because, I think what it is, is just that – what it is. You know? There isn't much more than what there is right now, and right now, it seems to me, there is everything. So, I must try to live this way, I think.
Camels are funny and poverty is not. The young girls in the villages are wonderful, but the fact that there are not very many of them is not so great. The village men are nice to us, but perhaps some of them are not so nice to their wives. The world is continually beautiful and ugly, funny and sad, enlightening and restricting. So, I must remember that things are both this way, and they are that way too.
Mother India is perhaps the best place in the world to see this duality, as things can look very different from person to person. It all depends what you know and how you choose to look at it. Wow, this topic is far too great, and I have far too much to say about it to get into it at the moment. I do, however, have much to say about it though, it is becoming more and more apparent to me that we all live in our own worlds, believing whatever it is we choose to. Seeing India as an outsider who want to wiggle my way in, I feel this difference of perspective weighing on my own soul. Sorry, I absolutely cannot start babbling about this now. Maybe the next email… we'll see.
Love, love, love you - and I am starting to miss, miss, miss you!Dawn
I've learned through experience that families often assume that favorite recipes will somehow be passed on through the generation -- but if no one takes responsibility to actually document those recipes, they can easily get lost over time. My father knew this and documented Mom's fingergolatschen and zimptsterne
(Serves 10 – 20 people)
Menu:
v Hors D’eurves (Apricot brie & crackers, veggies & dip)
v
v Tom’s Stuffing
v Gravy
v Mashed Potatoes
v Green Bean Casserole
v Ulli’s Rolls
v Creamed Onions
v Betty’s Cranberry Mold
v Suzie’s Caramelized Walnut and Pear Salad
v Nana’s Pumpkin Chiffon Pie
v Omi’s Raspberry Cheesecake
Shopping List:
Meat:
v
v Tofurkey for vegetarians
Produce:
v Apples (2 - 3)
v Orange (1 - 2)
v Potatoes (1 sm. bag Yukon Gold)
v Baby Greens (2 bags)
v Green Onions (1 bunch)
v Yellow Sweet Onions (3 large)
v Cranberries (2 bags)
v Celery (1bunch)
v Baby carrots (1 bag)
v Cauliflower (1/2 head)
v Radishes (1 bunch)
v Pea pods (some)
v Cucumber
v Lemons (1 - 2)
v Baby pearl/white onions (2 pounds)
v Fresh garlic (lots!)
Dairy:
v ½ & ½ (1 quart)
v Whole milk (1/2 gallon)
v Butter (2 - 3 pounds)
v Sour Cream (1-2 quarts)
v Eggs (1 - 2 dozen)
v Whipping cream (1 qt)
v Brie with apricots (sold as a package)
v Cream cheese (1.5 pounds)
Dry, Canned and Packaged:
v Crackers for Brie (2 boxes)
v Graham crackers or graham cracker crumbs (2 - 3 boxes)
v
v Onion Soup mix (1 box)
v Olives (1 can)
v Water Chestnuts (1 can)
v French friend onion toppers (1 can)
v Mushroom soup (2 cans)
v Unflavored gelatin (2 envelopes)
v Canned pumpkin (2 large cans)
v Dark brown sugar (1 -2 boxes)
v Raspberry Jello (1 large box)
v Flour
v Wondra flour
v Pears (1 reg can)
v Craisins (1 package)
v Raspberry dressing
v Granulated sugar
v Corn starch
v Yeast (fresh?)
v Raisins
v Craisins
Breads:
v Pumpernickel
v Sourdough
v Cornbread
v Other breads for stuffing, as desired
v Bread crumbs (1/2 c at most) for creamed onions
Herbs, Spices & Nuts:
v Chopped walnuts (1 bag)
v Cinnamon
v Ginger
v Allspice
v Garlic
v Rosemary
v Thyme
v Oregano
v Sage
v Cayenne pepper
v Basil
v Parsley
v Bay leaves
v Salt (including sea salt) & pepper
v Juniper berries
v Vanilla
Frozen:
v French Green Beans (2 bags)
v Raspberries (2 bags)
Liquor:
v Red & white wine
v Beer
v Sherry
v Etc!
Other Liquids & Drinks
v Coffee beans (regular and decaf)
v Sparkling cider
v Pop/Soda
v Juice
v Bottled Water
v Chicken broth (you can hardly have too much!)
v Worcestershire sauce
v Soy sauce
v Olive oil
Recipes:
Brining & Cooking the
Brine: Use any aromatic spice or herb you like: rosemary leaves, bay leaves, sea salt, dried apples, juniper berries, lemon peel, garlic, rosemary, thyme, black pepper, and bay leaf. On Tuesday night, soak rinsed turkey in bring ingredients, mixed with water in an ice chest, cover for 24 hours.
Tom’stuffing:
Combine dry ingredients: Pumpernickle, sourdough, & corn bread, cubed and dried.
Combine: Sliced black olives, celery, cubed apple, raisins, Craisins, walnuts (if desired), water chestnuts.
Combine: chicken broth, red wine, soy sauce, garlic, onions, Worcestershire, at least 1 stick butter, thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, basil, salt and pepper to taste (be careful with salt!), olive oil, etc per “feel” (das fuhlt man!”).
Mix together in big VAT until it feels right. Loosely stuff some into turkey and put remainder in casserole dish. Bake till done.
Gravy:
Pan drippings
Wondra flour
Chicken broth
Mashed Potatoes:
(12 servings)
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
Green Bean Casserole:
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup
4 cups cooked green beans
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup milk
1 1/3 cups French fried onions
Mix soup, milk and pepper in a 1 1/2-quart casserole dish. Stir in beans and 2/3 cup of the fried onions. Bake for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees F. Top with the remaining 2/3 cup fried onions and bake about 5 more minutes, until onions are lightly browned.
Serves 6.
Ulli’s Rolls:
2 cups milk, scalded and cooled
1/4 cup butter, dissolved in hot milk
2 cakes fresh yeast, dissolved in 1 T lukewarm water
1 T sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 t salt
4-3/4 cups flour
sugar add milk mixture and dissolved yeast. Then add the
flour. Beat well. It will not be a very firm dough. Let
rise. To make the rolls, you have to keep your hands
well floured, or the dough will stick badly. Pinch off
pieces of dough, roll into a ball, roll in melted butter
and arrange in angel food pan. Let rise. Bake at 400°
for 30-45 minutes.
To serve, invert the angel food pan onto a platter. The
rolls can easily be broken off.
Creamed Onions:
Peel the onions. Cook in about 3/4 cup water until tender. Make white sauce. Melt butter in saucepan over medium low heat then stir in flour; gradually add cream and sherry, stirring constantly until thickened and bubbly. Cover with bread crumbs, if desired.
Betty’s Cranberry Mold:
1 large raspberry or cherry Jello
Make Jello according to directions - add 3/4 cup sugar.
When Jello is half set, mix in:
2 cups cranberries - raw and chopped
1 small orange
1 apple, chopped
Fill into oiled mold, refrigerate.
Suzie’s Caramelized Walnut and Pear Salad
(4 servings)
6 cups mixed baby greens/Romaine mix
1 cup Caramelized Walnuts (recipe below)
1 cup crumbled bleu cheese
2 pears, cut in 1/4-inch dice
1 cup thin strips of red bell pepper
1/2 cup Raspberry Vinaigrette
Pear slices and julienne red peppers, to garnish
In a large bowl, toss together the greens, walnuts, bleu cheese, pears
and red pepper in the Champagne Vinaigrette. Place mixture in a salad
bowl, then garnish with red peppers and slices of pear
Caramelized Walnuts
1/2 pound walnuts, about 1 3/4 cups
1 egg white
1/3 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 350º. Mix walnuts, egg white and sugar together in a
medium bowl. Place on sheet pan and bake at 350º degrees for 15 to 20
minutes. Let cool, then break into pieces if necessary.
Nana’s Pumpkin Chiffon Pie:
10” pie shell (see ingredients below)
¾ c milk
2 ¼ c canned pumpkin
1 ½ c brown sugar
1/8 t salt
¾ t ginger
¾ t cinnamon
1/3 t nutmeg
5 eggs
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/3 c cold water
1 ½ cups cream
¾ t orange rind
1/3 c sugar
CRUST (per crust):
1 ½ c graham cracker crumbs
¼ c sugar
½ c melted butter
1/3 t cinammon
Combine ingredients and bake for 5 minutes at 350 degrees.
Heat milk, pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices together over medium to low heat. Dissolve gelatin in cold water. Separate egg yolks from egg whites. Beat egg yolks and add to heated mixture, which is still over low heat. Heat until thickened. Remove mixture from heat and add softened gelatin. Cool mixture until further thickened. Whip cream and slowly add orange rind to cream. Chill.
While both mixtures chill separately beat egg whites and slowly add sugar until peaks form. Remove both pumpkin mixture and whipped cream from fridge and gently fold all three mixtures (pumpkin, whipped cream and egg white) together. Pour into baked pie crust(s) and chill.
Omi’s Raspberry Cheesecake:
Crush or grind fine, or crumb in a food processor until very fine:
1 1/2 cups crumbs of graham crackers
Stir into the crumbs until well blended:
1/4 to 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter
(1 teaspoon cinnamon)
Pat the amount called for in the recipe into the pan. Bake 5 minutes at 350 degress.
Chill the crust.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Mix well, then pour into the crust:
2 well-beaten eggs
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
Bake about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Dust the top with:
Cinnamon
Let cool to room temperature.
Top with:
Raspberry Sauce:
2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Remove from heat. Stir in lemon juice and set aside to cool. Pour, still luke warm, over cheese cake.
The first thing we noticed as we entered the store all atwitter (are you sensing the sarcasm?) was a plethora of holiday decorations. Way, way too many holiday decorations, especially for what is essentially a hardware store (OK, fine -- a home improvement store), and especially for November. I guess I should just be grateful that they waited until after Halloween, huh? But still. 
And almost all the holiday stuff was kitsch. Like really, really disgustingly kitsch!
The actual reason we went to Home Depot was to pick out lighting for the front yard. As is typical for Tom at his favorite store, he spent what seemed like forever pondering, deliberating and considering his choices.
He finally selected this stuff.
This sink is really cool as a display, but I'm sorry -- I couldn't use it for real! I'd constantly be moving my feet back so they don't get splashed! And cleaning this thing? No thanks!
I've been wanting to install a cat door forever (poor kitties depend us on for ins and outs), but it was someone's graffiti that cracked me up here! They wrote "What is it, Lassie? What is it, girl?" I wanted to take the Sharpie out of my purse and add, "What?! What's that? Timmy's stuck in the well?"
And then there was the "kegerator"! This gizmo is just bizarre. It looks like a fridge with a tap on it -- and, well -- that's exactly what it is. You just put the keg in the fridge, hook it up and voila! Hmmmmm... with all four kids in college next year... oh, never mind! (And just kidding!)
I wanted to buy some plants for the yard but, being mid-November, this is what the nursery looked like. Isn't this just SAD?
I've decided that tools are named by (and for) insecure men. 
And this is for Pioneer Woman because I adore her!
I have some huge decisions to make in the next few days. Opinions, input and feedback are welcome!
I've been offered a position as Project Manager with a small company that does content lifecycle management. This means that they develop things like marketing communications, product documentation and various other ways of delivering content to users (web sites, brochures, white papers, CDs, online help files, etc.). The content they work with is NOT focused on kids, families, education, or health (my specialty areas), but there's a chance that it might (big might) be in the future.
I talked to the CEO of the company for just under an hour two days ago (that was the day I was asked whether I qualify for the senior discount) and left without ever being introduced to the staff or having a tour of the tiny, bunch-of-tables-in-one-room office (which probably would have been "look left and look right -- that's our office"). I was not asked to supply any references.
Today the CEO called me and offered me the position.
Because the team on which I work and a "cultural fit" within the team and the office environment are so important to me, I requested that I come back to meet the staff. The CEO offered to set up phone calls with staff members, but I specified that I'd rather meet them face-to-face to talk casually with each of them about their work and about working at this company. It seems to me that this meeting would be well worth everyone's time. He'll apparently get back to me on that.
I also suggested the possibility of a freelance arrangement to begin our relationship, telling him very honestly that I have been seriously considering "hanging my own shingle" in the field of educational content development and consulting, and that if I do go the employee route it has to be the right job and a real "fit," not only for me but presumably for the company as well. And I blatantly told him that I won't know how I feel about the position until I know more -- until I've met the staff, know some of the projects, and until I'm sure that I could be satisfied working with content that is, for the most part, highly technical and has nothing to do with kids, education or health.
It's only fair and right, I think, that we both be happy. Right??
That said, this could well be a dream job. I just don't know right now. I feel kinda like the Indian girl whose parents tell her, upon arranging her marriage, "Be patient; you might come to love him over time." This isn't the position I've had in mind (that'd be Leapfrog --no-go on the EP position there, by the way... sigh -- or Dreambox Learning or Simply Fun), but it does sound like it has other things I'm looking for -- close and cohesive client relationships and the opportunity for growth (though I do want to know why the Director of Product Development is leaving).
And THAT said, some really great freelance opportunities are coming down the pike. I'll be writing an ongoing guest column for a company that provides financial aid information for college-bound students and I've had some very interesting conversations about possible writing, design, and educational consulting gigs with other companies and local and national organizations. But none of those, even combined, would bring in the regular income that this job offer that's on the table could bring me. And really, shouldn't my priority now be getting these kids through college?
Help me, Mr. Wizard! (<-- That's as religious as I get, though at times like this I wish I could just let go and trust that some higher force will guide me in the right direction!)
Jennifer McNary was the most popular girl in my 5th grade class.
I admired her. I adored her. I wanted to BE her.
Jennifer was just shy enough -- not painfully introverted nor obnoxiously extroverted. I closely observed -- and often tried to emulate -- Jennifer's way of demurely tilting her head ever-so-slightly to the left and smiling sweetly, looking sincerely and directly at you as she caressed the bottom button of her perfectly white cardigan sweater. That's how Jennifer interacted with everyone. And everyone with whom Jennifer interacted loved her. She was, to this slightly awkward freckled, red-headed teeny-bopper, perfection.
I admired her. I adored her. I wanted to BE her.
Ree, of Confessions of a Poineer Woman is the Jennifer McNary of the blogging world. Her blog is amazing -- addictive, informative, hilarious, and just downright fun. She can write about anything or nothing, and either way, it's perfection.
I admire her. I adore her. I want to BE her.
No wait -- I don't want to BE her!
As much as I love reading about her life on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere, as much as I LOVE reading her ongoing missive (called Black Heels to Tractor Wheels) about how she met and married her studly hubbly, "Marlboro Man," as much as I adore her photography and Photoshop lessons, and as much as I'm in awe over her Food Channel-quality posts on how to cook a huge variety of delicious recipes, I don't actually want to BE her.
I'm OK (now that I'm 50 and no longer in 5th grade) with simply admiring Pioneer Woman from afar. I'm really OK with that. I'm a big girl now, I'm my own person, and I know that my blog is special in its own way. And really, if Pioneer Woman jumped off a bridge, I'd... I'd...
I'll bet there ARE no bridges on her ranch.
The mystery is over.
After a morning of pokes, pricks, prods and shots, along with various gagging, hacking and snorting tests at the doctor's office, the verdict is officially IN:
I am allergic to my life.
OK, that's a bit over-dramatic and not completely true.
I'm not allergic to my entire life, only to some of the things -- and creatures -- in it that bring me the greatest comfort and happiness. (How's that for drama?)
Here's a short list of stuff I'm allergic to:
When she comes into your store professionally dressed in a cornflower blue suede blazer, classic white silk blouse and black dress pants, with clean, professionally styled and colored hair and with just a tad of appropriately applied make-up, ask her whether she qualifies for a senior citizen discount.
When she's temporarily dumbfounded and then says, "Excuse me?" hoping she heard you wrong, increase the decimal level of your inquiry so that everyone waiting in line behind her hears you this time:
"Ma'am, do you qualify for our senior citizen discount?"
If she begins to tear up, apologize profusely, saying that the light (or your eye sight, or your headache or your glasses) must be really bad today, then hand her a tissue. If she passes out from shock, call 911.
Hey guys, remember this? Way back last February, when you were oh so much much younger than you are now, I nicely requested that you go easy with the towels -- meaning that you don't use a new one for each and every shower, dumping it on the floor of your room while it's wet, until there's eventually a pile of wet, mildewed towels in your room and none left in the linen cabinet.
Remember that?
Obviously NOT, because this is what I gathered from your rooms this morning:
(And Elisabeth, lest you think you're exempt because you don't officially live here... how wrong you are! You're among the worst offenders, insisting that it's "gross" to dry your clean body with a dry, clean towel that's been set aside for you only!)
Ya know what, guys? You're awesome regarding the BIG things that matter, like working hard at school and being good friends and living your lives with maturity and responsibility. Really, in those areas I have no complaints. You truly ROCK and I am well aware how lucky we all are to get along so well, to laugh together so often, and to be able to be so open and honest with each other about things that many families can't even begin to talk about. And I love the fact that tonight, for example, all eight of us (Peter and Elisabeth with SOs) will be together for an impromptu pot roast dinner.
But please! Please, please, please guys -- make some concerted effort to conserve towels (and thus gas and electricity, not to mention my time and energy) so we don't have this once a week:
(That's a photo of 26 -- count 'em, TWENTY-frikkin-SIX washed, dried and folded towels!)
And since begging and pleading obviously hasn't worked, Mom has decided to institute a new RULE (yeah, I know -- you thought my only two rules were never drink and drive and if you're gonna have sex, have responsible sex):
From now on, no towels are to be taken from the bathroom. You can bring clothes or a robe into the bathroom with you, or you can run back to your room stark naked for all I care, but from now on NO towels are to leave any bathroom! EVER!
(And should you assume that there will be an endless supply of towels in the linen closet from now on, as there has been until now, how very wrong you are!)
I don't care if you're all over 18. If you break my new rule I will... um, I will GROUND YOU! (I'm still your mom, even if you're adults, so I reserve the right to discipline as I see appropriate.) And if your friends ask why you're grounded, you won't be telling them anything about a curfew or lying to your parents or about some dire run-in with the cops.
Oh no. Instead you'll hang your head in shame and tell your friends that your mama grounded you because you didn't respect her rule about the towels!
And really, is that a shame that you're ready and willing to face?
There's a space between awake and asleep where thoughts dance lightly in my head, tingling and teasing like pixie dust and then blowing away into nothingness. Sometimes I'm able to force awareness just long enough to grasp onto an elusive thought before it disappears, but most of the time I'm left only with a sensation and, if I'm lucky, an accompanying emotion.
This morning, as I drifted in and out of sleep, I dreamed of holding my breath so as not to scatter the pixie dust. And maybe because it was morning and I was closer to consciousness anyway, I was able to not only be present in my dream, but to remember it.
I was at Codonices Park in Berkeley, a park I loved as a child. I was five. And I was 45. I was both five and 45 in my dream. At the same time. I know this because I was aware of both my physical presence and my deepest emotions being both very childlike and very womanly.
Codonices Park has an amazing concrete slide that's built into the hillside. It's been there for at least 60 years, perhaps longer, and I can promise you that just about every child who has grown up in Berkeley for the past six decades knows what it means to tear a flap off a cardboard box, lay it flat at the top of the cold, gray slide, hold onto it with one hand while positioning themselves on it for maximum speed, and then pushing off for the long curvy ride to the bottom. And I'll bet that every child knows the tunnel that runs under Euclid Street from Codonices Park to the Berkeley Rose Garden on the other side of the street.
These were places I played as a child, and in my almost-asleep-almost-awake morning dream, these were places I played as an almost-adult-almost-child. I was phenomenally happy in my dream, as children so often are, feeling playful and carefree, feeling love and loved, and being completely in the moment. In my dream, I flew down the slide, becoming airborne, and floating as if my ripped cardboard had become a magic carpet. In my dream I discovered jewels that lined the walls of the tunnel, jewels that were warm to the touch, so I held my child-and-woman skin against them, feeling magic -- and magical -- as they warmed me. And in my dream the Rose Garden bloomed every color of the rainbow and the flowers that grew tall all around me felt like a velvet blanket enveloping me.
But in my dream I had the district feeling, as adults so often do, of impending and crushing reality and of very grown-up responsibilities. In my dream, the responsible adult in me was imploring the carefree child in me to "wake up," and the carefree child in me was begging to the responsible adult in me to just let me play for "a few more minutes" before I had to go. Please don't make me step off the magic carpet and let go of the warm, magic jewels and take leave of the garden of a million colors! Please don't make me leave this magic place where I feel so loved and safe. Don't make me wake up!
But I did wake up, jolted out of my blissful dream by the grown-up life that I live. If I'm very still next time and I beckon the pixie dust back some morning, maybe I can go back to my child-woman self and stay and play for a while.
Claire at Cheeseburgers and Sauerkraut tagged me to participate in the "Seven Random or Weird Things About Me" meme. Since I can't think of a single weird or random thing about me (pffffft!), and since my family and my brother, Michael (who paid us a surprise visit from the Bay Area this weekend) were chillin' as I was pondering how to complete this exercise, I asked them to make a few suggestions. Here's what they came up with:
1.) I apparently flap my hands when I'm excited or exuberant about something. (Danelle)
2.) I apparently give my kids' friends relationship advice. (Kat)
3.) I apparently love having my hair gently pulled and my forearms scratched. (Tom)
4.) I apparently get drunk off beer vapors or just from looking at a photo of alcohol... in other words, I'm a lightweight. (Peter)
5.) I apparently ate gum off the street when I was a little kid. (Michael. See? He's always teeeeasing me!)
6.) "You're just weird, Mom!" (Aleks)
7.) I've apparently taken over 15,000 photos in a year -- over half of them of CATS! (Peter)
Gee -- not the stuff I would have mentioned, but whateveR! :-)
Aleks and Kat officially become ADULTS today! My babies are 18 whole years old! They are adults, fergoodnessake! When on earth did this happen?! How did time past so incredibly quickly? I swear, it was just yesterday that...
Seventeen weeks and a few days into my third pregnancy, I brought 5-year-old Erin (as Elisabeth was known then -- her actual first name) and two-year-old Peter to my neighbor's house and headed to my obstetrician's office where Tom would meet me and we'd see the images of our child on the ultrasound screen. The doctor felt that I was a bit large for 17-weeks and wanted to do an ultrasound just to be sure that there was only one baby in my belly. Because I had been large with both of my other children, I had no reason to believe that I was carrying more than one baby, but I was always thrilled to see the images of our moving, "breathing" child inside me so I was more than happy to oblige.
The doctor moved the wand back and forth slowly over my belly. "Well, " he said, "this is indeed interesting!"
"What is?" I inquired.
"This septum here."
"A septum?" I'd never heard of a septum in regards to pregnancy before. "What's a septum?"
The doctor smiled. "The septum in your nose separates your nostrils," he said. "And this septum actually separates your twins!"
I'm pretty sure I tried to speak at that point, but could not. In fact, that's when things went all white and starry. I heard Tom's voice, as if he were on the other side of a long tunnel. "Twins?" he asked. "Are you serious?"
"Oh, quite! Look for yourself!" And there they were: two tiny and very distinct babies, floating peacefully on the screen. No... floating peacefully inside me!
I was pregnant with TWINS! This was no Game of Life; this was REAL! We were going to have twins! The timing couldn't have been better, actually. I was no longer working, we already had the mini-van and the house with the bonus room. Our lives were already completely child-focused. The only adjustment we'd have to make was taking care of two more babies instead of one.
That proved to be much more work that we'd anticipated!
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
At about 28 weeks into the pregnancy, I was put on modified bed rest. That meant mostly lying down, mostly not moving around a lot, mostly not cleaning or cooking or climbing up and down the steps a hundred times a day. And I knew I'd be mostly kidding myself if I thought there was any way I could curb my activity. I was, after all, a mother of two active young children.
Thank goodness for my mother, who flew to San Diego (where we lived) to stay with us until the babies were born. We anticipated a premature birth, but tried to hold on until about 36 or 37 weeks. Once I reached 37 weeks, we were thrilled, knowing that the babies were now big and strong enough to be born. Bring it on!
But nothing happened. I did laundry. I cooked. I climbed steps. And I reached 38 weeks. No babies. I walked (very slowly and wobbly) around the block, I did more vigorous housework. No babies. I reached 39 weeks. Reaching thirty-nine weeks with twins is very rare, and I knew that the babies were benefiting from staying in utero for so long. But I was miserable, and absolutely HUGE.
Finally, just days before I hit 40 weeks -- full-term for a singleton pregnancy, but unusually long for a twin pregnancy -- I began to have some contractions. They were barely perceptible, but they were there. We called the doctor and he told us to head to the hospital. Of course, now I realize that there was probably no need for us to head to the hospital so soon -- and actually, had we waited, I would have probably needed less intervention, but a twin pregnancy and birth are high-risk situations and doctors tend to want to manage them instead of monitor and observe them.
Once we got to the hospital, I was immediately hooked-up (IV, blood pressure, etc.) and put to bed. (Of course, I should have walked the halls to stimulate labor and help the babies settle into my pelvis, but did I mention that this was a high-risk situation that needed close management?!) Not long after I was in bed and lying flat, sounds began to seem muffled and the room became very far away, and I realized that was just about to...
I woke up to a flurry of activity around me. Oxygen, bed adjustment, and being moved quickly to my left side. It turns out that the weight of my belly had crushed my vena ceva and caused me to pass out. There was no way I'd be getting up to walk now!
At about this time, a nurse came into the room and announced that huge things were happening in Berlin -- that Germans had pretty much taken over the wall, with no strong military intervention! Could it be that the border between East and West Germany would be opened? The doctors and nurses could be seen watching the breaking news on the TV in the break room, and there was great excitement brewing, but at that point I was focused on one thing and one thing only -- birthing my twins.
I labored for a few hours in increasing discomfort, but wasn't making much progress at all. There was some concern that my uterus had been so stretched out that it couldn't work efficiently, and before long a C-section was recommended. Again, had I known then what I know now, I might have asked to walk a bit first, but at that point I was happy to do whatever it took to birth these babies, and the sooner the better!
I will never forget the party atmosphere that followed. The sheer number of people -- various nurses for each baby, attending physicians, etc. -- contributed to the party atmosphere. The babies were doing well and not in any distress, so the birth was going quite well so far, in spite of my uncooperative uterus. But it was the news from Germany that really dominated the mood in the room. The wall was coming down! And more significantly, for us at least, the wall was coming down in the land of my children's Opa!
My dad grew up in Chemnitz, Germany -- or, as it was known post-1945, Karl-Marx Stadt. He had not been able to go back home since a bomb had landed directly on his house just a few months before the end of the war, killing his father. And now the walls were coming down -- on the day of his grandchildren's birth! It was perfect!
Kat was born first, at 6:15 PM and weighed a healthy 7 pounds, 1 ounce. She had a head of thick black hair and she was adorable. Her legs were bowed, probably from being wrapped around her brother for months. Her cry was sweet and only lasted a few seconds before she settled down, opened her eyes, and looked around in quiet wonder.
Three minutes later Aleks (then spelled Alex, before he changed the spelling in 7th grade), weighing a whopping 7 pounds, 6 ounces, was born -- reluctantly, furiously, defiantly. 'Put me BACK!' his loud wail seemed to insist, and he held on to the doctor's clamps with such fervor that the doctor laughed as moved the clamps like the top stick of a marionette puppet, with Aleks dangling from them, wailing... seeming to chastise and challenge the poor doctor!
Ah, inborn temperament! What a wonderful thing!
And now... today, 18 years later, my babies are adults! And what amazingly wonderful grown-up people they are! They are best of friends to each other and they each have good friends of their own. They are independent and successful students who are working hard on their college applications (both focusing on UW, it seems). They are both funny, happy, and full of life, and I am so amazingly privileged to call myself their mother.
And a mother is always a mother, no matter HOW old her "babies" are! Right??
I have bitten my fingernails since I can remember. And there are photos of me from even before I have memories, gnawing away at my tiny little fingernails as if they were teething toys.
Sometimes people ask me why I bite my nails, as if they expect a well organized list of psychologically sound reasons (I'm insecure; I had a traumatic childhood; I'm orally fixated -- none of which I believe are actually true), but I really don't know why I bite my nails. I'm driven to it by forces that I just don't really understand except to say that, even when it hurts, it feels good. Or at least it feels purposeful, as if some odd resolution or goal has been reached.
I did stop biting my nails (well, nine of them anyway; I always allowed myself my thumb) twice in my life, once when I went to Germany in 1980 and once for my wedding, but it's one of the hardest things I've ever done, largely because I don't even realize when I'm biting and just being cognizant of it proved to be a lot of work! Like losing weight, it took awareness and consistent work, and (again, like losing weight) as much as I loved the result, I just went back to my bad habits over time anyway.
Some people believe that fingernail biting is a form of self-injury, just as cutting is. The fact that I sometimes chew until it hurts gives credence to this view. These people also believe that cutting presents an immediate release of tension and anxiety, and even though I might dispute this by saying that I simply chew when a ridge forms, they might have a point. I do tend to chew more when I'm anxious. During my recent trip to the Bay Area which was, since you must know (or rather, since I apparently must tell you) to interview for an Executive Producer job with Leapfrog toys (!), I not only bit my nails to the quick, but chewed the skin around them too. Why would I do that, if not to deal with nervous anxiety and tension?
On the other hand, some believe that nail biting is simply innate and instinctual self-grooming behavior, like claw-sharpening, readying one for fight and/or flight. I kind of like this stance because... well, because it doesn't make me look so psychologically impoverished and abnormal! But if this were the case, we'd all chew our nails -- and we wouldn't chew them until they hurt; we'd only chew them until they didn't get in the way.
What do you think? What's your worst habit? What drives you toward it? How do you deal with it?
My niece, Dawn (that's her in the picture, below), has been on a journey -- and what a journey -- in India during the past few months.
I received this e-mail from her this evening, accompanied by these beautiful photos that she took. I am just in awe of Dawn's adventurous spirit, her quest for self-knowledge, her maturity and her wonderful perspective. Can you imagine having the chance to do this at 23?
And her writing!! Oh, to be able to write like this:
Namaste (literally "I recognize the divine within you"),
I unmistakably find that the longer I am in India the more I can ultimately take in. Perhaps this is why I still find myself mesmerized in utter disbelief by the impenetrable realism that is so boldly India. As a general rule I think it is safe to say that our eyes open with our hearts. I am finding that I see and feel India today differently than I saw it my first week and it is increasingly obvious to me that I couldn't have picked a better place to spend these months.
Lets see…
My back hurts from sleeping on stiff, lumpy, S shaped beds. My feet hurt from walking on unstable ground. My head hurts from the constant cycling of ideas about the world and who I am and what it all means. My stomach hurts for reasons I wont even get into. My body is swollen from heat, samosas and chipati. My heart hurts because it has a huge, gaping crack in it where my ignorance used to live. My eyes burn from the desert dust, simmering plastic and diesel fumes. My lungs are struggling to bring in each breath, as the air here tops the world pollution charts. It is amazing how much pain can live inside a body that also houses so much happiness.
The flight to Jodhpur, Rajasthan, was a trip unto itself. Two hours late, like most other flights I have taken in India thus far, tiny, unstable and unpredictable. Survived the flight I may have, but as I took my first few steps on new earth I wondered to myself if I felt like starting India Experience #21,837. Not that anyone is counting. Each state, each city, each meal and each train, plane or bus is its own mini-adventure capsuled in this escapade of India, further crammed into this mega-adventure of life. Rajasthan is a whole new state. This newness sparks a mini-chain of combustion of more and more newness in my life. It means a whole new language, new food, new dress, new people, new turbans, new mustaches, new colors, new climate, new animals, new smells, new rules, new body language, new art and new customs. You name it, all around me there is new everything, again.
I have been in India six weeks. Six weeks is such a short amount of time that I cannot even think of anything that you can do (I mean truly accomplish from start to finish) in six weeks. I feel like I have lived a life, here in India in these last six weeks, longer than I could have imagined any life, even if I had all the time in the world to dream it up. Within these weeks each day, each minute, each breath, each second is a complete experience in itself. Communicating one word can mean a half hour jumbled debate spanning many languages, getting lunch can be an all day endeavor, and any random thought can take your mind wheeling one hundred miles an hour in some world where time is completely irrelevant and you don't know how long you have been off thinking when a truck two meters away honks, you jump, and all of the sudden you are pulled back to this reality. This reality of India.
All of this to say, the last few weeks have been utterly and simply indescribably incredible, exhausting and enthrallingly inspiring. Every leg of this journey has revealed to me new layers of myself and of the world. The last few weeks and Varanasi in particular was so unique in its offerings that I have skipped writing about it all together. For me, the craziness and complicity of life can fall into writing, and so can be made orderly and somehow understandable. But some things cannot be written and so cannot be explained, at least not in their entirety. As writing seems to give me the ability to make sense of the insensible, and Varanasi was not exactly comprehensible, not even to myself, there is no need to try to write about it. What it all means is not certain yet, and I find gratitude in the amazement that I can write anything without writing it all, seeing as I have skipped over a major chapter. But now, it is all history, it is in the past and I am in Rajasthan, in India, on planet earth, with my mother, my dreams and camels – lots and lots of camels.
Rajasthan, amid its vast and dull desert background, is alive with color. Amongst buildings painted sky blue, brilliant lavender and grandmother pink, heads of scarlet red, sunburst yellow, ocean blue, deep fire orange, flamingo pink and emerald green saris, turbans and headscarves bob effortlessly through a sea of crowded streets, bazaars and shops. It is festival season here in India, and in three days time it will be Diwali, the festival of lights and unarguably the largest and brightest festival of the year. It is a bustle of preparation and celebration. Shops are piled four-feet deep with brightly colored fabric covering every inch of floor, shopkeepers taking prime position perched atop. Fabrics are piled so high and so thick that they literally overflow out the front of the shops and onto the filthy streets of Jodhpur. Women sit perfectly positioned atop the heaps, thoroughly searching through sprawls of fine fabric embellished with gold, silver and stone. A baby on hip, their beautiful faces veiled in vain revealing only colorful glimpses of their mysterious splendor, they amaze me with their reverence and poise. It is a scene like nothing I have experienced and I have to admit that I have found myself, once or twice, overwhelmed by the heat, noise, trash and sheer thickness of bodies, motorbikes, grimy air and complete, undisturbed chaos.
Nothing in India comes easily for me. Here, nothing is natural, nothing is simple and nothing is boring. Everything in India, for that matter, everything in life, is multiple levels deep and contains many, many lessons, rewards, pleasures and difficulties. For India makes anything else look simple. If I have survived this, I can survive it all. This, of course, is far too great of an overstatement, seeing as I have not endured much suffering in my life and, in all honesty, know nothing about what real pain is or how it must feel to suffer in great length. Not to mention the small fact that one-sixth of the world's population live here in India and seem to do just fine. But, nevertheless, the mentality comes in useful when thinking of life back home and when thinking about aspects of my reality that seem so big and intimidating. Any and every small endeavor I may ever come across in my measly little life cannot be that big of a deal. India is and will hopefully be forever, my reminder that I cannot take my life and all my meager issues too seriously. I will have this place to look upon when I meet an obstacle. Remembering that life is truly a gift and knowing that mine is particularly easy, in all relativity. Perhaps, even, it is this ease of life that has sent me whirling around India looking for some challenges, stumbling upon obstacles and literally tripping over my own two feet and falling head first into this world of realities, where so much of humanity lives, suffers and flourishes.
My mother is here now and the wind that filled my sails has shifted directions. My journey has changed, but the wind is still blowing and my ship is still sailing. Pulling my sails in and tightening the main line I have changed with the wind. It is a great joy and gift to have her here and I am constantly surprised by her strength and savvy travel knowledge. I don't know how, but somewhere along the line I had forgotten that I learned all of this travel lingo from my great traveling parents. We are proving to be a pretty good team and the swimming pools and cocktails are a very welcome change from the cold showers and squat toilets.
I send all my love and sincerely hope that this message reaches everyone in happiness, health and well being.
Love to you,
Dawn
Also, because of some special requests I have attached as many pictures as I could to this email. Keep in mind that most of these are from Varanasi, and where I am now, the desert, is the ultimate contrast to that serene land. Here, anyhow, is just a sample, there are about four thousand more.
--
PS: Dawn actually darkened her hair before she went to India, because she is naturally a blond-blond! This is her before she traveled.
Mom and her babes were out for a peaceful morning stroll in the sunshine.
(These are relatively small deer, as opposed to the "beast" that Aleks encountered the other night!)
I'll be winging my way to the San Francisco Bay Area today for an impromptu (and hopefully rewarding) two-day trip.
I'll provide more details upon my return, but this being NaBloPoMo, you know I'll post something from my ol' stompin' grounds!
"I hate talking on the phone!"
-- Kat (definitely a member of the IM generation!)
Just as Tom, Kat and I were finishing dinner this evening, the phone rang. I picked up the receiver, ready to hand the phone to Tom, since his mother's call arrives like clockwork every Sunday evening. Instead of seeing her name on the Caller ID display, though, I saw Aleks' cell number and answered immediately.
"Mom"? Aleks' voice was shaking. "I just passed out."
"What?! Where are you? Are you OK?" The only thing worse than getting a call like this from your kid who you know is on the road is getting it from a stranger. Fortunately, I was talking to Aleks and he was talking to me, so I knew that, at least in terms of "worst scenario," things were OK.
"I'm OK, but I almost just killed a deer. And I almost just crashed the car. And I almost just killed myself. And I'm really shaky."
"OK, slow down, Aleks," I said slowly, trying to calm down my own beating heart. "In fact, are you driving right now?"
"Yeah," he admitted.
"As soon as it's safe, pull over," I suggested. (No -- I demanded.) "Then take a breath and tell me what happened."
At that point, it all came spilling out. Aleks can be dramatic when he has a good story to tell, but this evening no extra drama was necessary. It turns out that Aleks was delivering pizzas (his new job) on a steep, dark, forested road. As he drove down the hill, a deer suddenly appeared immediately in front of his car -- like a few short feet in front of it.
If you haven't seen a deer lately, there are two things you should know. First, they are HUGE. Certainly taller than a small Ford sedan and heavier than you might imagine from any holiday lawn decorations you've observed in your neighborhood. And second, when encountered on a road they are dangerous, whether they suddenly leap in front of your car (as is what happened to Tom 10 years ago; that totalled our car, but Tom was fortunately unhurt) or whether you just come upon them standing paralyzed in the roadway, the proverbial "deer in the headlights."
That's the deer that greeted Aleks this evening. Aleks attributes his quick reaction time to the two Red Bull he drank on the way to work (grrrr!). He swerved to avoid the deer, then he swerved to avoid a tree... and another... and who knows what else. Who knows, indeed -- because as soon as the car came to a stop, he hyperventilated and passed out! When he came to (most likely almost immediately), the deer was gone. That was good news for the deer.
Aleks was OK. That was good news for Aleks and well... for US!
And the car hadn't crashed. That was good news for our already sky-high insurance rates.
Aleks decided to drive on (ever the diligent employee!), and to call us. After telling him to pull over, I suggested that he call his boss and tell her what happened and let her know he'd be a few minutes. She was, of course, understanding.
Tom and I immediately drove to Aleks, where he was still sitting in the car, calm enough now to tell us the whole story -- this time with his characteristic humor and story-telling flare. Apparently Aleks and the deer had a reckoning in the split second that their eyes met and both lives were spared. Aleks is sure that his story is better than the deer's -- though I certainly feel for Mrs. Deer.
Encountering a 17-year-old pizza delivery guy in the middle of your road in your forest when you're minding your own business late at night has to have been pretty dang unnerving for the little -- er, I mean enormous -- fella!
As I attempted to open Picasa last night to add a photo to my slideshow, I got an error message that I'd never seen in the year and a half that I've owned this laptop. It warned me that I am just about to run out of disk space.
Excuuuuse me?
Way back in the early 80's, I produced educational films and filmstrips (you're laughing, aren't you?!) for a now-defunct off-shoot of the Walt Disney Company called Walt Disney Educational Media Company (WDEMCO). My first project was a filmstrip called The Research Paper Caper (that's when I fell in love with producing) and after that I managed the production of a multimedia kit called Cheeseburger, This is Your Life (about food origins and nutrition; we were -- pffft! -- ahead of our time) which, as a multi-media kit, consisted of a filmstrip, a comic book, a poster, and audio tapes. (You're still laughing, aren't you?!)
In late 1983, we were told that WDEMCO would be experimenting with a new type of media called Personal Computer Software, and five of us were tasked with making the first educational computer games for kids. I freaked, of course, being the techno-phobe that I was. (Am?) But I jumped into my new role and loved it. I got to design the characters, stories, lessons, and look and feel, while artists and programmers did the rest. (Ah, those were the days!)
The powers that be at Disney in the early 80's had high hopes for this new business and looked forward to seeing our first games (which we produced with a teeny-tiny company called Sierra Online which was located in the teeny-tiny town of Oakhust, California, near Yosemite). We designed the programs for the Atari and Apple II computers, which had a whoppin' 48K memory, 8 colors, a few pixels per square inch, and which ran our software on a 2400 baud audio tape (later upgraded to a 5" floppy disk). I remember the VP telling us that the "art" was unacceptable, since Mickey's ears weren't as smooth and round as they were in "our movies." It took some time and significant adjustments for us all to understand the new media that we were working with -- both its opportunities and its limitations (and, as a company used to the beauty of movies consisting of individually hand-painted cels, there were both).
Disney did adjust, and our little 5-person team eventually became a new division called Disney Interactive.
And now I'm complaining because 60 GIG (how many gazillion times 48K is that?) isn't enough for me! (And hey, why does it show my capacity as only 50-ish? I guess 10-ish are "saved" for behind-the-scenes duties?) I can't even begin to put that into perspective, given what we worked with 23 years ago, except to say that, to salvage a tiny bit of disk space I deleted a CD labeling software program -- all 240 MB of it!
You know, there was a time when, if someone heard you say "I need more memory; I'm running out," they'd consider committing you to an institution! And a few short years from now, people will laugh at the whimpy 160 GIG external drive that will be permanently plugged into my laptop from now on because, well... "I needed more memory; I ran out."
Ambra, over at Quasi Italiana has bequeathed upon me the Nice Matters Award, saying " I hope it is not the hundredth one you've received..."
HA! Are you kidding? Me? I never win awards (or contests, or the lottery, for that matter)!
I am honored to accept this award and to pass the love on to some other really nice (and inspirational, positive, interesting, friendly) blogging friends. My nominees for the next "Nice Matters Award" are:
Michelle at smoochdog.com, who has been really helpful to me with some job search issues lately. Thanks Michelle!
Dixie at Dixie Peach, who is the nicest wife and friend anyone could hope for! People in her life are lucky to have her around.
Jen at A2EatWrite, who is my most faithful commenter, always so nice and supportive -- and who is also a wonderful writer.
Ree at Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, who is so wildly popular-bordering-on-famous that she'll probably never know I even nominated her, but I absolutely LOVE her blog, filled with Photoshop tips and great recipes (how nice is that?!), and I am completely addicted to reading about life on her ranch!
Holly at Nothing But Bonfires who cracks me up constantly with her (incredibly well-written) stories. When I see that she's posted, I'm so ON it. Need my Bonfire fix! Holly's one of those people who you know would just be a blast to hang out with.
So thanks again, Ambra. You made my day! And to those I've tagged (and, heck, to anyone else who wants to play... since I'm apparently so nice), go spread the love!
I've had it with this one-way job search stuff.
Every morning, my in-box is filled with open positions that I'd apparently be perfect for, based on the search agent parameters that I supplied to various companies like Monster, Career Builder, Jobster and the like -- keywords like "program (project, product) manager," "content development," "educational media," "learning," and "producer." Sounds like me, doesn't it? And you'd think that those search terms would glean something remotely similar to what I do.
But noooo.
Here's a typical piece of gobbledygook that came to me this morning as a job that "just might be a perfect fit": "Manage release activities for intranet and extranet reporting (CAP data warehouses, data cubes, SQL Reporting Services, Scorecard & ProClarity Reports)."
Excuuuuse me?! D efinitely NOT me. That's as me as a "corporate banker, closet programmer, and sometimes mechanic!" And yet, my keywords somehow called up that job -- and a gazillion more like it.
So I wade through those (carefully, because there just might be a gem hidden in there) and then I spend a while doing my own search on sites that I've determined are right up my alley. Sites like Association of Educational Publishers and Pearson Education and VTech and Leapfrog, to name just a few. Sometimes there's something there and sometimes there's not. Truth be told, this method has gleaned far more solid leads and networking opportunities than joining those job sites ever did.
So here's my idea: I think there should be a job seeking site that works a lot like Match.com. Kind of a "we-might-be-perfect-for-each-other-if-only-we-knew-the-other-existed" approach. It seems to me that what I see more often is the "I'll-throw-out-a-line-and-see-who-bites" approach -- from both employers and job seekers!
I think that, in addition to a resume ("the "I am" in match.com-ese), job seekers should also create a job description of their perfect job (the "you-are" in match.com-ese). And I think employers should do the same -- devise a CV of sorts of the company and the job, to present with the job description. And I think that there should be some site that really makes finding each other a collaborative, reciprocal process. I guess LinkedIn comes close, but it lacks the applicant's perfect job description piece.
So, as I often do when I see a glaring opportunity, I'm taking it and running with it! Here's a job description of the perfect job for me at a hypothetical company I'm calling Sandcastle Learning. If you know of this particular job, let me know immediately!
Our Company/Organization:
Have you ever seen a bored, uninterested child learn? (Have you noticed that good job descriptions usually begin with a question?) Neither have we. At Sandcastle Learning (TM), our goal is to create engaging learning products that encourage kids to discover, explore and make connections -- essentially to learn while playing.
Executive Producer:
Position Summary:
We're looking for a creative executive producer of interactive media products for youth. You should be an accomplished product manager, an experienced designer and developer, and a dedicated educator with extensive experience managing people, processes and products.
You are a dedicated leader and educator, an innate bridge-builder, an entrepreneurial thinker, and an excellent communicator and collaborator.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
You will be in charge of sheparding engaging learning products from initial concept through final production, including creative concept design and development, management and mentoring of all team members, and coordination of graphics, technical, web, and other departments in the development of your products. You will create and manage simultaneous budgets of several hundred thousand to several million dollars, and will develop, enforce and adhere to strict timelines.
15+ years experience in the following areas:
So what's Nablopomo called for those of us who already post daily?! (I've posted 574 posts in 481 days! Yikes -- I had no idea I was quite that addicted!)
Mo-NaBloPoMo?
I'd be silly not to join, huh? OK, OK, I'm joining NOW!
And I'll just keep on postin' on, as I have been all along, an average of a post or so a day. Difference being that I'll be officially registered to do so! (But can't I still post here and not have to duplicate there?)
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