So, you're now reading the blog of an elected official!

(Whaddya mean, "whose"?  Why I oughtta...)

And... that and $2 will get you a medium coffee. But yes! I did win a seat on my local School Committee, and am now getting into the work of being on the local School Committee, about which, as promised, I will not write in specific terms here.

Campaigning, though. That was something.  Longtime readers, you know me; you know that ordinarily, I am a bit of a loner, with a self-deprecating sense of humor and quiet, non-confrontational hobbies.  I'm just not used to talking so damn much, not to mention being interviewed and photographed and quoted and being in the newspaper and on television (just local cable, but still). For a few weeks, among the other candidates' signs, there were white-on-purple signs with my name on them all over town. People gave up their Saturday mornings to hold these signs and wave to voters. Amazing.

I spoke to everyone: Town Republicans, Town Democrats, the local fish and game club (at which "where's the rest of this moose?" went over like a lead balloon... sigh), gatherings of retirees, gatherings of parents, gatherings of first graders, gatherings of puppies. Everyone. I walked around town knocking on people's doors to talk to them. I talked in coffee shops and grocery stores, playgrounds and parking lots. Wherever a registered voter, or anyone, really, would listen to me, I talked.  More importantly, wherever anyone would talk to me, I listened. 

I got very tired sometimes, and quite sick of my own voice, and my mouth felt dry a lot. I'm sort of a worrier about health-related things; Mr. Sandyshoes and I joke about that, because it is silly. One night during all this madness I said to him, "what kind of cancer does it mean you have if your mouth is dry all the time?" and he said, basically, "the kind that comes from talking constantly for weeks on end. Now shut up."

If only.

I became necessarily, utterly, reluctantly self-absorbed. At some point during the campaign I was pulling into the grocery store parking lot, and a white-on purple sign caught my eye, and for a split second I thought, "COOL! Who got one of my signs in such an awesome location?!" Then I read the sign, which said "Please return shopping carts here," and I thought, now I have lost my mind.

It became important to get out of town for a couple hours every few days just to clear my head.

At one point Mr. Sandyshoes and the girls decided to take me out to dinner to give me a break from campaigning and talking about the election. We went to a local restaurant and were seated in a booth near the door... and proceeded to campaign and talk about the election with a steady stream of well-wishers who paused to say hello on their way out.  It was really lovely. But it was not a break.

How do you feel, people would say -- how do you think it's going? And I felt good, I really did. I was a bit concerned about being in an echo chamber of sorts; the people I spoke to almost always responded positively, but surely somewhere people were responding just as positively to a candidate with a different message, and I had no idea how many. Voters really did seem to want a change on our school board, though, and that's what panned out.

It's now time to get to the real work ahead, which feels just fine to me... and also to get back to writing here, which feels pretty good as well.  Thanks for waiting out the hiatus! 

Right: I am back.

Everything feels better (and thanks for asking, everyone).  Normal is so sweet.

Even when healthy, I get a lot of medical attention in January/February. Annual physical, semi-annual dentist visit, annual eye exam, annual mammogram (DO THIS, LADIES), annual everything seems to fall within the first weeks of the year. Being sick added four (4) more visits to doctors' offices.

I have shelled out a whole lot of copayments lately. It is getting old fast.

The newest medical professional to join my contact list is an otolaryngologist (spell check suggests "paleontologist." Spell check obviously didn't have the month I've had). After all other symptoms had finally subsided, my right ear remained stubbornly clogged. This made me dizzy, headachey, and even more cranky than usual.  The primary care doctor tried a few things and then sent me to the ear-nose-throat guy.

This fellow looked up my nose with a flashlight and didn't say "ew." He looked in my ears, and said my right eardrum looked "dull."  Dull!  And here I thought dermatology was probably the least interesting of the medical specialties.  Evidently a not-shiny eardrum is evidence of fluid behind it and why not check my hearing, just in case. 

Turns out I can hear grass grow.  "You have ears like a teenager," said my new favorite specialist.  None of my other parts fit that description any more, so I'll take the compliments where I can.

Hey.  I heard that.

ailing again

Folks, some damn virus is kicking my ass. Again with the sore throat, and now here comes the congestion. I got two discontinuous hours of sleep Saturday night. Last night, four in a row. Progress, I suppose.

I haven't spoken a word aloud since Saturday morning. Throat hurts so much I cringe to think about using it to talk. I'd almost rather drool than swallow, even.

I've been subsisting on apple sauce, chicken soup, and tea. After this is over I will not be drinking green tea for a while. Antioxidants or no, it just doesn't taste that good.

Here's hoping the girls miss out on this one.

ailing

Predictably, I have come down with some version of the illness that the girls had during their school vacation.

I know there are a lot worse things to be suffering from than a sore throat, but damn. I have the worst sore throat I can ever remember. It feels like someone's been at it with a cheese grater.

Drinking hot tea, sucking ice chips or throat drops, gargling salt water - none of it is much relief. Ibuprofen is some help, I guess, because when it wears off during the night I wake up crying. Boo-hoo, me.

More bad news: Swallowing is exceedingly painful, and I'm hungry, goddammit.

Been to the doctor, got antibiotics, so I'm hoping this starts to feel better fast. In the meantime I am canceling appointments, skipping meetings, and communicating via notepad and pencil. It is funny how people whisper or pantomime back to me, even though there's no reason for them to.

On the up side, I feel caught up on sleep.

And -- scene.

Phew.

Christmas is finally over. It was eventually lovely, and we have some cool new toys to play with. My brother came to visit and that is always a good time. The now-annual Christmas meatloaf (I know, but it's kind of a fancy meatloaf, with sun-dried tomatoes, basil, and provolone cheese, and everyone loves it) was delicious. My cheesecake crust was too thick but nobody complained except me.

May I take a moment for shameless bragging about my daughters? They waited an extra week for our Christmas this year, and even then they didn't wake us up early, and even then they waited patiently to begin opening presents until midday when my parents joined us. They are so good, and I am so appreciative and proud, and I hope they're really listening when I tell them how awesome they are.

I can't remember the last time I got to bed before 2:00 AM. In the two weeks since we got home from the West coast, we've had two major snowstorms and two feverish girls, leaving me two days to do all the gift and food shopping after Mr. Sandyshoes got home. Pre-holiday stress brought to you by the number two. Then we had one Christmas celebration, and, just as I thought I could sleep the sleep of the righteous: one 3:00 AM emergency room visit that same night. It was nothing too awful, and all is now well, just very bad timing for a simple thing to need checking out. This left us one day to recover, and tomorrow: back to school.

I will be busy with a ton of stuff. There are piles of laundry to do, books to shelve, wrapping paper to put away, boxes to flatten, outgrown clothes and toys to donate, papers to file. There are thank-yous to be written and phone calls to be made. There is the 2011 dump (does anyone call it the "transfer station," really?) sticker to be bought and the recycling to be brought there. The calendar is beginning to fill with appointments and meetings and the running "TO DO" list needs updating. I do love an updated TO DO list.

At some point I plan to make a big cup of tea, head down to Sandy Neck, breathe deeply, and watch the waves roll in. Have I mentioned it is good to be home?

Happy New Year, all.

re-entry

We've been back about a week, and it is great. We arrived in the height of last week's snowstorm (which nobody remembers, after this week's). You know how houses have smells, and you don't notice the smell of your own house unless you've been away? I was relieved to notice that ours smells mostly like... wood. In a nice way, I think. I guess. Anyway the girls went beserk, running around remembering stuff and hollering their discoveries at each other: "LOOK! The play house! The piano! The PINK TOILETS!" (Yes, we have pink toilets... the house was built in the 80s, and we've had more important improvements to make since we bought it in '00, but the pink toilets are SO on our list.) They were especially happy to get in their own little beds. They liked sharing a room out west, but neither of them says they will miss sharing a bed. Evidently the Bean steals the covers.

In the morning we went right to the service station to address the tire pressure warning light that, along with the icy roads, had me stressed out all the way home the day before. I'd put air in the tires, but it kept coming back on. I've been assured that the tires weren't dangerously low and that those warning lights are more trouble than help. It hasn't come on since, so I'm happy to forget all about it.

We next hit the post office to pick up our mail and notify them to resume delivery (incidentally, if you've got an ongoing home improvement project - and who doesn't? - ask the post office for a change of address packet. Inside is a coupon for 10% off at Lowe's, which can be a fair bit if the project is enormous, as ours tend to be. There, don't say Noted & Blogged never gave you anything), and -- what was this sentence about? Oh yes -- then stopped for lunch at The Bee-Hive Tavern. I can't make up my mind about that place. The food is always good, but sometimes I don't get a particularly friendly vibe there, especially if I have the girls along, which I both understand (lots of kids behave badly in restaurants) and resent (mine don't, and I'd appreciate the benefit of the doubt, at least at the front door).

On to the grocery store, which, of course, has been significantly reconfigured in our absence, and will take longer to get through till I've got the new pattern down. We were almost done when the Bean just completely crashed. Out of the blue she said "Mommy I feel terrible," and had a distinct fever. We left right away to get her to bed.

Rest and ibuprofen had her on the mend, but not well enough to go to school on the 23rd. The Peanut was raring to go, though. The last thing she'd done at her west coast school, on the day before winter break there, was wear pajamas to school and watch The Polar Express. She was ecstatic to learn that on the last day before winter break here, her class would be doing the same. Must be a nationwide 1st grade tradition. So she put on her PJs with cupcakes on them, and off we went.

After school she said she was glad to be with her old friends again, but that "it felt like I was famous, and I didn't really like that." I guess they made a huge fuss of her, because the Peanut seems like someone who would dig fame. Anyway that's much better than having her feel lost in the shuffle. She also reported, in detail, what everyone else had on their pajamas. Kids are really interested in other kids' pajamas. I'm sure her classmates went home and told their parents the Peanut has cupcake pajamas.

All in all, getting settled in has not gone as smoothly as I'd hoped. The snow, the girls being sick (the Peanut has since come down with what ailed the Bean), a couple days in a row of constant sibling bickering that had me fit to lose my ever-lovin' mind, unpacking, laundry, a newly broken dishwasher door, and trouble getting to sleep before 2:00 AM... I'm tired. Really tired. And there is still our postponed Christmas -- not my favorite holiday even under normal circumstances -- to prepare for.

The big picture, though, is all good. We are safe, sound, and content -- and tomorrow, we are leaving the house No Matter What. (Please melt, please melt, please melt.)


Oh! Before you go, because you were doubtless wondering, here is the cheesiness that was in my head yesterday:



Today's earworm is a distinct, a-u-t-omatic improvement I think. I love me some artist-formerly-known-as, and boy, did I play this album a lot in its day. This "video" is just the song playing to a still of the album cover, but you get the song anyhow.

Forgive me for saying so, and I know it's a small thing, but there's got to be a better way.

For the record, I'm well aware that in the great scheme of things, this is not a big deal; that there are more important things worth complaining about; and that I'm truly, profoundly grateful for my and my family's good health.  That said:

Is it just me, or does it seem like every time you go to a doctor's office these days, you have to fill out a new form with your name, address, social security number, birthdate, emergency contact, insurance information, etc. etc.?  I'm not talking about visiting a new doctor for the first time. I'm talking about practices where I've been a patient for years -- in one case, over a decade -- and every year when I go for my exam, they hand me a clipboard with a few pages of forms on it, and tell me to just have a seat and fill this out.

Yes, I know that medical information privacy policies change and that the office needs a current signature attesting that, look, they gave it to me, see? and if I don't know what it says, I have no one to blame but myself, right?  Right, fine. Give me the new signature sheet, and I'll sign it.

And yes, of course people's addresses, insurance providers, and names do change. I've moved and changed jobs a fair bit myself, and my name has changed three times. Still, these things do sometimes remain the same from one year to the next, no? The date of my birth, in particular, is immutable. I know this, because I'm having no luck muting it.

Oh, office managers, I know the potential for efficiency is there.  Consider the nifty little ink stamp you use to save us writing a mere two words when making out the check for our co-payment. So why can't we patients just review the forms your files already contain, and make changes if any are necessary?

Fellow patients, don't bother asking this question, no matter how friendly you are.  They can't have that.  Just take the clipboard, shut up, and start writing, bitch, because... well, because maybe they're "going to a new system"!  or maybe they don't know why it has to be that way but an innovative thought might kill them on the spot!  or maybe they're conducting a long-term handwriting analysis, which, by the way, YOU WOULD KNOW ABOUT if you'd read the privacy policy!  or maybe they just bloody well feel like having new forms, and in any case, anything they make you fill out is NOTHING compared to what THEY have to do, so JUST. TAKE. A. SEAT.

waiting it out

This morning, as I was up in the predawn taking even more ibuprofen for the abdominal and lower back pain I've been having a few days each month for thirty years now and which neither medical science nor any hoople-headed alternative seems able to alleviate, I mistook the actual sunrise for a reflection of the light over my stove.  Really.  It's been gloomy out for so long that I didn't recognize that bright yellow light I saw just over the horizon out my east-facing window.  It took me fully a minute to realize it was the sun.

No matter.  It had disappeared again within the half hour, and the girls and I walked to school in a chilly damp wind under the usual gray sky.

The weekend's looking to be gorgeous though, and could we ever use it.

Nut free - oh, we should be so lucky!

There are several kids in my girls' school who have severe allergies to peanuts.  Severe, as in life-threatening.  If one of these kids inhales dust from a peanut being shelled or eaten nearby, or contacts oils from someone's peanut butter and jelly sandwich, they can go into anaphylaxis, which can kill them. Kill them. Their parents are are not making this up. 

The school had restricted what foods were allowable in certain classrooms, and set up a "nut-free" table for these children to be able to eat their lunch safely in the cafeteria.  These compromise measures weren't enough.  Pistachio shells were found on the chairs of the nut free lunch table.  A substitute teacher munched on a bag of peanuts within feet of a child with a life-threatening allergy to their dust.  These and other violations, and some serious reactions experienced by children, led the school administration to declare this school to be Nut Free.  No peanuts or peanut products are allowed.  Not for snack, not for lunch, not in baked goods for sales or celebrations.  No more.  Not worth the risk.

When that news came out, I thought two things:  "oh phew," for my friends with severely allergic children, and "oh no," for my PB&J-loving Bean, who'd been eating no-salt-no-sugar peanut butter and fruit spread sandwiches almost every single school day of her life (note to parents who scorn PB&J for lunch as nutritionally equivalent to Sugar Pops for breakfast:  it isn't necessarily so).  I was hard pressed to come up with a healthy alternative (bologna?  um, no.)  So I posted a cry for help on Facebook, and within a half hour, had several viable alternatives.  We went with sunflower seed butter, which looks and spreads just like peanut butter.  The Bean was unconvinced.  She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, examined the jar, and agreed to try a tiny bite before she'd reject it outright.  And the verdict was: "Yup, that's fine."  Crisis averted, back to lunch packing as usual. Now her only problem is explaining to well-meaning adults in school that she isn't eating peanut butter in defiance of the new rule, but that it's really sunflower seed butter.

Wait a minute, you say?  Who would defy the new rule, when children's lives are at stake?

Well, according to an article in our local weekly paper, one such person is an actual member of our School Committee, who reportedly stated that if she were a parent of a child at our school, she would send in peanut butter anyway, and presumably wouldn't trouble herself over the risk it posed to any other children.  Unless the report has it wrong, what we have here is a School Committee member essentially giving the finger to both school administration and parents.  Yikes.  Many voting parents now trust she won't be running for re-election when her term's up.

Some parents (not the ones with allergic kids, mind you) have expressed concern that a nut ban won't help allergic children cope with living in the "real world," and that because the kids will someday have to get apartments, go to college, etc., banning nuts to help prevent their death from anaphylaxis in elementary school is doing them no favors.  Now, I'm sure that the parents of kids with allergies are truly touched by this heartwarming thought for their children's well-being.  However, fear not, concerned parents!  The children will be grownups when they get their own apartments!  What they need now is just a safe place to learn to read, so they'll understand the lease.  (And spare us the charade.  If you're pissed off because you can't send your own kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich, say so if you must, and own it.  Don't dress up your objections as some kind of concern for the allergic children.  Nobody's buying it.)

At a meeting to discuss the new policy, someone suggested that the allergic kids be made to eat their lunch in the nurse's office.  The idea would be merely misguided (the social implications are unacceptable), had it not been put forward by a person running for election to the School Committee.  Indeed.  This person made a point of saying that she understands allergies because she's been a respiratory therapist for a gazillion years, and then suggested that healthy children eat in the nurse's office.  Where, you know, sick kids go before they're sent home.  You'd think that might have occurred to her, being a respiratory therapist and all.

Another objection that gets thrown around a lot (and was voiced with the requisite sneer by the "let 'em eat alone" School Committee candidate) comes in the form of the "where does it stop?" meme.  Do we ban fragrances, these people say?  Flowers?  Tide laundry detergent, if anyone's allergic to that?  Again, common sense appears to be in short supply.  The peanut issue is life-threatening.  Nobody's suggesting we ban Tide because some kids get a rash from it.  Life-threatening.  It seems a pretty simple distinction.

I don't understand the hostility this issue has brought out in people.  I don't understand the "we shouldn't have to accommodate blah blah blah" mentality, that attitude of entitlement -- "it's not my problem so I shouldn't have to change a thing."  Why shouldn't we make accommodations -- isn't it the right thing to do?  Wouldn't you want the school community to come together to support you if it were your kid in this situation?  The lack of empathy is blowing me away.  It's been said that empathy should go both ways, and I admit I'm having kind of a problem with that.  I just don't see those of us whose kids aren't allergic to nuts as aggrieved parties.  We're lucky, is what we are, and we should help make school safe for everyone.

Will a nut ban make our school perfectly safe for kids allergic to nuts?  Of course not.  But it will go a long way to reducing incidents they've had there in recent months, and those have got to stop.  I support the majority of families in our community, who are taking this in stride and not squawking to reporters and talk radio blowhards about how wronged they feel they've been.  Peanuts endanger some kids' lives?  Then of course we won't send nuts to school.  It's a no-brainer -- and by the way, kids get that.  It's grownups who have a problem with it. 

At any rate, kudos to the school administration for sticking to their decision, and for assuring people that the nut ban is in effect for as long as there are severely allergic kids in the school.  Nobody seems to understand why, but it appears that severe food allergies are becoming more common.  The issue is not going away.  I do hope that as a community we can leave behind "why should I have to help with this?" and move toward "what can I do to help with this?".  That's the lesson I want my daughters to take from it.

Give me liberty, or... actually, just give me liberty. Please.

So, last week was school vacation.  For the last few days of the break, we had seven (7) overnight guests at the Sandyshoes house.  I don't have a huge house, so it was sort of an ambitious undertaking, but it went quite well.  The guests are lovely people and we were happy to have them stay with us.

As happens after hosting houseguests, I have extra sheets and towels to wash, in addition to the regular household laundry, which I do all on Mondays because I hate having it drawn out for the whole week. 

Sunday night, for the first time in -- 3 years?  4 years?  ever? -- the Peanut wet her bed.  So, more sheets need washing, plus PJs, a duvet cover, mattress pad, and a down comforter.   Not good fun, but not a big deal, until:  Monday morning, my washing machine was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the bearings.  

Monday afternoon, Mr. Sandy wished me luck and left for the west coast, to hobnob with his fellow oceanographers at an annual conference.

With nothing to lose, I kept running the washer until it truly blew its innards.  Laundry sorting became triage, as every load could have been its last.  I got a fair bit done until it well and truly quit, which it of course did mid-cycle, and refuses to pump out.  So I have a load of wet soapy sheets in there.  Not bad though, and we did get 10 years out of it, which I'm told is unusual these days, although why that should be I don't know.  Are new machines crap, or do people just abuse them?  Whatever.  We need a new one.  

As of Monday evening we appeared to be in good shape.  Most of the laundry was done, the rest could wait until we get a new machine after Mr. Sandy gets back. With a husband like him, I don't go hiring people to install things.  So, not a big deal, until:  This morning at 4:30 the Peanut wet her bed again.  Now I have mattress pad, sheets, PJs, duvet, comforter to wash again -- and no washer.  

I gave her a bath and put her to sleep in the Bean's bed, and the Bean in with me.  Going back to sleep I didn't feel right.  Stomach thing coming on?  I tried to chalk it up to being woken from a deep sleep, but you know how you can just tell... ugh.

Kids off to school on time this morning but I am feeling wretched, though trying to deny it.  A bowl of Cheerios later I know for sure I have a stomach thing.  Cancelled yoga, cancelled piano (oh I know, boo hoo).  Back to bed with an alarm set to meet the Peanut's bus midday.  For some reason I still thought that an hour's nap would make it all better; it didn't.  Feeling really weak, I drove up the street to pick her up, with a plastic bag on the passenger seat Just In Case.  Back home, immediately to the couch.  I heard the Peanut pulling a stool around the kitchen gathering ingredients for making her own PB&J for lunch ("Mommy I can spread but not cut... is it OK if it isn't in little squares?").  Then she put blankets over me, and popped The Lion King in the VCR.  We set an alarm to wake me to meet the Bean's bus.  I fell asleep sobbing for loving her so much and feeling so bad. 

I had some crazy-ass dreams of  floods and car accidents in the front yard, and someone riding a wheelchair into my living room and hollering that my game of Monopoly is actually hers, and who knows what else. 

Then we drove up the street again to get the Bean, because I still didn't think I could walk the 500 feet, or whatever it is.  Peanut said I seemed a little better to her, which is frankly not saying much, but it's better than nothing.  Somehow I manage to help the Bean "build a weather instrument" for her homework.  My stomach feels rotten and my head hurts.  Need to drink some water.

Later I hear a cry of dismay from the Peanut's room - for the first time since learning to use the toilet, she's wet her pants (and, naturally, the carpet).  So add more pee-soaked clothing to the growing pile.  But of greater concern, I now think there's something really amiss with her.  The on-call nurse says to give her a bath with a cup of white vinegar in it -- although she doesn't know why this would help -- and bring her in to the office in the morning. 

So that's our plan.  White vinegar in the bathwater, check.  Dirty laundry accumulating in a pile until I can think straight about how to deal with it, check.  Get the Peanut to the doctor to see what's up with her bladder.  Drink some water and get myself to bed again, and hope to feel better in the morning.  Somewhere in there I fed the girls dinner.  One advantage to having had a ton of houseguests is that I now have plenty of delicious leftovers. 

In I-wish-it-weren't-related news, there is a laundromat opening in our town soon.  I drove by it today, hoping it was ready for business.  Signs are up... LIBERTY LAUNDRY, with an American flag/Statue of Liberty theme (give us your soiled?)... and the washers appear to be in, but the sign on the door still says COMING SOON.  Not soon enough for me, maybe, but I'm glad to see this business in town.  When I first moved here in '99, I didn't have a washer/dryer in my apartment, and though I usually brought it to the soon-to-be-Mr.-Sandy's house, there was a laundromat in town I could use in a pinch.  It's since gone out of business, and I've been wondering what people do.  LIBERTY LAUNDRY (I think you have to say it in all caps like that) to the rescue. 

Anyhoo.  Here's hoping for a dry overnight for the Peanut, and a settled stomach and decent energy level by the morning for me.  That'll feel like liberty enough.

I guess I took a month off - but only from blogging.

Hey there, reader(s).  Sorry to leave you with kind of a downer of a post back on 1/21.  I hadn't intended to go on blogging hiatus -- it just happened.  Mostly for good reasons, the first of which is that I seem to have gotten myself back in the habit of using my treadmill in the mornings, which means I have to -- have to -- get to bed earlier than I had been, and that cuts into blogging time until I work it into the day some other way. 

I have absolutely no excuse not to exercise regularly. When Mr. Sandy finished our basement, he built me a little room specifically for the treadmill and yoga mat.  I painted it a nice light purple that I love, and I have a TV and DVD player set up in there, and it's perfect.  But as much as I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that even my paltry workouts bring, that's not enough motivation to do them.  I have yet to experience these legendary endorphin releases that exercise fans say make them feel so great.  What motivates me is the satisfaction of it being my routine to put my own health first in the day.  I like to be up before I have to explain to anyone what I'm doing or how long I'm going to be and that I won't hear them if they try to talk to me from another room (another awesome thing about my exercise room is that it's well-insulated.  I put the TV volume pretty loud to hear it over the 'mill, and it doesn't bother anyone else in the house).  I like to be done with the exercise chore -- maybe someday it won't feel like a chore, but I'm a long way from there yet -- before facing the rest of the day. 

Also, exercise time is TV series time.  That's how I got started with The Sopranos a while back.  I never had HBO, so the show was already long over by the time I started watching it on DVD, but I was totally hooked, from the first episode's very first note of opening music.  So hooked that one evening, unable to wait another 10 hours to see what happened in the episode I'd started that morning, I brought the DVD up from the exercise room to finish watching it.  Mr. Sandy walked past, and then he was hooked, and from then on we watched The Sopranos together ("wanna watch someone get whacked?" we'd say).  Which was good fun, but I still needed something to watch from the treadmill.  So this resurgence of morning exercise has meant looking for a new series to get hooked on, and to guard jealously against Mr. Sandy getting hooked on as well.

I started with The Wire.  While I appreciated the excellent writing and some charismatic performances, after three episodes I was thoroughly bored with the Baltimore drug/crime scene, and there didn't appear to be any other facets to the show.  One of the reasons Sopranos was soooo goooood is that it was a dense, dense drama, covering all kinds of ground at once.  The Wire was a yawn by comparison. 

Then I tried True Blood, which has an intriguing premise (with the invention of synthetic blood, vampires come out to live openly among us), but -- and this is an odd criticism, coming from me -- it's kind of gross, actually. I don't like the opening with all the crazy religious fanatic imagery, and the baby in Ku Klux Klan garb, and the insects, or whateverthehell.  Bon Temps, LA looks like sweaty backwoods hell on Earth. And though we're supposed to like them, I find something unappealing about the gap-toothed, telepathic Sookie Stackhouse (really?) and her pasty vampire Bill.  The other characters, particularly Sookie's piggish, dumb-as-dirt brother, aren't going to carry it for me either. Oh, and the sex?  As much as I'm a big fan of male nudity and not put off by explicitness, the vibe of this show is hella creepy for 6:00 AM.  I'm only a few episodes into it, and I gather things get more interesting later as more people get killed and the characters' supernatural traits come more into play.  So maybe I'm not done with it, but for now I'm not loving True Blood. 

However!  I think I have hit paydirt with Deadwood, the HBO series about the South Dakota town of that name during the peak of the gold rush.  It's set in 1876, before the Dakota territory was formally annexed to the United States, so there's no law there and everything's crazy.  Timothy Olyphant plays Seth Bullock, a former marshal come with his partner to open a hardware business catering to prospecters.  Keith Carradine is Wild Bill Hickock, and you can't take your eyes off him.  Ian McShane is chilling as Al Swearengen, who owns the saloon and most everything and everyone else in town.  Evil dude.  The supporting characters -- my favorite is Calamity Jane -- have depth and interest as well.  The whole thing is well-written, beautifully set, crude, tense, and compelling, and Mr. Sandy is not going to get a glimpse of it.

So now I'm off to bed again.  I go up at 10:00, read till 10:30, then I'm up at 6:00 to see who's being fed to Mr. Wu's Deadwood pigs. 

Life is good.

The vaccine scene

Well, I probably shouldn't type this out loud, but the Sandyshoes family has thus far managed to avoid the flu, swine and otherwise. The vaccine situation has been frustrating. I will never understand the whole business of how flu shots -- just seasonal flu, mind -- are distributed to pediatricians' offices and thence to our kids. They tell me to call in October. Last year when I called in October, they said oh, we won't have any flu vaccine until mid-November. This year when I called in October, they had already held three vaccination clinics and were completely out of vaccine. So how am I supposed to know when they have it? Telepathy? Should I start making daily calls in August? It's effing ridiculous.

Yes, I understand that every year's flu is a different virus, so a new vaccine has to be developed, tested, manufactured, preserved, packaged, distributed, etc., and that every place doesn't get delivery at the same time. But, but! The at-risk population numbers don't change that much year to year. The equipment for manufacturing vaccine doesn't have to be re-invented every year. The distribution mechanisms are the same. It's not like any given flu season is the First Time Ever. Yet every year, there's the big mystery... when will the vaccine come? How much will there be? The doctors' offices don't know. The health departments don't know. Who DOES know?

Here on the end-user side of things, we are clearly on our own. The doctor's office is no help at all. Fend for yourselves, families! So we keep our ears and eyes open for sources. We'll pay cash if we have to. We'll drive miles away to clinics we've never been to before, clinics with no direct phone line to reach anyone who can tell us if there's any vaccine actually on hand. (CVS Minute Clinic, I'm looking at you. I tried to call the specific location "nearest" me, but the only number available is the national one. Without knowing what location I was even talking about the national number person told me "there was a delivery of flu vaccine at 2:00." "Really?" I asked her. "Every Minute Clinic in the country got a delivery at 2:00? Is that Eastern Standard Time?")

Add the H1N1 vaccine into the mix this year, and with the undersupply, and the long lines, and people going nuts for every imaginable reason (there's been hysteria about whether or not it's safe, and hysteria about whether we'll be able to get it at all. So which is it, folks -- are we scared because Big Bad Government is going to inject us with we know not what? or because we won't be able to get this poison into our veins soon enough?), you just have to use common sense and hope for the best. We wash our hands, we get enough rest, we cover our coughs, we use hand sanitizer, all that.

Meanwhile, the buzz all over town is about how many kids are sick. School attendance has dropped to levels not usually seen till flu season peaks in January/February. Parents are sending hand sanitizer into classrooms by the gallon. School nurses are being very cautious: The Peanut got sent home with a "fever" one day last week. Her face was flushed and felt warm, and I got the call to come get her. I'd been at the school all morning for something else, so I knew it was especially hot in the building that day, and that the Peanut's cheeks flush at the slightest over-warmth... still, I took her home, feeling perfectly well, if very confused at having been whisked to the nurse's office. "Mommy, they think I have SWINE FLU?!" I took her temperature every hour, and it never got over 97. Still, better safe than potentially infecting everyone else.

Turns out that the girls will be able to get the H1N1 vaccine via nasal mist today. Earlier this week, parents in town got a robo-call from the Superintendent of Schools saying vaccine is available from the Town Department of Health, whom we should call to make an appointment to receive it -- and which was, of course, closed at the time of the robo-call. Anticipating not being able to get through on the phone the next morning, Mr. Sandyshoes was on their doorstep as they opened for the day (not me, I had yoga. Yay! of which more later). There were people lined up before he even got there. The nurse said that indeed, the phone was ringing off the hook -- she'd just got off the line with someone who was railing that NOBODY should be vaccinated, and who didn't want to send her kid to school with other children that had been recently vaccinated. Really. So where do you go from there? How do you answer someone who is that emotionally committed to believing the vaccine is dangerous? As Mr. Sandyshoes said, these are the people you later hear about in the news, whose children have died on their living room couches for lack of medical attention.

Immunity is A Good Thing, folks. Get some if you can. And use good sense, in any case.

(For more reasoned discussion of the anti-vax hoopla, check out the discussions at rationalmoms.com).

No, I hadn't been drinking.

Coming downstairs after putting the girls to bed last night, my left foot slipped out from under me and I fell hard, I mean f'ing HARD, on my ass, and slid the rest of the way down the stairs. It hurt a lot.

I was wearing tennis socks on bare wood stairs, which is plain stupid, and that hurts too.

I spent the rest of the evening on the couch with an ice pack on my butt. Took off my shorts for fear I wouldn't be able to get them off later due to major swelling. The bruising is substantial. Alarming, even.

Still, I'm glad I didn't hurt my back or break any bones. I'm glad I have pants loose enough to get over my still significantly swollen left butt cheek today.

The first aid book says to apply an ice pack for 20 minutes every 2 hours for the first 48 hours after the injury. Obviously I wasn't setting a timer to get this done overnight, but I'd better get back on it now. Off to the couch with me.

Be careful folks. It's the ordinary things that get ya.

One kind of liberation.

The other night I had dinner out with two friends -- like me, mothers of young children, though we knew each other Before All That -- who live a couple of towns away. Family schedules can make it tough to find an evening we're all available, but we make it happen every couple of months. This time we met at Bopha's Stir Crazy, a Cambodian restaurant which, Cape Cod/southeastern Massachusetts readers, you should absolutely visit if you haven't. (Note to self: remember this place when next lamenting the relative lack of really good, fairly casual, not-American-pub-food restaurants on the Cape, as compared to the Pioneer Valley from whence I moved, which has a giddy and delicious abundance thereof and which I sometimes heartily miss.) (Another note to self: who the hell uses "from whence" and "thereof" in casual writing?)

Ahem.

Anyway one of my friends arrived a few minutes late. Sitting down, she said she'd just come from the garden center, where she'd had to exchange one kind of hose for another, and that it had taken much longer than she'd thought it would because the cashier didn't know how to conduct the transaction, got the register all muddled up, had to call a manager over, etc., etc. Evidently the cashier behaved very rudely, as well. My mild-mannered, good-natured friend eventually said to her, "hey, there's no need to be that way with me. I didn't mess up the register," and that the cashier, while still gritting her teeth, at least knocked off the overt snippiness.

We all agreed that ten years ago -- even five -- none of us would've likely said anything, however justified. There's something about... what, turning 40? being somebody's mother? ... that has kicked in, and we just don't put up with stuff like that any more.

Looking at the menu, we thought about getting three different entrees to share. "Actually, I'd like to have that to myself," my friend said. Fair enough. If a mommy gets a night out with her friends, the last thing she should have is someone taking unwelcome bites of her dinner. Another thing we're not going to feel sheepish about. There are lots of things like this. I won't share popcorn at the movies. I never liked to, but I won't fake it any more. I want it all myself, and I want to eat it with my tongue, like a frog, if frogs ate popcorn. It's a small thing, but it makes me happy.

So we're feeling changes in our sense of self as we move into middle adulthood. But it's not just about rude strangers and popcorn. Although I still worry about it sometimes, if I'm perfectly honest I have to say I care less and less about whether people in general like me or not. I've realized that the things people might not like about me are really unlikely to change, at this stage of the game. I am who I am. There are six billion people on the planet to choose your friends from... don't choose me, if you don't want to. It's okay. We're both better off. Peace.

(My inner puppy would like to interject at this point that none of this means I'm not a likeable person or a good friend, and that you'd probably like me if we met. OK, puppy. Back in your crate now.)

However, I must not be all grown up yet because I'm still taking crap from people in doctors' offices. For example, take my recent annual ob-gyn appointments. The medical assistant who does the initial stuff -- weight, blood pressure, asking if anything's changed since last time, saying "you can get undressed, the doctor will be with you shortly" -- has become pointedly unfriendly to me. She didn't smile, didn't respond when spoken to, didn't look at me or call me by name. It is weird and unpleasant, and I was really taken aback by it. I have been a patient of this practice (is that the dumbest home page ever? No links!) for ten years now, through two pregnancies and various other bumps in the road that I won't bore you with (you're welcome). That assistant has been there for many of those years, herself, and she hasn't always been such a sourpuss. Something has distinctly changed. I have to wonder, and I'm tempted to ask her, "did I do something to piss you off? or is there just something uncomfortable up your ass?" -- because I don't deserve that.

But I haven't, and I probably won't, because 1) I would probably word it just like that, and become Part of the Problem; and 2) it's very hard to find a new doctor, and I'd hate to burn that bridge. There are only a few places to storm out of in high dudgeon (!) before I'd be out of local options altogether. Doctors around here have really got patients over a barrel. Still, basic civility doesn't seem like it should be too much to ask.

At any rate, this knowing who you are, and not feeling apologetic about it must be what people mean, in part, when they talk about how aging is "liberating." I suppose there's a fine line between "What you think won't hurt me because I'm OK with who I am" and "I don't care what you think because I'm kind of an asshole that way." Here's to achieving the former without coming off as the latter.

Blogging for Choice 2009

This is my second year participating in NARAL-Pro Choice America's annual "Blogging for Choice" Day. This year's topic: What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?

In my post on last year's topic, why it's important to vote pro-choice, I wrote about how frightening and horrifying it is that government deliberately intrudes on one of life's most personal and intimate decisions, one that through the gift (or burden) of biology, ultimately belongs to a pregnant woman, her own self. In recent years we have seen our government take sinister steps, some more subtle than others, toward denying women basic control over their own bodies and pregnancies.

During the 2008 campaign, we faced the possibility of continuing down that path. In responding to Barack Obama's answer to a debate question about abortion, Presidential candidate John McCain openly sneered about abortion being a women's health issue. He used his fingers to put "women's health" in air quotes, to emphasize his disdain for the concept. I will never, ever forget it.

Thankfully, having inaugurated a pro-choice President this year, we can be less fearful, if not less vigilant, looking ahead.

My top hope for President Obama and the new Congress is that the people they will nominate and confirm to the Supreme Court will not be inclined to overturn Roe v. Wade. Do I believe in a "litmus test" for nominees? Not exactly. Like most things, it's not that simple. Cases that come before the Court are not yes-or-no position questions, but questions of interpretation of our laws and Constitution. I do believe in questioning nominees about their beliefs about women's rights, and in rejecting nominees who don't think we have any, whether that's about pregnancy, or equal pay, or suffrage, or military service, or any of the myriad issues about which women have had to fight merely to be treated fairly.

This does not mean I am "pro-abortion" (how absurd). It means that I believe women rightly have power over their own bodies and their own pregnancies, and I believe we should not allow government to legislate otherwise.

Forget the EpiPen, it's all in your head. Not mine though, I can't keep anything in there.

Joel Stein, L.A. Times opinion columnist, thinks that nut allergies are a "yuppie invention."

Really! Kids with food allergies are just victims of their parents' mass hysteria! Kids who don't live in "rich lefty communities" don't have these wussy conditions! (Never mind that families in poor communities might not have the money or the health care to discern such a thing... more entertaining to posit that only affluent liberals would come up with such a problem in the first place.)

I don't know what causes nut allergies, or why they appear to be on the rise in recent years. I'm just glad my kids don't have 'em. However my Peanut is allergic to shellfish. Does this mean I'm a "parent who needs to feel special?" If so, why didn't this need affect the Bean, who has no food allergies? Oh crap, there I go again, with the pesky reasoning. So sorry.

But wait, what about my friends whose kids have celiac disease? They must be real prima donnas. Hard to reconcile that with their laid-back personas and conservative politics. Reverse psychology, you say? Oh, those tricky attention seeking yuppie friends of mine!

So, yes. Stein's column today is jackassery. Before I read it, I was more familiar with his work for Time, where he comes off as -- guess what? -- an attention-seeking self-absorbed yuppie food snob. Go figure.

I miss Time, though. I used to pay for subscriptions with unused not-so-frequent-after-all flier miles. Just as the subscription ran out, Delta "actually, you haven't flown with us since the 20th century, so would you just get rid of these miles already?" Airlines would send another solicitation, and I'd renew. Sadly though, Delta's last magazine offerings did not include Time, or Newsweek, or U.S. News & World Report. To fill the weekly news niche, I opted for The Economist. It was that or Cigar Afficionado, and I think it's safe to say that for better or worse, we've all had enough of the Clintons to last us a lifetime.

So The Economist comes to the house these days, and like Time before it, piles up in a basket in the downstairs bathroom. However, it's not a good fit, because I don't want to live in the downstairs bathroom. Turns out The Economist has a lot of, you know, words, and stuff. You can tell how serious they are about all the words by the tiny margins. (As anyone knows who's ever tried to force five pages of prose into two, the first step is to narrow the margins.) Also, they place one impenetrable article right after another, with barely a blank line, let alone any celebrity gossip items, between.

I liked Time for its mix of news and fluff. Although I'm giving it the ol' college try, I fear The Economist is a bit too unrelentingly substantive for my gnat-like attention span and diminished capacity to retain anything I read (blame for both is assigned to my lovely offspring). Parents with children older than mine assure me that both these things can be recovered. In the meantime I have no time for The Economist.

After all, there are allergies to invent.

another placeholder

I'm sick. Coughing fits, dizzy spells, more snot than anyone wants to know anything about. Feh.

I'll get better.

In the meantime:

Nothing like a night in the E.R....

... for some perspective.

What's today, Saturday? Right. Last week, the Peanut had a fever-and-sore-throat virus that we fully expected her to get, as our friends' kids had had it and we all went camping together last weekend. She had the fever, the sore throat, then was better, no big deal. Then Thursday night she woke at 10:00, vomiting. By 11:00 she added diarrhea, and we sat in the bathroom for two hours. My poor Peanut - she was too tired to hold up her own head, and still her body wouldn't quit purging. Wouldn't quit. By 1:00 we were thinking the hospital seemed like the place to be; a call to her doctor's office confirmed it, and I took her in, pretty dehydrated.

I will spare you the details of our wait in the E.R. lobby -- suffice to say that janitorial services were required.

We got a room and a consultation and the general consensus was to get IV fluids in her, pronto. They tried both arms, three times each. They tried her hands, twice each. They tried her feet! Various people, including a neonatal I.V. specialist, were called down. Nobody could get a line in. And my Peanut, poor thing, was crying but not making tears. She didn't yell or pull away, but said "when is it going to be DONE?", and "I don't want to do this again," and "when can we GO?" and all sorts of reasonable, polite things, even whispering a tiny "thank you" when they gave her a teddy bear and a movie to watch. She was such a trooper. Eventually everyone gave up on getting a line in, and I just kept trying tiny sips of Pedialite, licks of a Popsicle... and she kept throwing it all back up.

Stressful night.

When morning came, the pediatrician said she wasn't comfortable discharging the still-vomiting Peanut without her being better hydrated. Decision was made to transfer her to Children's Hospital in Boston. Mr. S. came up and we switched; he rode in the ambulance to Boston with Peanut, I headed home for a break.

By the time she got to Children's, the Peanut was holding down water, so they didn't bother struggling with the needle. She recovered sufficiently there to come home, so the Bean -- who by that time was in the fever stage of the original virus (remember that one?) -- and I went up to get them.

All this on 20 minutes' sleep. Somehow that was easier to pull off in college.

The professional verdict is that the Peanut got a bad stomach bug on top of the first virus. Hopefully the Bean won't get it as well. Everyone slept soundly last night, and today, the Peanut's hungry and in good spirits. Normal again.

So yes, perspective. Thursday noon, I was hollering at that Peanut to put things away when she's done playing with them. Thursday midnight, I'd have given anything to have her well again. You know -- toys on the floor just don't matter. And this wasn't even a serious illness. Real perspective is something no parent ever wants to have driven home the hard way.

Good news and bad news.

The good news: My blood pressure has been really good since the dosage of my medicine was last tweaked.

The bad news: My feet are swelling. This is a call-your-doctor-immediately side effect of the medicine.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck FUCK.

Alphabet Meme: A

This is a good time for the Alphabet Meme, which I have honorably pinched from the lovely Maria at Just Eat Your Cupcake.

It might take me 26 days to get through it!

A is for your age: 41.

This 40-ish zone appears to be a time for exciting medical firsts. First mammogram behind me. First colonoscopy coming up. First anxiety attack. First cysts of various types. First time "throwing my back out," a phrase I never understood until it happened to me, and good God, I hope it never does again.

Also, my blood pressure now has me on the frequent flier program at my doctor's office. We are tweaking my prescriptions till some combination of things appears to work consistently. I am tired of the copayments and scheduling hassles, but very glad that I have health insurance, my doctor is a terrific person, and my husband can work from home on appointment days.

Then there was the first time I was mistaken for my child's grandmother. That felt good, I can tell ya. The memory now shares mental filespace under "Humiliations, Appearance-Related" with the first time someone suggested I "need Botox for those wrinkles." Yes.

On the other hand, at 4o-something, I'm feeling other insecurities fall away. As much as I might wonder sometimes about paths not taken, I now have enough experience behind me to trust that whatever's ahead is going to be all right. Would I repeat my 20s, if I could have a do-over? I don't know. If it were the only way to end up in the life I have now, probably not.

I am starting to learn not to dwell on my every past mistake. Considering how many there are, that is going to save me a ton of emotional time. And who doesn't love a time-saver?