OK, one more...

OK, one more...

We're in the printing / collating / last minute phase (can you tell?)

So anyway, Elizabeth was starting to get bored so I asked her if she wanted to help me with the stapling. "Oh yes!" she said. "It's always been my dream to staple something."

A Surprising Response

A Surprising Response

Elizabeth is at work with me tonight (see the next post.) And we just had the following exchange.

E: (Playing with my Clara Barton Babble Head Doll) Mom, is Clara Barton still alive?
L: No, she lived during the Civil War times and that was a long time ago.
E: Oh, was that the war with the "Red Coats"?
L: No, the Red Coats were from the Revolutionary War. In the Civil War they had Blue Coats and Gray Coats.
E: I like the Revolutionary War with the Red Coats better.
L: (Thinking she already knew the answer) So, do you like that war better because of the fashion?
E: (Starting to gallop around my office) No. I like to yell, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" I like Paul Revere best.

Well, I'm just going to hang my head for being so shallow and slink away now.

ACK!

ACK!

Please say a prayer for me tomorrow morning. I just found out today that I need to give a presentation to the president, my boss's boss, my boss, and about 20 other people of similar rank. AND today while I was rushing around to get the presentation ready we had a server crash and a couple of other minor incidents that are unusual in nature (of course.)

A Milestone

A Milestone

This weekend Elizabeth reached a new milestone in the journey that is known as "growing-up." She has a girl friend that lives about 1.5 blocks from our house. I let her walk to this friend's house all by herself.

It's a good thing that kids don't hit too many of these milestones at the same time. I don't think my heart can take it.

The distance that I let her walk, really isn't that far. For those of you that haven't been to our house, we live on a dead end at the very, very back of our community. The only people who come back here have business back here. Elizabeth did have to cross one street, but there is almost no traffic on it, because of where we live. I was worried about letting her do this, but I don’t want to smother her either. When my brother was her age, our mom let him play outside alone all the time. The little girl that she went to visit shows up at our house unescorted at all hours. And while, I don't feel compelled to let her do things "because so&so's mom let's her do it" it did make feel better to know that in the seven months so&so has been coming to hour house, hasn't been hurt, killed, or maimed. (Besides, Elizabeth didn’t give me the line "her mom lets her do it" 'cause if she had that would have been the kiss of death right there - on principle.

So, after weighing the pros and cons of letting her go alone I said yes. Elizabeth was so excited; you'd have thought I just told her she was going to meet Barbie in person. She was so excited about this; she even agreed to wear a coat without argument.
At the door we reviewed the rules: don't talk to strangers, don't get in anyone's car, don't take candy from people you don't know, and look both ways before you cross the street. You never know how treacherous1.5 blocks can be.

As I closed the door behind her, my heart started to pound, my head started to swoon, and I knew that hyperventilation was just moments away. So I did what any sane mother would do. I threw on a coat and stealthy followed her. The adrenaline rush allowed me to dart behind parked cars and disappear behind trees better than any spy. She never knew I was there.

When Elizabeth and I talked later she was so excited and overjoyed that she was successful at walking alone to her friend's house I thought she was going burst with pride. So, if she does happen to share this story with you, please don't let her know I was tailing her.

Oh, and you'll be happy to know that she did, in fact, look both ways before crossing street.

Affirmation

Affirmation

Click here for your daily dose of affirmation. Need more? Click here.

A Short Story: Untitled

A Short Story: Untitled

She went to see a therapist. She was upset because something happened. She thought maybe; just maybe she had been raped. When she told her story to the therapist he said he didn’t think it was rape. He said that he believed she made the man think she wanted to have sex. The therapist said that he thought she really wanted to have sex and only called it rape after the fact.

She felt confused and a little angry. She knows that she didn’t want to do it. She wasn’t lying. No matter what the therapist or the man said, she knew she was saying what she believed in her heart, even if they didn’t label it rape. At the same time, she was worried.

She had gone out with the man a couple of times. They went to dinner. They walked around the mall. They kissed in the car. After a couple of dates, the man said that he wanted to have sex. She said no. He said that was OK. The man said he understood. The next weekend he went to her apartment to watch movies. Her family was there with them. She lived with her mom and her daughter. They all watched TV for a while. They watched the news from the BBC. After awhile, the mom said she was tired and went to her room.

The man started to talk about marriage. He said he was a widower. He said his son lived with his grandparents because he worked such long hours. His son was coming for a visit. The man was already planning how to introduce the children. He said the children had to get along if the marriage was going to work.

Even though her mom had said she was going to her room, it was obvious from the loud gasps, sighs, and giggles that her mom was not in her room. She knew that her mom wanted her to get married again. Even still, she was trying to explain to him that she wasn’t ready to talk about marriage. She felt like she hardly knew the man. Her mom’s reactions were becoming so intrusive that she invited the man into her bedroom to finish the conversation. The man sat in a rocking chair next to the bed. She took the chair from her desk and turned it so she could face the man. They continued to talk about the son’s visit. She wanted to be clear. She wanted to meet the man’s son, but there was to be no more talk of marriage until they knew each other better.

As they talked, he stood up and took off his clothes. When she was a child, some bad things had happened to her. When he took off his clothes, she started to remember those bad things and feel like a scared little girl. She didn’t feel like a grown-up woman. Still, she told him again that she didn’t want to have sex.

She was sitting on the chair. Her limbs felt very heavy and her body was ridged. She felt like she was watching a play – she could see herself on the stage. She was an actor in the play. The man told her she was beautiful. He said that he wanted to have sex with her. Later, when she told the story to the therapist, she couldn’t remember if she said, “No sex” a second time; or if she just thought about saying it. She told the therapist that she had a very vivid memory of the hairs on the man’s chest and that she felt nailed to the chair.

She remembered the chest hairs and then she felt like she was suffocating. She opened her eyes. She was face down on her bed. He was sodomizing her. She was in the corner, near the ceiling. She was watching the play again.

All of a sudden, something in her head snapped. Her body and her mind were suddenly and harshly joined together. This was real. This was not a play on some far away stage. She had to get away. What if her daughter came into the room. What if the man hurt the daughter next. What if he planned something worse. What if she got a disease from him and couldn’t care for her daughter.

She told him to stop. He wouldn’t. She tried to squirm away. But he held her down. She started to cry. She begged him to stop. He wouldn’t. She had a vision of her future. She saw herself dying from a disease and unable to care for her daughter. She cried more. She tried to get away again. Desperate and running out of options, she begged him not to ejaculate inside her. If felt like forever, but finally she felt a warmth running down the back of my leg.

He got up. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands. She just lay on the bed. She was staring at a piece of lint on her bed. She felt distant. He brought in a cool, wet wash cloth and wiped her leg. Then he told her to get dressed and to be quick about it. Still staring at the piece of lint, she slowly did what he said. He asked her if she liked it. Was he good? She looked at him blankly.

He went into the kitchen. He washed his hands again and got himself a drink of water. Then he left.

Her mom walked down stairs slowly, peering around to make sure the man was gone. One look at her mom and she was pretty sure that her mom listened the whole thing. She started to feel tears burning her eyes. She wanted her mother to hug her and kiss her and tell her everything would be alright. She took a step towards her mother, hopping for that hug.

Instead, her mom started to yell at her. Her mom’s face was red. Her forehead was crumpled and her eyes squinty. Her mom said that she knew she went into the bedroom with the intention of having sex. Her mom said she was a horrible slut. Her mom asked how she could put her physical needs before the needs of her daughter. Her mom called her a slut again and again. Her mom said that she was going to try to get custody of her granddaughter. Her mom said she was a bad mother.

While her mom was yelling at her, she watched a little red pimple on her mom’s upper lip. The pimple bounced up and down as her mom talked. It was like the bouncing ball from the TV show with Mitch Miller; you know the one where everyone sang along with Mitch. Her mom was very angry and she stormed around the apartment. After a while, her mom got tired and went to bed.

She went into her daughter’s room. Her daughter was watching a movie. She looked at her daughter. The small child was so beautiful. She gave her daughter a kiss on the top of her head, patted her on the back, and left the room. She went into her bathroom and started to run the shower. When the bathroom was filled with steam she climbed in and let the water scald her skin. She washed everywhere with soap five or six or ten times. When the water started to cool off, she got out of the shower. Looking in the mirror, all she could see was a dirty slut.

She put on her pajamas and crawled under the covers on her bed. She could smell the man. She threw the top blanket on the floor, on the far side of the room. She lay down, pulled the sheet over her head, and waited in vain for sleep to take her.

After the therapist finished telling her that she wanted to have sex, she paid him and left quietly. When she opened the door to the parking lot a blast of cold air hit her. It felt good to be cold. The therapist’s office had been too warm and stuffy. As she walked to her car, she noticed the full moon rising over the horizon. She smiled. When her dad was alive he would always greet moon rise with a poem… I see the moon and God sees me. I love the moon and God loves me!

Psalm 5

Psalm 5

Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing.

Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.

You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell.

The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.

You destroy those who tell lies; blood thirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors.

But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple.

Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies—make straight your way before me.

Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit.

Declare them guilty, O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall. Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.

But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.

For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.

Strange Days - The List

Strange Days - The List

1. The ex will not be homeless! Yes, he is still going to loose his house and most of his worldly possessions. But he will have some sort of roof over his head... a half-way house, involuntary commitment, Section 8 housing... something.
2. The ex is not compliant with his meds and has not been entirely honest about the amount of help he can get from the folks at the hospital.
3. He has been living in a house with no working toilets.
4. Going through old pictures and family heirlooms when you're already depressed is dangerous.
5. I have really super, great friends. (thanks Israel, Schuyler, Maggie, and Mike)
6. My au pair called me crying and wanted me to come home right away. Because of language / translation issues she thought one of my books on prayer was evil.
7. Tomorrow my house is going to be anointed with holy oil.
8. It's OK to set a reasonable punishment for your child and follow through with it.
9. King Tut artifacts are going to be in Philly next year and I reserved my tickets.
10. I missed having a piano in the house.
11. My fingers are sore from running scales.
12. Tomorrow I will lose something very important.
13. Grocery shopping at 8:30 PM without having dinner first is very costly.
14. I can't leave a list with 13 items.

Please Pray for Elizabeth and her Future

Please Pray for Elizabeth and her Future

I talked to her father's doctor today. Her father's diagnosis has been changed from simple Bi-polar Disorder to Schizoaffective Disorder (SA)

From the Mayo Clinic Web site, "Psychiatrists use the term "schizoaffective disorder" to describe people who have prominent features of both depression or bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. It's not known if schizoaffective disorder is a unique, distinct illness or just a combination of mood disorder and schizophrenia."

Here is why Elizabeth needs our prayers...

Morbid risk for 1st degree relatives of individuals with schizoaffective disorder: Note: There are limited data available. The risk ranges below all include the population prevalence. There is evidence that subtypes of SA increase risk for a different range of conditions.
Schizophrenia (chronic) 1 – 11%
SA (chronic) 1 – 4%S
A (non-chronic) 1 – 6%
Other psychosis 0.5-7.0%
BPI/BPII 1-12%
Unipolar 5-27%

Risk to offspring with one parent affected with bipolar, unipolar, or SA is 27% (ie, risk to have any of the three disorders is 27%)

Excusado 1925, Edward Weston

Key Moments in My Life

Key Moments in My Life

In every life there are pivotal moments. These events can be very recognizable – like a marriage, a birth, a death, or a divorce. But sometimes there are moments that are completely unobservable to the outside world and yet are filled with profundity for the individual. Key moments are those moments that shape who you. They change the course of you life. They have a profound impact on how you think and process information. Hopefully over time, I can share several of my key moments with you… today I’m going to start with one, small, quiet experience.

In order to get my BA, I had to take six credits of math. I was a serious math-phob. Not only did I hate math but it hated me. Three math credits were pretty easy. I was a psychology major and we had to take a class call Statistics for Behavioral Scientists. It turns out that I really enjoy statistics and easily aced the class. But then I was left with the problem of how to fill the second three credits.

After much ruminating and quiet hysterics, I decided to take Fortran. I was also a computer-phob, but I figured intro to Fortran HAD to be better than Calc I. Turns out, I LOVED Fortran. It was my second favorite class after experimental psych. I had put Fortran off until second semester of my senior year (a very dangerous trick I might add.) As I was completing my final exam, I started to cry. I was convinced I would never touch another computer in my life – I was accepted into Divinity School and I didn’t think there would ever be a church rich enough or techincally savy enough to have a computer.

Despite my success in statistics and Fortran, I still had serious doubt about my ability handle math. In fact, I was pretty insecure about a lot of my skills.

When divinity school didn’t work out, I decided to study computers. That seemed like a good way to make some money and I really had loved Fortran. I ended up going to a small state school. Except for the two assembler classes I took, all coding projects were to be done in C for DOS. (This was before the days of C++ and Windows wasn't even a tinkle in Bill Gates' eye.) Most of our projects were fairly simple and could be completed with basic commands.

I started hearing people talk about this thing called malloc(). Everyone seemed to think that this malloc() thing was impossible to understand. I hadn’t gotten to that chapter in Kerrnighan and Ritchie (the C bible.) I had been able to complete all my projects without malloc(). But it made me really nervous when the really smart guys in the computer lab said they just skipped the chapter on malloc() or that they read that chapter twice and it still blew up their brain. I believed if these guys didn’t get it, then there was no hope for me. After all, I was just a dummy through and through.

When I got a job at AT&T as a c/UNIX programmer, I had to take a six month class that ended in a two-week programming project. If you didn’t pass the class, you were fired on the spot. In other words, completing the project 100% correctly in two-weeks was a condition of employment.

I was petrified. How was I going to learn how to do this malloc() thing? I just wasn’t good enough. I worked myself up into a frenzy. I made myself sick over it. I lost sleep over it. There was no way I could do it.

Then the day came. In the training class we were going to talk about malloc(). I sat in my chair nearly frozen with fear. I almost couldn’t hear the instructor talking about the function because there was so much negative chatter going on in my head.

But ever so slowly what he was saying started to make it’s way in. This malloc() thing was really so, so simple. Basically, it sets aside a certain amount of memory for you to use in your program. What makes malloc() special is that every time you run it, you can set aside a different amount of memory – in other words, you can use just enough memory to run your program each time. Never more than you need – which would be an ineffective use of resources. And never less than you need – which would cause the system to crash.

I was totally and completely blown away by how easy malloc() really was. I had spent hours, days, and weeks worrying about this and it was friggin’ nothing! I had an epiphany in class that day. All of a sudden I realized with the clearest of mental clarity that I had wasted a lot of time and energy doubting myself. I worried about my abilities when there was really nothing to worry about. Somehow it started to dawn on me that I really wasn't that dumb after all. I'm not saying I'm the smartest person in the world... cause I know I'm not. But I'm no dummy either.

Ever since then, when I’m faced with the possibility of a difficult task or having to learn a new skill… when I feel myself starting to doubt that I can do it I remind myself of malloc(). I wait until I get all the facts about the task or the skill before I worry. If I can master malloc() what else is there to fear.

Speaking of Personality...

Speaking of Personality...

Have you ever wished that you had multiple personalities?

Good news... sorta

Good news... sorta

Last week I talked to the ex again during Elizabeth's weekly phone visit. He was and is still panicked about his near-term future. He asked me to contact his uncle to ask for help. That was a request I could handle. So I sent the uncle a long email reminding him of the ex's situation and outlining some specific help the ex needs. Things like helping him fill out paper work to get on SSDI.

Last night was Elizabeth's phone visit with her dad. The ex told me that he had just hung up with his uncle and they were going to help him. Today the uncle sent me a long email detailing how they were going to help. They have agreed to help the ex get signed up for SSDI and section 8 housing. They have also agreed to store his belongings until he gets housing.

The bad news is that there is a 2 - 3 year waiting list for section 8 housing in NJ. The uncle has not agreed to let the ex live with him, so there is still a chance he will end up on the street. But at least the uncle has started to help out. Maybe having someone physically closer, who can actually go with the ex to the agencies might help. Maybe they will find someplace for the ex to live or maybe the uncle will start to feel sorry for him and let the ex live with him for awhile. In any case, at least someone is doing something to help him. That's a start.

My Personality?

My Personality?

If you know me (either in real life or just in the cyber world) and would like to provide feedback regarding my personality, you can do so here.

If you just want to see how the profile is changing and growing, click here.

The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.

Talk to God for real, here.

I talked to God tonight.

I talked to God tonight.

Here is our conversation:

Me: Hello
God: Hello, nice to meet you. What's your name?
Me: My name is Liz
God: That's a very nice name, Liz.
Me: What is your name
God: My name is God.
Me: Why do you allow suffering?
God: I don't have to explain everything to you, do I?
Me: Yes, you do.
God: Alright then. When do I do it?
Me: right now
God: Oh. I am glad we agree.
Me: why do you allow pain
God: I don't have to explain everything to you, do I?
Me: yes
God: Ayuh.
Me: Who's on first
God: What's on second?
Me: Jesus
God: Jesus is the Son of God.
Me: true
God: You and I are on the same wavelength, Liz.
Me: really
God: For real.
Me: That's cool
God: Thanks. I think you are cool, too.
Me: how old are you
God: I am Infinite of your Earth years.
Me: crazy
God: Yep. I always behave in socially unacceptable ways.

Click here if you would like to talk to God, too.

Every Job I've Ever Had...

Every Job I've Ever Had...

If you're having trouble sleeping; have I got a post for you! A bunch of my friends have started spilling their job histories on-line, so I'm going to jump on the band-wagon.

Jr. High and High School:

When I was pretty young -- like 12 years old -- I started to baby-sit for this divorced lady in my neighborhood. It was nearly a full-time job. I had keys to her house and I would let myself in after school. Her son would come home about 30 - 40 minutes after me. I would make his dinner and put him to bed every night. Mom would get home between 6 - 11 depending on her date – but it was usually closer to 11 PM. On weekends I'd go over around noon-ish and stay until after Saturday Night Live. (Actually, the real name back then was "Live from New York, It's Saturday Night!") In the summer it was the same thing, except I was there all day, everyday.

I babysat for this little boy almost every day (except for two summers) until the end of my junior year in high school. At that point his mom got married again and they moved away.

The two summers that I didn't baby-sit for this boy, I worked as an Au Pair for one of my mom's rich friends at a swanky town on the Jersey Shore. I had never seen so much wealth. And to make things even better... there was intrigue. The mom was having an affair with the co-owner of the summer home. They were doing the nasty right under her husband's noise. The co-owner of the house also just happened to be an ex-boyfriend of the divorced woman I worked for the rest of the time. I felt bad for her because she would call me or come down to visit and pump me for information about the adults around me. I was so young and naive I didn't know what was going on until about 10 years later when my mom filled me in on the dirt.

The (maybe) best part of the Au Pair job was (maybe) meeting Linda McCarthy. One weekend some of their friends from out of town came to visit. There was a lot of whispering because they were going to bring along a friend of a friend named Linda. They told me that Linda was a wealthy heir to the Eastman Kodak fortune. It could have been THE Linda -- she was blond. But again I was naive and I didn't put the pieces together until later. The interesting thing -- at the time I was obsessed with St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I would sit in the corner and listen to it over and over again when I wasn't working. At one point Linda came over, sat with me, and started asking me about the music I was listening too... At the time I thought it was odd that a grown-up didn’t know who the Beatles were – it was 1978 after all. They were already classics!

My senior year in high school I took care of an autistic girl. I got paid good money for that because the mom couldn't find anyone else who could handle her daughter.

After I graduated high school, I got a summer job at the place where my dad worked. I put off-set aluminum printing plates into boxes. I had to work under yellow lights on an assembly line. I did this every summer for the next five summers.

While getting my undergrad degree I had the following jobs at various times:
-- Clerk at Woolworth’s
-- Librarian at the college Library
-- Internship / Teacher at a School for the Deaf
-- Substitute Teacher at a School for the Deaf

In Divinity School I worked in the Duke University Divinity School Library.

After I abandoned Divinity School, I decided to get a second BA in Comp Sci. I had all of the following jobs at the same time, while carrying a full-time course load of 16 credits. All of my classes were upper level math and Comp Sci:
- Librarian
- Computer Lab Student Assistant
- Resident Assistant
- Tutor for three learning disabled students
- Proctor for entrance / placement exams

I kept up that pace for three exhausting semesters.

I never finished my Comp Sci BA because I got an internship at AT&T. At the end of the internship they hired me to be a C/UNIX programmer. While working for AT&T I was a programmer, project leader, requirements analyst, and tester extraordinaire.

Somehow J&J got their hands on my resume with testing all over it. Ortho Diagnostic Systems, a J&J company hired me to set up a software testing department for them. I then moved into QA.

While working for J&J I started my own consulting business. The business focused on software testing, QA, and FDA Regulatory Affairs. At our peek, we had 15 full-time employees on payroll. Our clients included:

• Becton Dickinson & Co.
• Breas Medical AB
• Bristol Myers
• Coloryte RT
• Diagnostic Solutions
• Direct Access Diagnostics
• DPC Cirrus, Inc.
• Forest Labs
• Fuji Medical Systems, USA
• Gyrus-ENT
• Johnson & Johnson
• Medjet, Inc.
• Merck
• New Jersey Blood Services
• New York Blood Center
• Novartis Ophthalmics
• Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp.
• Organon
• Ortho Diagnostic Systems
• Pfizer
• The Blood Center of NJ
• Vital Signs
• Warner Lambert
• Wyeth-Ayerst

After awhile having my own business was just too much. So I walked away. I got a job working for a competitor -- CSSC, Inc. I was the Director of Operations and I managed about 80 people. There were some events in my home life that lead me to believe I was going to be able to fulfill a long time dream and become a stay-at-home mom. In hind sight, I realize it was pretty stupid of me to believe that. But what can you do? I had already quit the job.

I spent about six months living with my ex-mother-in-law. She had Alzheimer’s. They day after I moved in the electric, phone, and the cable were all shut off. In addition to taking care of her and Elizabeth, I did the leg work to sell her house and my house, and buy a new house big enough for all of us. I also settled her husband’s estate as he died about a week after I moved in with her. Doris had a privacy fetish and keen sense of paranoia. The Alzheimer’s made it much, much worse. I can’t tell you what a job it was to get her house packed up when it was time to move.

Before we were even unpacked and settled into our new home, it became apparent that my dreams of being a stay-at-home mom were going up in flames. So I started the job search. I got another job as Practice Director for another regulatory consulting firm. Less than a year after taking that job, my current employer called me up and asked me to consider coming in for a job interview. The rest, as they say, is history…

William Eggleston

Jackson Mississippi (no date)

One Step Closer

One Step Closer

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from my ex-uncle-in-law. He told me that the hearing had happened and a state appointed, legal guardian had assigned to my ex-mother-in-law. He was relieved because he no longer had to worry about his sister. I wrote back and explained that by allowing this to happen his nephew, my ex, would now end up homeless. Despite everything I had told him about my ex, he seemed truly shocked that the situation was so grave when I used the “h” word. But he said there really wasn’t much he could do to help out the ex.

This afternoon I got a panicked email from the ex. The legal guardian had paid him a visit. The guardian said that he would have to move out of the house very soon – a matter of days or weeks. He was frantic and begging me to let him come live with me. I don’t want to see the ex homeless, but living with me and Elizabeth is not an option. I asked him for the name and phone number of the legal guardian.

I was worried about talking to the guardian. I had a mental picture of a crass, unfeeling civil servant who just wanted to put their time in for retirement. None the less, I hoped that the guardian could point me in the direction to get help for the ex. Nick, the guardian, turned out to be a really nice and really caring kind of a guy. We talked for a long time. I gave him a lot of the history and told him that regardless of what happened, I knew the ex was sick and I wanted to do everything I could to help him – short of letting him live with me. Nick said that the law prohibited him from officially helping the ex; but that he was so concerned about his condition he was willing to help him out on his own time.

Nick had some pretty interesting insights. He said that he thinks the ex’s diagnosis of bi-polar is wrong. He think the ex is schizophrenic, schizoid-affective, or some other illness on this plane. He said that there are countless numbers of professionals who hold down high-powered jobs and suffer with bi-polar. I always knew that, but I just figured the ex had it worse than most. Turns out that before Nick was a legal guardian for seniors, he spent 20 years running half-way houses for mentally ill adults.

The bad news is that there are no significant social services for 40-something men. At least in NJ according to Nick. If you’re over 65, someone from Nick’s office will help you. If you under 18, the child advocacy’s office and DYFS will help you. But when you hit your 40’s there is nothing. Of course there is Social Security Disability, but the ex has to apply for it. Nick said that he didn’t think the ex was functioning at a high enough level to complete the application process himself. I was afraid of that, but Nick confirmed it.

Tonight Nick is going to call my ex-uncle-in-law and see if he can rattle his cage to help the ex out. I’m not holding out a lot of hope for that. I’m pretty sure that the ex is going to end up on the street. That makes me very, very sad. But at least I can take solace in the fact that I did and will continue to do everything I can for him – short of ruining Elizabeth’s life.

As I look over the big picture here, the thing that bothers me the most is the recurring theme that one life has to be sacrificed for another. Ex-mother-in-law gets taken care if her son denied. Elizabeth gets taken care of if her father is left in the cold. Why is this allowed to happen? And the thing that bothers me the most… God, through Jesus, said that he takes care of the birds and clothes the lilies of the valley so we shouldn’t worry about our needs being met. Yet, it seems like the needs of the ex are just being ignored. That is troubling enough all by itself. But then I have to ask myself, if God can ignore the ex… what makes me think I might not get the same. How does God pick who suffers and how much they suffer? How can I have faith when God appears to be no more trust-worthy than the people who have hurt me the most?

Lies I’ve Told

Lies I’ve Told

When you’re a kid, Show-and-Tell is the most amazing thing. You get to stand up in front of the class (just like the teacher) with something that is very important to you. For about two minutes (or an eternity in kid-time) you get to be the expert about a topic that you dearly love… your own stuff. It seems like I always ended up at school empty-handed on Show-and-Tell day. As each child would take a turn I would grow increasingly panicked that I didn’t have something to show. I would franticly search through my desk, my book bag (note, I went to school before the days of backpacks) or purse, and my pockets to find something… anything I could show off to the class.

There were several times I just made stuff up. I couldn’t miss my golden opportunity for the spot-light. So I did what any red-blooded American kid would do. I lied. Here are a few of my better tales:

~*~*~ Story 1 ~*~*~

Show-and-Tell was often after lunch. This would give me a chance to scrounge for stuff on the playground at lunch time. One time I found a really dirty, disgusting hair brush. It was full of hair, particles of dirt and twine, and other junk. It was down-right gross. But I couldn’t find anything better so I slipped it into my coat pocket for Show-and-Tell.

When it was my turn, I calmly got up in front of the class. I held my brush up for everyone to see and I slowly turned my body so everyone in the class had an equal opportunity to see it head on.

Then I began: This is a Pig Brush. I have a friend who owns a Pig Farm in upstate New York (I lived in Pittsburg at the time). This brush is used to scratch the backs of the pigs. It also helps keep the dirt and mud from getting to built up on them. And pigs have a little bit of hair on them and this brush keeps it looking neat.

~*~*~ Story 2 ~*~*~

My great-grandmother emigrated from France. She was a beautiful and graceful and elegant. I wanted to be just like my great-grandmother. She was smart, funny, and independent. She was a roll model. We would visit with my great-grandmother several times a month. During one visit she gave me a scarf. There was nothing special about the scarf, except that she had given it to me. It wasn’t a special present or anything. It was just lying around in her closet and she said, “Here do you want to play with this?”

The next time Show-and-Tell came around I happened to have the scarf in my pocket. I got up in front of the class and gently unfolded the scarf and held it up for everyone to see. “This isn’t just an ordinary scarf.” I started. “This scarf is from France. It’s pure silk made from oriental silk worms.” Most likely it was really 100% polyester. I held the scarf up again and slowly waved it in front of the class. “My great-grandma gave me this scarf. She’s from France and she brought the scarf back from France.” (Really she hadn’t been back to France since she came to America as a child.) “My great-grandma is a very important person.” I said. “She is a call girl and that is important work.”

The teacher sat quietly at her desk for a second. She was wringing her hands. I remember that because it worried me. “Elizabeth,” she said, “Do you know what a call girl does?”

I turned to look at the teacher. “No, not exactly. But if my great-grandma does it; it has to be important. When I grow up, I want to be a call girl. I want to be just like my great-grandma.”

The truth is, I didn’t know what a call girl was. I’m not even sure why I said my great-grandma was one. I must have heard the term on TV or in the movies. To the best of my knowledge no one in my family has been employed in any profession even remotely related to being a call girl. I have often wondered what was said at the next parent-teacher conference.

~*~*~ Story 3 ~*~*~

My dad was a minister, but before his conversion to Christianity he was a chemist. All through my life he alternated between being a professional minister and a professional chemist. Sometimes he had both jobs at the same time.

During one of his stints as a chemist, I decided that I was going to wear perfume all the time. I had a bottle of Toilette Water that I carried around in my book bag so I could dab a little on my pulse points whenever the odor got too weak. Show-and-Tell time rolled around again. In a panic I grabbed the bottle of Toilette Water.

Standing in front of the class I took the lid of the bottle and took a deep dramatic whiff. “This beautiful smelling compound is my dad’s latest secret invention.” I took another whiff. “Do you know how there are often bad smells in the bathroom. My dad has invented this chemical that smells good and makes everything around it smell good, too. All you have to do is take off the lid and set the bottle down behind the toilette and everything will smell great. You can even poor some in the toilette bowl. It works that way, too. See,” I said pointing to the perfume’s factory label, “that’s why my dad calls it Toilette Water because it makes the toilette and everything around it smell great.”

~*~*~ Story 4 ~*~*~

In art class we did a project where we used colorful yarns to stitch designs on little squares of burlap. That morning we had finished the project in art class and were allowed to take our crafts home. As the children around me were taking their turns at Show-and-Tell, I quickly pulled all the colorful yarns out of my square of burlap.

When it was my turn, I took the burlap square up front with me. “My great-great-great-grandpa was one of the Three Kings that visited baby Jesus at Christmas. My grandpa was the one who brought frankincense. This piece of cloth,” I held up the piece of craft burlap, “is a piece of baby Jesus’ swaddling clothes. It’s been handed down in my family ever since my grandpa got it from Mary. It’s proof that my grandpa was really there.”

~*~*~ Post Script ~*~*~

I have often wondered if my teachers remember me. I wish I could find them now. I’d love to know how they managed to keep a straight face week after week.

Bad, Bad Mommy!

Bad, Bad Mommy!

I feel like such a bad mom! Last Friday Elizabeth was supposed to take some kind of chopped up vegetable to school. They made Stone Soup as a class project and I completely forgot. I didn’t send in anything!!!

What jogged my memory was a discussion of what life was like before electricity. Elizabeth pointed out that when Cinderella, Snow White, and all the other princesses were alive electricity hadn’t been invented, yet. She said they only had candles for light and books for fun. So then I started asking her how did she think they kept warm? How did she think they communicated with people far away? After several of these questions I asked how she thought they cooked.

It’s funny because for most of the other questions she had a clue what people did. But for some reason cooking stumped her. When I explained that they hung a pot over an open flame she said, “Oh yes! That’s what they did when they made Stone Soup!” All of a sudden I remembered that it was Monday and I missed sending in chopped veggies.

I felt AWFUL! I apologized a hundred million times. She said it wasn’t a big deal and she didn’t care… but I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

Maybe you are wondering why this upset me so… you see when I was a kid my mom never remembered to send in the things I needed for school. I was always the kid without. When other kids ordered those Schoolastic Books – I never got one because my mom always forgot. I never had a show and tell to show because my mom always forgot. I never had the art supplies we needed to bring in. It made me feel even more lonely, left out, and different than I normally did.

I know that at a certain point, kids have to start taking responsibility for themselves. Once I reached that age, I normally did remember for myself. But in kindergarten, first, and even second grade… kids don’t have the ability to do that. Or even to make their moms do it. The worst part was if I said something to my mom, she would say it was my fault… that I should have remembered. I swore I wouldn’t forget when I had kids. BUT I DID FORGET! I hope Elizabeth didn’t feel lonely and sad.

Random Thoughts on a Saturday Night

Random Thoughts on a Saturday Night

This evening I had to take Andrea (my new Au Pair) to an Au Pair / Host Family meeting. This was actually the first host family meeting that I've been too where I actually stayed and talked to people. I had to take Gaby to one of these shin-digs in the fall. But neither of us were too interested in staying so as soon as we signed the attendance sheet we slipped out the back.

Unlike Gaby, Andrea doesn't have any friends in the area so this meeting was a big deal for her. It was the perfect chance for her to start making some friends.

One of the things that really bugged me about this event was the title that I was given -- Host Mother. It sounds like some kind of religious / Catholic title. I know it's not a big deal, but it just seems kind of spooky to me. Every time someone called me a Host Mother, the hair on the back of my neck would stand up.

The other odd thing was the average age of the other Host Mothers. We were an old group. I think I was one of the youngest mothers there and I ain't no spring chicken. I talked to one Host Mother that was in her 50's and she has twin three-year-old boys. Poor thing. I can't imagine being 50-something and potty training.

But there were a lot of old ladies there. Some of them even had old-lady hair. You know those hair-dos that women get at the salon and then go back every week for a wash and set. EEK! I hate old lady hair. I guess it's because my mom has old lady hair and she pampers it so. When she was living with me and there was the slightest bit of moisture in the air, I had to run and get the car and bring it to her. I had to get double and triple wet because she couldn't get her hair wet in between her appointments.

I wonder why most of the Host Mothers were over-the-hill? I have a couple of theories. It could be that older mothers have the money and extra space in their home to support an au pair. Maybe older mothers want more individualized attention for their children. In my case, I opted for an au pair because my schedule is so insane a regular child care center couldn't cover my hours. I don't know... I wonder if the twenty families in my group is a random enough sample. If it is; has anyone studied this?

I can see again! My blog, and all the other blogs, are back. I wonder if they were doing something on the back end because nothing has changed on my computer? Oh well. All I care about is the fact that I can see again!

Oh, this is just gross!

Oh, this is just gross!

Someone found my blog by doing a search on the phrase, "ex aunt inlaw". Most of the pages that come up in Google when you do that search are links to nude pictures of Olivia Newton-John.

How do you decide?

How do you decide?

My mom called me at work today. She was in tears. She was at the rehab center with my grandma. While my grandma was trying to walk she had some kind of atypical heart rhythm. Her heart rate was dangerously high and her blood pressure was dangerously low.

When my mom called they were starting some sort of IV for my grandma and they were asking my mom if she wanted to sign a DNR. My mom couldn't even begin to fathom how to make such a decision. I'm not sure what was more upsetting for her... the fact that her mom was so sick or being asked to make that decision.

My mom wanted me to decide for her right then and there. I was stunned. When I was faced with my dad’s DNR I spent a solid week praying, consulting with doctors and chaplains, studying about his type of cancer, and even looking at his test results for myself. And all this research was done after months of praying that God would give me the wisdom to make this decision when the time came. But most importantly, while my dad was still healthy enough to discuss his wishes we talked about it for hours. It was never a pleasant thing to discuss and we always ended by agreeing that he was going to get well enough that we were really just wasting our time. But we knew that even if he beat the cancer, someday I might be faced with making that decision for him anyway.

So, when my mom called and wanted me to decide for her in a split second; I was clueless. Heck, I don't even know the first thing about my Grandmother's wishes. I don't know if she wants to fight until the bitter end, if she wants to fight to a point, or if she just wants to slip away at the first possible moment. I just don't know what she wants. I know what my dad wanted and what I want and what my ex-husband wanted while we were married... but not her.

It seemed to me, the best thing to do was try to give her some criterion for making the decision. I suggested she call the oncologist and get him to speak frankly about her chances of surviving the last two rounds of chemo. I said she should ask him just how positive was the last PET scan that she had. I encouraged her to get the input of as many doctors as she could.

Instead, she put a nurse practitioner on the phone. My mom just couldn't handle the advice I was giving her. I was telling her to take action and she wanted to be given an answer. I had a very nice discussion with the nurse practitioner. I asked her to call the oncologist and find out his opinion. She told me that she had seen the results of the PET scan and that it looked very promising. She assured me that she would help my mom get the information she needed (or that she could at least pass on to me) to help make the decision. As we were ending the conversation, the nurse practitioner said that my Grandma was responding to the IV and she was becoming more coherent and aware of her surroundings.

The nurse practitioner was happy, not only for the good response from my grandma, but also for the fact that they could now ask her what her wishes were. I encouraged her to make sure my mom had that conversation. Without some force, some serious outside pressure, that conversation just wasn't going to happen.

This evening my mom called me again. She said that they have moved my grandma out of the rehab center and back to a medical floor of the hospital. She said grandma was resting comfortably and they were going to do several tests tomorrow.

I asked my mom what my grandma's wishes were. My mom didn't know. She never had the conversation. I hope the nurse practitioner talked to my grandma. I hope she knows. Because I can't imagine trying to make this decision without the faintest clue about the person's desires. Deciding between life and death for someone else is an awesome responsibility. It almost killed me even when I knew what my dad wanted. But how the hell do you decide all by yourself?

Hmmm...

Hmmm...

I can't see my own blog. This is so odd. I can create, edit, and publish posts to my blog (I think?) but I can't see it. I can see some other blogs... like Ton of Bricks and The Light Lady. But I can't see others like Awakenings.

I am perplexed. I don't get a lot of computer time these days, so I'm going to go ahead and publish and hope it looks ok to the rest of the world.

If you have any clues, give me a call or drop me an email.

See the trailer for Top Gun II Brokeback Squadron!