OmegaMom

I went driving down Three Lake Road this afternoon, to allow OmegaDotter to get a nap in before we went swimming.  The sunflowers are blooming profusely, and the Little Yellow Flowers (coreopsis, goldfields, some aster-y thing, and, I think, a yellow buckwheat) are starting up.

In two weeks, we will need to haul butt up onto the plateau above Three Lake Road to do our annual “dotter in the yellow flowers” picture.

You have no concept of what it’s like.  Let’s talk a 50-acre meadow.  Covered with yellow flowers.  Everywhere you look.  An ocean of yellow.

Amazingly, it’s rather difficult to capture in pictures.  This is three years ago:

This is last year:

Somehow, I have mislaid the pictures from two years ago.  I suspect they are on the other computer, which is still waiting for a new fan (if you turn it on, it turns itself off within a few minutes).

People in Texas do these pics with Bluebonnets.  I do them with DYCs (damned yellow composites).

Yellow flower season means we are into autumn here.  Yes, I know it’s August, still.  But suddenly, the monsoons have vanished, the sky is crystal clear and vivid, heart-stopping blue, the sun is suddenly setting earlier and earlier.

We haven’t heard any elk bugling yet, but it should happen any day now.  The woods around us are filled with the sound of shotguns going off–the hunters practicing their shooting.  The other day, at work, I heard one of the guys saying, “Yup, got a ticket for two cows…” and another one reply, “Heeey…I got one for a bull!  I’ve been out scouting the past few weekends…”  For a moment, I was befuddled, thinking cattle, then realized–Ah!  Hunting season!

Hereabouts, hunting season is a big event.  The guys all arrange to have a week’s vacation scheduled very tentatively for Sometime in September.  Then they put in for the hunting license lottery.  If you get picked, you had darned well better shoot what you got licensed for; otherwise, you get your general hunting license yanked for a year or two.  Anyway, the guys drop out for a week here and there, then reappear with tales of freezers filled with elk or deer steaks, ground elk, deer ribs, you name it.  At my previous job, my office mate would bring in elk chili to share.

Then there’s the “junior hunting” division days, when pop gets to take the kiddos out for their first hunts.

Most of the hunters I know have a wilderness ethic:  keep it clean, keep it neat, pack out what you bring in, don’t poach, shoot only what you’re licensed for.  But then there are the others, who litter our road from the highway with empty six packs and garbage galore.  OmegaDad snarks about how much heavier the beer cans are when they’re empty, because there’s no other reason to leave them by the side of the road.

It’s a way of life.  It’s a sign of autumn.  When you go hiking in September, you make sure to wear bright clothing–yellow or red or vivid blue–just in case someone thinks you’re an elk or a deer.

Autumn also means heritage camp.  This is our first year going.  Anyone going to the Fraser camp?  If so, drop me an email at omegamom_01 at yahoo dot com, and we’ll see if we can’t meet up.

Technorati: Autumn, DYCs, hunting, heritage camp

Grump first.

I find it rather ironic that in comments to a post talking about being dismissive, someone gets dismissive about the specific physical resemblances to OmegaDotter’s birthparents I talked about in my Somewhere in southern China… post.  One of the main points of that post was that there are things people think about (a lot) that don’t get talked about in blogs or that require a knowledge of the blog and the blogger to know it gets talked about elsewhere.  In that post, in that paragraph, I stuck to physical stuff.  If you read the rest of my blog, you’ll find things scattered here and there where I talk about personality traits.  But.  Tell me how to untangle the various aspects of OmegaDotter’s personality?  Please.  Tell me how to pinpoint this and say, “Oh, yes, that came direct from her birthfather!” or pinpoint that and say, “I’m sure that comes from her birthmother!” or pinpoint yet another trait and say, “That is a result of being in an orphanage for the first year of her life.”

We don’t know.  I think I said that all over the place in that particular post.  We don’t know. I can point to specific mannerisms and say it came from me or from OmegaDad or from even OmegaGranny–because I know those mannerisms like the back of my hand.  But I also know, from my own family experience, that likes, dislikes, personality traits, etc. are a weird amalgam of pieces from all over the genetic tree.  I’m like my mother in this set of personality traits; I’m like my father in that set; I’m like my Aunt F. in yet another; I’m like my grandmother in this, this, this, and that.

If I knew OmegaDotter’s birthfamily, I’d be able to point to things and say, “Oh, yes, that comes from her mother, and that comes from her father, and that comes from me, and this comes from OmegaDad.”

As it is, mostly I take her in her totality, as she is.  Every once in a while a mannerism that is mine takes me by surprise.  (Usually not very pleasantly–I’m obviously something of a clown and a bit bossy.)

I have even surrendered to the horsie obsession, which perhaps does spring from her birthfamily.  (I will point out that this is a statement of wry amusement about the whole horse thing, for those who find it difficult to figure out.)

I can say that she’s scary smart, she’s charming, she’s funny, she’s flirty, she’s stubborn as hell, she’s bossy.  She loves drawing and artwork.  I see flashes of what she will look like as an adult, and she will be beautiful.

Onto the clarification.

I found the comment trail on Karen’s post to be (har) dismissive of the original commenter’s post and rather obnoxious in the pack mentality it showed.  I did not and do not agree with the tone that many people took.  I think Karen’s original response was bound to rouse the posse, but…but…she did say some good things in that post.  The problem was that there was defensiveness all around.  My point in my post was that, given the way the comment was presented and the timing of the comment, it was bound to bring defensiveness to the fore.

If the anonymous commenter had really wanted to bring those issues out, perhaps a different blog would have been a better venue.  Because, frankly, if anyone’s read Karen’s blog on a regular basis, those issues have been talked about.  But I know a bunch of blogs of potential adoptive parents who don’t talk about or seem to think about those issues, and bloggers who might benefit from a little lecture like that.

And, once again, if the commenter thought it was so important, perhaps the commenter should have had the courage of her/his convictions, and put his/her name out there.  I personally despise anonymous commenters; I will always put my internet nom de plume on my comments.

Technorati: Adoption, birthparents, personality, physical traits