OmegaMom

…Everyday life again.

Or not so “everyday”.

The Dotter’s last day at her preschool is tomorrow.  On Monday, she starts summer day camp for the first time.

She marched into the office this evening, draped in her “married dress” and “cape” (white spangly leotard courtesy of my Christmas eBay shopping spree and wildly colorful silk scarf of mine that she has appropriated), and pronounced:

“Last days are bad.  I don’t like that tomorrow’s my last day.”

She said the same thing as I was getting her ready for her bath, and I had to snuggle her for a minute or two as she perched on the edge of the bathtub.

We are to stop at Albertson’s prior to dropping her off, so we can buy mini-popsicles for all the kids.

I have to write up a note with contact info so we can keep up with the One and Only True Love, latest BFF, and second BFF.

On Monday, when I drove her in, I was thinking to myself that this would be the last few times we went there.  It was bittersweet.  She’s getting so big.  Ready to march out into the world–or into Big Kids’ School.  Which Big Kids’ School is still up in the air, because Every.  Single.  One.  Of her friends is going to Conquistador School, instead of the school we were planning to send her to.

A big first in her life.  She has been at this preschool since shortly after we brought her home; it’s been forever for our little one’s life.

Technorati: School

How do you define what makes a human being “human”?  What is it that separates us from the animals around us?  Intelligence?  There are some who think that dolphins are equally intelligent  Social structure?  Take a look at ants.  Humor?  Many animals display qualities of humor (lowbrow though it may be).

Recently, neurologists are finding more and more evidence that some of the things that we humans have cherished as differentiating us from the animal world are as hard-wired as, say, hunger.

Take moral structure.  Altruism. 

Religious thinkers and more generic philosophers have pondered the questions of human morality since we’ve been writing–and probably before that.  What makes a particular action, in a particular set of circumstances, be seen as “good”?  Why do people try to help others?  Is it the result of religious thinking?  Is it inherent in our social structures?

This article discusses some of these questions, and starts off with a bang.  Some National Institutes of Health neuroscientists were scanning the brains of volunteers who were asked to contemplate helping others, or giving them something.  Each time the volunteers did, a very specific area of the brain lit up.

Whoa.  You mean it’s not years’ worth of studying religion or philosophy that makes us want to do good?  That maybe, just maybe, it’s a built-in chemical and electrical response, evolved to preserve the species?

It’s an interesting question.  If you ask someone why they did something nice for someone else, they’re likely to give you reasons.  “I did it because he needed help.”  “I did it because Christ says to do so.”  “I did it because it’s good to offer help.”

In all those answers lies the inherent, underlying belief that the person decided to do it, consciously.

But what these scientists are finding is that, perhaps, it’s not so conscious as we have always thought.  Which can be a scary realization.  I’m not who I am, doing the things I do, because I choose to be–I’m who I am, doing the things I do, because of the way my brain is structured and the way the various chemicals in my body interact with each other.  Or, conversely, I choose to be this way, because my brain is behaving this way, anyway.

There are other neuroscientific findings that are equally as disturbing, such as the brain scans that demonstrate that someone’s “decision” to move a hand or arm is actually preceded by the neurochemical firings that cause the hand or arm to move.  The area of the brain that lights up with “conscious thought” lights up after that.

So…was my decision to, say, marry OmegaDad a carefully thought-out reaction to an emotional response?  Or was it programmed deep within my neurons?  Or was it a combination of both?  Did my original neuronal make-up, affected by genetics from day one, and by hormones within my mother’s body, and by the structuring of those neurons during my first few months, cause me to be “destined” to, say, decide to have scrambled eggs for dinner tonight?

I like to think we’re more than the sum of our parts.  That’s there’s just a bit more to every human being than simple x+y combinations of neurochemicals causing us to make our decisions the way we do.  But at the same time, it’s very obvious that introduction of non-naturally-occurring chemicals–such as alcohol, or percodan, or LSD–can cause us to alter our thinking and change our decisions.  Parents are very aware of the effects of sugars and small amounts of caffeine.  Some parents swear by the effects of specific diets on the behavior and personality of children with neurological disorders such as Asperger’s or autism or bipolar disorder.

What makes me different than you?  What is it about that neurochemical soup, that collection of firing neurons, that causes the genesis of consciousness–so that my particular neurochemical soup and firing neurons results in me sitting down at this computer to ponder all these questions?  Is it just a certain level of complexity that provides the spark to generate consciousness?

Is a puzzlement.

I read the science news these days and am constantly awed and amazed–and prompted to ponder these big questions–by the discoveries that are being made.

Woohoo!  I get an email today saying that my hosting company, “after careful consideration and monitoring of stats”, is upgrading the server OmegaMom.com is hosted on.

I think that SiteGround is Da Bomb.  I didn’t even complain to them about that week that things were acting funky, because things always kept coming back up fairly quickly, but apparently they noticed (I’m sure it happened to other people).

(And it’s pretty nifty keeno that I get three months’ service for every person who signs up with them with a referral from me!)

See my poor Dotter?  Down on her hands and knees, scrubbing the deck with soapy water and a scrubby, in her purple ball gown?  I made her do it.  I am standing behind the camera, cracking a whip and cackling an evil laugh.  This is why we adopted!  So we could have a waif scrubbing our floors for us!

Well, not really.  We have a table on the deck.  We wanted to eat out on the deck today.  The table was grody.  I had rinsed, and soaped, and rinsed again.  The Dotter, of course, wanted to help.  Finally, I had had enough help, and told her if she wanted to scrub stuff, she could take the bucket over the by stairs and scrub the deck.

Which she did.  !!!

(You can see why I am dying for a new deck.)

Above is the new hair, highlights, small amounts of grey left, and all.  The wind was blowing, so The Do is askew.  This a.m., I handed the camera to OmegaDad just before the dotter and I headed out to the pool (for the first time this year, yay!), and informed him he was to take my photo.  The Dotter, of course, wanted to “help”, which meant sitting in my lap and squinting into the sun with me.

Just moments ago, the strains of Papagena’s aria from The Magic Flute emerged from the bathroom–fairly well performed, by the way.  Where does the dotter get these things?  This one comes from…wait for it…a Barbie movie.  My loathing for the concept of Barbie aside, I have to say that the Barbie movies are oh-kay in my books.  A smattering of classical favorites, an emphasis on girls being able to solve their problems themselves.  Not great cinema, but oh-kay.

Highlighting is now done.  We shall see.  OmegaDad’s comment, at first, was, “Well, it’ll look different when it’s dry.”

This was ominous.

Later, he said, “Oh!  They’re supposed to be reddish highlights!”  Then he went on:  “When you said ’streak your hair’, I thought you meant ‘streak‘ your hair!  Like all the women back home, who streak their hair white blond!”

Oh, puh-leeze.  As if. 

(Though I have thought of it, now and then.)

Then he made an obnoxious comment about blondes.

Then he made an obnoxious comment about “the women back home.”

Anyway, my very inexpert attempt will be photographed on the morrow. 

Technorati: hair, vanity

Spring has truly sprung here in Small Mountain University Town.

Music on the square has started up again.  Once a week, between mid-May and late-August, a community group provides live music on the square.  The first year the dotter was home, we took her every week, and had a grand time…she would bounce and run out to dance and just generally be an adorably cute toddler.

The next year was the OmegaFamily’s sturm und drang year, and the family took a pass on the music.  It would probably have helped, looking back…

Then last year, we just kept forgetting.

So this year, when I saw the notice on the local newspaper’s website, I made sure to insert every single one of those dates into my calendar at work.  No forgetting this time!

This week’s music was courtesy of the Cadillac Angels, a nostalgic rock band, playing great oldies from the ’60s with verve and expertise.  The lead Angel, sporting a ’60s look and ’60s shades, was truly amazing on the guitar.

Coincidentally, the day before, dancing on the square had begun.  Another once-a-week do, it’s open to anyone who wants to learn to dance.  The crowd from DOTS showed up for the live music, and the dancing began.   It was good to have the group there, because it’s like seeding the pot.  If no-one’s dancing, getting anyone to step out and dance in the spotlight (as it were) is very difficult, but if there’s a group of dancers out there already, it’s much easier to get more people to join in.

I sat there tapping my toes and bouncing, while the dotter sat there looking glum and OmegaDad headed off to the burrito place to get (AWESOME!) burritos.  Before I knew it, the old mountain man in blue had tapped me on the shoulder and swept me down to the open area in front of the band.  I insisted I had two left feet, but he just smiled, and started twirling me around.  I didn’t even last one whole dance–it was aerobic exercise, and I started huffing and panting.  Oy!  But it was grand fun (and fodder for another post, somewhere down the line).

When OmegaDad returned, the dotter being much less glum and more into the music, it was time for me and the dotter to get up and dance.

While the music was playing, kids of various ages were darting to and fro, dancing in circles in the dance area, running between various watchers, and generally being quite cute.  In addition to all the scuttling about, the kids were climbing on the artsy semi-railings scattered about.  OmegaDad and I watched while the dotter clambered up onto one like it was a jungle gym, OmegaDad muttering to me that it scared the heck out of him, and me trying very, very hard to sit on my hands.  My philosophy is “let ‘em do it”, and if they get hurt, they get hurt.  But, oh, how hard it is when you see your dotter dangling head down over brick steps… OmegaDad, unable to keep away, went over to “help” her, and I got this lovely father-daughter picture.

At one point, I glanced over to one set of the faux railings, and saw this lovely array of little boys (and one big boy, the blue-clad mountain man), perched like clones.

The crowd ebbed and flowed–at times, it seemed like hardly anyone was there (as in the boys’ pic), at others it seemed like the area was jam-packed.

The music was grand, the dancing was fun, the weather was perfect, the array of characters was splendid.  What a great way to enter into spring!

Technorati: Spring, music, community

I am a perpetrator of all that is wrong and horrible with society today.

Yes, you heard me right.

What brings this up?  The story in the previous post, and the comments on the newspaper’s website about it.

Let’s see…My sins:

I don’t think CPS should remove the child because of his (obviously) neglectful mother.  OMG, the child was out of her sight!!  For an entire MINUTE!!!  Give me a fuckin’ break.  First off, any parent who claims that they never, ever took their eyes off their child/ren at that age is automatically chalked up as a boastful liar in my books.  Secondly, there’s “keeping an eye on the kiddo” and there’s “keeping an eye on the kiddo”; I have quite often gone into stores and done my business, with a general knowledge of where the dotter is (sort of keeping her in the corner of my eye).  Not aware every second of what she is doing, but being aware of where she is in such a way that if (when) she disappears, I immediately have a little alert bell go off in my head.

I don’t think the child should be whipped, beaten, spanked, or dragged through the streets with tar and feathers.  Nor do I think he’s destined to be a high-school dropout serving burgers at Burger King.  Nor do I think he’s going to be a felon when he grows up.  Nor do I think he’s inherently destructive and he’ll never appreciate anything beautiful in his life.  Fer cryin’ out loud, folks.  He looks to be two years old.  Two.  The only time my two-year-old appreciated “beauty” or the concept of “leaving things alone” was when it was something that was hers.  I can practically guarantee you that if I had hurried past a heap of colorful sand like that with the dotter in tow at that age, she, too, would have done her damndest to play with it.  She wouldn’t have dragged her feet through it, either–she’d have plopped right down in the middle of it and started running her fingers through it, lovingly creating multi-colored sandhills and turning it into a thoroughly slurgy monochromatic mess.  Then, she would have insisted that I admire it.

I don’t even think the mom should be pilloried for “running away”–mainly because I don’t think the mom really noticed.  She marched in, kiddo running after her, did her stuff at the post office, and marched out again, grabbing kiddo on the way.  (This relates to “he was out of her sight!”–she obviously knew where he was, because she didn’t stop and look around and worry, she went right over to him on her way out.)  She looked busy and unobservant, like her mind was on other things.  When I’m busy and my mind is on other things, I don’t observe my environment all that clearly…after all, I can drive to work on autopilot, and not even remember leaving the house.  (I can also not even remember to bring my purse, but that’s another post entirely.)

Amazingly enough, when I watched the video, I wasn’t immediately aware that the woman was on welfare.  That she was popping out kids left and right.  That her behavior was an indictment of society today.  That she and her kid were a blot on humanity.

See?  A squishy liberal–that’s me.

If I were a right-thinking upright and moral human being, I would know all those things, just by viewing that video.

I hang my head in shame.

Now, I will admit, if my dotter had done that at age two and I did notice what was going on, I’d have been utterly and completely mortified, and, depending on my state of mind at the time would either have had a long talk with the child at the scene of the crime or else had a little screech-fest.  

In all honesty, I can totally imagine being off in my own little world to the point where I wouldn’t notice, completely oblivious.  I’d find out about it by reading the morning paper and watching that videotape.  And then I’d be utterly and completely mortified and afraid to stick my head out the door.

If the kid were older–say four or five–then I’d be more charitable with the commentary on Super-Destructo and his ultimate fate.  But at two?  Hell, most kids are barely able to follow two-step directions at the age of two, let alone grasp the concept of stanchions marking a boundary and pretty sand not being a plaything.  (My mom is going to email me and tell me I was a genius saint at that age and would never, ever have done something like that.  She might have a point–but that’s because I was repressed.  Ask all her friends.)

If you ever get upset or embarrassed by something your toddler has done while in a store or in public, take heart.

At least your toddler didn’t dance all over some Tibetan monks’ sand mandala…

Gl0bal warm1ng is a quite popular topic, and being as I don’t want a bunch of crazies (from either side) showing up, and don’t want to deal with p0rn comments deluging this post (my “Gl0bal cl1mate change? We confess!” post is a p0rn magnet), I am disguising the topic quite a bit.  I just want my nice cozy collection of everyday readers on this one.  No Technorati linkage, either, for the same reason.

This story about how “an expert” has “debunked” gl0bal warm1ng is  getting a lot of linkage from folks gleefully saying, “See?!  See?!  Gl0bal warm1ng is going to be a joke in five years!  This scientist says so!”

The “expert” in question is a meteorologist.  Not to knock meteorologists, but I can point you to a site maintained by a professional meterologist that is all about the Sekrit U.S. Versus Russian Mobsters Weather War, evidenced by “chemtrails”, so being a meteorologist in and of itself is no guarantee of any sort of coherent expertise.

Meterologist ≠ climatologist.  Meteorologists study the weather.  Climatologists study climate–a statistical and historical conglomeration of weather.  One is short-term, one is long-term.  A meteorologist who talks about cl1mate change is akin to a car repairman talking about the theory of internal combustion design.  He’s going to have an idea, but he just doesn’t have the background and expertise that industrial engineers have.

Next, the ”expert” talks in terms of percentages of atmosphere that each of the greenh0use gases contributes.  All very well and good, and boy, oh boy, does showing the varying percentages of all those gases make it seem like the gases in question with gl0bal cl1mate change are negligable.  But when you delve into the subject, you end up with the reality that different molecules absorb different ranges in the electromagnetic spectrum, and behave differently, and have differing natural uptake rates, and blah de blah de blah.  If you’re interested, check out the “It’s not caused by C02″ section of “How to Talk To A Cl1mate Skeptic“.

To top it all off, this grand debunking was done for a meeting of the New Zealand version of a county farmers’ association.

Debunking should be made of sterner stuff, IMO.  I’m more likely to credit the opinions of climatologists who study the influence of the sun’s cycles on terrestrial weather than this dude’s talk.

All of this said, one does have to realize that “consensus” (as in, gl0bal cl1matologists have formed a consensus on the issue, etc.) in the scientific community does not constitute proof of any sort.  It does, however, indicate that the folks whose job is to study this stuff are pretty much agreeing with each other, with some wiffling and waffling as to how severe the issue is.  Barring any sudden paradigm shifts, I’m willing to read their discussions and (well-reasoned and coherent) disagreements, and try to come to my own decision.  That decision will be based on scientists’ discussions, not, say, economists’ discussions, or conservatives’ discussions, or liberals’ discussions…

Sunday, OmegaDad decided to tackle the high beam in the great room.  This requires lots of shuffling of the Big Ladder, lots of sotto voce muttering, lots of loud muttering, and requests to remove The Child from the premises.

So, the dotter and I went out for a haircutting experience, lunch, and shopping.

The dotter did amazingly well at sitting still for her hair cut.  This is a first.

I, on the other hand, wanted to squirm like crazy.

Because this time…this time…the haircutting cut me to the quick.

I’m used to lots of hunks and chunks falling to the floor.  That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was…

Well…

Grey.

Lots and lots and lots of grey.

OmegaMom confesses her vanity:  It was like a punch in the gut.  Holy shit, when did my hair go so grey?!

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.  I decided, while we were out shopping for new jeans for the girl, to wander by the home hair-coloring section.  We can’t afford me luxuriating in expensive salon coloring; I’ve done it once and practically had a heart attack at the price.

I toiled.  I spun.

I lifted box after box and examined them closely.

The dotter was not amused or interested.  She wanted (yet another) tube of lip gloss/chapstick.  This was nixed in no time flat; while she can’t figure out where all her tubes of chapstick have disappeared to, I was sure that dipping into a few of her Stuff Buckets in her (hah) bedroom would reveal many forlorn tubes.

I wavered between full color, a six-week type, or one with highlights.

I purchased one–L’Oreal Couleur Experte.  Because I’m worth it.  Because I’m a sucker for marketing.  Because I’m also a sucker for French.  Because I was consumed by vanity.  Because in two weeks, I may be meeting up with a pair of blogging buddies from far-flung areas of the nation, so at least I want to cover up the grey.

(Damn, it was shocking!  Really!  I have no idea when all that grey snuck up on me!)

We came home.

While OmegaDad was dealing with the high beam, and the dotter was watching a combo of Happy Feet and The Black (a series about a horse), I snuck into the bathroom, locked the door, and began the process.

Of course, when it was halfway done, I was urgently called forth to bathe the dotter, who had been given a paint roller and a box to paint, and was now covered with light grey paint.  May I just mention that I am flabbergasted at how fast that happened?  When I locked the bathroom door, the dotter was ensconsed on the futon.  How did she manage to get herself so totally covered with paint in 15 minutes?!

I feared the worst; surely the hair dye would turn my hair a horrible flat black while I was busy removing the grey from the dotter’s hands, legs, feet, and hair.

The fears were groundless:  The end result is…quite nice.  The highlighting part will have to wait until later, when I am less likely to be called forth from the haven of hair.

When it is all done, I will have OmegaDad take a few pics and post them, so that all and sundry can guffaw. 

OmegaGranny was recently interviewed about her blog and blogging for a podcast.  Check it out!

(I tried embedding it, but that didn’t work.  Bah.)

I have always been amazed by people who don’t love books.  People who can’t have them around. 

The OmegaFamily has too many books, frankly.  We have books in heaps and piles all over the house, though most of the books live in the office or in a bookshelf near the TV.  When we were figuring out our net worth for our adoption from China, in a fit of true anal-ness, I counted our books. 

We had about three thousand.

(I then multiplied the paperback books by one multiplier and the hardback books by another, totalled them all up, and stuck them on my little spreadsheet.  I was so darned proud of that spreadsheet!  And then our dossier consultant called from the agency, and she wiffled and waffled, and finally said, “We’re not sure you have enough net worth.”  What?!  I had scooched that number up towards $100,000!  When I explained what I had done, there was a small silence on the other end of the phone, and she finally said, somewhat weakly, “Well, we normally just tell our people to estimate.  Why don’t you use what your insurance agent uses?”  Bah.  So we did that, instead, and the agency was happy.)

I met a man while I was on a visit back to Chicago once who was a very odd duck.  We clicked extremely fast, and I ended up going out with him a time or two.  We finally ended up back at his apartment, and I was amazed at how sterile it seemed…then I realized that he had one bookshelf.  One.  Filled with pristine books.  He informed me that he collected first editions…then he told me he had read none of them.

This was a deal killer for me.

(When I returned back to the southwest, he sent me a book titled “On the Way to the Wedding”.  Obviously, there was a serious miscommunication going on there.  I found it very creepy, actually.)

My grandmother–well on her way to 104 now, but not looking too likely to make it to the year mark–has an odd relationship with books.  She loves to read.  But, to her, books are a disposable item.  You get them from the bookstore or the library, and when you’re done reading them, you get rid of them.  All they are, in her eyes, is something to collect dust.  She doesn’t have the tendency that other people in my family have, of wandering through her (personal) library, finger trailing across book spines, finding an old favorite, pulling it out, leafing through a few pages, and deciding, “Ah!  I’ll read this one again.”  To her, reading a book “again” is a very odd concept.  And paperback books?  Ach.  Truly throwaway items.  She regularly made cracks about my parents’ house filled with paperback books.

What brings this all about is a quote:  “Oh, my parents never cracked a book, just newspapers,” he told the Christian Science Monitor. “But they had lots of books. They bought them at the Salvation Army to fill up empty shelves.”  Which brings to mind the question:  why have bookshelves at all, if you’re not going to read the books you buy to fill them??

The “he” in question is Lloyd Alexander, author of 40 young adult fantasies.  I loved the “The Chronicles of Prydain“, based on Welsh mythology.  The books in this series were some of those old friends that I pulled out of the bookshelf over and over again.  I recommend them for children who are 8 to 9 years old…and older.

Lloyd Alexander died this week of cancer.

Technorati: Books, Lloyd Alexander

I rarely discuss OmegaDad’s job, because I’m deathly afraid that someone, somehow, will get wind of my blog, read something about his job, and promptly decide to fire him because of me.  Paranoia strikes deep, y’know.

However, this story is just too cute to pass up.

He works for the feds as a dirt dude.  The feds are anal about their computers, not allowing anyone to have admin powers on them.  (This drives OmegaDad nuts because he regularly tries to install specialized add-ons for his GIS and ends up having to call the state IT coordinator to ask her to do it for him.)  They also regularly check emails at the server for evil nasty vile stuff.

He got an email this week from Brenda, the state IT coordinator.  Brenda was just dancing on air, because she had finally figured out a way to keep his emails to me from being flagged as p0rnography.

Git yer minds out of the gutter, kids.  It’s not because we talk dirty in our emails.  (Alas.)

See, we have signatures for each other.  Mine, to him, is “exohme”.

His, to me?

“xxxooo”.

Apparently, as soon as the state office installed the pr0n filters, his emails started showing up in the filtered queue.  Brenda read the first one, went, “Oh, how sweet!” and just ignored the rest.  But she was about to go out of town on vacation, and didn’t want to have to explain it all to her temporary backup, who isn’t quite as sharp as she is…In our innocence, we had never even considered the possibility that those three x’s were getting flagged.

Dreadful news:  OMG.  Miss Snark has announced she is retiring her blog!  I am furschimmelt!  While I am in no way, shape, or form an aspiring professional writer, I have followed her blog faithfully for at least a year.  Farewell, Miss Snark!  Farewell, Killer Yapp!  Buh-bye, cluegun!  Adios, Crapometer!  ::Sob!::

Technorati: Email filters, Miss Snark

OmegaGranny writes about the merchandising related to SpiderMan 3. Just by coincidence, I had come across (via Clicked) this uproar about the collectable Mary Jane figurine. She features a peek-a-boo thong! She features boobage spilling out the top of her shirt! She’s barefoot! She is daintily washing Peter Parkers’ spidey costume! And, as the feminists say–all that’s lacking is her being barefoot pregnant (pregnant, dammit!…yeah, I can think and type at the same time) and she’ll fit every nerdy geeky comic reader boy’s wet dreams!

Over to the left, you’ll notice a couple of badges that show I’ve been nominated for “Hottest Mommy Blogger” (?!) and “Best Parenting Blog”. The lovely Miss C. did the deed. I think if you want to vote, you just click through and vote, but am not sure.

OmegaDad, the OmegaFamily, and the Geography Gals got together last night for a potluck Mexican feast, capped by a lovely lemon flan made by the marvelous C., whose parents are caterers and who bakes like a dream (Boston Cream Pie with kir ganache, anyone??). We all pigged out greatly.

Technorati: Mary Jane, sexism, blog awards, food

D, over at No More Work Than One (hah!), tagged me with the “Seven little known facts” meme.

So:

1. When I was in my early teens, I wanted to join the Air Force Thunderbirds. Much to my dismay, I learned when I was about 16 that women couldn’t pilot fighter jets. This made me fume. Then, much later, I learned that people who had lousy eyesight couldn’t pilot fighter jets. This didn’t make me fume, just made me sad. Nowadays, they allow folks who have had LASIK in…
2. I’m a wuss. I’m quite able to start a grumpy email or internet board exchange, but am afraid to open the responses. I have to consciously tell myself not to be a wuss and to open the damned thing, already! to actually get the response open.
3. Another wussy aspect: I have phone phobia. This was a real drawback when I worked on a business magazine and had to interview people for stories. It also didn’t help when I was doing phone research for my mom’s company. Picking up the phone to make a cold call literally leaves my stomach in knots. I don’t have the same problem answering the phone; I figure anyone who has dialed actually wants to be disturbed by me…
4. I sucked my thumb into my teens.
5. I still bite my fingernails.
6. I am a total failure at putting makeup on. I now know that this extends to putting makeup on my dotter. Luckily, raccoon eyes are de rigeur when performing on stage.
7. There was a period in my early thirties when my biggest dream was to become a squatter on forest service land and build my own log cabin with my own hands and live off the land, hiking 30 miles in and out to get my groceries once a month.

I’m supposed to tag seven other people. As D noted, if the meme were done properly, the entire blogosphere would have been tagged many times over by now. So, rather than specifically tagging people, if you feel like it, write up seven interesting things about yourself on your blog & let me know, or do it in the comments. In other words–”Tag! You’re It!”

(This is called “laziness”.)

Technorati: Seven things

Having been somewhat sick, I’ve spent yesterday and today in bed (warning to OmegaGranny!).  All of which is normally, in an odd way, kind of fun, especially because once you have a kid in the house, this kind of lolling about doesn’t happen very often.

But this afternoon I was plagued with nightmares.  Or A Nightmare.  Not quite sure which.  And, being as I’m a generous person, and it was related to adopting from China, I’m going to share it with you.

It started off with blog-hopping, looking for new blogs.  I found a blog by a lady that I knew, and on today’s page was a picture I knew–a little 3-year-old wearing a bright red macintosh and bright red galoshes and bright red rainhat lying on her stomach and holding her chubby cheeks in her hands, grinning into the camera, kicking her legs behind her.

(It’s a real photo, though I may have the colors wrong.  It was one of the ones I yearned after while we were waiting for our referral.)

The blog entry…oh.  My.  God.  It said, “Today it’s been three years since we had to take her back to China.”

Say what?!

I was horrified.  Y’see, in my dream, I knew that little girl.  I had played with her and loved on her shortly after OmegaDotter came home.

But here was this woman saying they had had to take her back to China.  And, though it wasn’t said outright, my dreamstate said it was because the parents thought she had RAD.  So I started archive diving, looking for the posts about why they had come to that decision, which I wasn’t able to find; the posts were all normal happy posts of life with a five-year-old and a three-year-old.  The dream segued into me going back in time and holding that little girl on my lap–giggles and all–and having her throw a fit, then relax into my arms in that way that means “I’m totally trusting”.  I was rubbing her back and looking at her mother in horror, because I knew she was just about to “return” this little girl to China because she was broken.  All I wanted to do (remember, nightmare and dream logic and time-sense is totally incoherent) was to say to her, “I read your blog today!  How can you do that?!  Don’t return her to China–give her to us! Can’t you see it’s because you’re parenting her in a weird way that she’s responding to you like that?!  Look at how she’s responding to me!”  (Um.  My dreamstate is very judgmental sometimes.)

Then the dream segued into me being at MortimersMom’s house, or Mrs. Figby’s house (not sure which), and trying to use their phone so that I could get home so I could write a horrified blog entry about all of this.  And then, when I finally got to my computer (which was at my Aunt F.’s house), it was stuck on that blog entry, and I couldn’t get LiveWriter to work so I could blog about it, no matter how hard I pounded on the keyboard or hit escape or tried to kill the blog entries by hitting Ctl-Alt-Del.

Which is why, when all is said and done, I am blogging about it.  I have no idea what brought it up, but I’m still shaken by it.

(There was a lot more, including a horrid little vignette where Hippy Dippy Little Enclave in the Woods was taken over by developers who were ripping out the houses and putting in ticky-tacky little suburban delios all over the place…)

Technorati: Nightmare, RAD, surreal

The world is filled with minor annoyances.  Some of these annoyances can be avoided.

Right now, I’m trying to look at a Virginia county website.

The website uses navigation buttons that are powered by Java.

If the buttons don’t show up, there’s a little link at the bottom of the navigation bar, saying, “If Link Buttons Above Are Not Loading to Page OR If Municode Navigation Window Is Not Appearing CLICK HERE”.  The “CLICK HERE” link leads to a page saying you need to download the latest and greatest version of Java and install it.

Excuse me?

This is a municipal website.

It’s not there for the convenience of the webmaster.

It’s there for the convenience of the people who want to visit the website.

Why should I be forced to download the L&G version of Java in order to use their website?

Dudes, I work with websites all day long.  I design websites.  I work for a government entity (well, kinda).  Let me tell you, I’m not going to design a website that requires my users to download and install extra-special stuff!

And what about ADA compliance?!

This is appalling.  It has taken me ten minutes to download and install the L&G version of Java.  All I want to do is visit their website, glean a few facts and figures, and move on.

I don’t care that FrontPage is nice and easy to use when creating websites.  I don’t care that they probably don’t have a dedicated webmaster.  They are a public entity, and they’re supposed to be serving the public.  What if I weren’t computer-savvy?  What would I do then?  How many of their users are computer-savvy?  How on earth can they get away with web design that actually requires them to devote an additional page to telling their users how to get their website to work??

Bah.

(Not to mention their website is just fugly.)

Technorati: Usability, ADA compliance, websites, rants

This Mother’s Day weekend was wonderful all around.  In fact, Saturday, I went around humming, “What a Wonderful World”, it was such a good weekend.  I was handed my requisite box of truffles from Mr. OmegaMom, OmegaGranny got candied ginger dipped in chocolate, and OmegaDotter’s various MD projects were proudly unveiled.  Then, on Sunday morning, we trekked off to the local big Mother’s Day buffet with another family that adopted from China, we went off to a variety of nurseries for plants, and then OmegaDotter and I drove OmegaGranny down the hill and spent the day with her, hanging out on the porch and enjoying the pleasant breezes, visiting Great Grandma (who is, alas, very frail these days), then off to dinner and back up the hill.

OmegaDad is an exemplary son-in-law to OmegaGranny.  Some mothers-in-law want flowers.  Some want candy.  Some want perfume, or diamonds, or squishy Hallmark cards.

What really pleases OmegaGranny is being able to take interesting pictures.

So.  On Mother’s Day, while motoring to and fro between the Mother’s Day buffet and the various nurseries, OmegaGranny went, “Oooh!” to the Tank Farm.

And on the way home, OmegaDad did a quick U-turn and pulled into a driveway near the Tank Farm, so that OmegaGranny could take pictures of Industry.

It’s interesting how different people see the same thing differently.  OmegaGranny’s approach was to do “Industry in Context”.  And she was delighted by the “dead things”–a car seat on its side, revealing springs and ratty, bird-eaten stuffing.

Mine was to do ooh-interesting closeups, and there were lots of opportunities–big tanks with blue stairs, an old yellow hulk pulling a small tank car, railroad cars with graffiti.

Then, later on, there was the chance to do “rural rust”.

I was still more interested in the Industry pics, myself, but OmegaGranny had a ball with the various rusty vehicles dotting the landscape aroundabout. And there was a fine selection of rural graffiti, as well, where OmegaDad also stopped for another set of pictures.

Once upon a time, Mother’s Day was very painful for me.  These days, I realize it’s just a day–because, to me, every day is Mother’s Day.  Which is something that you just don’t realize when you’re striving for motherhood–it’s akin to being hung up on the wedding, when it’s the marriage that’s important.  If you had told me at the time, of course, it wouldn’t have sunk in–being wrapped up in misery is its own reward, if you will.  But “being a mother”, “being a family”–they aren’t one day events.  It’s an ongoing adventure, with its own ups and downs, and, as I now realize, it just never ends.  Which is glorious.

A belated Happy Mother’s Day to all my mom readers, and Happy Mother’s Day-to-Come to all my readers who are still waiting.

Technorati: Mother’s Day

Whew!  That’s over with!

The crew taking a bow (the dotter is the one in the white tutu at the far right, holding a big girl’s hand):

Daddy giving his dotter a bouquet for her first performance (they were both looking at me prior to me hitting the button, then turned away, darnit!):

 The dancin’ girl herself, makeup, bouquet, less-askew bow and all:

There ya have it.  Given that the dotter is dancing around the living room and trying to do cartwheels and headstands (one of the acts was a pair of cheerleaders), I suspect that if you visit again at this time next year, there will be more of this kind of shenanigans…

Technorati: Dance recital

The recital rehearsals have been interesting.

For one thing, they reconfirmed a particular dance passion of mine.

I love modern dance.  I love jazz dance.  I even love hip-hop dance!  (This last one is news to me, but the recitals by the official dance troupe [which has apparently garnered awards] have shown me the light.)

I don’t like most ballet.  I think it’s often boring.  There’s no passion in it.  Too disciplined.  Bah.

But.  But.  It is an excellent grounding for any type of dance.  Because, even though the kinds of dance I like can be wild and passionate, they are based on the same basic moves.  (Even the hip-hop dance.)

After dance classes, the dotter and I have watched from the doorway or the one-sided glass windows while the older kids practiced in their classes.  The recital rehearsals have been a revelation:  dances that looked…um…chaotic and incoherent from the side have suddenly become very intricate and interesting when viewed from the front.

And one of the things that it recalls to me is that you can take many different individual movements, made by different individual dancers, and turn it into a unified creation.

E pluribus unum.

Dancers moving in tandem, flowing this way and that, some turning one way, some turning another, some leaping and some lying down–all turn into a coherent whole.

Being part of that “whole” is an exhilarating feeling.

About 15 years ago, while I was living in the Bay Area, I joined the Berkeley Community Chorus.  One of the great things about the chorus was that the director didn’t require auditions; her philosophy was that everyone has music inside, and just needs to have it nurtured.  So anyone was welcome to join, as long as they paid the dues and did all the rehearsals.

I was able to join without having to prove I could sing, or prove I could read any music.  Har.

Luckily, I am able to sing, and I can read music (sort of). (Of course, being an alto is easy; you usually get to sing the same few notes over and over again, being a human drone string, as it were.)

There were nights that I was just dog-tired from work and not wanting to go to chorus rehearsal.  It was just too much.  Wah.  But if I made myself go, it was as relaxing to me as yoga has been–and one of the joys was the feeling of being part of a greater whole, a beautiful whole, and realizing that you are contributing to that beauty.

When we did performances, that joy was multiplied tenfold, because the audience, while not being part, was a part of that whole.

Now, the whole “being a small part of a great whole” is not my usual stance.  Usually, I’m all for individuality, each person freaking freely in his or her own fashion.  Perhaps that is why the act of being part of a chorus (or part of a dance company) is so exhilarating. 

The dotter is young yet, and still uncoordinated.  The littlies all go off in different directions, with some hitting the right movements at the right time, and others just standing there, and one or two dashing to the front of the stage to wave to their moms.  (I do hope the kiddlies aren’t hurt by the laughter when this happens–it is hard to explain to little ones that the laughter is tender laughter.)  And there are oodles of K and pre-K classes at this dance studio, so there are lots of opportunities for the audience to laugh and exclaim how cute the little girls are.

But I hope that the dotter finds a way to experience that fluidic whole that comes from such performance–whether it is in dance, or singing, or theater, or something else.  Because it is such a joyous part of humanity to me.

Technorati: Dance, chorus, unity

The ways of the universe being mysterious and perverse, right after I sent out my plea, I haven’t had a chance to write a real post.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Last night was dress rehearsal.  The ways of the universe being perverse and full of contrary magic, I got six pics of the girls in dotter’s class all sitting in the auditorium seats prior to the show.

Then my camera gasped and died.

Well, it didn’t die, but it was in hibernation until I could find new batteries.  Which, of course, I hadn’t brought with me.  I thought it was damn fine that I managed to get home to get the camera before picking up the dotter before going to the dress rehearsal.

Luckily, I was sitting with one of the other moms for that class, and she was able to get some pics of the girls up on stage, doing their thang.

After Saturday, we won’t have any evening classes to send the dotter off to until September.  The thought boggles my mind.  I’ve gotten used to dashing here and there after work during the week.  But summer is the time of lazy days and evenings, apparently…it’s a routine that we will have to accept from now on.

More later–probably after Saturday, dunno quite when, sorry!

Obviously, The Secret to getting blogging hits and comments is to sound pathetic and needy.  Don’t worry, folks, I’m not going anywhere–I just wanted to know if I needed to call my hosting service onto the carpet.  And I did wonder if I had said or done something to chase everyone off.

I’ll just chalk it up to attrition, as Blog Antagonist does, and to it being springtime and beautiful outside.

For those who mentioned it:  the comment box bothers the heck out of me, and I’ll try figuring out what’s funky in the CSS to see if I can fix it.

So I’ve noticed a precipitous drop in page views–even below my average prior to the Great Adoption Discussion.  I’ve also noticed, when trying to access Omegamom.com, that I have been hitting “server not found” messages on a fairly regular basis for the past…oh…week?  When I check on the server status, it’s down, and then comes back up within about five minutes…but it’s happening pretty often, which is Not Good.

Anyway, in an effort to boost my frail ego and figure out if there’s a problem I need to discuss with my site host, I have questions.

1. Have I offended you recently?  Be honest.
2. Do you know if I’ve offended someone else?
3. Have you been getting “server not found” messages?
4. Are you reading me via RSS feeds?
5. Is OmegaMom boring you?
6. Or do you just have a real life?

Please come out of the woodwork and answer my questions, either in the comments or via email to omegamom at omegamom dot com.

I have no doubt that some people believe this of me:

On the other hand, when I took the Good/Evil quiz, I scored something like 99% angelic.  See?

How evil are you?

Ahem.  Perhaps I am simply schizophrenic?  Or one could get all philosophical, and proclaim that all human beings are capable of immense good and great evil, and thus I am simply representative of humanity in general.

(On the recital front, we went to the Monday rehearsal.  It took two hours.  They ran through the entire program twice.  I am told by a “stage mother” that the rehearsal on Wednesday will last longer, as they will be figuring out lighting.  Oy!)

Technorati: Good, evil, quizzes

The picture-taking was a hectic scene.  We arrived at 10:20, and there were mothers and daughters all over the place, wiggling into costumes, getting hair done, getting faces made-up, darting here and there.  The dotter and I ducked into one of the dressing rooms, and I did my best to get her into her costume, while she kept poking her head out and watching in fascination as a woman was putting make-up on her little…three-year-old?  Four-year-old? 

The dotter told me the feathers were supposed to go around her bun…I thought they should be on the side of her head. 

There’s a bow that’s supposed to be on the front.  I’m going to have to sew it on; in the midst of the hubbub, I tried pinning it on with a safety pin, and the result (I later realized) was sadly lopsided.

Then there’s the leotard.  Like always, the dotter is long and lean, so the leotard fits lengthwise, but is far too loose widthwise, so the shoulders kept flopping down.  Another bit of sewing for this not-so-handy person to do!

In.  Out.  Line up here.  Go there.  Flash!  Girls all together.  Flash!  Out you go.  Bam!  And that was it.

We were going out shopping afterwards; “Mommy–I told you  the feathers shouldn’t go there!  Can I keep my costume on?  I waaaant to wear my costume!”  Hah.  Fat chance, girly girl.  That expensive little white confection is quarantined until after the recital.

Herewith photographic evidence. 

Now, off to do some fiddly sewing.  Argh!

Technorati: Dance recital

Complex:  The dotter loves the Free Willy movies.  She really loves the song Michael Jackson sings at the end of the first Free Willy.  The DVD has a music video of MJ singing the song. 

“Michael Jacksman is a boy who looks like a girl.” quoth the dotter.  “It’s strange.”  Then she shrugs her Gallic shrug:  “He’s complicated.”

Everyone knows it’s windy:  A western storm swept into our area the past few days, announcing its arrival with huge winds.  We actually got up to 59MPH yesterday, with sustained winds of 39MPH.

The day before, the forest service did a controlled burn.  While I was waiting at the drive-through gastroenterologist for OmegaDad to be ’scoped (poor baby!), I overheard a man and woman talking about the fire, wondering where it was.  I mentioned that it was a controlled burn.

“In a wind like this?!  What are they, insane?!”

My sentiments exactly.  Gives me the heebie-jeebies when they do a burn on a windy day.  I guess they felt the same, because they stopped the burn much sooner than normal.

Starve a cold:  The dotter has a cold.  So what, my horde of readers ask.  Well, we have lots of experience dealing with the dotter when she has a fever–and lots of fever reducing medicaments in the cupboard.  But we have nothing for stuffy noses that are streaming snot and doing that horrid “coating” action in the throat.  See, she hasn’t had a “cold” for years!

She spent the night in misery, trying to breathe.  I spent the night trying to figure out what on earth to do.  Any suggestions?

One criticism of the pro-life movement that truly resonates with me is the impression that people who are pro-life are very eager to take care of fetuses, but not helping once the babies are born.

Apparently the evangalical pro-lifers have taken this criticism to heart, and are in the process of promoting “orphan care”.  This is a two-pronged approach, one prong being providing support for foster parents and orphanages, the other being adopting children.

Hm.

I think they’ve missed the mark a bit, frankly.

Don’t get me wrong–I think that helping foster parents and adopting are generally Good Things.  I don’t think that having good works be the sole motivation for adoption is a Good Thing, though–one hopes that all people who adopt are adopting because they want children.  Alas, I know that some people do adopt as a Good Work, and see it as “saving” a child, with the parenting portion falling by the wayside as a motivator…

That said, the problem I have with many pro-lifers is that the ones who are very vocal tend to be the same people who are very vocal about cutting social programs that might support women who would be forced to carry a child to term under their desired laws.

Taking care of orphans and children needing foster homes is all very well and good, but it shouldn’t be related to “pro-life”.  Providing support for women in crisis pregnancies after the child is born would be “pro-life” to me.  The need doesn’t vanish after the child is born; a woman who finds a pregnancy as a crisis in her life isn’t going to suddenly be all sunshine and roses once the child is out of her uterus.  If it’s economics that is the crisis, it will be even more of a crisis after the child arrives–babies outside the uterus cost a helluva lot more than babies inside the uterus.  If it’s social or familial pressures, those pressures don’t disappear.

Too often, “pregnancy crisis centers” are mainly attempts to stop abortion, with adoption being heavily promoted as an alternative.  It seems that they help during the pregnancy, but not much afterwards. What I’d like to see is the evangelicals (and other pro-lifers) commit to helping women in crisis pregnancies after the baby is born.

Technorati: Abortion, “Orphan Care”

One of the great things about OmegaGranny is that she has leapt into the technology world, and often sends me links to stories or blog posts that she feels might be of interest to me.

One blogger that she forwards on to me occasionally is a guy named HalfBakedSigma.

HalfWittedSigma is a computer programmer who is in the process of getting a law degree so he can practice law.  He wants to practice law so he can get Big Bucks and become High Status.  One of his posts was a tirade about how programming is a dead-end job, that older programmers never get hired, that the swift pace of technology and the constant introduction of the new programming language de jour leads to programmers stalled in their careers because they can’t catch up, that programmers have no social status, and it’s just plain dumb to get a degree in computer science.

Knock me over with a feather.

Okay, here I am, a software dudette.  Yeah, I’ve got to admit, I don’t have a great deal of social status; I’m never going to be country club material.  I’m not sure it’s because of my profession, though, or more a matter of my personality.  I don’t give a hoot about having social status and prestige.  Just ain’t my style.

I don’t know what his definition of “old programmers” is, but it seems to be anyone over 40.  I am well over 40 (alas).  If we move to a big city, I’ll be able to get a job programming within a week.  I’ve done it before–all I have to do is contact the local tech temp company and send them my resume. 

The new programming languages shutting out older programmers is a bunch of hooey.  Anyone who can program well in one programming language can learn to program well in any new one, and can usually hit the ground running with a week’s worth of sitting at a computer and working his/her way through a Sams Teach Yourself book.  The only programming language I ever had a problem with was LISP.  (If you’re someone who is good with LISP, I don’t want to hear from you; you probably think in a totally alien fashion.)

“Dead-end job” is, like status and prestige, one of those things.  To advance in any career, you have to get into management.  You have to attend lots of meetings.  You have to start bossing other people around.  Most software folk I know are into software not because it’s going to lead to bigger and better things; they’re into software because they think it’s just pretty damned cool that someone is going to pay me to play with puzzles all day!!!  You’re getting paid to fiddle on the computer.  How cool is that?!

Anyway, I’ve been mulling this one over for a while, and have decided that I’m just not his target audience.  He seems to have a bone to pick.  He just isn’t happy working with computers.  This is cool!  Not everyone likes to do that!  But he’s making sweeping generalizations about an entire career choice based on his personal feelings about that career.  Piffle.

Then, this week, there was this lovely article in the New York Times, which just keyed right into my feelings about HalfEmptySigma’s point of view.  The article, written by a Harvard alumnus who interviews Harvard applicants as a service for Harvard, is a glowing look at today’s high school graduates.  Bright, talented, gifted, these kids are not guaranteed to get into Harvard, or any other Ivy League school.  Once this bothered him–but now he has come to realize that an Ivy League education is not necessary for success in life. 

Success in life can take many forms.  To some, “success” means bling on the fingers, the latest and greatest fancy cars, a private jet, mingling with the rich and famous on a regular basis.  To others, “success” means living a life of faith.  To many, “success” is just finding something you like to do as a career, building a family, loving people, having friends.  Of course, you can do it all, and end up being rich and famous, truly religious, and having a loving family and a career you love. 

To me, these days, success is having my dotter look at me when I’m dressing up and breathe, “Mommy!  You look beautiful!”  Or having OmegaDad laugh and bump heads with me and caress my nose with a finger when I admit that watching the dotter in her first recital costume was both my most happy and most sad event of the day.

Technorati: Success

Sorry for the lack of posts–I’ve been working on a deadline and very busy.  Also, my blogging brain is totally blank, which doesn’t help.

Do you recall those typical “I’m naked in the middle of the city” or “I’m about to take the final but I have no idea what it’s about” type of dreams?  I had one of those the other night, except it wasn’t about me–it was about the dotter.

I dreamed it was time for the recital…and we couldn’t find the place for the recital, and when we did, we didn’t have the dotter’s costume because we couldn’t find it, either, and I felt just horrible for her.

I woke up feeling dreadfully guilty.

Speaking of the recital and the costume, we got the costumes last night.  They are adorably cute.

Things are coming to a crescendo. 

Today is the dotter’s “graduation picture” day.  Yes, our preschool does a cap-and-gown picture for the kiddos who are about to go on to kindergarten in the fall.  Yes, I know it’s silly. 

But y’know what?  I love it.  And we’re going to get that picture, ya sure.

Then there’s the recital pictures on Saturday.  Then rehearsals on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Then the grand event itself on Saturday.

Goodness knows if we will survive.