I need to tell you

My parents are officially getting divorced.

They've been separated for around 25 years, so in some ways it's not a big deal but soon it will be official.

I'm not exactly able to talk about it because I don't know what I think but I need to tell people.

So........I'm telling you.

Thanks.

Just what everyone is talking about

Has anyone been following the Terry Schiavo case?

I hadn't been at all and then a blog I enjoy got into it. The post and the comments here: http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003473.html#comments

I point it out because when I first heard about it I had some pleasantly strong opinions based on my sketchy information. Then I read this comment thread and there are so many interesting and complex and important issues; living wills, the rights of the disabled, legislation of personal issues to name but a few.

Though I'd love to have more discussion on any of those topics that's not why I'm posting about this here. I first got my ears perked up to Ms. Schiavo's case by this post: http://katieallisongranju.blogspot.com/2005/03/terri-schiavo.html in which Ms. Granju (recently fairly bitterly divorced) is vehement that, despite her previous strong feelings on the bonds of a nuclear family, a husband shouldn't have the right to make the decision that Mr. Schiavo is making. So, what I'm putting out to the GFverse is a question about that.

Here's an overview of what's been swimming in my head about it. I love my parents and I like them (I know this isn't strictly true of all our members) but I still would expect that, if I were to become domestically unionized my partner would be the person I'd choose to make life, death and gray area in between decisions. I suppose I do trust my parents to make this sort of decision for me. Since my parents are getting on and my most recent date was a bust I tried to run through my friends and see who I might designate to make such a decision. Man, it's weird to think of anyone making this sort of decision for me. But I feel as though I'd be able to make the decision for someone else, if I had to. My mom has eye signals set up for me so I'll know what to do for her. Yet, it's not as easy as saying that Ms. Schiavo should be taken off a ventilator and will die shortly (if any such decision can be called easy) it's a matter of her body starving to death. Someone in one of these comment threads says that the legal participants aren't thinking of Terry, only of themselves - her parents are quoted as saying, "She is my life."

Sigh. I find it fascinating. Not in an ogling the people going through this horror kind of way. More in a we're likely all going to face this at some level how do we do it kind of way. And you guys are the go to people when I have these questions.

Total aside: If someone can teach me how to do the cooler thing where you link to something by programming a word that gets underlined and is the link (on my Mac, I can do it on PC) I'd be so grateful.

Indeed I am

I took Bean out to dinner for her birthday last night. It just so happened that, shortly before we left, my grandmother called to wish the baby a happy birthday. We haven't seen them in a while, so I invited them to come with us.

We had a lovely time. Grampa was a tiny bit cranky, but that's perfectly normal for him, bless his New England Yankee soul. Gramma was proud and happy to be with her (great) granddaughters. About mid-way through the meal, the waitress came up to check on us and casually asked about our relationship:

"Are these your parents?" she asked me.

"No," I told her, "they're my grandparents."

"Wow," she said. "You're lucky to have them."

Lady, you have NO idea.

Hurt Me

So, I'm heading to the gym this morning to be tortured by a coworker who's getting her Pilates certification. It's my understanding that I'm to be put through a number of horrific contortions, up to an including some "work" on what the marketers call the "Reformer" but what really amounts to an Inquisition-style torture rack (go to simplypilates.com - the first picture when you enter the site features the horrid device).

Why am I doing this, you ask? For a couple of reasons, though I'm not sure how convinced I will be that either of them will stand up as valid when I can't breathe tomorrow. The first reason is that Deb is trying to rack up (I LOVE puns!) enough time on the device with "clients" to earn her certification and I, being a closet team-player, agreeed to help her to that end. The second reason is that I put myself out of commission for more than a month the last time I put my back out, and I did this by SNEEZING in the Friday's parking lot. Sneezing. Ahhh-chooo. Done. For a month. That's just not ok with me. My chiropractor told me, a few days before Deb approached me to be her guinea pig, that strengthening my abs might help make my low back less fragile. Deb assures me that working on the rack will "strengthen the core" (Pilates even has it's own language) and will only do me good.

Here's hoping.

Careful What You Wish For

Well, ladies, it happened. I got the internship placement I wanted. It's not officially official - I think I won't REALLY believe it until I'm actually standing in front of a classroom -but I came home yesterday to an email from a coordinator who gave me the green light to take the contract to my team teacher. I'll be driving over there next Wednesday, provided I don't need sled dogs to get there (but that's a different blog...)

I feel a mixture of extreme relief and vindication, wild excitement, and abject panic. I really want this internship experience - this is as close as I've ever been to my goal of teaching Deaf kids and I'm thrilled that it's happening. I'm glad that at least one someone over in the UNH bureaucracy was able to see how my coloring outside the lines can be a GOOD thing - not only for me, but also for the University. The abject panic comes in with wondering if I'm going to be able to learn enough language in six months to at least get me started on effective communication with my students, the fact that the school is 50 minutes from home and works on a different break schedule (not to mention snow days) and, my GOD, am I really going to be able to do this?!

Sometimes I hate the job...

So I'm getting over a particularly nasty lower-intestinal thing. Well, I should probably qualify that, for ME, ANY gastro-intsestinal thing is a big deal, but that's not really important to the story. So, I'm just getting over it, and decided tonight to make dinner. The only thing that seems even slightly appealing is Pad Thai (don't ask - I think it's the combination of noodles and peanuts). ANYWAY, I go to the market and buy a box kit, fresh bean sprouts, green onion - I'm ready. Dinnertime comes and I set to work. I split the chicken bits in half, cook our half for the Pad Thai and do the whole breading thing for the girls' portion. I made two whollly separate meals. I got everything ready - breaded chicken and carrots with honey for the girls, Pad Thai for us. Here's the kicker - and the whole point of the story - I get the sauce and noodles into the pan and start stir-frying (the last step of the kit) and the smell hits me. No go, Houston, we are NO GO for launch. The girls ate, BETWEEN them, mind you - two pieces of chicken (and not WHOLE pieces, either, but portions that I'd cut for them) and three carrots. FIVE bits of food between the two of them. Colin ate the Pad Thai and I had a bowl of vanilla yogurt with granola and blueberries. So now I'm pissed off not only because I essentially wasted a grocery store trip and 40 minutes of my life preparing a meal that only one out of four actually ate AND I still want Pad Thai. Sigh. Sometimes I hate the Mommy job...

Why

http://www.tomatonation.com/roombaloo.shtml

The post above is both why I read blogs and why I write them.

1. When she writes about her cats like that I pee myself with laughter.
2. A gentle reader bought her a wicked expensive present, probably because she made him pee with laughter too.

New job report

Had my first day at my new job today. It wasn't so bad. It wasn't great. The last couple of hours dragged and I started to feel overwhelmed and as though I wasn't seen as doing my best work but I think everyone was well pleased.

Fortuitously the 2 guys I work for will be out of the office tomorrow. I can try to organize my (intensely small) desk and figure out where all their money comes from and what they're talking about when they ask me to move it somewhere else.

Now, though, my head hurts and I'm full of my celebratory sushi and ready to sleep a lot until it's time to do it all over again.

You know what though? After I get through tomorrow my work week is halfway done!

Hope you're all well.

Having Faith

You may or may not know this, but for some time I've been stressing over the student teaching internship that's required as part of my graduate degree. The entire process is stressful in and of itself - think a whole pride of lions fighting over an itty-bitty antelope, and you'll get the picture of how interns (the pride) and coordinating teachers (the antelope) have to get together - but I have endevoured to make it even MORE fun by trying to do my internship in a) a program that isn't consistent with my major and b) in a school that isn't even participating in the internship program at UNH this year (leave it to me to make something complicated even that much moreso!). I want to intern with Deaf kids in Manchester; I've found a GREAT teacher who wants to work with me and I have the blessing of the program director who was a former ASL teacher of mine.
The contracts come out on Monday and I'm hoping to have it all signed, turned in, and APPROVED by the end of the month.

The "having faith" part comes in that I don't know who at UNH will be making the decision to let me do this (or not) and because if I DON'T get approved, I'm pretty much screwed because since I essentially already have my "antelope," I've not been fighting for a piece of anyone else's. If the powers-that-be tell me "NO" then I'm going to have to scramble around here looking for someone who'll agree to mentor me next year. So, given that I have so little control over it all, I've handed it to the Goddess in the hopes that the best path will be laid out before me - even if that path isn't the one I've been trying to get onto for the past six months. Good wishes sent in my direction are profoundly and gratefully appreciated.

The Mommy Driveby

I read a lot of blogs. You ladies know this. Many of them are written by mothers or mothers-to-be or mothers who want to be and can't. I don't know how I got hooked into that type of blog but many of the famous ones are like that.

Anyway, this isn't about my proclivites, it's about a thing that caused a hubbub on these blogs a week or so ago - the Mommy Driveby. It's when someone (often a mother, too) says something wildly inappropriate and largely unsolicited about one's mothering choices. I think that we should actually rename them MommyING Drivebys because once you pass a certain age people feel free to comment on whether or not one is mothering, too.

Here's the entry that started all the discussion:
http://chezmiscarriage.blogs.com/chezmiscarriage/2005/02/todays_guest_bl.html

I bet we all have a story about something like this. Of course, now that I've said that I can't think of one but I know that I have them. I also know that I've probably comitted one or 2 and for that I'm truly sorry, sometimes the filter is off and the thought process is unfinished when the gums begin to flap.

The one I dislike is when I'm told I "just can't understand" because I don't have kids of my own and I'll never know until there's someone on earth with my DNA. Which is oddly irrefutable because until such a thing happens I won't know how it feels so I can't scientifically compare. Yet, what about adoptive parents? Fosters? Steps? I'm pretty sure those people have valid parenting feelings so why not me?