Today looks like this outside. Misty, dark and rainy. This photo was taken in Wisconsin, I believe. We needed rain here in Bethesda - we had a record-breaking spell of no rain, then the sky opened and we’ve had rain since Wednesday evening.
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Archive for October, 2007
Writing this at a motel in Elgin. It’s pretty weird staying at a motel in my hometown - not entirely unpleasant, but not wonderful either. At breakfast I wondered why these people - some families with children - are in Elgin. Perhaps they are out of town relatives invited to someone’s wedding. Perhaps they are on their way from somewhere to somewhere else and this is a stop on the way. Perhaps, like us, they are here for a funeral and didn’t want to put anyone out by asking to stay with them.
Heading off to Elgin tomorrow afternoon. Parents again - but this time it is my husband’s family.
My mother-in-law passed away last night. My husband was there - he got to say his goodbyes - although he feels like it was more important that he was there in September when his mom was more lucid. She’d been “out of it” for a while. I’m glad he got to spend time with her then and that he was there last night. I’m also glad that my children saw her last when she was standing and able to give us all hugs goodbye. I really didn’t expect that hug to be the last one - I thought she’d be around for a while yet.
On this side of 50, I think about death a lot more than I did before. Not in a frightened way, just in a matter of fact kind of way, although I’d rather not think about it at all. It is amazing - and probably good - that young people don’t realize how short life really is - it is a rather depressing thought.
The kids and I spent the day getting ready for our trip. Andrew, who will be a pallbearer, wanted a black (as opposed to navy) suit for the funeral. He also needed shoes - he’d grown a couple of sizes from the last dress shoes we bought (two years ago).
We’re staying in a motel this trip. I felt it would be easier on everyone. My family would have the space and privacy to get ready for the ceremonies. We’d also be able to be together - something that was not easily done during the summer. It will be a little odd, staying in a motel in my hometown, but it is for the best.
Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of weird?
An exercise bike for toddlers that has educational benefits. What happened to playing outside in sandboxes and running around and jumping. Or riding a tricycle? Or climbing a tree?
Maybe I am out of it - after all, I had kids in the last century - but this just rubs me the wrong way.
And when are they going to make one for grown-ups? I mean one that teaches us while we fake-cycle.
I rarely read the Reader’s Digest, but I read an article about a Superbug not long ago. It was, in the typical yellow journalism way of Reader’s Digest, alarming and I was slightly concerned, but got over it quickly. Yesterday the principal of my kids’ high school sent an email (and letter) out alerting the school community that a student was diagnosed with a drug-resistant staph infection. Then today we got an email saying that several news teams were broadcasting from outside the school, but not to worry - there were no more cases reported.
The second email mentioned the lack of hot water and soap in the bathrooms (it is advised to wash your hands to prevent spreading this disease) and my daughter agreed. The principal assured us that the students would see an improvement in that area.
This morning I finished Jon Krakauer’s harrowing Into the Wild and thought how terrible it was that the young man in the story abandoned civilization for a few months and died as a result of it, hoping that my son would never do anything so impulsive. Maybe Chris McCandless had the right idea - after all he didn’t have communicable diseases to worry about. Most of the students that have gotten the disease in this area are athletes. My son is a wrestler - the most contact of contact sports. I wouldn’t be surprised if they canceled wrestling this year.
I wonder how much of this we brought on ourselves. Using antibiotics when they were not needed. Using antibacterial hand wash instead of soap and water. (Tony Fauci just confirmed my theory on the 6:00 news).
If it’s not one thing, it’s something else. At least I quit worrying about terrorism.
Coming in late in the game, but I noticed that today is Blog Action Day. I heard about it a week or so ago, and thought I’d add my voice to the cause when the day came, but didn’t know the exact day so I promptly forgot about it. Noticed that today was the day on a headline of an RSS I subscribe to.
I most certainly am no expert in the field. I used to be more concerned (even obsessed) about the environment:
- I was a vegetarian for several years (with a few meat eating breaks here and there).
- We recycled before curbside recycling came to our home in Alexandria Virginia.
- We attended rallies for Earth Day etc.
- I took an environmental awareness course for recertification credit in the late 1980’s.
- When both children were infants we used cloth diapers instead of disposable.
Then something happened. I began to not care so much. I was caught up in motherhood and, while we continued recycling, the rest of the environmental issues took second place to our family comfort. I don’t keep the winter temperature below 70°. I blame it on my Raynaud’s. However we rarely use our air conditioner. It has to be sweltering before we turn it on (90° or more with humidity). So I figure we even it all out.
As for global warming, I admit that I didn’t believe in it until recently when something profound happened. Of course I don’t remember what it was - but something happened that I saw and made me believe that we were really experiencing global warming. Please note: I’ve not seen the whole of Al Gore’s film for another reason I cannot recall.
I’d like to say that I’m working from home in order to save the environment from yet another single passenger car from being on the road, but I’m actually working from home because I like to work in my jammies.
My kids accuse me of what I accused my parents - we’ve let them down and ruined the Earth for them. As a teen I thought big - globally. As a young adult I did the same. As a parent and middle-aged adult I think more locally. Perhaps as an elder I will think globally again.
This wasn’t so much of a post on the environment as a post on my response to it. So be it. My next car will be a hybrid though.
If you’ve not read xkcd, go there now. It will brighten your day. I promise.
I follow a photoblog of a fellow who lives in the town where I grew up. I don’t know him, but he’s a remarkable photographer and always has an interesting thing or two to say. He is giving away autumn leaves in honor of the new season. I grabbed mine. You can too. Click on the image and you can pick up your own code for your blog.
—a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One’s Own (1929)
Because my parents had a girl and a boy, I pretty much always had my own bedroom when I lived at home. My brother and I shared a room for a time - was his crib in my bedroom? I forget. I do remember that his first “big boy” bed was a trundle bed, pushed under my twin bed each day and set up each night. But once the living room was expanded, he was given a corner of that for a bedroom until my father finished the attic room for me. Then Kevin moved into my bedroom and I moved to the attic.
I also had my own room when I moved to my first apartment, and when my roommate moved out, I got the entire apartment, that is until my boyfriend moved in a couple months before we moved to Pittsburgh. Since then and until recently, however, I never had my own space.
I suppose I didn’t know I wanted a space of my own. I don’t recall longing for it until the past decade or so. Perhaps I was fine with just Dean and me - we didn’t fill the house so. And the first few years with the kids - they were so busy, I didn’t have time to seek solitude, nor, I suppose, did I desire it. I was having fun being a mom.
In 1994, when my children were small, in order to fulfill my teaching recertification requirements I took a class called Women in Education. It was mostly about women writers and one of our required readings was Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. We also read pieces from other women authors - one story in particular stands out, but I don’t remember the author or enough about the story to find it again. Sometimes I wonder if it was a nightmare - what could happen if I was not careful.
In the story a woman from sometime in the past - late 1800’s? Early 1900’s? 1950’s? - desires a room of her own. Perhaps she just wants to get away from her demanding children or perhaps she wants to write. Maybe she just wants a place to call her own. Anyway, her husband has the attic of their house refinished and she moves in. She loves this place and hangs out there often. Slowly, however, her children spend time there, they go up and disturb her when she needs peace. Perhaps her husband also visits too often. Eventually she throws herself out the window to her death.
I think I might have obsessed on this story, because a couple of women in the class who were work associates with my best friend at the time, talked to her about their concerns regarding my mood. I guess they thought I was depressed. I suppose I might have been - we’d just moved to a new home in a new state. I was stuck in the house most days with two toddlers. I had no friends in the neighborhood and was not socially comfortable enough to try to make some. My husband and I were not adept at hiring babysitters, so we never went anywhere without the children. I also was dreading going back to work, but thought my husband wanted me to.
I suppose it was this time that I began wanting a place of my own. We had a partially finished attic that was usable in moderate weather. Summers were too hot and winters were too cold, but spring and fall were perfect for spending time there. I made it into an office of sorts for grading papers and writing lesson plans.
Eventually my husband and I made a decision to refinish it and we could both use it for office space. He oversaw the project and by summer of 1998 the room was ready to be made use of which was lucky for me because I’d just quit my job to go back to college for a masters degree. My husband agreed to let me have the attic for two years while I worked on my degree.
Those two years were delightful. I spent most of my waking hours in the attic, sometimes working on the degree, other times traveling the new-to-me expanses of the Internet and World Wide Web. I loved the smell of the attic and the freedom of my solitude. The kids were both in school, so I had few responsibilities during the day.
In 2001 I began working full time. I also gave the attic back to my husband. I did so out of guilt. He’d not had a chance to experience this room that he watched transform from a dusty attic to a sanctuary. I moved all my belongings to the downstairs office, one that was shared with the children, two cats and adjacent to the laundry room and family room. I tried to make it my own, but it never did become mine. The only good thing about being down there was the proximity to the laundry room - we had clean clothes more often.
Since 2001 and my move, I’ve been in a blue mood more often than not. Part of that was probably the office job - it was so different from teaching and I didn’t get my summers off. I went part time and worked at home after a couple of years, but that work was usually done in the living room on my laptop or in the downstairs shared office space. I rarely visited the attic anymore - it made me too sad. The sanctuary was no longer mine, but my husband’s. He rarely used it as well, only for bill-paying and if he worked at home during the day or on weekends. When I complained about not having my own space my husband said that I got the entire house to myself for most of the day during the school year. While there was no arguing with his logic - he was right - I still felt that I needed my own space. What if I needed the solitude when everyone was home?
Earlier this year I purchased a newer router - one that had a range that reached the attic office. I tried to work in the attic a few times, and was able to get work done. I eventually did most of my work in the attic again, but it didn’t feel like mine. My husband insisted I keep it neat for him. (I’m not really a neat person).
Then one day I decided to try the other side of the attic. The side with the television and sofa (we’d recently purchased a second-hand Ikea sofa to replace a ratty old uncomfortable sofabed). I’d set up a desk for my daughter’s never used sewing machine a year ago and it looked out over the tulip poplar growing in our side-yard.
The desk was perfect for my laptop. I began having a feeling of ownership and have spent the last few months making this my space. Yes I share it with Dean’s stuff. Yes there is no door between the two areas. But it is mine. It has worked out well. It is away from the main floor of the house 
- the kids come home from school and do their own things and I can continue working until supper time. Granted, laundry doesn’t get done as often as before, but its a small price to pay for my sanity. The large window no longer looks inviting for a dive through and my mood is noticeably lighter.I do have to share with the occasional bug though.
Took my equipment up to the Comcast office in Rockville today. Was dreading it after the time we’d had with the service (although the people were always nice enough - except for that nasty contractor). I stood in line for about 20 minutes and was seen by a cordial gentleman. At Comcast in Rockville they have plate glass covered cubicles and you have to slide the equipment through a 4×12″ opening. I wonder if they feel threatened.
The man behind the counter coolly, but cordially asked me to slide him the pieces of equipment one at a time and I did so, not so coolly, but cordially. He asked for my telephone number, then asked if I wanted to port the number elsewhere. I told him I had already done so. Then he looked at his screen, and quietly said, can I ask you a question? I said he could. He asked when we began having the problems. I said early August. He asked if anyone had switched the modem, I said yes, someone did at the end, but the issues still happened. He kept on shaking his head as he entered the equipement into the computer. I then got out my checkbook, opened it and waited for him to tell me how much the final bill would be. (I expected something around $75, but also expected a fight because we were leaving early (even though we never signed the contract). When we were done he said it was not going to cost anything. I must have looked shocked because he said, put your checkbook away. And apologized for the poor service.
Wow. All I can say is Wow!
Then again, this is Comcast. Perhaps the folks out in the Billing land won’t get the memo.
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