Rainy Day

Gazing out of a large third floor window on a quiet day in the office makes me feel contemplative.  It's a gray, rainy day, but there's still something magnificent about this ordinary view of grass and trees and parking lots.  I think it's the height that makes the view seem so special.  I can see across the tops of trees several blocks away as well as the landscaped grounds just outside the building.  There's a big grassy area to one side, kept green in February by the mild-ish North Florida winter, as well as the diligent work of groundskeepers.  Three days of rain have left it soggy, and I can see by a pair of brown tracks showing that some vehicle must have driven over it recently and is probably lucky not to have gotten stuck.  When everything is so gray outside, the green of the grass stands out even more.  I don't understand why the cloudy sky makes everything but the grass look dingy, but it makes for a sort of surreal picture.  Gray sky, gray trees, gray sidewalk, muted colors, dim light, and BRIGHT GREEN GRASS.

When spring and summer come, the grounds staff will plant flowers, the crape myrtles will bloom, and the green, green grass will match its surroundings again.  A tropical storm or hurricane might brush by us on its way to some more attractive destination.  Or at another time the sky will turn gray and thunder will rumble and lightning will flash...for 20 minutes.  And then it will be bright again, hot and muggy, with steam rising off of the pavement.  A breeze will blow and tiny bits of the blooms on the white crape myrtle outside my window will take flight and look like snow.

And I'll be watching it all from my third-floor perch.

Let me decide.

I am 34 years old and have been happily married for over a decade.  And I don’t have any children.  If you, dear reader, are a family member, friend, or even acquaintance of mine, you may know the reasons for that.  However, if you fall into one of these categories and do not know, don’t feel left out.  I don’t go around broadcasting the information and your not knowing might actually be an indicator of your good manners.

I was 22 years old when I got married, which saved me from too many years of people asking me, “when are you going to get married?”  Sadly, that doesn’t mean that I was never questioned on that topic.  I turned 22 in 2000, but even 200 years earlier when women married younger, I hardly would have been firmly “on the shelf” at that age.  Still, I suppose we’ve all been talking about love and marriage since we were in elementary school, so it’s little surprise that it comes up in conversation.

However, almost since the day I was married I’ve been subjected to a much more invasive line of questioning.  It seemed innocuous enough, when I was 22 or 23, recently married, and some acquaintance or other lightly asked if I wanted children.  “Oh, yes, we definitely do.”  The answer tripped off my tongue just as lightly as the question reached my ears, and the conversation moved to some other topic.  But ten or twelve years later, not only am I sick to death of hearing the same thing over and over again, but it comes seemingly out of nowhere and the questioning has become more aggressive.  It’s no longer just “do you want children?”  Now it’s “Why haven’t you had kids yet?” and “Don’t you want kids?” and “What are you waiting for?”  An acquaintance, after favoring me with several of the above, recently told me to “get on the stick, girl!”  It’s a shame I suffer from the common ailment of delayed-snarky-response, because I could have made a lot out of her probably unintentional innuendo.  A similar thing happened to me in conversation with a doctor a few months ago.  My own doctor’s schedule was full and I needed to be seen right away, so I got an appointment with this other guy, and within about 3 minutes of meeting me for the first time he was giving me reproductive advice which included the following: “time is tick-tick-ticking away!” and “If you wait for everything to be perfect, it’ll never happen!”  Yes, a medical doctor gave me this most excellent and helpful advice with very little input from me aside of my age.  He now makes up 100% of my list of Doctors I Will Never See Again Voluntarily.

So, dear internet, you may or may not know why I have no children.  And since you are the internet, I am not going to tell you.  But allow me to present some scenarios that I think you should consider before you question any woman about her reproductive life.

1. I have decided not to have children.  I am not infertile, but thought and prayer and discussion with my spouse have produced my decision not to be a mother.  I am happy with this decision, though it is considered outside the norm by many people.
2. Circumstances have so far made having children impractical or imprudent; for example: financial concerns, educational goals, health problems, or living situations.  I may have a plan to have children in the future, or I may not yet be sure if it will work out.
3. I have been trying to have children, but have not been successful yet.  I may not have any known fertility issues, but for some reason I have not been able to conceive.  I may have had one or more miscarriages.  I may at this moment be undertaking difficult fertility treatment that causes many physical and emotional side effects.  I may be recovering from a recent miscarriage.  I may suffer from other health problems that keep me from having children.
4. My spouse and I do not agree on whether or not we are going to have children.

Try and imagine yourself in these situations and you can hopefully understand how answering the “when are you going to have children?” question could be uncomfortable or even traumatic.  The topic of children and reproduction naturally comes up in conversation sometimes, and there’s nothing wrong with talking about it, within the comfort level of the people involved.  But this out-of-nowhere accosting of childless women is uncalled for and incredibly rude.

There’s one last thing you can remember, and it’s an upside.  When a woman wants to have children and wants to talk about it, she will!  When she is pregnant or plans adoption and wants you to know, she will tell you!  She will be happy and excited and have a thousand happy thoughts to share.  She might want your advice, or wish to hear of your experiences.  She will probably savor the fun and joy of telling every person she knows that she is going to be a mother, waiting to see what they will say with their words and faces.  But please, allow her to choose that special moment.

I don't understand...

OK, I'm going to post this and not worry about who agrees with me.  I feel strongly about it.  This is a comment I wrote on Facebook on a friend's status on the day of the Newtown tragedy.  It's not very eloquent, but it's what I feel.

I just don't understand the strength of some people's resistance to gun control. I am ok with people owning guns, but I think it should be harder to get one. I also think that assault weapons should be restricted a LOT. Like to the military and that's about it. There is no reason an average private citizen needs one of those. A hunting rifle, sure. A handgun, ok in some situations. But something that is loaded in ROUNDS rather than single bullets has no purpose but to hit and kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time - not even skill in shooting required.

Sure, people will find ways of getting guns illegally, but if it's harder to get one there won't be nearly as many of them out there to be gotten. Just think how much less damage that Batman lunatic could have done if he'd been using a handgun instead. Even two-fisting it, he could not have killed as many people. Reloading takes more time, a person shot with a single bullet probably has a better chance of survival than one who is sprayed with many of them, and the time between shots would mean more time for hitting the deck.

I also think the issue of mental illness is the humongous elephant in the room every time a shooting like this happens. We haven't done anything about our gun policies, but at least we bother arguing vociferously about them for a few days afterwards. Almost every shooting like this involves known or suspected mental illness in the shooter. Sometimes the idea of mental health screenings for gun owners is tossed around, but you don't hear much talk about getting to the root of the problem. Why was this mentally ill person not getting treatment? Even when no violence results, untreated mental illness can cause a lot of tragedy and anguish, and we just ignore it.

So the usual steps are as follows:

1. Terrible shooting occurs.
2. People argue about guns.
3. No legislation or changes in policy occur.
4. Some time passes.
5. Another shooting occurs.
6. Rinse and repeat.

I probably sound cynical, but I really find this and other recent shootings, as well as the usual succession of events that follows, incredibly sad and frustrating. We could do something about it and we don't. And what am *I* doing about it? Just the same as everybody else, so I am no better. I feel entirely helpless and 20 children who were alive first thing this morning are now dead.

Top Gear

I started watching the BBC's Top Gear a few years ago at the recommendation of my sister.  It's available in the US via Netflix Instant Streaming and BBC America.  For those unfamiliar with the show, it's about cars.  Super cars, luxury cars, practical cars, and cheap cars.  The show features a variety of segments ranging from serious analysis of very expensive super cars to ridiculous contests in which the three presenters compete to see who can buy the best 1,000-pound car, as determined by a number of challenges that usually end in some form of hilarious disaster.

I don't care about cars, or at least I didn't before I watched Top Gear.  Now, however, although I am far from being a petrol head, I can identify a car by its badge, I know what car I would buy if I were a multimillionaire (Aston Martin DB-9), and I know a bit of automotive and racing terminology.

One of the highlights of the show is the segment called "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car," which is just what it sounds like.  Top Gear has its own track, and a reasonably-priced car.  Their "tame racing driver," an anonymous and evidently mute, helmeted professional called The Stig, trains the star how to drive on a track.  He or she then takes a trip around the track as fast as possible and the lap time is recorded and compared to other stars who have raced the same car around the same track.  The segment always begins with Jeremy Clarkson interviewing the star.  This part can be boring if you're not familiar with the person, but then the star and the audience view the lap and the time is revealed.  Stars in this segment always talk about how good The Stig is at teaching them how to drive around a racetrack.  As far as I can see, much of it goes completely against the rules you would normally follow to 1) avoid accidents and 2) not destroy your own car prematurely.  But it sounds fantastic.  I would love to have The Stig teach me what to do, put on a helmet, strap into the Suzuki Liana or the Chevrolet Lacetti or the Kia Cee'd, and drive like a lunatic.  Unfortunately, I'm an ordinary American woman who might qualify for Top Gear: Tallahassee by virtue of some childhood fame in the form of several trips to the National Spelling Bee, but the chances of my ever being under the tutelage of The Stig are quite slim.  Still, it doesn't dim my enjoyment of the show.  It's good to have some silly and unlikely fantasies.  Keeps the imagination warmed up and ready to drive off in a cloud of tire smoke.

Good Words for a Bad Day

Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  (II Thess. 3:16,18)

Human Rights and Civil Rights

I read a disturbing article today and wavered on whether I should pass it around, post it on Facebook, or do neither.  I posted it on Facebook with a short comment, but almost immediately deleted it.  I have a blog, after all, which allows me to post a thoughtful response without the risk of starting a flame war.  In my view, civil rights and human rights should not be highly divisive political issues, but sadly they are.

The article is from The Chronicle of Higher Education and can be found here.  It's the story of a young man who is a U.S. citizen and a Muslim and the treatment he receives in detention before being tried on charges of terrorism.  As the author (one of the young man's college professors) writes, the treatment he receives is objectionable whether he is guilty or innocent, because it's a violation of the civil rights of any American citizen accused of a crime.  I don't know if I can be very eloquent on the subject because I find it sick and disgusting that all of these ways around the Constitution even exist, to be applied in secret as the government sees fit.  Also, the fact that the U.S. government had been watching the suspect's movements and political activities well before he was ever implicated in the charge makes it seem like they are looking for trouble.

And finally, not all agree, but I consider solitary confinement to be torture.  There is evidence that it takes a serious psychological toll (duh!) on a person, and is considered torture by many in the international community.  The article even quotes John McCain, who was tortured as a POW in Vietnam, as saying that such treatment "crushes the spirit."  I know some people will say that terrorists deserve to have their spirits crushed, but they seem to forget certain things about living in the United States.  Any American citizen suspected of a crime must be considered innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.  Shouldn't we at least wait until after the trial and verdict to commence said crushing of spirit?

Squirrels and Food

OK, the war on the squirrels is going well.  After the squirrels ate one of our bird feeders, S got online right away and ordered two bird feeders - brand name: Squirrel Buster.  The little buggers are really smart and persistent, so there is no guarantee that any squirrel-proof bird feeder will really stop them, but it was worth a try.

The first encouraging sign we saw was that there were actually birds on the feeder sometimes.  Not all that many, but more than we had seen before.  Tufted titmouse, chickadee, house sparrow, cardinal.

We suffered a setback when I happened to catch a squirrel in the act of eating out of one of the new feeders.  He couldn't get much out of it at a time, and the precarious way he was holding on to the pole the feeders are hanging from didn't allow him to get much out of it before he lost his grip and jumped down.  However, as you may imagine, this was not enough to deter Mister Squirrel.  He seemed willing to do a lot of work to get at the birdseed.  Mister Squirrel did suffer a setback himself while I was watching.  He suddenly jumped down and ran off as a blue jay dive bombed him and came to settle on the feeder he had just been stealing from.  Ha!  Go blue jay!  [And as an aside I have to say that although blue jays are very common birds, they really are strikingly beautiful when you get a good look at them.]

I was determined not to give up so I went to the drugstore and bought some petroleum jelly, which S smeared all over the pole from which the feeders hang.  If the squirrel could not get a good grip on the pole, his current tactics would be unsuccessful.

So far, we have not seen a single squirrel on the bird feeders.  There's no guarantee that they have given up, or that they are not eating out of it while we're not home to catch them, but it's a good sign and a great improvement over our first attempts, on which we and the cats were openly taunted by the squirrels as they gorged themselves on seed right outside our front window.

As for my own eating and cooking habits, I think I'm improving, but am nowhere near where I'd like to be.  The best thing I'm doing is actually cooking a few times a week, much better than the zero times a week that I've been doing for the last I don't know how long.  I've decided to establish a habit of using the crock pot for our Thursday dinner.  We get home from work at 5:30, sometimes later, and every Thursday evening I have to leave the house for a handbell rehearsal between 6:15 and 6:30, which really doesn't leave enough time to cook and eat dinner in time to head downtown.  This week I forgot to chop everything up for beef stew on Wednesday night, but (wonder of wonders!) I got up early enough Thursday morning to do it before I left for work.

Next week I get my first box of vegetables from the organic produce buying club.  I'm not sure what I'll do with some of the vegetables that I've never eaten before (chard, for one), but supposedly the club gives you recipes when you pick up your box.  This is a big experiment.  Wish me luck!

My goal of healthy eating is really not extreme.  I have not become a vegan or a vegetarian.  I have not sworn off everything but organic food.  I basically just want to avoid eating a ton of artificial stuff.  This is much easier now that I've started shopping at non-mainstream grocery stores.  My HFCS intake is limited to what is present in the food I eat at restaurants and out of vending machines.  I've been on a Dr. Pepper kick lately, and sadly it is readily available to me at work.  However, it seems that treating myself to Mexican Coca-Cola (made with real sugar) has made regular Coke seem kind of nasty, so I've cut down on that.  I tried to drink a Cherry Coke, usually one of my favorites, the other day at work and I couldn't finish it because it just plain tasted bad.  If I can get my hands on some Mexican Dr. Pepper, maybe I can cut out my soda machine habits completely!  ;-)