On Their Way. . .

Photos, that is. Christmas is coming, too - but so far I'm ignoring it and hoping for the best. I am beginning to feel that Christmas should be like the Olympics, on an every two or four year basis, so maybe we'd appreciate it.

But I digress. Yesterday, I had time to find the cable to connect the camera to the computer and upload photos slooooooooowly. Kodak EasyShare seems to work at the speed of that Tim Conway character from the old Carol Burnett Show. Next step is to get a few of them onto the blog. Maybe Sunday or Monday.

Friday after speech thereapy, Micah and I went to Freehold Mall to meet with Bobbi, our former social worker for both kids' adoptions. I had baby quilts to hand off to her, purchased from my mother's friend and she had a check for me. And the mall had a carousel that fascinated Micah. I financed two rides, one on the lower level, one on the upper level. Yes, there are such things as bi-level carousels, be still the two-year old's heart. Micah was sufficiently awed that he held onto both handles from the moment the bell rang and the ride started to the second it came to a stop, and did not protest at having the seat belt put around him.

There was also a neat little kids play area directly in front of the carousel, and Micah loved that as well. It had seating for parents around the edges and stroller parking by the opening, so I was suitably impressed. Until a bratty little blonde heathen (a girl of about four years old) grabbed Micah's band holding the BAHA off his head as he was climbing up the tiny little slide.

For being old, having arthritic knees, and being somewhat reluctant to yell at children who are not my own, when it concerns a little device that is worth much more than its $4K price tag, I was amazingly fast and loud as I got to the crime scene, telling the little monster, "NOOOOOO, you don't touch that!" She barely had time to curl her evil little fingers around the headband part before I took it away from her.

And for those of you who are ready to spring to her defense, it wasn't simple curiosity, this child looked around, then made her grab. She was being horrible, I saw the evil gleam in her eye so she knew full well that she was doing something wrong.

Of course her oblivious mother was sitting outside of the play area at a food court table, having a half-caff double latte with another mommy-type, both with strollers for infants with them. (Nice supervision, can we say "Amber Alert?") I nearly went over to have a quick word with them, but thought the better of it since I still was in the "Excuuuse me, the ill-mannered spawn that I believe is yours just yanked my precious son's hearing aid off his head. If it happens again, she will feel my wrath and so will you" mode. The BAHA was unharmed, poor Micah was a little rattled thinking that he had done something wrong, and that little brat went off to torment others, smirking at me while I loaded our stroller.

I could have cheerfully wrung her neck, but wished upon her a horrible adolescence filled with acne and menstrual cramps. Somehow having a degree of specificity like that makes it easier to just get over it. That, and blogging about it.

The Horse Fanatic and The Juice Box Hero

Saturday we went to a holiday celebration at a local shopping center which isn't really much of a shopping center: one florist, a large spa/salon/health club (overpriced), a small food court, a dance/theater school, an expensive home furnishings store, a garish black and pink costmetics store, and one or two specialty clothing stores, one restaurant and a Westin hotel, not exactly shoppers' paradise, especially in these economic times.

The bait for us was that the event was free and there was horse-drawn wagon rides, instant bliss for Micah. We caught a bit of the dance school's performance and then went to find the wagon ride, and then waited almost an hour for a turn. The wagon was pulled by two Percherons, Mike and Ike, who if they possessed opposable thumbs would have probably beaten the snot out of whoever wove artificial red roses into their manes. Amazingly, both Thea and Micah were patient little people for the wait. Micah would basically walk through fire wearing a gasoline-soaked diaper if any sort of horse-ride is on the other side.

We then went back to the food court to see the balloon-wrangling clown, another long line. And this guy was into his art, he didn't bang out a simple puppy dog, he used at least five or six of those long balloons for his creations. My daughter, the next Sylvia Plath in shining armor, went up to him and said, "I want a BLACK helmet and a BLACK sword, please." I was hoping that he couldn't tell his dark blues from his blacks when reaching down into the depths of his clown pockets, but he nailed it and Thea got her black balloon accessories.

Fortunately Micah seems to not care about colors so we got him a 'fishing pole' hat. It had a long balloon extension coming off the helmet which was tied to an uninflated balloon with a heart tied to that. He spent the next fifteen minutes chasing the heart balloon but never quite catching it, and never quite realizing that it was stuck on his own head.

While we were waiting for our turn with the balloon guy, we met lady in a mouse costume carrying a box wrapped up like a present, and in the box was another mouse, a hand puppet. Thea spent quite a while trying to decipher the one hand that was attached to her left arm, the right hand operating the puppet and the 'arm' supporting the box. Micah also found her fascinating and it was the one character at the event he didn't shy away from.

We skipped Santa, another long line. Micah had already had minor scares with Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer so I figured getting plunked on the lap of the fat dude in the fuzzy red suit would be yet another opportunity to add to the years of therapy he'll probably need to get over his childhood.

Later that evening, after the wagon ride, etc. and after dinner back at home, Thea drank an apple juice from a juice box that her aunt sent home with us from Thanksgiving. This time when she was finished we wanted to get her moving towards getting ready for bed, but she was not going to be parted from that damn juice box. Tears, snot, recriminations, she left nothing in her guilt-the-parents armamentarium. Even the threat of bad smells and bugs moved her toward that trash can so bent on the salvation of this particular box was she, claiming to want to make a craft project (though didn't know what exactly this project would be.) Compromise was arrived at by promising not to toss the box after she went to bed and leaving it in the kitchen to be discussed the next day. By which time I had found another cardboard box of the same size that she was willing to substitute.

And has she actually used it in one of her tape, construction paper and marker masterpieces, that would be a big fat NO. Time is short and her mother hates clutter, so its days are numbered because the recycling is picked up this Friday so it'll be Buh-Bye box. And she can take that up with her therapist at some point in the future.

All Is Well in the Universe

On the day after Thanksgiving, every year for probably more than 20 years, the Christmas card and letter from a friend of mine from college arrives. Without fail. Year in, year out, through address changes and any other ups and downs and despite not seeing each other for all those years, the card arrives and for me the Christmas season is official.

Until Friday. No card. Black Friday indeed.

And Saturday. Still no card.

Disturbing and worrisome.

The mail arrived today, and so did the card. Order is restored.

And this evening I got a chance to meet up with two former colleagues at Tokyo Bleu in Cinnaminson for a night out, though I am a sushi wimp and don't much care for the raw stuff. I haven't seen them since summertime, so there was much to catch up on - we're great at promising to get together regularly and then real life manages to intervene and another six months goes by.

The Sunday NYT Magazine

Irritation du jour:

From the New York Times Magazine's Sunday, November 30, 2008 cover story Her Body, My Baby on her experience with gestational surrogacy Alex Kuczynski wrote:

"Of all the possible mothering paradigms I could count - birth mother, biological mother, child-raising mother, legally recognized mother - I would fit three of the roles. I had to settle for three-quarters his mother. That seemed like more than enough."

Way to slap the faces of thousands upon thousands of families formed by adoption, Alex. You may be a good writer, but as a compassionate, thoughtful person you suck. Some thoughts should be kept to yourself and your mental mathematical equations of motherhood top my list.

And (as if there needed to be an 'and') what was really glaring was the photo of Alex and her infant son with the baby nurse standing in the background. So obviously she didn't go through multiple miscarriages, twelve rounds of in vitro fertilizations, tens of thousands of dollars and surrogacy (I'm paraphrasing from the article) to actually do the dirty work involved in motherhood. Don't chip your nails or get any drool on your designer dress, dahling.

I hope Santa puts a bit fat lump of coal in her stocking.

Happy Thanksgiving

A safe and happy holiday to everyone. May you pull the bigger half of the wishbone and may your gravy boat never sink.

Ten Years Ago Today. . .

. . .it was Thanksgiving Day. My father had gotten out of the hospital a few days before, and I hadn't known or wasn't willing to believe that he was at the end of his battle against lung cancer. My parents had just elected to enroll in a hospice program after his discharge from the hospital.

At the time I worked for a UPenn practice in Northeast Philadelphia, and for whatever reason, the office manager (who was also a nurse, and the wife of the senior physician in the practice) told me to go home on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The practice was aware of my father's diagnosis, and the office was great about letting me take day off during the summer to go down to visit my parents and hang out with my father during his chemotherapy.

The holiday was low-key, my mother made dinner, one of my best friends came over to eat with us. My father was in bed most of the day, but he did manage to eat and drink a little bit. After cleaning up, my mother and I both went to bed, and in that house, it meant I was in my brother's old room on the lower level of the house.

I still remember my mother coming into the room at around 8:45 pm and waking me up by saying, "He's gone." And since I was still half asleep the words didn't process because I remember asking her how could he go anywhere because he needed the both of us to help him get out of bed.

It was completely surreal taking my stethoscope upstairs to listen on his chest and neck and then giving him one of those obnoxious sternal rubs while telling him that it wasn't funny and he'd better wake up.

Then it sunk in and I called the hospice nurse on call for the weekend. She was phenomenal, showing up within 20 minutes or so, helping to call the funeral home, getting my father washed and dressed in pajamas. The funeral home guys were also very kind, but both of them were so grossly overweight and out-of-shape, I had visions of one or both having an MI while carrying the stretcher down the stairs and wondering if I could really do CPR (and glad that the other nurse was there.)

I remember calling my Tante Lydia in Germany, and what a horrible, horrible feeling it was to tell her, hoping this would be the last time I'd have to pass of someone's death on. (In 1982 while I was in Germany, my maternal grandfather died, and relatives took me to see his brother, who was now the sole remaining sibling, and feeling miserable that I had made my great uncle breakdown and cry.)

Thanksgiving just hasn't been quite the same for me since then. There are many, many things that I am thankful for, but I truly miss those Thanksgiving dinners with my family, and I'm sad that my father wasn't around for all the good things that have happened over the past ten years: two weddings, three grandchildren, other family weddings and celebrations.

I miss him as much in 2008 as I did in 1998.

Two Moments of Amazement

Moment #1: Micah and I went to the gas station this afternoon, and the Valero at Route 1 and Raymond Road had regular gasoline for $1.73/cash, $1.83/credit. I could fill the tank for $20, which hasn't happened since I don't remember when. So my mind no longer has to expend energy on thoughts of auctioning one of Steve's kidneys on eBay to pay for gasoline. Three free brain cells, I don't know how I'll manage to put them to use.

Moment #2, in a completely different, unrelated, and sad vein:
Last week a Philadelphia police officer died in a collision with a drunk driver, if my memory of the what I read in the on-line Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer serves. Today was the funeral, and the only reason I know that is that Micah and I took a quick trip over to PA and once we were in the vicinity of the Street Road overpass on I-95 something was up. There were cars seeming to be parked there and on the shoulder of the road but not due to a breakdown, and more on the Academy Road overpass, and still more on the shoulder. Then I noticed there was not a single car coming up in the northbound lanes. Not one.

A few minutes later a stream of police vehicles and buses with lights flashing. I was still clueless, it looked like a massive prisoner transport or something. (Thanks to those two not-so marvelous years working at the NJDOC's reception facility.) Then I saw that every northbound on-ramp was blocked by Pennsylvania State Troopers. What was amazing wasn't that all that was happening, given enough manpower, blocking access to an interstate is just a question of logistics and manpower. It was the number of regular people on the shoulder of the interstate and on the overpasses, with flags, waiting to show their respect for the police officer that blew me away. How did they even know when the funeral cortege would be going past? How long did they wait, standing on the side of a grubby highway on a rather cold day?

After another pause, there was an enormous motorcycle escort, the hearse and the limousine with family and then more police cars and other vehicles coming behind, and coming, and coming for what seemed like forever. The motorcade was coming from downtown Philadelphia into Lower Bucks, just north of where I lived for my first couple of years out of school.

Micah slept through it all, otherwise he would have been looking at the spectacle going "Weeee-ooooh, weeee-ooooh," the standard response for flashing lights of any sort.