The Process of Mourning

It has been a tough couple of weeks. My Mom's birthday was late last month, and last Sunday was Mother's Day. We are still in the first year of her sudden passing, and there are still lots of "First Withouts" to get through. Thanksgiving and Christmas were hard, but her birthday and Mother's Day were surprisingly more difficult. In the past couple of weeks I have burst into tears more often than in the month after she died. Even when I am outwardly calm, deep inside I feel like I am bawling.

My Mom thoroughly hated winter, and rejoiced in spring. Now when I look at a flowering redbud or crabapple tree, when I see the tulips opening and the peonies emerging, I think of her and my eyes get wet. I can only have a one way conversation with her now about what's up and planning the garden. It isn't very satisfying.

I spent Mother's Day getting my garden ready with lots of help from my husband and two boys. It's what I always do, and what my mother always did, and I like to think I felt her presence.

Mourning is a process, but it isn't even and it doesn't have an end. When I was in college, I did undergraduate work with a long term bereavement study with the university focused on how young children mourn the death of a parent. We interviewed families with children at 3 months, 6 months, 12 months and 24 months after death. It was a pretty intense interview we put them through about 2 hours in length measuring their mental state. The families were also put through physicals and bloodwork to measure their immune systems, neurological responses and other physiological markers. It was found that immune systems can suffer, clumsiness is more likely, and cognition is affected. Mourning effects the whole body, mentally and physically. What was found in the study is that there is a wide range of behaviors and experiences that fall within the bounds of normal.

It's also normal for mourning to become more intense, and then wane. Sometimes it can be like being on a roller coaster with high highs and low lows. Eventually, it evens out somewhat.

I know I am firmly within the bounds of normal, healthy mourning. It doesn't stop it from being sometimes overwhelming and even a little embarrassing. Last weekend I was at the mall in the Aveda store, and I was offered a complementary neck and shoulder massage. (I never turn that down.) Across from me a woman and her mother were sampling items and bickering playfully, the daughter encouraging her mother to get whatever she wanted, the mother protesting she really didn't need anything. It was so sweet, I started to weep, and I ended up distressing the fellow who was giving me the neck rub. I had to get myself under control enough to let him know he didn't hurt me and what my tears were about. Then I had to make a hasty exit from the store. I walked around looking down and got myself settled down. Then I had to laugh when a guy at one of the skin cream kiosks in the middle of the mall tried to flag me down with, "Hey miss, what are you doing about those bags under your eyes?" (I mean really!!!! What nerve! What a dreadful sales technique!)

So, I'm riding the ride. I'm grateful to be feeling anything at all, but I look forward to the day when I am more intergrated with this process.

Compost

It's not a secret. I garden.

I can't keep a manicure, I always have dirt under my nails for at least 5 months of the year. I have a tan on my back only were my shirt rides up when I bend over to weed.

I grow a little bit of everything in my 30' by 50' garden, and I keep it all mixed up so pests don't know what to go after. I use no chemicals, no fertilizers, just compost. Weeds happen. A lot. To the naked eye, it looks like a mess, but inside it is one huge cornucopia of unusual edibles. Some of the edibles are weeds.

This month I wrote my first article for the local Sierra Club chapter on the topic outdoor home composting. They really liked it, so I will probably be writing some more for them. It probably wouldn't be too cool to publish it here even though it was not with any agreement of exclusivity, but I will just brag about it a tiny bit.

Chasing Tornadoes

For a few years when I was little, Ohio was having a larger than normal number of tornado warnings and touchdowns.

When I was seven, we were at my brother's little league game when the clouds began to darken ominously. Just as the coaches were conferring about calling the game, a HUGE gust of wind whipped up out of nowhere. My mom was hugely pregnant at the time, and was trying to hurry to the car with lawn chairs in one hand and my hand in the other when the wind suddenly got VERY intense, and I was very nearly blown off my feet. Somehow, my mom, who was not only enormously pregnant but also challenged with one bad leg that never let her be able to run, managed to keep both me and the lawn chairs from blowing away. It was the most harrowing 2 block ride home in our station wagon, and I would have sworn to you that the picture the next day on the front of the Columbus Citizen-Journal was of our house with the tornado not quite touching down on it.

When I was eight, we began to assume in the spring and fall that dinner would be eaten downstairs around the workbench in the northwest corner of the basement because there would be a tornado warning precisely at dinnertime.

My older brother and his friend would sneak out on their bikes if they could manage it, and try to identify and "follow" funnel clouds. I thought this sounded fantastic, but I wasn't allowed to go with them. Probably just as well.

When I got older, I realized how foolish this was. I volunteered as a teenager at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI), and one of my favorite places to get assigned in was a real, working weather station. We would do presentations about the weather, and the finale was shooting a pencil through a long "tornado gun" at wind speeds comparable to a tornado--150-200 miles per hour. A pencil could go straight through a piece of 2 x 4. We also had a piece of wood siding that had been pierced by a playing card that stuck halfway out of it which had been done by an actual tornado. It really brought home to me that you don't want to mess around--get somewhere underground and reenforced!

When I moved out to California, friends that had lived there all there lives were in terror of tornadoes and wondered how midwesterners could live with that as a threat. I used to joke, "Hey, you guys have earthquakes! I rather have tornadoes, at least you can hide from them!"

The pictures and stories of the supercell of tornadoes that went across the south yesterday are gut-wrenching. The loss of life seems like it should be unheard of in this century. However, an F5 or three of that caliber is hard to keep safe from, and in the south they never seem to get that they need to be more serious about storm shelters. So many people had nowhere to go even in their own houses. In all the rebuilding that is doing to have to happen, I hope that they will have the foresight to add decent storm shelters in their new plans.

And I fervently hope that there weren't any boys or girls caught out too far from home while riding around on their bikes playing 'storm chasers' or at least that they were able to find somewhere to hide.

Sharing a beautiful TED Talk

If you haven't wandered over to the site, Ted.com,  you should, to hear some of the most amazing speeches on a wide range of topics.  Some of them are so inspiring, and many reduce me to tears.

This one is one of my latest favorites to spring into tears by:

Murphy's Irish Stout. Oh, I am in love again.

Tonight Dan and I went to an Irish pub in Barrington called McGonagal's Pub, just to try someplace new.   It ended up being really very nice, and definitely a place we will go back to.

The atmosphere was nice, lots of wood on walls and floor, lots of room, so even though it was crowded, it wasn't overbearing and we could hear each other.

The menu was interesting, and the appetizer (smoked salmon wrapped around crab on top of a salad) and the spicy curry fries were really tasty.  There is a lot of really good looking food, but we will be back to explore it more later.  Tonight we were peckish.

My favorite thing on the menu though, was Murphy's Irish Stout.  They had a marvelous keg of it  there, properly dispensed, and it tasted like the beer you get in Ireland or Great Britain.

Murphy's is a sipping beer, one that you love to have play all over your tongue.  The foam on top is extremely creamy and very thick, and the beer itself is chocolately and deep and not very fizzy at all, yet it doesn't taste flat.  It could be a meal in itself, and I just loved it. 

I am very excited to have found it well served nearby, and even had the rest of the restaurant experience terrible (which it definitely wasn't), I would still return for a such an authentic tasting, well-poured glass of Murphy's Irish Stout.

Making Changes, Working a Program (or app)

I have made mention of the fact that I am often not pleased with my weight or spongitude of my muscles in the spring.   Usually my solution has been to train to run a marathon.  However, I have decided to be a little gentler to myself this year, and instead I am using the wonders of technology to keep my diet and exercise in check.

For the past two weeks, I have been using two android apps in tandem--one called Cardiotrainer, and the other is called Caloriffic--to work towards increasing fitness and decreasing what I am eating.

Caloriffic puts foods into three different catagories; green yellow and red.  I bumped it up from its free version to make it calculate out my calories for weight loss goals.  It's extremely easy to use, and things are catagorized in such a way to make entry easy and quick and pretty accurate.  It's a great way get a reactive effect from self reporting, and makes me more mindful of what I am putting into my mouth and when.

Cardiotrainer I have been using for almost a year, and it's great for using the GPS to tell you how far you have gone, and how fast.  I love that there is a little British "man" who announces my times, my calorie burns and how long I have been walking or running or biking.

Since I have upgraded part of the apps to work together, I now get a listing of how many calories I  have burned this month, and how many miles I have gone.  So far in April, I have matched my total for all of March.  I am shooting for 10,000 calories burned in April.  I am halfway there.

Is it working?  It's too early to say.  It has only been two weeks, and I have worked out all but one day.  My scale is very old and isn't giving accurate numbers--either that or I have gained  6 lbs. off and on this week, sometimes in the space of minutes.  I do believe I will be working from the "scale of pants" until I get a replacement.  The Scale of Pants says that things are fitting a skosh better, but nothing visible yet. 

Random Thoughts

I am working on my first actual essay in a long while, but in the mean time, while it's cooking I thought I would jot out some of the dross that is cluttering my brain

To the friend who does not know how to come back after a grievous mistake,  just come back.  Be present.  We know who you are.  And we know what's influencing you.  Stop avoiding us.  We'll tell you you're stupid, which you know already, and then we will be happy you're back in our lives.  The end.

Finding the excellent job really is all about who you know.  I need to get to know a lot more people.

Computers eat life.

The more the religious right asserts itself as a political concern, the more I viscerally hate religion.  I don't self identify as christian anymore.   God is still cool, but those people on the religious right don't seem to know Him, and too many of them preach in churches. 

To the GOP, I look at your budget proposals and think--are you effing kidding. Really.  You may be all about serving the corporate masters that pay for your campaigns, but remember, it's still us "little people" that vote.  The real drivers of the economy are NOT the upper 2%, but the rest of us who buy and sell and work in this nation.  If we are not thriving, the country cannot thrive economically, or in any other way.   Also, putting the deficit reduction on the backs of the elderly and disabled and the poor while giving free money to rich people who don't need it really makes you as a group look like a bunch of self-serving, rich entitled assholes.  Oh wait.  Gosh!  Almost all y'all in Congress are!  And here is a lovely article that explains why you are such shitheads to the lower quadrants and does it all so much better than I can right now.

Everything going on in the middle east, the continuing genocides in African nations like Sudan,  the never ending wars that we never should have let ourselves be LIED into, the ozone depleting 40% over the poles this winter, Japan's many crises, and the stagnation of so many things that we know really need to change, like finding energy sources that won't kill off the planet as we know it...it gets so depressing.  It gets so large.  I don't think most people can put their heads around it.  It's all so frightening and complex.  No wonder people get so easily distracted by Charlie Sheen acting like he's imploding for the masses, or Jersey Shore.  It's stupid, but it's simple.  It's also incredibly sad that so many people latch on to crap like this like it matters while the world is threatening to disintegrate around us.

The Saga of the Smartphones, or, Suffering Under Warranty

(This entry is very very dry.  I suck at choosing smart phones.  I worked within a warranty system. It sucks too. I got a new phone. Details are an insomnia curative.)

Last year, I updated  to a smartphone for my birthday.  I had been using my trusty Motorola Razr for 4 years, and it was just time to move into the 2010s.  I had been contemplating over the iPhones for some time, but also wary of them—so many friends had cracked theirs, lost them or had them stolen. There was also the problem of dropped calls.

After much deliberation,  I decided upon trying the newest thing—Motorola’s first Android phone for AT&T called the Backflip.   The first deciding factor was that it was insurable, unlike the iPhone. The second was that it was a cute little thing with very interesting form function—the keyboard flipped out from the back instead of sliding in.  It had a 5 megapixel camera with flash,  (compared to the iPhone with 3 mp and no flash) , video camera,  and Motoblur, for quick access to social networking and email.

Alas, its cuteness was soon spent with the first one because it kept rebooting itself after I took a picture, or sometimes just at random.  I was still within the first 30 days though, thought I had a lemon and traded it in.

In about a month, I traded in the second one because it lost its ability to receive 3G, or internet connections at all. 

In a couple of months after that,  I had to get another one, because it had started freezing up or rebooting.  It also was calling people at random.

I kept with the phone, though, and AT&T’s warranty system because when it did work, it worked really well for what I need.  It was a breeze to text on it.  I loved the camera.   It had low radiation levels compared to a lot of other phones. It didn’t drop calls.

But this month, after one year of the Backflip, I decided it was time to get rid of the darn thing.  The latest one started slowing down to a crawl, was overheating, and was still calling people when I wasn’t near it. 

I had followed the warranty rules, and agreed to get for the rest of my 2 year agreement, a Motorola Flipside.  Instead, I was mailed the Motorola Flipout. 

Neither of these two phones were perfect, (but were adorable looking) and I did call warranty and told them that if the Flipout didn’t work (customer ratings on AT&T website were frought with frustration with both replacement phones,) I wanted to be able to do an early upgrade without penalty.  I gamely worked with the Flipout.  It was faster, it fit easily into my pocket, but it had a 6 hour battery life with moderate usage.  It was adorable and small, but with my over 40 year old eyes that still don’t need reading glasses, it was a little eyestraining to use its screen.  I could live with it though, it made phone calls and didn’t drop them….except that within two days, it shut itself off and would not turn back on again. 

I went to my local AT&T store, where they know me quite well now, and they helped me get the upgrade I was looking for—one without penalty, to a beautiful monster of a phone, (cue dramatic music) The Motorola Atrix. 

Yes, I stayed with Motorola.  Why?  A few reasons.  My husband works for Motorola.  I don’t HAVE to buy their products, but I like to be supportive.  Also, as much as I think the iPhone is sexy,  their ads are snotty.  The Motorola phones that I have had the troubles with were out of a group that is no longer working at Motorola.  It’s a shame, because the interesting form factors were intriguing, but suffered mightily from a lack of support.  The Atrix though, is moving towards the future of these smart products, and has been painstakingly designed and supported.

When Motorola makes a high-end phone, it is a quality instrument.  Its duel-core processor and speed  are a marvel to behold.  No calls so far have been dropped, and I can be heard crystal clear on the other end. I can multitask several aps at once. If I wanted to secure the phone to only work with my fingerprint recognized, I could.  It doesn’t have a slide out keyboard, but the touchscreen version is sensitive and it’s not hard to type accurately.  Back to a 5MP camera with flash and night vision. It works with Adobe Flash Player.  I will get a dock for it and a Bluetooth keyboard that will make it possible to turn the darn thing into a computer  with any HD screen.  Battery life—I got 18 hours out of it despite intentionally heavy usage.  It’s a smartphone work of art. 

The thing I worry about though, is that it’s too much power. It does so much and I just STARE at it!  It can be insidious, the attraction of this phone with so much computing power and easy access to information.  I don’t want to be one of those people who gets stuck into their machine. That truly would be like going over to the dark side.

Blog on a rigged keyboard

The Apple Store has the replacement parts, but wants my laptop for 3-5 days.  I will relinquish it this afternoon, but in the meantime, I found that the keyboard from my 2003 Mac will work as an extension.

The People's Four Seasons  had its press weekend and survived with good mentions.  We had a prop malfunction at a key part of one show, but we worked with it.  We had a cast get together after one of the shows, and I met the Quest superfan, Martie.  She was delightful, and the world needs more of her type. 

I have been on a real job hunt, but just to be perverse,  the universe is sending all sorts of voiceover bookings and commercial bookings my way, giving me a real person income for the past few months.  Hey, universe, I am grateful for that.  I don't mind that at all!

Yesterday, I judged a preliminary round of the 11th Annual Louder Than a Bomb Youth Poetry Festival, and that was so AWESOME!  There were four high school teams, and they competed individually and in a group round. This year, there are 72 teams in all.  Even in this preliminary round there were several jaw-droppingly good performances from some amazing young poets.  I am going to get more involved with Young Chicago Authors.  I may even approach our high school about starting a slam team.  It was electric, and when poetry makes you want to stand up and cheer, you know you have something amazing going on, something empowering for the performers and the audience.

Life is sweet.

Missing letters on the Keyboar

The laptop is getting ol .  To ay for no reason, two letters  stoppe  working.   an you tell whi h ones?

It's a little tragi .  I will take it to the Apple Store tomorrow to see what the genius bar  an  o with it.

Otherwise, it has been a goo  weeken  .   More  etails when I have the letters.

A good weekend had by all

Quest Ensemble's "The People's Four Seasons"  opened this weekend, and it felt very good.  The audience laughed, they cried, and they stayed after to talk with us and compliment us even if they didn't know anyone in the cast.


Our high school speech student that made it to State competition in humorous interpretation made it all the way to State Finals, which is extremely difficult to do--we have only had one kid do that in the past decade! She came in 7th, but she's only a junior, so I am sure she will be amazing next year.  All us coaches, past and present, pat ourselves on the back, because we all coached her and feel we helped her with something valuable to her performance.

The only bug in the weekend is that I tweaked my back again, but I am hoping it will not be a long recuperation.  It's calming down.

The best thing?  It's President's Day tomorrow, and I get to do stuff with the boys, who will be off school.  The weekend is long, and it is good.

Tech Weeks!

This week we start 2 weeks of tech for the Quest Ensemble show, "The People's Four Seasons."  Technically it's a very complex show, but it tells a simple story of a man looking back on his life.  It is done with imaginative large-scale puppetry, original music and spectacle. 

I am tremendously excited about it.  Andy Park, the writer and director, is a genius. He has directed Cirque Shanghai, spectacles for Lollapalooza, over 10 original shows (several Jeff recommended) and is currently the artistic director at the Shedd Aquarium.  I have worked with him on some of original shows before, and he amazes me with his insight and vision. When they first approached me for being in the show, and I read the script--I actually cried.  It's written in a poetic style that is just lovely, and very truthful and wise.

Right now, we are putting all the elements together, and it's rough, but you can already see  how cool it's going to be.  The puppets are all made, but not painted yet.  It's going to rain onstage.  Awesome!
The singers are sounding gorgeous,  the dancing is getting worked well, and coordination of the puppetry is working very well for this stage of the production. 

I hope to have pictures soon.  Part of Quest's mission is to never charge admission, but instead ask for a donation of what you can pay, or what you think it was worth.  This has worked very well for them, and they continue to grow.  Check them out at www.questensemble.org.  The show runs February 17- March 27th.  Make reservations for a ticket--it's going to be amazing!

Snow!

We had a little bit of snow last night. About 20 inches, with whiteout conditions.  Since we were home and cozy, and our power didn't go out, it was just a big adventure going on outside our windows.

I love snowstorms.  Last night we went out to walk around in the 45 mph winds and snow falling at 2-3 inches/hr and it was such an exciting experience.  Of course, having  a warm place to run back to makes all the difference.

Blessings

I have let most of the month of January go without the dreaded blog about resolutions, probably because they are pretty banal--lose weight, get more sleep, write more, exercise more, find a meaningful day job and not something that feels like running a cheese grater over my brain, etc.

For sure, there's plenty to work on--but the one resolution I  keep--and one that everyone can benefit from--is to count blessings regularly.  It's easy to get caught up in negativity--and even if it increases the number of hits to my blog, (eye roll, sigh) it really isn't where I live.   Counting blessings keeps me grounded. 

I am blessed. I have good health, and I love life.

My family is awesome.  I have teenage sons who are easy to get along with, and really make me proud of them for having good sense (most of the time) and their eyes on the future, not just the present.  I feel blessed that we actually have long conversations and laugh together a lot.

I am blessed that I have been married for a looooong time and it doesn't feel like it. I married the best guy, and I am amazed by him constantly for his wisdom, good sense, and wicked sense of humor. He's also a much better cook than I am.

I am blessed with a great Dad who is doing really well since my mom passed away. He's working, staying active, and jokes about cruising for chicks when he's going to the public library.

I am blessed that my in-laws all great people, and they have never once fit the stereotypes.

I am blessed that I can run again, and in yoga I can bend all the way down to put my hands flat on the floor.  After a debilitating back injury a couple years ago, I can't tell you how much this makes me happy.

I am blessed to work with such awesome people on my side job with the high school speech and debate team. I feel blessed that we are focused on the development of the students instead of just priming them for competition. We develop good speakers and actors and debaters, not good forensicators. (Though it is nice when they win anyway. I won't deny that we've been ranked one of the top 100 teams in the nation out of 3000.) It is a blessing to teach kids who want to be there, and to watch them grow from uncertain children to outstanding adults. It's nice to know that sometimes, they let us know we had an influence on their lives in profound ways.

I am super blessed to have the support and freedom to pursue passions such as theatre, music and art. I can't always be as involved as I would like to be, because life/work/family happens, but there is still room, and I am so grateful!  Right now I am so excited to be rehearsing a show with a new script so beautifully written it made me cry, and it's being directed by a person who is truly a genius.

Blessings lift you, and reminding yourself of them keeps the eye on what really is important.   Life is very, very good.

Growing growing growing

Yesterday I took my youngest to buy clothes. This is a remarkably rare thing--he doesn't care if he's wearing hand me downs, and still doesn't really care about his appearance. However, he's in a tremendous growth spurt, and we don't have any hand me down pants in his current size since his brother is still wearing his gangsta style to make the legs fit. (Honestly, I would like to take him shopping too.)

I was waiting for my youngest outside the dressing room, and it occurred to me as I looked around that this was probably one of the last times, if not THE last time I would be taking him to shop in the boys section of the store. The boy has grown to be one inch taller than me, and this is just the beginning.

I am now not only the only female (besides the cat) in the house, but I'm now also the shortest person in the house (besides that cat and the bird.)

The bittersweet side is that everyone is growing up. The up side is, I will soon have an excellent wardrobe of hand me down hoodies, jackets, and sweatshirts.