Wisdom

I was reminded today of one of my favorite proverbs about wisdom. I believe it's Persian in origin, although it's attributed to everyone from Conficius to Bruce Lee.

I can think of many highly-prominent figures today who fall into each of these categories. Come to think of it, I know a lot of people who aren't prominent who fall in to these categories.

I hope we all have the wisdom to Follow, Awaken, Teach and Shun those we should.


He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him.

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not is simple. Teach him.

He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him.

He who knows, and knows that he knows is wise. Follow him.

20/15

That was how my vision tested this morning. I'm fairly amazed, really. They told me not to expect better than about 20/40 the first week with improvements over the course of a month.

So I'm pretty psyched. All in all, even with the bit of discomfort and the inconvenience last week, it's been totally worth it.

In other news, we have a primary on Tuesday. I was joking with a girlfriend from Illinois last night that Ohio is the New Hampshire of the Great Lakes: Everyone pretty much ignores us most of the time, unless there's a presidential election going on then then Whooo doggie! We're the belle of the ball! The big debate was down the street at the University (where hubby goes to school, but did he get me tickets? Noooo.) Caroline Kennedy was at the YMCA in my little berg last night, stumping for Obama. I knew this only because the convenience store over by the freeway had a ginormous "Welcome, Caroline Kennedy!" sign out front on my way home last night. I guess she needed a slurpie while she was on the campaign trail. Hubby is the lead Precinct judge for election day, so he's pretty psyched.

I'm still undecided. I know it's un-cool not to be a fervent Obama supporter right now, and by golly, he's awfully charming and engaging in a Jack Kennedy sort of way. But I'm still wondering if I should abandon the opportunity to elect a very capable and experienced WOMAN to the White House, just because she's part of the Old Guard and a bit of a shrew. There will be more listening and soul searching over the next several days, here in the Land of Bean.

Final thought: We've had 18 inches of snow at my house over the last week, with another 4 inches forecast for today. Enough, already!

Be well, gentle readers.

Memes and Beer

I don't know why I said "Beer", except that I think I could use one right now.

Well, the grant is done. It's not my most brilliant work, but it doesn't suck. Really, I think the make or break on this one will be whether or not I get the last one. Ironic, no? It's up there with the bank not lending you money unless you don't need it.

The good news is that I have a very good plan B right now, so I'm just sort of waiting it out to see what unfolds.

Anyway, our dear Rebecca has tagged me to meme about "seven random things about me". I've given a lot of thought to this in hopes of finding stuff you can't glean from my resume, so here we go:

1) I fractured my neck when I was 12 year old. We were on vacation at a state park in February in this giant snowstorm and I was swimming with my sister in the pool at the lodge. I was on the junior rec swim team at the time and felt perhaps a little too confident in my skills. I tried to do a back 1 1/2 off the 1 meter platform and cracked my head on the concrete on my way around. Yeah, it was a "Greg Louganis". Anyway, in the midst of all that compression I put a little crack in one of the bones in my neck. I spent about 6 months in a series of braces. It was not a way to be popular in 7th Grade.

2) My sister saved my life in the aforementioned accident. She was 10 years old and still in the "little squirt" stage of her development. I was 5'6" tall and probably 120 pounds. And she dead-hauled me out of the water. Pulled just about every muscle in her body doing it, too, or so my mother tells me. She was tough, even then.

3) Paul Newman once cooked me a hot dog. I was eight years old, and my dad was on an SCCA pit crew for Don Godovan. Apparently, this was when Paul Newman was messing around on that part of the racing circuit and he asked my dad for some help with his car. I was hungry and started bugging my dad for something to eat. Dad was irritated with the interruption ("where the hell is your mother?"), but Mr. Newman offered to take me over to his tent and get me a hot dog. I had no idea who he was until later.

4) I was once almost killed by a giraffe. No; I'm not making this up. I was helping a friend in the herbivore and carnivore building at the Columbus Zoo in 1987 and we walked into the giraffe pen. The big male decided he didn't like me and tried to crush me against the wall with his head. Giraffes have really big heads.

5) I have a heart-shaped (bifurcated) uvula. It's not as bifurcated as the picture on the left. That's also not me. You can tell from the moustache. Strangely enough, when you google "bifurated uvula" you don't get a lot of images to choose from...

6) I've never seen the movie E.T. Not sure why; the opportunity just never presented itself in a compelling way.

7) My family doesn't know this, but when they open a new bag of chips, I sneak in later and take out all the folded over ones. Because those are the only ones I like. When I'm with friends, I have to remind myself not to pick the foldy ones out of the bowl.

So there you have it.

I'm supposed to tag seven people on this; not sure I know seven who haven't been tagged yet, but let's try

Mkae
Tardparty
Puggimer
BluEyes
Ptooey
Alison
Allan

Let's see what we get. ;) Do this at your leisure. Or elect not to meme. No pressure.

Now; about that beer...

Point of Privilege

I am not a Meme type for the most part, but Alison had one today that is interesting. My husband is in an Urban Studies course that is challenging all of our perceptions about privilege and our internal biases, so it's particularly timely for us this week.

The premise is that I bold all the statements that are true. I've added a bit of personal commentary in a few places where it makes sense.

Da Fine Print (because there's always fine print): The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright.

If you want to participate, please do the same. It'd be interesting to see the results

Father went to college

Father finished college

Mother went to college

Mother finished college

Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor

Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home

Had more than 500 books in your childhood home Books were the one luxury in the house. My mother would buy used books at garage sales and library sales. We even had encyclopedias in the house.

Were read children’s books by a parent

Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 -- I studied voice and piano

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18

The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs Haha! I had three scholarships and held down full-time work the whole time!

Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

Went to a private high school

Went to summer camp

Had a private tutor before you turned 18

Family vacations involved staying at hotels

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18

Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them

There was original art in your house when you were a child My dad bought a few pieces from a local artist when I was a teenager

Had a phone in your room before you turned 18

You and your family lived in a single family house

Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home Not outright, of course -- we were always mortgaged

You had your own room as a child After I was about 10 or so.

Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course

Had your own TV in your room in High School

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College *snort*

Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 We took a trip to California when I was in seventh grade

Went on a cruise with your family

Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up Always. As in, just about every weekend, when the weather was bad. It was cheap entertainment and we had abundant museums in the city

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. Man, I think I knew every bill in the house growing up. My parents were all about accountability.

----
Things were, in retrospect, pretty meager growing up. We weren't suffering, for certain -- we always had a place to live, and there was always food in the table. We lived at the poor end of town, but I never felt poor. My parents always valued education but couldn't afford higher education for themselves. Really, though, if you look at where our money WAS spent, it was always on books, museums, and other items that were focused on enrichment. We always lived near a library and we always took advantage of it. Getting through college was rough -- I always had a job, or a collection of part-time jobs. But I think it taught me how to multi-task at a young age!

I live much better than my parents did. And I really, genuinely believe that it was because of their very strong focus on education. My folks are very smart people, but they never rose above their class because they both had to go directly into the work force after high school.

As my husband and I discussed this, he pointed out that most of the folks I pass on the way to work each morning couldn't say yes to a SINGLE one of these questions. That even though most of them live within 10 minutes of one of the richest collections of museums in the nation, most of them don't go, because they either cannot afford the bus fare or the relatively nominal admission price. That there are no libraries in those neighborhoods. I wonder how people raise themselves up without those resources.

Interesting exercise.

Best Friends

I spent today with a friend I have known more than 30 years.

Suzanne and I only get to see each other a few times a year. Moreso since our kids were born, as our daughters took to each other in much the same way we did, all those years ago. We get to use the excuse of "we have to get the girls together" as justification for the exquisite pleasure of sneaking off for a couple days of visiting time.

Today, we met for lunch, then ice cream at our favorite ice cream shoppe, followed by ice skating with the girls and post-holiday winter coat shopping. Suz bought two coats. I encouraged her to buy the second one because she looked adorable in it and, for heaven's sake; she eats too many chicken backs.

As I sit here, drinking hot wine because I'm still nursing a really nasty cold, I am amazed at what a comfort it is to have one person in my life who makes me feel unconditionally loved. Don't get me wrong; of course, my husband and daughter and parents love me. But each of these people wants something back from me. They all depend on me in some way, they all have their baggage and their agendas and to a certain extent, they all are obligated to love me in one way or another.

Not Suzanne. She and I have had the unique wonder of a relationship that has withstood boyfriends, family upheavals, 10th grade Biology, college, marriages, divorces, remarriages, children, jobs...and has emerged stronger and more beautiful each year. And it survives, not in small part, because we make no demands on each other. I accept all that is good and bad about her, without judgment and without explanation. Suzanne is always late. This I know. And it's OK. We just work on a different schedule. And she treats me with the same acceptance and accommodation. She just loves me for exactly the person I am. No matter how long we have been apart, it is like we just saw each other yesterday.

I always finish a day with her feeling better about the world than when it started.

I’m going to make a point of getting downstate to see her more often.

The Waiting Room

I work in a hospital. No, I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV. But I spend a lot of time around the waiting rooms of departments like the Cardiac ICU -- what a close friend affectionately calls "Gateway to the Sickest Four Walls in America". Despite the fact that miracles take place daily befhind those walls, this is still a place of mortality.

These rooms are filled -- nearly 24/7 -- with worried, frightened people. Parents, holding each other, waiting to know if their precious child has survived a difficult operation. A husband, passing off bored and active children to siblings or parents, and hoping, praying, that his wife will sit beside him again soon. A old women, alone, sitting with incredible patience, staring at a memory only she can see and hoping that she won't go home a widow today.

Conversations are always strained, unnaturally cheerful. Football games are watched with glassy-eyed stares and comments that are not really meant to be heard, but spoken only to fill the silence. But the silence creeps back in, inexorably, as each person in the room is left to contemplate mortality and inevitable change. The waiting room is one of humanity's great equalizers.

Despite the tastefully invisible floral wallpaper and the warm colors of the upholstery, if these places had a color, it would be grey.

Today, I passed a large family gathering -- three generations, with Grandpa conspicuously absent. I mentally categorized them as a "death watch". You can spot them a mile away; each member waiting, in turn, for his or her 10 minutes with the patient. This family was a little different, however. The entire group was sitting in a circle of loveseats and chairs and staring at the floor with great intensity. They were smiling.

I followed their gaze to see a baby girl, perhaps 6 months old, laying on a pink fuzzy blanket. She was an absolute beauty: dark hair, blue eyes, porcelain skin. And she was playing well to her audience: kicking her feet and laughing the way only babies can -- starting with her toes, entire body convulsing with joy, and ending with a squeal most adults would struggle to produce. I couldn't help but smile.

"You have a big responsibility there, little one", I thought. There, embodied in her wiggling pinkness, were the collected hopes of an entire family. While she lay there, squealing, joyful, oblivious to the tension around her, the family could focus on life. They could pretend they were just there to see the newest family member, and not waiting to say goodbye to perhaps their oldest.

I went on to my destination. Papers delivered, explanations proffered, a joke shared, a task procured. As I passed back by the waiting room, the baby started to cry. Dad scooped her up to offer a bottle or a bit of comfort, and the spell was broken.

The light slowly faded and the room turned back to grey. And one by one, I watched the face of each family member close up as each retreated slowly back into personal solitude, where the sounds of crying babies, overhead pages, IV alarms and televisions are drowned out by the roaring din of reflection.

Beanie's Farding Butterfly Effect Theorem

"The act of applying lip gloss, lipstick or Vaseline to one's lips will immediately result in a localized gust of wind that will blow one's hair into the recently-applied maquillage.

This effect is magnified according to the color depth of the lip product applied."

Beanie's Axiom of Contrived Sleeplessness

"The probability that a child, under the age of 10, will have a screaming nightmare at 3 am is inversely proportional to the total number of sleeping hours available to the child's parents on a given night."

*yawn*


Maxine's Oratory Corrollary:

"The number of minutes it will take to soothe a screaming child back to sleep at 3 am is equal to the remaining number of minutes in the anticipated sleeping period, divided by one-half the number of minutes one is expected to devote to public speaking the next day."

Remorse

Sometimes people walk out of our lives for a reason. And when they come back, or when we get a chance to learn about them -- how they're doing, where they are -- we can react with too much enthusiasm.

I fear I have overstepped my bounds with someone I care for very, very much and I am terrified I have driven this person away.

I hope I'm wrong. And I hope this person knows how very precious she is to me.

Reflections upon a visit to the nursing home...

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--Dylan Thomas

Square peg, meet round hole.

I was invited to that most dangerous of all social events this weekend: The Ladies’ Tea.

This particular tea was presented by a neighbor of mine, who has a son the same age as my daughter and whose company I appreciate greatly. I won’t say necessarily that I always enjoy it. She is well-intentioned, but completely overbearing, and she browbeats her husband to the point that I have started teasing her about it just so I don’t scream. (On a related note, my husband keeps a tiara in one of our coffee table drawers at home and when she starts ordering her husband around in our house, he whips it out and places it on her head. I love that man)

The table was lovely; finger sandwiches, tiny muffins, phyllo horns with coconut pudding and strawberries. I contributed my tarragon chicken salad and sugared grapes to garnish the other plates. The other women in attendance, six in all, were also lovely. I’d met three of them before; we all have kids roughly the same age and so we have that in common.

I came to realize during the conversation, however, that every one of these mothers was stay-at-home. And they all voiced a common complaint: “My husband gets to spend all day long with interesting people and take a 2-hour hot lunch if he wants to, and then he lolly-gags home at night. Like he doesn’t understand how tough my day has been chasing around a pre-schooler all day.”

I paused. 2-hour lunches? Lolly-gagging? I spoke aloud “Where do these guys work?? Because…dang. I’d love to have a 2-hour lunch! And I don’t know what they do for a living, but when I don’t get home until 7:00, it’s because I had work to do that kept me there. It’s not like you don’t want to come home.”

There it was. My second head. Poof! Just like that, it must have grown out of my left shoulder because there were five sets of eyes, staring at it.

One of the younger women, who bore a striking resemblance to Barbie (honestly; it frightened me) spoke up. “How does that work? Do you have a nanny?”

“Um…no. I have a husband.”

“No; I mean, who takes care of your daughter?”

“That would be guy who represents the other half of her parents. He finishes classes around 3 pm and picks her up from school. They hang out and do homework until I get home.”

She looked skeptical. “And that works out?”

I paused at this question. “They’re both still alive, so far, so I’d have to say Yes.”

En masse, they averted their eyes from my second head. We spoke no further about it and at some point it must have retreated back into my left shoulder. I’m thinking it was right about the time I mentioned that the football cake pan I bought in 1991 had thus far served quite adequately as both a fish and an armadillo for various parties.

But it left me feeling, not for the first time lately, like I was dreadfully out of place in this world.

Pop Culture Refugee, Part II -- What's on your night stand?

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So I'm puzzled and deeply worried by the results of last month's AP/CNN Poll that indicated 27% of Americans did not read any books last year.

Not. One. Book.

The article also states that even among the Americans who DO read, the average American only reads something like 4 books a year.

What the hell is wrong with people? I mean, I work something like a million hours a week, I have a family and a house to look after. But I still read 15 or 20 books a year and I wish I could read more.

So I have a question for my loyal cadre of 2.7 readers: What's on your night stand (or in your bathroom, or wherever you keep your reading material), and how many books do you think you have read in the last year?

And if you don't read books, what has taken the place of books in your life?

Because I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this.

Them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose

Today is Wednesday. Halleluiah.


I work at one of the largest, wealthiest research hospitals in the United States. As I drive on campus each morning, I can see beautifully-manicured lawns, expensive cars, massive construction on building projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I see banners proclaiming US News rankings and advertising the new 4-star restaurant they’ve opened in the hotel across the street from my office. Everything about it speaks of success and money.

What I see in the ten minutes before I reach campus is a different story. The campus is situated in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Each morning, I see prostitutes in skin tight shorts and wobbly heels, wending their exhausted – or stoned - way home from a night of work in some other part of the city. I see drug deals made with a pat on the back and a hand slipped into a coat pocket. I see teenaged girls dragging weary toddlers to the convenience store – there are no true groceries in these parts of town. I see gangs of young boys in white t-shirts and baggy pants, who should be in school but aren’t. I see street people sleeping off the aftermath of last night’s struggle with personal demons. I see middle-aged men, sitting in doorways, staring at nothing, hoping for nothing. They'll still be there on my way home in the evening.

I also see churches, perhaps a dozen or more in the 20 blocks between the freeway and my parking lot. They proclaim messages from their front signs:

All are welcome here
Tithe if you love Jesus; anyone can honk
CH__CH. What’s missing?
Tent revival August 24-28. Seek your salvation here.

They also proclaim the following:

Free hot meals
Food and Shelter for the Body and Soul
Grocery distribution on Wednesdays

The last sign hangs on the church parking lot across the street from my parking lot. Each Wednesday morning, a truck pulls up from the local food bank and distributes meager bags of groceries to the local residents. The crowd forms early and throngs well into the lunch hour. Even if I couldn’t see the crowd, I would know they were there by the singing. As they patiently wait in line for stale Thomas’ English muffins, surplus granola bars, fruit roll-ups and brown-paper bags of rice, they sing hymns of thanks. Young, old, mothers with babes in arms, homeless men in outfits that are uniformly grey-brown from months of street dust, the strung-out, the insane. They sing thanks and praise under the leadership of the church pastor, as thousands of well-dressed employees hurry from their cars to their offices a mere 90 feet away.

On one side of the street, the haves; on the other, the have nots.

I find myself wondering how our country – how any country – can hope to achieve peace and democracy abroad when it so clearly has not put forth the effort to give its own people equity in society.

How do we set our own house to rights?

Stay tuned, all three of you who read this blog. I have some ideas. And I’d like to hear yours.