When my child has a home of her own

A friend in one of my Yahoo groups wrote this and posted it today. It's too good not to share.

When My Children Have Homes of Their Own

I can't wait to visit them. First I'm going to drop my coat on the floor. In S's house, I'll make sure I track snow all the way into the dining room before kicking my shoes across the room. In Z's, I'll simply remember to bring six or seven pairs of shoes and leave them ALL in a heap by the front door, even summer sandals when I visit in December.

Next I will go into the refrigerator and take out the milk and forget to put it back. I'm going to eat half an apple and finish the orange juice and put the empty carton back in the refrigerator. I'll complain heartily that there's no good food.

I'm going to snack, a lot, on the awful food they do have, and I'm going to make sure that I leave the dishes under the couch. With my socks.

I will make a point of missing the wastepaper basket when I drop lip gloss blotted Kleenex towards it, and I will figure out exactly how to make the faucet not quite turn off.

If they do ask me to pick something up (I hope they won't because I'll be so elderly, but they might), I will promise to do it in a minute. I will promise this several times, while they still ask nicely and when they lose their temper (assuming they would do such a thing with their poor elderly mother) I will definitely manage to look hurt and act as though they had only to ask nicely once. Of course, I'll have the benefit of senility to give credence to my performance.

I plan to forget things when we leave the house, and not remember until two blocks from our destination, and then I will blame them for rushing me.

And at meals, I will definitely want to leave half of the food on my plate and put it in the garbage before asking ten minutes later what else there is to eat.

I know that as frustrated as I might make them, they wouldn't dream of yelling at me.

Happy Easter to All!

The girls -- Madeline and her cousin Amber -- had their own private egg hunt at Grammie and Gramps' house today. Obviously, not the point of Easter, but fun to share anyway.

Here they are, showing off their Easter finery.

Ready... Get set ... Kevin had to hold them back.

Go!!!


Score!

So how many did you find? I dunno. How many did you find?

More influence from The Great Beyond?

I love what my friend Lorrie at Clueless in Carolina has done with the Eliot Spitzer story. Reading her post was what we in one of my adoption e-groups call a "spitting coffee at the monitor" moment. Great job, Lorrie!

Now, with tongue firmly in check, let me share my slightly different take on the matter. As you already know, I think Daddy has thrown not one, but two Super Bowls from the Great Beyond, and he's probably sitting up there right now cackling with his buddies making plans to get the Big Orange into the Final Four. But he's not the only mischief-maker there.

Last week, I was talking with someone who lost her husband of many years last summer. I knew that said husband had been an attorney, though I never knew him personally and wasn't aware of his practice area. Out of the blue, she said, "If I believed in an afterlife, I'd swear someone was getting even." "Whaddya mean?" I asked. She went on to explain that her husband had represented some of the very organizations Spitzer persecu-, I mean, prosecuted (not the prostitution rings, the Wall Street targets). She explained that Spitzer had been (at least in my opinion) ethically-challenged in dealing with the defense. This, of course, is no secret -- it was fairly obvious from the press at the time that he was quite the crusading prosecutor. And now all this extracurricular activity came to light, only a few months after her beloved spouse had passed on. Why, it was almost enough to make a Believer out of her!

Am I surprised by it all? Of course not. While it's unlikely that my friend's late husband (or my Daddy) are exercising any undue influence, as the Bible says, we reap what we sow. I'm not defending "innocent" ladies of the evening or Wall Street swindlers here, but it seems that like a lot of crusading types, Spitzer had a dirty little secret.

Tiny Dancer

I thought you all would enjoy this clip. Madeline is learning one of the solo parts for the "Little Swallow Dance," which is a traditional Chinese children's dance. Her teacher, Miss Gina, is playing the mama bird -- a role that will be played by one of the older children in the dance company in the actual performance. Madeline is sort of the lead baby bird. They are dancing in Gina's basement studio.

Gina has been teaching Madeline's class at Hua Sha since January. She is new to this area, but taught Chinese dance in Hawaii for several years and coached a team of small girls to first place in an international competition. Like all of the adult members of Hua Sha, Gina does a lot more than teach dance. She has a Ph.D. in one of the hard sciences, too. They are an amazing group of women!

Jumbotron!

It's been a busy week and I haven't had time to post this, but last Saturday was quite a night! It was the PTO auction at Madeline's school. As an old special events person back during my political days, I was on the auction committee, so I was definitely going. After tagging along with me at last year's overly-crowded event, Kevin decided he didn't want to go -- he's not a party animal and the theme was country and western, which he cannot abide -- and stayed home with Madeline. Since he wasn't going, I decided to volunteer all evening, even though I paid for a ticket.

Early on, I bid on and won a session of day camp for Madeline. The laser tooth whitening and some of the jewelry and furniture looked awfully appealing, but I have to pay for camp anyway. For those of you who think that's oh-so-upper-class and indulgent, let me translate "summer camp" into working-class English: day care for school-age kids. The camp certificates were in one of the first sections of the auction to close. Since I'd paid well under face value for it and was feeling generous, I decided to participate in the wine bottle raffle and buy a $100 ticket, i.e., one chance.

For my hundred bucks, I got a raffle ticket and a bottle of wine that the auction committee had obtained from some generous merchant. Now, the wines they give away are hardly Petrus. Instead, they're in the Wine Spectator 85 to 90 range, wine that might sell for $15 or $20 a bottle. But if you enter the raffle, you have a good chance of getting more than an overpriced bottle of wine. They only sell 100 tickets in all, and they have 10 prizes, i.e., you have a 1 in 10 chance of winning something. A few times during the live auction, they stop and draw names out of the fishbowl. The grand prize gets drawn last.

I was sitting with my friends (mainly other kindergarten parents) during the live auction and about halfway through, it was time for me to go to do my job: running credit cards at the check-out station. So I left and went out to the foyer. As the live auction was ending, someone yelled across the room, "Hey, Edie, I think you just won something inside." I was in the middle of typing a transaction with a customer at my shoulder, so I ignored the person who sung out. A couple of minutes later, the auction chairman and the development director, who'd been running cards with me, but had suddenly disappeared without my having noticed she was gone, came marching up and told me I'd won the grand prize.

The grand prize is a 52" Sony LCD widescreen TV! My very own jumbotron! The auction co-chair, her husband and I managed to wrestle it into the minivan sometime after midnight when I left.

Kevin practically had a heart attack when I called him and told him what I was bringing home. I'm sure when the phone rang at 10:45, he thought I was calling to tell him there was some sort of emergency (I'd been in a wreck, couldn't get the van started, etc.), especially when my first words were, "Honey, are you sitting down?" When I told him, he was literally speechless on the other end of the line. He's really been wanting one, but it just hasn't been in the budget. Unbeknownst to him, I had been putting aside money to get a much smaller one (maybe 40") this summer as an anniversary present to him.

The TV is still sitting in its crate. Any day, however, FEDEX will deliver the lovely French Country stand I purchased this week from Home Decorators.com, and we will be livin' in Hi Def!

Now we are six!

It's hard to believe, but mah babee is six. The skinny little munchkin that we brought home almost five years ago weighs 40 pounds and is now reading (sorta), in training to be a prima ballerina (Chinese-style) and getting ready for her investiture into Girl Scouts.

Of course, we are celebrating Madeline Birth Month instead of her birthday alone. Her actual birthday was February 22nd. She was home from school that day (ice storm), and fortunately, I had the forethought to pick up an ice cream cake the day before at our neighborhood Baskin-Robbins. I love to bake, but my munchkin doesn't like cake and has been telling us for weeks that she wanted "one of those cakes made out of ice cream." As she's having an expensive birthday party next weekend, Kevin and I gave her a few small trinkets from the toy department at Target -- it takes so little to make her happy -- and some spring clothes. On Sunday, her Grammie and Gramps gave her more birthday gifts.

On Saturday morning, she was entertaining herself by journaling. Since last summer, Madeline has done this. She started pulling magazines off the coffee table or cans and boxes from the pantry or the newspaper, then she'd sit at the kitchen table and copy the words off these items onto clean paper filched from my printer. I'd find pages of 8 1/2 x 11 paper with dozens of words written in pencil or mini-marker: "Scientific American," "National Geographic," "Washington Post," "Quaker Chewy Granola Bars," "90 Calories," "Del Monte Lite Pear Halves," you get the idea. Last fall, she progressed from publications and merchandise to stories about her world. They're doing this kind of writing in school, and they encourage the kids just to get it all out on paper and not worry about spelling at this time, just to spell things like they sound.

So she presented me one of her stories on Saturday:

I asked her to translate the next to the last sentence: "Mom I want to you bow down to Mego [she calls herself "Meko" after the little forest animal that befriends Pocohontas in the Disney cartoon] because Mego is the Queen of the Rabbits. But Rabbie [her white rabbit "lovey"] is my baby." Okay.... I made a big production of bowing and scraping, and she loved it.

So late Sunday afternoon, I arrive home from the grocery story to see my sister-in-law Alice's SUV parked out front. Nothing unusual there. Occasionally, she drops by our place on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Inside, Kevin was assembling ... a THRONE. Yes, Alice brought the Queen of the Rabbits her own throne. She said she and Rebecca (Madeline's cousin) saw the throne somewhere and just had to get it. It was the perfect present, they thought.

And no, they had not heard that Madeline had crowned herself Queen of the Rabbits the day before.

Very Funny!

Bored, tubby, mild .... This is a cute video and all too true for us Boomers.

My Take on the Super Bowl

This is a bit late in coming, but like a lot of the other people, I was thrilled to see Eli Manning follow in his big brother's footsteps and earn a Super Bowl ring. We were cheering for the Giants at our house because it's an NFC-East team. The Redskins couldn't get their act together -- Will they ever? -- but we were at least somewhat represented at the big dance.

I called my mother during the game and she didn't want to talk. She was too excited about the Giants pulling ahead to upset the undefeated Patriots -- with her boy Eli at the helm. She was equally excited last year about the Colts' victory, even though I chided her about rooting for the team that had abandoned the fair City of Baltimore, where I live, under the cloak of darkness. After all, her boy Peyton was leading the charge.

So what is it about those Manning brothers? My mother, a pro football fan?

In a nutshell, Peyton played for the University of Tennessee, and my father was the biggest UT football fan that ever lived. Daddy spent (or perhaps misspent) his freshman year of college at UT before he joined the Army Air Corps during World War II. After that, his blood ran orange. While he didn't get to attend that many games, he was always glued to the television or radio when the Vols were playing. The names "Doug Dickey" and "Bill Battle" were whispered in reverential tones at our house. Daddy cut clippings after each game and sent them off to my brother-in-law, an expatriate Big Orange fan down in Florida. He wore a UT ball cap when he did his chores or attended outdoor events. Though none of us kids decided to attend UT, Daddy was thrilled when a couple of his granddaughters ended up as alumna there. And on his last day of life, he lay dying in a hospital bed wrapped in my brother-in-law's orange and white throw something like this one, a Big Orange fan to the end. I am sort of glad that my mom didn't do this, however.

So what does this have to do with last week's Super Bowl? Daddy's enthusiasm for UT football extended to alums of that program, including Peyton Manning. Daddy was a huge Manning fan. (I can understand his affinity for Peyton, but I suppose Eli gets lumped into the pantheon because he's the little brother and attended another Southeastern Conference school rather than go somewhere in the Big Ten.)

Daddy died in August 2006. The Colts, led by Peyton Manning, won Super Bowl XLI in 2007. The Giants, let by Eli Manning, won Super Bowl XLII in 2008.

Does it sound like someone is exercising undue influence from the Great Beyond on behalf of the Manning boys?

Okay, that's a bit farfetched, but I'm sure Daddy is smiling this week.

Update on China Weather Crisis

I received this email message yesterday. It's a broadcast email from Jenny Bowen, executive director of Half the Sky. Although I haven't asked permission to quote it, I doubt she'd mind. In fact, she'd probably appreciate the exposure. The email shows both the severity of the crisis and the strength of the response. The part about Chenzhou Social Welfare Institute (SWI) brought tears to my eyes.

By the way, for those not familiar with Chinese customs, people travel to their ancestral homes for the New Year celebration. Young people who've moved from the countryside to the big cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou for work ride trains for 24 hours or more to get home, and the entire country essentially shuts down. The storms came in the midst of this annual migration, thus complicating the problem.

Dear Friends,

Tonight is Chinese New Year’s Eve. Families across China who’ve not had to cancel their holiday plans are cozy together preparing huge feasts to greet the New Year. Although it gets harder and harder to reach anyone,we at HTS have not stopped reaching out to orphanages in central and south China that have suffered through the recent storms.

Despite the difficulties -- anyone who possibly can has gone home, all shops and offices are closed, no one answers the phone, the whole country is suddenly quiet -- we had some success today in getting the word out. In all of the six hardest-hit provinces we’ve managed to begin spreading the word, town by town, that we (and you!) are here to help. We’ve begun getting calls from directors of some of the small county-level institutions. We expect their numbers to grow over the coming days.

The weather remains bitter-cold but no serious snow is forecast now until the beginning of next week. For families in China, that’s wonderful news, as relatives make their way from house to house with greetings and treats for the new year.

For our little ones in the institutions, it’s good news too. Thanks to you and the provisions and heaters and winter clothes you’ve made possible, most will have a snug and safe holidays.

There has thankfully been only one instance so far where we felt the children were in real danger. In Chenzhou, Hunan, the subject of many recent news stories, the institution has been without power or running water for two weeks. In fact, a giant power grid was destroyed by heavy snows and the whole city has been dark for days. Yesterday in Chenzhou,11 workers died in an attempt to restore power.

We were worried about the children at the Chenzhou SWI – over 150 infants,some of whom were falling ill. Food supplies were running out and coal for heat was becoming prohibitively expensive. The SWI director was borrowing funds from caregivers to buy supplies at inflated prices. Even candles tripled in price. To complicate matters, because of the power failure, all banks were closed and the roads were closed. We were feeling pretty helpless.

I’m happy to tell you that an intrepid little group, led by my husband, Richard, is now heading home from having successfully stabilized the situation at the Chenzhou SWI. There is now at least a week’s worth of food, 2 weeks worth of coal, blankets, diapers (another group managed to drop off diapers and clothes as well and today a local farmer came by with a cart of cabbage) and plenty of money to buy what they need if they runout. Richard tells me that all they lack are 60 infant snowsuits and, assoon as the stores re-open after the holiday, the director knows where to get them. Although it’s expected to take 3-6 months for Chenzhou to fully return to normal, we’re so relieved that the children are safe and, at least for now, out of danger.

I hope to be able to tell you more of the story soon. Meanwhile, we will continue to monitor the situation in Chenzhou daily.

We will not stop reaching out to all potentially affected institutions,especially smaller ones, that we haven’t heard from yet. We’ve made a commitment to the hugely over-burdened Civil Affairs offices, that we, as a community, are going to take care of the children through these critical days, with everything we’ve got to give.

You are giving a great gift to the children in this New Year. You are also giving a great gift to me and my colleagues at Half the Sky. It is such a privilege to be empowered to help so many children in need. I feel very lucky right now!

Jenny, by the way, is an amazing woman and Half the Sky has an amazing mission: To ensure that every Chinese orphan in an institution knows the love of at least one caring adult. Jenny was recently selected one of 8 foreigners, and the only American, to carry the Olympic torch on Chinese soil later this year in a contest run by the China Daily, the official English-language newspaper.

Today was Chinese New Year, and we are now in the Year of the Rat. Gong Xi Fa Cai, or ...

Weather Crisis in China

In case you haven't been following, China is in the midst of a record period of cold weather. Even areas of the country that are semi-tropical, including the area of southern China where from which Madeline hails, Guangxi province, have been griped by a freakish record cold snap, huge snowstorms and freezing rain. It goes without saying that the orphanages there are suffering. Most don't have much more than space heaters (and in this far south, central heat isn't required), and record snowfalls have crippled transportation and caused widespread power outages. Orphanages are running out of food and diapers, and their dedicated staff members have braved the elements for hours without proper coats and boots to care for the children.

There are several fine charities that work with the hundreds of thousands -- actually, I believe there are probably millions -- of children in Chinese orphanages, both the ones who are waiting to meet their forever families, and those who will never be adopted. Half the Sky Foundation is one of the best. It's a charity formed by the parents of adopted Chinese children in the U.S. Half the Sky provides training to orphanage workers and pre-schools for institutionalized children and pays for a high school education for older children (the Chinese government only pays for primary school for orphanage children). Kevin and I have supported Half the Sky for a few years now. I give through the Federal Combined Charities program, and we've also given contributions in honor of family members. When my dad died in 2006, a group of my adoption community friends gave a large donation in Daddy's memory.

Half the Sky is raising much needed funds to help the orphanages with this weather crisis. If you click on the link above, you'll see references to the Little Mouse Emergency Fund. If the spirit moves you, please give to this fund and give generously. There are also links on the home page to regular updates from the executive director, Jenny Bowen. The stories she tells are truly heart-rending. Please consider making a gift today.

Bariatrics, Part 10: Restriction!!

Wooohooo!!! The fill has kicked in, and I have restriction again. It usually takes a day or two from what I understand. I think that's because the saline has to work its way back through the tubing into the band, but I may be wrong. I just know that I felt no different on Thursday (except where she jabbed me on her first attempt), but I woke up on Friday with a very tight band. I have also lost at least part of the water weight. Might another scale drop be on the way?

Right now, my poor stomach is pretty upset from the insult of having the band around it tightened. Think of how your waist feels wearing a too-tight belt, and now imagine that it's your stomach and not your waist being squeezed. So ... I'm living on liquids -- tea, soup, milk, and the like. I know, however, that I'm not too tight for solid foods because I can get my meds down without a problem. Anything larger hurts, though. I took Madeline to International Night at a local elementary school last night, and of course, they had food from everywhere. It was at the dinner hour, and I was hungry, so I ate a dumpling from the Korean display. Ouch! Back to the Gatorade for me!

Madeline's dance class was part of the entertainment at the International Night. One of the girls in her class attends kindergarten at this school, which apparently has a huge international contingent, as do many of the schools in this area. The girls did their recital dances. Most of the entertainers, however, were adults -- there were two or three groups of Korean dancers, Indian and African dancers, Irish step-dancers, and an adult member of Madeline's dance company.

There were also children dancing from the Howard County Chinese School, which, for those not familiar with the concept, is sort of like Hebrew School for Chinese-American kids. Generally, these schools are run by Chinese immigrants for the Chinese community. They offer Mandarin, plus other classes such as Tai Chi, cooking and traditional Chinese dance. One of my colleagues runs such a school in Northern Virginia.

Madeline does take a class in Mandarin and Chinese culture, but not from a Chinese school. Her teacher is Mrs. Haas, a Chinese-American woman who immigrated as a child in 1949 (when Mao came into power). Although she is now 70 years of age, she still teaches 4th grade at a local private school. She's the sweetest woman you'd ever want to know and seems far younger than her 70 years. Most of the students are adoptees, and Mrs. Haas has said that she has a special place in her heart for these girls.

We considered regular Chinese school, but were hesitant to commit for a few reasons, including the fact that parents aren't allowed to sit in on the classes -- at least at the schools we explored. Although we are under no illusion that we can learn a lot of Mandarin, much less get the tones right, we did want to see what and how the children were being taught. Moreover, regular Chinese school is rigorous, a several-hours-a-week commitment. We felt that Madeline was already in school each day from 8:10 to 3:10 and already had homework (yes, in kindergarten, though it's hardly egregious), and it was unfair of us to saddle her with more school on the weekends, unless that's what she really wanted. (And, some day, if she does, we will certainly allow her to enroll.) Yes, we are wusses. Early exposure to a foreign language is an proven aid in fluency. Hopefully, she's getting enough exposure with Mrs. Haas each week.

Bariatrics, Part 9: Fill 'er up!

I went for my first "fill" today. It was also a follow-up checkup. I've been losing restriction for three or four weeks now and white-knuckling a bit much to keep my portion sizes small and avoid snacking too often, so it was time. I'm down to 251, though my weight this morning was 255. Probably all water, I might add. You can tell from my fingers, ankles and waist. I've probably been eating too many carbs, and I know I'm struggling to get enough water in every day.

Pat, Dr. Schweitzer's nurse-practitioner, agreed that I needed a fill and went off in search of the syringes and saline. Apparently, the Bayview clinic has some new techs who didn't know to put these things in the examining rooms when a lap-band follow-up was scheduled. When Pat came back, she had me lay down on the examining table, then raised it to a comfortable height. She palpated my abdomen a bit around the long scar and thought she found the port. She stuck me with the big needle -- this sucker was huge -- without any surface numbing, I might add. It only pinched a little, then wham -- PAIN! I shrieked. Apparently, she'd completely missed my port and caught my abdominal muscle instead.

This spooked both of us and she asked if she could examine the patient next door while I collected my wits and tried to talk myself into sticking around. A few minutes later, she came back and had me stand up. There I was, pants open, blouse pulled up to my bra and held in place by my upper arms. Pat palpated right around my bra band on the side with the big scar and found it. She stuck the needle in again. Yes, there was definitely a little pinch, but the needle burrowed through what I'm sure is a wall of solid fat and -- bullseye! She hit the port perfectly. I swear I could feel the saline slipping in through the tubing.

Pat put 4 cc's into my 10 cc Vanguard band. She normally puts 6 in for the first fill, but thought I might still have a tiny bit of residual restriction and didn't want to make it too tight.

By mid-afternoon, things started to tighten up again, and a bowl of chili from the deli across the street held me nicely until 7 p.m. Then, I ate ten or so tortellini -- the leftovers from Madeline's plate -- for dinner and was full. Hopefully, this means the scale will be cooperating again soon.

Christmas wrap-up (I guess that's a pun)

I've been meaning to post about Christmas since shortly after I put up my posts about keeping Christ in Christmas (actually, He's never gone anywhere). I'm such a perfectionist that I couldn't bring myself to write this post -- Excuse No. 846: Not Enough Time To Do It Right (whatever that means) -- until only the detritus of the holiday season remained to be packed away:

Yeah, I preach a good game, but I didn't do any better than anyone else. I pushed myself too hard trying to make it all perfect. Of course, it wasn't so perfect, and I got stressed out about that. But . . . I'm still married and my kid still loves me. I managed not to cry about anything. I didn't stand there proclaim that some inconsequential glitch had ruined the holiday for me. Nope, it was fun!

Christmas by the numbers:

0 gifts purchased on credit cards

1 dance recital

1 chocolate cheesecake

1 bourbon fruitcake

1 rum cake

1 10 lb. rib roast

2 kid concerts

2 batches of candy

4 batches of cookies

6 batches of muffins

And, of course, one happy kid!

Highlights? Or are these low lights?

I am not one of those mothers that gets all horrified when someone gives her kid a Barbie or something with the Disney Princesses on it. After all, Madeline is a child whose favorite subject in school is science and who tries to play football with the boys. Here's the undeniable proof that I'm not allergic to The Princesses:

This is a tent. My mother-in-law gave it to Madeline -- at my suggestion, no less, as the child was making tents out of the sofa cushions and throws in the family room. I pictured a pup tent. Instead, the tent in question fills half the living room. That's okay. We don't have any furniture there anyway.

And here's the Christmas tree in the process of being decorated. Note that it lists.

Our trees for the last four years have listed. Last year's tree listed so bad that we had to rig up a contraption with Joe Weider free weights and kitchen twine to hold it in place. The tree three years ago listed so bad that it fell over, breaking a bunch of my funky blown glass ornaments. (Now I keep the expensive ones on a tabletop tree instead.) All of these trees have had crooked trunks. We bought them all at the same lot. This year, it finally occurred to us why all our trees have been crooked: they are seconds. Yes, seconds.

We found the lot near our house 4 years ago, the first Christmas we lived here. We decided to buy from there because the trees were all so fresh. The cashier told us they truck in a new supply in from North Carolina every week rather than bring them all at once early in the season. The price is also good. The trees run $10 to $20 less than those sold by various civic clubs and churches. But every darned one of them is either crooked or suffers from severe gap-osis. So we're betting that these people sell the fullest, fluffiest and straightest trees they harvest to high-end nurseries, where people who are richer than we are willingly pay $150 for 7-foot trees. The seconds go to the neighbor tree lot. Or that's our theory.

This stuff drives me crazy

A poster in one of my China adoption Yahoo egroups complained today about something. Apparently, she's searching for paint colors and ran across a sort of beige color called "China Doll" on the Sherwin Williams website. She asked why it was okay for corporate America to incorporate racism towards Asians into advertising and asked us all to join her in a letter-writing campaign.

Geez!

It's highly unlikely that Sherwin Williams was talking about Asian women. Back before there was plastic, dolls were made with cloth or leather bodies and porcelain heads. "China" with a small "c" is another name for the porcelain bisque that was used for the doll heads. Bisque is obviously quite fragile, ergo the connotation of delicacy that accompanies the term.

The term "China doll" with a capital "C," however, has an alternate meaning that is at best unfortunate and at worst a racist stereotype. It describes a stereotypical portrayal of Asian women as submissive and hypersexual. This is not the way I want society to see my daughter, but almost certainly not what Sherwin Williams meant.

The poster's concern reminds me a bit of the flap over a D.C. mayoral aide's use the word "niggardly" a while back.

While I believe that those of us who have adopted children of other races have to become a lot more sensitive than the average white bear to racial stereotyping and occasionally can serve to educate our fellow travelers to the error of their ways, I've noticed a tendency in our tribe to get carried away and imagine slights where none were intended.

I cannot believe that another parent is spending her free time tilting at this particular windmill when there are so many real problems in the world.

Sing Along with Julie

Ever since I first sat spellbound in Mary Poppins over 40 years ago, Julie Andrews has been one of my favorite singer-actresses. Recently, Miss Andrews, who is celebrating her 69th birthday, appeared on National Public Radio and sang the following. As someone who just turned 50, it resonates with me, too, a little more than I'd like to admit (or is 50 the new 30? 35?). Anyway, everyone together now, to the tune of My Favorite Things:

Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Cadillacs and cataracts, and hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the pipes leak, when the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heating pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Back pain, confused brains and no need for sinnin',
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin',
And we won't mention our short shrunken frames,
When we remember our favorite things.

When the joints ache, when the hips break,
When the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I've had,
And then I don't feel so bad!

January is National Hobby Month ...

... and Madeline has been asked to bring her hobby -- or one of her parents' hobbies -- to school next week for Show and Tell. The instructions from her teachers state:

In the past we have enjoyed learning about a variety of hobbies. One child brought a duck decoy that her father had carved. Another child brought the equipment he wore when playing ice hockey. We have seen lots of rock and shell collections, trains, matchbox cars and action figures, coins and stamps.

Let's see .... Madeline could bring pictures of herself in Chinese dance class and at her recent recital. The problem is, except for the fact that all the little dancers save one are clearly Asian, they look like any beginning ballet class in the pictures, replete with pink leotards, white tights and pink leather ballet shoes. Or she could bring her notebook from Mandarin and Chinese culture class and show everyone how she can write the ideograms representing the numbers one through ten. The problem is, Chinese New Year is coming up soon. She had planned to show off her Mandarin tourist phrases and calligraphy during my presentation to the class on China.

Or perhaps she could talk about my hobbies, which include laundry, dishes, and vacuuming. Oh, and counted cross-stitch. I have a handful of unfinished plastic canvas Christmas ornaments she could take in. Me and everyone else's mom, I'm sure.

Noooooo. How about Kevin's hobby? Perfect! I gave Kevin a couple of hundred dollars worth of supplies for his new hobby, which is -- beer-making. Yes, Chez McGee is Maryland's newest microbrewery. Obviously, we're not going to hold a beer-tasting for the kidlets, but we could definitely send pictures of our first batch in preparation.

Now, children, this is a picture of the hops, which give the beer its distinctive flavor:

And this is a picture of the grain while we steeped it -- it's just like making iced tea!


And here is the beer while we boiled it:

Here's the nasty ol' yeast residue in the bucket where we fermented the beer on the kitchen counter for a week. Smells just like dirty socks!

And look, children, here's the finished product! Only 16 more years until you can try it.

Think the teacher will be impressed? Or will we get sent to the Principal's office?

Bariatrics, Part 8: SVs and NSVs

Today is the three-month anniversary of my surgery, and this morning, I weighed in at 254 even. As has become my custom, I asked Kevin to document the landmark last night because I was wearing something new and looked pretty good in it. While I've "only" lost 3.8 pounds since my two-month surgiversary (or bandiversary, as they call it on OH), our time frame ran from December 10 through January 9.

The loss was in spite of a lot of very naughty food -- probably not the best descriptor for food; food is morally neutral -- lying around the house and the office. Let's start here at home, for instance. We're talking about 4 batches of homemade candy (3 of truffles, 1 of maple fudge), most of which was given away, but all of which I sampled liberally. We're also talking about 5 batches of homemade cookies, some of which were given away. And that doesn't count the cookies and fruitcake my mom sent. And speaking of fruitcake, there was that fruitcake from Gethsemani Farms that the good brothers of the Abbey of Gethsemani make and sell. Now to be fair to me, I'm not a fruitcake eater (sorry, Mama). But I did eat some of the rum cake I baked for Kevin right after Thanksgiving and tried a muffin or two of the five batches I made for Grandfriends Day at Indian Creek, Madeline's school. I also made (and sampled) a chocolate Chambord cheesecake for Christmas Eve dinner dessert. Speaking of Christmas Eve dinner, there were those two rib roasts. Plenty of leftovers there. I also went to several parties, including a half-dozen retirement parties at the office. (Federal employees seem to like retiring at the end of the year.)

The thing that made this year different, though, was that I was able not to overdo it. The band is my friend in that respect. As long as you don't eat around the band by sending a steady stream of nibbles down the hatch, it helps you stay in control because you can't eat much at any given time. So ... yes, I partied a lot, but it was a meatball here and a chicken wing there, not overflowing plates full of food. At work, I used parties as an opportunity not to buy lunch, since most were scheduled for early afternoon. Probably added a whole $20 to my Christmas budget that way, but saved a lot of calories. I also kept up the exercise. Losing weight during the holidays? Priceless! Now, back on the wagon.

Here's the NSV: My big pants are now so big that I can no longer wear them comfortably. They gap at the waist. They drag the floor even with a belt. I can pull them down without unbuttoning or unzipping them. They have now been relegated to the guest bedroom closet to await their new owners.

I have a nice wardrobe in my current size. Unfortunately, it consists of spring and summer clothes. Back in 2000 and 2001, I was a patient in the George Washington University Weight Management Program. (This, by the way, is a great non-surgical weight loss program. Expensive? Yes. Covered by insurance? Not at the time, but this was during the Great Tech Bubble when Kevin worked in the private sector.) Horrified at the thought of being desperate enough to have an operation to lose weight, I enrolled after the first time a doctor suggested surgery to me. And I lost down to 257 pounds. I hit my low weight in the summer and bought a bunch of clothes for my then-job as an attorney in private practice. I still have them. I am hoping they don't look too ridiculous by the time I can wear them. On the other hand, a couple of the smaller outfits that don't quite fit yet are dressy suits, suitable (yes, that's a pun) for church or dinner in a very nice restaurant. A good thing, too, because my niece is getting married in April.

So I let myself go shopping for some bridge clothes. Despite the fact that I was surrounded by signage that said, "Up to 80% Off," I bought one outfit. At home, where I work 3 days a week,I can live in sweats and shorts for a few more weeks. I'm only in town on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Some winter things still fit well enough to wear awhile longer. The outfit I bought is washable. I won't go naked. (I wouldn't do that to people anyway.)

The really cool thing about the outfit, though, is my non-scale victory this week. Before October 9th, I wore a 28 at Lane Bryant, where I have purchased a goodly portion of my wardrobe for a few years. (I'm such a good customer, in fact, that I have their platinum card.) These pants, also from Lane Bryant, are a size 24! And they have a young, hip, skinny cut, too! Wouldn't have done that 60 pounds ago.

I love the picture. I can really tell I'm losing weight now, and when I wore the outfit to work, everyone else could tell. I must have answered the question, "Are you losing weight?" a good twenty times yesterday. I can also really tell in this picture how much I look like my siblings. With a fatter face, that was hard to tell. I blew the picture up to 400% and realized, "Omigosh, I look like a cross between Mike and Patsy!"

Enough about me. Here's a news item I saw today that's relevant to this post. Apparently, the Aussies are considering expanding coverage of lap-band surgery for the morbidly obese to include preventive surgery. Quite a concept there. Here, many health insurance providers cover it for the morbidly obese (body mass index of 40 or more, which usually translates to about 100 extra pounds), provided the insured has one or more co-morbidities (e.g., Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension, etc.) and provides some kind of proof that she has been unable to lose a significant amount of weight by diet and exercise. I had to provide a big pile of paper to GEHA. (Not as much as I had to give to China for an adoption, though.) Even then, people get turned down.

The Aussie proposal sounds radical, but the bill for my surgery will come to about $22,000. That's cheaper than replacing both of my knees. Now, the old knees may make it until I'm eligible for Medicare. The surgery was probably cheaper than buying me several years worth of diabetes meds and disease management services, too.

To be sure, the Aussies have a single-payer system (i.e., national health care). But even in our patchwork system, the payer would realize a long-term savings by doing this, not to mention the benefits that would accrue to the patient. It's a darned shame most payers here are too blinded by the need to turn a profit each quarter to see the benefits down the road. It could be done here, too. Is it likely to happen? No.

P.S. If you're getting this on a feed, please forgive the duplicate. I am learning to fool Blogger. My dear friend Lorrie, whose closets definitely look better than mine, has now taught me how to fool Blogger into letting me skip a line. It was ignoring my paragraph breaks when I included a picture. I am certain that this is a bug and not a feature in the new release of Blogger.

I think I like this lady

An Iowa mom finds alcohol in her 19-year-old son's car, so she placed an ad in the newspaper and sold the car. I like her. Love and Logic in action!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1120ap_odd_car_ad.html?source=mypi

And, since part of my rationale for writing this blog is to create for Madeline a tangible record of her childhood:

Madeline An An McGee, let this be a lesson to you!

Mom

New Year's Wish

A friend posted this to an e-group we both read. You may have already seen it, but it's worth passing along:

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts!

May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills!

May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!

May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires!

May happiness slap you across the face!

May your tears be that of joy and good health fall on you like a ton of bricks!

May the problems you had forget your home address!

Needs no comment

A high school friend with whom I've caught up during the past five or so years periodically forwards things to me. While I don't re-forward a lot of what I get -- hey, I like hearing from people, even if it's one of those circulating pieces, but I know that a lot of folks can't stand them -- this one is definitely worth sharing. It speaks for itself.

Who Started Christmas?
Author unknown

A woman was Christmas shopping with her two children. After many hours of walking down row after row of toys and after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the store elevator with her two children in hand. She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season time of the year, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, taste all the holiday food and treats, making sure we don't forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card. Finally the elevator doors opened revealing a crowd in the car. She pushed her way in and dragged her two kids and all her bags of stuff in with her. As the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and blurted out, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up, and shot." From the back of the car, a quiet calm voice responded, "Don't worry, we've already crucified Him." The rest of the trip down was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

Don't forget this year to keep the One who started this whole Christmas thing in your every thought, deed, purchase, and word. If we all would, just think how much better this world would be. Jesus is the reason for the season. Wise men still seek Him.