Things I've Seen

Dispatch from Nicaragua

My friend M has been in the arduous process of adopting (now) 2-year old Gabriella from Nicaragua since the child was an infant. Last week, friends got this email recounting a part of her husband Jon's most recent journey there in attempts to move the process along.  He is traveling with M's brother Danny and Danny's wife Maria, who is a native Nicaraguan. (Names have been changed.)

Everybody slept really well the first night there. It cooled down enough that they were very comfortable, and even needed a sheet -- except Gabriella who refuses to have anything covering her when she sleeps.   :)

Jon and Gabriella slept until 8 a.m. and Danny and Maria slept until 10:00. They had breakfast and hit the road running. Thank goodness that Hema cooked them a nice breakfast, because they hadn't had another meal yet when I talked to Jon at dinner time. They never did get dinner their first night there -- they stopped to see Maria's friend at 8 .p.m. (10:00 our time) and ended up talking so long the restaurants were closed when they left.

They spent the day, for the most part, in doctors offices in Masaya.

Gabriella had a cold, which (her mother's) doctor thought had moved into pneumonia in the last couple of weeks. Maria and Jon took her to see a pediatrician that a friend recommended, and it turns out that she has a bronchial infection. So they got meds for her for that and then were referred to an opthamalogist because the ped had a concern about her eyes.

So then they went to the eye doc, who performed an eye exam and said everything seems ok. She's not cross-eyed -- which is what the ped was concerned about -- but has a bit more skin on one side of her nose than the other. So it creates a bit of an optical illusion that makes one eye look a bit crossed. They said as she grows and her nose gets bigger that should balance out. OMG -- WHO CARES!!!!!!  But I'm happy that they raised a flag when they were concerned about something.

The bigger issue that the pediatrician had is that he thinks that the injury on Gabriella's foot that's causing her to walk funny is the result of abuse. Sigh. She showed us her foot a few weeks ago, and it was supposedly a bug bite, or something. Apparently it's not actually getting better (which is what we were told), but is now causing her sufficient discomfort that she is favoring it and walking funny.

The doc thinks that it might be a burn or a cut. Perhaps a repeating injury. From what Jon told me, the doctor strongly recommended that Gabriella not be returned to (her mother's) care. I'm not thinking about it, because it's just too unfathomable right now. Total denial, I know, but right now I'm ok with denial.

Gabriella a bit taller, but is not gaining weight. She's 23 pounds, and the doc thinks she may be undernourished.

Their appointment at the Ministry of Families for (the mother)  to sign the paperwork IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! It was scheduled for 9:30 this morning (11:30 our time).

Jon's doing ok. Gabriella seems happy, and is thrilled to see Danny.

More tomorrow!

What it isn't

You can see the yellowing bruise caused by the biopsy needle - just edging into the shadow.

Almost two years ago Kellie, my physician's assistant at the OBGYN, felt something on my thyroid. She told me to have my primary care doc check it out, which he did. But he said he felt nothing. Last year Kellie felt something again and ordered blood work. Nothing. This year, the "nodule" had become noticeably bigger. "Yep," she said. "We need to check that out. I don't usually overstep the bounds of the primary care doctor, but in this case I'm going to."

She set me up for blood work and referred me to an endocrinologist. When the blood work came back normal again, she called and said she wanted to do an ultrasound. But by that time the endocrinologist's office had called and I had an appointment in a few days (Kellie said it could take months to get in.) My appointment was last Monday.

Dr. K, the endocrinologist didn't feel a nodule at first, but did feel quite an enlargement on my thyroid. When I laid back and extended my neck, however, he did feel it - about 2 cm by 2 cm according to his measurements.  "I want to do a biopsy on this now," he said, and explained to me what that would involve.

Biopsy. Isn't that  more of a surgical procedure? Iwondered. Don't they have to put you under for that? Slice into you?  At the very least I'd have to be lying on a gurney in one of those backless gowns, freezing cold, waiting for ... something. Right?

"Is that to check for malignancy?" is what I actually said.  Dr. K explained that the procedure was simple. (The needle is smaller than the kind used in a blood draw, he reassured.) And that it was done to find out just exactly what is going on with the nodule. Most nodules are nothing to worry about, he assured me. Fewer than 10 percent are malignant.

So OK, but still - right here, in the examination room - wearing my jacket and blouse and pants - even my shoes?

It really was nothing much - four long pokes of a single thin needle. Lots of noisy scraping on what must have been 25 glass slides. An assistant standing by dabbing at whatever blood flowed at the needle's piercing. One of those little round adhesive bandages covering  all four needle entries. Fifteen minutes lying quietly afterward - to ward off any residual wooziness.

Then I went back to work.

Over these five days, I've turned the idea over and over in my mind in every way. I could have cancer.  What if this is cancer? How would I weather treatment for cancer? How long would I be off work if I had cancer? How might my relationships change with those around me - if I had cancer? What would change in my life - and theirs - if it turned out that I had ... cancer?

Honestly, even though the thoughts and questions ran through my head all week, I don't think I ever really, seriously entertained the idea and all the accompanying what-ifs. I mean to say that I wasn't really, truly fearful of a cancer diagnosis. Maybe I was naive. Or hopeful. Or taking at face value what the doc had told me and the little bit of reading I'd done on WebMD. Thyroid cancer is pretty rare. And when it is diagnosed, survival rate is high.

Today I got the call. "Your biopsy results are normal," the nurse, Liz, told me. "Oh, thank you," I said, relieved,  grateful. "Just keep your appointment in six months," she said. "So we can keep an eye on things."

"I don't have cancer," I IM'd a friend of mine after I got off the phone. "Yay," came the answer. Neither of us ever really thought I did.   But it did give pause these past few days.

Movin' out, movin' in

Suze, friend Peri and I moved Meg into East Hall on Davenport University's main campus last Wednesday. So much going on lately, I just don't have time or inclination to wax all wistful about yet another of our birds leaving the nest. She's only a half-hour away anyhow. I think we'll see plenty of her!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

A tale of two cars

Part one: No more Neon

A week ago Thursday I got a call at work  just before 5. It was Clay.

"I'm on my way to Marne," he said.

"For?" I asked, puzzled, of course. It's not a place we go to, but we do drive through fairly often.

I can't quote exactly what he said. But the essence was this: Meagan was driving on I-96  toward Grand Haven, to the beach with three friends, and she'd rolled the car.

Rolled the car? That tinny little Neon? What happened?

As far as he knew, all the kids were OK. The police were there, and a tow truck. That was all he knew at the moment.

It was all he could tell me, so I hung up and let him continue driving.

I didn't know what else to do, so I packed up my stuff and left work. Meagan called as I was climbing into the truck. She told me the same story. They were all OK; paramedics had been there and checked them out. Police were there. Tow truck. She was waiting for Dad, who apparently was stuck in rush hour traffic.

I asked her what happened, and apparently, she was driving in the left lane and she reached for a chapstick being handed to her by one of her friends. She took her eyes off the road for a second, and the car veered a little. She over corrected, went off the shoulder and rolled into the median. The car landed on its roof. All four kids climbed out over the windshield. They had scratches on their hands and knees, but none was cut seriously. She was clearly upset, but not hysterical. She was mostly mad and embarrassed that she'd wrecked her car.

Not too long after I arrived home, Clay and Meagan returned. She was dirty, scratched and fighting tears. She took a shower and just "wanted to be alone for awhile."

Good lord. Susan had just had a close encounter not six weeks ago with their Subaru, which, incidently, we'd only recently had some auto salvager tow away from the front yard. The Neon had only been theirs since July 4. And now Meagan had a could-have-been-much-worse accident. There's been a run this summer of teens being killed in car crashes. We're so thankful our daughters have escaped theirs without injury.

But two totalled cars in one summer? Four people working five jobs -- one that's out of town -- demands that we have at least three cars at our disposal (as suburbians we have never been users of public transportation, for better or worse, and anyway, the bus doesn't come this far north anymore). Replacing the Subaru with the Neon was a bit of a strain (even with Grandpa's help).  And I should also remind that the other two cars -- a minivan and small truck -- are none too reliable either, being vehicles of vintages '96 and '98 respectively. Now what?

Part two: Great balls of fi -re

So the next morning, Meagan had to take me to work, as Susan did after she wrecked a car, so that the girls would have transportation to and from their jobs. (They have to work out the details for themselves, since they work such odd and different hours.) The van had earlier had a gas leak somewhere (which Clay had had fixed) but recently I started to smell gas inside the car again. This morning the gasoline smell in the passenger compartment was strong during the entire drive downtown, and I'll be the first to admit we  probably should not have driven the car. But there you go. We did.

I pulled into the parking lot, stopped alongside the building, and climbed out so Meg could take over the driver's seat. I went into the building and up the stairs to our offices. I had just got to my desk, and while co-workers were asking all about my daughter's accident from the night before, my cell phone rang. It was Meg.

"Mom, I'm not going anywhere," she said.

"Why not?"

"When I went to leave, there was a loud pop and smoke started coming out from under the hood," she said.

I remember my coworkers still chattering at me as I said something about, "... and now my car is on fire downstairs outside this building ..." And I rushed out.

Black smoke was indeed curling out from under the hood. Meg was standing far away from the car. I approached it, opened the door and popped the hood, but someone walking across the parking lot who could see beneath the car said, "You might not know it, but there are sparks and some flames under there ..."  I decided I'd better get away from the car, too.

I went back into the building and by that time our PR director, whom I work with, was downstairs at the reception desk. While I was foggily wondering whether this was bad enough to call the fire department, she told the girl behind the desk to call 911.  And University security, plus the reception desks at nearby buildings. And to warn those in this building that they might want to move their cars.

Now the smell of burning rubber was strong and the black smoke was starting to billow out of the engine compartment, along with some flames. People with fire extinguishers were trying to help, but there wasn't much they could do. A fire truck arrived and real fire extinguishing began. Those guys must have sprayed that van down five times before they were satisfied the danger was over.

It's hard to remember all what happened during the confusion: who did what, was where, said what. In the end, the van sat, smoking and dripping, the engine compartment a melted, stinking black mass that only said to me, "Another close call. Another totalled car..."

I do, however, remember one of the firefighters turning to me as he watched one of his comrades spraying water on the engine for the nth time and saying, "That your car?"

"Yes," I replied.

"I don't think the heater is going to work anymore," he said.

Huh. It took me a second ... then I laughed.

What else you gonna do?

She wrecked the car

A little over two weeks ago, Suze called me and said, "Mom? I had an accident."

I couldn't believe I was hearing this ... again. My mind rushed back to the hysterical call we'd had from her in January of the previous year when she'd been in a real accident (she wasn't driving) and was hurt and we had to rush to the hospital where we were met (eventually) by paramedics wheeling our daughter into the emergency room stapped to a backboard, head restrained and crying that she couldn't move and everything hurt. She was pretty banged up and needed a few weeks to recover from bruises and stiffness (the facial abrasions took a little longer), but in all she turned out to be OK. So for this recent phone call, her lack of panic led me to think this was maybe a parking lot fender bender at most. Still, I knew, she wouldn't be calling me for something so minor - at the very least, the car must not be operational, or she'd have kept on her way.

Well. Not operational. I guess not. It seems she was driving out to Cascade via Grand River Road, that lovely, winding country-road route to the south end of town that beats driving the expressway or the East Beltline anytime. It was early evening, after the dinner hours but well before dusk, and she was on her way to Barnes & Noble to use a gift card she'd received for graduation. She also had an assignment from Meg to pick up a father's day card. Probably driving a little faster than she should have been, because she does that, she heard - or felt - something on the right side of the car pop, or bump, and she found herself careening off the shoulder and mowing down someone's mail box before the car returned to the road, crossed the opposite lane and plunged into a wooded area on the other side. The airbags had deployed and she could no longer see where she was going, as if that would have helped, since she'd lost control of the car anyhow. She says she let go of the steering wheel and thought she was done for as the car kept slamming through the woods. It came to rest, I'm told, between two large trees, just short of ramming another.

Neighbors on both sides of the road were out in their yards and they rushed to help. Someone called the sherriff, and she borrowed a cell phone to call us (hers had no service). She wasn't hurt, she assured us - she was uncharacteristically calm - but the car would need to be towed. Clay drove out to the scene, arranged for the tow truck and brought her home. I stayed back, obviously not realizing the seriousness of the what-could-have-been details of the incident. When they finally returned and I heard the whole story - complete with a description from Clay about the condition of the car and how far into the woods it had barreled and how close she'd come to colliding with large trees - I was shaken and amazed. Since she's had her license, Suze has had "incidents" with every one of our three cars, some because of carelessness, but most not. How many "lucky scrapes" does she get? I keep wondering and it's not a comforting thing to ponder.

I did not see the car until yesterday, when a tow truck from the repair shop we frequent (and I do mean frequent) backed into our driveway and eased it off the truck bed to a spot behind the evergreen in the front yard. (At least it's somewhat hidden from the road.) We'd used up their storage hospitality (Clay was embarrassed about leaving it there as long as we did.), although they didn't charge us their usual storage fee - we've been good customers and they're decent people. Looking at the car I feel like a gawker at an accident, both amazed and repelled. A reminder of what could have been and what is, narrowly and but for the grace of god, I don't think we'd want it even if it was worth repairing. Suze is fine. She wrecked the car, is all. We can deal with that.

Grads: then and now

The "triplet" cousins in 1992. Left to right: Meagan, Susan, Evan

Cousin Evan was born June 1, 1989. Meg and Suze were born the next day. Though they've sometimes been referred to as the "triplets," they've grown into vastly different, fine young adults. Now they're all graduates of the class of 2007 -- Meagan, Northview; Susan, Forest Hills Eastern; Evan, Mattawan.

Meagan, Evan, Susan at the girls' open house last week.

18

Suze & Meg turn 18. June 2, 2007

Do they look any different?

Same girls (same positions), same car, same occasion, two years ago

All done

Meagan Kathleen, Northview Class of 2007

Now, a week later, and daughter #1 has joined  her sister as a class of 2007 graduate.

It's been a good year, a full year, but in some ways a disappointing year. And you, too, have been anxious to have it all be over. As in your sister's case, your dad and I take little credit; you also did what you needed to do and got on with things; got it all done. Yearbook staff, choir (oh, your solos and small group performances! Especially when you sang "America the Beautiful" you made us all cry!), senior trip, all-night party -- you've got good, fun memories that will last a long, long time.

And now as you head into your summer and off to college in the fall, you're ending, this, but you're just at the beginning of everything else. To our sweetheart Meagan Kathleen, our light, our songbird, our most-patient, beautiful child: Godspeed.

One delivered, one to go

Susan Michelle, Forest Hills Eastern Class of 2007

And so our last born was the first of our twins to be delivered (almost) fully adult into the real world.

It's not like we, her parents, had a whole lot to do with this final step. By the time she was a senior, she knew she was behind,  knew what she had to do to catch up, and made sure she did it. I take little to no credit. And she is just happy and relieved to be done with it all. Bonne chance, my beautiful Susan Michelle, our spitfire, our charmer, our shining star.

Why Twitter is about more than telling you what I had for lunch

Cross posted from Coit Avenue

Stowe Boyd points to this article from USA Today’s Andrew Kantor on the subject of Twitter. I’m struck by Kantor’s willful ignorance of what’s at the core of this social presence app:

Twitter is a bad, bad thing — not just because of what it does, but because of what it says about all of us and our need to be connected. Twitter's whole existence is based on the premise that we aren't yet in touch with one another quite enough.

According to Twitter, you see, we should be in touch every second — every moment. This is madness … 

What is madness, I think, is Kantor's oversight of the fact that we already are all connected. It is the nature our world in which everything by design is connected to everything else. It is something our ancient ancestors instinctively knew – and instinctively acted upon, in order to live and continue the species. And, as we’ve gained in knowledge of the world that surrounds us, something we’ve sought after always to understand and express.

We’ve always looked for connection

Speech, songs, stories. Written language that begat books, letters. Printing that sparked the spread of ideas via books and newspapers. And with them the migration of people, both outward across the globe and inward to enclaves of villages, towns, cities. Widespread travel, telegraph, telephone, radio, television – a succession of means for making sense of our center, our connectedness. And then the internet, cellular phones, wireless communication – technology-enabled means for understanding the connections that are.

  Don’t you see it? We don't impact the flow that is the universe. These all are just our own small means for tapping it, trying to understand it, living in what already is and always has been. 

I’ve been watching a lot of old movies lately – those made in the 30s, 40s and 50s where making a long-distance call was worth a raised eyebrow, a second thought, even among those with means. Even I remember when long distance was reserved for Grandma, and only on a Sunday, when the rates were cheaper, and you hadn’t just seen her the weekend before.

  But what is long distance today? A rarer and rarer consideration as I call my friend who is 600 miles away at any time of the day or night. And I fully expect that soon it won’t matter if I’m using “anytime minutes” or not. It certainly shouldn’t. It’s a primitive, holdover construct from what’s fast becoming history. 

These are the people we live with

  Critics of connection enablers like Twitter seem short-sighted to me. Twitter is just one in a succession of acknowledgements of the connectedness of the universe and everything in it. Of the flow that creates and sustains us all. A claiming of our own existence within that flow.    

Overblown? Maybe, with regard to Twitter per se. But just ask yourself: What can you learn and know of the world and your fellow humans from even a short time spent with Twittervision (see how it’s evolving already)? That someone has too many choices for lunch (which is some kind of learning in itself)? Sure.  But you can also see there’s an ice storm raging in Northern  Europe. That it’s tomorrow in Australia. That someone in Italy, right now, is listening to an American rock song. That many many people speak in languages you don’t understand. That there is life beyond your street that you’ve otherwise had little glimpse of before now, that it’s always been there and it continues, whether you’re asleep, awake, indifferent.    

These are the people we live with on this earth, and what they do and think and feel has effects beyond you, and vice versa. Yes, these are early adopters, yes they’re technology-enabled themselves, while most of the world isn’t yet. But the implications are further reaching than we can probably imagine right now. And it’s only the smallest beginning.

 

 

Update: A writer's life

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I now have a full-time job.

This probably surprises many of you, and it surprised me no less, believe me. My last update in July was so very glowing about the promise of freelancing, and  how I felt I was making headway into a pretty permanent way of making a living. I recounted a revelation I'd had about how if you're good, people will keep hiring you, word will spread and you'll get work forever and ever, amen.

Or something like that.

But then the totally unexpected happened.

In late July (not long after I wrote that last update on a writer's life, in fact), I received an email from a client of mine at a local university where I was just wrapping up a big project. He said he'd received the latest copy I'd sent in and it looked good. Then he asked me:

"Are you looking for a job, or are you going to freelance?"

I was intrigued. So I wrote back and told him that while I'd been doing very well freelancing, I'd certainly take a look at a job if the right one came along.

Now I should mention that this client had been a coworker of mine at my last job. We're both writers and we know each other  fairly well, in fact, it was that relationship that had got me the job I was working on for him. The writing was almost exactly the type I'd done when we worked together, he knew my style was what he was looking for, and he knew I could deliver, so he hired me on a contract basis.

And now, as I found in subsequent emails and phone conversations, he wanted to know if I was interested in being hired permanently.

An easy decision
In spite of everything I've written here about enjoying the freelance life, the decision to pursue permanent employment was not a difficult one. My first thought was hey, if you've been "out of work" for 10 months and suddenly a job offer drops out of the sky when you haven't even been looking (especially in Michigan's tight job market), well, that's a sign you shouldn't ignore.

Also very high on my list of considerations was the fact that after my health insurance expired, our family's coverage had become 1) less comprehensive and 2) waaay more expensive since we'd had to take on the coverage offered by Clay's employer. Another fact I had to face was that while I'd been very busy over the summer, all of my jobs were wrapping up at the same time and prospects for the future seemed to be dimming a bit. I was looking at finally having to do some self promotion, I think, and possibly facing some time with a little less cash flow.

Finally, one benefit this job offered was "tuition remission" for myself, spouse and dependents. With Meg and Suze both looking to start college next fall, I'd have been a fool not to take this opportunity seriously

So I set the ball rolling. And on September 11, after two interviews and a little salary negotiation, I started at  Davenport University as communications manager.

... more later

Out of the flow

Kathy Sierra (I love this woman!), writing for Creating Passionate Users, nails the reason that I:

• Haven't kept up with either of my blogs lately
• Can't get anything done at work (have I even mentioned here that I am now working full time? NO!)
• Still don't have ornaments on the Christmas tree, even though it's had lights on it for a week now
• Haven't gone to the grocery store for anything other than what I need right now, for months
• Can't keep the house clean
• Have started watching old movies on TCM instead of doing any of the above.

In her post, The Twitter Curve, she articulates it for me. But I can sum it up with one acronym: TMI (or "too much information," for my less-attuned-to-pop-phraseology readers). In a nutshell:

... we're all feeling the enormous weight of not being able to keep up. We can't keep up with work. We can't keep up with our social life. We can't keep up with the industry, our hobbies, our families. We can't keep up with current events. We'll never read a fraction of those books on our list. And we are hurting.

Worst of all, this onslaught is keeping us from doing the one thing that makes most of us the happiest... being in flow. Flow requires a depth of thinking and a focus of attention that all that context-switching prevents. Flow requires a challenging use of our knowledge and skills, and that's quite different from mindless tasks we can multitask (eating and watching tv, etc.) Flow means we need a certain amount of time to load our knowledge and skills into our brain RAM. And the more big or small interruptions we have, the less likely we are to ever get there.

And not only are we stopping ourselves from ever getting in flow, we're stopping ourselves from ever getting really good at something. From becoming experts. The brain scientists now tell us that becoming an expert is not a matter of being a prodigy, it's a matter of being able to focus.

So correct is she about the effects of being unable to focus on anything for any length of time so as to think effectively, much less complete anything well, so aptly has she described my own particular reason for malaise, that I won't  -- no, I can't -- even elaborate. Her comments will substitute here for my own analysis and my own thoughts. I'll be content to drag a quote from her post over here and let it do the explaining for me.

And in doing so I'll save myself, on this mid-December-lazy Saturday (where all I've done all day is nap, empty the dishwasher and update my desktop photos from summer to winter) from thinking, reading, analyzing and writing. Not because I don't want to do these things. Because I just can't.

Seniors

Here we go, into the senior year of high school for Meg and Sus. First off, we finally had to admit we needed another car -- Many, many thanks to Grandpa and Grandma VanderVelde for that!  Sus will be attending Kent Career Technical Center for  part of the day, then regular school for the remainder. I can't be hauling her around the way I have the past two years, or I'd never get anything done. Plus I'm sure they'd much rather drive themselves back and forth to work. And I imagine they're getting tired of relying on us or their friends with cars to get anyplace. 

It's high time they were able to drive themselves around anyhow, but we've put off segment II driver's training until this week. Now that they've gotten over that hurdle, they can take their road tests and finally get their licenses. Of course, we'll be racing against the clock on that, too, since school starts on Sept. 5 ...

The other marker of senior year so far is the senior picture ritual, which we also seem to have delayed as long as possible. But on Friday, I took them both to Cloud Photography out in Cascade where they did separate sittings, plus a few shots together (you gotta do that -- they're twins!) The night before pictures we were running to the mall looking for last minute, just-right stuff for photos (nothing busy, something dark, a top that brings out the blue in Meg's eyes, something they could wear that would look good in poses together ...) After we got home, they carefully tried everything on for my approval. And they posed for a couple of preview shots. See a few on Flickr. Or click on the flash thingy below.

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This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called Seniors. Make your own badge here.

It's going to be a big year. Fortunately we've already learned they'll be graduating on two different nights -- for awhile I was afraid that with our luck, the two schools, Northview and FH Eastern High, would hold their ceremonies on the same night. Sus will be outta there (FH Eastern) as of May 23. Meg will put Northview High behind her on May 29. I'm already starting to think about the prep for the joint openhouse, probably sometime around their birthday, June 2, which, as luck would have it is a Saturday this year. There's so much to do with the yard, the house ... We'd better get busy.

Office space

After a suitable period of letting go (a week, OK?), I moved into the room formerly occupied by Drew. It badly needs painting. But first we have to figure out how to patch six (count 'em) holes in the walls, at least one of them the size and shape of a fist. The carpet's in pretty good shape, but I need a new window blind. Because it's stuffy even with the AC on, Clay bought me a nice fan. (With a remote control, you ever hear of such a thing?). And I need to take down the sturdy black shelf that's too high on the wall to be of any use -- it's left over from when there was a loft bed in here.

To celebrate finally having my very own space, I got a mission-style computer desk from Target, which -- ta-da! -- I hauled home and completely put together by myself on Saturday when the rest of the family was at the Warped Tour at  Comerica Park. Task chair, lamp, letter holder and storage baskets completed my home-office outfitting for now. I still plan to buy the window shade as mentioned and a two-shelf bookcase for my files and etc. So-called decorative touches will follow that.

Oh, and I also took over the closet, and it's a good thing I acted while the girls were out of town, because apparently Meg, who's in the room next to this one, had her eye on it. She was a little bummed to come home and find that I'd transferred the entire contents of my side of the closet in our room to the one in this room. Including guitar, clarinet, all shoes and storage boxes. Soon the futon from the basement will be moved into here (sorry, JDog). And there I'll have it -- something I haven't had since I was 21 and living by myself in a huge 2-bedroom apartment in Hillsdale -- a room of my own. I don't think I appreciated it then. But now it's like a little piece of heaven in my own house.

Oh, I almost forgot. It's an office.

Update: A writer's life

I have to say it's going better than I'd imagined. I am busy. Since my last update in February I've added four clients to my list, bringing the total invoiced to nine. Most of those are one-time or occasional; the core of my work so far has come from two or three of them. My ideal would be to have four "regulars" and one that's something of a pet project -- done more for the fun and satisfaction of helping further a cause or ideal. But it takes time to build these relationships and I'm still in the process of discovering what I can do, what's out there, who's out there.

One reason I was always hesitant about freelancing (apart from being fearful of getting out there and "selling" myself ): I had worked my way into a position of editor, where I kept the occasional plumb project for myself and farmed out the so-called "grunt writing" to freelancers who (I imagined) pretty much had to take whatever they could get. I figured I never wanted to be "just a writer" having no say in the overall direction of projects and no input as to their scope, churning out whatever a client wanted whether it made sense or not, having no control over deadlines or changes. I didn't want to be stuck writing endlessly boring or meaningless marketing fluff for things I couldn't care less about, just because I needed a paycheck.

Now that I'm working from the other side of the desk, I've found there's a dimension to freelancing that I hadn't realized. Sure, the above description is correct in some cases. But it's also often the case for a writer or editor in a corporate communications setting. The difference I have found is this: As a freelancer, I get work because people know (or they've heard) that I deliver good, solid writing that's thoroughly researched, on target for the audience, (relatively) error-free and on time. I present well in meetings when necessary and my skills are varied enough to cover anything they need in print or on the web.

The difference between thinking,"I'm doing this work because nobody else wants to," and "I'm doing this work because I'm good at what I do," is huge. And it's been immensely freeing to finally understand it. I perform, I get paid, I get hired again. That's a writer's life.

Leaving season

The bird has flown ...

It's leaving season. Parents all over the country are starting to pack up their first-borns and their belongings as they venture from home for the first time to head off for college. 

Had he followed that arc, we'd have done this three years ago. So I guess you might say we've been lucky to have him around a little longer. While other parents wondered from afar what their kids were up to -- what new friends they'd made, what hours they were keeping, whether they were eating right, sleeping enough, partying too much -- we knew. We watched him shed his curfew, eat anything and everything he could find in our fridge or freezer, sneak in at 3 a.m. and sleep till noon or stumble in at midnight with a goofy too-much-to-drink grin on his face, only to grab a jacket and leave again, walking down the street to his buddy's, where the party still was in full swing ...

We got to watch him learn the ins and outs of finding a job, losing it, finding another, then another. Girlfriends, bank accounts, junk cars, court dates. Friends in some kind of trouble or another, friends having their first babies, buddies going off to the military or coming home from a far-away war.

It isn't easy having another adult in the house and we've all agreed for awhile now that it was time for him to go. But the timing and opportunity weren't right. Until now. He's moved into a house with a couple of friends from high school, a few miles away "down by the river."

He spent all of yesterday packing up his stuff. Not all that much for his 21 years: a few clothes (though I still have a lot of his socks), TV, dresser, easy chair, a few books and papers, toiletries, the infamous "trunk of mystery" left to him by a friend who moved to Florida a few years ago. At about 5:00 his buddies rolled up in a red pickup and in just two trips, they'd taken it all. Then he was gone.

Before he left I managed to get a hug from him. He was anxious to get going and didn't say goodbye to his dad, who was in the basement and didn't hear him come in for the last of his stuff. In that way it wasn't much different than any of his other comings and goings (except for the hug). Kinda left things open for him; after all, he still has to come back and get the bathing-suit beauty posters off the walls of his room. Maybe it was easier that way.

Home from Marvell

We picked the girls up at the church last night at about 8 -- more than two hours earlier than their expected ETA from their week-long mission trip to Marvell, Arkansas. When we arrived about half the kids seemed to have gone already, but a core group was still milling about, parents talking, kids hugging each other goodbye.

On the way home the stories started coming. This had been a wonderful trip. They saw terrible poverty and they saw strength and joy in people despite it. They saw their own efforts pay off in the smiles and laughter from children at Kids Club as well as elderly people in a state-run nursing home. And they saw their own group -- already a strong-knit bunch -- grow even closer, bound by friendship, love and service.

These are some impressions I got listening to them talk last night. I know I don't have all the details right, and this is by no means a summary of their trip, but I think it gives a small idea of how their week went.

About Marvell:  Meg said, "When we first got there we saw a lot of really nice houses and thought, 'why are we  here?' This isn't so bad.'" But the next day they learned. " It was sooo segregated," Suze said. "On one side of the street was the white neighborhood with really nice houses. On the other side of the street was the black neighborhood," where the houses were all rundown.

On their accommodations: They were housed in an old abandoned elementary school that the city had sold to YouthWorks for a dollar. On the second day they were there, the pilot light for the hot water in the girls' shower went out. Apparently in schools, pilot lights and other such potential hazards are required by law to be sealed off somehow so that just anybody can't get at them. So the hot water stayed off. "We took freezing showers for the rest of the week," Suze said. Nobody had the time or the money to come out and fix it.

"They really didn't feed us very much," Suze told us, considering how hard they worked. "Three meals a day and a snack late at night. Sometimes. So when we could we went out to the gas station to get snacks. The gas station is so over-priced," she went on. "Especially for an area with so many poor people. Somebody should do something about that, in my opinion."

About working at the YouthWorks Kids Club: Both girls enjoyed helping out at Kids Club, probably almost as much as the kids liked being there. Meg said most of the kids didn't want to go home at the end of the day. "We'd have to drive them back to the projects at night," Suze said. "And they'd cry 'cause they didn't want to go home."

"The little kids were so much fun," she said. But "You have no idea how hard it is to run around all day in hundred-degree heat with little kids on your back."

Those kids were amazing, Meg told us. "They had nothing, but they were sooo happy."

"This one tiny little girl came up to me and climbed on my lap, like she knew me," Meg said. No introductions, nothing. She clung to Meg most of the day. Turns out she had befriended Suze the day before and must've figured Meg was Suze come back to play with her.

They got a taste of culture clash. "There was a girl there who was 14 and had a 2-year daughter named WahWah," Meg said. Suze chimed in: "There was another girl who had a little kid named Pooh, like Winnie the Pooh."

When one girl learned that one of our youth leaders was 22 years old, she asked her, "How many kids you got?" "None," was the youth leader's answer. "I'm not married." "Who says you have to be married?" was the girl's response.

Many of the kids they worked with seemed to have experienced things beyond their years. "One little kid saw a man get shot outside his house," Suze said. Another could demonstrate all the moves for taking someone down and putting them under arrest. "Even little 5 year old kids were running around swearing," Suze said. Meg told about a little girl she absolutely loved: "Her mom died this year," Meg said. The girl had been through a lot, but she was buoyant. "She was just so happy."

About house painting: They scraped and painted the outside of one family's house. "It was over a hundred degrees," the day they were there, Meg said. "Miss X sat outside and watched us. She had just been diagnosed with lung disease and heart disease and she wasn't supposed to do anything except stay in bed," but she sat and watched them all day.

She even made hotdogs for them, according to Suze. "She apologized because the food wasn't ready 'on time' and because she couldn't be more hospitable."

Meg stood on a ladder and painted up under the eves, fearlessly, I take it, while wasps buzzed around her head and flew in and out of a hole near where she was working. On the day Suze was there, the leaders wouldn't let her on the ladder. "You freak out too much when you see a wasp," they told her. Suze did painting at a community center where they teach people to be better parents, she said.

At the nursing home: About a third of the kids on the trip also sing in Kirk Singers, the high-school age choir at our church. Naturally the singers put their talents to work in the nursing home. After they sang, one of the women told Suze, "I prayed a choir would come in and sing for us today."

Meg had two stories about one lively and talkative old woman. When she and two other girls first went to the nursing home they were walking down the hall and they noticed a woman sitting in a wheelchair in the door of her room. "Hi, Amy!" The woman said as they walked by. Since none of the girls was named  Amy, they kept walking. But when the woman said it again, Meg turned around. "Hi Amy!" the woman repeated.  "Come here!" she said, so Meg went. "Are you talking to me?" Meg asked her, "because my name's Meg." The woman motioned for Meg to come closer. "I'm Amy's aunt," she confided. "You look just like her," she went on, talking about Meg's beautiful blonde hair and how Amy never comes to see her anymore. Meg and the woman talked for awhile, then the girls went on to visit someone else.

Later that same day, Meg encountered the woman again. "Remember me?" Meg asked. But the woman said she didn't. In fact, she said she'd never seen her before and she'd never met anybody named Meg.

Another time, the woman was in her bed in her room. A group of kids was gathered around listening to her stories -- but she wasn't wearing her dentures. "We couldn't understand AT ALL anything she was saying," Meg said. "When I got there, she'd already been talking to Dan for about 20 minutes." Then, horrors, the YouthWorks leader said he had somewhere else to go and was leaving Meg, Dan and another girl with the woman. "Uh, OK," Meg said, and they sat and listened some more. "We knew when she said something funny and where the stories ended," Meg told us. "So we just laughed in the right places and said 'mmm hmmm a lot.'" Finally Dan reached over and put his hand on the woman's arm. "Well, our group is getting ready to leave, so we have to go now," he told her. Meg says the woman talked another 10 minutes before they finally saw a way to make their exit. Kindly, of course.

This morning Suze was talking to her brother about their trip. He knew they were gone but wasn't exactly sure where or why. She gave him the short version of their week. "You do that with the church?" he asked her when she finished. "Of course," she said. "Where else are you going to get an opportunity to do something like that?"

"I wouldn't exactly call that an oppportunity," he said.

"You have do to it to understand," Suze told him. "Nobody knows what you're talking about when you tell them. You have to do it yourself."

Marvell update

I got this email this morning:

Subject: Youth Group arrival in Marvel
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006

I got a call from Christy Roosien. They arrived safely and are settling in.  There is limited cell phone coverage, only a few of their phones work there so she asked that I let everyone know all is well.  It is warm but they are in air conditioning.     

Lisa Shuart

*************
I'm glad they arrived safely. I'm sure they'll have a wonderful (if hot) week!

They're off again

Had to sneak a photo ... They hate that I even bring my camera!

Well, Meg and Suze are off again. This time it's WPC's annual mission trip with the Sr. High Youth Group. They left about 8 this morning for Marvell, Arkansas. They're driving for about 10 hours today, landing at  Sikeston, Missouri, where they'll spend the night at St. Paul's Episcopal church. On Sunday morning they'll get up and drive another five hours or so to the YouthWorks mission site in Marvell and stay until next Friday.

Leaders, kids, parents "circle up" for announcements and prayer before leaving.

No cushy jet travel this trip -- the youth group takes 16-passenger vans wherever they go. This time, nine adult leaders will take turns driving four vans filled with 36 high schoolers. No restaurant eating for the most part either. They stop roadside where assigned groups take their turn fixing meals for the bunch: bagels and fruit for breakfast; peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I'm not kidding!) for lunch; BBQ, tacos or something like that for dinner. In fact, the kids had to bring only enough money to buy three meals for the entire week.
In Marvell the kids will work on local home-improvement projects and run a week-long YouthWorks Kids Club. Two years ago they worked at the YouthWorks site in Brooklyn, NY. This time around they'll be in a more rural setting.
Click photos to enlarge.

Anniversary

June 16, 1979

The 19-year-old young man found dead beside his SUV by his father early this morning was a friend of my son's.

Mike and his family lived a few houses away from us on Hollywood Street in Grand Rapids when the boys were just little kids. They moved out to Northview several years after we did. The boys lost touch for awhile, but near the end of high school they had become reacquainted. As Drew said today, "I've known Mike longer than anybody in the world, except my family."

I can see that curly headed little kid in my mind, tromping determinedly down the street to our house. "Is Andrew here?" he'd demand. Little tough guy he was. But always smiling. And afraid of nothing, especially disapproving adults. Though nearly two years younger, he always seemed to have more freedom than our son did and I remember being always a little wary about what he was up to. Or what the two of them might be into when they were together.

This is the second among my son's friends to die, young, tragically. And like before, a crowd of young people spent the day at the house of a close friend, crying, remembering, consoling one another, looking for explanations. I'm sure in times like these they feel there's none. And that all they can do is cling to one another and the life they all still have. Railing against the unfairness. Powerless to understand. Yet powerful in their support for Mike's family and for each other.

Update: the writer's life

If you're a regular here you know that back in early November I was jettisoned -- green and intrepid -- into the world of freelance writing. Thought you might like an update of what's been happening.

I spent November and December "finding myself," that is, looking for the right words to put on a resume and in cover letters to potential clients. I contacted virtually everyone in my network (which by the way was much bigger than I'd thought), and was surprised and gratified at the support I've received from friends, former bosses and one-time coworkers in this business. Got a few leads. No work, but hey, it was the holidays.

January heated up right away, and I billed a nice chunk of hours to a couple of clients. February started out slow, but I've done a handful of jobs for one client and picked up some proofreading for another's new website. I'm now in the process of writing a proposal for a fairly large user testing project for another new client. And I'm spending two days this week in a new employee orientation for yet another, where I've been hired to do writing on a project basis.

To date, I have five (5!) clients, with a couple of pretty big projects simmering for two of them (three if you count the one that's been on hold for-ev-er). Oh, and I can't forget my one "labor of love," for which I've written three installments and plan to continue as long as I'm wanted/needed.

Guess I'm doing OK, since I've really only been at this for eight weeks or so. And other good things have come from this new life situation, too, like:

• I've had leisurely lunches with a string of people  -- some  of whom I haven't seen in ages.
• At a lunch with a few of my recent former teammates I heard, "You look so good! So rested! So healthy!"
• I was able to sing at  the midafternoon funeral of a pastor from our church.
• Midday naps!
• I was reintroduced to the cult of Mac by a friend who donated to my cause a (slightly used) PowerBook G4, which I absolutely love.
• I have time to listen to all the podcasts I want to.
• I get to wear comfy clothes (almost) all the time.
• I am able to run up to either high school at any time to drop off forgotten books, lunch money, reports ... argh!
• I can spend more time than EVER reading and researching on the web.
• Did I mention naps?

I'm home

I'm standing in the doorway of the garage, drinking my last cup of coffee for the morning and watching the snow drift slowly down through the trees. Snow's a little early this year and so is the numbing cold. For nearly a week now temps have stayed below 20 degrees. In fact, yesterday the thermometer hovered stubbornly at 14 degrees almost all day. Too cold to walk the dog (so I tell her when she approaches me hopefully). Too cold to walk myself. Almost too cold to sit in the basement at the computer, although with an extra sweatshirt plus my down throw over my knees, I can sit here almost comfortably, thinking, writing, composing inquiry letters, refining my "strategy" for finding work.

It's been a month now since I left corporate life. I've spent much of that time polishing my resume and getting in touch with old friends and former colleagues. "I've decided to do what you all have been doing so well for years," I told some of them. " ...  you can add another hungry writer to that local and talented freelance pool ... " Several of them have graciously come through with solid leads -- even offers to take work off their own plates -- which I have confidence will lead to work and eventually more work. Three of the best writers I know tell me they have more work than they can handle and that there's plenty out there for all. "You're good," they tell me. "You won't have any trouble." And the most comforting, from a former boss who's been on the freelance circuit now for 11 years: "Once you get your feet wet, I have every confidence you'll be fine."

In the meantime, daughter Suze has made the family Christmas her pet project and I must say she has it pretty well under control. I took delivery on a cord of hardwood Monday, so we can look forward to warm, cozy evenings in front of the fireplace. I've begun actually cooking again (such as I am able), even planning ahead once in awhile and starting dinner early in the day (although this is hard to get used to and I'm not quite regular about it yet). The family was startled to be served a meatloaf one day last week and I've made cookies twice now, and even though they were the frozen, preshaped dough sort, I feel that some honest-to-god, from scratch, rolled-out-dough- cookie-cutter sugar cookies are in our very near future. Several holiday concerts are coming up that daughters and I will be participating in, and for once, I'll be able to enjoy the glory of the music without feeling pressured or unduly rushed.

I feel more relaxed, less stressed than I have in a long time. I know the money's going to get tight here pretty soon, but we'll figure out ways to cope. I'm not sure what's ahead  -- in so many areas of my life -- but I'm meeting the challenges as they come, and I know things will be OK. For right now, I'm enjoying getting reacquainted with old friends, being with family, rediscovering a modicum of domesticity, just thinking and being. I'm enjoying being home.

 

I'm OK

Many of you know that my employer and I have parted company as of Monday morning. Yes, it's sudden. Yes it's scary. And yes, it's kind of exciting (in a scary, cautious sort of way).

This is to let you all know that blog posts may be a little sporadic for awhile. In the meantime, don't hesitate to email, leave a comment, or pass my name along to anyone you know who may need the services of an excellent writer/editor/blogger.  (See About.)  Things will be a little rough going for awhile, I have no doubt. But I'm OK.

Birthday, going forward

Since I've reached the end of my first year in a new decade without trauma or otherwise paralyzing event, I feel the need to make the ride as enjoyable as possible going forward. I've read more than one article lately about how you can keep your mind nimble by making the brain do things its not familiar with: learn to play a new musical instrument, do difficult puzzles, even take a different route to work. And of course everyone knows that to keep the body nimble you need to move it more than once in awhile.

Anyhow, I thought it might be fun -- a good thing, even -- to try doing things I've never done before. I mean really try something different or learn something new on a regular basis. This would involve list-making and study, of course, and then maybe lessons or classes of some kind. I might have to purchase equipment, plane tickets, new athletic shoes or add any number of expenses to the budget. All in the name of keeping my body healthy and my mind fresh.

No worries about my overdoing or overspending, however -- whatever this endeavor involves, I feel certain that I could fill most of the year with the preparation for it, making the actual doing much less likely. So family and friends don't have to worry too much about my going off to write poetry on the Left Bank or even spending the holidays shusshing down the slopes in Aspen. Budget for the most part ain't gonna let it happen.

Still there are a few things that I ought to be able to accomplish with minimal outlay of cash.  Such as:

• Learn to use more than the "auto focus" setting on Lori's camera
• Cross country ski or snowshoe
• Eat Thai food
• Learn Spanish
• Meet a blogger acquaintance
• Go to a Redwings game
• Serve at the soup kitchen
• Paint a room
• Ride the Snow Train
• Learn euchre
• Get a pedicure
• Join a writer's group
• Take a yoga class

That's enough to start with. And I can always add to (or subtract from) the list. Once I get started.

Birthday

Last night a bunch of us from work went to Vitale's to have a drink or two for my birthday. Thanks to all of you who came out to toast and offer cheer; thanks to all who bought me beers. And special thanks to Dan, who set up the celebration; Glenn, who arrived first and sucked down a giant Oberon draft before I even got there (and left early, darn ya); Lori, who came even though she didn't work that day, who took me all the way home to get another set of keys after I locked mine in the car, and who brought me that tingly ginger lotion-- love it!; David, for buying me a birthday cannoli; Rhonda for coming out and putting up with a buncha people you barely know; David and Jeff for showing up uninvited -- you guys rock; Pam,  my cubemate for putting up with my sh*t; Tom, same thing, only for some reason I don't feel bad dishin' it out to ya ;-); and Greg, for listening. Sonja, Tony, Vince and the rest of you -- sorry you couldn't  make it (we'll be out there again on the 6th, I think). I didn't take any photos (camera was locked in the car with the keys). But here's a representative cannoli.

                                    

More on a theme ...

Dave Pollard wonders:

What is the one thing you most want to do in your life, that you haven't yet even started? Look at your to do list. Or think about something you really want to do, that you haven't dared to even put on your list. Starting an intentional community, or your own business. Asking someone for a date. Going someplace you've always dreamed of visiting. Learning something that would let you love what you do for a living. Walking away from something that has caused you too much unhappiness. Reconnecting with someone you really miss. Healing your body (exercise, diet), or your spirit (meditation), or a broken relationship. Why haven't you started?

Why, indeed? And where to start? (Yeah, I realize this is something of a theme with me.) He goes on:

If it's a huge and imposing task or leap, break it down into manageable pieces. Make the first step small, pleasurable, and easy. Some early research, a phone call, a conversation.

You have to start somewhere and you have to start now is Pollard's point. Or you never will. Read the rest of the post yourself. Good stuff.

House wine

Good wine, good price.

I'm no wine connoisseur, that's for sure, and when it comes to buying, I really have NO idea. As is the case with most people, I think. So while some I know will buy wine based on label aesthetics, I find myself choosing wine based on price, first and foremost.

So when I go to a wine store, I ask what they have that's red, inexpensive, and good for the price. The experts on staff usually come through for me and I'm rarely disappointed. I bought these two bottles in Chicago at Sam's. The House Wine was about $11 and the Portuguese red was, amazingly, $7.99. I was instructed to let both "breathe" a good while before drinking. The less expensive bottle needed at least two hours in the air before it was drinkable, I was told. Both were very good, especially the Portuguese.

Got a haircut

Sporting my new, easy 'do at Michigan's Adventure

Ok now, this is a catch up post. Because I've been on vacation this week and being really lazy about this blog (although I have written in the other one, which I may or may not tell you about some other time.)

Hair (If this topic bores you, skip to the next subhead.)
Tuesday I decided I just had to have my hair cut right now. I hadn't had it cut since February in prep for my trip to Hawaii. I don't know why. I've never let my hair go so long between cuts; Ive always been an every 5-6 weeks kind of gal. Guess it's true, as one friend suggested, that I've been letting myself go of late. LOL!

Anyhow, I like this cut 'cause I don't have to do ANYTHING with it if I don't want to, other than mess with the bangs a little. Too late I realized it is exactly like my sister Loraine's hair, but oh well. She's a blonde. And I never see her anyway. (Sorry Lor. Just kiddin'. Really!)

GR Blogger (If you don't like this one, you're so in the wrong place.)
I finally went to my newsreader today (didn't get very far, however) and saw -- wowee! -- TWO new Technorati search results for this blog. One was from my buddy at work, who links to me every now and then, especially since I quit blogging for my company :-).

The other was from a blogger here in GR whom I've read a couple of times and who is a member, as am I, of the Grand Rapids Bloggers Webring (oh, the buddy above is a member also). Matt VanDyk is an attorney here in town who seems to have started a blog rather recently. He's done a waaaaay better job than I have of ferreting out local bloggers, and some worthwhile reads, too. Well, Matt has me on his blogroll right now, which is cool. He's got several recommendeds on his site, which I'm going to check out. Trouble is, they all seem to be Calvin grads. (As is he. Hey, Aaron, you should be on the list -- do you know Matt?) Well, I guess that's not really a problem.  And anyhow, I do sing at Calvin in the Oratorio Society and my last name begins with Vander ... Maybe those two things make me meet the criteria????

Reading (This one's for Lori S. and you.)
A couple of my friends have tried to encourage me to read more, one by loaning me a bag of books (which I have yet to read or return) and another by telling me pointedly, "You  need to read more." So right now I have three books with bookmarks showing progress made in each since oh, January. Pretty pathetic, I know.

The one I'm working hardest to get out of the way is the worst: Scar Tissue by the Red Hot Chili Peppers's Anthony Kiedis is getting pretty ho-hum after 335 pages (only 130 to go!) of fired guitar players, drugs, sex, shows, drugs, girlfriends, sex ... I mean, how many girls can possibly be the sweetest angel ever in Anthony's world? Quite a few, evidently, but it's geting old.

I'm also reading  a free pdf version of Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture, and I'm going to say that the reason I haven't finished that one yet is that my pdf is stored on the flash drive that I ruined ... no, that excuse won't work for a downloadable file, will it? OK. Anyhow, I'm about halfway through Lessig's look at where art and culture are headed in the digital age. If you've ever illegally downloaded even one song off the internet, you need to read it. It's scary. Truly!Which is maybe the real reason I haven't finished it. (You're not buying that either, are ya?)

The third book I really just started this week (OK, so I lied about January). It's a fiction work  by Goldberry Long called Juniper Tree Burning. The name of the novel is also the female protagonist's name, and so far most of her problem seems to stem from a troubled upbringing that is exacerbated by (and obviously signified by) having been given such an odd appellation.  So far the woman mostly just irritates me -- she's a real hard-ass bitch. I'm thinking she'll redeem herself though, so I'll keep reading.

Weekend (You're almost done. Hooray!)
The daughters and their cousin are spending the weekend at my folks' house in Muskegon. My brother-in-law (the niece/cousin/god daughter's dad) is here entertaining my husband. There's nobody online -- NOBODY -- to talk to, so I'm just taking it easy. Reading, walking the dog, taking little naps, lounging in the sun, half heartedly catching up on stuff online. For two nights now I've  gotten away with refusing to do much in the way of fixing dinner. OH -- I do have some laundry I'd better get busy on, but other than that it's been a nice, lazy weekend. A fitting wrap up to a pretty laid back week off.  Well, the dog is whining at me, so I guess I'll take her for a walk before it gets too dark. Can't neglect all my duties, don'tcha know.

A funeral ... A wedding

Westminster Presbyterian in Grand Rapids, Michigan

It isn't every Saturday that I have the opportunity to be a part of both these rites of passage. Weddings and funerals don't really go together so neatly. Yet they do give pause for thought.

The funeral was for a man I was not acquainted with: 80 years old and a pastor in the Presbyterian church, he'd held offices at the Presbytery, Synod, and National church levels, and he was pastor here at Westminster in the late 60s and early 70s. When he retired he and his wife came back and made Westminster their church home. He had requested that the choir sing at his funeral. We lead four hymns and ended the service with a small-choir, jubilant rendition of Hallelujah from Handel's Messiah.

That evening, my second eldest nephew, Joe, was married in an outdoor ceremony at the gorgeous Horticultural Gardens on campus at Michigan State University. He and his bride, Erin, are recent grads of MSU. For reasons I won't go into here (a long, uninteresting story -- really!) my family did not make it to the wedding. But we arrived in time for the reception, a small, simple, beautiful celebration. Joe and Erin will honeymoon in Cancun before settling here in Grand Rapids, where Joe landed a job with Deloitte-Touche. More photos here.

 
Joe & Erin Viraldo

Words ... to go forward on

OK, I know just about everyone on the 'Net has linked to this by now, but just in case you haven't read Steve Jobs's speech to Stanford's graduation class, here's a link so you can.

There are so many reasons to admire this guy, and the very accessible message of this speech is just one of them. An excerpt that hits home:

... You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

Finding courage to act on that is quite another matter. But Jobs has a thought for that, too:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Jobs had a brush with pancreatic cancer about a year ago, which obviously gave him even greater resolve to live the life he desired. But most of us never look squarely at death, much less trick it away. For us it becomes very easy to say, "oh, that -- I'll fix that later." But in case you're thinking he'll let you off easy, Jobs drives it home further:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

If you're still reading this, you're probably a friend or relative and you know that two weeks ago my daughters turned 16, and last week I observed nine years in my present job. My son will be 20 next week. And today is my wedding anniversary. The older I get, the more gravity seems to mark the passing of these events. Which, I think, is why Jobs's speech resonates.

Yet the thing that resonates does not necessarily compel. The title of this post is "Words ... to go forward on," and I think that is a very real possibility. And one that remains to be seen.

The barn in my neighborhood

Side view of the barn, from atop a neighbor's fence on
Rock River Dr.

We've lived in this neighborhood for nine years and the only time the subject of the barn came up was once when the girls were younger, maybe 9 or 10 years old. They mentioned one day that they and their friends had played inside and that the man who owned it said it was OK. Naturally my mind ran to all kinds of possibilities for weird goings-on and freaky barn accidents, so I told them they shouldn't play there anymore -- it was dangerous. I have no idea if they ever went back (probably they did, just like they used to traipse around in the woods behind the houses up on the hill behind us); but they are none the worse for having played there and still the barn stands, oddly, in the middle of our neighborhood.

Last night I was walking the dog and we turned up the street from which you can see a side view of the barn (above). A car was moving very slowly toward us, kind of weaving, stopping then going, like the driver didn't quite know if she wanted to stay or go. We were in the car's path, so I began to cross to the other side of the street, when the driver called out "Don't mind us, we're just looking at the barn." Then, "We used to own it."

Well, I couldn't let that pass without a question, so I walked over to the car. A middle-aged woman was driving and beside her in the passenger seat was a frail, elderly woman, evidently her mother, dressed in her Sunday-best green-with-white-polkadots dress.

"You owned the barn?" I asked. And she told me about how she grew up here, along the Grand River, when "all this" was a hay field. She told about driving the tractor once when she was 6 years old and her foot slipped off the clutch, the wagon lurched, and the entire hard-won load of hay dumped over. How angry her uncles had been that their work had been wasted. How her 4-year-old cousin came and helped her and the others pitch the hay back onto the wagon. "That's the way it was back then," the woman told me. "You just helped out where you were needed. I don't know why they had me drive that day. Maybe it was going to rain and they had to get the hay in and I was the only one available."

Her parents sold first the white farmhouse, then brick house next to it -- along with the barn -- more than 30 years ago. When the (current) owners of the farmhouse learned the barn was to for sale, they bought it and have since kept it in good repair. I imagine that every once in awhile, on a warm Sunday when her mother is feeling up to it, the woman takes her for a drive along the river to look at the old barn, where it still stands, surrounded by a neighborhood.

View from behind the barn, as seen from the yard of
a house on Wabash St.


The old farmhouse on Coit Ave., across the street from the
river, sold first. When the barn came up for sale, the homeowners purchased it, too. You can see a bit of the barn behind, right.

End of a contract

Tony, Lori, Tom

You work knowing that the work won’t last. It’s the way of the contractor – you go in, do a job, if they like you, you come back the next day; if they don’t, oh well, there’s other clients out there.

But then the days turn into weeks into months into years. And you get really good at doing the work of this place. You never stop at doing simply what’s asked of you; you’re always taking the initiative, challenging old ideas, looking at things differently, offering solutions nobody ever thought of. You become one of the drivers that can push the team forward; your thoughts and ideas are integral to moving the team’s work to the next level. You work willingly on everything that comes your way, even the little shit jobs. (You are the contractor, after all).

Yes, you become part of the team – some might say an indispensable part of the team, but we all know there’s no such person, even among the staff. Your coworkers become your friends, even confidantes. You feel at home here with this work and these people you’ve come to love. And you know that as a contractor this is a dangerous position to be in, because one day it all will come to an end.

That day was yesterday for Tony. It’s not that the team doesn’t need him anymore or that he outlived his usefulness. It’s not that there’s anybody better on staff who is stepping in to take his place. But as business climates change, focus evolves, priorities get adjusted, and inevitably, the status quo gives way. The contract has ended, as he always knew it would. And he has to move on.

For my money, this has been a baby-and-bathwater thing, and what we need to do is run out and scoop up the baby, hopefully unharmed, and make the adoption permanent. But in spite of any championing I might have done (never enough, I know), I, in my position, am powerless to change any of this. So all I can say is farewell to a contractor who became more of a coworker than many of my coworkers. Don’t be a stranger. (Like I told you, I’m terrible at calling.) God speed to a good friend.

While I was walking

On the Jupiter Bridge

The dog and me -- we're pretty out of shape.

I'm trying, really I am, to get us both out there for 30 minutes or more every day. But she's got this little routine worked up now where she starts off walking OK, then not far from the house she starts with the sniffing, pulling on the leash, marking places of interest (yes she really is female; it's weird) and generally slowing us down bigtime. Then when she gets to a spot in front of the A&B kitchen place, she stops, plants her feet, and if I'm not careful, pulls right out of the collar, leaving me dangling an empty leash. No amount of coaxing will get her to move forward.

So we head for home -- the long way around on Wabash St., at least -- but these antics cut down considerably on the length of our walk.

Last night I tried something a little different. Now, we live on a 45-mile-an-hour road with no sidewalks. It's like that almost everywhere around here, so there's not many places to walk to. So my "different" route was simply to walk the other way away from the house, taking JDog down to the Jupiter Bridge across the Grand River about 1/2 mile from the house.

By the time we walked there then all the way across the river and back, it might've been close to 2 miles. It worked pretty well -- she only stopped once, and she kept her collar on.

I don't really like all the traffic on the bridge, but I did get a couple of nice photos. Plus we ended up walking more than 40 minutes.

Guess I'll go this route till she figures out some new way to thwart my efforts. Then I'll have to mix it up again.

What I did on my vacation

Ha! Can you tell? I'm on vacation. That's why there are six posts here from yesterday.

Today I have to do something useful, however. Trouble is I have to do it before 1, when I have to go to a meeting that I unwisely set up last week before I left work. After that, it's pick up Susan from school. Then I have to figure out what I'm doing for those girls' birthday tomorrow. They'll be sixteen. I can't imagine it.

Well, ok, maybe I won't be so productive today. I did wash the curtains in the bedroom and kitchen. Took the down comforter off the bed. (We've got the air on now after so many cold weeks of spring, so I guess we don't need it.) Catching up on washing towels and blankets ... If I never get to cleaning out any closets this week, I've got three more weeks of vaca coming up -- I can always get to that stuff later.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

Recovering. Slowly.

Movin' on to something different ...

Ok, I see that some regular readers of my other (former) blog have been here, looking, checking this thing out. I bid you welcome, but be aware: This isn't that blog; it has never been anything like that blog; it never will be that blog.

No, it hasn't been updated much, as those of you who have visited more than once already have seen. For the past 6 months or so, I've poured all my energy into that other blog, and this one has suffered.

And now that the object of my most intense effort is gone from the web, I need some time to recover. Some time to think about what's next.

You see, even though Things I've Seen came first (the present version moved over from an earlier effort), I feel like I really cut my blogging teeth on the blog that I quit. It's where I really became aware of what was going on in the world of blogs and the internet; where I began to see that I could make even the slightest difference in people's opinions.  I had loyal readers (even though most didn't comment) . I was asking people  to think; beginning small dialogues; contributing in my own small way to the conversation that is the internet.

So why did I quit? The blog had become too much effort for too little return. Its timing was not right. It felt less and less worthwhile to pour my heart and soul into something for which I was the sole cheerleader and enthusiast among my peers.  I guess you could say I had a crisis of confidence; a failure of heart.

Whatever the reason, I've bounced back here, to my beginnings. With a big hole in my sensibility, as well as in my schedule, that was filled up by producing the other blog. I can't go back. But neither can this blog ever be the same. I've come too far for that.

And so it's going to take some time for the blog to figure out what it wants to be. Please be patient while I work through it. Feel free to offer comments and suggestions. But keep coming back. I promise I'll be better at updating. Just don't expect the moon. Not right away, anyhow.   ;-)

Sunday afternoon

Multi-tasking with a cat around ain't easy

I 'm stuck on the idea that I should try to make more of my Sundays. But I feel like I'm plenty busy enough on Sunday mornings and into the afternoon -- I just don't feel like tackling any of those big weekend kinds of tasks after that.

Take today. I was up at 6:30 because Westminster Winds played in the 8:30 and 11 o'clock services (our call was at 8 a.m. in the sanctuary in order to squeeze in that final half-hour of much needed rehearsal time). We played our two numbers during the early service, then joined the congregation for the remainder of the hour. For the hour between services, I sometimes go to an "education hour" if the topic seems interesting, other times a friend and I go up to Kahve House; today I spent the time listening to the newly formed Dixieland band rehearse for our upcoming concert.

The choir's call time was next, so I rehearsed with that group, then rejoined my band buddies in time to play the prelude for the 11:oo service. The idea is that all of us band members who also sing  in choir will leave the band when we're finished, run backstage and don our choir robes, then join the choir in the loft as surreptitiously as possible in time for the rest of the service, especially for the choir's anthem.

Right before the service began, I decided that there were plenty of sopranos on hand in the choir without me and that one-and-a-half services was quite enough for today. So I rehung my choir robe, put my music away, and sped out the side door of the church right after swabbing out my clarinet and putting on my coat.

By the time I got home it was nearly noon. I was hungry and already starting to feel the afternoon droops. Of course, most of the rest of the family was just getting around, since they all had something or other going on last night an opted to sleep in. They were just thinking about breakfast and I was looking to fix lunch. Such is our disconnected family on a Sunday!

By the time I ate my lunch and looked through the Sunday paper, it was nearing 2 o'clock. At 4 I hadto truck the girls down to church for choir rehearsal and youth group, so most of Sunday afternoon just feels like waiting for something. While I should get gung-ho on laundry or straightening a closet, I usually putter at some insignificant task or other. Then I take a delicious  Sunday afternoon nap.

Clay took this photo while I was trying to assuage my guilt -- writing something (not for work, puleeze!) and folding socks that had been sitting in a basket for a few days -- before settling under my down throw for a little snooze.  I tell myself I deserve this little bit of laziness after a long week and heading into another.   See, I'm not really that motivated to add any more busy-ness to my Sundays...

A cuppa joe

[A 'favorite' post from my old site -- Jan. 23, 2004] Every evening during this bone cold January, I brew up some coffee when I get home from work. Lately it's French roast, and I grind just enough beans for about half a pot. When it's done, I pour a little chocolate cream (Whoever imagined such an exquisite substance as chocolate cream?) in the bottom of each of two cups, pour in the hot stuff, stir a little and share with Daughter No. 2. I put some music in the kitchen CD player (still Celtic Christmas music, most of which doesn't really sound holidayish, and it's haunting and soothing at the same time, so it fills the bill) and then get started on dinner, while she talks.

She might tell me about school, but most likely it's talk about boys, or what guy her friends want her to invite to Fling, or the girlfriend who's mad (again). Then maybe Daughter No. 1 will wander in and join the conversation, but she doesn't enjoy the joe the way we two do, so unless she has a thought about setting the table, she'll probably stay holed up in her room. I'll catch up with her at dinner time.

In the meantime, I'll drink a hot mocha from my (new) favorite wintertime cup. And I'll listen to everything this freshman wants to tell me.

Legacy

I wonder where's Brian now

Marked beech

Who did Alex Mary?

Thinking about the carvers who left these marks. I wonder if they ...

-Come back now and then to see how their handiwork might be filling in, scarring over, weathering?
-Bring a friend, lover, child to see irrefutable evidence of a younger self?
-Regret having upset the balance and so became environmental activists?
-Got a rush from their deed and so became graffiti artists?
-Already were graffiti artists?
-Don't even remember the occasion?

Second (home)coming

Last Saturday was Homecoming at NHS. Meg took sister Suze ( former NHS student now attending FHE) as a guest so she could see all her "homies" as she calls 'em.

Meg spent the day creating five up-dos after having her own professionally done at 8 a.m. I served dinner that evening to six kids -- five beautiful girls and one lucky guy. Once again the photos don't do justice.

Meg financed a professional style with earnings from doing friends' do's.

Dani was first of five in a marathon styling session.

Sister Suze was last in the updo lineup.

Meg and Leah getting ready.

More primping: Dani, Meg, Leah.

Ready to go: Ray, Meg, Leah, Suze, Dani, Meg2

Meg, Leah, Meg2, Dani, Suze

 

Way to go

Out at Lamoreaux Park

It's fall and JDog and I are back at our favorite place close to home, Lamoreaux Park. I did some research online last year to find out about this place; I wanted to know how it happens that there's about a mile and a half of trail-crossed forest here in the middle of the suburbs ... Seems that back in the 50s and 60s it was an ROTC/National Guard shooting range. In the 70s the county bought it and turned it into a park.

I like to look around for evidence of what it used to be -- they say they cleared out any shell casings or other weaponry type stuff long ago. Still you will see the occasional rusted-out barrel under the trees. A field that was probably a parking lot is now bordered in those short wooden posts that used to mark the edges of such things back in the day. Then there are several odd concrete formations, including a graffiti-covered wall that heaves up out of the forest floor. Who built it? Why? Who knows.

Leftover wall

The county has built other structures especially for the park, like the long wooden footbridge that spans a marshy area between two trails and the wooden platform that overlooks the river in one spot. Still the place isn't what you'd call improved. You'll find no swings, picnic area, or restrooms, although I've heard that on Friday nights in summer a group of storytellers gathers to spin tales 'round a bonfire.

The park's two tracks and footpaths wind along the Grand River through forests of maple, beech, oak, elm. There's marshland bordered with cattails and reeds; broad swaths of grassy fields plein with berries, brambles, wild flowers ...

All during autumn and throughout much of the winter, I walk and the dog runs free, laughing. On Sunday afternoons Suze will often accompany us. (Last year she was upset to see carrots strewn as deer bait in a field just over the park's property line.) In spring it's too flooded to get even a half-mile in, so we rarely come. In summer -- too many bugs. Fall's just begun, and so we've returned.

A way to go

New old Bronson

At the old Bronson Park in Muskegon

This place looks nothing like it did when I was a kid. I know this boardwalk with its winding stairs and sloping access ramp wasn't even thought about back then. None of this nice beach grass, either -- just bare, wind-eroded dune. I remember our dad would bring us down here once in awhile when he got home from work on a hot day in summer. I think we came here because it was less crowded than Pere Marquette Park up the road.

The parking lot was basically the same as it is now -- a kind of gray, dead-end oval. I remember you got out of the car and in front of you off to one side were a couple of rusty-looking swingsets with rubber sling seats suspended between spidery long A-poles. It was the city's attempt at making this a park, I suppose, but Pere Marquette Park had much nicer swings. And slides, too. Plus, the sand here was a little pebbly, not nice and sugar-smooth like at the other park.

But getting to the lake, now that was superior fun. You'd run straight down the hill, flip flops in one hand, towel in the other. As you neared shore, you'd drop both to the sand and sprint another few yards into the water, first making big splashes as you kicked up the shallows, then picking your legs up higher as as the depth slowed you down. Finally, you'd half trip, half throw yourself headlong into the shocking cold (I don't care what time of year it was, the lake was always cold), flop over into a back glide, then, feet down again you'd pop up, push your hair away from your face, and throw your head back, screeching laughter.

Standing here last Sunday, I could only see in my mind's eye that scene of some 35 years ago.  No dunes are exposed anymore; windblown grass and weathered, sturdy boardwalks stand between me and that long-grown kid's dash down the dune. I'm glad the city has taken steps to protect the dunescape. I'm glad my mind's eye holds such a clear memory.

Dance season

Suze and Mitch, matched

School started, what, three weeks ago, and for the highschoolers I know, that means the first "big dance" season is also in full swing. Because no more do girls simply plot, plan and preen for the seven months leading up to the year-end extravaganza called the Prom -- these days each school year is defined by three dance seasons. Prom of course is still the biggie, but its pomp is now preceded by two other occasions for formal finery: fall's Homecoming and winter's Valentine's Day Fling or Swirl.

Homecoming season in my house actually started back around Aug. 1, when one daughter and her friend already began planning for the event at the friend's cousin's school. Both girls and their friends also have their plans mostly finalized for the dance at their own school, as well. Last week things really heated up, however, when a boy from still another school called Suze and invited her to his dance, held last night.

Short notice, yes, but fortunately between them the girls own four dresses plus most of the necessary accessories needed to outfit a dance princess. Meg is a wizard at hair design, and so we were able to get Suze ready for last night with minimal fuss (or cost). Two or three Homecoming dances yet await both girls this year. Meg is making appointments to design up-dos for as many girls as she can fit into a Saturday -- $15 a pop, which is half what you'll pay at the salon. And NO I am not buying any more dresses or shoes; fortunately nobody balks at borrowing from girlfriends, cousins, or older sisters.

Anyway, it's all pretty heady for a bunch of 15-year-olds. The photos don't show the half of it.

As a caveat for the more practical (and teenager-less) among you, let me just say that none of this is necessarily sensible. The idea of highschool girls (to a much greater extent than the boys) spending so much time, thought, and money on creating dazzling spectacles of themselves three times or more a year does have its troubling aspects. Yes, it is so commercial; yes, it is putting girls on display, yes, it points up things wrong with our culture, attitudes toward women and their place in society, etc., etc. But ya know what? I am a mom of two teens who turn themselves into Cinderella three times a year. The fairy tale that ends at midnight is tightly woven into the dreams most of us, young and old. For a couple of nights a year, it's wonderful fun to live out that dream.