The last will be first, say what now?

What does it mean, the last will be first?

My pastor, Seth Kaper-Dale, is running for governor of NJ**. His  campaign slogan is, “The last will be first.” 

“Sounds religious-y”, says my husband. His only church is the kitchen and his only dogma the writings of Tom Robbins. 

It is taken from the bible. Matthew 20:16. Almost any good quote you know comes from either the King James bible or Shakespeare. The 16th century was a serendipitous time for the English language. It’s right after, “a camel will go through the eye of a needle, yada, yada, and and just before he calls the temple moneylenders, “a den of thieves.” Good stuff. Jesus is speaking in parables because his disciples were, let’s be generous, kinda simple. For example, a few chapters before they’re arguing about who among them is going to be greatest in heaven, like kids arguing over who is mom’s favorite. Don’t be silly, dears, I love you all equally. Now go do your chores….

This particular story concerns some farmworkers, day laborers, perhaps? A group agree to work in this guy’s vineyard all day for 10 denarius (denarii? My Latin is rusty). At some point, the owner sees more dudes (only an assumption, their gender is not mentioned), and says, “Hey, why aren’t you working?” And they say, “Because no one hired us.” So the owner brings them in and gives them work. This happens a couple times throughout the day and, long story longer, at the end of the day they all get paid the same: the ones who worked all day and the ones who only worked a few hours. 

But that’s not fair! You know it and I know it. Why should I get paid the same as some slacker who only worked an hour or two? The owner says, “Look, I made a deal with you and you took it. Like it or lump it.” I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point. And what were those late-comers doing all day? Did they sleep in? Were they drinking at the local well? The bible remains silent. Only that they were all paid the same. I looked this up on the internets. Obviously it’s been written about A BIT. The major consensus on the theme is that God’s ways are not our ways. I don’t know about you, but at this point I’m still trying to think, “how is this fair?” I mean, don’t we all have that one co-worker who makes us wonder, “how in the world do they still work here and get paid what I get paid?” That group member who does the least amount of work and still gets the same credit on the project? That selfish, nasty relative who asks for forgiveness on their deathbed when WE’VE been good people all along! Why should I even BOTHER working hard and doing the right thing EVERY. DARN. DAY. when some slacker is gonna come in at the last second and get the same reward. If we do that, where is the incentive to work at all? Soon, everyone will be slacking off and holding out their hand for 10 denarius (denarii) and THEN WHERE WILL WE BE? It’ll be anarchy in the streets, see if it isn’t. 

But remember…we don’t know why those people weren’t working all day. We only assume they’re slackers. Maybe one had an ill family member that they care for, maybe one was up all night with a sick baby and overslept, maybe one found out his donkey had been repo’d and had no way to get to work. Maybe, your co-worker is going through a really hard time at home right now. Maybe that no-good family member had a drug addiction and finally got clean, even though sobering up meant facing all the harm they’ve caused. Maybe asking for forgiveness was their last change at grace. You don’t know. Don’t judge. 

That’s the Christian take on it, anyways. 

You don’t have to be any shade of religious to know that life isn’t fair, though. It’s the complete opposite of fair: it’s “nasty, brutish, and short” (Thomas Hobbes, born-16th Century, see what I mean?). Good people die and cruel people vanquish. Children go to bed hungry, veterans are homeless, old people languish in care homes, forgotten. But you don’t have to worry about ANY OF THEM. Just take your paycheck and go about your business. If your boss isn’t fair, go work for someone else, someone who understands the value of an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work (Proverbs, also Fiddler on the Roof). 

But there’s another saying, “A rising tide lifts all boats” (JFK, 20th Century, so sue me). I can’t fix the whole world. I can’t be perfectly fair, no matter how hard I try. But I can be as generous as I am able. That’s why I give my kids an allowance, even when they don’t really sweep the floor that well. It’s why I do little favors for my husband, even when I’m mad at him. It’s why I sometimes give an extra dollar to a homeless person, even when though they might use it to buy a pint. I don’t need to vet these people for their intentions. Because the cost to me is minimal compared to the possible gains for them: my kids learn responsibility, my husband has a little more free time, the homeless person might instead use it to buy a hot coffee so Starbucks will let him sit down and stay out of the cold for a few hours. 

Imagine a society that values generosity. Go on, I’ll wait right here. A world where hard work gets rewarded but people who are without get rewarded too. It’s impossible, right? We don’t have that kind of money. And it’ll attract the wrong crowd, it’ll lead to laziness and rock and roll and anarchy, remember? But maybe, maybe-we can imagine the things we truly value: stable families, good education, good health, hard work, being able to spend time with family and friends. Do you really believe that you want those things more than anyone else? Maybe, we can put our money toward things that contribute to those values. We may disagree on the means, but I truly believe that most, if not all people want the same, three, basic things: a roof over their heads, enough food, and a hopeful future for themselves and their children. If we focus on those things, if we allow ourselves to be generous, just a little, as a group, as a state, as a nation, to be generous towards those goals, then who knows what the return will be? 

The last will be first means that we challenge the notion of “I got mine.” Like Elizabeth Warren speaking about the social contract, one’s success requires an ever widening circle of social supports. This isn’t feel-good kumbaya stuff, this is good sense. Funding education, healthcare, safety nets like food stamps, public transportation-you may not use them, but think about the consequences of not having them: a country full of people who are hungry, ignorant, isolated. Raise those people up, let all kids have a good education and enough to eat, make it easier for someone without a car to get to work, just make it easier for folks to live their lives—makes life better for everyone. Like planting a tree that might not bear fruit until after you’re gone, like clearing a path even though you might not come back this way again, helping the least of us helps all of us. 

Cheers!

S. Higgins

March 25, 2017

**For more info: 

https://www.kaperdaleforgovernor.com/

Twitter: @KaperDaleForGov
Facebook

The World of Transplant is getting more and more AMAZING

There have been so many transplant stories in the news lately, how could I not write something?

Even though I've been toiling in the ED, my heart still belongs to transplant. Wait...you know what I mean. Anyhoo, let's start off with a story that's been on many news sites. Thomas Manning just became the first person in the U.S. to receive a penis transplant. The 64 year old had penile cancer and had to have his penis amputated in 2012. The remarkable thing is that he has been very open to talking about the procedure in an attempt to remove the stigma surrounding "genital" transplants.

Some info from the NY Times

But I really like this article, and Thomas Manning, for opening up about the surgery and its implications for men who have pelvic injuries, particularly combat veterans.

But this article really takes the cake, (or the donut). Stay classy Daily Mail!


This link explains the anastomosis. Be prepared...it shows a PENIS!



I used to think that donating something "weird", like my face or skin, was too creepy. Until you see a picture of someone who hasn't left the house for a decade because someone blew their face off. Then, it's like, "Well, that's one more part I won't need anymore. Might as well help someone out."

New Post at Normal, NJ

Go. Here.  New post up at Normal, NJ

This Week in Transplant News

Sweet, sweet innovation
Because science, that's why


Sad news from South Jersey. And please, please wear your seat belts. They really do make a difference.

Living kidney donation story from Hub City. Shout out to all my transplant peeps!

I've been having mixed feelings about the new X-files. You gotta love Scully and Mulder: the chemistry, the corny jokes and snappy comebacks, David Duchovny's fine line dancing. But why do they suck at medical stuff? Every ICU and OR is dim. Maybe Chris Carter is setting a mood, but to me it looks like they're on generator power. And when Scully's mom is dying..."she's brain dead, she's in a persistent vegetative state." And then they have to cart her body away quickly because, "she's an organ donor" after she goes into asystole. It may be minor, I know. And don't even get me started on this one. Oy.

People still read this?

I can't believe I haven't written in 4 years and I got 18 web hits today.


I've been thinking of blogging again on a regular basis, so keep tuned because apparently this is the blog that won't die (or perhaps parts of it will be transplanted into another blog :)

No, seriously. I've been working in the ER for the past 4 years going back to school and trying to figure out where I'm going from there. School is almost over, I have 2 more classes and graduate in the Spring, huzzah! After that, I want to be a nurse practitioner, be a psychiatric NP, work with troubled kids, help improve health care policy, work in an overseas clinic and generally try to save the world.

What are we gonna do tonight, Brain?

Best article I've ever read that describes brain death and "life support". Good read if you want to understand what brain death is and how it differs from a coma.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/28/health/life-support-ethics/index.html?hpt=hp_t5

More about Less

over at this blog...

http://normalnewjersey.blogspot.com/

come by and see what else I'm up to that has nothing to do with anyone's organs.

TC

Update on the Update :)

Creepy statue outside of work. The child in the middle is the real one.

So, funny story, I started to post an update, got called away by mommy duties and instead of hitting "save" I hit "post." Cause I thought, no one is going to read this right now...I'll have time to come back and edit it.

Little did I know. Apparently I still have 3 groupies left. Thanks, guys.

Anyhoo, I've been enjoying summer and having 4 days off every week. More than making up for it with (usually) grueling 12 hour shifts. Last week I stayed 4 hours over to make a little, extra $$. Meaning I worked from 7am to 11:30pm. The next day I was good. for. nothing. Some may say that's my usual state, but seriously, I was tired.

I have managed to see several of my former patients in the ER, never a good sign. But all of them turned out ok apparently. I still call 8 Tower whenever they page a code blue overhead to find out who's coding....although that has only happened twice and my ER coworkers think I'm bonkers. But you know, you get caught up with these people. Transplant has been busy too, so I'm rather glad I'm doing my 3 12's and going home. The job is nice in the sense that 1. I go into every shift with no "to do" list. Whatever comes in, comes in. That may be anxiety-provoking for those folks who like to know what they're getting into. However, coming from 3 years of feeling like I was never caught up, walking in the door each day with a list of things to do as long as my arm...it's a nice change. And 2. I get to leave. On time. If I don't leave on time, I get paid more. And when I hand off my patients, I am done. So although it's 12 hours of non-stop chaos, it also feels like a big break.

School starts in a few weeks. I am easing into it with 1 class: Health Assessment across the Lifespan. Can't wait. I get to be a Rutgers student again! Unfortunately, they do NOT give a family discount. Ah well. Hopefully, in 3-5 years I'll be a nurse practitioner. We'll see. One class at a time and the next class may well be statistics, so we'll see if I survive.

Ciao, y'all. I will have more time to blog, but not sure what to blog about. I'd like to blog about something that will be fun, informative and pay my way through college, so if you have any ideas, let me know.

Weekend Update

Does anyone still read this thing? Just in case, I thought I'd give a little shout-out, you know, and let you all know what was up. I moved on back to the ER, for starters.

That's me on the left.

(Truth is, I once got a haircut so short that I *did* look more like Noah Wylie than I will *ever* look like Julianna Margulies.)

Mama, what do you DO all day?

That's a question The Pooter asks me frequently, upon greeting me at the end of the day, "Mama, what do you DO all day?" It's part curiosity, part challenge, I think. Like she's thinking, "What can this woman possibly be doing for the whole time she's apart from me?" After all, not everyone can have a jam-packed, exciting day at pre-school. Work, even organ donation, pales in comparison with the fun of dress up and arts and crafts.

When I ask her the same thing, invariably she just gives me an enigmatic smile and says, "Nothing."

What DO I do all day? People all seem to have the same response when they ask what I do for a living. Transplant Coordinator. Sounds important. Then I try and explain what I do and a small shadow passes over their face, sometimes ending with rapid eye movement and a small stream of drool from the corner of their mouths. "Well, you know, I make phone calls. I make sure people know how to live with their transplant, blah, blah." They must think to themselves, "and they PAY you to do that?"

Sometimes I ask myself what the heck I'm doing all day. I do spend a large part of the day on the computer and fielding phone calls.

Call #1:

"Hello, Kidney Transplant. How can I help you?"
"Hi, this is Beavis McButthead. I'm vacationing in Borneo and it seems I've just plum forgotten to pack my prograf. Can you overnight me a prescription? And please make sure it's written in Malay, I don't think the pharmacist here can read English. And make sure I get it before noon, we're rafting after lunch."

Call #2

"Hi, Kidney Transplant."
"Hi. Can you please fax my latest lab results to my nephrologist? And my cardiologist, endocrinologist, neurologist, personal trainor and taxidermist? Thanks."

Call #3

"Transplant."
"Hi, this is Ima Nofollowup. I haven't been to clinic in 4 years, but you did my transplant 4 years and 3 months ago. For the past 6 months I've had swelling in my legs and my blood pressure's up and I hardly ever pee anymore...is there something you can give me for that? Can you call something in? What do you mean I need to go to the emergency room. I can't sit in there all day, I have things to do." *

Lest I give the impression that my patients are all sluggards and dimwits, this only represents a SMALL FRACTION of my patients. And yet, they are the most memorable. The ones that make me scratch my head and wonder if a career in food service is for me.

So what do I do in my 40 hours a week? When I was on the procurement side of the organ biz, I wrote many and lengthy posts on my exciting job. So I figured it was time I at least mentioned what the heck I'm doing and, believe me, it's not surfing the internet and drinking coffee, like some people I won't mention who live with me seem to think. Here goes, I hope you can handle the excitement.

Monday:
Clinic 8am to 12noon. We see probably 30-40 patients, some new, some out for many years and in between. Everybody gets blood work, then sees one of the post coordinators and one of the docs. All the labs are hand transcribed into their charts. Don't ask why-now excuse me while I use my abacus to calculate this drip rate.

I start transcribing at about 10am, in between patients. At noon, I take my charts and head downstairs to my office, grab a bite to eat and listen to my phone messages, which are legion. I check the fax and mailbox to see if any outside labs have come in. Then I keep transcribing until the prograf levels come back, about 1:30pm. Then we review everybody's labs with one of the docs. Depending on the amount of patients and the doc in question, this can take as little as an hour or last until 5pm. Then I call EVERYBODY and say, "increase your prograf or decrease your magnesium or get a biopsy panel next week and drink more water." That sort of thing. Then I go home and dream about potassium levels until morning.

Tuesday:
Is catch-up day. I go through my follow-up book to see if all the folks who were supposed to have repeat labs or tests or biopsies actually did them and that they were reviewed. Not a big deal, except I have a case load of about 250 people, give or take, with maybe 100 who are active and in my radar at any one time. And remember, I'm using an abacus. Next budget, we intend to ask for some papyrus, but perhaps that's just a pipe dream.

Wednesday:
More catch-up in the am. In the afternoon, we have our big, multidisciplinary meeting where we listen to the cases of people who were recently evaluated for transplant and decide if we are going to list them. I always thought this would be fraught with tension and excitement, that we'd be debating the ethics of who should get a kidney or not, but mostly it's pretty boring. Occasionally we get someone who is in a bad way, medically speaking, and we turn them down because they probably wouldn't survive the surgery, but mostly it's just listening on and on about stress tests and cardiac clearances and such. NOT that this isn't terribly exciting for the person who wants a kidney, I'm just saying it lacks the drama of House or Three Rivers. (I expect, anyway. The only medical show I watch is Scrubs, because it's the most realistic).

Thursday:
Same as Monday, but I cover 8am rounds of the in-house patients.

Friday:
Rounds again, and sometimes more meetings. Wednesdays and Fridays are nice in that I sometimes actually take an hour lunch, away from my desk, sometimes with other people. That's nice. But Fridays are busier because we do a lot of teaching on Friday, especially with living donors and their recipients.

The initial teaching takes a few hours. I split the bulk of it with the pharmacist. We cover wound care, monitoring I&O's/vital signs/blood sugars(which the patients have to do on their own at home), activity, diet, OTC meds, transplant meds, signs and symptoms of rejection, how and when to call the office, clinic schedule and routine, infection control, ureteral stents and a little something called "lifestyle modification".

Lifestyle modification covers everything from washing your hands frequently to not having a bird (too many diseases) to what to do when your kids get a live vaccine to whatever. It depends on the individual. We had a guy who inspected garbage dumps for a living(who knew!) and needed to wear a certain type of mask when he was on site inspecting. Transplant patients have left behind chronic disease only to replace it with life long immunosuppression. Usually, that is a change for the better, but it comes with a lot of risks, including strange, nasty infections that the non-compromised have never heard of. It's a lot to cover. Of course, it's not just one day of teaching, the teaching is ongoing and we see them in clinic twice a week for several months, so we're always reinforcing things. That's a nice nursing term-reinforcement. But it's true, living with a transplant is a lot different from having a knee replacement or even a cardiac bypass and that's why, tedious though it may be at times, the patients get a coordinator.

Inevitably, it is Friday afternoons when I get the 4:30pm emergency. The nephrologist walks in and tells me I need to book a patient who's in rejection for IV solumedrol over the weekend or someone calls that they're going to the ER and I have to call round and let the team know. Then I'm off, for two glorious days we call, thanks to unions, the weekend. There, I'm officially a 9-5er, a corporate slave, a cubical dweller. It does not sound great, but in truth, I do like it. If I can think of a way to tell you without violating any HIPAA laws, I will, but that's another post.

(*All calls are fictitious and represent a composite of calls I may or may not actually receive. All patients are theoretical and not actual. Also, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. Thank you."

Happy 2010!

Well, maybe it'll be the year I make contact, anyway.

Happy Happy! Pooter is especially excited that I'm off today. "To celebrate the New Years?" she asked. Yup. I'm grateful for two 3-day weekends in a row(three, actually, I took the 18th off, also).

Off to play. May your year be full of blessings and goodness.

Hello, is there anybody out there?

I haven't blogged in a while. Did you notice?

I haven't been in seclusion, like Syd, don't worry. It's just the job.

Truthfully, I've been a tad nervous to even talk about work. I learned at my last job that things like this don't stay anonymous for long.

Then, too, are my hours. I'm working 9-5(well, 8-4:30), but sometimes that translates to 8-5 or even 8-6. Plus the on-call. It's not as bad as taking call for an OPO, as in I don't have to leave my house at an ungodly hour and drive to Nowhereville Hospital. On the other hand, when my call is over, I'm still expected to show up at work at 8am, looking freshly pressed, pretty and ready to put in my 8 hours. When I get home, I act like a mom for a few hours and then put Pooter to bed. Often, I fall asleep with her. If I manage to stay awake, I have to share our (now)solo computer with the husband. Then, on the rare occassion I have the computer all to my self, I'm more likely to mindlessly surf than come up with some snarky post. Weekends, I'm doing the mom thing and/or cleaning.

We did have a tremendous Christmas-I love spending Christmas with a 4 year old. She got a new dress and gasped "Just what I always wanted!" Where does she get THAT from? Last night she watched "The Wizard of Oz" for the first time. We had already been reading the book, so she was a little familiar with the story. "When's that ole tomato going to get here?" As in "tornado". It was too cute to correct.

Work has been blessedly slow for the past few weeks. Only the newly transplanted schedule appointments on Christmas or New Year's eves, because they have no choice. Actually, on woman missed her first 2 post transplant appointments and we had to have a little talk because THAT CRAP don't fly. It's been brutal at work. We are busy enough that if I or the other post transplant coordinator are out for even a day, we get backed up. I was sick 2 weeks ago and then took off one day to go to Pooter's Christmas party at school and I'm still catching up. Then we had 2 patients die right before Christmas. It's been stressful all around. I'd have dozens of things to post about, but I fear I'll be canned if I write about any of it, so there you go.

Suffice it to say, we are building our program. That means everyone is working their fool heads off. The Pre transplant side has been working REALLY long hours, cleaning up the waiting list, bringing in new and re-evals and generally expanding our waiting list. This means that in a year or two, we are going to be hopping. We've already seen the results in post-a lot of people who were status 7 were reevaluated and made active and then got immediately transplanted. Sept and Oct were busy, busy. These folks are just coming up on their 90 day mark and most are doing great.

Anyhoo, if I can figure out where this blog is going, I'll post more. God knows, I need to vent, but that's not possible, again I'm afraid of being "outed" at work. Ah, well.

Happy New Year.

post script

I just finished "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Ebert didn't like it, and I hold much stock in Ebert. Movies are watched or not watched, good money is spent or not spent, in my household, based on what Ebert has to say about a movie. But in this case, Ebert is wrong. Well, maybe not wrong. I don't think anything he said about the movie wasn't true. I think, probably, the movie offended him. Offended his sense of what is right and true and that's not either wrong or right. In any case, I thought it was grand. Of course, I cried like a baby for the last half hour. I'm not ashamed. That was because of me, not the movie. When Julia Ormond starts reading the post cards from the father she never knew, well, I was a mess, mostly because it reminded me of a valentine's I once received that was 36 years in the making, but that's a story for another day.

Anyway, what struck me most of all, was how common Benjamin was. The whole movie he works as a laborer (well, not at either end, but in the middle). He's just anybody. No one will remember him, he didn't do anything great and yet, the movie is a tale of greatness. It's not the story of an extraordinary man, it's the story of how all of us can have an extraordinary life, even those who seem quite common. To get even trippier, how would you know that many people don't age backward. No matter how many people we have in our lives, there are hundreds or thousands who pass through our lives for no more than a few seconds. If you were to pick out Benjamin at any one moment in time, he would appear quite ordinary, maybe even forgettable (OK, it's Brad Pitt, maybe not so forgettable). I'm not seriously proposing that people age backwards and end up as babies. My point is that the guy who parks your car, or mops the bathroom where you work may have the most amazing story. That's my point.

Another amazing movie I recently watched was Everything is Illuminated. I can't even tell you what it's about. It's about a Jewish guy who goes searching for his roots in the Ukraine. It's about the crazy absurd Ukrainian family that acts as his tour guide/translator. To say it's a Jewish movie is like saying Torch Song Trilogy is a Gay movie. Suffice it to say, Liev Schreiber does the most amazing direction his first time out. I can't believe I didn't hear of this movie earlier. Check out Gogol Bordello, too. Eugene Hutz plays the part of the narrator/tour guide in the movie and the band does some of the soundtrack, which you can check out on the new playlist over here-->

So, there you have it. Enough blogging for one month. I'm off to read reddit.

Nothing ominous here.....

Ominous. I think I spelled that right. In fact, I've just been working, taking care of the family and trying to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. Here's an example of my time shortage. I started watching "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" on Sunday night. It's Friday morning and I still haven't seen the end of it. When I do get on the innernets, I tend to find mindless stuff like this to take up my time:

"It's a Lie!"

Oh, those crazy Republicans! When they're not creating hideous monsters, they're busy disrupting our President with their rude shenanigans. BTW, hope you didn't go to school this week, if you did, you might have heard our President tell you to buckle down, work hard and stay in school. If Nancy Reagan had said it, a thousand comedians would make jokes about it. If our first black President says it, well, you might as well move to Cuba cuz we're all Communists now.

So, that's part of the reason I'm not blogging. Too much of what I want to write about is political and I don't think this is the place for it. I don't want folks to think that you have to be liberal to donate you organs or some such. I didn't think people were that stupid, but then I started watching these town hall meetings and my respect for my fellow Americans dropped into the cellar. I mean, I understand if people are acting like that in Bumble Hills, Arkansas (no offense), but in New Jersey! I can't believe that the people I live with, work with and curse at in traffic would heckle a woman in a wheel chair.

That being said, I LOVE Medicare. I LERV it, even. I had no idea, working on the floor or in the ER, how mindlessly irritating, utterly idiotic and possibly dangerous insurance companies can be. That was before I spent half my life getting prior auth's on meds that MY PATIENTS CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT. Not tomorrow, not next month, not EVAH. And yet, once a year I must continue to justify their use to a beaurocrat. Medicaid, on the other hand, can kiss my ass. I was on medicaid, for a few years when I was young and poor. Medicaid doesn't get you anything except a doctor's scorn. And don't think that the new Medicaid HMO's are any better. You still can't find a doctor that takes it and then they wonder why you show up in the ER at 2am with an earache. Recently, NJ wanted to make medicaid recipients pay copays. Because when you make $11,000 a year, what's $5? Nothing, except maybe a Happy Meal for your kid. But I digress.

So, I've been thinking of starting another blog, but I just haven't had the time. Work is sucking me dry and not in a good way, for those of you with dirty minds. It's not the work, per say, but the office politics. The old boss had run the program into the ground and then lo-and-behold CMS came and everybody had to sit up straight and look smart. Finally, management could no longer deny that everything wasn't happy scrappy. Then came regime change. Tears were shed, heads rolled and now we have a new boss. Who I actually like. Lord knows, she's making changes and I have yet to see a work place respond well to new changes, no matter how much they're needed. I've also been laying low because this blog would NOT be tolerated if it was found out and as I found out at the OPO, it's easily found out. So, I've just been keeping my head down and doing my job and trying to fly under the radar. Then I come home, play with Pooter, eat dinner, yell at the teenager, walk the dog (when I remember, honey) and fall asleep by 9. Until the occassional night when, after a 5 hour nap, I awake at 2am and surf the internet for a while.

So, imaginary internet friends, there you have it. My life or something like it. And now, I'm going to finish "Benjamin Button."


But first, I share with you this:

Tonight I put a ninja to bed

I'm Mulan! Aiyah!

No, it's not a euphamism. Lil Poot has been giving us a hell of a time going to bed lately. She's learned to play us like a xylophone, but I'm on to her tricks. And so we have the 5 stages of bedtime:

Denial: No, it's not bedtime. It's still morning time. (that means it's daylight out)
Bargaining: One more minute.
Anger: No! I don't WANT to brush my teeth!
Depression, actually Despair: "Waaaaahhhhh!!!!!" (Imagine crying with a doppler effect as I walk with said kid under arm down the hall)
Exhaustion: But I'm not sleepzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

So, back to Ninja Kid. The Poot has the most amazing imagination I've ever encountered. It's not just active, it's actually elastic and pliable and can stretch around corners and into crevices.

True story:On Mother's Day the Sunday school people had the kids make little plastic stained-glass thingies for the kids to paint. I come to pick Poot up and she's crying her eyes out and I can't really get at what's bothering her. I think she's telling me that she didn't get to make one and now they don't have any left and she's upset. Except that, while I'm sitting in the hallway of church trying to console her, another mom, who's in the hallway also with a crying kid, says, "I know she made one." And then, "Hey, what's her name?"

Little side note: We just discovered Monsters, Inc. Of course, we have to act out EVERY part. "You be Sully and I'll be Boo." "You be Mike and I'll be Sully." "You be Smoochy Poo and I'll be Mike." Ad infinitum. Except that she got bored being the good guys and started pretending to be Randall, the scary monster and so we became accustomed to her flinging herself at us and growling and we'd have to act scared and she'd be screaming, "I'm RAndall! I'm RAndall!"

See where this is going?

When I dropped her off in Sunday school, she told everyone her name was RAndall. And the person who took her craft and wrote her name on it, wrote Randall. Mystery solved, I found my Mommy gift and the waterworks were shut down.

So tonight, on the 3 attempt to get her into bed, she wangled into her red Ninja costume and brandished her sword at me. Fortunately I pulled some fast Tommy Wu moves, disarmed her and carried her off to bed. Sad to see a ninja cry, really. Finally, I put her into her little bed that we've been transitioning to. Got the pillow just so, put a pad under her(still toilet training), pulled the covers up and kissed her. I climbed into my bed. A few minutes later, from the dark, I hear, "But Mama, I miiiiiisssss youuuuuu." How can you even be mad at such cuteness. She's a scamp and a rascal and I love her to pieces.

Quote of the day is from an old post on Revive Hope, from a young man named Nate who became an organ donor:

"A little girl hugged me today. I think maybe I’m on the right path. I’m not sure if I like where the path might lead, but it is a really nice path. Is it possible that we, as a culture, focus too much on the light at the end of the tunnel, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Isn’t it enough to realize you’re standing on a goddamn rainbow."

Zen and the Art of Teenager Maintenance

(with apologies to Robert M. Pirsig)

 

Teen daughter calls me not too long ago.

"I got a new piercing!" She says.

"Where?" I ask, more than a little afraid of the answer.

"I got an 'Industrial.'" She says, skirting the answer.

I sigh. "WHAT part of your body is that in?"

"My ear." I sigh again, this time with relief. "Your ear is fine. Be home before midnight."

Seventeen years ago I thought that parenting just entailed a good manual and a lot of love. My older sister gave me her copy of "Your Baby and Child: from birth to age 5" by Penelope Leach. I figured I was set. And believe me, Penelope didn't steer me wrong. It's just that over the years circumstances came up that weren't easily solved by a book. What to do when your choice is between working nights or working a day job but taking a $15,000 a year pay cut? And how do you find a baby sitter when you're working the overnight shift, anyway? How do you date with a small child? And most important: how to explain to small child why the guy she calls "Daddy" isn't really available when she needs him most.

I'm sure someone, somewhere has covered these problems in a book, but that's not really the point. The point is that no matter how prepared you think you are, mistakes are going to be made, stuff's going to happen. I look back on my 20's and wonder how someone (me) could be so clueless and still be entrusted with the care of a child. I compare with how I'm raising a child in my 40's. I have more patience, less energy. I can stick to a routine better. I certainly have more money, although outside of dire poverty or extravagant wealth, children don't really notice, I think.

I had a coworker once tell me that she wasn't going to breastfeed her second child because she couldn't breastfeed the first and she didn't want to give one an advantage the other didn't get. As bizarre as I found her reasoning, I can empathize. I worry that teen daughter will be scarred for life if the toddler has something she didn't have: listening to classical music, trips to the Met, an appreciation of sushi at an early age. I don't know what all, just that Mommy Guilt is alive and well and a terrible thing. Coupled with it is the strong suspicion that anything bad she does is the result of the time I came to pick her up from daycare late. She was the last kid there and every emergency contact had already been called and my daughter cried when anyone was late picking her up ever again.

This past year, said daughter(now the teen with the piercings) worked on an independent project for school. On her own she found a mentor, kept a journal, worked for a year on her chosen subject and then presented her project to a group of invited friends and relatives. She even made her own programs for the presentation. Her subject-Fiber Arts-spinning, weaving, knitting and felting. Her mentor owns a Saori weaving business on the Upper East Side. Saori embodies the principles of Zen, there are no teachers, only practitioners. Every Saturday, she ventured forth to the Isle of Manhattan and learned how to set up and work a loom. In exchange for free lessons, she helped around the shop, including helping the students who came in for lessons. One Saturday, I came in to film her on the loom for her presentation. Yukako, her mentor told me how helpful she was, how good she was at spinning and weaving. Jen even had a piece she made exhibited at an art show. It was amazing to hear someone else describe my daughter to me. I know she's helpful and kind and talented, but too often that gets lost in the worry that my teenager is too obnoxious, too moody, too unmotivated. I worry that her inability to keep her room clean with translate into a later inability to find and keep gainful employment. Her mentor told me that Jen had helped teach a class of disabled children and was very good at it. Several worries popped all at once, like the soap bubbles we used to blow when she was little.

Later on, I let her direct me on the subway. "No, Mom, we go THIS way." She made her way through Manhattan like a native. I let her guide me, proud that she was coming into her own and I was just "Mom". Earlier in the day my taxi driver had asked why I was in the city and I said, "I'm visiting my daughter." The words seemed grand coming out of my mouth, but very right. The feeling won't last forever, but for right now I'm sure she'll make her way in the world just fine.

That night I left her in the city to shop for a prom dress. A few hours later I get a text from her. With a picture. "Is that ANOTHER PIERCING!" I yell to my husband. "IN HER MOUTH!" Sigh.

Some Stuff

Work has been a drag, for the most part. I feel like I spend 8 hours day making phone calls. Or worse, getting phone calls. "I'm peeing a lot, is that ok?" "Can you fax my test results to my cardiologist, my nephrologist, my endocrinologist, my primary MD and my garbage man?"

I'm still not completely caught up from February. Seriously. My partner and I could really use our own personal assistant, not the least of which is I would have someone to fetch me coffee. Well, I can dream, can't I?

In other news, the first US face transplant has spoken out. I used to think that I would draw the line at donating my face. I mean: come on. It's. My. Face. But at AOPO a couple years back I attended a session on face transplant and saw pics of people who needed a face transplant. One woman hadn't seen her grandchildren, EVER, because her visage would scare them too much. That's about as sad an existence as I can imagine. So, all right. You can take my face, too. If you want to see how beautiful I am, you're just going to have to see my mug in person while I'm still alive. Speaking of beauty, Connie Culp has shown all of us her true beauty and courage by speaking out.

My hubbie sent me an email a few weeks ago, saying, "What's this all about?" Apparently, someone's gone ahead and invented a outside-the-body lung pump. In my neck of the woods, we pump kidneys, which seems pretty straight-forward: you attach the vessels to plastic tubing and keep the thing flushed with an iced solution. But some clever chap has invented a machine to not only circulate but ventilate the lungs for a period of time outside the donor body prior to transplant. According to the article, in addition to testing how the lungs function, doctors can actually repair problems in the donor lungs before putting them in the recipient. Watch the video, it's totally cool.

I had a blue funk in work after lunch today. And no, it wasn't the Cinco de Mayo tacos. I was reading "Family Fun" magazine while I ate and all the sudden I thought, "I should be home doing arts and crafts with the Pooter, not working 9-5." Short of hitting the Mega Millions, I don't think it's going to happen, although I did peruse the nursing help wanteds and entertained the notion of going back to work for 3 12's a week. My horoscope said that my whole life is going to change by July, so we'll see. Naturally, I take the pessimistic view and think that means I'll be in a body cast or something, but I'm still playing the lottery, just in case.

It is so nice to be off. I used to hate working a 9-5 job, but I'm enjoying it pretty well right now. Another sign that I'm getting old. It stinks not to have off during the week, but it makes sleeping late on Saturday so much sweeter. Actually, I don't usually sleep late ANY day, but last night we were at church til late, so the Poot slept til 9:30. Huzzah.

Godspell went GREAT!! I didn't suck, or forget my lines or anything and I got a couple big laughs. I'd rather make people laugh than impress them with my singing anyway, although I think I can carry a tune. My new motto is: "There's a lotta notes, I'm bound to hit some of them."

Work is coming around, now that I have my new, awesome partner. She's so sweet that she actually makes me be nicer. Cause you know, I can be downright cranky sometimes. I'm almost caught up on my phone calls and BK virus results. What? You've never heard of the BK virus-don't worry, neither has anyone else. I'm going to write a post about it soon, but I want to try my hand at a funny graphic to go with it.

Anyhoo, Happy Easter, Merry Passover and have a Spectacular Spring! We have Spring Things planned for the next, several weekends and I can't wait for it not by cold and damp anymore.