Dear Pann,

Just over a month ago, our 10th anniversary came and went, without either of us taking much notice. Oh sure, we knew it was happening, and we wished each other a happy one, and we received well-wishings from families and friends. But on the actual day of our anniversary, I was traveling home from a business trip, you were recovering from two weeks of running summer camp (with a visit from your nieces in the middle), we were getting ready for the onslaught of OT, summer freelance work, Cammie’s trip, and the kids being home all the time, not to mention Carla’s birthday, and we just didn’t have time to celebrate properly.

I’m hoping we can make up for that during our upcoming vacation. I’m doing my damnedest to tie up loose ends before I go away, so we can really enjoy the vacation when it arrives. I’m hoping we can take some time for ourselves during that trip to celebrate:

• 15 years since we met
• 14 years since our first date
• 13 years of living together
• 10 years of marriage
• 8 years of parenthood
• 2 wonderful children

…along with all the other, more mundane aspects of our lives– too many meals, school drop-offs, loads of laundry, doctor visits, and so forth to count.

After all this time, it’s important to say that I love you more than ever. And I think you and I have gotten better and better at having a life together, and understanding where we each are coming from. Our communication has improved. We’ve gotten better at asking each other for what we want. Not to say that we are perfect– we both have our flaws, and they come out most acutely when we are trying to communicate about our feelings. But we’ve gotten better over the years at figuring out how to do this, and I can only see us continuing to get better.

It’s been exceedingly difficult watching you go through the pain of depression. I wish there was some way I could reach into you and take away your pain. My heart bleeds every time I see you struggling with self-doubt, self-blame, and self-hate. I’m confident in you, I forgive you, and I love you– I wish you could do the same.

Our lives are going to continue to change, and it’s clear that figuring out how to make everything work is going to be an ongoing challenge. But after 10 years of marriage, I know I want to keep facing those challenges with you.

Happy anniversary.

All my love,
Drob

It has been said that bloggers are the new voices of opinion. I use the fabulously passive voice here (it has been said) so as to avoid having to justify my own claims. Information flows fast and furious, and we all get to say whatever we want.

Our thoughts are neatly inscribed on the eyeballs of a few friends or maybe a dozens of casually interested strangers. What fun to think that some power can be had just by typing up my opinions!

But want to know what’s even MORE fun? Participating in a telephone poll! I was (randomly?) chosen to be part of a poll of some kind and just got off the phone. It was clearly designed to be answered by someone who’s not yet really quite decided for whom they’ll vote.  Part of the survey was to ask me to react to statements about John McCain and see if they would “put doubt in my mind” about McCain.

Hah! Funny! I have no doubt about McCain at all. Why, I would absolutely NEVER vote for the guy, so there’s no doubt here at all!

Here are some of the points raised by the pollster:

- McCain is too old to be president (I didn’t agree, because I don’t care that he’s 72 and a skin cancer survivor, I just don’t think he should be in office due to his political beliefs.)

- McCain has a nasty temper and is easily ticked off (Oh really? All the more reason to keep this guy the hell away from the trigger!)

-McCain admits he doesn’t know anything about the economy or domestic issues, but is really only focused on foreign affairs (well, shoot! That pretty much disqualifies you from being the president, dude. Sorry!)

-McCain is even more of a war hawk than Bush. He wants to keep a permanent occupation of Iraq, and will likely want to bomb, bomb, bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran! (Um, no thanks. I don’t really like the continual killing, I’d prefer less killing with my presidency, thanks.)

So, asks the pollster, do these statements put any doubt in your mind about McCain?

“No,” I answered, “none at all. I have no doubt that he’s a total bastard and should be kept as far away from the Oval Office as possible.”

I think I seriously entertained the interviewer — she thanked me and said it was very enjoyable talking to me today.

I expect that as time goes by, more Americans will also agree with my lack of doubt about McCain.

I just found out that my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) has scheduled their first pick up date on May 5. This is so exciting! I have NO IDEA what they’ll be offering, but I figure it’ll be some of the early spring lettuces, perhaps spinach, as well. These are things that grow well early on. I

If you have no idea what a CSA is, here’s a description of the program that I’ve joined this year.  In a nutshell, it’s a pay-in-advance program that gives the farmers much-needed funds early on when they are planting, and in return for this, you get a monthly or semi-monthly allotment of fresh veggies (and fruits).  My CSA also offers fresh dairy and eggs to order.

Because we want to support local agriculture, and because we like to eat fresh, healthy, organic food, joining a CSA seemed like a good match for us.  I don’t yet know how this will affect my weekly cycle of food shopping, nor how it will affect our family’s menu.

I do know that in spite of my life under a rock (cozy down here!) I have heard tell of a number of food shortages across the globe.  A quick search on good using the terms “food shortage” will open your eyes quickly to the fact that shortages have been on the radar and the seem to be likely to continue. One story I heard concerned a plague of rats that attacked mass quantities of grain in India — other stories involve the US growing corn for ethanol instead of growing food. Climate change related weather problems have caused a shortage: and prices are soaring. Food pantries are at a thirty-year low.

And waiting for me at a designated pickup on May 5th will be my family’s first box of fresh produce that we’ve already paid for. I wasn’t expecting our CSA participation to have any effect on my personally, other than a good feeling to be helping local farmers– and a nice assortment of fresh produce on our table. In addition, though, I feel like we’ve managed to do something smart to help our own family through what could be a summer of highly expensive fruits and veggies.

In the height of summer harvest, I am planning (for the first time in my life) to start canning things. I have never done it before, but now seems like a good time to do it.  I have friends who’ve done this before who have said they’ll be delighted to help me do it.  With a food shortage on the horizon, it seems really smart to get local food, and save it. Doing it now when we want to, will be a big help for someday — when we may have to.

Annie believes that Bur “Rocko” Bama is going to win.

That’s probably because everyone around her is supporting Obama.  She doesn’t at all understand the idea of a primary as compared to the general election, but she thinks Obama has nice ears.

And really, that’s pretty good for a gal of not quite five years.

Tomorrow, PA voters like myself FINALLY get to make a difference during the primary. Our late primary actually matters… a lot.

The three adult registered PA voters in my house will be headed to the polls tomorrow. I think I can speak with some confidence on behalf of our household’s plans to vote.

We’ll be Ba-Rockin’ the Vote.  This is not to say that we don’t have our usual cool skeptical hats and our saavy political eyes slightly narrowed watching closely for the substance behind the incredible oratory.  But far and wide, our feelings are swayed by the honesty, the intelligence we’ve seen.

D saw (mostly heard, really) Obama at the rally on Friday evening– and he called me from his cell phone and I listened as Obama’s voice was carried to my ears from the live air there in Center City. I felt a frisson of excitement. The hair on the back of my neck was charged with a certain level of involvement and energy that I thought I’d NEVER again feel after 2000 and 2004, when Canada was looking so very good to me.

This is history, for sure. Let’s just hope the Dems don’t Foul it up.

It’s good weather for kite flying. At work last week, I made some kites with my after school kids. Unfortunately, it started to rain — and rained HARD — so we didn’t get to fly them. Today, though, my girls and I made a couple kites and took them out to test them in the cool spring wind.

Success!

As time goes by, I am feeling more and more confident that I will be hired for next year’s after school teaching position. I have received many, many kind words of appreciation and encouragement, and I have a good feeling that this will work out well.

I do miss having my afternoons and early evenings home to hang out with my kids, plan my dinners, and generally take it easy. But the trade off is acceptable: the truth is that we are finding the extra income very welcome. Next year we will have both girls at this independent school, and whenever I think about the tuition, my fillings ache. If I have this job, we have the cash to make this a lot easier on us.

Not to mention the fact that I feel personally fulfilled by this job. I am having a positive impact on the lives of a larger group of children than just my own two. I am able to do creative and interesting projects and share them with young people. I enjoy the kindness and enthusiasm of the staff and parents. It is all warm fuzzy.

Plus, I have the summer coming up! The Summer! It will come and I will have my afternoons and evenings back!

Today I’m feeling grateful and happy. It could be the sunlight and kite flying; these are things to remember on darker, rainier days when the tears lurk just beyond my eyelids.

I feel as though I haven’t posted in ages. It has been a wonderful week, and I just keep thinking about all the different things I’d like to write about. A little glimpse into my life, courtesy of these conversations between my conscience angel and my real self devil’s advocate:

Angel:  Well, good thing it’s a snow day! I can now get right to tidying up the living room and dining room, putting away the laundry and cleaning the cat boxes!

Devil: Sure, but there’s plenty of time to do all that boring stuff! Play with the kids in the snow! Blog about it! Take a nap! Drink hot cocoa! Read the rest of Midwives.

Angel: Um, sure, playing with the kids is good. They do need a mom who attends to them, rather than hyperfocusing on a clean house.

Devil (snortling with laughter): Yeah, this looks like a house that’s run by someone hyperfocused on cleanliness. NOT!

Angel: Oh shut it. We’re going out to play. I will do all this housework later. Plus I’ll plan next week’s after school program, update the website to reflect these plans, plan meals and shopping, and more. But first we do need to play. Before the stuff melts, ya know.

* * * Later on * * *

Angel: Well, that sure was fun. The girls can have their lunches now, and we all sure enjoyed the hot cocoa. Time to get to the living room mess. These wet clothes need to be dealt with, after all.

Devil: Sure, but don’t you think it would be good to blog a little about this?

Angel. Um… I should really not get sucked into the computer vortex. There is too much to do.

Devil: Yeah, but life is too rich to not examine it closely. Or so I’ve heard.

Angel: Riiiiiight…. just one little blog post then.

… if you’re home with a four-year-old who isn’t feeling all that great, and she asks for Snickerdoodles, you just have to make them.

That’s the rule.

EDIT: Reader Lisa asked for enlightenment concerning Snickerdoodles. A wonderful kind of cookie. Below is a recipe for Oatmeal Snickerdoodles, but regular ones without the oats are pretty divine too.  The “all new” Joy of Cooking has a very decent recipe as well. The cookies are buttery and sweet, with a cinnamon sugar coating. They are tender when fresh out of the oven; they are crisp later on, and can be too crisp if you get distracted while they are baking, perhaps playing Scrabulous on Facebook, for example. Ahem.

Oh, you poor deprived person. Here’s the recipe.

It is hard to wait for the results of anything important, isn’t it? Elections, primaries, pregnancy tests, adoption referrals, job interviews…. ( my recent visitor from Option Adoption will agree, as will the expectant mom over at The Creamery–  two interesting blogs I’ve just started following.) I don’t even know when the staff will decide on who the next American Idol After School Teacher will be.
So let’s just talk about my recent visit to Manatee Park, shall we?

I was so lucky to have these two to assist me at all times. 

My girls and I saw so many manatees, and so close up. We rented a double kayak, and with Carla in the seat behind me, and Annie sitting in front of me, I paddled us around the Orange River somehow managing to steer the kayak, not capsize, and also take a bunch of pictures.

The red and black mangroves are a fascinating part of the ecosystem. 

Though manatees are very hard to photograph, I managed to capture a few bits and pieces. It was a beautiful experience.

Above: Can you spot the manatee’s nose poking up just to the side of the kayak?

And here’s the tail, just under our kayak. Curious little thing! 

I captured this tail flapping up out of the water using the zoom lens. 

While we were at the park, I was able to sit and listen to a park employee discuss facts about manatees, their habits and their ecosystem.  Manatees, also called sea cows, eat lots of different kinds of underwater grasses.  Like cows on the land, they have a specialized digestive system that is designed to break down the grasses.  Their digestive system works by employing a particular bacteria that can only break down the grasses at 68 degrees farenheit or warmer; if the manatee is in water that is colder than that, it will starve, even if its rumen is full of grass. These creatures have truly specific habitat requirements.

Annie, kickin’ back and enjoying the ride. 

I have been thinking a lot about cows and a farm’s ecosystem, because I’m still working my way through Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. 

There are quite a few words devoted to describing a way of farming that is sometimes known as “grass farming.”  Polyface Farm is described in detail as an example of this.  The grass takes in energy from the sun, and that is what fuels this kind of farm — grass which is then the food for the cows.  Chickens are the cleanup crew for the cows, as they wander the cow patty-studded grass eating up bugs that would otherwise be harmful.  The chickens leave just enough poop on the grasses to help fertilize the grass. The cows, who graze the grass in a careful pattern that does not chew it down so far that the grass dies, actually HELP the grass be healthy rather than harm it.

Photo credit: my very own seven year old. Thanks, C! 

There’s much more to the this farm’s careful use of the land, and there are many more animals that contribute to the farm’s fertility.  What kept coming back to my mind as I considered the graceful sea cows was how the grass farmers are trying to mimic nature and its cycles.  I thought about this as I listened to the naturalist speak of the sea cows and how they have no natural predators, and how man was the their only threat to survival. Nature doesn’t just place an animal into a system without making it pay its way.

Cute little lizards are all over the place in Florida. 

I was certain that the sea cows must be serving some purpose there in the waters.  They are mowing the sea grass, keeping it healthy. But if humans continue to limit their habitat, I imagine that the manatees are in danger of over-grazing the grasses that they need to survive on.  In fact, much of the rivers where the manatee would graze no longer have healthy grasses for the manatee to enjoy, even as watercraft make those waters perilous for these gentle and slow mammals of the sea.

Humans have also messed up farmlands, using energy from fossil fuels to buy fertility and then use it up at a rate much faster than can be replenished.  Even natural grasslands get overgrazed and turned into deadlands.

Who are our natural predators? I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that we share something in common with the manatee: our biggest enemy is mankind, ourselves as we seem to be making our own habitat increasingly unsustainable. This makes me unbelievably sad.

According to the statistics that Google Analytics offers me, I have had some international visitors, which is very exciting. The majority of visitors here are in the USA, with a few others tuning in from Canada. It’s wonderful to have visitors at all, but I especially would like to reach out today to anybody who either lives away from mainstream USA (either in their minds or otherwise) or else lives in a different part of the planet than USA.

I want to talk about BODY HAIR. Specifically, women’s body hair. I personally do not value shaving my legs or armpits. I don’t see the point in it. Why shave my legs at all? If I did, why not also my arms, indeed everywhere? Is there something inherently offensive about the fact that hair grows on the legs and underarms? Is it offensive on the arms too? Not to mention, the “bikini zone” and eyebrows and well, you get the idea.

Now, please, don’t get upset, all you happy shavers out there. If you shave just because you like how it looks and feels, that is fine with me. I am not saying you should stop. I just don’t get it myself. Why is hairlessness “normal”? I think the normal should be what happens without any particular effort.

Then again, I don’t much wear makeup either. Or do much to my hair other than brush and put it up as needed to keep it out of my face.

I guess you could call me a non-conformist. But I also get insecure about my body hair from time to time, and then if it gets to much to bear (bare?) I do in fact shave.  Then I almost always regret it, and feel annoyed at all the growing-back itchiness and bristle.

Some people I know only shave in the summer. That make some sense: some must figure that hairless legs look nice but why bother if it’s winter and you’re in pants all the time anyway.

And the issue of shaving isn’t just limited to women’s needs.  You’re sure to find plenty of marketing that tells manfolk how they can improve themselves — even make their manly parts look larger — by shaving. Some of the marketing materials on this site, for example, had Drob and I in stitches.

All this is to say, here I go to Florida, day after tomorrow. I won’t be in my winter clothes for a week.  I made it through the whole past summer in all my hairy glory.  Why should I shave now?  I have no one to impress. Drob doesn’t mind my hair one bit, in fact, it’s the scratchy part of growing it out that annoys him. My leg hair is long, sure, but it’s soft. It doesn’t bother me or him. If I shave it would bother both of us.  Plus I don’t want to model shaving to my kids. I don’t want them to think about this issue at all for at least another 5 years, when C hits puberty and has peers who are talking about it.

So… why do you shave? Do you ever wish you didn’t “have to”? Have you ever considered going against the cultural norm?  Or do you live somewhere where the cultural norm doesn’t tell you that having hairy legs is bad? If you live somewhere like that, how’s the food? Should I move there?

Oh, and my eyes are still miserable. I will be visiting the doctor tomorrow if I don’t see improvement in the morning. Bleah.

Howdy folks, Drob here. Remember me? Will you all excuse a non-seasonal post from the quieter half of this blog?

Two things have happened this week which have caused me to spend a lot of this pre-holiday weekend thinking about my job. First, I just got a big end-of-year bonus. Second, I just saw a listing for a job I think I might like. And I’m full of doubt about whether I should apply for this job.

I’ve been working for my current company for 7 years. I’m a programmer and computer systems guy, and then got promoted to manage my group, which now consists of me and six others. So, I write code, set up computer systems, and manage other people who do the same thing.

I really like my job. I like programming, but I’ve gotten to the point in my career where there are certain computer tasks that I’ve just done enough times that they hold no interest for me anymore; being able to now delegate those tasks and focus on the ones that ARE new and interesting to me really helps me maintain excitement about my job. I think I’m a pretty good boss. I’m pretty good at communicating technical concepts to non-technical people, and business concepts to technical people, which I think is a real asset in my position.

I also like my company. The company is big enough that there’s a fair amount of novelty in the situations we find ourselves in– there’s always something going on, a new challenge to deal with. But it’s small enough that I know nearly everyone who works for my company– certainly I know everyone who works at corporate headquarters by name, and I know many of the people at other locations also. I like my boss, and most of the other partners in the company. And did I mention they just gave me a bonus?

But even though I like my job, after seven years, I’m starting to think about whether this place is all I want out of my career. A few thoughts about this:

• This is the only “real job” I’ve ever had; I worked various temporary and part-time jobs in high school and college; after graduation I ran a business for a while, then took this job.
• I’m well paid in my current job, and I get decent raises on a fairly regular basis. However, I suspect that I could be making substantially more money if I went and did the same thing in a different kind of company.
• I hate commuting. Honestly, this is only barely a negative on my current job– although I don’t like my current commute, there are many other jobs where the commute would be much worse. And, although I don’t like the travel time, my job is in a vibrant city neighborhood. I would be less happy with a shorter commute that terminated in some anonymous suburban office park.
• The prime jobs in my industry are not in Philadelphia, they’re in other cities. But, we are staying put in Philly for the foreseeable future– we love the neighborhood we live in, and the school our kids go to, and being close to our families.

So all of those factors are in the mix in my thinking about my job. But in addition to those factors, there’s an elephant in the room. Actually, there are two elephants, a small one, and a large one.

Here’s the small elephant: My company’s business is selling DVDs. We sell them wholesale, we sell them on the internet, we sell them in stores. Boy howdy, do we sell DVDs.

I’m passionate about computers, and the internet, and the power of these technologies to make people’s lives better. But I’m not passionate about the retail industry, or about selling DVDs. I’m not even passionate about film. So I’m just selling widgets. And I feel like my life would be more fulfilling if my job ultimately served some goal I felt passionate about.

I do feel passionate about feeding my family, and sending my kids to a great community-based independent school, and my job does serve those goals. But still.

Okay, I’ve been edging around it long enough, here’s the larger elephant: what’s on a lot of those DVDs we sell is porn. Not all of them; maybe half, give or take. In some ways, this is the same issue as the smaller elephant. In addition to lacking passion and excitement about porn, I’m somewhat embarrassed and ashamed of this aspect of my job. I can’t talk about many of the products we sell in polite company. Every time I tell someone where I work, I wonder whether they think of the company as a porn source, and whether they judge me for it. And if I ever do decide to move on, will this aspect of my work make it harder for me to get other jobs?

Beyond that, as a parent, I’m uncomfortable with the fact that my job is not kid-safe. I have great memories of going to work with both of my parents between the ages of 7 and 16. Those experiences were great for me as a kid, and helped me form a comfort level with what different kinds of workplaces were like and what kind of work I might like to do when I grow up. It disappoints me that I won’t be able to do that with my kids. C is 7 now, about the age when I started to be interested in my parents’ jobs. This seems like a small concern in the scheme of things, but it bugs me.

So all of these things have been rolling around in my head. I’m not itching for a change, and it would be really easy to live with the status quo. I’m not sure the perfect job for me exists– I think that most jobs which would be more fulfilling would be unacceptable in other ways. It’s hard to know what I should settle for.

But anyway, there’s this one job. I don’t actually know too much about the job, but it looks interesting. I don’t know how much it pays. I don’t know the company, but at least it looks like they are doing work that definitely intersects with some things I really do feel passionate about. The commute would be about the same as my current commute. I suspect that my qualifications are not quite ideal for this job and my salary requirement would be too high, but I don’t know that for sure… I should really send in my resume and see if I can get an interview. I’d need to update my resume, and write a decent cover letter– but doing that would take about the same amount of time that I’ve just spent writing this blog post. So why am I so reluctant to do it?