OK, thanks Artemesia, you’ve tagged me, thus allowing me to put off cleaning the catboxes just a little longer today.

The Rules:

# Link to the person who tagged you
# Post the rules on your blog.
# Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
# Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs. (um, okay, but please know, oh randomly tagged people, that I truly don’t expect you to comply unless you are into it…)
# Leave a comment on their blogs so that they know they have been tagged. (being a total rule breaker, I am not even going to bother doing this… slacker!!!)

ONWARD!

1. I pretty much only wear Doc Martens (shoes). I have two pairs that I mainly alternate, and love them dearly. I have another pair, that I can’t seem to find, so I don’t wear them as much. Before these three pairs dominated my footwear scene, I had just one pair of black Doc Martens, that I had bought in England in 1994 and wore extensively for about ten years before I had to buy replacements.  Oh and in the summer, bare feet round the house, and crocs elsewhere. Oh, and for pants I wear Levi Jeans.

2. I always wanted to have two daughters, and never hoped — not once– for a son. I have two daughters and that suits me perfectly. Sometimes I crave little baby feet, but then that feeling ebbs away. I think I may really be done!

3.  Almost all of my furniture is hand-me-downs. Exceptions: our queen sized bed, and Carla’s loft bed from IKEA.

4. I stopped eating commercially processed pork because of what I read in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I had already pretty much stopped eating conventionally processed beef (not being that fond of it anyway.) But pork? Oh GOD, I fucking love pork. Bacon! Ham! Pork Chops! Salami! Prosciutto! But what I read in that book saddened and disgusted me so deeply, that I won’t buy pork products unless I KNOW that they come from small farms that treat their pigs in a humane way, and slaughter them as humanely as possible. Being killed for meat in and of itself is not upsetting to me.  But horrid and painful living conditions for animals who are headed to eventual slaughter is unacceptable to me.

5. I like to paint my toenails blue in the summer. I had blue toenails to stare at when I gave birth to my first child. My husband had painted them for me, because I couldn’t reach my toes so well at that point.

6. I worry every day that I might lose my new job (as after school director) next year. I want to keep it so badly. It really hurts my feelings that when I was hired, I was told that a search for a new A/S director would be conducted for next year anyway. So I worry and try to do a really good job, and blabbermouth at everyone at school how much I love the job, the kids, the school, the program and I wear my heart on my sleeve about how dearly I want to keep this job.

7.  I have a lot of gray hair. It started turning gray at the ripe old age of 23. When I first noticed it, I cut my hair short, as I didn’t like sitting there in grad school staring at my long gray strands and wondering if grad school was the cause of the gray, or if it was perhaps my full time job as a head teacher of a group of 18 - 24 month old kids. Or perhaps the insanity of working full time and being in grad school full time simultaneously. These thoughts were more unwelcome than the hair itself. Today, though, I am at peace with my hair. I have never once dyed it in my entire life and I often give it any trims that I think it needs with my own pair of scissors.

Randomly tagged souls… hmmmm…. how does one randomly tag someone? Am I supposed to put the names of blogs into a hat and see who comes up? I’ll just list seven bloggers whose blogs I visit somewhat regularly, in no particular order. Swistle, Stacie, Cammy, Heather, MamaGeek, TBH, Neil Gaiman. (Ok, I seriously doubt that Neil Gaiman will take on this meme, but you never know. Neil, if you read this, holy cow, man you just made my day. I think you are just brilliant.)

Tonight I spent several hours using the internet to figure out the current name, address, and phone number of my half sister, whom I have never met. She is the daughter of my father and his first wife.  That marriage ended in divorce within a couple of years; my father re-married as did his ex-wife.

The reason that I never grew up knowing this half sister is that my father signed away his parental rights, including visitation, because he was unable to make child support payments, some time before I was even born. His regret at doing this has eaten away at him for a long, long time.

My half sister, whom I’ll call “Jennifer,” was born in 1964.  My dad gave me her date of birth, and, using her date of birth and first name, along with a guess as to which state she resides in, I was able to find out her married name, her maiden name (which is not the name she was born with), where she works, what educational degrees she holds, and the fact that she has a daughter, “Alexis”.

I am astounded at the sudden windfall of information. I’d wondered my whole life about this mystery Jennifer. What she was like (is she like me??), how does she look, would she like to have a little sister?

Tomorrow, I think I will give her a call. What will I say? She might hate my dad, for having agreed to not contact her all these years. He was required to stay away until she reached eighteen years, but what about when she was 19… surely he could have gotten in touch at that time?

Well, I cannot make excuses or explanations for Dad. He has lived and decided and made choices of his own; his regrets or mistakes are solely his own emotional property. He seems very excited and pleased that I may be able to contact Jennifer tomorrow, or someday soon.  I imagine he would like to know more about her, although this evening I gave him a lot more information than he’d previously possessed.  I am sure he went to bed with a full mind.

I wonder if I should think more about how to approach this phone call; what I should say to her, and how to put it.

“Hi, last night I  spent 3 hours stalking you online using your date of birth and found you by being weirdly obsessive and reading your grandmother’s obituary which mentions your maiden name, and married name, and has your mother’s name, and using each bit of information I systematically tracked you down like some kind of psychopath.”  No, that does not seem like the right approach.

But I am sure she would eventually be curious to know how I found her; I don’t want her to think me a stalker.

“Hello, my name is Pann and I’m your half sister. I was wondering if you are at all interested in talking to me.”

I need to think this through. This is pretty surreal.

1. Stop talking.

2. Notice those noises coming from the other person in the room.

3. Notice that those sounds form words.

4. Still stop talking.

5. Those noises continue. NOW YOU SHUT UP AND LISTEN GODDAMMIT.

It is very frustrating to try to get a thought across to my father.

PURELY HYPOTHETICAL DIALOGUE…

SHE: Dear, it’s garbage night, could you take out the trash?

HE: Why, certainly. Is there much that needs to go out?

SHE: Well, at this point the deck is starting to look like a midden.

HE: I hardly think you mean “midden.”

S: Well I know there’s a heap of trash out there.

H: “Midden” implies that there’s poop in the heap. There isn’t a heap of poop out on the deck, is there?

S: No, but there is a big pile of trash out there.

H: Let me look that up for you. Hmmmm… Midden: noun 1: dunghill2 a: a refuse heap; especially : kitchen midden b: a small pile (as of seeds, bones, or leaves) gathered by a rodent (as a pack rat). Although, I might add that my research shows that in Scotland, this term is used to generally denote a mess, and can even be extended to describe people whose lives are a mess.  Which reminds of another anecdote I want to share with you…

 . . .

The next morning…

SHE: There goes the trash truck. Did you ever take out the trash last night?

HE:  No, why, is there much trash to go out?

SHE: Well, yes, I’d say the deck is starting to look like… a refuse heap; specifically : a mound marking the site of a primitive human habitation

FACTS that are making my mind awfully full. I’m the kid raising her hand in the back row asking, “May I please be excused? My mind is full.”

One of my best friends is in the hospital, recovering from surgery. What they removed was not a benign cyst at all, it was cancerous. A rare one that they’re not sure how to treat, but surgery was certainly the first step, and she is recovering. I am really sad, and angry that this is happening to my friend, and I feel very powerless to help.

Meanwhile, a cargo ship hit the Bay Bridge, 58,000 gallons of fuel into San Francisco Bay not too long ago. I’m powerless to help.

Within the last couple days, a typhoon / cyclone in Singapore Bangladesh claimed the lives of more than 1500 people. Can’t do anything about that either.

I have a proposal to write, that was due yesterday, but didn’t get to finish because my grandmother in law apparently thinks I’m a free taxi service and calls me at random asking for rides… right now? Not powerless in this situation, just frustrated. I do not usually work when my gals are with me, so how will I get this proposal written?

My mom wants me to pop on over to the Italian Market (30-40 min car ride to south philly from where I live) in order to pick up a few christmas gifts for friends of hers, and some fresh pasta. Uh, in my copious free time.

There are way more dirty articles of clothing here in my home than clean ones. Gah.

My daughter wants me to take her to a nature center this afternoon. Sure hon, just as soon as we get back from the Italian Market?
My other daughter’s friends want to come for a playdate today, but my house is such an embarrasing heap of dirty things that I can’t bear the thought of their mom seeing it. Sorry honey.

The 100-days-of-flowers bulb assortment I bought sits on my front porch, and I don’t know when I’ll plant it or even WHERE I’ll plant it. Guess those bulbs will just sit another week. Hope it doesn’t freeze yet out there.

My yard and other outdoor spaces are in bad need of raking, but I don’t even have a rake because someone made off with ours. Maybe I can get a rake in the Italian Market.

I have two clients who require phone calls from me today. One is someone whose laptop I was supposed to have worked on sometime in the last month when it was sitting up in my office, forgotten and ignored. The other is someone who bought his computer from me over a year ago, and it’s now giving him some horrible error message and not starting up anymore.

My gutters REALLY need to be cleaned out. This is something that I can do, but it requires wriggling out the attic window onto the flat roof.

The cat litter boxes in the basement are so bad, that half my readers will want to figure out where I live and call the ASPCA and report me as a bad cat owner. Plus my wild, evil cat was out all night and she is still not back.

Plus, Swistle is going through her blog and deleting a ton of things that might offend her unreasonable and obnoxious relatives. Which is her right, but is so sad to me… such a good blogger, having to censor herself. Bleh!

I guess you could say I am a bit overwhelmed.

As jumbled as this post is, so many things of different weights roiling around together, that is how my mind is. Just not in a very effective mood, not an ideal way to be when you have a lot to do, people to call, proposal to write, friends to think of, and gutters to clean.

…so I went for a long walk today. It was one of those incredible fall days where the leaves are crunchy and the air is fresh. The sunshine seemed to cut down through the air, blinding me as I walked, and walked, briskly.

As I walked I noticed that there is a strange mental change that comes over me when out on a long solitary stroll. My mind sort of clears itself and I begin to feel kind of calm, and creative. Today’s walk was therapeutic, but I didn’t get buttkis done, unfortunately.

Now I’m letting my kids stall a little while before getting into the tub, so that I have a little time to write this post.

Oh, here’s a non-sequitor: do you know of the singer-songwriter dude named Mike Doughty? I went to high school with him and dated his younger brother for a little while.  Mike was in a band with my older brother and my first true puppy love, a guy named Dave. I’d hang out in Dave’s basement with the band, listening to their rock music. The band was called Free Spirit and they were pretty good… for a teenage rock band in someone’s basement. Ultimately, Free Spirit broke up (much like the Beatles) due to personality conflicts. (My brother being an asshole, most likely.) I think there was a fourth member (a drummer) to their band, but I cannot remember him at all.

Anyway, now Mike is a Famous Rock Star. I know because he was ON DAVID LETTERMAN. He used to be in a band called Soul Coughing, before launching his solo career. Now he tours all over the place and his show here in Philly is sold out so I won’t be seeing him. I did get to see him a few years back when he played at Temple University’s Apollo Hall. I waited in line and bought some CD’s from him, and chatted. He remembered me!

Well we might not be seeing Mike this month, but we ARE going to see THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS.  Oh boy, can’t wait.  It’ll be one of those fantastic nights out for me and D. Even better than that, it’s on a day of the year that we are usually held up with tedious family get-togethers– the saturday after thanksgiving. Instead of getting a slab of bullship from his relatives, this TG saturday we’re seeing a band we like. How cool is that!

Between our boycotting of the big family gathering, and seeing my old friend on LETTERMAN, I’m feeling pretty groovy. And the crunchy leafy walk helped too.

Now, if only I could get my accounts to balance.

I have to share this really fun thing with you.

On pbskids.org, you can use their Jakers!  postcards to create your own semi-animated postcards. It works like this: you use their limited palette of colors, and  brush sizes, and can draw and write whatever you like. Then you click Preview to see what you’ve drawn– it re-draws it for you, at a faster speed than you actually drew it. The effect is really neat.

Here’s an example (click to see my drawing animate before your very eyes):

http://pbskids.org/cgi-registry/postcard/read.pl?card_id=5497977 

Now that I’ve shared this extremely fun and addictive thing with you, I MUST. MAKE. KIDS. LUNCHES. FOR TOMORROW.

Stepping away from the computer as soon as I click Publish….

1. It’s the humanity.

2. The casual honesty

3. The connections

4. The cute pictures

5. The archiving of normal life  - women getting to tell their story, when so much of History has ignored Herstory

6. The endless opportunity to procrastinate

oh, speaking of which… back to work for me!

The trouble with standardized achievement tests is that scores on such tests are looked on by some as the tell-all number that predicts a student’s abilities.  Not so, if a student is one who for some reason other than aptitude for the subject does not do well on exams.  Meanwhile, scores on standardized tests don’t necessarily reflect an individual’s competency when put to task in real life situation.

While such tests often include time limits, we in real life, usually are able to consider things and think through a problem before jumping to a conclusion, and multiple choice is not an option.

So why are tests so darn popular? Well, I think it’s because some of us actually like them.  I know, I know, tests don’t really mean much and they are certainly over-used and over-valued.  But I realized something today: I actually enjoy taking tests - even when they’re not of a subject that I am very interested in!

All this was brought to mind today because my cousin sent me a link to a website that offers a Bible Drill.  Test your knowledge of the holy book — and you can take several different quizzes and it will pull up questions at random from its little database.  You get a score and everything! I actually went and kept trying again until I could get 100% correct.   And I don’t even read the Bible!

I can think of at least one other example of my perverse enjoyment of taking tests. In high school I was something of a rebel geek.  I’d cut gym class to hang out with my friends in AP Physics (a class which I was not taking). One day, in this class, the teacher told me I’d have to leave; go back to the classroom where I belonged, because he wanted to give a small test to the class.  Smirking, I asked if I could take the quiz, too.  And so he let me! It turned out that I did better on the pop quiz than a number of students who were actually taking the class.

Tests give a person who’s good at them another way to shine!

There’s something very satisfying about taking a test - you have to focus on the specifics of each question and there is a right answer in there somewhere. In real life, the answers are complex and the focus is broad; the answers exist with addendums and qualifiers, caviats and footnotes.  Worse, in real life, there’s no simple feedback to tell you how you did.  You don’t even to get take each test of life over again if you don’t like the answer you came up with the first time around because the darn test keeps morphing into something else, before you’re even finished with it.

Parenthood is not like taking a test. Running a business is not like taking a test. Building a website is not like taking a test.

Anybody think I should go back to grad school?

Nah.  Too many essays. Not enough tests. Maybe I should enroll in 4th grade at the local public school.