Reflections at Thirty-Five: Deyanu.

This will probably be an ongoing post throughout the day.  I am officially thirty-five years old today!  Or, as I will say for the rest of my life, I am finally thirty-five years old today.  Well, I won't say the thirty-five part...at least I hope I won't.  I think there's something sad about lying about one's age, unless that person is fifteen and wants to get into an R-rated movie.

Tonight is also the first night of Passover.  Though I would no longer consider myself Jewish, there's something about being a part of Jewry that will occasionally inspire me on holidays to take stock of where I am and from whence I came.  Deyanu is a traditional Passover song; the meaning of the word itself is, "It would have been enough." As in, if this one good thing had happened to me, it would have been enough; but then, this other good thing happened, and that would have been enough; but then, this other good thing happened...you get the idea.

I'm feeling pretty blessed that this is the thought upon which I feel called to meditate on my birthday, a day that many women dread.  Particularly thirty-five.  Yesterday, I had a proper bra fitting with the lactation consultant at the hospital--because my girls have grown a good three cup sizes since we began this pregnancy journey seven months ago, and probably aren't done yet.  As I completed the purchase of my very first nursing bra, I remarked that tomorrow would be my big 3-5.  The LC moaned sympathetically and told me that it was a difficult birthday for her.  It struck me as a sad moment.  And a grateful one:  I'm really glad this isn't hard for me, at least this year.  I have so much good in my life right now:  I'm healthy and happy.  That would have been enough, but I finally married the guy I fell in love with seventeen years ago, who happens to be my best friend.  That would have been enough, but I have a remarkably fortunate and full life with my best friend.  That would have been enough, but now, we're expecting our first child in eight-ish weeks.

Deyanu.

Saturday Round-Up

It's been a low-key week round these here parts. Health Care (err...Insurance, rather) Reform passed, and then it passed again. Duke is in the Elite Eight (about which I care not a lick, but DH does, and there's just that much less swearing, which keeps things pleasant for everyone involved). I had a ridiculous consultation with a pediatrician--He was terrible. I will write about it when I have my next consultation with a different pediatrician later this week. The house is tidy and clean. The weather is gorgeous. And I am interviewing a doula in about an hour.

No trip to Disney this past week to ride the Haunted Mansion infinity times--DH worked and is still working today. First day off is tomorrow, and with so many schools around the country hitting Spring Break this weekend, I can assure you we will be no where near the theme parks for at least a couple of weeks. It looks like we'll go to The Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens for the big 3-5 instead, provided the weather cooperates.

And speaking of my birthday, DH has been singing Steve Martin's "The Thermos Song," from The Jerk for the last few days. It's become something of an ear worm, and I feel compelled to share. You're welcome.


What I'm reading this morning:

• From Salon.com: What the healthcare reform bill means for abortion. (I am a particular fan of Katha Pollit's sentiments.)
• She's Only Two from Mommy Drinks Because You Cry.
• Whence the Hatred II from Peter Sagal's blog.
• The New York Times Book Review for The History of White People.
• Also from NY Times: Artists Mine Scientific Clues to Paint Intricate Portraits of the Past.
• And some local news: A Man Spends Hours in a Stranger's Tub in Killer Whale Protest.

Follow Friday

Taking a cue from Twitter, I'd like to thank Laura from Thoughts of a Career Woman for giving me such a sweet blog award earlier this week! I'm rounding out the first couple of weeks of a re-dedication to writing on a (mostly) daily basis, and I have to say, Laura, it really made me feel warm and fuzzy to receive recognition for my effort thus far. Thank you so much.

Here are the rules I'm to follow in passing the award along:
1) Put the logo within your blog or post.
2) Pass the award onto 12 fellow bloggers.
3) Link the nominees within your post.
4) Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5) Share the love and link to the person whom you received this award from.

Now, I'm not even sure I read enough blogs to pass along the award to twelve recipients! But there are several that I've read for quite some time, some are written by folks I know, and some "new" journals I've only just discovered and enjoy thoroughly. I pass the "Sunshine Award" to:

Mocha Momma

Bird on the Street

alabaster cow

Generation X Mom

keiko lynn

Man Oh Manny!

Eric at Random

::Happy Mama::
Loving Life
Beans Mama
Finding Myself

Aaannnddd, number twelve shall be my exercise in irony award, to Stank. I'm braced for the flack.

Baby's First Book.

Mister Seahorse, by Eric Carle

DH's mom is visiting the Sunshine State this week; she flew in the night before last and stayed with us for one evening. A girl friend picked her up yesterday afternoon in her sporty little convertible Mini Cooper for a few days of gallivanting around Florida. I am more than just a shade jealous, but in a good way. We anticipate that MIL will come back to spend a couple more days with us before she heads home--she's going to do a little bit of mural painting on the nursery wall.

As it would turn out, MIL's friend is the wife of children's book author Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar is perhaps his best known work). And she brought Pokey a present: an autographed copy of Mister Seahorse, which, of course, is perfectly apropos for a child who will spend a good deal of her pupae-hood on the beach, no doubt.

I think what's most charming about this book, which was not a part of my childhood book collection, is its true-to-life subject matter: rare instances of parenting in the oceanic animal kingdom. Even more unique, it is paternal parenting. It brought tears to my eyes when I thought about DH reading to Pokey.

What a lovely, surprising gift. And what a way to start her library, don't you think?

Thirty One Weeks!

Photo credit: NASA

This pregnancy is rolling along...like the crawler to the launch pad. One mile an hour with an enormous effing payload. Why so slow? So the gears don't grind down and overheat under the strain.

Yeah. This is pretty much what I feel like this morning. Good news: I gained two pounds last week. Bad news: Lower back pain has me cranky. Good thing I won't have to lie about that persnickety pre-existing condition, a skiing injury from the age of twelve, any longer! Whew. That's a big load off my...err...back.

So. Thirty-one weeks down, who knows how many to go. I thought I'd do something cute to commemorate the final weeks or days remaining in the pregnancy...and since I don't really know for certain how many days remain, I'll stick with counting up, measuring my progression in the T-plus, time-elapsed sense. Since I'm a space geek, and feeling pretty geeky this morning, I'll stick with the space flight history theme. Doesn't mean I'll pick space every week, but since space flight educator and NASA historian are two hats I've worn in the past, I'll stick with what I know today. Makes me sound smarter than I feel lately; my pregnant brain is probably made of swiss cheese, just like the Moon.

STS-31

Bruce McCandless. Photo credit: NASA

Ah, the ill-fated Hubble Space Telescope deploy mission. Not that the mission itself was ill-fated, but Hubble was. Launched twenty years ago, in April of 1990 on Space Shuttle Orbiter Discovery, soon after becoming operational on orbit, Hubble Space Telescope was discovered to have a flaw on its mirror. The crew roster of STS-31 is filled with names in the history books: Charles Bolden, Pilot--now the present-day NASA Administrator; Kathryn Sullivan, Mission Specialist--the first American woman to perform a space walk; Bruce McCandless, Mission Specialist--the first fellow to have used a free-floating space craft that attached to his space suit, called the Manned-Maneuvering Unit. The technology was abandoned as 'too dangerous.' Should there be a system failure and the astronaut float away from the shuttle orbiter, there would be no rescue. You've seen images of his test flights of the equipment. It's one of the most iconic astronaut images there are. In fact, if you type "astronaut" into Google search, this is the image you'll retrieve first.

Back to this mission: There was a great to-do about the gaff in Hubble's optical mirror, the butt of many late night television jokes and the subject of conjecture about 'wasteful spending' on programs like NASA in a time of recession (ah, yes, that's the ring of history repeating). That's not to say Hubble was completely blind. In fact, on my first day of college in August 1993, in my very first class--Astronomy for Majors--my professor strode into the classroom at the University of Texas at Austin and announced that the first two extra-solar system planets had been discovered the night before at the university's observatory, McDonald Observatory, located in West Texas. McDonald controlled all observation time on the Hubble. In December of that year, the 'rescue' mission was launched to correct Hubble's optics package.

Hubble Space Telescope. Photo credit: NASA

Hubble Space Telescope has become one of the most beloved pieces of technology ever produced by NASA. Just this past year, the final servicing mission was sent to Hubble, after both the scientific community and the general public protested NASA's decision to let Hubble fall silent; the cost of a servicing mission deemed too steep by government bean counters. The public and scientific community didn't think so, and a massive campaign to Save Hubble successfully resurrected at least a few more good years of observation time for a unique observatory that allows for study of the cosmos above the interference of the Earth's atmosphere.

Don't you feel smarter? You can thank me when you get this answer correct on Jeopardy.

Let's lighten the mood...

Look at these scrumptious linen baby shoes from LaLaShoes at Etsy.com. $42 might be a little rich for my blood...but I am very, very tempted. Especially if I can find a matching outfit. May be perfect for portraits, or homecoming, or both.

Do you hear that? That's the sound of rationalization. It's a dangerous tune, and it's one of my favorites.

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want...

Photo credit: Tony Ramao. Source: The Huffington Post

As a former, world-weary political organizer, I've strenuously avoided politics for the last year. Call it burn out. Call it fatigue. I finally worked on a successful campaign, and I could no longer tolerate the emotional, empty, patently false constructs of the inflammatory rhetoric--particularly from the now representational minority and their puppet news syndicates, but also from news organizations I used to consider reliable and fairly independent. I can't watch cable news. I'm tired of being yelled at. I'm tired of quick zoom, diagonal camera angles on news anchors. I'm tired of news anchors with no credentials whatsoever editorializing on issues they have barely a baseline vocabulary to describe, conjecturing with ill-conceived logic and a complete lack of freshman English argumentation skills. I want to shake the bottle blondes and high-powered, bleached teeth power suits and scream into their empty skulls, "Keep your lip-glossed, insipid incredulity to yourself!"

And that says nothing of how I feel about politicians and other fellow citizens guilty of that same lip-glossed, insipid incredulity and empty, emotional rhetoric, but I'll get to that.

My disenchantment goes deeper: I no longer watch Sunday morning political news shows such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation. I deleted all political sections of the nation's newspaper headlines from my iGoogle front page. If I want news, I'll watch PBS, BBC, or listen to NPR. I follow a few decent, professional journalists assigned to the White House on Twitter. I listen to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me," but watch "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," far more rarely than I used to, mostly because if I don't laugh, I'll cry...or storm out of the room in a huff. I tune in, mostly in passing, to the current political struggles of the administration, Congress, and Supreme Court.

That is...until this last week.

For the last few days, I've been cautiously lifting my head out of the sand to monitor these last stages of the Health Care Reform bill passage. While DH is watching basketball, I may watch C-SPAN upstairs as the vote is cast in the House of Representatives.

I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want: I want for HCR to pass, and deliver a decisive STFU to the bigoted mouthbreathers in the 'Tea Party' and noise-machine news syndicates who've taken their disgusting rhetoric to new, offensive heights. Here's what I'm reading this morning, with a focus on incivility in political rhetoric and discourse:

• From The Huffington Post: Tea Party Protests--'Nigger, Faggot' Shouted at Members of Congress
• From Daryl Cagle's Blog: Cartoonist on the Ground for Tea Party Protest
• From Peter Sagal's Blog: Whence the Hatred?
• From The New York Times: Dose of Venom for Candidates Turns Ads Viral
• From The Washington Post: 'Tea party' protesters accused of spitting on lawmaker, using slurs
• From Media Matters for America: Conservative blogger on racial epithets: 'So what?'

Dear God. Listen to your nuns and not your bishops. Amen.