Cold Spaghetti

I love this eloquent post about the multiple tragedies of 9-11.

I recently read Three Cups of Tea, the story of Greg Mortenson and his years of working in remote Pakistan and Afghanistan, building schools for some of the most impoverished children in the world.  As a professional in the field of health and development, I was struck by the innocence with which Mr. Mortenson approached the monumental challenges inherent in this field with little support and no training; naively equipped with only respect and kindness in his heart.  Part of the importance of the book is that it clearly demonstrates how the impoverished are easy targets for extremists, who offer free education, housing, and meals to people faced with no other life-sustaining options.  In the area of the world forgotten by American aid and blanketed with US bombs, Greg Mortenson helps communities build schools and provides possibly the only light of American kindness seen by these people.  The book passionately describes the beauty of the land, the people, and the compassion within of each community.  It gives example after example of how, no matter the differences in our cultures or religions, we all want the same opportunities and happiness for our loved ones.

In that spirit, I encourage anyone who wants to honor the anniversary of 9-11 to visit the Central Asia Institute’s website, read about how their programs fight terrorism in it’s root causes, and make a tax deductible donation to this wonderful nonprofit.

UPDATE: This post was named a JUST POST for September 2008.  (Thank you, Alejna!)

By the fourth semester of teaching the same college-level Women’s Health course, there were few surprises. But then, in that last term, during the session on reproductive health, our faculty lecturer asked the crowd a question she’d asked every class: “what is the most common form of birth control?”

Usually there would be murmurs of ‘condoms’ ‘IUDs’ and ‘birth control pills’ from the crowd. In three terms, we’d never heard anyone give the correct answer (sterilization). But that last semester, we were all shocked when the crowd of 300 students filled the lecture hall with a single answer: “ABSTINENCE!”

Holy crap. The other GSIs, the lecturer, and I all exchanged surprised and frightened looks. We realized in that moment that the generation deprived of sex education was hitting college-age and the impact of just what that meant had a chilling potential. (Coincidentally, this was also the term when one of my freshman students came to office hours after the anatomy and physiology lecture and shyly asked, “So, women have, like, three holes, right?”)

Maybe those experiences were my hint that American people are really, incredibly, and undeniably in the dark. That our nearly 30 years of conservative governance chipping away at the building blocks for solid, healthy lives and quality education have grown a populace too under-educated, too tired, and too sick to make good choices. This is my only answer for why anyone in their right mind could think Sarah Palin is a good choice for Vice President of our country.

I do not want to give the Governor a hard time because I honestly feel badly for her.  She was thrust out of her small town responsibilities and into an arena she is no where near being experienced, educated, or informed enough to handle.  She is not there because of any political credentials or successes.  The McCain campaign, by choosing her, exposed their own prejudices and misogyny inherent in the radical right agenda; they did not look within their party to the successful, experienced women who are known to be among the more moderate on their side of isle (Olympia Snowe? Kay Bailey Hutchinson?)  Instead, they are giving us what we voted in 8 years ago… an unknown, religious fundamentalist, junior legislator with little experience and completely unprepared for the office of President.   They chose a woman directly to speak to Clinton supporters, yet with none of the qualities Hilary brought to her candidacy. (And speaking of Clinton, whoa, Palin seriously owes her some major props for more than a year of tough campaigning and door opening, without which the Palin nomination would never have been possible.)

All I can think of when I see Palin and hear the school-boy love gushing by those conservative dough–boys is how the McCain camp picked the only kind of woman they can support: one that they can fantasize about. Whether it is the sexy-librarian, the hot-for-teacher, or the superior officer fetish (you remember that one, Jack Nicholson relays it in ‘A Few Good Men’ – line about half way through the clip), Palin brings that sex appeal to the race.  Guys and girls alike have no problem dismissing the ugly girl. But when a pretty girl comes along and asks for something, guys have a hard time not obeying her every word. And girls, well, we can sometimes have a hard time not following that same siren call; we were indoctrinated through years of watching 90210.

Steinem called her “Phyllis Schlafly, only younger”.  I think she’s worse.  She fills the conservative analysts’ favorite seat, the one that was Paglia’s and then Coulter’s, that of the anti-feminist feminist.  With Palin, McCain’s camp can twist feminism as a buzz word, invoking all sorts of archetypal favorites: The Mother, The Tough Cookie, The Small-town Hero, and make theirs a campaign about butterflies and rainbows and sit-by-the-fire family stories.  Anything to avoid attention on what the campaign should be about: issues.

Please, my fellow country men and women, please please please help me believe that we, as a nation, are smarter than this.  That we will not put another fundamentalist into office.  That the next executive branch will not include a creationist who denies global warming and encourages the burning of more fossil fuels.  I need to believe that we are better than this, that we can elect leaders who stand out and represent the best of what this great nation has to give.

UPDATE: This post was named a JUST POST for September 2008.  (Thank you, Alejna!)

Our plan to divert Ike to Texas by steadfastly preparing to evacuate a second time paid off!  Ike is going to the nearby Red Stet and just to make sure it continues to do so, we are keeping our storm shutters firmly latched, the inside walls bare, and the fridge limited to 5 items within it’s pristine clean interior.  The more we are prepared to leave, the less the likelihood of needing to leave.  It’s a predictive model with textbook correlation.

But even though our living arrangements speak of a family on the verge of evacuation, our days this week have been the slow return to Normal Life.  Kids running around with underwear on their heads.  Me walking halfway to the store before realizing I forgot to put on shoes.  Paul coming to terms with coffee as the key to his salvation.

This week brought on several BIG EVENTS.

The first and Most Important was the start of school.  I was the only parent without a camera when we dropped Will off for his FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN.  Will’s teachers came to my aid and emailed pictures home that they, themselves, took of the kids during different parts of their first day… reading books, playing with toys, singing songs, having recess, eating lunch, and just generally looking cute in their uniforms.  From these, I have proof positive that Will is making friends and having fun at school.  Further, he does not seem to be acting the part of gangsta kid, a character behavior he appeared to be adopting over the summer, as shown by this class picture taken on the last day of his summer camp (note: although I cropped out the other children in the photo, I can promise that they are all smiling sweetly and most definitely not grabbing any unmentionable parts.)

Sometimes, my pride as a Mother leaves me speechless.

Quick on the heals of the first day of school was Will’s First Ever Gymnastics class.  At last year’s Fete, I won a credit for a class at Audubon Gymnastics via silent auction.  Will, who had once been enthusiastically in support of gym class, did a radical 180-degree turn on us Monday morning, announcing how he “HATED GYMNASTICS”.  This is when Paul called “NOT IT!” making me the default parent to take him to the class.

True to their website, Will was the only boy in a sea of pink-tutu clad girls.  After class, I had two big surprises.  First, Will did not once ask for either a pink leotard or a tutu even though he was the only one not wearing them.  Second, he bounced out of the class expounding on his LOVE FOR GYMNASTICS.  Could we come back tomorrow?  How about before school?  After school?  Everyday and forever, ’cause I really love it?  Oh, and Mommy, I REALLY WANT TO TAKE BALLET, TOO.

My heart actually stopped beating for a minute when this came out.  BALLET?  Did I hear that right?  When pregnant, I fantasized about Will being my Billy Elliot, but since then have humbly embraced him for the impressive sports-dude that he seems to be.  Now he wants ballet?  Or maybe he quickly saw the benefits of being a group’s only boy?

I called.  Ballet class was full.  He’s on the waiting list.

Keeping with our summer promise of staying with swimming, Paul took Will to his first Swim Team class today.  The deal is that for $50/month, Will needs only attend two sessions a week (offered M-F) and they teach him what he’s missing from the four basic strokes and work on endurance.  The report from Paul was that the prodigious-ness he showed in the summer was not a fluke; Will continues to astound and amaze in the water.  Proof positive that guys who like ballet can also be kick-ass sports dudes.  And gangsta.

—
UPDATE! As I wrote this, another email came in from Will’s teacher with more pictures (!!) and details of their activities today:

Dear parents
Today, Elodie (the other kindergarten’s teacher) went to our classroom to do a science activity while I went with the other class to play hide and seek (cache-cache) with Ouille the frog (grenouille) puppet. She went under (sous) and above ( sur ) a chair like the children did this morning in PE. And then we exchanged, so each class had the 2 activities. They also started some painting and counting activities and they colored the letters of their name. It can seem a little difficult for the new students but don’t worry they do great and they will catch up in French.

Here are some photos from yesterday for PE (motricite) and from today.

Tomorrow they will dance the fish-dance and they will have their first music class.

Three animals Kate adores:

Dragons, Dinosaurs, and Tigers.

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At 3 days:

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Three things Kate will tell to “GO AWAY” when she sees them lurking around the house:

– Monsters, Bears, and Buggies.

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At 3 weeks:

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Three things Kate will enthusiastically eat an entire container of, in one sitting:

– Mac & Cheese, Cookies, Raspberries

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At 3 months:

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Three topics of conversation Kate never tires of:

– Smoke detectors.  “Has a red light.  Makes loud noise.  Get out of the house!”

– Fireworks.  “Don’t touch them!  Big ow-ee.  I stay over here.”

– Baseball.  “Man throws ball.  Man runs.  I eat hotdogs.”

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At 13 months:

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Three books Kate likes to reference in conversation:

– When Sophie Gets Really, Really Angry.    – Barnyard Dance.   – Pajama Time.

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2 years, 3 months:

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Three phrases recently said of Kate:

– “She tells the funniest little stories” (Kate’s new teacher at Ecole Bilingue.)

– “She’s really got this thing figured out, hasn’t she?” (Parent observing her on her second day of school.)

– “I have to marry Kate because I love her so much more than anyone and will love her forever”  (Will.)

Despite the 30 minutes spent on the twinspan while an accident was cleared (our best guess), we made it home in a little over 3 hours.  At 4pm, our street looked good, piles of debris in front of those who’d already been industrious enough to clean up a bit.   The plan is to clean up our parts of the street tomorrow… but no new or replacement planting.  Paul went out and took a few photos, but they came out blurry…

We took off the board covering the front door but are not unlatching any of the shudders or removing any of the boards from the other windows.  We are not re-hanging the porch swing or putting up the fern baskets, which are baking in the backyard.  We are not bringing back any of the pots to the stairs.  Inside, the walls of the house are bare because we left the pictures and paintings at my parents house.

All of this non-reparation is because we are concerned that sometime in the next few days we will be headed out again.  IKE, you suck.

Paul turned back on the water heater and gas.  All was fine until we moved to the a/c.  One unit perked right up.  The other… nothing.  Paul crawled around roof and attic, searching for problems until he found that the blower wasn’t spinning up.  We called a repair place and spoke to the technician, who agreed with Paul’s hunting work and said he’d try to come by tomorrow — the fee just for showing up is $99 and it goes up from there.  This could hurt.

Until then, the front of the house is relatively cool and the back is not.  We are all sleeping above the covers and trying to keep things as dark as possible. It’s not like we’ve lived without a/c before; as long as the kids are not whiny over it, we’re totally fine with the heat.  (No, we can’t open the windows… they are sealed shut.)

One perk: since we’d emptied the fridge before we left, I decided to clean it before putting things back inside. I have a special affinity for this machine, since it is a bit of a dinosaur in this town… it’s a PRE-KATRINA fridge.  (I had a bad feeling about Katrina and cleaned out our fridge before we left.)  Behold, our sparkling pre-K and now post-G fridge. 

It is highly unlikely anything in our lives will look so new and shiny for awhile.  We are run-down and beat-up right now, doing our best to keep an eye on the news without tuning in to any turned on weather folk.  Going on what happened last time, I’m surprised that the Governor hasn’t already issued a State of Emergency and started mandatory evacuations.  All that hyper-vigilance over Gustav could really come ’round to bite us all, much sooner than expected…?

While the city of New Orleans saw minor damage from Gustav, communities around the city were hard-hit.  Of the stories coming in, the destruction in lands of the United Houma Nation is great.

Also in Houma is a large community of Nicaraguans, who work in the nearby shipyards.  I heard from a friend that they evacuated from their trailers to shelters further north.  Waiting for word on whether their homes remain.

Thanks to our time at the beach during the lead-up to Tropical Storm Faye, when the ocean was completely still and clear, Will learned to snorkel.  I knew he mastered it today, when while swimming face down in the pool with his mask and snorkel on, he burped audibly through the snorkel and without raising his head from the water, sent up through the pipe a muffled: “‘cuse me, I burp-ted.”

Since we still can’t go home, we are celebrating the little victories we’ve enjoyed thus far in this year’s weather-inspired media circus.

– To my knowledge, no one has incorrectly referred to those of us who have had to leave our homes as ‘refugees’. No one who is in their own country is a refugee and there is no irony in using the term incorrectly. It just sounds stupid.

– I have not heard grossly inaccurate things like, “most of the lower ninth ward is under sea-level” (it’s actually the opposite).

– I successfully managed to avoid watching Jim Cantore.

We’ll take these small victories within the chaos.  Let’s hope nothing is leaking into our home while we wait.

Fogonazos has a collection of photographs of Hurricanes taken from orbit.  The second link at the bottom has NASA photos of New Orleans on 9/15/2005.