I don't always watch the most, um, highbrow television.
Not that BBC channels we get here aren't trying their hardest to provide me with hours and hours of the History of the Canoe, the History of the British Meat Pie, and the History of the River Cottage Stone Wall.
Sometimes, in fact, when work or life gets too intellectual, and I've just read a bunch of journal articles about goal attribution theory or other such constructs, I need myself an hour or two in front of decidedly sensationalist television. Times like that, even Project Runway can be too refined.
A while ago, I put an MTV show called Catfish on my iTunes favorites list. It is based on a guy who supposedly had an internet romance in which he was severely deceived. The woman he thought he was in love with didn't even exist, and he found himself talking to a woman 15 years his senior, who had pretended to be woman in the Facebook photos. Anyway, he has now embarked on a project to connect others with their online loves, regardless of whether or not the people at the opposite ends of the computer are who they said they were or not.
Spoiler alert: most people are not. At least not the halves of the internet romances who have said they are models, who only send one photo of themselves in the course of a 3 years internet/phone romance, and especially those who say they have no way to Skype. Yeah, definitely suspect those ones.
Why even watch this show?
And yet, this morning as I was working on bills, I had bought an episode and was half watching, as a woman found out her Swiss love was actually born a woman and going through a gender reassignment process. And even though she found out all of this, she was still in love with this person she'd been talking over the phone to for 2 years, never having met. It was such a beautiful ending to a terrifying situation for the transgender individual, fearing being laughed or left, once again. And here was this woman who said, nope, I love you and I'm not going anywhere.
It was exactly the kind of thing I needed to see after all the news this week.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Sometimes it isn't about actually sending out the cards
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| There was just enough time, on a sick day at home, to try my hand at a linocut. |
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| There they are. I had time to make 'em, but not really much time to find addresses or get to a post office. |
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| Consider yourself greeted. |
Sunday, December 16, 2012
The pain of too much tenderness...
That is an extract from a reading we had at our wedding. It was about loving to the fullest meaning that you laugh all your laughter, but also cry all your tears. I'm not crying, but as I was laying in a dark bedroom, trying to nap after A had already decided she wasn't tired, it came to mind. She had rolled around for some 20 minutes next to me, in our room, where for the first time she decided she wanted to try to nap.
And she had been very proactive about a nap, too. I don't suppose it had anything to do with the new pacifier I gave her last night to replace the one that is already falling apart. I may not want my kid to use the pacifier this long, but as she gets closer to not using it anymore, I sure don't want her choking on a loose piece of it in the middle of the night.
So she was off to play LEGOs, in the living room, and I was half resting, half listening for sounds of desctruction, and she came back in, popped the pacifier back in her mouth and snuggled in.
And then she said, "Mama, I need to go pee pee and kaki." She put her pacifier by my bed, and as I said "Ok, little one...", she trotted off, little bare feet and all, to the bathroom. I didn't ask if she needed my help, and she seemed totally okay with and capable of going by herself. Something which, weeks ago, I didn't think was going to happen until she was, like, 20 years old. Just giving her time and space, and trying my best not to freak out when she wanted help or a diaper or whatever, and suddenly, I heard the faucet running.
Pitter pat back to my bed. She had even washed her hands. Although I hadn't heard a flush. But I decided not to say anything, because a solo trip to the bathroom is a huge thing!
Which is when I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. And then, pop up again without a word, back to the bathroom.
Flush.
And a bathroom moment suddenly makes mama almost teary-eyed from feeling so much tenderness. I'm hoping I keep learning to give her her space, so she has time to do the wonderful things, and show she is growing, without my getting in the way.
And she had been very proactive about a nap, too. I don't suppose it had anything to do with the new pacifier I gave her last night to replace the one that is already falling apart. I may not want my kid to use the pacifier this long, but as she gets closer to not using it anymore, I sure don't want her choking on a loose piece of it in the middle of the night.
So she was off to play LEGOs, in the living room, and I was half resting, half listening for sounds of desctruction, and she came back in, popped the pacifier back in her mouth and snuggled in.
And then she said, "Mama, I need to go pee pee and kaki." She put her pacifier by my bed, and as I said "Ok, little one...", she trotted off, little bare feet and all, to the bathroom. I didn't ask if she needed my help, and she seemed totally okay with and capable of going by herself. Something which, weeks ago, I didn't think was going to happen until she was, like, 20 years old. Just giving her time and space, and trying my best not to freak out when she wanted help or a diaper or whatever, and suddenly, I heard the faucet running.
Pitter pat back to my bed. She had even washed her hands. Although I hadn't heard a flush. But I decided not to say anything, because a solo trip to the bathroom is a huge thing!
Which is when I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. And then, pop up again without a word, back to the bathroom.
Flush.
And a bathroom moment suddenly makes mama almost teary-eyed from feeling so much tenderness. I'm hoping I keep learning to give her her space, so she has time to do the wonderful things, and show she is growing, without my getting in the way.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Who let the dogs out?
Actually, the neighbor kid took the dog out last night. So, while I let her out of the door, he let her out of the building.
I was all ready to write something here about how thoughtful I've been able to be in the last week or so with A. How I am trying to slow down, take more time with her, and we are getting along better. I play more and rush less. And it helps.
And I realize how much her world is filled with rules and "don't" and "no, not yet" and "okay, but only one before dinner"....which is why it hasn't phased me as much that she is doing a lot of ordering us around lately. "No, Mama, you no brush teeth in my bathroom!" and "No Papa, you took too much of my bread" (actually that one sounded more like "RRRRARGHHH! Crash! Kick! Cry! Hit!", but it meant the same in toddler talk). So even if the behavior is more extreme, I get it.
And then the babysitter came in with A yesterday afternoon from school pickup and almost quit. Now, our babysitter is one of the cornerstones of our life working here. If this woman is not longer around for babysitting, we'd best just move back to the US. Forget my job, not feeling integrated in the community, etc., etc. This babysitter and the daycare teachers are the lynchpin.
Turns out, A is finally releasing some of this new found frustration on the babysitter, too. To me, it just means she is part of our family in A's eyes. But it was the first time she wasn't sure what to think of A's behavior at pick up. And, although beloved, our daycare teachers don't usually see kids doing much tantrumming. (One "m"? Two? Hmmm). Kids all get dressed by themselves by age 2, they get diapers off and underpants on after naps, by themselves, calmly, etc. If you are looking for empathy about how hard it is getting a kid dressed in the morning, it isn't going to come from daycare stories. And if you take a kid's daycare behavior as something to compare your home life to, you're in for a world of doubt, hurt, anger and resentment. Our babysitter had just not encountered that before, poor woman. A has been easily charmed by her calm, her patience, and all of her loving energy to play for hours, until now. And for just a second, after the fear of her actually quitting subsided by me saying a million and one things about how this happens to us all the time at daycare pick-up, I felt a little pang of....what?
It was good. It wasn't, perhaps, mature of me, but it was the feeling that the super-ninja-childcarer in our midst was also thrown for a loop by that behavior, and that, for once, I was the one doing the comforting of the adult confused by the child's behavior. I was old hat at not taking it personally. At least not the getting dressed at daycare part. Let's be honest, I find more than enough other things to take personally that aren't personal.
Anyway, I felt...skilled. Experienced. More like a rock than a leaf blowing on choppy seas. And it felt good.
And dinner went well, with just me and A. And we were getting ready for bed and...BLAMMO! Not so fast, like-a-rock-mama. Screaming, hitting fit over too much toothpaste. We both did some screaming (I'll give myself a bonus that actually I was just loud and not screaming or crying), and I did no hitting. I did a lot of getting hit and then leaving the room. And breathing. And just trying to figure out how to land this flight in the middle of a hurricane.
I finally sat in the hallway near where I put A to sit. She ran away to her room. I sat some more. She finally came out of her room and into my arms. We sat quiet for a bit. I could see this as one of our rockier moments in the last week for the raised voices and hands, but I choose to see it as an okay moment. That we ended connecting again. I take it as a win-win.
And as for the middle-of-the-night screaming when asked to move over for mama to get into bed, and screaming louder when mama say she's going back to her own room? Well, perhaps we are just going to settle our boundary disputes a little more loudly than in other families. And that can be okay, too. It is about working with what you've got - if I get upset more quickly, I may not always be the calm parent. But I, my friends, am the ninja of "I'm sorry." I can say it soon after an outburst, I can say it sincerely, and I can say it first. That is one of the biggest gifts my own mother (with a temper of her own) gave me. It doesn't mean I don't also need to work on the temper itself, but it is a hell of a start.
I was all ready to write something here about how thoughtful I've been able to be in the last week or so with A. How I am trying to slow down, take more time with her, and we are getting along better. I play more and rush less. And it helps.
And I realize how much her world is filled with rules and "don't" and "no, not yet" and "okay, but only one before dinner"....which is why it hasn't phased me as much that she is doing a lot of ordering us around lately. "No, Mama, you no brush teeth in my bathroom!" and "No Papa, you took too much of my bread" (actually that one sounded more like "RRRRARGHHH! Crash! Kick! Cry! Hit!", but it meant the same in toddler talk). So even if the behavior is more extreme, I get it.
And then the babysitter came in with A yesterday afternoon from school pickup and almost quit. Now, our babysitter is one of the cornerstones of our life working here. If this woman is not longer around for babysitting, we'd best just move back to the US. Forget my job, not feeling integrated in the community, etc., etc. This babysitter and the daycare teachers are the lynchpin.
Turns out, A is finally releasing some of this new found frustration on the babysitter, too. To me, it just means she is part of our family in A's eyes. But it was the first time she wasn't sure what to think of A's behavior at pick up. And, although beloved, our daycare teachers don't usually see kids doing much tantrumming. (One "m"? Two? Hmmm). Kids all get dressed by themselves by age 2, they get diapers off and underpants on after naps, by themselves, calmly, etc. If you are looking for empathy about how hard it is getting a kid dressed in the morning, it isn't going to come from daycare stories. And if you take a kid's daycare behavior as something to compare your home life to, you're in for a world of doubt, hurt, anger and resentment. Our babysitter had just not encountered that before, poor woman. A has been easily charmed by her calm, her patience, and all of her loving energy to play for hours, until now. And for just a second, after the fear of her actually quitting subsided by me saying a million and one things about how this happens to us all the time at daycare pick-up, I felt a little pang of....what?
It was good. It wasn't, perhaps, mature of me, but it was the feeling that the super-ninja-childcarer in our midst was also thrown for a loop by that behavior, and that, for once, I was the one doing the comforting of the adult confused by the child's behavior. I was old hat at not taking it personally. At least not the getting dressed at daycare part. Let's be honest, I find more than enough other things to take personally that aren't personal.
Anyway, I felt...skilled. Experienced. More like a rock than a leaf blowing on choppy seas. And it felt good.
And dinner went well, with just me and A. And we were getting ready for bed and...BLAMMO! Not so fast, like-a-rock-mama. Screaming, hitting fit over too much toothpaste. We both did some screaming (I'll give myself a bonus that actually I was just loud and not screaming or crying), and I did no hitting. I did a lot of getting hit and then leaving the room. And breathing. And just trying to figure out how to land this flight in the middle of a hurricane.
I finally sat in the hallway near where I put A to sit. She ran away to her room. I sat some more. She finally came out of her room and into my arms. We sat quiet for a bit. I could see this as one of our rockier moments in the last week for the raised voices and hands, but I choose to see it as an okay moment. That we ended connecting again. I take it as a win-win.
And as for the middle-of-the-night screaming when asked to move over for mama to get into bed, and screaming louder when mama say she's going back to her own room? Well, perhaps we are just going to settle our boundary disputes a little more loudly than in other families. And that can be okay, too. It is about working with what you've got - if I get upset more quickly, I may not always be the calm parent. But I, my friends, am the ninja of "I'm sorry." I can say it soon after an outburst, I can say it sincerely, and I can say it first. That is one of the biggest gifts my own mother (with a temper of her own) gave me. It doesn't mean I don't also need to work on the temper itself, but it is a hell of a start.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
What is wrong in graduate education?
I spend a lot of time these days trying to find a way to talk about this. What is going on in physical sciences that gets in the way of learning, at the highest levels of academia?
You take a bunch of well-intentioned (this is my personal opinion, and I think the only place from which I want to study a group of people, otherwise I wind up on a witch-hunt for meanies), well-educated, motivated individuals, who graduate schools may be competing to admit to their programs, and by the end of 4, or 6 or 8 years, maybe half of them have graduated. What happened? Are we really going to stick to the story of "Oh, well, only those who had the fire in the belly made it, and those others weren't meant to be continue on"?
I was talking with a figure skating coach the other day - yeah, when is the last time you heard that sentence?! - picking her brain for how coaching works in skating. I have the sense that at least half the structures of graduate education (the weed out courses, and the fact that they are called that, the willingness to not do a self-check when lots of you most qualified candidates wind up leaving the field during your own grad program; the absence of a scientific writing and speaking course in the core of any graduate curriculum) comes from the belief that the most prominent scientists are born and not made. It gives the graduate program an excuse to not intentionally, carefully and fully mentor their students. And then the other half of the practices (saying students should be working 80-100 hours a week; saying that only the toughest survive) point to the belief that hard work makes a top scientist. In fact, it kind of follows the lines of which example is being given - when professors quote from their own lives and experiences, that impostor-syndrome argument for hard-work-and-luck comes out more. When the examples of others comes us, it is more of a "yeah, well she was clearly made to do this and didn't need to be trained in most of it" gets more airtime.
Regardless, there are a lot of very motivated, top-of-the-game students being accepted to grad schools and then many of them do not finish. Or do very well giving talks or writing papers. And a lot of things are not consistently, explicitly taught. You know what would happen to a coach who didn't teach his skaters how to do spins and only concentrated on jumps?
None of his skaters would win anything. The judges just wouldn't be able to award full points.
But perhaps that is part of the problem in academia - that we don't have an explicit enough scoring sheet for graduate students. What is it they will be judged on? Sure, sure, publication record. But what are departments actually looking for? How do hiring committees make their decisions? If a strong letter of support from a faculty member that knows the student is a big deal, then no wonder grad students are scared of sounding stupid in their home departments. Any verbal performance that impacts a letter writer's opinion of that student (especially about whether he or she is smart enough for the field) is a high stakes situation. All the more so if the professors writing these letters don't really know how to judge intelligence or potential any better than "if I knew that, it must be simple, so I can't believe that student didn't know it."
You take a bunch of well-intentioned (this is my personal opinion, and I think the only place from which I want to study a group of people, otherwise I wind up on a witch-hunt for meanies), well-educated, motivated individuals, who graduate schools may be competing to admit to their programs, and by the end of 4, or 6 or 8 years, maybe half of them have graduated. What happened? Are we really going to stick to the story of "Oh, well, only those who had the fire in the belly made it, and those others weren't meant to be continue on"?
I was talking with a figure skating coach the other day - yeah, when is the last time you heard that sentence?! - picking her brain for how coaching works in skating. I have the sense that at least half the structures of graduate education (the weed out courses, and the fact that they are called that, the willingness to not do a self-check when lots of you most qualified candidates wind up leaving the field during your own grad program; the absence of a scientific writing and speaking course in the core of any graduate curriculum) comes from the belief that the most prominent scientists are born and not made. It gives the graduate program an excuse to not intentionally, carefully and fully mentor their students. And then the other half of the practices (saying students should be working 80-100 hours a week; saying that only the toughest survive) point to the belief that hard work makes a top scientist. In fact, it kind of follows the lines of which example is being given - when professors quote from their own lives and experiences, that impostor-syndrome argument for hard-work-and-luck comes out more. When the examples of others comes us, it is more of a "yeah, well she was clearly made to do this and didn't need to be trained in most of it" gets more airtime.
Regardless, there are a lot of very motivated, top-of-the-game students being accepted to grad schools and then many of them do not finish. Or do very well giving talks or writing papers. And a lot of things are not consistently, explicitly taught. You know what would happen to a coach who didn't teach his skaters how to do spins and only concentrated on jumps?
None of his skaters would win anything. The judges just wouldn't be able to award full points.
But perhaps that is part of the problem in academia - that we don't have an explicit enough scoring sheet for graduate students. What is it they will be judged on? Sure, sure, publication record. But what are departments actually looking for? How do hiring committees make their decisions? If a strong letter of support from a faculty member that knows the student is a big deal, then no wonder grad students are scared of sounding stupid in their home departments. Any verbal performance that impacts a letter writer's opinion of that student (especially about whether he or she is smart enough for the field) is a high stakes situation. All the more so if the professors writing these letters don't really know how to judge intelligence or potential any better than "if I knew that, it must be simple, so I can't believe that student didn't know it."
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Awake at 5am...again
With the Christmas shopping, visiting, packing, toilet-unclogging (see previous post), glasses-returning (see post before that one), and cold season in full swing, life changes multiple times before I even have time to consider posting. So here I am, awake again at 5am, posting a second time today. Because I might have had a sinus infection and an alien abduction before I can make it back here for another post.
It is beginning to dawn on me how erratic my body is. For the last few weeks, I can no longer nap, and I sleep for a maximum of 8 hours a night. This for an individual used to 9-10 hours, minimum. I still get tired, although not exhausted. And I'm working on week two of a sinus cold. Seriously, what up?
I'm not sure how others experience daily life, but I'm never sure if I'll wake up feeling dead, 9 hours after going to sleep, or at 5am, feeling sort of awake. And where the day will go after that? Will I wake up feeling a slight undercurrent of dread, that will carry with me the whole day, for no apparent reason, or will I feel at home in the world (one of each happened in Paris last weekend)? Why am I still awake, and why can't I nap? Is this a feature of my system, or an indicator of some change? Will I be perfectly capable of handling the homestead while M is away on a few overnights for work, or will my cough mess up my back and will I be asking him to cut another trip short because I can't lift my kid? Will I have endless patience with A's process, and see all the "No! Nein! Don't talk! No!" as part of her working out her place in our family and her voice in this world, or will I lose it, cry and be angry and just storm out of the room 3 times in one afternoon?
M often wants me to give him my 5-year plan, and honestly, I can't even give you my 5-day one with more than 50% certainty. My life changes on monumental (can/can't lift my wallet, much less my child; can/can't sleep enough from hormones or coughing fits; connected/unconnected to the greater world) scales, every day it seems. Some weeks are not like this - those ones that passed more slowly, perhaps. But this wintery, snowy, Christmas season is giving me quite the work-up. I mostly take it in stride, in a kind of resigned-to-it way, but it does make for an uncertain living situation.
Not a thing I can plan for - stability or instability.
Except that it is always a good idea to buy refundable, or rescheduleable tickets. For anything.
It is beginning to dawn on me how erratic my body is. For the last few weeks, I can no longer nap, and I sleep for a maximum of 8 hours a night. This for an individual used to 9-10 hours, minimum. I still get tired, although not exhausted. And I'm working on week two of a sinus cold. Seriously, what up?
I'm not sure how others experience daily life, but I'm never sure if I'll wake up feeling dead, 9 hours after going to sleep, or at 5am, feeling sort of awake. And where the day will go after that? Will I wake up feeling a slight undercurrent of dread, that will carry with me the whole day, for no apparent reason, or will I feel at home in the world (one of each happened in Paris last weekend)? Why am I still awake, and why can't I nap? Is this a feature of my system, or an indicator of some change? Will I be perfectly capable of handling the homestead while M is away on a few overnights for work, or will my cough mess up my back and will I be asking him to cut another trip short because I can't lift my kid? Will I have endless patience with A's process, and see all the "No! Nein! Don't talk! No!" as part of her working out her place in our family and her voice in this world, or will I lose it, cry and be angry and just storm out of the room 3 times in one afternoon?
M often wants me to give him my 5-year plan, and honestly, I can't even give you my 5-day one with more than 50% certainty. My life changes on monumental (can/can't lift my wallet, much less my child; can/can't sleep enough from hormones or coughing fits; connected/unconnected to the greater world) scales, every day it seems. Some weeks are not like this - those ones that passed more slowly, perhaps. But this wintery, snowy, Christmas season is giving me quite the work-up. I mostly take it in stride, in a kind of resigned-to-it way, but it does make for an uncertain living situation.
Not a thing I can plan for - stability or instability.
Except that it is always a good idea to buy refundable, or rescheduleable tickets. For anything.
City of lights
We were in Paris last weekend. M's sister was celebrating her birthday, and booked a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris for a week, along with two of her daughters, and we met them for the last few days.
It could easily have been a failed trip - they didn't have working cell phones and they got stuck in another part of the city, in the pouring cold rain, the day we were going to take them to a fancy lunch. So they didn't come to lunch. Afterwards, M promptly succumbed to some super short flu or food poisoning, and I rushed back from a shopping outing with the girls because M occupying the floor of the bathroom and baby A was doing her best to hang out with the music on the iPad. I got another cold, the apartment we rented was a 3rd floor walk-up, and we had to stay an extra day so M had enough energy to help me get our bags and our kid to the train and home. All the things it is, Paris is not a stroller friendly subway city. And it is also not a city in which to get decent coffee.
And we got home yesterday afternoon to a suite of hazmat issues:
a blocked up toilet (let's just say that it is too bad it was in the the bathroom that doesn't have a window or a vent),
the first-ever exploding diaper (just pee, but this bad boy ripped as I was getting it extracted from A's pants and diaper-gel-bits flew everywhere and then refused to be swept, moped, wiped or sticky taped up),
another blocked up toilet (I maintain that it is the fault of Parisian white bread),
a bread box that would have soon grown tentacles and slithered away,
and to top it off, and welcome us home,
a pile of bloody, small feathers on the window ledge just outside our bedroom.
What the hell happened while we were away?!
Despite all of this, I think of this trip fondly. We got to see family without having jetlag. The city was not covered in snow which was actually a good thing given how little we packed. The baked goods were lovely and we found an amazing coffee shop, about 100 sq ft in size, on the walk between our apartment and M's sister's apartment. I wound up chatting with the Italian barista and two British customers for almost an hour the morning M was recovering, his family had flown home, and baby A and I were on our own. That extra day we stayed was perfect. I've been to Paris about 20 years ago, and seen all the sights, and had no desire to run out to the Eiffel Tower or Louvre with a toddler. So we went to the nearby bakery and chose lots of things to eat. And then walked to the coffee shop, nibbling our goods, and sat in a toasty coffee shop, chatting about coffee, Paris and being expats. Later that day I dropped off A back at the apartment with M and went to get our train tickets changed, stopping at a shoe store and coat shop on the way home. No shoes, but I bought a made-in-Paris, crazy grey wool coat. We finally all got down for a nap, and then walked over to a nearby creperie and had a great dinner. The day wound up with us eating popcorn at the modern art museum's cafe - which is warm, free to get in to, and was close to home.
We got to have a few meals with family, we got to visit a few rooms of the modern art museum, we spent a few days away from home. It was lovely. And given how strong my drive is to see all the sights of a new city, it was nice to be somewhere I had already been (as an energetic 16 year old who could visit everything in a week), and just have the freedom to not need to get anything under my belt this time. Especially on our last day. No extra art exhibits, no highly praised restaurant, just a bakery and a coffee shop, and a chance to connect with a few people living in the city.
Good trip.
It could easily have been a failed trip - they didn't have working cell phones and they got stuck in another part of the city, in the pouring cold rain, the day we were going to take them to a fancy lunch. So they didn't come to lunch. Afterwards, M promptly succumbed to some super short flu or food poisoning, and I rushed back from a shopping outing with the girls because M occupying the floor of the bathroom and baby A was doing her best to hang out with the music on the iPad. I got another cold, the apartment we rented was a 3rd floor walk-up, and we had to stay an extra day so M had enough energy to help me get our bags and our kid to the train and home. All the things it is, Paris is not a stroller friendly subway city. And it is also not a city in which to get decent coffee.
And we got home yesterday afternoon to a suite of hazmat issues:
a blocked up toilet (let's just say that it is too bad it was in the the bathroom that doesn't have a window or a vent),
the first-ever exploding diaper (just pee, but this bad boy ripped as I was getting it extracted from A's pants and diaper-gel-bits flew everywhere and then refused to be swept, moped, wiped or sticky taped up),
another blocked up toilet (I maintain that it is the fault of Parisian white bread),
a bread box that would have soon grown tentacles and slithered away,
and to top it off, and welcome us home,
a pile of bloody, small feathers on the window ledge just outside our bedroom.
What the hell happened while we were away?!
Despite all of this, I think of this trip fondly. We got to see family without having jetlag. The city was not covered in snow which was actually a good thing given how little we packed. The baked goods were lovely and we found an amazing coffee shop, about 100 sq ft in size, on the walk between our apartment and M's sister's apartment. I wound up chatting with the Italian barista and two British customers for almost an hour the morning M was recovering, his family had flown home, and baby A and I were on our own. That extra day we stayed was perfect. I've been to Paris about 20 years ago, and seen all the sights, and had no desire to run out to the Eiffel Tower or Louvre with a toddler. So we went to the nearby bakery and chose lots of things to eat. And then walked to the coffee shop, nibbling our goods, and sat in a toasty coffee shop, chatting about coffee, Paris and being expats. Later that day I dropped off A back at the apartment with M and went to get our train tickets changed, stopping at a shoe store and coat shop on the way home. No shoes, but I bought a made-in-Paris, crazy grey wool coat. We finally all got down for a nap, and then walked over to a nearby creperie and had a great dinner. The day wound up with us eating popcorn at the modern art museum's cafe - which is warm, free to get in to, and was close to home.
We got to have a few meals with family, we got to visit a few rooms of the modern art museum, we spent a few days away from home. It was lovely. And given how strong my drive is to see all the sights of a new city, it was nice to be somewhere I had already been (as an energetic 16 year old who could visit everything in a week), and just have the freedom to not need to get anything under my belt this time. Especially on our last day. No extra art exhibits, no highly praised restaurant, just a bakery and a coffee shop, and a chance to connect with a few people living in the city.
Good trip.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Suck it, GlasseMasters.
Ok, I do have a more directed post for today, that just wasn't going to fit in with the last one.
I'm about to send my $700 pair of glasses back to the US for a second time, for a refund. I got them at a chain that I've patronized for the last 15 years. My prescription is high enough, in the -7 range, so I get the ultrathinned lenses with the scratch resistance coating and anti-reflection coating. I do this because I wear my glasses all the time - no contacts - so they are kind of like my wedding ring. Expensive.
And when you get the high-index lenses, even a little tilt or shift from where the center of the eye is, makes a huge, headache-inducing, world-moving, nausea-filled difference.
And I made the mistake to leave the shop, in Chicago, without my glasses feeling okay. I had two different tech's check them, adjust them, and they didn't get better. It is always the same reply "well, just wear them a bit and if they still don't work come back in..."
Bull-poo-poo, I say. I know how they should feel and something is wrong and how come your tech's are not people who wear glasses and how come you don't go and check the glasses when a person with such a large prescription tells you something is wrong, it is. Get over your policies and get my glasses in that back room and double check them. Seriously, people. Don't tell me that my glass frames shouldn't be flat in front, if that is how I wear my last pair.
Turns out, they cut the lenses wrong (news brought to me by competent Swiss super-opticians). Not just a bit wrong, although with my Rx and the lenses, that would make a difference. Nope, they must have measured where my pupils are incorrectly, because I had glasses with the centerline of my eyes misaligned my many mm's, in the vertical direction. As if one of my eyes was lower on my face than the other.
Which, just to make things clear, my eye is not. Neither is my other eye.
Thus the Willy-Wonka-swirly-world feeling.
And then, let's just say that the manager in Chicago wasn't among the most innovative at problem solving with me, and tried to leave it at "so when you come in, we will check them out for you". Dude, I told you 3 times already that isn't for over 6 months from now. Seven. Hundred. Dollar. Worthless. Plastic.
In the end, I sent them with the Swiss diagnosis, said manager had them remade when his lab confirmed the problem but never said sorry, and my mom sent them back to me from Chicago. And they are still off.
Whatever. Back they go, still under the 90 day money back guarantee, and I will go, tail between legs, to the local optician to get my new pair. What a waste of time, GlassMasters* (*names have been changed to protect something or other).
I'm about to send my $700 pair of glasses back to the US for a second time, for a refund. I got them at a chain that I've patronized for the last 15 years. My prescription is high enough, in the -7 range, so I get the ultrathinned lenses with the scratch resistance coating and anti-reflection coating. I do this because I wear my glasses all the time - no contacts - so they are kind of like my wedding ring. Expensive.
And when you get the high-index lenses, even a little tilt or shift from where the center of the eye is, makes a huge, headache-inducing, world-moving, nausea-filled difference.
And I made the mistake to leave the shop, in Chicago, without my glasses feeling okay. I had two different tech's check them, adjust them, and they didn't get better. It is always the same reply "well, just wear them a bit and if they still don't work come back in..."
Bull-poo-poo, I say. I know how they should feel and something is wrong and how come your tech's are not people who wear glasses and how come you don't go and check the glasses when a person with such a large prescription tells you something is wrong, it is. Get over your policies and get my glasses in that back room and double check them. Seriously, people. Don't tell me that my glass frames shouldn't be flat in front, if that is how I wear my last pair.
Turns out, they cut the lenses wrong (news brought to me by competent Swiss super-opticians). Not just a bit wrong, although with my Rx and the lenses, that would make a difference. Nope, they must have measured where my pupils are incorrectly, because I had glasses with the centerline of my eyes misaligned my many mm's, in the vertical direction. As if one of my eyes was lower on my face than the other.
Which, just to make things clear, my eye is not. Neither is my other eye.
Thus the Willy-Wonka-swirly-world feeling.
And then, let's just say that the manager in Chicago wasn't among the most innovative at problem solving with me, and tried to leave it at "so when you come in, we will check them out for you". Dude, I told you 3 times already that isn't for over 6 months from now. Seven. Hundred. Dollar. Worthless. Plastic.
In the end, I sent them with the Swiss diagnosis, said manager had them remade when his lab confirmed the problem but never said sorry, and my mom sent them back to me from Chicago. And they are still off.
Whatever. Back they go, still under the 90 day money back guarantee, and I will go, tail between legs, to the local optician to get my new pair. What a waste of time, GlassMasters* (*names have been changed to protect something or other).
Winter cleaning
It keeps snowing here, which in my book is pretty awesome.
And when the sun actually comes out, like it did this weekend, I'm a very happy woman.
The dog is pretty pleased, as well.
We are going for a trip soon, so I've been in the house most of the last few days, doing laundry, and trying to just straighten up in general, too. The house, more specifically, the desk, have been getting piled all the way up to my chin with...stuff. Random stuff that it is easier to dump in a pile instead of taking the time to go to 10 different corners of the house to put it away. I keep thinking I'm going to get to throw out a lot of it, but I never do. There are journals, unsent wedding cards, my kid's vaccination card, and all the other things that I do need to attend to and just never do.
And in between the playing in the snow, playing with A's new birthday presents, and cleaning house, I think how nice it would be to have a sibling for A. How much I was hoping that once I made this decision, it would have been easier to get there. Last year, this time, I was pregnant and it lasted 10 weeks. I've been pregnant twice more now, and none have lasted. Last year, in January, we thought that the miscarriage was just a glitch, since I'd carried a child safely to term. This year, I'm back not knowing whether or not we can have another child. I'm on the other side of the miscarriage statistic (the woman who has had some) that I didn't want to be on this side of. I don't hate all pregnant women, and I don't even want to be every pregnant woman I see. Like this lady on the tram the other day in her skinny jeans and wool coat and heels, with a toddler and a belly, and perfectly coiffed hair. I didn't want to be her. It looked uncomfortable, and like too much work. But some days, I do want to be the pregnant lady again, and I'm not. I don't know how it will end, which has been quite the lesson in patience and a non-resolved life.
Tonight, I have a cold and some more laundry to do, and a list to get through in the next few days before we leave. And I'm fine with not being pregnant - with the drugs I can take to help my cough and my nose and my head, with the ham and cheese I can quickly eat standing at the fridge so I don't have to slow down for a real lunch, and for the freedom it gives me. As for tomorrow, we'll see.
And when the sun actually comes out, like it did this weekend, I'm a very happy woman.
 |
| The blues and yellows and greens of sun on snow. |
The dog is pretty pleased, as well.
We are going for a trip soon, so I've been in the house most of the last few days, doing laundry, and trying to just straighten up in general, too. The house, more specifically, the desk, have been getting piled all the way up to my chin with...stuff. Random stuff that it is easier to dump in a pile instead of taking the time to go to 10 different corners of the house to put it away. I keep thinking I'm going to get to throw out a lot of it, but I never do. There are journals, unsent wedding cards, my kid's vaccination card, and all the other things that I do need to attend to and just never do.
And in between the playing in the snow, playing with A's new birthday presents, and cleaning house, I think how nice it would be to have a sibling for A. How much I was hoping that once I made this decision, it would have been easier to get there. Last year, this time, I was pregnant and it lasted 10 weeks. I've been pregnant twice more now, and none have lasted. Last year, in January, we thought that the miscarriage was just a glitch, since I'd carried a child safely to term. This year, I'm back not knowing whether or not we can have another child. I'm on the other side of the miscarriage statistic (the woman who has had some) that I didn't want to be on this side of. I don't hate all pregnant women, and I don't even want to be every pregnant woman I see. Like this lady on the tram the other day in her skinny jeans and wool coat and heels, with a toddler and a belly, and perfectly coiffed hair. I didn't want to be her. It looked uncomfortable, and like too much work. But some days, I do want to be the pregnant lady again, and I'm not. I don't know how it will end, which has been quite the lesson in patience and a non-resolved life.
Tonight, I have a cold and some more laundry to do, and a list to get through in the next few days before we leave. And I'm fine with not being pregnant - with the drugs I can take to help my cough and my nose and my head, with the ham and cheese I can quickly eat standing at the fridge so I don't have to slow down for a real lunch, and for the freedom it gives me. As for tomorrow, we'll see.
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