Monthly Archives: July 2006

Oh yeah, I’m a rocket scientist

Posted on by
4

File this under "Things they forget to tell you in parenting classes"

Did you go to these? Those stupid classes to let you know how to clean a baby? How to childproof your home? How to attend to every emergency?

Oh yeah, we did one over a weekend. My favorite classmate fell on the first day and needed to get stitches in her knee. Too bad, our due dates were the same, ANYWAY, I digress. They forgot to tell you HOW TO MAKE YOUR 4 YEAR OLD A PIÑATA!

This weekend, Boston started a Fun Heat Wave. Yippie! I also started the Piñata Soleil has requested for her party.

Okay folks, this is where the heat gets to the brain. I got a nice recipe off the web. Then I made the glue, ripped the newspaper and was ready to go. I blew up the balloon and Soleil and I plastered the first coat of paper mache on the balloon. Then I thought "Hmm, this sucker is SO not going to dry in 99% humidity. I know, I’ll bring it inside to dry! The A/C will take care of it!"

And take care of it, it did! I ended up with something that looked more like a testicle than a balloon! Why? Because the air that filled the balloon was 98 degrees. It was 74 in our house. What happens to air when it cools? Hmm? Can we say contraction? So, as the paper mache was trying to dry, the balloon shrunk, leaving me with a shriveled mass of piñata. Dr. Jay thinks I should market it for divorce parties for women, although I would need to add another balloon and maybe a paper mache penis made from a toilet paper roll (not paper towel, because we want to indicate the lack of ability!) ;)

On Sunday, I tried again, this time armed with my hair dryer. Yes, I sat in my garage, using a hair dryer to dry a piñata in 95 degree heat. I was a sweat ball. BUT DAMN IT! I have a piñata!

How to get the Spacemom’s panties in a bunch

Posted on by
7

Today was a day. Wow. After shipping Dr. Jay and Luna to swimming lessons, the kitchen cleaning and a few quick games of "hi-Ho Cheerio", Soleil and I went to get her haircut. Then off to the store to pick up the shortest lived product in our house, Milk.

As we walked in the store, we passed an obese woman. I noticed her, and noticed she was quiet pretty when Soleil said "Wow, she’s fat!". I was a little embarrassed and then made a mental note to talk to Soleil about polite in public when the woman sitting next to the woman screamed out "That was wicked rude!"
"Excuse me, she is a child, she was just making an observation"
"No, that was rude and as her parent you are to punish her and correct her"

I was beyond flabbergasted and moved Soleil on. I explained to Soleil that some people think the word "Fat" is rude. BUT I also explained that what the woman said was rude.

Soleil was afraid that we would run into the rude woman again and I said, well if we do, we just leave them alone and not say any thing.

UGH, when has our society gotten so body image conscience that we can’t let a child make a statement like that? She wasn’t being mean or cruel, just honest. I honestly don’t know what the woman who Soleil said was fat felt. She didn’t say a thing during this interchange.

So now I am still angry about this encounter hours later. Sigh. Why is it OK to call someone thin, yet fat is bad? What if she said "Wow, he’s so tall!" is that rude?

I hate working over the little nuances of people’s perceptions.

What are your thoughts on this?

Life and Death

Posted on by
1

In undergrad, I once took a class titled "Death in Literature". It was one of my favorite classes. We studied the classics, "Hamlet", "Death of a Salesman", "Death in Venice". We delved not just in death, but the conditions of life that leads us there.

Today, Soleil saw a funeral. We were passing a cemetery and she saw the cars. She asked about them and I told her it was a funeral. She asked what a funeral was. We discussed how it is the way that people say goodbye to a person who has died before their body is put in the cemetery. She thoughts about it for a bit and then wanted to know if people had to say goodbye then, or could they visit later.

This made me think about life and death. Earlier this week, a woman died when the Connector Tunnel lost 4  3-ton ceiling tiles. In a blink of the eye, she was gone. Becky’s husband died quickly too. He was out in Fort Bliss and his caravan was hit by a train going 60 MPH at an unmarked crossing. We always wonder if he knew. Did he have the "flash before your eyes" or did things just stop?

In 1994, I dropped Dr. Jay (before he was Dr. Jay) at his house for Thanksgiving. He had just had a serious hockey injury to the head, and nobody wanted him to drive home alone. So I drove him to Cleveland and then myself onto Buffalo. It was a bit sober because he had a bad injury, his cousin had just been diagnosed with MS, and there was one other thing that I can’t remember at the moment.

As I left, a snow was falling. I got stuck on a hill and my car (Emma) started to slide down the hill, backwards and sideways. Two plow guys saw me and helped me get up the hill just as a car came speeding over it. The other car almost hit the guys who were helping me and Emma. They swore at the guy and I was shaky. If I had not been moved, I would have been nailed by that car.

I got home in 5 hours, much longer because of the snow. When I got there, I had enough time to figure out dinner and we decided on Pizza Hut and were getting ready when the phone ran. It was Jay. "Nance?"
"yes, how are You? I am home safe, but that hill nearly killed me"
"really? Tell me"
so I relayed the story
"Thank G-d you’re okay. Luna died in a car accident today"
"WHAT?"
His aunt, his Dad’s sister, the mom of the cousin with MS was driving the dogs to the kennel so they could come to Cleveland for Thanksgiving. No one is sure what happened. Either she got distracted by the dogs, or the truck got distracted, but the driver’s side of her car collided with the driver’s side of a truck on a curve.

Mercy flight was called in. Uncle Dave got to see her before she died.

I don’t think any of us have ever gotten over this. Her second youngest daughter still won’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Her oldest took over the mom role of the family. Her youngest son is full of anger, and I don’t know if he will ever lose it. He has Fragile X and his mental abilities leave him at about 16 trapped in a 32 year old’s body.

I thought about Soleil trying to grapple with death and life today. I wanted to just tell her that none of us ever understand. I will never understand why Corey died. Why Renee died. Why children have to die.
I understand death at the end of old age. That I can get. But not the others…

Not even in books sometimes.

Set an appointment

Posted on by
Reply

Through the miracle of computers, I have set an appointment for next Thursday with ML, my behavior health specialist. I did not have to talk to a single human in the process. THANK G-D for that!

Why is it so hard to actually make an appointment when the depression gets too bad? What is it about this disease that makes you shun from help when you most need it?

I have a mom’s night out tonight. This is good. I am feeling less guilty leaving Dr. Jay to put the girls down. This will help me!

And next Thursday, I might have some answers.

Sing a song to Luna!

Posted on by
Reply

We had our 6 month evaluation of Luna at daycare today. May I say that I was shocked by her. To be honest, I have been worried about the girl’s mental abilities. I mean, she throws herself off the couch, hits her head and then wonders why it hurts, and then TRIES IT AGAIN!

Turns out, the teacher didn’t want to focus on the cirriculm because Luna is exceeding all of the skill set they expect to see at 2.5 years. She is a little short of the skill set they want her to be at in 2.75 years when she goes to preschool. Hmmm.

What we needed to talk about was my little prima donna. Apparently at daycare, she needs to be first. She does not tolerate fools, nor does she have any patience with other kids that need extra time. She takes art supplies from kids who are distracted as if she is saying "hey, he isn’t using it, why should I wait?" She takes scissors out of other kids hands and cuts paper for them because they are taking too long. Sigh…

To be honest, this is behavior I don’t see at home. Probably because we have most of our playtime with Soleil’s friends. She gets the special treament of going first at home because everyone says she is the little one. Guess we have to work at that!

It is great to hear that she is doing well.

I’m not dead yet

Posted on by
Reply

I have been having this song going through my mind. I now need to  regroup from this week.

First, I sent a message to my behavior health specialist (sounds better than saying my shrink). I read it to Dr. Jay. It runs along the lines of "I think I need to talk to you, but I really don’t want to, but I am starting to really have some OCD behaviors that rival Mr. Monk, so I should talk to you, but I am instead writing to you because I don’t want to actually call for an appointment."

Hmm, think I should see her?

Anyway, my life has spirialed into a mess of everything. I have dozens of posts in my head, but I can’t seem to get them down.

I have become addicted to 24.. Ah, the joy. Becky let me take season one home with me. We are only up to 10am. I need to watch more! More I say! MORE!!!

If I ever needed to blog about work…

Posted on by
1

Today is the day!
Officially, I don’t work, nor do I get paid for Mondays. I didn’t sleep last night.
At 6:40pm, one of the instrument team guys noticed the wrong data coming down from the spacecraft. I read this at 9:30 and was able to confirm his suspicions and confirm that I was the person who missed this. Technically, two people did, the person who built the commanding and me, the backstop person.
I was so sick to my stomache I couldn’t sleep last night.

This morning, I called boss #1, P and talked to him. We went over the science and the failures. We talked about what went wrong. I really fucked it up. I simply missed this error when reviewing the load. The inner child in me wants to say the silly things "But I had 6 loads to review that week because of the target of opportunity" or "I don’t get it, I always check for this" or "really, P, the dog ate my homework"
Truth is, I need to just suck up and accept that I screwed up and fortunately, only 2 observations were affected and only 1 is unrecoverable.

As Dr. Jay put it, at least I didn’t put the telescope in safe mode, which prevents us from doing any science until we determine the problem and fix it. He did that once. He then listed all of the failures of every main person on our team. Except one person. Although we decided that since he shattered his ankle rock climbing, that should count against him.

So, I spent part of the morning talking to P, feeling like an ass, then helped construct the letter to the observing team that wanted this science and sent it, explaining why they lost 10 kiloseconds of data.

I feel terrible. Add to this that I am really falling into a pretty bad depression, I don’t know how things are going to be right now.

I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that it took me 3 years at this position to blow an observation…

AWOL

Posted on by
Reply

No- I have not dissapeared
Yes- I am really awake at 1:10am
Yes- I have a gazillion posts in my head
No- I am not dead yet.

Not yet

But after learning tonight that I personally fucked up a 10 ks observation on the spacecraft, I might be soon….

More tomorrow if I get a few minutes, but I have the kids from sunup to sun down alone tomorrow and I’d be damned if they let me get on-line!

Sigh