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Do you Google? January 18, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Nance , 3 comments

I was reading over at Johnny’s this morning when I suddenly got the urge to do some Go*gling. On an ex-boyfriend. I think I found the company he started in my old college town. At least there is a company with the name of his town, started when he was still living in my college town. I wonder, though, because a Go*gle his name brought his parent’s house address with his name…

Should I add him to my holiday card list?

It is odd to imagine ways life have gone. My ex-b was a resident assistant at the college I went to. We only dated 4 months, but we were friends long before that. I had an obsession complex after that, so we slowly became friends again, but it took time. He got stuck at the college. Stuck in the sense that he chose to stay there. I met with him when I did my graduate work, but by that time, I was dating Jay. In between ex-b and Jay, I dated ex-b’s best friend (Bad, bad idea).

In truth, I am happy with the way things have gone. But I sometimes miss talking to him. He was a good friend.

Do you ever look for people in your past? People you have lost touch with?

It’s so cold… January 17, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 3 comments

This morning, I walked into the kitchen and glanced at the thermometer. It was way off, saying 95. Then I realized that it wasn’t reading 95, but 9.5. Yes nine point five degrees F. Scary.

This is what I call "Snot freezing weather". It is so cold that when you go outside, your snot freezes inside your nose.

okay, I’ll fess up, I’ve got nothing. I am in the guts of a code and reorganizing like mad and I can think of nothing except commands to the spacecraft. Sorry folks… You’ll just have to suffer elsewhere on the Internet today…

I will think of something fun and witty for tomorrow, but I can’t promise a thing.

Yankees SUCK! January 16, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Go Team Go Team Go Team , 4 comments

Okay, if you are a Yankees fan, I will start by saying, I’m sorry. No one should have to root for the Yankees. But I digress.

Yesterday was a day off of work for Dr. Jay. Soleil’s gymnastics class was canceled since school was closed. We arranged with daycare that they could take the girls in. Normally, I am home on Mondays. But yesterday… my TEAM was in town. Not that they actually decided to play. No, the game ended as a 3-2 shoot out loss for the Sabras.

After much discussion, Dr Jay and I bought tickets from a nice man on Craig’s list (www.craigslist.org). He was nice enough to suck up the Tick3TM@steer fees, so we paid him face value. The seats were six rows from the glass. NICE.

The Sabres changed their Jerseys and Logo in 1993 and again this year. They brought back the old colors, so I wore my old Jersey and let Jay use the 1993 Jersey. Yes, we went into the new Garden like this.

The problem with living far away from your hometown is that you just have trouble cheering for your team. First, you can almost never see a game on TV (unless you blow the money on a sports package, like we did for Hockey), second, you only have 3-4 changes to even see your team play and third, you have to enter the enemy arena.

Luckily, we paid for the tickets. Tickets in Boston are expensive. We sucked up, knowing this was the only game we would go to this year. The people in the lower seats tend to be a bit nicer than in the nosebleed seats. Yesterday, I had no physical assaults, no beer dumped on me and no sexual taunting. (Yes, all of these have happened at previous games I have gone to in Boston when cheering for the other team).

The worst I had to suffer was the usual taunting that the team sucked and so and so sucked and the goalie sucked. I started to fall into a world of suck.

Why is it that sports fans can’t come up with anything clever? For example, the guy in front of me screamed "Miller! You suck a$$!" Now, I have to agree that if Miller (the Sabre goalie) hadn’t knocked the puck in his own net with 0.7 seconds left in the first period, we might have actually won the game, but does that really mean he sucks a$$? (My reply was "hey, if that’s what does it for you"..his friends gave me high fives for dissing him). There were many chants of "Sabres SUCK". Oh yeah, that’s a clever one for you! If they suck, why are they doing so well this year?

In Boston, it is not uncommon to see "Yankees SUCK" T-shirts and bumper stickers. There’s even a blog! Yeah, I don’t like the Yankees either, but can’t we come up with something better? Like "Jeter sucks A-rod?"* Come on, folks, think with your brain, not the beer in your hand.

I wonder what some of the most clever chants and slogans have been heard in sports arenas. The only one that comes to mind was at Cornell where the Cornell fans would taunt the Princeton hockey team with the chant "Princeton’s in New Jersey"**

Imagine what we could do if we offered fans free tickets for the BEST chant/taunt of the game. It would have to be clean (not include words like suck and any swear words), but downright insulting…

*Honest to G-d T-shirt on sale by Fenway park

**Long time rivalry between the State of New York and the State of New Jersey

I so want this…. January 14, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Seeing the World Through Astronomy , 2 comments

Wishes
© 2006, Despair, Inc.  All rights reserved

Squish….AAAA! Squish….AAAA! January 13, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 2 comments

Today I had a mammogram. Very important. My doctor and I don’t suspect any problems, but she wants a baseline at age 35. If we see something when I am older, we have something to compare to.

This actually wasn’t painful, just uncomfortable..

Go. Do it.. Don’t be afraid, but do take care of yourself…

Consider this your PSA for today…

Comet! January 12, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : She Blinded me with Science , 3 comments

Two very nice comet series from last night. These are copyrighted by Dr. Jay, so DON’T STEAL THEM!
          

Summary: Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) is plunging toward the Sun and brightening dramatically. It is now visible both at 
sunset and at dawn. In the morning, the comet emerges just ahead of the rising sun. In the evening, it pops out of the western twilight as soon as the sun sets. In both cases, a clear view of the horizon is essential. [finder charts: morning and evening] [ephemeris]  [3D  orbit]

Mcnaught1

Mcnaught2

Do we really need to do this? January 11, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Kids , 3 comments

I was glancing through the NY Times and found THIS health article. If you can’t read it, it is about schools sending home the child’s BMI and percentiles with the report card.

This is scary. I went to CDC and calculated Soleil and Luna’s BMI. Soleil is 15.5 (46th percentile), Luna is 13.6 (3.something). So Soleil, is good but Luna is UNDERWEIGHT. Yeah, so my child who lives on air and has size 4 pants falling down and size 3 pants are floods, but fit her waist is okay, but my toddler who eats as if she is a vacuum cleaner is underweight even though she is in T3 shirts (okay, she also has the pant problem, the size that fits her height doesn’t fit her waist).

I am from a stocky build. At 5′3", my calf muscles are THICKER than Jay’s are (he’s 6′1"). He is from a tall, lanky build. His genes are clearly more dominate than mine and the girls both have his build, although Luna will probably be taller than Soleil.

The question I have is this: Do we really want our schools reporting to us and our kids where they stand in the fight against obesity? In the article, there is the following quote:

Seventh graders traded scores during lunch periods. And more than a few
children, like Karlind, no longer wanted to eat, students and parents
said.

So kids are trading where they fall based on BMI and some children as young as 6 (the girl named Karlind above is 6) are not eating because of this score. Is this what we wish to teach our children?

How about teaching kids how to eat better and provide better choices at home and school?
How about making sure there is plenty of time for phys ed and perhaps teach all students how to stay fit?
How about teaching the benefits of healthy living instead of accepting soda machines for profits or having kids sell candy bars and popcorn to raise money for the schools?

This bothers me on SO many levels. I worry about what happens to my girls when they get out in the mean world that worries more about looks than on the person inside…

Delurkers Unite! January 11, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 3 comments

Delurk5Hey guys,
Leave a comment, Say hello!
I would love to hear from you!

You don’t need to leave your real name, make something up like "Cap’n Crunch" or "Martin Black and the Trilobal Fibres!"

Depression Updates January 10, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 3 comments

Disclaimer: This post is going to discuss female hormonal changes. If you have issues with words like Blood, Menstruation, Cycle, Period and other words like this…  Then DON’T READ!

So I had my appointment yesterday. The upshot is that the week of menstruation, I should increase my medicines to 90mg, but then drop back to 60 mg. I need to track all of this to understand what is happening when.

Cymb@lta has been great. I am very happy with how it works. However, the hormonal issues surrounding a woman’s menstrual cycle wreaks havoc on everything.

A friend of mine often said "Never trust anything that bleeds for a week and lives". I sometimes agree with that. But seriously, a female is caught is a terrible roller coaster of hormones every month. At the beginning of the cycle, starting with menstruation, we suffer from a crash of progesterone. We believe this is what is triggering my depression. Then after the progesterone levels are down and stable, estrogen starts to increase as the follicle develops and grows. Once we hit a certain level of estrogen, we then have a small surge of the lutenizing hormone (LH) which triggers ovulation. Once ovulation occurs, we then have the cyst left over from the follicle producing progesterone for about 2 weeks. When that level starts to drop, we menstruate… And start all over again.Menstrualcycle

Given all of this, now consider that depression is a chemical imbalance. How does progesterone affect serotonin? How does this all work together? It is clear to me, that the researchers still don’t know. My doctor is very good at dealing with women and discussing how women react differently to medicines than men. Those damn stable men…they don’t have this hormonal up and down to deal with…

So, I will track things. I will increase my dose right before menstration, and drop shortly after.(3-4 days). And hopefully, we can keep the darkness of depression away….

Little Things that make Me smile January 9, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Kids, Depression, I dream of sleep, In A Family Way , 1 comment so far

I started a post on Sunday. About how life sucked and how I sucked and all sorts of depressing shit.
I never posted it. I stopped and realized that we have managed to reduce the absolute negative attack of depression to 2 days this month.  Yesterday, I was much better. Today, good, but still stressed. I see my doctor today.

So instead of being all bitchy and depressive, I am going to touch on the brighter things of this weekend: