Monthly Archives: October 2008

Kitchens and bitchens

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Oh yes, it is finally that time. Jay and I are reviewing people to help us with our kitchen.

We had our first guy come in yesterday. His bid, to replace 2 cabinets, 1 pantry and add an island (with 2 cabinets)? $12,000! But if we signed a contract today he could do it for $10K. Oh you negotiator you! You think a measly $2,000 will get us to ignore other bids? And you told us to keep the kitchen as is and most of the work is the Island and a few roll out drawers? Oh, you are so cute!

Jay listened and said, "Well, if you had told us that you would be offering a discount, we would have booked you last. But we have another person coming out this week." The man tried to explain that getting 2-3 bids on a project is a waste of time. They are not statistically significant. Oh, please don’t argue statistics with us. Not Gaussian nor Poisson (small number stats). We know stats. We have also researched the bidding process. We aren’t idiots.

We told him, sorry, getting other bids. We also pointed out that other groups may have different ideas. We wanted to explore other ideas of what to do also. He seemed uncomfortable with that. He was also focused on colors. Who the hell cares about colors right away? Function should take precedence. Any idiot would know that!

 Finally, Jay said, "Listen, after our other bids, we’ll get back to you. And we know you can do this for $10K. Maybe if you have a slow week and you want to fit us in, we can work something out." The man laughed nervously and replied "Well, we’ll see what I can do!"
Jay repeated that we haven’t got a set timetable for doing this. The man said "well, even Christmas week?" And Jay said "sure! If you want your guys working instead of getting paid for doing nothing, we can do Christmas week"(the advantage of being Jewish!)

In one sense, I love getting a chance to play the game back with these guys. On the other hand, I wish this wasn’t just a huge jerk your chain thing.

Friday morning is our next bid.

 

Rocket science?

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Today I looked out at the girls while they were playing on the playset. 

Luna was at the bottom of the slide.

She had just ridden her scooter DOWN THE SLIDE.

Her sister was ready to go. I yelled out that they needed to wear helmets if they were going to scooter down the slide.

 Seriously, are they related to us? (shaking head sadly…)

A hiccup in time

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Just looking at my calendar, I can see that I have been overwelmed this past week. Between the holiday and the anomaly (official NASA term when something goes wrong), I’ve been very very very busy.

After my weekend from heck last week, I grabbed my watch and discovered that the battery was dead.

 

 

Crud. this is my favorite watch. Jay bought it for me for my birthday in 1993. It has gone through several bands, several batteries and one new timing mechanism. Ok, two new timing mechanisms since the first one they put it made the watch go the right direction. Yes…this watch runs COUNTER clockwise. I love it!

I took it off and went about my day on Monday. And Tuesday…and Wednesday. Thursday was Yom Kippur and I was helping at the daycare at temple and then I was asked to help with opening the ark (has to do with a committee I am on there). So I didn’t worry about having it on.

Friday, I grabbed it to check the battery size and it was working.

It has worked all weekend.

The best I can figure out, the cosmik all found it important to stop my watch long enough for me to ignore some time. And I did.

Not quite a wrinkle or a tesseract, but perhaps a hiccup. 

 

Yom Kippur:From a different point of view

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From high on the bima
I watched the congregation
Chanting responses without feeling
without intonation.

Stand and sit,
bend at the appropriate times
Cover one’s eyes at the Sh’ma
Face to the ark
Where is the god?

And after opening the ark
and seeing the scrolls
written with love and care,
watching the fragile paper being cradled
Like a newborn babe
Words were chanted and read.
A dead language filtered through my ears
A message without comprehension

And yet, I wonder
do I belong here?
Watching the rabbis, the cantor, the people from high
the agnostic among the Jews.

But the truth is, I am at home here
For my salvation does not come
from a book
or a scroll
or a glass of wine
or a wafer of wheat
or a mountain in a far way land

but from those who love me
for the person I am within
not changing for external pressures

but remaining true to myself

 © 2008 Spacemom

A weekend of fun

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I saw Orion this weekend. He was high in the southern sky, dominating over all of the heavens with his trusty dog, Canis Major, next to him. 

“DUDE! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! What the hell are you doing up? It’s the beginning of October!”

Orion: “dude! It’s 5 in the morning. Of course I am up. What the hell are you doing up?” 

“um, It’s a long story”

Orion: “I’ve got time, I’m just hanging out”

“okay, well it started last night, or is it tonight? Damn, I can never remember. Anyway, Jay and I went to shoot some pool. Nice date night.”

Orion: “Who won?”

“well, the table sucked, the bounces weren’t true and frankly we had more fun laughing at how terrible the shots were instead of who cared who won. Except when Jay beat me at 9-ball without me even getting a chance to shoot!”

Orion: ” I hate when the tables are warped”

“Me, too. This is off topic! So we got home, got ready for bed and … my phone goes off. Not once, but twice! That’s usually a bad sign. And I was on call, so I climb out of bed and check. Sure enough, our instrument rebooted and was running the initial software.”

Orion: “Bummer, that’s a bad thing, right?”

“yeah, really bad. SO I call a telecon and it turns out the reboot happened during a target of opportunity, one of those observations where we STOP everything, replan the entire week around, and then observe it. This one was coordinated with several ground based telescopes. I was not pleased.”

Orion:”Is that pronounced T-O-O or “two”?”

” I don’t know, I use the letters.  After much discussion, my co-worker R and I waited for the data from the last 8 hours to come down. Then we both processed it using different methods and checked what happened. Luckily, we got about 2 hours of the TOO. After the data reduction and emails, I took a 45 minute nap. I needed to be up to get in to the control center”

Orion: “Ah! So that’s why you are up now.So now what?”

“Well, if I could read the future, I would say that we will have our telecon in about 5 minutes. The flight director will have to be convinced to let us reboot and start the science again. We have a chance to reload the old software at midnight if we see something in the data when we are more coherent. Also, if I could read into the future, I would say that the coffee machine at the occ will have NO coffee and my 24 hours Dunkin’ donuts will be closed due to renovations. I would think that I would be working until 8 am and get home around 8:30. Then I would think to play with the girls and snuggle then pass out around 9:30am”

Orion:”wow, that’s a pretty detailed future. You must be good.”

“or crazy. I am talking to a constellation which is really just a random set of stars at different distances from the earth that project from a 3 dimensional space into a 2 dimensional picture.”

Orion: “no need to get snippy! “

“sorry, Have I mentioned I’ve gotten 45 minutes of sleep tonight? Anyway, my telecon is in 2 minutes, so I better call in”

Orion: “good luck. And don’t forget to stop and watch the stars sometime. We miss you too!”

“I promise, I will.”

Update on my friend…

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Thank you all for the great words and thoughts. My friend, K, is back home. She ended up losing a great deal of blood in the hospital (she needed 6 units) and her poor husband was terrified. However, she is doing great now and resting at home. Her mom is there to help with the kids and she can now get to healing.

Life comes quick. Remember to tell those you love that you do love them. I learned from Mrs. Figby to hug my kids everyday. Because you just don’t know.

Thanks again. 

Kids say the darnedest things

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Last night:

"Mom! I see a satellite!"

"I do too!"

me: "guys, it’s blinking red and green. We call that an airplane"

"I see another satellite!"

"I see one over here! It’s really bright!"

Jay:"That’s Jupiter"

Me:"Guys do you even know what a satellite is?"

Soleil:"of course, it’s a machine that sends signals to the earth while orbiting the earth" (in the tone, DUH, do you think we’re stupid?)

Jay and me, at the same time "Carry on, girl, carry on" 

Responsibility of the parent or the society?

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In Nebraska, there was the passage of a child abandonment law to prevent parents (read teens and young moms) from dumping their newborns in dangerous places. This NY Times article goes into some of the problems with this law. The wording of the law left the age of the child ambiguous and there have been cases of teens being dropped at police stations and hospitals including a single dad who left 9 of his 10 children at a hospital.

There’s been a large outcry about the parental responsibility. How can someone drop off their teen and walk away? People claim the law is being abused. This was for babies! If the parent is tired of their teen’s behavior, they can’t just leave them for the state!

I understand the issues with parental responsibility. And I wonder about the societal role of raising children. When I was a child, we had parents, aunts, uncles, and both sets of grandparents in the area. My kids have us. Their maternal grandparents are in NC. Their paternal grandparents are in OH. Aunts and Uncles are spread from NY to WA. We are it. That’s it. Just us.

So what if things got too tough? What if there is an emotional or behavioral problem with a child when the parent(s) are the only ones? Is it a societal responsibility to help the family? Should their be some form of consoling available by the state? Should insurance cover this? Should it just be left to the parents?

It’s an interesting question. I tend to lean more towards the socialist side of politics. I believe that we, as a society, need to make sure all of our citizens are cared for, whether it be health care, mental care or financial. But I am curious what others think…. 

Sciatica

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I think Omegamom and I are soul sisters. We are both going through sciatica. Damn it hurts. Really really really hurts. The scoliosis I have occasionally causes this. I have been trying to exercise (the leg/pelvic movement loosens the muscles there) and using my hula hoop more. Driving and sitting are the WORST. UGH. And of course, my job involves a lot of sitting. Right now, I am listening to a telecon and trying to stretch.

I am trying to figure out how to get back to my book. I am pretty frustrated that the depressive episode caused me to stop writing. I was really on a roll there! The problem is, I am not quite out of the woods on the depression, so the evenings are tiring. I have the emotional energy to work with the girls and be happy for them, but to actually sit down and write, I have no energy.

It is finally nice here in the Boston area. It’s been raining and raining and raining. Today is nice. I hope we can walk down to Harvard Square today for lunch. That will help my back a bit (any sort of exercise helps it).

 

Send some healing thoughts?

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A friend of mine is overly generous. She has triplets. She has also done two surrogate pregnancies for a couple who could not carry their own child.

Last week, my friend was in a car accident at 36weeks with the second surrogate pregnancy. She started to bleed. They confirmed yesterday that the baby could be delivered (his lungs were matured). They did the C-section.

During the C-section, they discovered she had Placenta Percreta,  the placenta had grown through her uterine wall and was attaching itself to her bladder. They had to perform a hysterectomy and at one point, she went into cardiac arrest and needed CPR.

She is resting now and the mother of the little boy is with her. They are both enjoying the baby.

But I am requesting some healing thoughts. She is exhausted and needs to heal. This was a pretty bad situation and she went through this to allow another person to have a child. What an amazing person.

Thanks in advance!