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The Paperwork! April 26, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Kids, Depression, Go Team Go Team Go Team , 1 comment so far

First, I must say, GO SABRES! With a resounding 5-2 victory over the New York Rangers, my team started round two well!

Today I spent this morning at school. Kindergarten. Yippie. (insert sarcasm here). The kids had 45 minutes of screening. It was simple stuff like letter recognition and other tasks (stand on one foot, draw this, play with that, hearing and eye tests)… The parents had, I kid you not, 12 pieces of paperwork to turn in. Oy! The Preschool assessment, the health forms, the parental assement, the birth certificate, etc…It was such a pain. And then the questions
"Does she sleep well?"

Um, if you count 8 hours of sleep a night well, then SURE…

"Does she react well to new situations?"
Um, yes, she walks up to anybody and will spell our name and give out our phone number.

"Does she observe the world around her?"
Do you mean like last week when she asked why the flags were at half staff and who had died? Yeah, she observes the world around her.

One of the other parents has a 14 year old. He said that last time, there was no paperwork. He was surprised by the amount. Another couple were complaining about the paperwork. "It’s too much. " and then the complaints because the first week is half days for the Kindergartners "When were they going to tell us?" (um, I’ve known since Feb) "We have to plan for child care. I mean, we have IMPORTANT work to do!" (and the rest of working parents don’t?) It really annoyed me. I mean, yeah, earning a living is important, but isn’t education important too? And making sure your child is comfortable?

Sigh….

And lastly, as expected, depression is hitting full force this week. Damn it.

Random thoughts of a random world April 18, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Religion, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 4 comments

First, I want to say "THANKS!" to all of you who commented on Luna’s doggie blanket. As Omegamom predicted, she now sleeps with the ratty old blankey and her new doggie blankey. This is fine with me, because I just wanted her to have a blanket she loved that covered her whole body! As for the straight stitches, I purposely didn’t show you the one edge where there was an exciting play on the hockey game and I sewed too fast and the one seam went all over the place.
To make the blanket, I got 1.5 yards of fleece that Luna picked out. I trimmed the edges square. Then I folded a 1 inch edge on each side, top stitched that down. I folded it again 1 inch and top stitched it down with a 5/8inch allowance. Then I added another top stitch right along the edge of the fold to a) hold down the edges so Luna didn’t pick up the edging and b) to add that second row of stitches on the good side of the blanket. Easy and quick. She loves her blanker.

Game 4 is tonight in my series. Go Sabres.

I try to be a reasonable person, but sometimes I tend to lose it.  One issue that hits hard is religion. I have posted before about my feeling of being non-Jewish in a Jewish family. Lately, I’ve been hit on-line and IRL about converting to Christianity and about Atheism in general.

One of my core beliefs is the religion is extremely personal. It is not for me to tell others how to believe. I mean, it is a belief. Faith is only faith when one believes in it. Not cold hard proof, but a leap of faith. Why should others push me to believe a certain way? Why?

A recent study found doctors believe (note that word again!) the religion plays a role in healing. This is not surprising to me, nor is the fact that the more religious the doctor was, the more likely he/she would report that religion plays a large part of healing. The quote that struck me was:

The most telling part of this outcome,” said Dr. Farr A. Curlin, the lead author and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago,
“is that it shows that what doctors bring to the data, whether
religious or secular, seems to have as much to do with their
interpretations of the data as the data itself.”

Again a BELIEF, not evidence or fact or data.  I do think it is important that if you have a strong belief to stick with it. To work with it, to live your life that way.

The problem arises when people try to insist  religion is right for everybody. In this study, Americans tend to trust Atheists the least of all types of religious (or non-religious people). The key quotes here are

"It tells us about how Americans view religion," said Penny Edgell,
an associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher. "Many
Americans seem to believe some kind of religious faith is central to
being a good American and a good person."

AND

"I know atheists aren’t studied that much as a sociological group, but
I guess atheists are one of the last groups remaining that it’s still
socially acceptable to hate," Foley said.

AND

First-year pharmacy student Amanda Wawrzynia, however, found the study reasonable.

She said she would have ranked atheists at the bottom of the list of those sharing the same vision of American society.

"I would rather have my kids marry someone of a different religion than someone who has none," she said.

Hmm, so if you believe in G-d, then you are a good person? And if you don’t believe there is a G-d, then what? You’re an evil mass murderer? Of course that can’t be true. We are all well aware of people who believe in G-d who kill and are cruel to others. What we aren’t aware of are the 10%  of Americans who are Atheists. Atheists in general don’t go around with their lack of a deity exposed.  Odds are that you know an Atheist without realizing it.

There’s been a backlash lately against Atheists. A lot of it goes to a group of Atheists who are trying to convert others to their view point. In my opinion, this is no better than those who come to my door, ignoring or ignorant of the mezuzah on the door post and hand me literature on why THEIR version of the bible is best.

Listen, All I want is to allow people to live peacefully. With their religious choice, or lack thereof. Why does it matter so much to others what you believe? Why is it so important to push your religion down other’s brains?

And it launches Nu-kler weapons! April 12, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Life...otherwise, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 5 comments

Okay- Interesting thoughts and comments. You folks make me think. Thank you!

So about a month ago, Silvia, my cleaner, vacuumed my phone charger. I then tried to charge my phone that night and well, being of German blood (no offense Dirk) I forced the sucker into the phone. This caused irreparable damage to the charging part of the phone and now my phone would only hold 12 hours of charge regardless of the battery. I tried a few new batteries and a new charger. Sigh. I let the guy at work know that I need a new phone.

It came yesterday. Good Lord this thing could start a nuclear war! It is an LG VX8300. It has a camera (with a flash!), it’s an MP3 player, the camera takes video, I can watch video on this sucker. Good Gracious! I never imagined I would ever want such a thing. I just wanted a replacement speaker phone. But hey, now I am trying to figure out how to convert some of my music to WAV files and get it on a micro SD card (tiny little sucker).

On Tuesday, I went shopping with a friend. We stopped at a fabric store. I bought a cute pattern for the girls and some fabric! I hope to make them each a sundress before summer. You think this is too ambitious? I do! But I will go slow and see if I can do this. Sleeveless helps because I am terrified of sleeves!

Tonight, I will work on a new blanket for Luna. She is using this silly wrap that someone bought Soleil when she was a baby. The thing has holes everywhere. It drives me nuts that she loves it so much because it doesn’t cover her anymore. We bought a 1.5 yard piece of beautiful fleece. It is red with black dog prints. I trimmed it last night and I am going to baste the sides tonight (at least one side).
And I will do this while watching my Sabres! It’s Playoff time! Go Buffalo!

Play Ball! March 30, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Go Team Go Team Go Team , add a comment

We just secured tickets to 2 RedSox-Yankees games.

Here in the Boston metro area, it is next to impossible to get Red Sox tickets. Here’s what they do:

First, tickets go on sale via the web. This happens on a specific Saturday. People are limited to how many tickets a transaction to prevent scalpers from buying a huge lot. We decided to skip that this year.

Second, you can enter three lotteries. The Yankee lottery, the Green Monster lottery and the Right Field Roof lottery. I usually sign up for all three. If you win the lotteries, you can buy tickets after sitting in a virtual waiting room. I have been stuck in those waiting rooms for over an hour in the past…. This year, I didn’t get any of the lotteries. Bummer

Thirdly, Those people who break the rules of the lotteries get their ticket orders canceled by the Red Sox. They hold a second chance lottery from those who lost the first three. I won that! So Thursday,  atnoon, Jay had three browsers going and I had three browsers going. After 45 minutes, one of my windows was pulled from the waiting room. With my password, I can only buy 4 tickets total. We had previously chosen which games we wanted to go to. I got seats right behind home plate for the Yankees in April and up the first base line in September.

Yes! (pumping fist action)

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

What are we doing? October 26, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Go Team Go Team Go Team , 3 comments

I normally stay away from politics on my blog. It is something I prefer to discuss with other people, not to spout off into the T1 lines. However, last night I experienced something that I didn’t know how to handle.

My mom’s night date canceled for the second week in a row. Last week she was sick. This week, it is finalizing details on their move back to their house (remodel). I understood, but still wanted to get out. After Luna fell asleep, Jay encouraged me to go out. So, I grabbed my latest Spenser novel and went to B*rnes and N*bles and had a decaf Star*bucks and read my book.

I stopped at the store to get some frozen veggies as we were out. The guy in front of me at the checkout told me I was making him guilty. He had 1) large bag of M&Ms 1) blueberry pie 1) rotisserie chicken and 1) large Nestle3 Quick. He told me that was his dinner. I laughed and said that I would eat that way if I didn’t have kids. He said he was away from home.

I asked if he was on a business trip. He said yes, he was a vet and coming to the air force base in my town to talk to the guys heading out to Iraq. He had a broken knee, broken back and still had shrapnel in his head and back. We talked the small talk for a few minutes, I thanked him for going over and then he said "I hate to hear the media say we are there for no reason. Because I don’t want to think that I went through that hell for no reason" 
My heart stuck in my throat
I simply nodded.    Then I said "I hear ya."

He went off to have his dinner and I paid for my frozen broccoli.

What I wanted to say was
"There are so many good reasons to be in Iraq and so many wrong ones.  I think we are there for the wrong reasons. And by being there for the wrong reasons, too many good people, American and Iraqi, are being hurt and killed. You weren’t there for no reason, but the wrong ones. And as a citizen, I am sorry that you had to go through that in my name."

But, I am chicken Shit and chose to stay silent

And all night I thought about this man with the deep scar on his eyelid. And how he wonders if there was a reason for him to go there.

Play Ball! August 3, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Go Team Go Team Go Team , 1 comment so far

We finally made it to a baseball game last night.

Jay found the BEST seats. We ordered the tickets back when the snow was still flying here. We got the first row of the grandstands. The box seats were still in front of us, but we were 14 rows from the field. How cool is that?

We got out on time, we got dinner on the way, we got parking at the Pru. Then we had some extra time to finish my Dunkin Coffee before entering the stadium. It was down to 87 at game time.

The Indians and the Red Sox are not strong rivals, but they aren’t unknown to each other either. Since Jay hails from Cleveland, we started cheering for the Indians. Once they decided to bring in a reliever, we cheered for the Red Sox. In the bottom of the ninth, we started cheering for the Red Sox. Hey, we live here.

Going to a baseball game is one of the best experiences a person can have. Granted, Fenway Park is a tad bit cramped, but you really get to experience a camaraderie that you don’t get to experience much these days. There was a guy behind us who built a road trip based on baseball tickets. He was from San Diego and his wife got up at 7 am when Red Sox tickets went on sale to get these tickets. He also went to a Nationals (DC) game and an Orioles (Baltimore). He also claimed that the cheese steak he ate was the world’s best. Sorry dude, that’s still Philly. But try the lobstah. I hear it is good here.

There is nothing like sitting with 20,000 fans singing "Sweet Caroline" and "Take me out to the ballgame". And eating popcorn. And watching the Red Sox win in the bottom of the ninth with 2 men out.