I’ve been, well, overwhelmed with living lately. We’ve been extremely busy at home and work. I want to get more time to write, but I have little time to do that. So, I will do my best.

As we leave May and enter June, I am preparing for a camping trip with my Girl Scouts. We are going to the great wilds of Cape Cod for a huge camporee of approximately 2200 girls. It will not be quiet.

We’ve purchased a tent in preparation for this. In addition to our tent purchase, I finally agreed to let Dr. Jay purchase a boat. He’s been wanting to buy an inflatable boat for years. We decided that this kayak would be good. It is more of a canoe than kayak, and it only holds one adult+ two kids or two adults (when the kids are at camp??) We took it down to the river in town and checked it out.

First, Dr. Jay and the girls took it for a spin:

Then Soleil and I went out. I think I need a better fitting life jacket. This one may kill me.

We’ve also jumped into summer with the pool around the corner opening up. When I say “around the corner”, it is a 3 minute bike ride to the club. The girls spent at least 7 hours there this past weekend.

My garden is growing, although not as fast as I would like. I have planted mint this year, so I can have home grown mojitos.

I have not been doing so well with my business project. I am getting lots of great feedback and many people thinking it is a wonderful idea, but I am getting no work. A great idea that nobody is willing to try. I need to brain storm this weekend when I am camping and come up with some new ways to get the word out.

Work is tiring. What can I do? It is. I’ve received no calls from the several jobs I have applied to outside of my company. Sad. I can’t tell if I am over or under qualified. On the other hand, I’ve worked here for 16 years in June and I am finally accruing enough vacation time to save at the end of the year. I really wiped it out with 2 pregnancies with bedrest and 2 infants where mom stayed home when they were ill.

I am also working on reinventing me. After my wedding, I lost 50 lbs and got much healthier. I am trying to do this again. I feel much healthier than in the past, but I weigh almost as much as I did when I gave birth to Luna! I am really trying T-Tapp again and I will stick with it longer. I also have 2 half-marathons planned for the winter. Hopefully, in 6 months to a year, I will be thinner, fitter and all around healthier.

She is only seven.
I still have to help her get her skates on.
She just learned how to tie her sneakers.
She just learned how to remove the blade guards.

I watch her struggle to stretch the spring on the guards.
She steps on the ice and swoosh, she is gone.
The scratching of her blades on the fresh ice are like fingernails on my soul.

She is only seven.
My baby.
Yet on the ice, she has the grace of a swan.
She is more comfortable on two thin blades of metal than a fish in water.
left forward inside edge, side toe hop, right forward outside edge
bunny hop,bunny hop, waltz jump, mazurka.
She rises a good 5-6 inches off the ice and lands without fear.

I cannot keep up with her.
I’ve reached the point that I must simply sit off to the side and watch.
I can’t tell when she does a half toe loop
I confuse it with a half lutz.

She has coaches now.
They will guide her in her natural element.
My beautiful, warm ice princess
Her blades cut patterns and figures in the ice
and cut the maternal strings in my soul.

All I can do
is sit in the bleachers
and smile and wave

Yeah, I know this took forever.Shut up, as if life doesn’t get all in your face too and take away all of the time you have.

Partly why this took so long is that I will probably offend EVERYONE. So hang in there.

So I have two kids. Two Jewish children who go to religious school and learn about God and all of that and their heritage and all of the things that make them Jewish. And I am not. Not only am I not Jewish, I am not anything. I just am.

This leads to some interesting conversations in our house. Soleil is proud to be Jewish as is Luna, but Soleil believes in a G-d. Luna doesn’t. Luna doesn’t see a conflict with being Jewish and not believing in G-d. Soleil does. We often discuss these things since I am atheist. Soleil gets very upset at anyone who makes fun of other religions. She gets upset at people who don’t understand that you can go without religion.

I’ve had to learn a great deal about Judaism to be a parent to Jewish children. Here’s my basic comparisons between Christianity and Judaism based on my experiences. I went to an Episcopal and the United Church of Christ as a child.

• G-d totally chilled out about some of the laws after having a kid
• The leaders of the Christian congregations stressed obedience to G-d’s word.
• The leaders of the Jewish congregations stressed obedience to one’s conscience
• If you ask forgiveness for your sins from G-d, you can reach salvation (Christianity)
• You must ask forgiveness from both G-d and those you harmed. (Judaism)
• To be a true Christian, you have to obey the word of G-d
• A true Jew prays like everything depends on G-d, but acts as if everything depends on himself
• Both religions can be corrupted by those who choose to use the words for their own power
• Both religions can be used to hold down women and the weak.

In the end, I can understand, in my heart, why I can’t follow any religion. Our temple has reached an interesting bump in the road where the rabbis are seriously discussing allowing one of the rabbis to perform a mixed marriage. This brings up the question of what is a Jewish community? And Dr. Jay and I are discussing it. We are on the same page. Neither of us want to see our daughters, or their friends turned away because they love someone who is not Jewish. The rabbis should respect the desire of the member who wants G-d in their marriage even if it cannot be a true Jewish ceremony.

So, I guess this kind of wraps up my religion rant.

Flame away and please ask if I failed to cover a point.

Yes, I am still here.

Life is amazingly busy. I can barely come up for air. Let’s just say that I have been busy at work, home, girl scouts, helping the kids with personal issues and other fun things.

The biggest thing going on is: fear.

I am about to send out the announcement that I need science projects for the RBT*. I am still on a job search, but I am either over or under qualified for where I’ve applied to 15 jobs (13 are still open). Sigh. The other RBT is going ok. I have about 25 people who want to do this. I have zero people giving us work. Sigh. So the push is on to find work for us. I really want to get this going. If I can get the word out, if we can get people started sending us work, I know this will take off.

I am currently collecting emails of people I know, people at small locations, people with grant money.
Sigh. Wish me luck, I am going to need it!

As for me personally, I am having thyroid issues up the wazoo. I have seen one of the top specialists in Boston and we are first going to force my meds on a strict schedule. This should help. Then in six weeks, we’re going to do a blood check and also do a non-tropical sprue test. Why? Turns out there is a connection. If I have NTS (or celiac disease), I don’t have the typical symptoms. In a small number of hypothyroid patients, celiac disease flies under the radar. You check the antibodies and if the test is positive, then you cut out gluten. This might* (big fat might) be the cause of the craziness in my system. Who knows. The doctor did warn me that it is a big net they cast and only catch a handful of NTS cases, but for those few, this is a great life changer.

For the girls, I have Soleil running with me for exercise and I think I have convinced her to run a 5K with me. We are doing 90s running, 60s walking. I want to push it to 90s running and 45 s walking and then keep that pace for the race. Luna recently finished a skating competition that I will try post soon. I post a lot on faceboook for those who “know” me, but I really need to write more here.

(I know I have one more part on my religion post…but this couldn’t wait)

As an American woman, I want to ask all of the legislators in our country, whether state or federal, a simple question. Why?

Why is there a sudden push against being born with two X chromosones?

Why have the following items been introduced or PASSED to be part of our legal system?

• ARIZONA: Employers can ask women for proof that their birth control is for medical reasons only
• ARIZONA: Allow a doctor to withhold medical information from a woman if the doctor thinks the woman might get an abortion and the doctor is opposed to that.
• ARIZONA: A legislator suggested that women should be forced to watch abortions before having the procedure done
• GEORGIA: A legislator compares women to cows and pigs and want women to have to carry a dead child until natural childbirth.
• KANSAS: Taxing women for having an abortion regardless of reason (with an exception of an incomplete miscarriage.) Allowing doctors to not tell the women of any medical issue with the pregnancy that may cause her to seek an abortion. Women must hear the fetal heartbeat and be told of a link of abortion to breast cancer which have been refuted by many studies.
• The numerous laws on making sure a woman knows what the fetus looks like:
• Five states require that ultrasounds are offered to the woman by the provider: Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah.
• Nine states require that if an ultrasound is conducted to prepare for the abortion, the provider must offer to show the woman the image: Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia.
• Six states require an ultrasound for each abortion and the provider must offer to show the woman the image: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
• One state, Texas, requires an ultrasound for each abortion and that the provider display and describe the image.
• TEXAS:By failing to follow federal regulations on abortion rules, has had $3.5MILLION to run BASIC HEALTH CARE FOR WOMEN pulled.
• NEW HAMPSHIRE:Under the guise of “religious freedom” tries to remove the coverage of abortions from taxpayer funding and remove required contraceptive coverage.
• IDAHO: While discussing a bill requiring ultrasounds for abortions, a legislator suggests that a doctor could ask a married woman if she is sure that the pregnancy is from rape or normal marital relations.
• MISSISSIPPI and ALABAMA:A woman who had a stillborn child at 36 weeks was charged with murder because she was on cocaine.Others who have had miscarriages, including a Down’s fetus, have been charged with murder despite no evidence of any action causing the miscarriage.

I could find more cases if I wanted to. But I am sickened with this.

I am a woman. I am an American citizen. My rights to have privacy are being invaded. My rights to have an honest conversation about my health with my doctor is being compromised. I don’t plan on having any more children. However, that is my choice. Your choices end when they enter my uterus. My First Amendment rights are not to be trampled by yours.

I’m not pro-abortion. I am for the humans who are suffering because some in our country are trying to make their religion the moral compass for our country. How can we let this happen?
How can we allow women to be treated like second class citizens? We need to stand up NOW.

ETA: I was recently informed about this wonderful idea from the Pennsylvania governor.”Just close your eyes”

Thanksgiving 1994. Dr. Jay’s Aunt Renee died in a car accident. It was a horrible driving day. I had driven Jay from Long Island to Cleveland because he had a serious hockey accident only a few weeks early where his orbit was broken by a freak play. He wasn’t allowed to drive, but he was going to leave Cleveland to go to a meeting in Mexico, so I just wanted to get him to his family.

I left to get to Buffalo and deal with hideous snow. I almost got into an accident myself. When I got to Buffalo, I gave Jay a call to let him know that I was safe. He let me know that his aunt, his father’s only sister, had been in a fatal accident. She was taking the dog to the kennel so they could visit Cleveland. A semi-tracker trailer crossed the double yellow on the curve of a 2 lane road. She was in critical condition and mercy flight took her to the hospital. She died while in the OR.

It was devastating. Her 5 children were lost. Renee was the light of everyone’s light and with a turn of the wheel, it was out. Dr. Jay missed the funeral to go to his meeting. When he got back, he and I took a trip to Maryland to visit his Uncle and cousins. We talked and read the mourners Kaddish with the family. At one point, I found myself talking with Uncle D. He was at a total loss. He showed me the certificate they had received from the school board. With all of the legalese that is required, they had resolved that Renee was a good person and they resolved that she was dead and they resolved that she should be honored for being a good person who helped the schools. The resolutions made us laugh, but that quickly turned to another story of how a little girl told Uncle D that Renee couldn’t be in heaven. She was a Jew and Jews can’t go to heaven. The girl’s mother tried hard to backtrack it, but that stupid part of “my religion is better than your religion” snuck in. Eventually, Uncle D explained to the girl that Jews have a different part of heaven and that Aunt Renee was waving from her side of the fence. The girl was happy, but the mother wasn’t.

The came the conversation I can still hear in my head. Uncle D and I were just talking, crying, talking. He said “I can’t believe in a god anymore. A god would never let this happen. Just like a god would never let little children die.” I’ve heard this before and I turned the discussion to faith. “If no children died, wouldn’t that be proof of a god?”
“I guess”
“And doesn’t religion require faith, not proof?”
“yes”
“So to avoid proof, any god that does exist needs to allow bad things to happen to good people”
Uncle D thought about that. I thought about that. I wasn’t sure where I had gotten it from, but it suddenly clicked that I didn’t need proof of a god, nor did I need faith. I just needed to be.

It was this conversation and others that Uncle D and I had that night that started to pluck away some of the last threads that connected me with religion. I didn’t want the idea that my life was controlled by some unseen force. I didn’t want my free will to be a good person because I felt it was the right thing to do to be forced because I felt guilty that I was disappointing some omnipotent being who would allow good people to die. And worst of all, I didn’t want to accept that a “loving god” would allow a wonderful,kind soul like Renee be snuffed out as part of a bigger plan.

From this point, late 1994 to early 1995, I started to draw my morality from who I wanted to be, not from an ancient book.

1999 was a rough year. My grandmother’s alzheimers became worse and she passed away on February 1. My niece was born a month later, but that year saw 11 deaths between Jay’s family and mine. I was looking forward to 2000.

I had planned a trip to El Paso for the second week of January. Jay was going to the American Astronomical Society meeting, so I would go visit my friend and her family. Her husband, Corey, worked on Patriot missiles at Ft Bliss. She had a 7 month old baby girl and her 2.5 year old boy. I hadn’t seen her in a year, so I was excited for the trip. Three days before the trip, I got a call at dinnertime. It was my friend’s (let’s call her Becca) mother. I was surprised to hear her and said “Hey! I’m going to see Becca and Corey next week.” She told me she knew and then asked me to sit for a moment.

Corey was dead. He went out to work on the base. They were taking a caravan out to the firing range for testing. A train was coming down the track at 60 mph. The caravan turned a corner and crossed the tracks. The first truck crossed without seeing the train. Corey’s truck was destroyed. Later, we found out that Becca’s mom, who is a pathologist, asked permission to see the remains. She advised Becca not to view them. Corey’s wedding ring was never found at the crash site. Way to start, 2000.

I went out to the mall to walk around with Jay and expressed my anger at everything. How could Corey be dead? He wasn’t even 30 yet? How could everybody be walking around so normal? Life should stop? I told Jay that I was no longer on speaking terms with any god. I think Corey’s death was the final clipping of the delicate threads that held my belief in any sort of divine being attached to me. After this, god was gone. No malevolent guy who flooded the earth, no relaxed old man on the beach. Nothing. Nada. No. I let it go. I didn’t need nor want the so-called love of any being that had all powers, yet allowed such good people to suffer. Again and again I heard about god’s plan. Really? His plan is to let a little girl grow up and NEVER KNOW WHO HER DAD WAS? Great plan, there!

I supported Becca as much as possible. I was there to listen to her when she needed to vent. I drove to Buffalo for the funeral. I can no longer listen to TAPS without crying over Corey. I even sat quietly in her church, the Catholic Church of my little town, while the priest talked of the goodness and mystery of god. I was good. I didn’t scream out how that was a pack of lies. I didn’t yell how unfair it was to the kids, to Becca, to Corey. I wanted to, but I didn’t.

God was dead. As dead as Corey. I stopped accepting the belief of a higher being and made a pledge to treat other humans with respect. To treat others the way I expect to be treated. I pledged to be the person in charge of my life. Accidents will happen and I will not blame and imaginary person. Successes will happen and I will no longer thank someone for the strength to get there because the strength was within. Not everything is my fault, but not everything isn’t. If I screw up, stand up and admit it. If I do well, be willing to accept it as the fruits of my work. If luck plays into it, so be it.

That is how I became an atheist.
However, 2 years after Corey’s death, I became a mother, and this opened one last can of worms. (part 5 soon)

I have written about half of the part 4 of the religion post. It’s hard to write.
I will finish it, but before then, I’ve been busy being out of town on travel with family, training for a half marathon (THIS WEEKEND!) and life in general.

I will get to it! I promise!

Man, this is taking forever. Who would have thunk that my views on religion took up so much space? I hope someone is reading. Maybe it’s just good for me to get it all out anyway, even if nobody is reading. This part gets weird, so just go with it, okay?

So where was I? Ah, yes, college. Learning to be comfortable with a God that didn’t really do anything. Just sat back and watched the creation move forward. I was not alone in my quest of understanding. One of my friends (we’ll call her Crazy H) was also going through this quest. She studied many religions including many new age theories. She loved crystals and healing and mediation. We would sometimes talk about our different views on religion and she questioned my spirituality. I was surprised by that. My spirituality was fine, wasn’t it?

I decided to think about my spirituality. I was not happy with my inner person and I am glad I took the time to reflect on who she was. Over the years, I have changed the person inside and, in general, I am happier with me. How did I get there? I stopped. I listened. I looked. I discovered that I needed the quiet of the night to find my spirit.

She was always there, just hiding. I found her in the hum of the buildings on campus. She hid in the starlight above the Earth and Space Sciences’ dome. The gentle rush of the waves on Long Island Sound brought her to me. She was hiding in nature. I discovered that my soul felt calmer in these spots. Standing on the edge of the sea cliff, watching the moonlight dazzle off the water as it washed over the rocky North Shore, I could find my soul. She wanted to be braver, to be a person of action, to be able to feel comfortable with making decisions and acting on them. While laying on the rooftop of ESS, she would say “See that? That star? Yeah, go grab it. You don’t have to be a PhD in astronomy. You can find your own way. You only have you to answer to.”

Slowly, carefully, I found her and plucked her out of the noise. I cleaned her up and listened, really listened to her. My spirituality was there inside me all along. I found some confidence and moved forward. I was graduating and not sure what to do, but she gave me to courage to ask for a research job at the university. And I got it. And I started taking classes. And slowly, carefully, I worked my way up to earning a Master’s of Science with thesis. I found my spirit and let the strength within help me move forward. This was the spirit I had not found as a child. She didn’t want to be told what to do, she wanted to stretch and learn. She wanted to dip her toe in the waters, but not make too many waves.

I was the first person to earn a MS with thesis from the astronomy department. In general, the MS was a booby prize. Thanks for playing, but you failed the qualifying exam, so instead of staying for a PhD, here’s a nice shiny MS. Bye! And don’t let the door hit you on the way out! Instead, I decided to stay with the person I was in love with (Dr. Jay), I declined admission to a very well known PhD program, and wrote a proposal for a thesis, lost all of the data in a disk crash disaster and wrote up ANOTHER thesis.

During this time, my love for Dr. Jay solidified and grew roots. My feelings towards God, on the beach, with the Baracardi Breezer, remained aloof. Jay was not upset with my religious feelings and I was not upset with his. We spoke once about the m word. If it happened, he could raise the kids Jewish. Fine by me. And that was that. It was important to him, not me.

I think I would have stayed happily agnostic for a while if not for 2 things: Aunt Renee’s death and Corey’s death. From these two events, I shifted away from the realm of religion and into atheism.

Life isn’t fair.

I swear I say that phrase every single day. Yes, your sister got 1cc more cupcake than you did. Life isn’t fair. Get over it.

But tonight, I am angry and sad. Because life isn’t fair. Today, Susan Niebur of Toddler Planet, AKA WhyMommy, passed away from cancer.

I forget how I found her blog. I think I was looking for some other science geeks to read and I stumbled onto her blog. Or maybe she stumbled on mine. I am not sure. She had worked in planetary sciences and was working at NASA at the point I met her. She had 2 young sons, one just born. I loved her choice of “WhyMommy” for a moniker, since that is what she expected to hear as her sons grew up. “Why, Mommy? Why does the moon glow? Why is the sky blue?”

We wrote back and forth a bit. Then, shortly after we met on-line, she was upset that her son was only nursing on one side. She saw a doctor, fearing a breast infection. Instead, it was irritable breast cancer (IBC). The breast cancer without a lump. She was scared, who wouldn’t be, but started to include her treatment and disease as part of her blog.

For the past 5 years, I have continued reading, and commenting. I have watched her boys grow, but not grow up enough. It hit me a bit ago that this day was coming. We all know that we are going to die. It’s part of life. We just don’t know when. We hope and expect it will be when it’s the right time. When we’ve done all we’re going to have done in life and be ready to move on. But, life isn’t fair. Sometimes, we do know when the day is coming. Susan knew it was sooner than later.

In the last year or two, Susan became Catholic. I find this slightly ironic to mention as this post is in the middle of my posts on religion, but I also could see that this was the right thing for her. She was finding the peace she needed to accept her life and the things she would miss. Her sons becoming adults, the questions she wanted, the fight to have more females in planetary sciences end, the life she and her husband had planned.

This is hard to write. I think of all of the things that I don’t want to miss. I see my own mortality in Susan. I can only hope that I have the calming words that Susan had in her writings when it is my time to leave. I hope I can express my emotions as clearly as she did.

I am really going to miss Susan. She had a way of reporting how she was feeling, mentally and physically and then turning around and being genuinely concerned about you. She never seemed to be put out by her children’s needs. And I mean that in a mom sense. Yeah, we all get frustrated with our kids, but when she wrote, she made it clear that she knew her time with them was measured and she was going to get all of the love into them she could.

Despite our love for astronomy, I think my connection to Susan was more of an observer of life. I was lucky to share in her observations, insights and opinions. I have learned to listen to my children more and pay more attention to the big things, and let the little ones go. I’m not perfect and neither was Susan, but I learned so much from her.

Thank you, Susan. For sharing. For letting us into your world. Even though we never met in person, I have always felt like I’ve been your friend.
We will all miss you.

I’m realizing this will be far more than a 2 part story. I’ll just keep going.

There is a time and a place for everything, and it is called college. I left the rural Western New York town where I grew up and moved to Stony Brook, Long Island. It was a 500+ miles trip across my home state and I was quite scared. Most of my friends had stayed close to home and here I was, going to the only State University of New York (SUNY) with an astronomy major. There are only 4 universities in the SUNY system, so this was one of the big 4.

By the time my first week was done, I had several firsts crossed off my list:

• First Asians (Chinese, Thai and Cambodian) friends
• First Subcontentials met (Paki & Indian!)
• First Stereotypical Staten Islander (my room mate) friend
• First Jewish person met!
• First Muslim person met!
• First Buddhist person met!

It was amazing the sudden diversity that I was experiencing. I had never seen such a diverse place! In fact, I was still frightened to meet the African-American girls on our floor. That is how sheltered I had been. My town isn’t bad, it’s just, well, not very diverse. I once saw that our town had 700 African-Americans. Where? Where they hell were they? Oh, right! The county’s maximum security prison was in our town. Really. That is how white my town was (I am hoping it has changed).

I became very close friends with a friend from Upstate (Kingston) New York who was Hindi and her family had come from India. I met Salman, a fellow astronomy major, who was from Karachi and spoke both fluent English and Urdu. I was exposed to new cultures that forced me to try new things and I finally realized that the African-American girls on my floor were just people like me. We grew up in different areas and we all had different histories, but that was okay.

Part of my first 4 years at Stony Brook introduced me to other religions. I started to see if anything could move that spirit within. We had to take several core courses and for me, those were the boring humanity and English classes. One that I managed to find was the history of religions. THAT was an interesting class. From the Mesopotamian cultures to the Biblical times to the more recent evolution in Christianity, the class covered many religions. What bothered me most were the students who openly mocked the religions that weren’t theirs. The whole point of a religion is that you have faith in your spiritual leader, right? So, you have faith and believe you’re right, but so does everybody else. You all can’t be right. Someone has to be making a mistake here or all religions are equally acceptable. This realization that there may be more than one right God and religion made me stop and think.

I spent those first four years in Stony Brook thinking and growing up. At one point, I was invited by a friend to the kosher dining hall. Food was great, I got to hear about Judaism, and learned. I went to a Baptist meeting, and listened. I listened to Salman, I listened to Lata about her Hindu religion. I watched the stars a lot. I drove down to Orient Point, and Montauk when I had a car and sat that the ends of the forks thinking. I started to call myself agnostic. I was not willing to accept that there was a cosmic being who wanted everyone to worship him a certain way and all others would be sent to hell. I couldn’t reconcile that any one religion could be right with all of the wisdom I was learning from people around me. All of the things I was learning and experiencing were from people of different religions.

I have written before about my early depression. It really came to the foreground in college (too much thinking?). I questioned free will and God’s role in free will. The phrase “it’s God’s will” or “God always has a plan” had often bothered me. It lead me to a place where I felt out of control. Would there really be a point to life if God controls everything? Why try new things if I don’t have the will to control my own destiny? Eventually, I got to the point where I decided God can’t get involved in everyone’s life. It was the only way that I could retain some semblance of control over life.

My view of God became one of an old man on the beach. Sitting back, watching the waves roll in and out. To many things to handle. God just watches, downing a Barcardi Breezer, and not playing and invoking his will into people’s lives. And for a while, I took control of life. I started to break away from the current binds of religion and just let it be.
(Part three coming in a few days)