So, you had a bad day

Today has been crap - one of those days where you wish you could have stayed in bed. Being a mom doesn't allow this, though. Some days, it's the best job in the world and some days it can be unbelievably frustrating.

I love my son with all of my heart, he really is a good kid, and I don't completely blame this day from hell on him. Yes, having to listen to Yo Gabba Gabba 4 over and over again can be maddening, no matter how much you enjoy the bands on it. It's even more maddening when he wants to listen to it and then has you scan through each song several times saying "no dis one!!!" to each one. I mean, EVERY, song on the CD! When I told him he obviously didn't like the CD, so I was turning it off, he freaked. F-ing toddlers, man! Pretending you can't here him doesn't work, as he gets upset and keeps asking you to put the CD back on - the same one he hates all of the songs on now...maybe because we've heard them so many times!!! Argh!!!

If these were my friends, I wouldn't bite them -
I'd dick punch them. Hard. With steel-toed boots...

He was punished and did apologize to the woman who accidentally got a handful of crayons to the face at the playgroup this morning ("we don't throw" is becoming a monotonous daily chant; while persistence is beginning to pay off, it is still exasperating when he knows better, gets excited and throws something, anyway, and someone gets hurt). Punishment was leaving, immediately. No more animals, crayons, playdough, or stickers. No more fun with other kids. Although, secretly, it was also the only way to get him out of the building and to the car. We HAD to leave. The playgroup is at the local animal shelter and, today, someone decided not to pick up their dog shit. Guess what? Little man stepped in it. His shoes, with tons of treds, were ruined. His white pants, also, became smeared all over with shit. It happened to be one of those rare days, when we didn't have a change of clothes. Cue taking him - a 2.5 year old - in a diaper, blanket, and shirt - to our favorite second hand children's clothing store for new shoes and pants. You would think things would now be on the up, but you would be wrong.

You see, Cambridge, where my spouse works, and where we dropped him off at work this morning and then had to go back through to get from the playgroup to the clothing store, has some lovely people who think the best place to park their BMW is right in the middle of a crowded street. Even better when men driving giant trucks think it is cool to live park in the only lane open, thanks to heavy construction. Did I mention that jackass hipster (NOT cop or construction worker; I'm talking a random dude here...) who decided today was a great day to start trying to direct traffic? Or the dinks in their Prius', on their bikes, and on their scooters who whip out into on-coming traffic and hope for the best, despite having a stop sign/light and about an inch between them and the grill of your car? Remember the non-stop chants of "no dis one" and the soundtrack of Yo Gabba Gabba? Try to stay sane during all of that.

The remedy to all of this madness seemed simple - get some chocolate, put little man down for an early nap, and try to get in a hot shower... Except, the hot water died out after 5 minutes, the boy is still awake upstairs banging around, and the chocolate wasn't that great.

If I had more time to myself and some more disposable cash, I would love to just go out by myself for a relaxing mani-pedi and a drink. Alas, I put my pajamas on and am laying bundled up on the couch, typing this entry out, while Unsolved Mysteries plays in the background.

I have to say, despite the crap day, it was nice to sit down in comfy clothes and read some books to my son, hearing "I love you, mama" and getting a sweet hug and kiss. It's even better to be able to plant my ass on the couch for a few hours and do nothing. The dishes in the sink, the toys on the floor, and everything else I need to do around the house can wait. It might have been a bad day, but my life is blessed. I just need to remind myself of that when life is making me nuts!

Space gives me an existential crisis

Warning: The following is stream-of-thought, so please bear with me.

I am fascinated by space. And, before you ask, yes, I did see Gravity in 3D and wasn't a huge fan (I don't really like Sandra Bullock). Many times, when I can't sleep, I browse Quora; especially answers from Robert Frost, an engineer/instructor at NASA. I've seen many videos of the International Space Station (ISS), space launches, and reentry. I even followed Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield's, twitter feed from the ISS.

All of this fascination could be the fear of possible aggressive alien species and the fear of not knowing. I think it's interesting that none of what we have explored in space is conducive to human life; that our DNA may have originated in space. 

I always assume that space = death. I can't comprehend that, once you leave the planet, you can still live and come back to Earth with no permanent adverse changes. I guess the same could be said about the ocean, but the ocean is part of Earth. We are all part of Earth. When we fail to stay connected to our planet, what then?

The universe is constantly expanding. What we see as stars are actually explosions that happened hundreds of thousands of years ago. A black hole will turn you into spaghetti, tearing you apart. I have a hard time grasping the theories of physics, especially in relation to cosmology and astronomy. Don't get me wrong, I've tried! It just makes my head hurt...kind of like when I tried to figure out Schrodinger's cat on my own. I eventually understood it, but I needed someone to break it down for me into layman's terms. On a related note, I whole-heartedly believe that the majority of people who think that they understand the example of Schrodinger's cat are lying to sound smarter than they are.

 

 

But, I digress. While I can't find evidence of this being fact, I've heard that our galaxy has a similar make up to an atom - our sun being the nucleus and the planets being electrons. I realize that this is a stretch. What we know of the human body and what we know about the universe don't exactly overlap 100%. It would be a work of science fiction to think that we are pieces of a larger being. Or is it? What if we are? Don't mitochondria have their own DNA? Could we be the universe to our mitochondria? (I know, I know...)

These are the things that keep me up at night, and, maybe, just maybe, it is because I don't fully understand the majority of these concepts. I did work in science for many years, despite hating science in elementary and high school. However, there are many different branches of science and very few people are experts of each particular field, much like doctors of medicine. A heart surgeon won't be the person you turn to for cancer treatment.

It all goes back to the fear of the unknown and the seductive nature of trying to understand our own fears. I am an agnostic and tend to value science over religion. My belief, although I would love to think otherwise, is that, when we die, life ends and we go on to complete nature's circle in feeding new life into the world. We become food for insects and plant-life. That plant life goes on to feed other animals, who then feed us, as well as directly feed us. We live, we die, and the cycle renews itself. We live on through our children and their children, who share our genetic make-up and our histories as their history; our knowledge as their knowledge. Yet, I always worry about the "something more" that's out there. The unexplained. The nature of life is not simple.

I guess these ideas about the nature of space are, in a way, searching for a god. Trying to understand why we are here and how. I know in my life-time, I will never really know - not even when I die. But I can try to understand. I can also panic about the concept of reality, but we'll save that blog/freak-out for another time.

This channel is awesome, if you have some free time.

A change in time

I don't understand daylight savings time. It's not like it is universal or that we don't have modern conveniences like electricity. Don't get me wrong, I love the extra hour in the Fall... I just hate the adjustment. It feels like jet-lag, but without the satisfaction of going somewhere exciting that takes you out of the day to day monotony of the usual weekday routine.

I have had severe bouts of seasonal effective disorder in the past, so I love waking up to daylight and having more natural sunlight during the day. I love waking up feeling better rested and with more energy, as the time now fits closer to my natural circadian rhythm. What I hate is CONSTANTLY feeling hungry. I hate feeling ready to pass out from exhaustion at 3 in the afternoon. I'm a night person. Always have been. Night is me time!

The tiredness may very well have to do with chasing a toddler, whose schedule is now completely off. While the childless get an extra hour of sleep in the morning, a small child will automatically wake up an hour earlier wondering why you keep talking about some round piece of plastic with numbers on it. It seems like kids get wackier with the change in time, temperature, and season, too.

The hunger is probably natures way of fattening us up for the winter cold. Thanks nature! Just undo all the hard work I've done to get to a healthy weight over the spring and summer! I mean, it would be one thing, if I was going to hibernate...god, I would love to hibernate! Can humans hibernate?!

 
If you are like me and wonder about the history of all things trivial, this is a really great article on Day Light Savings Time.   I am off to take a nap!

I can't think of anything to write, today

I'm exhausted. Unrelated, my dog had to be put to sleep just shy of his 13th birthday, due to the complications of old age. This happened well over a year and a half ago, but is still quite painful.

I found this poem in a collection of Pablo Neruda (one of my favorite poets) and found it fitting. I've decided to share it in memory of my beloved Bear.

A Dog Has Died

My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.


Translated, from the Spanish, by Alfred Yankauer

Pablo Neruda

Monsters are real

With Halloween come and gone, I had been thinking about the topic of childhood fears. My son is at an age, where his imagination is extremely vivid and he is easily scared. Children fear the monster in the closet, the monster under the bed, the boogeyman. We think of these monsters as big fury creatures with sharp teeth and claws...almost poltergeist like apparitions. We fear the unknown waiting in the wings to hurt us, while our parents sleep in the next room...

                                                 Monster in the Closet by LuthienShadows

Our role as parents is to explain to our kids that monsters don't exist. We show them the inside of the closet, under the bed. We tell them that these things are figments of their imagination, easily vanished by the closing of an eye, the spray of "monster-away," or by telling "it" that you know it isn't real. Here's the thing, though - the fact that we never really face ourselves - monsters are real and they live among us. These monsters disguise themselves in human form and are pretty undetectable to those around them.

Abnormal psychology majors will be the first to agree with this. Sociopaths, for example, are immune to true human emotion and empathy. They mimic the emotions of others to get what they want. Almost all of us have had to deal with these people at one time or another. We often don't know it, until we are hurt by them and, even then, we end up questioning ourselves. Psychopaths on the other hand are the adults that grew up mutilating cats and lighting things on fire. They are a little more out in the open and tend to become a little more notorious without treatment.

All you have to do is look at any news site and the monsters are everywhere. A few recent examples:

• Boston-area man planned to kidnap children, rape, and eat them
• Ohio man chained up and repeatedly raped three young women in his home for over ten years
• Montreal man murders student, dismembers him, has sex with his body parts, and then mails them across Canada
  

I can't imagine how a person becomes this way. At least animals, the majority of them anyway, have reasons for killing. I have almost no understanding of how a person goes from being born into something less than human. Psychology tells us that it is part nature and part nurture - the wiring isn't right to begin with and then the "person" is further broken down. I don't know how much of that really explains becoming the way these people are. How you can live in society with no regard for any living thing other than yourself and your less-than-basic primal needs. I feel lucky that I do not understand this and am not sure I want to.

We can't live our lives in constant fear of everyone and everything around us. To do so is to, in a way, stop really living. Life ceases to be enjoyable and full of awe. Outside of these imagined fears, children live in a world of pure delight. Everything is a new experience, a new hope. Days are filled learning and playing. Real worries for the child with a normal experience (not abused, not ill) are few or almost non-existent. It is the parent who worries for the child.

I often feel weird telling my child that monsters aren't real. I know, at his age, I can't tell him the truth. However, one day the time will come when we need to have the "stranger talk." As an adult with PTSD, this future talk plagues me with anxiety. How do you teach in a way that causes a healthy level of fear for personal safety?

I can't protect my child from everything. He will grow up and life will show him the bad, as well as the good. My hope is that the good will always outweigh the bad. My hope is that the news doesn't snuff out his sense of hope and wonder. My hope is that he will never meet of these monsters in real life.

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” ― Karl Lagerfeld

Again, I do not like to think of a cell phone photograph as a real photograph. Maybe, this is because I was born in the 70s, when we didn't have home computers or cell phones, let alone smart phones. I realize the same concepts of composition come into play, that a lot of today's smartphones have great built in camera technology, and that the beauty of the iPhone for photographers is that it is always with you. Photography schools and adult education organizations are starting to offer iPhone photography classes. National Geographic has offered iPhone photography tips. However, it is still hard to think of it as not, in some way, cheating.

With that being said,* I've decided to go with the picture posting theme of today and share some of my better Instagram photos (taken with my iPhone 5):

*My former English teachers must hate this blog for its wordiness and overuse of subordinate clauses!

“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson

I have a passion for photography. So much can be conveyed in one image. I like to think of my camera as my canvas. I can't paint well nor am I able to draw the way I see things in my mind's eye. But, I feel like I can convey what is in my head, fairly well, through the lens.

If I had more time and money, I would probably go back to school for professional photography. I've taken a couple of adult education courses, but, of course, if you don't constantly use it, you lose it. This website is a fun tool to play with, but, when it comes to my own camera, it's hard to put it all together and get it right, when you have the perfect scene in front of you. I would love to be able to have all of the fancy lenses, lighting tools, etc. I would love to be able to just know which f-stop to use. Most of the time, I just wing it.

I tried a few days ago to post some of the iPhone camera photos I am most proud of, but I feel like that's cheating. There is no real skill to a camera phone picture...and there is a lot of manipulation you can use to make it look great. I'd rather post some of the actual photographs I've taken that I am happiest with. I've posted a few of these below.