Jon just logged into the big computer system that decided our fate (aka matched him with a fellowship program in Pediatric Emergency Medicine) and found out we’re moving to my home, Little Rock, Arkansas in about six months! I’m relieved to finally know, giddy to be going back closer to friends and family, and full of possibilities for the next six months. Now to soak up all the things I have been meaning to do in Charleston before our time here is up!
I promise I’m not a Grinch. Sure, sure, there were years that I didn’t allow people around me to decorate for Christmas until after December 16, my birthday, because I didn’t want Christmas stealing my thunder, but my mother really started that tradition, so you can hardly blame me for enforcing it. I love putting up a Christmas tree. I spent hours and hours and hours crafting ornaments out of origami last year. I hung up our stockings on Sunday and now can’t stop staring at them. I get excited when eggnog shows up in stores, and I love a chance to make our family’s holiday staple, Russian Tea. And I love Christmas music. Well, most of it.
Sure, there are some weird Christmas songs, including my sister’s favorite, “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.” But one Christmas song is downright awful. I go out of my way NOT to hear it. I’d probably run screaming out of a store in the midst of holiday shopping if it came on over the loudspeaker. In fact, just this morning as I drove Jon and myself to work, it started playing on the radio and I started yelling, “TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF RIGHT NOW!” I’m pretty sure this song makes little 7 pound 8 ounce baby Jesus cry. And we all know, “little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.” He cries when he hears this song, I’m sure of it. I know I sure do. And crying is really not what I want to do at Christmas, though it usually happens at some point, what with the family dysfunction and all.
This horrible song? You want to know what it is? Ok…
It’s “The Christmas Shoes.” According to Wikipedia, The Christmas Shoes started out as an internet story (aka an email forward), and was adapted into a novel, a song, and a film starring that lady from Father of the Bride and Rob Lowe. I guess the story is sweet enough, if you like a side of sobbing with your Christmas spirit, but it’s about a little poor boy trying to buy his dying mother a pair of shoes for Christmas. One line that keeps getting repeated is “I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight.” The only “meeting Jesus” I want to think about at Christmas is Shepherds and Wise Men meeting BABY Jesus. Not dead people meeting full-grown Jesus. I’d rather hear the entire Chipmunks Christmas album on repeat for 24 hours straight than listen to the world’s saddest Christmas song even once. This is why I’m not, under any circumstances, putting a YouTube video of this song on this post. Look it up at your own risk, and have some tissues handy.
But apparently some folks like their Christmas cheer to be tinged with depression and sadness and guilt. Just check out Glenn Beck’s latest bestseller, a Christmas book called “The Christmas Sweater” about a little boy whose mother DIES IN A FIERY CAR WRECK because the selfish little bastard doesn’t appreciate his hand-knit Christmas sweater. Man, imagine reading that one to your kids on Christmas Eve. YOU BETTER BE GRATEFUL, KIDS, OR MOMMY WILL DIEEEEEEE. Might as well play them “The Christmas Shoes” as a post-bedtime-story lullaby, then wait and see if the little brats dream of visions of sugar plums or wake up screaming in the night. “The Nightmare before Christmas” is less scary and more uplifting than Beck’s storybook or the world’s worst Christmas song.
It was not so many Thanksgivings ago that I told my (biological for those who know both of the women who have mothered me) mother that I never wanted to see her again, and then basically didn’t for several years. I was in junior high at the time. Not to get into the whole long story, but we had hurt and been hurt by each other, had misunderstood each other, and basically ceased to have a relationship after years of hurt and misunderstanding. And it seemed that as years went by, hurt and misunderstanding piled upon hurt and misunderstanding, and even talking on the phone became difficult. At the same time I felt guilty and somehow defective for not being able to have a functional relationship with my own mother, but the guilt just made the hurt and misunderstanding even harder to deal with. Others who attempted to help heal this broken relationship just added to the burden of guilt and pain, making me feel even more defective.
Tonight my mother is coming to visit me for Thanksgiving. It will be the first Thanksgiving we have spent together since that horrible Thanksgiving years ago. I’m actually really looking forward to it.
What changed between then and now?
Jon.
This Thanksgiving, I have to say, I am so thankful for him. It is thanks to Jon that I have a relationship with my mother today, one in which we can email and talk on the phone and visit and just know and be with each other in a way I couldn’t have imagined not so many years ago. Rather than making me feel guilty for my broken relationship with my mother, Jon patiently and gently pointed out that while I didn’t have to reconcile, didn’t have to force forgiveness I didn’t feel, I did have to let go of anger and bitterness and hurt, because those things were weighing me down and making me a bitter and unhappy person. And because I never felt anything but accepted and loved by him, I felt free to let go of those feelings that were holding me back and keeping me from really being myself. And I also felt comfortable enough to see a counselor and work through my own issues. And eventually, I felt free enough to forgive. And forgiveness led to reconciliation, and reconciliation to renewed relationship.
How many people can honestly say their partner makes them a better person, helps them have better relationships with others, and shows them what grace and freedom really look like? I can. And this Thanksgiving, I’m so thankful for him.
Almost two weeks ago, we got our final Pinckney’s Produce CSA box of the fall season. It has taken me this long to get a post up about it because without another box’s arrival to give us a deadline, we had the opportunity to eat the last shipment of veggies at our leisure, which, though I did freeze a little bit of it, proved my theory that each box was at least two weeks’ food for us. Here’s what we got:
The first night I made a variation on one of our favorite dishes, Rachael Ray’s Italian Tuna Casserole (I have the cook book this recipe is from, but someone recreated it here). Tuna casserole is one of my comfort foods, and I’m a big fan of this recipe. Jon suggested adding in one of the heads of broccoli, and so this recipe used up one of those as well as two of the bunches of spinach. This recipe fed us for a couple of days, plus at least one lunch for me.
The kale was used up another night in this pasta with sausage and kale, which was almost as good as the bacon and collard linguine we’ve loved this season. Continue reading “CSA: Charleston– the season ends”
At some point in toddlerhood, it eventually hits all of us, the “I can do it by myself!” And from that point on, to be human is to want to be in charge of ourselves. You’re not the boss of me! I choose my choice! I’m in charge!
Lately, though, I find myself feeling like a toddler, trying to DO IT BY MYSELF, and this thing called life keeps reminding me that I’m not always the boss of me, I don’t always get to choose my choice. Boy oh boy does the medical education system that owns our lives right now make that clear. You see, in three weeks, Jon will get an email that will suddenly reveal what we’ll be doing with our lives for the next three years. And it’s more than driving me nuts. Continue reading “it’s outta my hands”
The weekly CSA post, the last one of the season, will be a few days later than usual. I realized I could take my time using up the veggies, as there was no new box coming to give me a deadline. Also, my freezer really can’t hold much more food. So, we’re trying to eat most of the veggies, and I’ll have a post about the last box and about the CSA experience as a whole when we finish. I guess this gives me some time to really “digest” the whole experience before sharing my final thoughts of the season.
Here’s some Friday fun for everyone. I found this hilarious video via my friend, Political Party Girl:
The instructor has clearly been borrowing Jessie Spano’s uppers.
True story, though, y’all. In college, where I was required to take one P.E. class per year, I took “Aerobic Dance,” because I heard it was hilarious. And oh my sweet spandex, it was. We didn’t really have an instructor so much as a lady who worked a VCR, and we’d basically sweat it to the oldies on the stage of the auditorium while she sat in the audience and watched us. Most of the videos we did were from the same era as this video. My favorite featured an instructor who seemed like one of Jem’s lost Holograms, and wore ridiculous thong leotards covered in stars over neon tights. If I had college to do over again, I’d make my friends buy crazy spandex outfits with me to wear to Aerobic Dance class. I’m sure American Apparel woulda done us up right.
Some day you should ask me to see some of the moves I learned. My friends in the class and I used bust out some of the moves at parties after a few drinks.
In the past 11 days, I have received 3 campus safety alerts about women being assaulted on the streets of the campus where I work. This news article from the local paper mentions two of them. Women, walking down the street, attacked from behind.
Now, maybe I’m a little jumpier than some people because I have been a victim before, but it was with this news in my mind that I had to walk alone, in the dark, after my class last night. Jon had taken the car to work yesterday morning, because it was pouring rain. The hospital is three quarters of a mile from my office, and I walk there at least once a week after work to volunteer, so we figured it would be no big deal for me to get the car after class last night. I hadn’t anticipated how much darker it is at 7 pm than 5.
Things running through my mind as I walked that .7 mi: walk fast, look around you, make sure your cell phone is in an outer pocket in case you need it, bag closed so as not to tempt robbers, don’t stop, stay out of the shadows, maybe you should hold your keys in case you need to use them as a weapon, why oh why don’t you have some pepper spray.
I was so relieved to reach the hospital and the brightly lit garage. Thankfully Jon had parked very close to the elevator. I got into the car, heart still pounding, and locked the doors. I am supposed to get free parking because I’m a hospital volunteer, but my badge is expired. The volunteer office told me not to worry about it, because no one ever really looks at our badges anyway. Unfortunately, the parking attendant was on some sort of a power trip, and was concerned I might be a med student, using an out of date badge in order to park for free. She decided to charge me $20, and she didn’t care that I showed her my work ID, to prove I was not a med student. I started crying. She told me to stop, sarcastically asked if I needed a hug. I tearfully tried to come up with an explanation, told her it had been a long day. I felt stupid for crying over $20, it’s not like it was a speeding ticket.
Later I realized why I got so upset over the $20 parking fee. Because I thought I had reached the safe zone, only to be treated badly, and this triggered all my anxiety and anger and fear to just come rolling out in tears. It took me a while after I got home to calm down.
And what, according to that news article, am I supposed to be doing with the news of these attacks? “We’re telling everyone to be aware of their surroundings and to be vigilant.”
It’s enough to make me want to cry all over again.
Not only does this comment suggest that somehow, those two women who were attacked were victimized because they were somehow not “vigilant,” it completely ignores the reality of being female in public. When am I not effing vigilant? Society has done a great job of teaching me that just by being a woman, I’m at risk, there are places I can’t go, times I shouldn’t be out, things I shouldn’t wear, zones where I am not safe, reasons for me to be constantly looking over my shoulder. I’m vigilant all the time, and it gets to be exhausting. I can’t afford not to be vigilant, but even when I am, and something happens to me, you can bet your sweet bippy that someone’s going to say I should have been vigilant.
Public safety says they’ve expanded their patrols and offer on campus escorts, but the escort wouldn’t do me much good when I’m walking to somewhere off campus. My boss, who teaches the night I have class and the night I volunteer, told me that from now on if I need to get to the hospital, he will drive me. I really appreciate the offer, and will probably take him up on it, but at the same time, I’m so frustrated to need a man with me in order to be safe.
So I’m going to buy some pepper spray. And I’m going to ask campus safety if, in light of these attacks, they could maybe offer a self defense course. And if they can’t, I’ll probably take one elsewhere. And yeah, I’ll be vigilant, just like always. Damn lot of good that will do me though.
Another delicious week with our Pinckney’s Produce CSA!
Another great haul this week! Here’s the breakdown:
This was our next to last CSA box! I’m already getting sad about the season ending, and will do more of a retrospective on the experience next week. I’ll also post a picture of the stock of food we’ve now accumulated in our freezer– at least one friend seems to be unable to believe everything I’ve said is in there fits! Continue reading “CSA Charleston: sometimes even i get overwhelmed”
In the wake of what everyone agrees was a horrible tragedy at Fort Hood, there has been sort of a battle of interpretation going on between those who were quick to label it an act of terrorism because the perpetrator is a Muslim and those who urged caution, seeing it as a horrific act of workplace violence which may or may not have a religious or terroristic motivation. The juxtaposition of the treatment of the Fort Hood story, in which the perpetrator had an Arabic name, and the Orlando office shooting, in which the perpetrator did not stand out ethnically or religiously, was striking. We are more than OK assuming the Orlando shooter was just a guy who snapped in hard times, but we were less willing to believe that a Muslim American could “snap” without any additional religious or political motivation. In particular, I would recommend this piece by Eboo Patel, a Muslim American active in interfaith causes. I agree with Patel’s idea that murder is not a value in any major religion. Murderers are not Muslims or Christians, they are murderers.
However, now that more information is coming to light, the “terrorism” debate is heating up. It is being reported that Hasan had tried to contact Al Qaeda and the CIA may have known about this months ago, which raises some serious questions about whether or not they reported this info to the military, and what actions could have been taken to prevent this tragedy. Though I have seen at least one blogger at The New Republic call the reporter who broke the Al Qaeda story’s credibility into question, so I’m not quite ready to accept this as total fact yet. There was much speculation and misinformation when the story initially broke, and the speculation and misinformation continues in the aftermath. There is, however, some indication that Hasan was affiliated with more radical views of Islam.
Still, even if Hasan were a religious extremist, is the Fort Hood Massacre terrorism? Continue reading “Was Fort Hood Massacre a Terrorist Act?”
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