lately the title of my blog seems more and more apropos. i don't know if it's the proximity of my 30th birthday or the frequent visits to houston, but lately, i've been thinking a lot about my childhood... and how long ago it's starting to feel. nothing in houston is quite the same as i remember it. my old high school has snagged up the few parking lots and grassy knolls on its property to build more "performing arts centers" and libraries... the scrappy little league field where i spent my elementary school evenings slurping down sno-cones is now chock full of fancy, well-manicured batting cages and ball fields. even the little 1950s grocery store where the minister's daughter and i used to spend our pocket change on packages of pillsbury cookie dough, has turned into a trendy little cafe. not to mention that a boy i went to high school with has moved into a house across the street from my parents... with his wife and child. i know i'm married... and thinking about having kids, but somehow it doesn't quite seem real until someone i haven't seen since i was worried about who i'd ask to "junior girls" or what happened on 90210 shows up in front of my parents house with a stroller.

i've said it before...

cancer sucks. i read that tony snow has had a recurrence of his colon cancer form 2005. and elizabeth edwards' devastating recurrence of her breast cancer is all over the news. before i used to just think, "wow, that really sucks for them." now i think, "how do they deal? how do they face cameras and act like things are good when everything important in life feels like its falling apart? what would i do if they tell me my mom has another tumor? one that they can't remove?" right now that's my biggest fear, and there's nothing i can do to assuage my fears... there's no way to prove a negative. most of the time i can distract myself with day-to-day life. i just spent a lovely weekend in houston with my parents and my brother's family... and that's really all i can do: enjoy my family as much as i can, and try to remember that there are no guarantees in life... and for now, things are good. my mom started chemo two weeks ago, and she's feeling better than she did before she started (she's still recovering from the surgery). she's been gardening and playing with lmsp, and we just got back from a spring walk in the city.

march

it's starting to feel like spring. i like that. i miss going outside for the fun of it... i miss outdoor cafes and walking in the park with my mom. hopefully the warm weather will stick around for a while. i need a little sunshine... if my skin were any paler, i would be translucent. i'm also hoping that the sunshine will get me out of this funk...maybe give me a little more energy. i'm also hoping the spring will bring mil some more acceptance letters. both of his interviews went well, so we're hopeful, but as we know, it's not just about the interview. so we wait.

i love my new banner

yesterday, i discovered these brushes through dooce that can do magical things with photoshop (which is magical to begin with). i managed to waste approximately an hour and a half of good work time playing with various photoshop filters and brushes. it's dangerous. i know only a couple of folks still come by here with any degree of regularity, but if either of you want a new banner, let me know. i'd love to make one for you.

in other news, i'm going to houston tomorrow. i'm excited because it means that the temperature will have to be more than 30 degrees. i don't even care if it rains the whole time... wait, scratch that. i do care, but it would still be preferable to this past week of "feels like 2."

yesterday, i was on the subway, and i saw something, and i thought... now this would be a really funny thing to write about on my blog... or at least somewhat funny thing to write about, and by the time i finished thinking all that, the original thought was gone. just like that. amazing.

in lieu of meeting

huh?
Originally uploaded by atb20.

mil and i opted out of going to the meeting this morning. he has a big biochem exam coming up on tuesday and wanted to get straight to the library when it opened. i think he succeeded. i foolishly suggested to myself that i might go to the silent vigil for peace the meeting holds in washington square park at 1pm, but here i am at 12:40 still in my pajamas... i guess that's not going to happen. the gloomy weather seems to be urging me to stay indoors.

it did that last night as well. mil suggested we go out for dinner for a change, but i was too immersed in my bout of organization to contemplate leaving the apartment. so it happened we discovered a fairly decent chinese restaurant that delivers to our area. i also succeeded in adding photos from 2000 to 2007 to a giant pottery barn photo album. i don't know how many photos this thing stores (and what this says about my ability to print out photos versus just upload them to flickr), but after adding about 10 envelopes full of photos, i still have almost a quarter of the album left. i also had the opportunity to reminisce a little... i saw photos from my old company conference in key west. there was a whole envelope or two with photos from my trip to france with doodlebug. what's sad is i don't quite remember if we went in 2000 or 2001... much of the evening was spent trying to use my various haircuts to discern what year it was. ("that can't be christmas 2004 because that's definitely january 2005 and my hair is significantly longer.") meanwhile i was also finally finishing the editing on our honeymoon video... only two and half years later....

today my goals are a little less significant. finish the work i didn't do last thursday and friday afternoons because of my computer troubles and buy some dvd-rs, so i can burn this honeymoon video and be done with it. very exciting.

new toy

this afternoon i got a new laptop. i waited maybe 24 hours after the first zig-zagging lines appeared on my old laptop screen before zipping over to the apple store on 5th ave to buy myself a new one. it is a beautiful little machine, and it zooms through documents five times as fast as my old powerbook. as much as i am enjoying my new toy, i can't help but feel a little disappointed in myself. recently, mil and i started a habit of going to these quaker meetings. though we have yet to make any kind of a commitment to one religion over another, we seem to like the silent spirituality of the unprogrammed quaker meetings. i try to use the quiet time to decompress and process the week. i also contemplate the possibility of becoming less materialistic. so far, i haven't had much luck (case in point stares back at me blankly). i try to de-newyorkify myself a bit as well... smooth out some of the prickly bits of my character that have built up after 12 years in the city. unfortunately, by the time friday rolls around any mellowness achieved in the meeting is long gone. all it takes is a woman sneaking in front of me at the exit turnstile at 116th street station... or a couple of folks walking side-by-side on a narrow sidewalk, not bothering to make room for me coming in the opposite direction. it's amazing how long i can let something like that steam me up for absolutely no good reason. 13 hours later i'm still wishing bad karma on that first lady. anyway, all i can say is i'm working on it... that's good for something, no?

brain ooze

i'm not sure what has happened to me. i was stacking a set of papers on my colleague's desk, and twice -- not once, but two separate times -- i missed the edge of the desk and let the papers fall to the floor. less than an hour later, i knocked my knee on her chair as i was trying to walk out of her office. i think she might think i'm "special." i've never been a coordinated person, but this is ridiculous... my brain seems to be oozing out my ears or something. maybe it's the lack of caffeine. after my doctor told me i might have ibs, i have tried cutting out my morning cup of coffee, but i'm convinced my brain cannot function without it. any suggestions?

btw, for those of you who are interested, i have posted some adorable photos of lmsp on flickr. i am definitely a proud aunt... mil and i are convinced we will now be stuch with the child from hell... there's only room for one perfect kid in a family, you know.

eek!

this video footage freaked me out. it's police footage that was taken from a fuji blimp during the rnc in nyc. they're watching you... read more here.

update

sorry for the lag... at first i wasn't much up for posting, and by the time i was, i wasn't sure what to write. i'm afraid i'm still in the last category. i have learned that i will never be a natural blogger since the last thing i want to do when i'm feeling like crap is write about how i feel like crap. i've never been into depressing books or movies, and i guess i feel the same way about blogs. it seems like there is enough sadness in the news and in our daily lives that we don't need to manufacture more reasons to be sad.

that said, i'll give you a summary of the last few months. most of ya'll have heard snippets at various points, so i'll spare you all the minor twists and turns. in early december we thought my mom had gallstones because she had a blockage in her bileduct. she had her gallbladder removed in mid-december, only to learn in january that she didn't have gallstones at all. after some urging by the doctors, my mom decided to go through a second surgery that would remove part of her bile duct along with some nearby digestive tissues. after 7 hours of surgery and a week in the hospital, we were told that there was a tumor in ber bile duct. after weeks of hearing good news (they didn't see anything on the endoscope, ultrasound, mri, ct scan, biopsy...), this was a bit of a blow, and my mom still had more recovering to do just from the surgery. the really good news is that they removed all of the tumor which is rare in cases of bile duct cancer and puts her in a good position for long term recovery. unfortunately, she will still have to undergo chemo and radiation in order to ensure that the cancer doesn't recur.
all this said, my mom is an amazing person who has been incredibly healthy up till now, so i am confident in her ability to heal and recover from this whole ordeal. and i'm now at the point where i can write all this and not feel like bawling, so that's good, too!

anyway, that's the story. my mom will beat this, and i know my family will be stronger and appreciate life even more for having helped her through it. every day this seems less like a bad dream and more like a detour in the road...

day by day

lovebirds
Originally uploaded by atb20.

it's been a rough month... it seems like every time i think life is going to ease up it throws me back into the ring for a little more. i have been incredibly fortunate for the last 29 years, and i am not used to things going wrong. i don't really know how to deal with bad news... especially when it's happening to the people i depend on. i'm much better when it's a friend of a friend, and i can offer sympathy and move on with my life just as it was. i'm much less adept when it's my life and my plans that are thrown out of balance.

last week, after a seemingly endless day in the waiting room at nyu, mil and i squeezed onto one of the packed elevators to finally go home. there was another woman on the elevator whom i recognized from the waiting room and recovery room hours earlier. she wore a button on her jacket that i hadn't noticed earlier... it said, "all will be well with god's help." in that moment, i envied her. i envied her faith in a good and just god who watches over us and takes care of our loved ones. i wanted to believe in a deity that doesn't allow warm, loving people to suffer while selfish, greedy people get 90 years of good health. i made the decision at that point that i needed to make an attempt to find my spiritual side... to find some inner peace in the chaos of what has been a really exhausting new year. yesterday, i began that journey by dragging my huspand and parents to a quaker meeting in the village. i had been to a quaker meeting once many years ago, and i found the silence and the companionship incredibly moving. i found myself, instead of just praying for my mom to be well, praying for strength to be there for my mom and dad, to be able to forgive myself for not having been as supportive as i would have wanted to be at the beginning of this ordeal, and for the energy to do what i can to get my family through this tough time. i know that my mom will be well again, and i know that my family has many happy times to look forward to, so i just need to be strong enough to deal with all of the crap that's coming at us in the meantime.

i didn't mean for this to be such a depressing post, but i guess that's just where i am (and why i haven't posted much lately). i still have a whole lot to be grateful for and happy about...

there and back again

airplanes
Originally uploaded by atb20.

once again, i have allowed for a long stretch of nothingness between posts. to my few remaining loyal readers, i apologize. i had, in fact, thought of you while mil and i waited patiently for our 8am flight to greenville on christmas eve day. i was equipped with my handy-dandy little mo-phone and had typed my tired little thumbs out writing a post about the joys of traveling to newark at 6 in the morning, but alas, i had not yet figured out the intricacies of mo-blogging and the post was lost to the dark recesses of my phone's memory. i think i might have been a bit scarred from that experience and therefore refused to greet my blog for the rest of our travels. overall they were quite lovely... we got to spend time with seldom seen friends and relatives and even share some quality time with one another. i forget how little mil and i see eachother during the school year until we have a nice break like this. i'm afraid i might be getting a bit spoiled.

izzy fix

so much more exciting than skiing...

phew... (almost)

sorry i haven't been around for a while. it's been a tough week so far, but we've gotten our first bit of good news, and it looks like my family and i might soon be able to stop holding our collective breath. but i'm not one to go counting chickens, so in the meantime, i'll just say that we all deserve a nice, large glass of wine tonight... i'm not really sure what else is going on with me. i know that christmas is coming, and i have only knit about half of the things i'd planned to. fortunately for me there's worldwidefred.com. some of those folks who were slated for homemade gifts will be getting silly little tchotchkes from fred instead. it might not be much, but it's probably more useful than whatever i can knit.

giving in

so, i did it. i caved in and got dvr. i love it. mil hates it (and loves it). i can watch roseanne and spongebob and the daily show and changing rooms (or "cheenging rums" as i like to say), and i can record one of them if i'm not home or something better is also on. it's heaven! i was debating it for a while. i prefer real life to television, and i don't want to have kids who spend their childhood glued to a tv. but then again, i hate commercials and appointment tv... so the benefits seem to outweigh the costs... for now.

i've also discovered youtube. i can now bore you with videos of the minutia of my day. yay! today's videos are of my ski trip last spring to get you in the mood for winter... bon hiver!


**

so different... and yet so similar

i was reading this editorial on hugo chavez on bbc.com. i found it interesting how many of these descriptions could just easily be used to describe w.

at home, he has forged an intensely ideological, combative, and intolerant regime, brandishing polarising rhetoric to divide and incite social classes and mobilising the tools of the state to suppress and persecute his opponents.
- roger noriega

. . . his refusal to leave behind the polarising discourse; surrounding himself with people who are unable to treat him as an equal, and his desire to perpetuate himself in power and centralise it.
- margarita lopez maya

in his mind, there is no-one above him. no-one tells chavez what to do. that makes him a very solitary figure - one with no commitments. . . . they know he does not make compromises, because he feels he has a mission ahead. so, he has left behind many of those who have started the process with him.
- alberto garrido

ok. maybe not altogether similar:

the political transformation in venezuela has been possible because chavez led "from the front" and challenged elite vested interests.
- julia buxton

resistance is futile

so, i went to houston for thanksgiving. it was nice and relaxing as it should be. i partook in excellent thanksgiving fare in addition to the requisite tex-mex and bbq outings later in the weekend. i even saw an old friend while i was in town. quite surprising since none of my old friends live there anymore. i guess great minds think alike... as they say.

one of the highlights of my journey down south was getting to spend some quality time with little miss squiggly pants. at 4 months her personality is bubbling over with giggles and cuddles. she's so sociable that she has a hard time falling asleep for fear of missing something more exciting. even when sleepy, she offers coy smiles and warm snuggles. i must admit that i was a little jealous when my brother & sister-in-law whisked her back to california. my mother and i briefly planned an abduction, but we figured we'd be found out. i guess we'll just have to wait till their next visit. in the meantime the tick of that incessant little clock is getting louder, but i'm doing everything i can to quell the noise. i've got hawaii to look forward to... and mil's acceptance to med school... neither of which make this a particularly good time to increase the size (and expense) of our family. i've uploaded a video of lmsp to youtube.com, but it's private, so if you want to see it, send me an email with your youtube id, and i'll add you as a friend. it also co-stars the screen-stealing stylings of our very own milhouse vanhouten. you know you want to see it...

from my turkey to yours

happy thanksgiving, ladies & gents. i have much to be grateful for this thanksgiving. in addition to my personal good fortune (good family, good friends, great husband, nice life, pain-in-the-ass bird...), i'm also grateful that come january, we'll have a democratic(ish) congress. and while i doubt that means we've wiped corruption out of the house and senate for good, at least we have a few more checks and balances than we've had for the last 6 years, and almost anyone can be grateful for that. one of the things that i hope to be grateful for next thanksgiving though, is an end to the genocide in darfur. the images and stories that come out of that region of africa are nothing short of horrifying. i'm going to be bringing it up at our thanksgiving table, and i hope you will, too.

savedarfur.org has a post called "materials for thanksgiving action" that's worth checking out...

**
and here are some photos to get you in the mood for the holidays... (larger versions are on flickr)

playing catch-up

so it's been over a week since my last post... and that wasn't much of a post. i think i'm not much of a blogger. i try, but sometimes the words just don't come, and i'm not one to force such things. life is busy... there is a great deal of knitting to do and several good shows in our netflix queue... and "heros" and "studio 60" (or "60 rock" as i tend to call it) and "the office" and "america's next top model" (don't ask me why). i think i've become a little slow thanks to watching all this television, and i still want dvr... what's wrong with me?

mil's dinner

meat
Originally uploaded by atb20.

hard to believe that a man who calls this "dinner" would marry a onetime vegetarian.

just what we need...

from bbc.com:

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this year the US was losing the propaganda war to its enemies.

The newly-established unit will use "new media" channels to push its message and "set the record straight", the Pentagon's Mr Ruff said.

"We're looking at being quicker to respond to breaking news, being quicker to respond, frankly, to inaccurate statements," he said.

A Pentagon memo seen by the Associated Press news agency said the new unit would "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and aim to "correct the record".

The unit would reportedly monitor media such as web logs and would also employ "surrogates", or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.

i love the strategic placement of the quotes.