A Day Without A Woman: What is Labor?

Today is A Day Without a Woman.

I'm "on strike" today, although I can't fully release myself from child care. Partly because I'm a nursing mom and partly because someone's gotta do it and it might as well be me. Shawn is leaning into housework and child care otherwise though. And we're all wearing red! And not spending any money today.

It's made me think about what labor is, since some things I do for myself, just general self care. I'd make a meal for myself if I didn't have the family to labor for. (To get around it I made a casserole yesterday that we can just heat and eat.) I'd also make my bed, so I made my half and Shawn made his half - LOL!

Does blogging count as labor? You could say I'm a small, woman-owned business, which is one of the exceptions for where strikers can shop. Even if it does count as labor, I'm still writing because I want to mark this day.

When talking about it with Jane (and fighting with her about wearing red instead of her favorite Avenger's shirt), I explained that boys and girls are equal, and we deserve equal pay for equal work. She quickly asked about Donald Trump, and I explained that this particular issue existed before him and will after him too.

Crochet: White Baby Blanket

I finished this blanket just before its intended baby was born, but I didn't get it in the mail quickly enough. Today it will be on its way to the new baby boy! (We didn't know he was a boy before he's born.)

This is kind of a mishmash blanket. I did the ripple/chevron pattern from a baby pattern book, and I didn't like the number so set it at seven on the up, seven on the down. This has ridges created by front-post and back-post double crochets. I did the pattern of which rows have which stitches based on this Red Heart afghan.

After I finished the sizing was off -- it wasn't wide enough for a real baby blanket. SO I added some border stitches, using the same front/back post stitches to make the ridges. And I finished off with reverse single crochet that makes a similar ridge/rope-like edge.

So it's a little wonky but is one of a kind. And it was made with love and prayer for the life of this special boy.

Taking Up Space

I've been watching Roseanne reruns on this over-the-air channel called Laff. I really like the show -- something I watched as a kid and probably didn't "get" most of it. I laugh during every episode and some of the "viewer discretion advised" storylines are relevant still (abortion, racism, abuse, gay marriage).

One thing I like too is the daughters -- Darlene and Becky -- and how they're not wearing skimpy clothes or lots of make up. They look like regular people, and at least at the start of the series before plastic surgery so does Roseanne. Part of the clothing choices was due to the 90s I guess, when flannel and jeans were in, but I'm sure it was also a conscious decision on the part of the creators. One guest star was the opposite of "regular" when Traci Lords played a waitress for a few episodes. In one she wore a tight blue dress and looked so thin relative to the other characters that I took notice. It made me start thinking about what it would be like be so small and to take up so little space.

Within a couple days this post, The Trash Heap Has Spoken, came up in an email newsletter I read. It was really speaking to some of the thoughts I was having -- what does it mean to be in a body that's "too" big. I've been living in a big body as long as I can remember. Even when it's smaller it always feels big -- I felt big as young as maybe 10. But maybe it would be OK to be fat like this:

Unapologetic fat women embrace the philosophy of displacement. They manifest the audacity of space-taking. They cleave the very air. This is not just fatness of the body, it is fatness of the mind. If you have a fat body, you take up room by default. If you have a fat mind, you choose to take up room. 

In high school I was a perfectly fine size, and as an athlete I was the healthiest I could ever hope to be. But I was still bigger than a lot of the girls. One was size 5 -- not sure how that came up, but you know everyone knows everything in locker rooms. I was size 11, and I looked at her and at me and said "even if I lost a ton of weight I doubt my bones would even be that small for me to be a size 5." She said "oh I'm sure you could." She meant it as a kind thing, and in the moment/actual conversation that's how I took it. But obviously remembering it across twenty (20!) years it hasn't settled as something good.

Mardi Gras Mambo

Heard this for the first time today, and Jane and I can't stop singing it! It was perfect, on the way to her Trike-a-thon at school. Really need to replace my regular camera lens, as I didn't get too many good photos with my longer lens!

Nightmare Scenario: Parade Danger

From The Advocate, our local newspaper, Child dies after being struck by float in Abbeville's Martin Luther King Day parade:

A child struck by a float during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade Monday in Abbeville has died.

...

Witnesses say the child was struck by the vehicle pulling the float after entering the roadway for a piece of candy or throw. No barricades were placed along the roadway during the parade.

There's a bit more to the story, with a little shaming of the mom (she was watching other children in addition to this one), but basically five paragraphs about this nightmare scenario.

I watched a story about it on one of our local TV stations last night. It was not the lead story (that went to a rash of break ins at our university's football stadium -- WTF/who cares), and it was just as short. There was a picture of the child and a bit of interview with a grieving relative. But nothing about taking steps to ensure safety of other children at future parades (we have parades so often in Louisiana it is ridiculous). There was basically no real reporting at all (in either media).

If this child were white the reporting would have been different. Lead story, more complex reporting with an eye to stopping this type of tragedy in the future. The distance of the town from Baton Rouge doesn't matter. They do huge packages about little towns when there's a sensational crime  So I can only surmise that this coverage is light because of the child's race.

There's no reporting even on the number of other children/people who have died at parades (and you know there have been others). Asking parade organizers at the upcoming Mardi Gras parades for their take on the loss and how they'll be improving safety to avoid that at their parades. That kind of thing.

I didn't think I had the capacity to care about things that aren't strictly national politics with the dumpster fire that's going on in Washington, but obviously I do. And this is awful and scary. I hate that a family has to deal with the loss of a child over candy.

Second Verse, Same as the First

Jane is still not a dancer.

She has done much better in this new dance class we tried out at our local recreation park system. But there have been problems of a different sort.

Basically the teacher has a conflict in her regular job, and with traffic she can't arrive to the class on time at 5 p.m. So she moved the class start time to 5:15 p.m. She often doesn't arrive until 5:30 p.m. And then class still ends around 6 p.m. because there's an older girls' class that starts then (although she said she moved that class start time to 6:15 p.m. too). Some of the older girls start arriving at 5:45, which means Jane's class can be as short as 15 minutes without any distraction.

Jane's unable to show me too much of what she's learned. She enjoyed the class though. There was supposed to be a parent watch evening, but we never even got to do that because the teacher was THAT disorganized. I'm disappointed to have put more time and effort into this and still have no photos or recital experience to show for it. But we're moving on.

(And of course I'd already paid for the recital/costume fee, but they said it can be refunded ... if nothing else they could pass it along to another student I think as a scholarship. It's not ideal, but I deserve some consequence for the mistake of paying in advance!)

Jane's going to try a theater program instead. She's in basketball too this season, so she has an athletic activity and an arts activity. Soon she can start piano lessons, which she's interested in. There's just so much we'd like her to do and not enough time to do it all!

Can our lives really continue like this? Will our world still keep turning after inauguration day? What about after the first nuclear bomb is sent? Does it matter if America crumbles around us? I am so worried and sick about it ... but I still have a preschooler who has activities, a baby who is developing gorgeously and my usual gripes, physical problems (wrist/carpal tunnel lately as the sinus stuff finally clears out I hope) and TV TV TV to watch (OMG Sherlock!). These are my golden days, and they are almost over...

Messy Bun Hat

My sister talked about a coworker who knits these, and I said I could make her one. I just started the hat around a hair rubber band and added a flower. There are endless possibilities -- including the vertical stripe hat that starts as a tube and is finished with single crochet at the top. This was just the quickest way to get it done since she was just visiting for a couple days. Now she'll have warm ears when she's doing carpool duty at school.

Merry Christmas.

Messy Bun Hat Front

Messy Bun Hat Side

Messy Bun Hat Back

Church Service without Worship

Our church had a "Lessons & Carols" service this past Sunday, and something about it has irked me ever since. It took me a couple days to realize what bothered me.

It was a well-attended service. There were extra chairs added to our gym-turned-sanctuary (while construction is under way in the actual sanctuary), and with only one service instead of two it was definitely packed even with regulars. There were also lots of guests.

The music and readings were beautiful and meaningful.

But my complaint (?) was that there was no congregational response. There was one line of response after the lighting of the Advent wreath candles, but we didn't even sing "Emmanuel" as response as we have all of this Advent (and Advents past, if memory serves).

The congregation sang no carols. We did no responsive reading. There was no communion. (I go to 8:30 service and we have communion every week.) There wasn't even a formal prayer. (I do understand music can be a form of prayer though.)

Basically it was a performance in the strictest sense of the word. We didn't even stand up the entire service.

So I've felt a little off this week. I didn't have a communal worship experience. And I guess it shows me that I've come to rely on that grounding, especially in times like these. I haven't said anything to the people who plan worship, but hopefully someone else will and they'll realize that next year's service like this needs more participation. Last year's "Lessons & Carols" did include congregational responses, prayers, etc.

I'll be glad to get back to regularly scheduled programming in the new year.

Ketchup

Living in a post-truth world... Silly Mari edition.

On Saturday I burned the roof of my mouth. REALLY badly -- like blisters badly. On some caramel I made for candy for church coffee time. Among the stupidest things I've ever done ... and that is saying something.

So, I happened to have a dentist appointment this week and my mouth is still all messed up. Healing but painful. I explained to the hygienist that I'd burned my mouth before she got to work. She asked "did you burn it on pizza?" And I said YES! Like, what is wrong with me?!?!

AND THEN when the dentist came in later I had to tell him, and I had to SAY the word pizza. And he asked me if it was homemade (and I said YES, because the caramel was???). Gah!

So, fake news from me. Totally not the same as pizza gate (although OMG pizza is a connecting factor!), but good grief.

This served NO purpose other than me being completely awkward. Is caramel somehow more embarrassing than pizza? I am the dumbest.

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I ordered way too few Christmas cards, as I was so mad and still am. But I decided to send out more than the 40 cards I bought. So ... conundrum. It's too late to order more photo cards. So I just bought some Hallmark cards at Walgreen's and some wallet size pictures of the girls to slip in. Ca-CHING. That's $15, so at least as much as it would have cost to buy 40 more cards (in the first place/during the Cyber Monday sales). Maybe next year I'll be back to myself?

I have addressed all the envelopes but need to sign the cards and stuff them, then stamp them. Oh, and I don't have enough stamps so I'll have to go to the post office AGAIN and buy even more. Meh.

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After getting well from the flu during my birthday I promptly got a stomach bug and was throwing up (and more) the following weekend. It took several days to feel back to normal after that. And then less than a week later Jane got a cold, then Livia got sick (she'd just gotten over a double ear infection) and her eye was all messed up. She had conjunctivitis, but drops have helped that go away. Jane is still fighting her virus or whatever. And wouldn't you know it, I am getting sick too. Shawn has a sore throat too. I don't think it's going to be as bad, but we'll see. That's THREE illnesses in about three weeks (since Thanksgiving). My poor body.

Three Little Monkeys in Crochet

It's just like riding a bike. I can pick up crocheting these silly hats pretty easily. But the weaving in ends, changing colors and sewing, sewing, sewing weren't as fun as they used to be. I had a hard time making three graduated hats -- they ended up being pretty good for each of the kids they were intended for (three siblings in a family we're friends with) and had a bit of room to grow.

Jane liked them so much that she said she'd like a monkey hat too. She also looked at my book and said she'd like a snow man one. I should look through my completed hats and see if I have one of those done already!

Livia's been rocking Jane's pumpkin hat, but I should make her something more seasonal. We only "need" hats around here occasionally. Yesterday was one of those days. We'll be traveling in December/January to Shawn's family's town and it will be colder there so she'll definitely need something warm.

Nine Years of NaBloPoMo

I looked at my NaBloPoMo tag on my blog and realized I had 299 posts with that tag. Today's makes 300. Divide 30 days in November and that would mean I've been doing it for 10 years? I just checked and nope. I must have tagged more than just the first post of the day, because I started in 2008, so this makes the ninth year completed. Weird to have completed exactly 30 extra posts. (Here's my first NaBloPoMo tagged post.)

This may have been the hardest year to do NaBloPoMo. Everything is just so awful and terrible. I say that knowing full well 2017 will bring even bigger, more awful challenges. I hope I'm still able to write next year!

I also realize in some of my ranting posts I don't cite or link sources. My journalistic muscle is rusty maybe, or I'm also realizing that no one cares about facts or the truth or more information. NO ONE CARES.

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I have been on two big vacations with my inlaws. We went to Dollywood in Tennessee and to the Outer Banks in North Carolina in summer 2014 and 2015 respectively. This year the area we stayed in North Carolina received a major flood, and just this week the area we stayed in Gatlinburg is burning.

I think for the sake of the places we'd go visit I should never go on vacation with my inlaws again???

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My health is improving. I still cough a bit in the night, but not as much. There's hacking up junk in the morning, but it's not green anymore. (TMI?) My back is still sore, but the pain isn't debilitating anymore. I should still see a chiropractor.

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When I was in college a friend from church called me "Governor" a lot. I was a smart kid and just all around promising I guess. I certainly had a superiority complex (mixed with an inferiority one!) and this surely fed into it. I've been thinking about it recently, whether running for office is something I could consider doing. I'd be a terrible direct-ask fundraiser, and I am not the best at talking to people. I hate giving speeches or being in front of a crowd. Probably a behind-the-scenes job would be better. And my communications skills and journalism training should be useful in a political situation. Basically I am thinking by typing ... considering what I might do after my girls are in school or otherwise cared for enough that I could jump back into the working world. I know I don't want a "normal" job anymore. There's going to have to be political meaning, and frankly I'm going to want to spend my time RESISTING what's coming (and which by that time will be fully entrenched).

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Hold me!

Not Ready to Make Nice.

I really liked this post, No, We Don't Have to "Get Over" Anything.

I’m not okay with this.
I’m not getting over it.
I’m not going to accept it.
I’m not going to move on.
I’m not going to shut up.

I’m not going to make nice or give the benefit of the doubt or hold my tongue or fake unity or pretend that my eyes don’t see what they see. They see clearly, and that of course is the source of my burden. I don’t want to see this, but I do.

Day by day new crazy things happen. Each new appointment brings a new awfulness to the scene.

(The Secretary of Education is particularly troubling, and we need to call and write our members of Congress to express our displeasure. She has no experience and is anti-public schools. If you have kids who go to school or did go to school, if you are a public school teacher or love a public school teacher, or if you just care about how we educate our kids in the U.S. this should matter to you!)

We also learn more about the admitted corruption in DT's past -- the foundation, the Trump University settlement -- and they pile on so fast that they get glossed over and kind of disappear in the mist. And we are seeing the corruption and wrongheadedness coming on our future. The future wherein our president uses his office and our nation to make himself, his family and his loyalists even richer at the expense of our nation's interests and safety. I still can't get over people voting for this. Even more baffling is people STILL insisting this will be a good thing. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Also the weird tweets and retweets. Are they sign of instability? Sign of regret (because doing this kind of thing with ANY OTHER JOB would get a person fired)? I certainly question the random tweets about flag burning becoming punishable by a year in jail or LOSING YOUR CITIZENSHIP?!?!?! (Supreme Court ruled it's a form of protected free speech, see the First Amendment.) That's wrong and scary. And the tweets came about after a segment on Fox News about flag burning -- this is what our country has come to. The president-elect watching cable news and tweeting while turning away actual national intelligence briefers.

What's ironic to me is that the correct way to retire a flag that is tattered and torn is to ... BURN IT in a special ceremony. I know that's not what protestors are doing and they're giving the finger to America by burning our flag. It's not something I would do myself, and I go around chasing Jane with her little flags from school making sure they don't stay on the ground once dropped (Girl Scout training alert!!!). But I still believe it's just a flag and it isn't magic.

So I'm still boiling over with anger about the election results. With terror. And trying to come up with actions and to gear myself up to actually call my representative and senators, all of whom are white, Republican men who vocally support DT and his policies. I am sure the staff would be polite, but I don't like using the phone for anything ... let alone something this big and important. It's anxiety leveling up.

I assume DT supporters aren't getting the same information or are choosing to interpret things differently? I just don't understand how support doesn't waver in a rational person's mind? But then I didn't think rational people could actually vote for him in the first place, as they voted against their own interests (unless their interest is white supremacy and/or no material support for poor people).

I hate everything about this.

Read: Murder in the Bayou

Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8? by Ethan Brown

This book is kind of terrifying, chronicling the unchecked power held by parish sheriffs. I'm sure not all are corrupt, but the author has revealed illegal actions in this parish's department. This isn't close to where I live in Louisiana, but then it's not a very big state.

As far as the book itself I could have used more details about the victims. I read another reviewer say something similar. There was just nothing personal about them. So they were drug users and sex workers, that was certainly repeated frequently. But what else? In most cases we didn't even know their races. I found this troubling throughout the book to not know the races of most of the people being discussed. Pictures of the victims would have been helpful too. And thinking about some of them left children behind ... maybe a count of how many motherless children there now are thanks to the criminal enterprise that, if not run by was at least condoned by the law enforcement of the parish. Just because the killings have stopped doesn't mean the illegal behavior has -- dope for sex, etc.

And woah, Boustany's involvement. I'm so glad he didn't make the run off, although I'm none too thrilled about creepy John Neely Kennedy. I'm a Foster Campbell voter, even though he doesn't align with my political ideals perfectly either. The allegation of Boustany's visits to prostitutes who were later killed was damning. I'm not sure I heard anything about it while he was in the primary. But I tuned out a lot of it. Yuck.

Anyway, a timely read even if it did make me feel bad.

View all my reviews

Edit to add: wow, this is my 1600th post.  

Crocheted Blue & Orange Dino Hat

Yesterday I finished a dinosaur hat for a friend. It's his birthday today -- he is 3! I still might add braided ties to the ear flaps, although Jane says they aren't needed and I kind of like the hat how it is. I still need to wash it to rid it of any lingering cold germs.

I hope I'll get to see the friend later this week to give him the present. Last month I'd babysat for him and his siblings (I had five kids for about an hour -- including two babies -- and I survived!), and I'd asked him if he'd like a dino hat and if yes what color. He chose blue with orange spikes.

We weren't invited to his party even though his mom told me about it -- it was weird because we always come to his older brother's (he and Jane are the same age/long time friends). We met at the park a couple weeks ago and were comparing notes on renting bounce houses. She told me they were getting one for little brother's party, where they were having it but not exactly when/what time. So I didn't push it or ask anything else. Kind of a delicate social awkwardness that I find myself in plenty...

Excuse the mess in the background -- good grief.

This is 36

In its short hair, filtered, no-makeup glory.

I had a rough night with chills and hot flashes. I feel some better this morning, but not great. I need to be healthy tomorrow to go to church. I'm reading the Scripture. D'oh.

I've lived away from Indiahoma as long as I lived there (approximately). I moved away when 18, and it's 18 years later. That includes living in Stillwater for school and coming home for summers. I guess it's not fully true until the same time I left, which would be next August. But the symmetry of 18 and 18 feels significant anyway.

We don't have plans today. Not sure if we'll do anything. I don't have a present to open, although Jane has been drawing me pictures and Shawn made me a card with pictures of the girls. I didn't even buy myself anything this year!

Edit to add: My mom DID leave me a present to open! I just didn't know it was there. xoxoxo

Phoning it in

I finally got a hair cut today -- just before I turn 36. My back is a little better, but I'm still pretty sick with my flu symptoms. I have aches and shift from chills to hot flashes. My head hasn't stopped hurting and I have a fever. Can't imagine how I'd be feeling if I weren't taking ibuprofen at every chance I can.

Thank goodness for the world's best husband picking up the slack. The house may be crumbing around us, because I was behind on cleaning anyway. I can't imagine getting out the Christmas stuff or dealing with that, but I hope when I feel physically better I will.

Ugh.

Generation Catalano

I have the flu or something. And I hurt my back while making Thanksgiving lunch. I moved my heavy Kitchen-Aid, but didn't notice anything. A bit later I was hunched over rifling through a drawer of our dining room hutch for a gravy spoon and OUCH. I stayed hunched. I powered through lunch and then fed Livi, took a rest with her until the sun woke us up. Then Gingie (thank the Lord for Gingie) watched the girls while I laid on a heating pad for an hour. (Shawn was out of town/coming home from a family funeral.)

I'm still pretty sick and my fever has spiked to 102. Advil should bring it down ... I hope? I don't know. I feel like crap. And my back still hurts.

Hey - I wrote about wanting my insides to match my outsides ... but I guess this is more like my insides matching my other insides (physical and emotional)? Ugh.

One good thing I read on Twitter today: The Agony & The Angst: An Oral History of My So-Called Life.

Proud to be generation Catalano, but I was sad that the interview didn't include Claire Danes, Jared Leto or A.J. Langer. The first two are too popular now I guess to talk about something they did so way back, and Langer married someone in another country and is out of the public eye basically.

SO - NaBloPoMo complete for today. Really hoping I get well enough to get a hair cut tomorrow afternoon.

Thanksgiving Prep

Last year I wrote detailed posts about my Thanksgiving menu and the cooking/prep process. Today has been a busy day with prep and cooking. I didn't take any pictures of the food. The menu is basically the same, although I'm not making the broccoli salad (it's never been as good as it was the first year I made it), and I'm giving up on homemade rolls. They're amazing, but store-bought brown-n-serve will be just fine too.

I'm tired. Was on my feet a lot. Last year I was pregnant and had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes for about a month while I was doing the Thanksgiving cooking. I was on my feet and busy all morning. I'd had my snack but I still felt weird. That's the only scary episode I had during the pregnancy, and I kind of blacked out -- not fully but everything went black/I lost vision while I stumbled to the table and sat down. I couldn't stop laughing after I recovered. But it scared Shawn. I was very pale too. Nothing like that happened today, of course. I'm healthy-ish.

I am not in a cheery, holiday mood. I don't know how I'm going to celebrate Christmas. It's not going to be the same. I am looking forward to Advent -- sitting in the dark, waiting for the light. And I hope and pray the the miracle comes to me again anew. At the very least I'll be going through the motions for my girls -- Jane's sixth Christmas season and Livia's first. My precious baby girls.

There's something to be learned here, even though I would give almost anything to not be learning it.

Make My Outsides Match My Insides

My face and left hand

Or vice versa?

I still feel terrible. I am not reeling any longer, and I can stand my ground.

My outsides match that internal upset. But I need to start something to keep myself together.

That means exercise. That means a hair cut (scheduled for this Friday). That *might* mean wearing makeup more often.

What else should it mean? More rest? (Once Liv and I are better that should come) More reading? More movies?

I've got to keep myself together. I do not want to feel "better" or OK with the situation, but I do want to be able to live my life and be ready for whatever comes our way.

Volunteering with Gritted Teeth

I'm a volunteer at my church. It's become a bigger "position" than I expected at first, and I just kind of fell into it. There wasn't a time when someone asked "will you do X, Y and Z." It was more like "we need help with our website," and I lunged at the chance.

The responsibilities morphed as I kept seeing more things that could be done and took on additional responsibilities when asked. When I was going to be out for maternity leave I suggested the church hire an intern to take over for a few months. That morphed into something entirely, and I've been told jokingly (perhaps?) that I've been fired because ...

The church hired a communications director, which really is great. She has zero communications experience, which is not so great.

She'll work out fine, and I've been spending even more time training her. And of course NOTHING is being done to my liking. I'm biting my tongue and sitting on my hands a lot. (Or bitching about it to anyone who will listen and on my blog here...)

There are still places I can contribute, and I'm still leading the communications "team" of volunteers, although I'm hoping that responsibility will eventually fade away if this new hire can be a true leader. I vacillate from wanting to control everything to wanting to completely wash my hands of the whole thing and only attend church as a "visitor" of sorts or to somehow contribute in other, non-communications ways.

And as much as my Type A personality clashes, I know what I want to do -- either option, all or nothing -- is not the right thing.

Recently our pastor prayed before a leadership meeting, and a line stuck out to me enough that I wrote it down: "Our relationships are more important than the work."

That's so the truth, and it's also a very hard truth to deal with, at least for me. I want the work done flawlessly (or at least to my liking!) and on time. But what I should really want is to cultivate a relationship with this new friend and let the work sort itself out. (I think?)

Also if I had a regular job of my own this would all be moot as I wouldn't have time or energy to be upset about any of the church communications. (Maybe?) Being a stay-at-home mom and taking care of the girls is a full-time job, but it definitely leaves space for me to fret about stuff like this.

I'll never change myself or my feelings about it, but I CAN change how I react to things and temper what I actually say. Maybe if I fake it I'll make it?