All In The Family

On my 5th birthday I broke down sobbing that things were changing.

Since then, my aversion to change has been legendary.

Tomorrow, Marta, the woman who has helped raise my daughter and mentored me in motherhood, spends her last day with us.
And then she is off to California. To live. 3,000 miles away.

From me.

From La C.

Marta walked through our door on the first day of my daughter's fourth month of life and tomorrow my daughter will be 3 years and 17 days old.

In the intervening hours, months and years La C ----

Learned Spanish;
Learned to love the outdoors;
Laughed with abandon;
Developed amazing self-confidence.

Because of Marta.

Those of you who know me also know that aside from my adversion to change, I am the queen of control freaks. But I walked out the door that morning of the first day of La C's fourth month with an almost heretofore unknown sense of calm. I never asked where they went during the day. I never questioned what La C ate during the day. Because I knew that every morning Marta greeted La C with the same voice full of love that I did and La C smiled contentedly.

Because of Marta.

Marta knows all my secrets.

She knows that I am a lackluster housekeeper. She knows how forgetful I am. But she also knows how much my world revolves around La C and makes sure that I have the support I need.

I have tried to explain to La C what is happening. She is three. She does not truly understand.

I know that two weeks from now La C will wake up and call down the stairs to Marta. And I will have to Mom up.

Be the Mom.

The only Mom.

I am scared.

Not only am I losing my friend. A member of my family.

I am losing my safety net.

But if there is one thing Marta has taught both La C and me, it is that we can do anything.

Captain Obvious and the Attack of the Redundancy Clones

Have you ever heard a recording of your voice and were startled by how you sounded?

The voice inside my head (ha ha, you can stop chuckling now) - the voice I hear inside my head (yeah, yeah, just as bad) - sounds a little deep, rather loud and a bit choppy. I am always surprised when people ask me to speak up.

I have the same issue with observations.

Sometimes it seems that I am the only one who sees the giant shark zooming towards the helpless occupants of the sinking life raft ---

Duhn-duhn! Duhn-duhn!! Duhn-duhn!!! Duhn!!!! *Wild screaming*

Duh!!!!

This is not to say that I am the reigning Miss Smarty-Pants-Know-it-All. No, no - I feed that fantasy with this blog. In real life I am just happy to get in, get out, and get home.

But there are a few things lately that have me unfurling my Captain Obvious cape.

1. Rompers. On grown women. Women who paired them with stilettos and slunk around nightclubs. Or on dates. With someone to whom they presumably wanted to appear attractive and sophisticated. "Let me slip out of this romper in to something more comfortable...". They actually marketed these monstrosities as ROMPERS. Trust me - Urban Outfitters, society and the Tea Party are doing a yeoman's job of sidelining women as inferior / infantile beings; y'all need not lift a finger or a hanger attached to a romper to help.

2. Guns, Bars, and Bad Ideas. Now I have nothing against the state of Ohio - it's fun to say, it's fun to spell. Apparently, however, not a single member of the Ohio State Assembly learned a darn tootin' thing from Gunsmoke. Beer + Bar brawls + Guns = BAD. Yet, in July the Ohio State Assembly passed and the Governor signed, a bill allowing concealed, loaded guns to be carried in to places where alcohol is served. Supporters of the bill stated it would bring Ohio in to alignment with other states -- yeah, um, other than Ohio, only four other states in the nation explicitly allow concealed, loaded guns in bars. I'm guessing those remaining 45 states rather like the prospect of repeat customers with enough fingers to hold a pint glass.

3. History. Those who do not learn from it are doomed to repeat it. (Thank you George Santayana and my mother, for whom this quote is a favorite.) Or at the very least grow complacent in the face of history. Social media in totality is like a giant "Second Life" world. We are both ourselves and our avatars at the same time. How is it that social media allows us to engage in behavior/dialogue that would bring a chill to any cocktail party conversation. Let me be blunt. Tweeting that you are missing happy hour with the girls to meet a work deadline and using the hashtag #whitegirlproblems is offensive. It is sobering how often this term is bandied about in our virtual ether. By otherwise seemingly intelligent people. Cut it out folks.

4. Red Rover, Red Rover. I hated the game as a kid. Right up there with dodgeball. And the rope climb in gym,,,,but I digress. The Great State of Virginia has seen fit to allow motorcyclists, moped riders and bicyclists to pass through red lights, as long as there is no oncoming traffic, after waiting 120 seconds or two cycles of the light. Yep, I really believe those diligent bicyclists that careen between cars on busy roads and do not yield to cars using their indicators to turn right, are going to just sit politely counting 120 seconds at a red light. Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon? And when did a motorcycle begin to resemble a bike more than a car - Those puppies can pass my lead foot any day unlike the bicyclist whose backside I get to track for two miles as they peddle mightily into the wind at five miles an hour.

So you see these are not things that are vital to national security. You can go back to your regularly scheduled programming at ease in the knowledge that Captain Obvious is watching over us all.

Chopping Blocks and Soap Boxes

L'economie, elle est malade.

Talk about your worst nightmare - reliving SAT prep all over again----

- Entitlement programs are to block grants what deficit is to appropriations.

- If House Bill for $X trillion passes with 224 votes and Senate Bill for $XX billion passes with 52 votes, how many State funded programs will lose their Federal match?

For weeks the citizens of our great nation have tuned in, gaped, scratched their heads, decried taxation, and then tuned out when a bill passed. You know, something was passed - a trillion something - what exactly was cut to add up to those trillions?...eh, who knows.

Apparently Jill Citizen is confident that this debt thing will sort itself out now that something passed.

My friends we are way beyond the mystery of the Hogwart's Sorting hat.

For those who work in the trenches of the Federal government, the reality is vivid. The sorting painful. The impact deep.

It will take the American public several years before the individual citizen appreciates the uncomfortable reality of what was lost and gained.

Which is why I am fascinated by the hue and cry over the slated demise of the House Page Program. Really? This is what gets the moderates to mobilize?

There is a petition. National media. Dueling rumors as to why the program is ending - fiscal vs. scandal.

It feels so "inside the Beltway". Do North Dakotans really care?

I read an impassioned blog post today to save the vaunted Page Program and I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed so hard I cried.

Believer Blogger could not believe that this 200 year-old program that brought 4,000 youth to the Capital over a twenty year period and cost $5 million annually, could possibly be put on the chopping block! For those of you playing at home that is 200 Pages a year at $25,000 per Page.

Believer Blogger and apparently thousands of others are frustrated that a program that inspires engaged citizenry in our youth is being ended at a moment in our history that demands the next generations step up.

We had that - a federally funded national service program annually engaging over a million youth in engaged citizenry. Learn and Serve America. Reduced drop out numbers. Built community playgrounds, gardens, environmental conservation programs. Engaged youth in state and local policy and government. And this twenty year old program was cut in the 2011 fiscal debate prelude to the debt ceiling debate.

Yes, that is bitterness dripping from my text.

Each budget cut is personal.

Every single "ion" in the trillions of dollars in cuts has supported some portion of the population in some way. Perhaps we may not need a set aside program for engaging youth as informed and active citizens - they may not have a choice but to step up.

That is my impassioned blogger moment. At least this hour's impassioned moment.