Being Ugly

In the United States we live in a society which values the way women  look entirely too much. I'm actually really hard on myself, and I need to remember the amazing things my body has done.

My body has done wonderful things. It took me to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back, which was in doubt for a few miles there). It's run two marathons. It's recovered from 3 concussions. It's grown two marvelous people inside of it. I've put it through two very long labors only to be subjected to two C-sections and it's recovered beautifully. It dances, albeit not very well. It sings. It manages to get up every morning.

I'm so hard on it for not looking like it did 10 years ago, for not being flat where it should be and for being flat where it shouldn't be,  but I should appreciate it for all of the things it still does for me, and for all the experience it's gained thus far. My aches should remind me of all of the things my body has stretched for, my wrinkles the wisdom gained with every new experience.

Here's an interview that Dustin Hoffman did about an epiphany  he had while filming Tootsie.  I think that a lot of men think this way about women, which is unfortunate. I know all of the Mom's I know are doing their best to raise little humans who value women as people first and women second. We also need to start being nicer to ourselves.

Here's why we should be worried about the Ebola Virus

We do have a decent healthcare system in the United States, but if Ebola begins to spread, the health care system will very quickly be overrun.

We don't actually have the resources at 95% of hospitals to deal with an outbreak.

Doctors in the United States are not familiar with Ebola, which is understandable, because they never see it. The symptoms of this disease are very similar to influenza, especially in the beginning phases.

I've been following this outbreak in Africa, and it seemed as though authorities were strangely silent about it in the beginning. I don't think it's some sort of conspiracy, I just think people are in denial about what this disease can do.

We simply don't know enough about it, and the hospitals have no experience dealing with a disease so easily spread and so very deadly.

This disease spreads through contact with bodily fluids, yes, but it doesn't require close contact. It requires exposure to soiled garments, vomit, saliva, breast milk, sweat. Think of all the things you touch every day that have been touched by other people. Duncan did not have to lie about being in contact with an Ebola victim. Honestly, the disease in Africa is spreading so quickly that he could have ridden in a cab someone else had ridden in. He may have used a public restroom immediately after someone infected and shedding the virus.

Our hospital systems will quickly become overwhelmed if there is an outbreak in this country. There really needs to be a global effort to contain and eradicate this virus at it's source. It's not going to stop moving, and it's too hard to isolate everyone in this global society.

This virus kills as many people as the bubonic plague did. We came up with  antibiotics to treat it, finally, but it killed 50-80%  of the people who were infected, just like Ebola.

I don't think we need to be pointing fingers and blaming the Dallas Hospital, I think they did the best they could, but I also think the people at the top of these organizations don't realize how hard it is to get supplies, or the pressure placed upon the staff to do their jobs even when situations aren't ideal. there were a lot of mistakes made, but we need to stop making them. At least now it seems as though the government has a clear plan going forward.

I don't think we should panic, but I also don't think we should stick our heads in the sand.
We really need to focus a bit more on containing this outbreak than on terrorist sects right now. This has the potential to kill so many more of us, just as indiscriminately.

We Should Totally be worried about Ebola

I'm a medical technologist, I've been working in hospitals since I graduated from college 15 years ago. WE SHOULD ABSOLUTELY BE WORRIED ABOUT EBOLA.

Nicolas Cage in Left Behind

The newest version of Left Behind came out in theaters on October 3. So, I've been waiting for this movie to come out since I saw a trailer for it 8 months ago on Reddit. I first thought it was a joke, then determined it was real and desperately wanted to see it.

 The Rapture is a mostly American evangelical Christian belief that Christian believers will be raptured at the end times. From the Latin root raptus, meaning to be carried away.

The history of it is pretty interesting. There's no real definite support for it in the bible. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff about the end times, and some passages about the believers meeting
Jesus in the air, and some other stuff about tribulation...but essentially some different dudes over time have interpreted all these passages to death and decided on their own interpretations. It's a belief that became popular in the late 1700s, early 1800s based on some different guys interpretations of what the bible says. I mean, this is extrapolation of the vaguest kind. Times, times, and half a time (Daniel 7:25) is interpreted as 3 and 1/2 years...um...

If anyone is interested in reading more about what the rapture is, they can check out Wikipedia, which I feel gives a pretty good explanation. It also gives some links to some amazing people, like some guy named Increase Mather, and his son, Cotton. It's no surprise these guys were involved with the Salem witch trials.

There are  also a lot of Christian websites those interested can immerse themselves in, and plenty of people who will spew hate at you for questioning their beliefs in the end times, as well. Anyways, I'm Catholic, so I don't get raptured. I pretty much wind up straight in hell.

 But man oh man, The rapture is the stuff of Hollywood horror. Kids disappearing from their parents, teenager waking up to find their whole families gone. Then, what happens next? Torture for the next seven years.

As a story premise this is BRILLIANT. My husband was terrified when he was a child that everyone he knew would be raptured and he would be left alone. He used to wake up in the middle of the night and check to make sure everyone else was still in bed.

Unfortunately the Christians have yet to use the story gold that history has handed to them. Unable to stop beating the audience to death with their evangelical  message, the story crashes and burns. Sometimes less is more guys. I may not have accepted Jesus into my heart in quite the way you have but I'm not a moron.

I can only assume that editing choices and directing were also dictated by the need to be nice instead of actually telling someone that the choices made were perhaps not the best.

A movie based on the rapture should be like a zombie flick, not really about the zombies, but about what the people do in response to the zombies. How do they react when placed in this confusing/terrifying situation.

Instead we get a nice Muslim man, who isn't saved because he's Muslim (nice isn't enough to get you saved), a dwarf with a lot of issues about being short, and a busy business man who also isn't saved, because he had no time for Jesus or family, oh, yep, and a drug addict, and lots of mom's missing their kids.

My companions giving their best Nic Cage impersonations

There is an HBO show called the leftovers that just came out this year based on the rapture that I'm told might get it right. Looking forward to watching it.

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Sometimes People are Just Nice

Last Sunday, with my kids in the car, I ran out of gas. I used to run out of gas a lot when I was younger, something about wanting the universe to conform to my needs of buying more cigarettes and not gas, and trying to will my car to continue running on nothing.

It's been a good 10 years I would say, since I ran out of gas. I was on my way to the grocery store to overbuy snacks and things for my kids because we had a new babysitter coming on Monday (and it totally makes me nervous, so I want to make things super easy so the newbie never wants to kill himself throughout the day) and to get money out of the ATM. Luckily I decided to drive up 7th Street instead of getting immediately on the highway. I knew we were relatively low on fuel, but the little orange light had yet to come on, so I thought we were safe, at least until after I had gotten a coffee.

Well, now I know the little orange light is broken.

 We managed to coast to a stop halfway into an empty parking lot. I then managed to push the car by myself all the way into the parking lot, but it was still sitting in the middle of the lane, and no amount of coaxing (or cursing) could get it to move one more inch.

Stinko was screaming his head off, and up stepped my first angel of the day, out on a Sunday morning walking his boxer with his girlfriend, he took a minute to help me shove the car into a parking spot. Hooray! The gas station was only a block and a half away, and I had Eli's little front carrier, so I decided further help was unnecessary. I

 did drastically underestimate the amount of time it would take me to walk a block in a half with a two-year-old, especially when the terrain is riddled with fresh rain puddles. My second angel of the day was the homeless guy who offered to pump the gas into the can so I wouldn't have to lean over with Stinko's legs dangling into the fresh gas stream.

 Finally, a mom of two saw me walking back down the street, Stinko strapped to my front, with Chompy in hand, eating a Spongebob ice cream and still jumping in puddles, and took the time to stop and give us a bottle of water and a couple of pairs of sunglasses, because hey, it gets hot out here in AZ. All of these little acts of kindness helped me weather the storm in good spirits. I know I complain a lot, but sometimes people are so darn nice.

Motherhood Crisis

Yesterday I had a Mom crisis. I took my kids to the Children's Museum of Phoenix. We usually go on Tuesdays, it's right next door and both of the kids really like it. It had cooled off a little bit, meaning it was only 93 degrees instead of 110, and I though they would enjoy getting outside to play on the climbing stuff and the giant colored worm-tube thing they have, especially since lately Chompy is getting really brave about what she can and can't do.

no pants were worn in this picture.

Unfortunately, although Chompy is very interested in climbing, she is not so interested in wearing pants. Sometimes, it's worth the effort to wrangle her into shorts, or pants of some type, and sometimes it's not. She's a pretty headstrong gal, and she can really fight you. I'd already fought with her about toothbrushing, barrettes, biting her brother, throwing things at the cat, and pooping in the bathtub yesterday, so I decided if she didn't want to wear pants, she didn't have to.

I didn't think anyone would care, but as usual I was wrong. We said hi to about 6 different employees on the way in before we made it up to the 2nd floor and outside. I pushed my stroller into the corner and lifted Chompy out and she immediately made a bee-line for the stairs leading down to the play area.

That's when one of the "playologists" (they really call them that, okay? I didn't make it up) approached and asked if my child had pants. I said yes, I have some in my diaper bag, but she doesn't feel like wearing them today! I expected a laugh or an understanding nod, but instead got a rather snooty, "We usually like for children to wear pants." Well, me too, lady, me too, but it just wasn't happening this morning. I just said, "Oh well, I'll try and re-pants the girl later."

Now I can understand if my kid was freezing to death, but it's 95 degrees. I would also understand if she wasn't wearing a diaper because, hello, hygiene. She was wearing a diaper, and pants really served no practical purpose, so aside from it being socially unacceptable, there really was no problem. I'm not a big fan of rules for the sake of rules, or doing something just so it looks a certain way.

I was feeling pretty self righteous about it, too. What right does that lady have to tell me my child has to wear pants if she doesn't want to? There's a whole holiday devoted to not wearing pants. Chompy's just a hipster in the making.

Then it happened. Chompy was playing with a little boy named Max who was about two. They seemed to be having a great time. I was excited because she made a friend and seemed to be having fun. Chompy and Stinko actually have a lot of cousins they get to play with, they just live really far away, and they LOVE other kids. The mom kept trying to get Max to stop playing with Chompy, though. I thought to myself, my gosh, what if it's because my daughter isn't wearing pants. I'm raising a child who won't be able to make any friends because she's too weird and I didn't bother to teach her that she needs to wear pants in public.

The mom finally managed to collect her son and put his shoes back on, which took about twenty minutes, and they disappeared inside. I felt guilty. It started to get too hot to play outside. I wrestled my child into her shoes and up the stairs. After she was worn out, I managed to get her pants on her before she got back into the stroller.

Then I realized that that other mom was also the mother of a two year old, and probably had to fight her own battles, and probably didn't even notice. She was probably thinking, "For God's sake I'm about to pee my pants and it's going to take me twenty minutes to get his shoes on!" I like to think so, anyway.

 Plus, Chompy made friends with another kid wearing a diaper and a Batman cape. The day was a win.

Week 9: Robot Battles!

This idea was pulled from the interwebs about 3 years ago. It was the second  year I was married and my husband and I actually did this one night with dinner guests and it was easy and super fun. I got the idea originally from Red Ted Art.

I modified it for grandparent camp this year a bit, by making it a robot battle. I will say the kids under 3 weren't very interested, but buddy the kids from 3 until 9 were completely into it. The best thing is that the robots were made out of all craft materials and recycled things that Grandmother and Grandpap had on hand. The motors are 1.5-3V hobby motors that cost between 1-2 dollars.

Materials:

Hot glue gun and hot glue

1.5-3v craft motor

1 AA battery

electrical tape or soldering iron

anything you can think of to make a cool robot

We probably should have used the double sided foam they used on Red Ted Art. The vibrations tended to wiggle loose the hot glue pretty quickly, but it worked okay without it.

1. Hot glue the battery to the motor and attach the wires, one to each end of the motor. Make sure the motor spins.

2. Attach  something to unbalance the spinning end of the motor. Each of the kids chose something different. Some used plastic beads, some bits of wire. The point is to unbalance the motor enough so that it vibrates.

3. As soon as you verify that it wiggles, let the creativity begin! The only important part is to make sure the motors end can spin. We attached at least one end of the wire with electrical tape so it could be un-attached to stop the vibrations. Building our robots.

The kids really loved seeing how each of the robots moved, and building something that moved on it's own. Modifications went on and on, and we didn't even get through the battles completely, but I don't think anyone cared.

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The battle circle. Whoever pushed the other robot entirely out of the circle first won! This was great because it's entirely random, so the littler kids had just as much of a chance of winning as the older kids.

The kids chose so many different materials to build their robots. This one is made out of a toilet paper tube with yarn and pipe cleaners attached.

Pipe cleaners and toothpicks!

The bead attached to the front of this motor is what causes it to vibrate.

This project was fun at our dinner party and fun for the kids. Two AA batteries wired together will allow the motors to spin faster...a 9v battery will burn out the motor pretty quickly, though.

This project was a blast!