Throwing The Baby Out With The Holy Water?

I'm in an interesting position. My wife and I talked last night about her desire to provide the kids with some sort of spiritual exposure. Given my rather open and firm stance against organized religion on the whole, she's had to compromise a great deal of her own needs and desires for a spiritual routine, and along with that, she's concerned that the kids have limited exposure to moral teaching, golden rules, or anything of a spiritual nature when the only source is within our home. We don't have any routine practice or make any conscious effort to consistently do so.

In addition, the topic of private schools came up, one option being Catholic schools, of which she herself is an alumni. From what she, and a couple of my close friends have told me, there's really little/no religious dogma pushed or forced on the students, and the benefits, for them at least, greatly outweigh any drawbacks. I know at least two 'non believers' that are paying to send their kids to Catholic schools and they're fine with it. I'm on the fence, as doing so at this age seems a bit premature.

In addition, there's a requirement of Baptism, which really bothers me, as it's, IMHO, a completely idiotic requirement and ritual. I am dumbstruck to imagine that anybody really believes that the act of immersion in water under the right circumstances somehow means anything at all in this world or the next. It's inane, which in this case, is "insane" with a silent 's'. I mean, come on, now... really. The act has no more meaning or bearing then having been the last one tagged "it" during the last hide 'n seek game I ever played. I've not since walked through life forever "it", just as many, many people raised in religious situations have not spent their life being Christians or Catholic's simply because of a baptism. I know it means nothing, but in the grand scheme of things, I find it incredibly frustrating, then, to support and participate in a pointless act of compliance.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite analogies: a story of a woman who, when cooking a ham, always cut the ends of the ham off. When asked by her husband as to why she did this, she said "I don't know... my mother always did so I have too.". Curious as to why, the husband calls his mother-in-law to ask about it, and she says the same thing as her daughter did. "It's how I learned to cook a ham from my mother.". The son contacts his wife's grandmother, and when asked about the practice, she simply says "my baking pan was too small."

Now, I had my upbringing, with minimal involvement in religion, and my wife's was similar, but with a bit more early adolescent experience, primarily through having attended a catholic high school and making catholic friends. But she's not attached to any religion or belief system either. If I had to summarize it from my point of view, she's spiritual, but not religious. She believes there's something more and something greater then just our physical presence and being, but she's not convinced that any belief system properly or completely represents it. She's far from an atheist. Perhaps she is a very very moderate agnostic but only in the sense of any one religion having the absolute answer as to what might be going on.

We've tried, a couple of times, to look into Unitarian churches over the years, but those either integrate fundamental religious beliefs within the context of "any and all faiths are represented', or they are way to "out there", wherein the smell of pachouli incense fill the room while drum circles and gregorian chants take the place of organ music, choirs and the congregation reciting "Lord be with you" in rote fashion.

It seems that there's really nothing, at this point, in our society, that provides a routine opportunity for a sense of community , teachings of core human values, and exposure to the concepts of spirituality without being tied to a religion. I can't consider going along with something I absolutely do not believe in simply to gain the benefits that might come with it, or to discount the negative aspects as well. If I was able to make that compromise, I'd already be a Mormon.

Our kids are closing in on 5 years old. My wife's desire is to introduce them to spiritual ideas and the general teaching of moral practices. She's not talking about bible classes or any religious teachings or discussions at home or outside of a weekly visit to a church. I can't say I object to that idea completely, because it's an eventuality that they'll be exposed to religion in many other ways, but I struggle with the fact that they're as young as they are, they're still impressionable, subject to taking fantasy as reality, considering an adult an authority figure without question, and subject to fears that may be incorporated into a sermon.

I recognize that there's two parents involved, that my wife's gone without a sense of spirituality for many years, and the options are highly limited. I'm willing to let her give it a shot and see how it goes. But I'm not completely sure how I feel about it right now.

Summer Break

I watched and listened to the kids in the back yard Sunday morning. And they were playing quite harmoniously. It's not typically the case and it was a very welcome change. I thought to myself that, perhaps, they were maturing a bit and getting beyong the usual fighting and control struggles that come from being strong willed. I also briefly thought to myself that as nice as it was, someday there will be some situation where a scream is followed by one of the two if them running in to say that the other was hurt, and then there'd be some bloody face or twisted limb awaiting me.



I just didn't think today would be that day. I thought wrong.



I was just out of view of them from within the house when I heard my daughter start to scream. And it was one of those screams that signify real injury. As a parent, you learn the difference between a cry due to not getting something they want, struggling over possession of a toy or being honestly hurt. And this was an 'honestly hurt' scream. I came to find her lying face down on the pavement next to a kid-size picnic bench. I approached, fearful that a tooth of two would be dangling from her bleeding gums. She was intact and not cut, but she was still struggling to get up while crying hysterically that her brother had hurt her arm.



It turns out that as they were playing and she was atop the table holding the stringy branches of a Magnolia tree as vines and pretending to be a monkey, he thought it would be fun to pick up the large inflatable "sit and bounce on" handled ball and swing it about. He accidentally knocked her to the pavement. He knew immediately that he had hurt her and was immediately apologetic. But I needed to focus on her, so I told him to go inside.



I held her on my lap and got her to stop sobbing so heavily and tell me what had happened and what was hurting. It was her arm that hurt, and although she was able to move her fingers it was evident that there was something wrong because touching or slightly moving it, however so gently, caused her to cry out in pain.



I took her to the emergency room and she was a real trooper, but quite overwhelmed and pensive. After a few x-rays including one that caused her to wince and tear up in pain, they informed us there was a fracture on the inside of the elbow, and it'd need a cast. They put a temporary splint on, and the following day, she was sporting a pink cast from her wrist to above her elbow. She'll be wearing it for the next 4 weeks. Fortunately, it's waterproof, so the upcoming plans for a water slide at her 5th birthday party are not completely ruined.



As for the boy... well, he was incredibly sad and sorry about the whole thing. He's been caring and sympathetic and saying he's sorry repeatedly. There's no doubt that he's learned a valuable lesson here. So hopefully I can check this off the 'parent experience' list and move on.



When you see me next and notice the grey in the beard, factor this into the overall cause.

Healthcareless

I've been trying to schedule an MRI all week without success. And I don't mean that I have been trying to get the actual MRI this week, just to get it scheduled. Why is another story, but right now, I need to vent. I went to Stanford for an initial appointment and they said I'd have to get an urgent MRI done. I wanted to get it done at a nearby location instead of going all the way back up to Stanford. I thought it'd make it easier, and expedite things. What a joke on me that has turned out to be.



To start things off, Stanford tells me I have to call the local facility and schedule it, and that they'll get insurance authorization. I do. The local facility says no, they don't do the authorization, Stanford does. So I call Stanford back and they say they'll do it but they need all this detail about the local facility. Phone nbrs, contacts, address, stuff like that. So I call the local facility, get all that info, call Stanford and leave the details on a voicemail. I do the same the next day. I hear nothing. So a couple of days later I call and they say they didn't get all the info, even though I left it all. So I give it to them yet again. They in turn fax the paperwork to the local facility. I then have to contact the local facility to schedule an appointment. Of course during all this, I have a real job, things to do at home, and only a set of hours in a day that I can also get this scheduled. So a couple days later I finally do call the local facility. The person there first says they can't find my paperwork. Had I not pressed they'd have stopped there. THEN they tell me it's not authorized and needs authorization. Wasn't that the whole point of this exercise in the first place? So I then call Stanford, and they tell me that they did contact insurance, authorization is not required because that facility is within their coverage, and there should be no issue. The person at the facility should know that.



Oh, BTW, remember that this whole thing has been an "URGENT" request for an MRI.



Why the HELL am I supposed to be the middle man here? Wouldn't a great deal more have been accomplished by Stanford talking directly to the local facility? Ultimately that's what they did do, conveying the fact that no approval is required, but the dolt I talked to was as clueless about the approval as they were about finding my paperwork.



I ended up throwing my arms up in disgust and discouragement. I hate this crap. I need to walk away from this for awhile. This is arcane and idiotic. What's the point of trying? Why should it take this much intervention and pursuit to schedule a frickin' "URGENT" MRI to begin with?



Where's the "care" in "healthcare", anyway?

Running On Empty

My wife and I have an ongoing "joke" about the fact that every time she drives my car, it's on empty. It's not true. In fact, every time I put in gas, with only the rarest of exceptions, I fill it up. Then I drive it until the warning light turns on and do it again. So it's either pure random coincidence that the majority of time she drives it falls at a point where it's getting to the bottom of the tank. In any event, it's with great trepidation that I give her the keys, on both of our parts.

The important word in this post's title is not "empty", it's "running". Because that is what I seem to be doing every time I get in my car. I'm running. Running late. Running to work with only a moment to spare, if even that. Running directly home because I've yet again been side tracked by a late meeting or hallway inquiry that prevents me from making it home at the 'usual' time. In fact, every time I ever do stop for gas, I do so when I'm already late for wherever I was heading.

I'm tired of running. I'm tired of having to work every morning, aggressively throughout the day and into the evening again at home. I'm tired of not sleeping, which only makes me all the more exhausted and irritable. I'm tired of demands on my time that are violently colliding with each other. I've even been recently challenged by my management about the work on my plate and the focus I put into completing it. If only they knew how full my plate really is.

I'd like to be everything to everybody. I'd like to be the friend that helps fix computers, gets iPod deals, shares movies, or just replies to personal emails in a timely fashion. I'd like to be the father that does not get irritated when my kids wake up and come into our room for the 3rd time in the middle of the night and interrupt the limited sleep I do get. I'd like to be able to have taken a summer vacation and spend time relaxing with my family instead of having to battle with work about my rights and need for a break or to have to face the disappointment at home when vacation has been denied. I'd like to be the husband that takes time to watch a movie without feeling a panic about the fact that the rushing waters are moving me further down the river from the rapids I'm trying to swim over. I'd like to find time to follow up on medical appointments that are becoming essential for my heath and well being. I'd like to feel that everybody isn't standing around, tapping their foot, glancing repeatedly at their watch and wondering what I'm doing instead of being where they expect me and doing what they expected, and I'd like to have the patience and fortitude to start saying 'no' to requests or needs without feeling bad because, ultimately, if I just try harder, I could probably say 'yes'.

I'd also like to understand how other's appear to easily manage while I continually struggle.

Oh, and I'd like world peace.

A World of Pure Imagination

I was a voracious reader as a child. I cut my teeth on the corners of "The Cat In The Hat", and pretty much every Seuss book in our neighbors' collection. I'd been given carte blance to visit and 'check out' any title I wanted, and I read them all. Repeatedly. Those and if course, "Where The Wild Things Are".



In Pennsylvania, when I was around 9 or 10, I'd discovered "Stuart Little" by E. B. White and Ronald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", long before Gene Wilder deftly laid claim to the persona of Mr. Wonka and decades before Tim Burton would twist and malign the story to the Depps of despair.



As a parent, I now have the joyous opportunity to pass along the same treasures to my children, and I happily do so, reading Seuss to them at bedtime, or singing along with them in the car to the soundtrack of "Willy Wonka....". And I've been looking about in hopes of finding my copy of Stuart Little, so I might start reading a chapter a night to them for my own pleasure as much as their own.



And as a parent I feel an obligation to help them enjoy the exploration of their imaginations, while steering them clear of too many scary scenarios or more mature situations. We'd rented a DVD recently that was a childs cartoon series, but after just a brief viewing I turned it off because my wife and I both agreed that the main character spoke rudely and disrespectfully to peers and adults. We may seem greatly conservative but as far as we are concerned, there's plenty of years ahead for them to be a part of "the real world" and for the time being, we want them immersed in the innocence and wonder of youth. Just as we were.



E. B. White also wrote "Charlotte's Web", and I have the 2006 movie version in our collection. They've not watched it yet because I feel that they're still a bit too young and effected by the sadness in some of the things they have see. For example, my son saw "Beauty & the Beast" and was very upset when the Beast was cut and hurt by Gaston. So we are careful. Tonight I skimmed through "Charlotte's Web" to check it out. It's quite delightful. But at the same time, if I can't get through the death scene of the spider without welling up myself, I'm hard pressed to imagine that they'll do any better. So we'll be waiting on that one and perhaps diverting them towards "Babe" in the mean time.

Stressing The Point

>Hey kids... I have an idea.. let's take a peek into my day today, shall we?
Come on.... walk with me....

12:30am: Finish working on numerous home/work tasks.
01:00am: Kids both enter room. One wet the bed. Getup, cleanup, reset, try again.
01:30am: Neighbor's dog barks incessantly at some tree dwelling critter.
02:30am: Kid enters room. Wife escorts back. Dog's still barking.
03:30am: Kids awake/enter again. Wife escorts back. Dog's still barking.
04:00am: Kids awake/enter yet again. Wife escorts back. Dog's still barking.
07:00am: Kids awaken for the day. Dog's oddly silent.
07:30am: Help wife to keep 2 kids on track and making it out the door for their dentist appointment while I ready for my own dr appt.
08:00am: Leave for Stanford Medical Clinic for initial discussion to coordinate MRI about neck/spinal column related issues, and likely surgery. It won't be the first time.
08:45am: Park/walk to and arrive at SMC just in time for appointment, 'cause I realize I don't have $ to pay for parking near by.
08:50am: Blood pressure is up from 123, now 140. Hypertension. Again.
09:00am: Discuss neck symptoms and get directed to get MRI asap.
09:45am: Drive to work, coordinating MRI via phone en route.
10:25am: Arrive at work just in time to walk into 10:30am meeting.
11:00am: Voicemail: home phone is not working. Try to troubleshoot remotely with wife via cell. DSL filters appear to be the issue.
12:05pm: Get call from wife. She's en route to Dr's office with son crying from unknown abdominal pains.
12:40pm: Checking in; they're now in line for x-rays. He tells me mommy gave him too much juice and now his penis hurts. Kids say the darnedest things. I think it's abdominal cramps from laxatives we give him 'cause he holds back otherwise.
01:15pm: Back into meetings. I've not been to my office once. Multitasking and not paying attention just in time to be asked a question and return a blank stare while crickets echo in the background. Huh? What?
02:00pm: Checking in again; they're still waiting for x-rays. But son's feeling better.
02:15pm: Working session with co-worker. Actual productivity. Yea!
02:45pm: Getting time to respond to pending tasks... more real work being done.
03:00pm: Checking in on son; seems better, no info on x-rays yet so they're back home.

I only jot this down now because, although extreme, things like this are not uncommon, just more spread out. So when I heard my BP was up to 140 I felt a sense of failure. I worked very hard to get it so low, having been up at 160 at one point. And I'll have to work again to bring it back down, but there does appear to be some indicators that my days can be subject to stress from time to time.

The Radio's Playing Some Forgotten Song

One of the free applications available on the 2.0 iPhone software is AOL Radio; access to AOL's streaming of radio stations from all over the country. I thought I'd poke around in it and see what it has to offer, and under the 'local' sections, for the SF Bay Area, I came across "KFRC".



KFRC was an AM radio station when I was 12 years old. Now it is an FM station, and streaming over the web as well. When I used to listen to KFRC. I did so on a portable radio, about the size of VHS tape, with a kazoo quality speak, an extending metal antenna that would only retract to the point where the last segment had been bent some years before, and a sliding dial tuner with faded frequency numbers. Yet to this day, "Radar Love" never sounds as genuine without the crackling static of broadcast radio.



My Saturday mornings were routinely spent doing chores, mainly the yardwork we grew to refer to as doing our "4 hours". If we expected to see the weekly payoff of a cash allowance, along with other tasks, it was mandated that both my brother and I would each spend 4 hours a week doing things like mowing, weeding, raking and any other general landscaping tasks. Of course at that age, we'd start at 9am and claim to have started at 7am. Our parents only challenged us on rare occasions although I'm sure they never expected it, and saw the 2hr net effort as the ultimate objective. Tricky. I'll be doing the same with our kids at some stage as well.



During these outdoor work-sessions, that portable radio would travel with me, and I'd always make a point of tuning into KFRC in order to hear Casey Kasem's "Top 40" countdown. All the pop hits of the day were counted down from 40 to 1, with Casey's tidbits and tangents intersperced along the way. It became a ritual of sorts to listen to it weekly, one that lasted for years. Yet this is something I've long forgotten as time has shuffled me along.



Clicking on the KFRC icon in the iPhone player for AOLRadio took me to their stream, which paused for a moment to load, and to my surprise and joy, Casey's voice was the first thing I heard! It turns out that every Saturday from 6-9, they re-broadcast his count down the top 40 hits from the 1970s, featuring a different year each weekend. The vault has been unlocked and you can hear the American Top 40 exactly as it originally aired!



I can smell the fresh cut grass. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my back as I pull weeds, I see our dogs "Bernie" and "Teagle" running about and playing, and I hear the torn-cellophane-speaker sound of Golden Earring once again. Through the technology of today, I'm taken back to yesterday. I'm listening to the show now, and it is as if the stream is not just an old radio show, but a direct feed from the recesses of my childhood memories as well.

The VCR and the DVD
There wasn't none of that crap back in 1970
We didn't know about a world wide web
It was a whole different game being played back when I was a kid

Wanna get down in a cool way

Picture yourself on a beautiful day
Big bell bottoms and groovy long hair
Just walkin in style with a "portable cd player"?
No, you would listen to the music on the am radio
Yeah, you could hear the music on a am radio.

- "AM Radio" by Everclear

Lime Dis-Ease

I was at a friends home recently (JJG for those in the know) for an "ice-cream social" with lots of families. The kids took to the ice-cream and swarmed about the deck playing with numerous toys while the men congregated in the kitchen for beers and ladies sat around the patio in a semi-circle talking about, well, whatever it is they talk about when they're in a circle. They only know 'cause if you walk up on them, they stop talking.

In any event, as we were offered various choices of libation, including a range of beers, Corona was offered to one of the fathers. Their response was "Do you have lime"? It seemed an innocent question, JJG checked, and said no. "I'll just have water then" was the man's response.

I'm writing this because I'm drinking a Corona right now. With lime. And it's excellent. But had I no lime, it'd still be excellent. It's not as if "lime" is in itself an ingredient, it's an addition. Yet for this guy, for whatever reason, the absence of the lime was a deal breaker. No lime, no Corona. Water was more preferable at that stage.

JJG and I exchanged a puzzled looks with furrowed brows, and he got his water. And I got the Corona he would have otherwise taken. The last one, it turns out. Sans lime.

It was excellent. In fact I'll go out on a limb and say it tasted better than water.