What this was, where it's going

Hi. I know. 6 months. I suck. Life got in the way of writing. Whew, go that out of my system.

This blog was originally started to give me an outlet to talk about two things I really, really love: being a mom and traveling. So without further ado, I go back to my roots.

The husband, spawn and I recently took a trip to the Land of the Mouse (aka Disney World). Please bear in mind that in the last 15 years, I have made 40+ trips to the lovely Lake Buena Vista area. While I concede that Disney World is the a fun place with lots of things to do, if I never go there again, it will be okay. Of course, I'm going back in October and May of next year....

We did do some new things this time around, because the kids are older and Tenley has officially has overcome her fear of.... well, everything. We rode Everest at the Animal Kingdom (otherwise known as the Yeti ride at our house) and Test Track at Epcot. Both were great fun.

There are many sites out there that give great advice - way better than I can - the one thing I will tell you is this: Do not go to Disney World in June, July or August. Everyone there is hot, sweaty and grouchy.

No clever repartee in this one... but next time, Atlantis. Lots of clever things to say about that - as well as some great advice, too. :)

The Lion is Dead. Long Live the Lion

When I was born in Atlanta in 1964 it was a place on the edge of civil rights movement, yet still holding its grace and non-violence in place well. Not quite as hard as New York or defined as Boston. Not nearly as cosmopolitan as Washington and yet more than the more dowdy Southern sisters of Charlotte, Birmingham and Nashville. Yes, racism ran rampant in my life - I grew up in a neighborhood of Atlanta that had become home to mostly African-American families. My best girlfriends were "colored" girls (my grandmother used that term... and my friends actually liked it!). We played jump-rope together, Barbies were a daily treat every summer afternoon and life felt good until my father died when I was 5. How could I wake up, breathe, brush my teeth and move forward in the day without him?

As the years passed, the pain of the loss of my father lessened and I listened more ane more to my mother. Reading the books that she read, listening to her take on everything from Joe Torey catching for the Braves to what those "misguided morons" were doing in Washington. She described herself as a Jeffersonian Democrat...it would be years before I would learn what that meant. By then, I had proffered the moniker "Yellow Dog Democrat" on myself, which she later adopted, too.

My plan was big - go to university in Georgia, major in political science and journalism, get a job with some hot-shot, cutting-edge senator's office, move to Washington, law school at Georgetown and then settle into the Democratic Elite inner circle and work my ass off changing the world.

I went to work for Sen. San Nunn in Atlanta, hoping to make my way to Washington... and maybe get the chance to find THE job with THE Senator or Congressman...My supervisor told me that if I wanted to get on the fastest, best track to entrenchment, get on Senator Kennedy's team. I was just foolish enough to think that armed with my neatly typed resume in my new black (bonded) leather attache, my hair in a knot and my grandmother's pearls looping my neck that I could do anything. So many of the Senators and Congressmen were always looking to add to their staffs, and while I was no sex kitten, at 22 years old, a 4.0 average with a double major in polisci and j-school, high scores on the LSATS, IQ marked at 170....5'9" tall weighing about 110 with blonde hair falling down to the middle of my back... I thought I had a chance. To at least talk to the aides of the Senator I admired most!

When I approached one of his staffers all confident, and proud of my little bits of accomplishment, he kindly glanced at my writing samples, my school records, a couple of research bits I had done for Sen Nunn, or for a charity polo match sponsored by my then-boyfriend's father's company.... he turned and looked at me and said, "It's gotta be better than this, Miss. You have to have lived more, experienced more and feel passionate about something other than self-preservation to succeed here! Come back in one year. We'll talk again...." And I started the countdown. Because everyone KNEW that if you could get on Senator Kennedy's staff, you were On Your Way. And I felt so passionate about the things that mattered to him

By the time the year had passed, so much had changed in Washington and my life. Mike Dukakis was swept from the headlines by GHW Bush... then GHW Bush swept away by the First Gulf War. I met a boy - no, a man - who loved me in spite of all of my faults and fractures and whom I loved more deeply than anything I had ever felt.

So the year passed, and another... until my career had taken a different path into international group travel planning. No, not politics. Maybe not changing the world in the more traditional, pedestrian sense, but every time I take a group somewhere new, I try to help them understand the culture, the differences and the "sames" that make us who we are.

While it's not sitting in Washington with my thumb on the pulse of the world, I try to make my difference every day - by teaching my children that the world is a big place, but the people in it share some common bonds - the right to eat, the right to shelter, the right to earn a living, the right to be cared for when sick and the right to dignity at their death.

I carry this with me everywhere I go. I learned it from my dad. And from Uncle Teddy. Rest in Peace, Bob Evans and Teddy Kennedy. And have one on me.

Severe Sleep Apnea

Recently, I went for an overnight sleep test, as a few friends and colleagues were talking about sleep apnea... and things sounded familiar. Snoring? Yup! Feeling tired when you wake up? Yup. Difficulty losing weight? Yup. So I talked to my primary care doctor, who wrote up a referral and off I went.

I was anxious about the whole experience. Strangely, I don't mind hospitals, mostly because I've had more good experiences there than bad, but I was anxious still. What would they find out about me? Would I have to be around sick people? Would someone really watch me sleep all night long?!?!?

My fears were completely abated upon arrival at the sleep lab. Turns out that while it's NEAR the hospital, it's not IN the hospital. The rooms are like slightly over-cleaned hotel rooms - tv, private bathroom, nice mahogany bed with a comfortable mattress and sheets. And super-friendly technicians.

Once I got settled into my room (they even had the Red Sox game on when I arrived! Full satellite tv, too, and no one to fight over the remote with!) in came two techs to "hook me up". I sat in a chair in my pajamas, and they put electrode thingys (like for an EKG) on my chest and legs. This would measure my heart rate and my leg movement. Next, I was fitted for EEG electrodes - which involved goo in my hair. It felt like hair conditioner that got stuck outside the bottle - kind of waxy and soft, and washed away with water easily. More sensors stuck on my face (to determine when REM sleep occurred), a mic on my chin (to measure the decibels of my snoring... I'm guessing it rivals a Who concert!)and off to sleep I went.

They were fine with me taking an Ambien, which was good... given my anxiety and the tubes all hooked up to me, falling asleep wouldn't have been an easy task.

During the night, if I had to... ahem.... get up, I just needed to speak quietly my tech's name (I had on a mic, after all). She would come right in, unplug me and let me do what I needed to do.

Wake up call came at 5:30 am, and I was on the road home by 6. The hardest part about the whole thing was the three shampoos that it took to get the gooey stuff completely out of my hair, but my tech warned me about this. She said just do it three times in one shower, and you'll be good to go. I was.

The results came back a few days ago - I have "severe sleep apnea", which means I need to be fitted for a CPAP machine. I was having sleep interruptions as often as 50-70 times/hour, which mean that while I thought I was sleeping, I was actually just laying there making trouble for myself. The CPAP will fix that. The doctor told me that likely a good number of the problems I've been having that I've been blaming on EBV (no energy, unable to lose weight, general malaise)likely have been caused by - or at least exacerbated by - the apnea.

I go back in September to get fitted for the CPAP. I am looking forward to seeing the difference in my life, and will share my take on it here with you all. Wish me luck!

Je ne compre pas!

I did not realize that I was multi-lingual. Yes, a good bit of French during high-school and college has gotten me to the point where I can read a menu and even have a Parisian cab driver exclaim that I do not have an accent... but I'm hardly fluent. And while I can string together four-letter words with the creativity of a pirate plundering gold, they are not typically recognized as a language other than my own native tongue.

However, it turns out that for the past nearly 13 years, I have been bilingual. Who knew? For instance, when I say "Go put your shoes on", that really means "continue sitting in the middle of your bedroom floor staring at the book you're reading. Because the way you do that makes me really happy!".

Or when I say "Get your jacket on, it's time to go to school!" It means "spring from the kitchen table and run upstairs do your hair one more time".

What else do I do other than speak two languages? I LIE! I lie like a RUG! When I say "go to bed", you know I'm lying - none of your friends go to bed at 8:30, and given that your favorite TV show comes on at 8:30, surely I'm lying.

And my day? I say "work" if you deem ask what I did? Of course that's a lie! I spent the whole day doing my nails with your polish (your favorite color, using the last of it), hiding your iPod, playing your brother's video games and eating the last of whatever it is you wanted when you got home. Washed down with the last Yoo-Hoo. In a can.

Oh, and the "never eat in the living room" thing? TOTAL BULLSHIT! Because chiseling goldfish crackers and long-spilled juice off the hardwood floors is just the way I choose to spend my day!

Other things: NOW! means "whenever", Go To BED! means "after this show is over" and "Dinner is ready, please come to the table" means after I get to the next level on Sonic Pac Man Brothers ChaseDown Speedway.

Next up: What you mean when you say....

Wow! January! Really?

Oh, I have been remiss, gentle readers. You see, January to May is Incentive Season. Which means I am working so very hard for so many months. Mercifully, it is now winding down.

So much has happened in the past few months - nothing extraordinary, yet indeed amazing. Tenley has blossomed into a beautiful young lady nearly over night. I look at photos of her from a year or two ago and can hardly recognize her! And Peter has become quite the little scholar, this year, too. Now, grades seven and one are nearly over, we're looking ahead to a wonderful summer and life continues to move on.

I've mourned the loss of friends - both to death and different paths taken - this winter. I still mourn my mother every day, yet my relationships with each of my siblings seem to grow stronger every day, too.

I've watched as "my guy" has taken the reins of this country and begun moving it, slowly like a giant tanker, in the right direction. I've seen my husband, who didn't believe me when I told him "It would only take one job..." find that ONE job.

So, I'm back! Older (45 came last week... ugh!), not necessarily wiser (it hasn't been that long....) and looking forward to spending time with the fam over the next few months.

First up, Redneck Riviera! Yee Haw. New Orleans to Mobile to Gulf Shores to Panama City. I will see 3 of my 4 sibs during this trip, and I can't wait. The kids will play with their cousins, I will see my sisters and brother for the first time since my mom's death all under the sunshine and clear blue skies of the Gulf Coast.

In August, we're taking nearly the whole month and going to Hawaii. Many generous offers from hotel friends have finally beckoned us and we're taking the leap and heading to the islands. Can't wait!

The fall promises Bali, Orlando, Savannah, San Diego and Denver.... but all for work.

It's okay, though. For now, I'm looking forward to slowing down a bit...

Musings from Plymouth

Apropos of Nothing:

1. I'm really glad Obama is closing Gitmo. What a black eye on the face of the US it has turned out to be.

2. There are three dogs on Freecycle this week. People who can't afford to keep them. That's really sad.

3. I wish the Sox would just sign Varitek and get it over with.

4. I really hate Dallas. Spent all of last week there and cannot imagine how anyone could live there without going nuts.

5. I really love Long Beach California. I only got to spend about 4 hours there last week, but it's such a beautiful place.

6. I'm going to Buffalo this week. I'm thinking it will land more in the Dallas column than the Long Beach column.

7. One of my clients went to the inaguration with her mom, who was there for the March on Washington with Dr. King. Wow.

That is all

My Ride

I know Dooce put this on her blog, but it made me laugh 'til I nearly peed myself. So I thought I would share it here, too.



I love the look on the lab's face. She's like "whatever...."