A farewell pose

Hello,
I should have left a note at the door or something.

I stopped blogging in September. My first service dog Hermione was on her way to retiring. I knew it and it loomed large and it was completely unbloggable mostly because I didn't want her puppyraisers to find about it other than the CCI approved way since I certainly didn't know what to say.

All is copasetic. Hermione's living with her puppyraisers as their pet and having a wonderful time. I have a successor service dog named Tovi who's just fab. I could have blogged this back in February when it all happened.

But I just didn't feel like it. I'd start a post and then never post it. I got an email from Blog Her ads that they were closing my account. I'm sad about it, because it represents a departure from the momblogger community if I ever belonged, but not sad enough to post.

But I held an Oscar at my daughter's school district fundraisers. Just briefly because it's really heavy. In our group photo, Tovi's gazing right at the Oscar like she knows she won it. She certainly has won the Oscar for Best Performance by an Assistance Dog.

Several months later...(I can be a slow thinker) and I realize what's happened. My daughter's learning to read precipitated the end of this blog. My daughter's extremely kind, but until I became a mother, I myself didn't understand how hard it is and how fiercely I love my children.

I don't regret anything I've written, because it was my truth at the time. I do regret hurting anyone's feelings, because that was never my intention. A blog also has the unique capacity to capture one's feeling and thoughts at moment in time, but freeze them as if they were forever.

And so I say farewell to you on this blog. Thank you for all your comments. Most of you have been very sweet. Of course I'll be elsewhere on the Internet. I've been online since the mid 80's and am too stuck in my ways to stop now.

You can also read my essays "Gimp Geek" in the anthology She's Such a Geek and "Popeye" in My Baby Rides the Short Bus appearing this winter.

Friend's blog banned from hospital

Chicago Moms Blogger Mary Anne's blog from my son's hospital. Her blog now contains cute baby pictures,but yes she does write porn.

I'm amused by the idea of a hospital blocking cute baby photos and a bit sad since they do brighten my day.

I understand that the hospital doesn't want people even parents viewing photos of porn in what is essentially a public place.  Even in my son's room people walk in and out all the time.  I do agree that seeing a porn image without one's consent is sexual harassment and doesn't belong in a hospital,  especially a children's hospital.  But I read her mommy blog posts only. And I can read this blog and any other Mommy blog to my heart's content and some even talk about *gasp* sex. Ironically Mary Anne recently wrote a post Things I'm Scared to Blog About.

Don't worry Mary Anne. They're much more scared of you. I wish there was a better filtering system. What people *read* on their own PC or laptop is their own business and reading is something one has to make an effort to do while an image is something one can see inadvertently. I'm not sure what the answer is.

Do you think I should be able to read Mary Anne's blog from my son's hospital?

Why I love American Idol: an embodiment of American values

I'm definitely what we'd call in Silicon Valley a "late adopter" to the whole American Idol thing. This is my first season ever watching any episode of the show. But I guess blogging about it several times and watching every single episode this season makes me a fan now. I blame Jill for the blogging part. Her hatred of Sanjaya prompted me to write my first blog about American Idol: Sanjaya makes me laugh.

Okay maybe blogging does not a fan make. But what makes me a fan is American Idol embodies some American cultural values (both good and bad)

* Absolute faith in the democratic process. The people decide who wins
* Glorification of entertainment and the entertainment industry
* Belief that individuals can make a difference not only by voting but in huge problems like poverty by voting and donating their money - Idol Gives Back
* Like the idea that "anyone can be president" (some restrictions apply), "anybody can be the Next American Idol(TM)" (some restrictions apply)
* Entertainment covering entertainment
* The belief that you can know someone's heart from watching them on tv, even though you have never met them.

And since I'm a fan, I know the show started in the UK, but it has really taken off here. I had shied away from American Idol for years, because I thought it was only about entertainment, and silly at that. And I still feel we get carefully packaged versions of these singers, but after all that's entertainment. It's the moral values that kept me coming back. And as an import from the UK myself, I think that makes me an American to believe that a show about entertainment can have morals.

The week Sanjaya stopped being entertaining and I stopped voting for him, he got voted off. Even my 5 year old daughter wouldn't watch him that week. I sorta miss Phil and his big blue soulful eyes, but he's not a good a singer as some of the others. And as for Chris, there's only so much Boy Band a girl can take.

I like the Final Four. I still want Melinda to win. She combines both a wonderful voice and a lot of heart and delivers it week after week. Plus my 2 year old son still screams like a groupie whenever he hears her sing. But Blake comes a close second. He makes every single song his own. Jordin has a great voice and great potential, but sometimes does seem young and misses in her performances. And LaKisha sometimes just blows me away with those pipes of hers, but other weeks, her heart doesn't seem to be in her songs.

Baby Orange

Last Saturday I foolishly agreed to let the kids toss their balls into goldfish bowls to win a goldfish.  I figured they'd never actually get the ball into the bowl so no goldfish.  I was right. The kids missed entirely. I was wrong. They each got goldfish anyway.

My son insisted on carrying his home and the fish had a very rough ride. My daughter somehow had two in the same plastic cup and asked Daddy to carry both home.

We put all three in a giant pickle jar with filtered water. My son's fish barely moved. Within an hour it was floating on its side. My husband touched it lightly with a stick and it rallied briefly and swam a little. Then it started floating again. My husband tried fish CPR which consists of flowing (filtered) water over the fish. The fish just lay there.So we sent it to the big white drain in the sky.

Within twenty-four hours the other fish started floating and it too went to the big drain. My daughter rewrote history and said both were her brother's. My son didn't seem to notice that two fish were gone. My daughter named the remaining fish Little Baby Orange.  She insists it's a she.

Baby Orange swam about vigorously and ate as much as she could.  After a week we decided that Baby Orange might make it.  So yesterday we bought Baby Orange stuff:

• Baby Orange $1


• 10-gallon tank $9.99


• gravel $6.99


• power filter $12.99


• water conditioner $3.79


• bacterial supplement $3.79 (adds good bacteria to break down fish wastes)


• net $1.79


• ornamental bridge that my son grabbed and broke $11.99


• Fish pellets $6.99

Having Baby Orange is priceless. I don't know why this little fish makes me happy. But I feel like I'm getting to know...a feeder fish. She was clearly so excited to get into her new tank that she kept swimming against the bag.

Over twenty years ago my sister brought home Edward a feeder goldfish from a fair. Edward is huge and too big for his tank. His eyes are popped out and he can't see.  However he still lives on at my parents' house.

I'm a little concerned about our family's ability to feed a creature that doesn't ask for food.  We have killed many plants. But unlike a plant, Baby Orange is very active.  She swims around a lot. I think hope that's good.  I do like watching her.  Her resilient spirit reminds me of my son's.   Both have survived against the odds.  I also find the soft flow of the pump strangely soothing.

Keeping a feeder goldfish won at a fair is an act of faith.  I make no predictions for Baby Orange's future, but I'm enjoying her while she's here.

Migraine bright burning spikes in my brain

Yesterday I experienced the worst migraine I have ever had. I explained a migraine to my husband as "super hangover combined with the nasty aspects of being drunk". At least I often feel and sound incoherent and it's hard for me to move without throwing up. Replax didn't seem to help much but Replax and Ibuprofen got me to the point where I could stand the voices of my children.

I put them in front of the tv downstairs and I moaned upstairs until my husband came home. I completely missed my daughter's potluck for incoming Kindergarteners. I'd been looking forward to it.

Little T expressed him so loudly to my migraine ears. I asked him to speak more softly. "No speak softly." he screamed at me and bright burning spikes flashed in my brain. I chuckled a little that he chose now to express himself now. That hurt my head too. The day before I'd half written a post about my concern about his lack of expression. Now I wanted him mute again.

I asked Special K to whisper and she was so sweet. I also asked her not turn the light in the bathroom that shone so brightly in my bedroom. My husband turned on the one further away. Even in the middle she remembered. She came and whispered and turned on the further away light.

Just now I saw a little shooting star on my computer screen. So pretty but a warning sign. So I must get off the computer now.

Sorry for the silence

Lots of things been going on difficult and good. My toe needed to heal. I can walk ten blocks now. Lots of changes with Little T that are mostly good, like growing up, but like many thing with a special needs child, they're different and unexpected and uneven.

So I stopped writing publicly. That meant blogging here since I consider this a public blog. But I'm back again. Hello! If anyone is out there, please introduce yourself, so I know I'm not just writing to myself. :)

My baby can dance

My baby can dance. Put some music on, and he dances as well as the proverbial white guy. He's a quarter white and a quarter size of the average white guy. He gets up and shakes his booty. He shuffles and sways to the rhythm...sorta.He holds your hands and smiles into your eyes. He likes music with a smooth steady beat. Sometimes he stamps his feet. He doesn't like it too fast or too slow. He smacks me if I put the wrong music on. Disco is good. Hiphop, but not Death Cab for Cutie.

He also shakes his head a lot at random moments and smiles at you. You have to shake your head back. He doesn't say anything, but maybe that's because I haven't given him a microphone.

You can sing him out of almost any bout of crying. My daughter knocks him down...accidentally she says. She also says, "He's not a baby anymore. He's a toddler." But I mean baby like the rock and roll term, okay? She sings "You are my sunshine" to him. He stops crying. Works everytime.

Well, except when it comes to pants and shoes. Most of his temper tantrum involve pants. He screams and yanks off the wrong pants. He's made it very clear you have to wear the right pair of pants. Baggy blue nylon pants are his pants of choice. He doesn't care about other clothing, but pants matter. He prefers them hanging low like any teenager.

Shoes are important too with a good bright color like pink. Not girly shoes, mind, but Vans. He picked them out at the shoe store. Too bad they weren't his size. He cried and cried. He insisted on trying them on anyway and clomping about in them.

On our latest shopping expedition, he led us straight into Pac Sun, most definitely a store for teens. I'm totally serious. I thought sure, why not. We're still in the 'walking is very novel' phase. He tugged onto a t-shirt. I told him he was too young, but he wouldn't listen. He lay down, and cried. We had to carry him out. Bemused teenagers watched us go.

Now I don't let him watch MTV, but of course the media controls everything. So maybe he has dreams of being on MTV as the next toddler star. They start younger and younger these days.

My mom tells me I sang songs at age eighteen months. I rode on my dad's back and sang songs to him as they hiked across the world. I also held my hairbrush as a microphone and danced in front of the tv to "Top of the Pops" a Top 40 show in England. I also told my mom I was going to grow up and be a star. Sadly for the world, I decided not to pursue a career in music. But who am I to crush my baby's boy dream? I'm signing him up for a Music Together class. We all have to start somewhere.

Top Ten Signs My Kids Love Silicon Valley

Top Ten Signs My Kids Live In Silicon Valley, my second post on Silicon Valley Moms Blog.

10. My 4-year old daughter says, "I can speak Spanish" and says a Spanish word. We're not a bilingual family nor does she attend a bilingual preschool.
9. My daughter takes her own pictures with our digital camera.
8. My daughter asks me, "Why don't we order that on Amazon?"
7. My 2-year old son's playgroup is coordinated entirely via email.
6. My daughter asked, "Is the opposite of ok 'cancel'?"
5. When I asked "Do you know the recycling song?" on the playground, the kids knew several different recycling songs and sang them to me.
4. My daughter sent her first email at 3 years old and received her first email at that age too.
3. I first discovered my daughter could read when she read words on a video game.
2. My daughter says, "Let's go out for sushi."
1. My daughter says, "I need to go do my work" and goes and types on her own laptop (an old IBM Thinkpad) given to her by her dad.

Hello, my name is Thida and I love exercise

I feel basically happy right now. 48 hours ago I felt totally stressed and sad. My brain kept telling me "Please end this now. I want this to stop." I wasn't exactly suicidal. Just so overwhelmed that I didn't know what to do with myself. The overall stressors in my life haven't changed much. I've fixed two things. I have arranged for more childcare. I went to the gym for the first time in two years.

Ten minutes into exercising on the elliptical machine, I realised I was smiling, partly from the endorphin rush and partly from the absurdity of it all. My legs felt a bit tight and stiff but the up and down motion felt soothing. The knobs sliding in the grooves looked silly and mechanical. The little LED lights go up and down like one of my son's toy. The timer tells me just how long I exercise like a little child on timeout. And there's something supremely absurd to me about paying to exercise on a machine. I bow to the machine. I can push myself on the machine in a way I can't left to my own devices. It makes me smile how I need technology to exercise.

I also only like the really expensive elliptical machines at the gym. My body does in fact notice the difference. The less expensive machines don't glide as well. The ellipitical machines at the gym push my knees just a tad, but not enough that they hurt. Non gym elliptical hurt my knees after 5 minutes.


I also did a few weights. See, the weight machines have a little LCD display that lights up as you lift the weight up and down. So satisfying!

I realised I have my stress relief all wrong. One of my first hits should be the gym. I get free childcare, exercise and time to contemplate the absurdities of life.

I had this idea that I hated exercise. So I'm surprised to learn I was in fact wrong. I loved the elliptical the last time I was at the gym. I just forgot about it, because it didn't fit in the 'I hate exercise' belief I had about myself. But now I must stand up and say "Hello, my name is Thida and I love exercise." I promise I'm still a nerd too.

Knock knock walk me

Yesterday Special K discovered 'Knock Knock' jokes. Over forty-five minutes we spent telling them until we begged her to stop. Thank the gods for the Internet, so I could look them up. And she got her first pun. The classic

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Boo.
Boo who?
Don't cry. It's only a joke.

Most of hers were more estoric like:
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Skunk.
Skunk who?
Skunk Flower.

I hope she's not going into that heavy joke-telling phase. If she's in that phase and Little T's in the 'walk me' phase, I may truly go off the deep end.

I give you a skunk flower

A house on our street is listing for $1.1 million

This 1.1 million-dollar house on our street is almost identical to ours. Both are 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath houses built nine years ago by the same developer. No, we don't live in a mansion. Yes, housing prices here are crazy.

I got woken up by the 4.7 earthquake this morning. So did Little T. Fortunately we both went back to sleep. Normally I totally miss earthquakes, but I distinctly felt and saw the entire bedroom shake. C felt nothing. I was slightly worried we'd get a big earthquake before we sold our Oakland house. Well that house is all sold now, but perhaps the process gave me earthquake sonar. I've wanted to feel earthquakes since I moved out here over twelve years ago, and never felt a one until today. However I hate being woken up. So I'm not sure whether to be excited or annoyed with this newfound power. Maybe it wasn't an earthquake I felt, but sticker shock from the house down the street.

Evil mom doomed ducklings

Okay now I know I'm an bad mom, because this series of doomed ducklings made me laugh out. I think mostly because I think it's a twisted metaphor for motherhood. You try to get your ducklings safely across the street. You're looking for traffic and all kinds of other bad things, but you miss the grating, because it doesn't really affect you. Then the world thinks you're bad or evil, because your ducklings fall down the drain.

Sock killer

Gconnor has Sophie, Killer of Socks Well, our cats are also brave sock killers. They hunt down socks from our neighbours and bring to them to our back porch. Right now their trophies include a blue baby sock, a man's white athletic sock and a woman's black sock. I have no idea where they came from. And they remain on our mat. I can't match my cats' bravery. I hesitate to knock on a neighbour's door, sock in hand, and say "Excuse me, but I think my cats might have stolen your sock. Does this sock belong to you?"

I wonder how the cats steal these socks. Do our neighbours hang socks out to dry and the cats steal from the line? Do the cats sidle into the house all plantative and folorn and while the neighbours' backs are turned, my cats sneak socks? Do the cats creep into the house on little cat feet and whisk away socks? The cats aren't saying.

Spoons, the perfect radio station, Baby E

spoon story from Shadesong to describe folks who live with chronic illness or debilitating disabilities. When I was pregnant with Little T, when I was healing from Little T's traumatic birth, I guess I had fewer spoons. Though the analogy isn't quite fluid enough to really work for me personally. Ironically I'm too tired to think of a better one, except a battery though that's hardly original. Any thoughts?

I've been searching for a radio station that I can customize and actually works. That perfect match. Looking for a girl like you to come into my life, Pandora Maybe you're the one I've been searching for all my life! Thank you Neil Gaiman!

Julie produced this wonderful spoof of a Baby Einstein video. Even if you're not a parent, I think you'll find it funny.

Get your smut right here

Website from the SF Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll via C
Hey kids, go to the Creating Awareness of Education Standards web site, and read the smut in books that you are supposed to be protected from. Comes complete with a handy list of really dirty words in each book. Except that the site says that Shakespeare isn't dirty, because "Shakespeare's works contain neither a pervasive nor gratuitous amount of sex, violence, or vulgarity as do many of the other required reading assignments. For example, they do not teach our children about new types of sex (Song of Solomon which includes references to bestiality, necrophilia, and pedophilia."

So kids, if you want to read about bestiality, necrophilia and pedophilia with your parents's blessing, read Shakespeare. because these concerned parents say Shakespeare is smut free. The site says "most Blue Valley parents do not want their children required to read books featuring teens in sexually active roles" but Romeo and Juliet are classics. They contrast Shakespeare with "sexually stimulating and graphically vulgar content such as Beloved and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison." So haul out your crib sheets and read some Shakespeare today!

And hey, if you don't want to bother with crib sheets, go and read Master and Commander where you can read about randy sailors rutting goats. Also on the Blue Valley concerned parents recommended list.

Remember kids, dead white guy writing=classic. Live black woman's writing=smut.

Inside jokes

Shadesong blogged about how she and her husband shared an inside joke. My husband C and I share a lot too. A lot of them wouldn't even seem funny to outsiders even if we explained the whole story. It takes a special person and a special situation to laugh in the ER. We make a lot of jokes about death too. I think it stems entirely from the past year. We make a lot of jokes that relate to stuff the kids do. The kids have a wide range of peculiar gestures and noises that they make at various stages of development. Sadly I can't blog about most of them lest the teenaged versions of these kids google this blog and descend upon me with all the wrath of outraged adolescence. But you dear reader would laugh and find them sweet and cute.

Well okay I'll share two things with you. Right now Little T is so delighted with the sheer ability to move. Just before he leans forward to move he gives this little grunt of sheer effort mixed pleasure. Sometimes we'll grunt in the same way.

When both kids are particularly outraged about something, they'll fall silent and open their mouths wide to draw in a lung full of air so they can scream their loudest. Special K was kicked out of the nursery for being too loud. And Little T was the loudest in the NICU until he got his first dose of Interferon. C and I will now open our mouths wide to express manic outrage.

Ned and Arnie

I didn't know that my friend Ned Spofford was over 70. He writes poetry.

I also forgot to mention that I got my start on my emergency supply kit from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Safeway. Back in the summer, Safeway was offering subsidised kits under the auspices of the Red Cross. The kit was in a red backpack with a list of suggested additional supplies and photo of Maria Shriver. After all, it'd be good to see her face in an emergency.

A great joke

It mentions sex, so be warned, if some reason, you don't want to be exposed to sex.

Bob's a big hit with the ladies at the nursing home, because there are only a few men. Doris asks Bob out on a date.
Bob: I can't go out on a date with you. I'm going out with Gloria.
Doris: Well, I can take you out another time.
Bob: I'd prefer to go out with Gloria.
Doris: Why?
Bob: Gloria will take me out to dinner.
Doris: I'd be happy to buy you dinner.
Bob: Gloria will take me to a movie afterwards.
Doris: I can take you to a movie.
Bob: Well, Gloria will hold my penis during the movie.
Doris thinks about this minute then says "I can do that too."
Bob: I'd still rather go out with Gloria.
Doris asks frustrated, "What does Gloria got that I don't?"
Bob: Parkinson's

Words of wisdom from Little T

I let Little T type for a bit and here's what he typed:
mnh om
What words of wisdom!
Mnh is an organization for enlightement.
And of course om is a yoga chant.

Stupid car gadgets

I saw an infomercial for Hey Horn, a horn that sounds like a clown horn. The entire web site amused me.