I used to be prolific on this blog. Now I’m not.  I wrote and wrote and wrote here.  Now I don’t.  It can’t do for me what it used to do, isn’t the place where I can write what I need to write much of the time.  I have toyed with the idea of ending it, but nah, I don’t need to do that.  I like it’s place.  There is still stuff to be said here.  I have other outlets I can use for the other stuff I can use instead.

I thought of a story while running yesterday. Often these running brain stories fritter away after I stop running.  Last week I thought of one with a mailman and a person in their house and their conversations, but later it seemed stupid.

But the one I thought of yesterday I kind of like.  It’s filling out, taking shape. Tonight I actually wanted to work on it, so I will.  It might take more time from this blog, but I don’t mind.  I like getting ideas that I want to write about; they give me something to look forward to.

I have also realized that I have gotten out of the habit of writing.  I was in the habit before, and noticed when I didn’t do it, and I thought of things I wanted to say all the time.  Now I don’t think of it, although I still occasionally think of things to say.  Right now, all I can think of to say is that I have a cold and my head hurts. That’s all there is to say about that.

I was published on Huffington Post last week.  To see the original story, click here.  If you like it, please share on Facebook or twitter, and feel free to buzz me up.

I’m the Poster Child for Public Healthcare
by Lara M. Gardner

I am a poster child for public health. Why do I say this? Because I live in a state where there is a low-income, public healthcare option. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was able to utilize this option for my treatment. It worked, and it worked extremely well.

Uninsured and unemployed after job-hunting for over a year in late 2006, I discovered a lump in my breast. The lump turned out to be benign, but the mammogram of that lump showed early breast cancer. The nurse-practitioner who ordered the mammogram knew about a federal program for treatment of breast and cervical cancers in low-income women. I applied for the program and was accepted for my mammogram and subsequent biopsy. Once the biopsy showed that I indeed had cancer, the Oregon Health Plan kicked in, along with the federal program, to treat my cancer.

The care I received was phenomenal. I was able to choose my doctors. My surgeon and oncologists were all brilliant, amazing physicians. All of the staff in every facility treated me with kindness and respect. Throughout the process I was a partner in my care, everyone explaining procedures at a level commensurate with my education and understanding. Never once was I made to feel like a second-class citizen because of my public health status. I completed radiation treatments and, because I take an estrogen-blocking drug, have continued on the public-health program.

As part of my care, I was required to pay $3 for doctor visits. I had two surgeries for a biopsy and lumpectomy, a needle biopsy, radiation, multiple mammograms, and attended countless doctor appointments with various practitioners. The only bills I ever received were for the $3 fees. Not once did I suffer through multiple bills, trying to sort out which my insurance company had paid, who had been billed, who was owed what. I was spared all of this thanks to public healthcare.

Since the healthcare debate has come to the fore over the last year, I have read and heard story after story of women with cancers like mine who were “covered” by private health insurance. Over and over, I have heard of the trauma and stress these women experienced at the hands of their insurance companies at the same time they were dealing with the pain, fear, and exhaustion of their illness. Each time I heard these stories, I felt grateful that I was covered by a public health plan.

Part of the health care debate has included the old canards about the Canadian and British health systems. “You can’t choose your doctor.” “You have to wait for months to get treated.” These claims have been widely discredited, and I saw nothing in my experience with American public healthcare that was lacking. I chose all of my doctors. I was served immediately.

I sincerely hope our legislators can get their act together and create a health plan that provides health care for every American so all of us can experience true and complete care, as I did. It can work. It does work. We all deserve nothing less.

I haven’t been able to post for over a week.  First my site would not work. It still won’t work with Firefox.  I don’t know what the deal is there.  My other blog works just fine in Firefox.  Weird.

I have actually had several ideas about which I wanted to write.  Of course now that I’m sitting here, I can’t remember any of it. This isn’t much of a surprise considering I’m so sleep-deprived; I can barely remember to eat, let alone manage coherent thought for any length of time.  What’s that word?  What’s that word?  Oh, it’s “the.”  Right.  That’s the level I’m working with these days.  But little baby will not be little forever.  She’s worth any sleep deprivation, or anything else for that matter, the little dear.

I was contacted by a news reporter regarding Pure Med Spa.  Their station is doing an expose’ on them.  Good thing.  That company needs to be shut down.  They are crooks and liars, and they hurt people.

Anyway, since I can’t remember what I wanted to say, I’m going to stop writing now.  My baby wants milk and I want to eat.  And sleep.  Sleep is good.

When Milla was a baby, I kept a diary of her first days in pen and paper format.  Since she was born, blogs have appeared on the world scene.  I started keeping track on this blog because honestly I had nothing else I was interested in writing about and this seemed as good a place as any to write about her.  However, someday when I actually feel like writing about something other than Isabel, I would like to have this blog for that purpose so I set up a blog especially for Isabel.  It is called Days of Isabel and can be found here if anyone is interested.  In the meantime, this blog will continue to be what it has been.  I will leave up the Isabel posts, although they are transferred completely to the other blog as well.

Fifteenth day of life.

Not much exciting to report.  Today we went over to Gramma’s house for dinner because Daddy’s birthday was the day after Isabel’s.  We had turkey dinner and Gramma, Aunt Sarah, and Cousin Caroline held Isabel.  After dinner, Isabel and I took a nap that felt amazing.  I’m so tired all the time, so any nap is welcome.  Milla dressed doggy Ava up in baby clothes, then retired to the basement to play Rock Band and sing.  Isabel and I slept through this.  Other than that, we didn’t do much today.  It was nice to relax.  Isabel is beautiful.  I took a lot of photos of her, but then left the camera at Gramma’s so I could not download them as I had hoped to do tonight.  Ah well.  I will get it done later.

Today Isabel is two weeks old. She had an adventurous day, of sorts.  Considering she slept through most of it, I’m not sure how much of an adventure it really was.

First we went to Sauvie Island to the pumpkin patch.  We were going to go to the main big one with the giant corn maze, but when we arrived at about 2 in the afternoon on a Saturday a couple of weeks before Halloween, we discovered that everyone else in Portland had the same idea. There was a line of cars a half a mile long on the road to the patch so when we got there, we just kept driving on past the patch.  We told Milla we would come back during the week when things would likely not be as crowded.  She was amenable to this when she saw the crowds and lines.  We drove on around part of the island and in the process, discovered another, more unknown pumpkin patch with animals, caramel apples, a smaller corn maze, a hay maze, hayrides, orchards, and flowers.

Milla and Daddy went off in search of a pumpkin while Isabel nursed on my lap as I sat on a hay bale under a fruit tree. The sun was beaming and warm, and sitting under the heat nursing baby Isabel was quite pleasant.  After she had milk I changed her diaper in the shade under another tree.  By then Milla had found her pumpkin.  She and I and the baby went to check out the corn maze and animals, I picked out a pumpkin for me, and Milla picked out a little one for Isabel. Milla pulled the wagon up to the checkout where we stopped first to buy caramel apples and cider before heading on our way.  It was certainly an enjoyable afternoon.

Later in the day, Daddy was playing with the Portland Jazz Orchestra doing a tribute to Buddy Rich.  Isabel and I went to watch him.  The Jazz Orchestra is a 17 piece big band.  I sat in the way back because I expected the music to be loud.  It was loud, but Isabel slept through the whole thing.  The only time she wiggled a bit was after a piece when the audience erupted in applause.  She was not terribly fond of the clapping.  The music was fantastic and the stories from the band member who played with the Buddy Rich band in the sixties were entertaining.  It was a fun show.

After the show, right after I got Isabel strapped into her car seat, she pooped.  I removed her from the car seat and changed her diaper in the front seat of the car, bundled her back up, strapped her in the car seat, whereupon she promptly pooped again.  Silly girl!

Overall the day was lovely. Milla is looking forward to carving her pumpkin.  I’m looking forward to sleep.  Isabel is looking forward to milk.  Easy goals, I think.

Twelfth day of life.

I love my baby.  She is lying her on my arms as I type, completely sacked out.  She is so cute.  She just drank a bunch of milk and crashed.  She loves her milk.

Today she had her second checkup with the midwives.  They weighed her (8 pounds, 15 ounces) and pronounced that she would likely be back up to birth weight at two weeks after birth (this Saturday).  They checked her belly button because it has been kind of oozy and said it looked normal and the ooziness would heal.  They had to perform the second half of the heal stick test where they take blood to send to the state.  Isabel did not like this but she didn’t flat out cry.  Rather she whimpered.  This was not fun for Mommy and Daddy.

I called a friend today who has been expecting a baby to adopt.  It turns out his baby was born on the same day as Isabel!  He and his wife have been waiting for a baby for nearly two years.  I am so happy for them that they finally have a daughter to love.

I have been having baby loss fears like I had with Milla, where I worry about SIDS and other disasters taking my baby from me.  I force the thoughts from my mind and do my best to avoid dangers, but the thoughts still lurk there, worries unbidden. I just love this little person so much and do not want anything to happen to her.

Today I bought her a night light for her changing table and some pictures of duckies to hang there as well.  Cute stuff.

Oh, she just made me laugh.  She is lying here sleeping on my lap and started to squirm a bit then pooted a big poot that made her jump, her eyes flying open in surprise.  This made me giggle.  Now that the bubble is out she is sleeping soundly again.

Isabel has more and more alert awake times.  She coos and talks, waving her arms and making faces.  She is a sweet baby.  She is wonderful to sleep with. She wakes up to drink milk then falls promptly asleep.  She hasn’t awakened to chat in the middle of the night in a few days, probably because she has been having an alert, awake time right before we go to bed.  I am going to check and see if the next time she doesn’t have an alert, awake time right before bed if she wakes up in the middle of the night.

In spite of these mostly sleeping nights, I am still really tired and have been taking daily naps with her.  I just can’t feel completely rested when the longest sleep stretch is three hours, but that will come later.  I am enjoying having her this age.  She is delightful.  I love her so much and am so thankful she was born.

Tenth day of life.

Oh, tired.  Tired to the bone.  I sleep.  I actually sleep many hours.  I just don’t sleep that many in a row, so I’m tired.  Isabel and I took three naps together today.  I was falling over in my soup I was so tired.  I had to just get up and go into the bedroom and lie down on the bed.  Normally I tend towards insomnia and cannot sleep deeply without earplugs.  Since my baby sleeps with me I am not using the earplugs and have learned to sleep without them.  This is useful.  The funny thing is when I had bad insomnia and was a walking zombie I could not fall asleep without them.  Maybe it helps to be flooded with baby love hormones.

Isabel has a cold.  I have instituted a no visitors policy.  When visitors do come again, they cannot touch my baby without first washing their hands.  She has congestion and this morning she had a fever.  She is so tiny, I hate her feeling ill at this age.  Apparently it is good for the immune system, but I still don’t like my babies to be sick.  Breastfeeding helps, considering it has immunities in it she doesn’t have and won’t for a couple of years.  She has been drinking a lot of milky.

Cutting the frenulum helped immensely with nursing.  She gulps her milk now.  I have also discovered that I basically cannot eat sugary things at all.  It gives us both gas. Since making this discovery both of us have felt better in the gas department.  I wasn’t even eating that much, just dessert after a meal.  I don’t sit around forking candy into my face or anything.  But the amount was enough to bother both of our digestive systems, so no more for me.  I’ll have fruit for dessert instead.  It’s healthier anyway.

Thoughts certainly fritter off into the ether when I’m tired.  I had a thought about something I wanted to write when I was writing about fruit for dessert and by the time I get here the thought is gone.  This is how it has been for me, but oh well, I have a baby to love so I don’t care.

Lara Gardner’s Weblog, so long full of angst and loneliness, heartache and concern, now a lovefest to her new baby.  I’m giddy in love with this little person.  She is lying here nursing right now and making these little hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm noises between gulps.  Her little right hand is resting on her cheek, her left hand on her chest. She is so relaxed, so content, such a delightful little human.  She sighs, then hmms, then takes another drink.  Pure and utter bliss.  How boring I must be to read right now!  I don’t even care.  How wonderful it is to be bathed in gobs of loviness.  I cannot complain.

Today we went to the little shop where I bought her g diapers because I could not figure out how to use them properly.  I bought a couple of newborn sizes, and received several small sizes from Daddy’s mom.  The newborn ones didn’t work.  The small ones were too big.  It turns out that the cloth inserts really don’t work that well when they are really little.  There are disposable, biodegradable inserts that work for these little ones.  We went and bought some of these inserts and lo and behold, they work!  I’m pleased because we have been using some disposable ones, but they just aren’t as soft. They are supposed to be biodegradable.  Maybe that is why they aren’t very soft, but the non-biodegradable ones aren’t soft either, so that’s probably not it.  They just aren’t cloth, which is softer.  That’s all there is to it.

Our little dog Ava is very curious about the baby, but she is also very good.  She sits a bit of a distance away and leans her head forwardly, cautiously sniffing.  What is that thing? she seems to ask.  She looks at the baby, then looks at me, then looks back at the baby, giving her a good sniff.  Between Milla, Ava, and Isabel, we live in the land of cuteness. It is nice place to be.

Sixth day of life.

Tomorrow it will have been a week since Isabel was born.  Wow.  What an amazing week.  The first days with a baby are so visceral, so present.  I love it.  I spend time simply looking at her, memorizing her face, her hands, her feet, her body.  Baby love is wonderful.  Pure bliss.

Today was an eventful day for Miss Isabel.  She had her first pediatrician visit, and because she had a short frenulum, her first surgical procedure.  I really like our new pediatrician.  He is a naturopathic doctor, very practical and down to earth.  I adore his bedside manner.  He’s been a physician for years, and his relaxed manner and confidence is evident in all he does.

As I said, Isabel had a short frenulum.  The midwives pointed this out the day she was born, but I didn’t think anything of it.  After five days of nipple hell though, I decided to look up the ramifications of it.  One of the most common is the inability to latch on properly.  Isabel was doing her darndest to try, but it just wasn’t working.  Her little tongue didn’t reach far enough.  No wonder she was nursing all the time–she was hungry!!

All the websites on short frenulums (otherwise known as being tongue-tied) said clipping it was quick and painless.  I’ll agree with the former, but to call the procedure painless isn’t quite accurate. The doctor takes a pair of scissors and clips the skin under the tongue, the frenulum.  It is a cutting and it stings and bleeds.  Isabel cried for a minute until she was able to get on my breast, but I have little doubt the mini wound was sore for a little while.  I’ve cut that skin before and it smarts.  Things seemed to heal up quickly though, and the differences while nursing are remarkable.  The procedure was definitely worth it.  Isabel gets tons of milk now and her constant nursing has stopped.  The nipples appear to be on the mend, although they are still very sore.  They had cracks and scabs on them. Ouch!

Later this evening  my friend Sara came to visit, bringing her little daughter Leah and dinner for the two of us.  Daddy had a concert tonight and Milla went to watch him, so it was girls’ night here with my friend and our daughters.  It was a pleasant way to spend the evening.

Milla came home excited from the concert.  She apparently fell asleep at the end of the first set and then danced through the second!  Silly girl.  She loves big band music.  She also loves dressing up, so the evening provided her with pleasure on both counts.

Tomorrow it will be a week.  This has been one of the best weeks of my life, filled with baby love.

Fifth day of life.

Today was fairly uneventful.  Miss Isabel decided to be awake again last night, which was actually pretty wonderful.  She woke and ate around 1:30, then woke again around 3:30 and was up for about an hour and a half.  We went into Milla’s room to hang out because Milla has some pretty butterfly lights she leaves on at night. The light in her room is cozy and warm, perfect for a middle of the night Mama/Daughter hangout.  Isabel cooed and kicked, waved her arms, stretched her neck, and looked directly at me, practicing using her eyes. Long-legged Milla snuggled next to us, the dog at the foot of the bed.  It was a most pleasant manner in which to spend the darkened hours.

Once we went back to bed, Isabel awoke again around 7 for some milky, then fell promptly asleep until 11.  We both slept until 11 actually.  When she woke up she stayed awake for several hours.  We went for a quick visit to the store and she slept the entire time in the front-pack carrier.  We also had 2 visitors.  My friend Rita came for an hour at 2 and my friend Kathleen came for a couple of hours at 6.  Both times she slept through the visits except to have a small bit of milk.  I guess those long stretches of being awake just wore her out.

Seriously?  I am in love.  I know I have said it before, but it is true.  Baby bliss is truly blissful and amazing.  I love it.

Isabel goes for a ride in the car.

Fourth complete day, starting the fifth.

Today Isabelle pooped.  The funny thing about babies is that it is easy to be happy about things like poop.  She has not pooped since the first day of her life when she pooped a bunch of meconium. This isn’t much of a surprise since my milk really didn’t come in fully until yesterday so she has only been eating colostrum, which generally doesn’t make poop.  Today she pooped really early this morning, like 3:30 a.m.  Then she did it again this evening.  Sweet darling little pooper.

Last night was very different than the night before.  Something I learned with Milla is that the only thing one can count on with babies is that the will always change patterns on you.  Isabelle is too young to have developed any patterns anyway, so I’m just observing how she is.  The night before she was awake for several hours.  Last night she ate at 12:30, then woke up at 3:30, fell promptly asleep after, then woke again at 7:30 and fell promptly asleep after.  She had a couple of days where she was awake a lot. Today she was asleep a lot.

Today was also her first venture into the world outside.  I needed several baby things and also really just wanted to get out of the house so she had her first car ride and visit to the store.  She slept the entire way to the first store and through the whole visit.  I wore her in my front pack and she snuggled against me.  Oh, I love her so much.

We then needed to go to JC Penney because we need a curtain to cover this high window in our room, the light through which really bothers Isabelle.  It is in the wall behind our bed so when I sit and nurse the light comes right in at her face.  I also needed some nursing bras.  This trip was exhausting.  I fed her in the car before we went in, but she did not want to be in the carrier anymore and was awake.  I did not want her hanging out in the mall.  I hate malls and especially did not want my tiny baby there.  We sat in the curtain area and she nursed some more, but when we tried putting her in the carrier with Daddy, she got upset again, so I just carried her to bras.  They did not have a bra with a normal fastener.

An aside here.  Why is it all the maternity bra companies have gone to these horrible clips that cannot be opened with one hand?  Is it a conspiracy by formula companies to keep women from breastfeeding?  Damn annoying.

Anyway, I nursed her a bit again in the bra section, then just put her in the carrier.  She fell promptly asleep.  We decided to look for bras at Motherhood Maternity since we were already there, I was tired, and wanted to get something and get it done.  The trouble is that store is at the other end of the mall.  The walk there and back wore me out completely.  Motherhood Maternity bras had the same unworkable clasp as every brand at Penney’s so I just gave up, resolving to look on the internet.  I fell asleep in the car on the way home I was so tired.

Now we are home and Isabel is still asleep.  After I get off the computer I get to snuggle and nurse my little baby again.  Right now Isabel, Milla, and Ava the dog are sprawled across the bed sleeping together.  I love my girls. They are wonderful.

Third complete day, beginning the fourth.

Little Isabel Lorraine, love of my life.  So far she likes being awake at night.  She finishes drinking her milky then wants to look around at us and everything.  Last night she had a long awake period, beginning at about 3:30 a.m.  Lucky for mommy, during the day she seems to like to sleep for a while between nursings, so I slept too.  I was tired.

I awoke this morning at 6:59 a.m. to a pain that hurt like a terrible menstrual cramp and ran down the insides of my legs.  Considering how many false alarms I’ve had with painful contractions, I considered that this too might not be real.  However, the pain was real enough I could not go back to sleep.  I lumbered out of bed and went to the bathroom.  In the bathroom, I started having very real, very painful contractions.  I called out to the others in the house, but they were asleep.  I was having gastrointestinal problems because the night before I made the mistake of eating cheese pasta with truffles.  I knew better.  I am allergic to milk.  Not just intolerant, but allergic.  This means that if I drink milk or get its protein in cheese or other things, I get allergy symptoms and severe gastrointestinal upset.  However I had smelled the truffles in this pasta and they were so heavenly, I thought one small scoop would not hurt.  It did.

As I sat there having contractions and going through the unpleasant side effects of eating cheese, I knew this was it.  I finally was able to get up and go tell Daddy to set up the birthing tub.  I then tried to straighten a few things in between contractions.  At 7:30, I gave up bothering to try and time them and called the midwives.  The contractions were hurting so much by then I couldn’t function when they were happening.  The tub was filling slowly, but I decided just to get in.

The contractions were intense and painful, so close together there really wasn’t any breather in between.  I begged anyone and everyone to make them stop.  I was not one of those serene women, suffering in silence.  I moaned and groaned.  My hips were hurting because the muscles were so stretched from walking around pregnant for 42 weeks.  I finally had the urge to push and at 9:19 a.m., September 26, 2009, Miss Isabel Lorraine was born.

I cannot stress enough the pleasure of having our baby at home.  As quick as my labor went, I don’t know how we would have made it to the hospital without more torturous pain anyway.  Yet after the birth, our experience compared to the birthing center in a hospital experience was so different, so mellow, so peaceful and wonderful.  My little baby was with me the entire time.  She was weighed and measured on our bed.  She snuggled closely skin to skin with a blankie wrapped around her.  She found my nipple right away and started suckling.  Perfection!

Milla was so enchanted with the entire experience.  She video-taped and helped keep the dog out of the way.  She was right there the entire time.  Mostly the midwives, Daddy, and Milla just stood to the side providing encouragement.  I did not want to be touched, but was grateful they were there. After she was as delighted with her sister as we were and could not wait to hug and hold her.  She is as in love as we are.

Isabel weighs 9 pounds, 1 ounce, and is 20.5 inches long.  A big baby!  She looks like a little peach.  Her face is round and perfect, her hair soft and blonde.  I am completely in love.

My daughter spent 4 1/2 months living with her father this last winter and spring.  In our house, she does not watch television and movies are limited, nor does she play idiot, I mean video games, or ever listen to music on headphones.  (She is a Waldorf student, after all, and I have followed these teachings as closely as possible.)  At Dad’s house, she was given a television in her room.  He let her play video games and bury her brain in headphones listening to true corporate crap. The differences since she spent those four months watching the stupid box are enormous.  She was  sold on corporate culture, began to believe most advertising (although she is also skeptical if the ad isn’t cute and geared toward selling to a ten-year-old), and generally thinks all the television that was left on at all hours of the day was entertaining.

I don’t know if I did her any favors keeping this shit from her if seeing it makes it so palatable.  Yet I still would not change that most of her life has not been spent in front of the idiot box.  The first couple of weeks after she came home she kept claiming she was “bored” and wanting me to entertain her.  Then she slipped back into her home routine and started knitting and creating plays for her stuffed animals and reading, doing all those things with her mind she did not do when she had an idiot box to stare at.

It blows my mind that parents find the thing “educational” and “interactive.”  It might present some content or ask questions the child answers, but the child is still sitting there on her butt, being told or asked by flashing movements, more loud and ugly these days.  The child is not out making the discovery on her own, thinking and creating, truly interacting.

Milla proved to us her ability to create and design and think on her own, using her own mind.  She planned and executed an amazing dog wedding between our dog and the neighbor dog, Luke.  She designed and sewed Ava’s gown and veil.  She made a marriage certificate with a shiny, glittery, yellow seal.  There was a guest list for us all to sign. She wrote the vows and planned the ceremony.  She chose the music for all aspects of the ceremony, including the processional, after the vows, the first dances, and the reception.  She designed decorations and hung them in the yard, Ava and Luke Tie the Knot.  All of it was thorough and amazing.  She’s ten.  This is what she does instead of staring at the television.

I was thinking about all of this this morning.  There was an ad on Dan’s computer before something he was watching on Huffington Post.  Milla saw it and said it was a funny commercial.  She had seen it at her dad’s.  She told us the premise.  To me it sounded so damn stupid and ridiculous, nothing funny at all, and I felt sad that she found this shit she had seen on the idiot box amusing.  However I long ago realized that her life is hers to live, not mine to control.  I can provide certain influences, but so do so many other things and ultimately she will make her own choices.  I can only hope that the influences I’ve provided help her to be a functional, healthy, and happy adult.  That’s the thing about parenting, if we do our jobs, this is exactly how it should be.

Two tall, beautiful trees.  Cutting them down.  Nothing wrong with them.  But the neighbors have paid some tree murderers to come and kill them.  One is gone already.  The other is on its way.  Trees that must be over a 100 years old.  I hate this.  I wish they’d leave them alone. They make the street palatable.  Our street has some dumpy little houses on it.  With the tall, old trees, the street looks stately.  Without the trees, it looks dumpy.  Idiots.  One of them has a bunker in his backyard and no plant life really.  He has giant lights he leaves on all night.  I say if you want to live in a parking lot at a military bunker, go do it, but don’t destroy a beautiful street because you don’t like the plants.

It’s just disappointing, these tree murdering neighbors.

This article has been published on Huffington Post and can be seen here.

I saw several articles on 9/11 debating whether the US is safer, particularly since we went to Iraq.  That 9/11 is even connected to Iraq as somehow making us safer as laughable, especially considering the only relation between the two is that 9/11 was used as an excuse to get into Iraq.  Any suggestion that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 has been roundly proven to be non-existent.  Yet the myth remains.

Ironically (or not considering the climate of this country since the year 2000), in the so many “arguments” against healthcare reform, the reason most often posited against any public option by those purporting to be reasonable is the cost.  This is ironic mainly considering these same naysayers have not been arguing against the obscene cost of the Iraq war.  Even if the government took over 100% of healthcare, owned every medical facility, hired every medical professional, and owned all of the equipment, the cost still would come nowhere near what we have spent and continue to spend on the Iraq war.

Supporters of the Iraq war have long used the argument that being there keeps us safe from terrorists.  This of course is in spite of evidence against any connection between Iraq and terrorism, at least before we got there.  We may now have created more terrorists in the way we have handled and treated the citizens in Iraq.  But to the supporters of the war, spending money in Iraq is spending money to combat terrorism.

Yet let’s be realistic here.  Suppose we actually were doing something to fight terrorism by being in  Iraq.  Would the cost still be justified?

Ask the average American how their life or the lives of their family members have been touched by terrorism.  It is more likely that this person has been struck by lightening five times than it is they have been personally affected by a terrorist attack.  Yes, it can be scary for some people to contemplate.  But seriously, it is extremely rare any of us will endure anything terrorist related that affects us personally.

Ask the same average American how their life or the lives of their family members have been affected by the healthcare crisis in this country.  It is more likely that they or a family member have been affected personally by the healthcare crisis than not.  Nearly everyone has some story to tell.  And even if a citizen hasn’t yet been affected, the possibility they will be affected if they lose their job (a much higher possibility even in a good economy than being affected by terrorism), then the lack of affordable healthcare will affect them.

We have spent billions and continue to spend billions in Iraq based on the dubious possibility we might be fighting terrorism, something that affects so few people, yet most of us cannot point to anyone who has been personally affected by it.  At the same time, we have politicians and citizens arguing against a public option because they claim we can’t afford it, even though most of us are affected by it every day.

We need a reality check.  The next time a politician claims we can’t afford public healthcare, ask them to stop spending money in Iraq and spend it here on healthcare instead.  Even if we could afford Iraq (we can’t), and even if being in Iraq protected us (it doesn’t), the reality is we should stop spending that money there and spend it here at home on something that affects all of us every day.

No baby yet.  Just kind of lumping along.  I feel like a lumbering cow and must admit to being glad not to have gained any further weight since the last midwife appointment. Right now the baby is wiggling so much it is driving me nuts.  She has not been this wiggly all at once in a while.  I don’t know what is getting her going, but she sure is moving around.  Want to come out, maybe?

My daughter is planning a dog wedding between our dog and the neighbor dog.  She designed decorations, has picked out music, and sent out invitations.  She certainly has a mind of her own, that one.

Anyway, still no baby.  Too tired to write anything else, although I must say that I am ashamed of our country and the legislators who think it is okay to catcall the president during a speech.  I hated GW, but I still felt his position deserved the respect of the other branches of government.  We have turned into a nation of freaks and ignoramuses.  Sad indeed.

People have been calling to ask me if I have had the baby.  My sister called to check.  Why is it she thinks I wouldn’t tell her?  You have to call me when you are in labor she said.  Duh.  I will.  And mom too.  And his family.  And our friends.  We will tell.  Come on, how else are we going to get free food?

The other thing people have been asking like it is a hilarious joke is whether she will be born on Labor Day.  Can’t say.  Don’t know.  I’m not being induced on a certain day or having a scheduled C-Section.  Barring some rare complication, I’m having my baby at home with midwives.   No need to pretend it’s a medical catastrophe to have a baby or to have her according to some doctor’s schedule.  She’ll come when she does.  Symptoms point to an imminent arrival, but considering I am at 39 weeks, this should not be a surprise.  Maybe the next time I post anything it will be to announce her arrival.  Or maybe not.  We’ll see.

We have led a remarkably busy, whirlygig sort of existence over the last few weeks.  On August 5 we decided to move back to Portland.  As a child is imminent (due September 10), we wanted to accomplish a lot in a very short amount of time.  We also sent a moving truck along its merry way from NYC on August 13, and required a home for our belongings to land.  This put some pressure on us to get things done so we would not have to unload the truck into a family garage or storage unit, reload into another moving truck, and unload into whatever home we located.

Fate was with us.  We searched all day for five days for an apartment or house.  We applied at many locations and were accepted at one, but it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for.  Early the morning after that acceptance, I woke up too early (the m.o. these days) and was doing the search on Craigslist.  The first house to show up that morning was exactly what we were looking for.  I was reluctant to call because it was so early, but figured since the posting had just shown up the person must be awake.  So I called.  I am so grateful that I did.  We were the first callers and the owner said he gave priority in order of who called first.

Later that morning (last Wednesday) went and looked at the house.  Not only was it in the exact neighborhood we wanted, it was the style of house I love the most, had plenty of room, and was simply lovely.  It is a bungalow with a huge front porch, a fenced backyard, a full basement, and all the amenities we could ask for.  The old tenant was a cool guy who was heading to Canada to “hang out with his mom in Vancouver, B.C.”  He graciously agreed to allow our belongings to arrive before he departed, whenever that happened to be.  On Saturday we received the call from the driver that he would be in Oregon on Sunday.  We made arrangements for him to meet us at the house and we started calling friends.

Here is how Oregon is different for us from New York:  In New York, we had 3 people who could help us, one of whom had to leave after an hour for another engagement, leaving 2 people plus Dan to load our truck (considering at the time I was 35 weeks pregnant, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do in the hucking boxes department).  Here, we had 10 helpers, plus Milla had two girls to play with, daughters of one of the helpers.  Loading the truck took nearly 8 hours.  Unloading took under 3.  Unloading always takes less than loading, but the speed here was phenomenal, plus everything went into the house in an organized manner.  I couldn’t unload, but I could certainly direct traffic!

Basically, since we decided on August 5 to move back to Oregon, and arrived so late August 14 it may as well have been the August 15, we have managed to find a place to live, buy a used car, find a new midwife, and begin settling in.  We have been busy, to say the least, but so far things are working out.  Dan has had a few gigs and I’m slated to return to work for a firm here after baby is born and maternity leave.  It has been a lot of work, but it has been so worth it.

A year ago I could not wait to leave Portland.  There had been a long string of hard times and it was difficult to see a future here. Having left, spent too much money, and returned, I cannot imagine being anywhere else.  I am grateful for a place among family and friends.  I am so grateful we found a house we like in the neighborhood we wanted.  Now I just need to relax and sleep through the night.  It won’t be long before our little one arrives and sleeping through the night will be a thing of the past…

I’ve been running like a chicken with my head cut off.  On August 5, Dan and I decided to move back to Portland.  But we had to do it quickly because we have a little baby due on September 10.  We booked a moving van and began frantically packing.  We packed the entire apartment in six days!  The moving van arrived last Thursday, we loaded it up, cleaned up the apartment, and flew off on Friday.  We have spent every day since we arrived looking for a place to live so that when the moving van arrives it has a place besides Dan’s mom’s house to leave our belongings.  We have also been interviewing midwives and looking for cars. I have a job interview later this morning.  Dan got his old job back and has gigs lined up.  Overall, it’s been quite the whirlwind couple of weeks.  We have several applications in and one has been accepted, but we are waiting with bated breath to see if the application on our favorite place is accepted.  We are supposed to find out today.  I will keep my fingers crossed, then get ready to unpack. We have to nest before our little girl arrives!

Any republican, talk show idiot, or anyone else for that matter, who suggests that public health care will result in euthanasia should be ashamed.  Abominable, sickening, horrible fools.  People DIE DAILY in this country because we do not have health care and they have the nerve to try and scare people off with this shit?  So some scumbag insurance company can make more money?  Fuck I am sick of this stupid country and everything that is wrong with it.  Someone should just take these lying assholes out and shove them off a cliff.

There are some just dog things, such as the way they trot in front of you with their ears back, going the way you go, that I just adore in this puppy of mine.  I love how wherever I go in the house she follows me.  My dog Autumn did that.  It was one of the hardest things to lose when she died.  Even as I write this, Ava is lying at my feet.  There are also some unique to Ava things I love about her.  She sits on my feet.  If I am in a place and standing and talking or sitting and talking to someone else, she perches on my foot.  She will do this when I am saying goodbye to Dan or Milla as they leave the house to go do something and I am staying home.  Ava sits there on my foot, I am staying here with her, she seems to say, you go have fun.  We will be here when you get back. Then as I move into the house to do whatever, she follows me.

Years and years ago, I may not have even been out of my teens, I read The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck.  I don’t remember much of it at all.  I read it because it was a bestseller.  I don’t even recall its premise.  But I remember one thing vividly.  He argues that humans can never really love a dog, or any other animal, because to love as he defines it requires reciprocation in kind.  My feelings in response are unchanged:  I wholeheartedly disagree.  There are different kinds of love.  There are loves that are equally reciprocal, usually with the person we choose as a mate, but also with certain friends or even family members.  But by his definition, I could not truly love an infant or a small child or someone who does not love me back in the same way and with the same articulation.  What a limiting view of human capacity.  I absolutely love my dog, as I have loved other dogs before her. It does not matter that her adoration of me is different.  It is there.  It does not simply vanish because we come from different places.

Ava moved from the floor beneath my feet to the corner of the bed.  She likes to sit on the corner and look at us sitting here at the desk or look out the window.  She hovers with her paws over the edge of the bed frame, her head rested on them, looking at me.

She makes distinct faces, this dog.  The most common is what we call her happy face, her mouth slightly open, tongue out, eyes bright, often one ear cocked.  She’ll turn her head slightly as if to ask Do you want to play? In these moments I stop what I’m doing and play with her.

In the morning, when she wakes up, she has the most incredible bed head.  Her eyes are all sleepy, her hairs all akimbo.  She’ll crawl to the top of the bed, as if the effort is more than she can bear, then sigh and relax as we snuggle and pet her.  Later, wild dog comes out, chasing bears and fozzies, rattling them mightily from side to side until they are dead.  Sometimes she brings them to us and requests that we throw them.  We do, because watching her little sheep butt run away to get them is one of life’s greatest joys.  She does not like these stuffed creatures to have eyes.  Within a half an hour of getting a new stuffed toy she removes its eyes.  Perhaps she does not want it to see her remove all its innards piece by piece.  More likely she loves that the pieces are hard and fun to chew.

After she has a bath she runs through the house like she’s on fire, ears back, bolting from room to room. What is that, dogs running after baths?  I understand their desire to rub themselves dry on the floor, but the running around after, I wonder why they do that.  Almost every dog I have ever owned has gone running after getting a bath.  However, none of them have run like Ava does.  The others have all just gone for their run to dive into their rubs.  This one just runs like a bat out of hell from room to room, then comes and stares at me with the happy face, tongue lolling out, eyes bright. Then off she goes again to make another round.  It’s hilarious.

Ava isn’t thrilled with having baths.  She is actually one of the more obnoxious dogs I have had to bathe.  It’s a good thing she is small and easy to hold down because she really hates it and tries to escape.  Yet she is intrigued by the bathtub, or rather, people showering or bathing.  When Milla takes a shower, it is a guarantee that Ava will be in there standing on the edge of the tub, peeking around the shower curtain, her little sheep butt wagging its little tail.  When any of us bathe, she comes and stands and looks in.  Maybe she is curious why we would want to do something so hideously awful.  Or maybe she just wants our company.

As I have mentioned, she loves to snuggle.  She is thrilled at her ability to jump on the bed.  She could not always do it by herself, but she grew and figured it out and seems to take great pleasure in it.  And jumping off. I can jump on the bed!  I can jump off the bed!  See?  I launch myself many feet past the bed!  Aren’t I skilled? Anyway, she will jump on the bed if I am lying there and come and lie across my neck and sigh.  She’s my little doggie stole.  She’ll snuggle there a while and get kisses from me, and strokes and rubs.  She knows I do not like her to kiss me.  She does not even try anymore.  Dan lets her kiss him.  I think it’s gross.  But she knows he doesn’t mind so she licks him all over.  The only time she licks me is when I get out of the shower.  She will come in and lick the water off of my feet  until I dry them.

This dog makes me happy.  That’s the simple fact of it.  She came along when I was very sad.  There were so many reasons, many of them huge, for my sadness.  One of them was grief over the loss of my house and the loss of the dogs who lived with me there.  I would have dreams about them, dreams they were still alive or still lived with me.  Vivid dreams.  Then this little dog came to live with us and I suddenly felt the desire to laugh again.  I laugh every day living with her.  She’s a happy, wonderful little spirit.  Frankly, I’m completely smitten.  I am in love.

The following article is taken from The New York Times and can be located here.

Think Again
by Stanley Fish

Henry Louis Gates: Déjà Vu All Over Again

I’m Skip Gates’s friend, too. That’s probably the only thing I share with President Obama, so when he ended his press conference last Wednesday by answering a question about Gates’s arrest after he was seen trying to get into his own house, my ears perked up.

As the story unfolded in the press and on the Internet, I flashed back 20 years or so to the time when Gates arrived in Durham, N.C., to take up the position I had offered him in my capacity as chairman of the English department of Duke University. One of the first things Gates did was buy the grandest house in town (owned previously by a movie director) and renovate it. During the renovation workers would often take Gates for a servant and ask to be pointed to the house’s owner. The drivers of delivery trucks made the same mistake.

The message was unmistakable: What was a black man doing living in a place like this?

At the university (which in a past not distant at all did not admit African-Americans ), Gates’s reception was in some ways no different. Doubts were expressed in letters written by senior professors about his scholarly credentials, which were vastly superior to those of his detractors. (He was already a recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, the so called “genius award.”) There were wild speculations (again in print) about his salary, which in fact was quite respectable but not inordinate; when a list of the highest-paid members of the Duke faculty was published, he was nowhere on it.

The unkindest cut of all was delivered by some members of the black faculty who had made their peace with Duke traditions and did not want an over-visible newcomer and upstart to trouble waters that had long been still. (The great historian John Hope Franklin was an exception.) When an offer came from Harvard, there wasn’t much I could do. Gates accepted it, and when he left he was pursued by false reports about his tenure at what he had come to call “the plantation.” (I became aware of his feelings when he and I and his father watched the N.C.A.A. championship game between Duke and U.N.L.V. at my house; they were rooting for U.N.L.V.)

Now, in 2009, it’s a version of the same story. Gates is once again regarded with suspicion because, as the cultural critic Michael Eric Dyson put it in an interview, he has committed the crime of being H.W.B., Housed While Black.

He isn’t the only one thought to be guilty of that crime. TV commentators, laboring to explain the unusual candor and vigor of Obama’s initial comments on the Gates incident, speculated that he had probably been the victim of racial profiling himself. Speculation was unnecessary, for they didn’t have to look any further than the story they were reporting in another segment, the story of the “birthers” — the “wing-nuts,” in Chris Matthews’s phrase — who insist that Obama was born in Kenya and cite as “proof” his failure to come up with an authenticated birth certificate. For several nights running, Matthews displayed a copy of the birth certificate and asked, What do you guys want? How can you keep saying these things in the face of all evidence?

He missed the point. No evidence would be sufficient, just as no evidence would have convinced some of my Duke colleagues that Gates was anything but a charlatan and a fraud. It isn’t the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate that’s the problem for the birthers. The problem is again the legitimacy of a black man living in a big house, especially when it’s the White House. Just as some in Durham and Cambridge couldn’t believe that Gates belonged in the neighborhood, so does a vocal minority find it hard to believe that an African-American could possibly be the real president of the United States.

Gates and Obama are not only friends; they are in the same position, suspected of occupying a majestic residence under false pretenses. And Obama is a double offender. Not only is he guilty of being Housed While Black; he is the first in American history guilty of being P.W.B., President While Black.