How I Spent My Mother’s Day Vacation

May 19, 2013

Last weekend, John and I went to Mexico for a quick “let’s take naps on the beach” break. We didn’t realize until after we’d booked the trip (non-refundable, of course,) that we’d be gone on Mother’s Day, ensuring that I did not spend any time with my kid and that instead she would be in the care of her grandparents. Oops. (My mother: “you don’t want to be with your own daughter on Mother’s Day? REALLY?” Me: “Mom, consider it my Mother’s Day gift to you that you get several uninterrupted days with Poppy.” My mother: “Huh. Good point. Have fun!”)

May is not really prime Mexico vacation time – the weather here is finally starting to be nice, while in Mexico it’s the shoulder season, a little hot and muggy, a little bug-infested. But sitting on my breezy (windy) beach in a cabana chair, reading spy novels on the kindle, it seemed just about right. And we couldn’t really wait until prime fall/winter travel season anyway:

22weeks

…yeah. So. That’s a thing that is happening. A boy, due in September. (I feel almost silly bringing it up – I feel good, life continues, it feels almost self-congratulatory to make a whole POST about it, since it’s a fairly ordinary thing we’re doing -  but I have learned that the only thing people like less than pregnancy announcements is feeling they’ve been left out of the loop so eh, call it lesser of evils?) In sum: Mexico! Good times! Last hurrah on the kid-free travel for the foreseeable future!

So in a way, I guess, it was sort of a mother-themed trip. Just probably not what the Hallmark people had in mind.

Posted in family | 24 Comments

Language Quirks

February 19, 2013

Watching the penultimate episode of this season’s Downton Abbey (note: this is not a spoiler unless perhaps you are a deep period language nerd, in which case let’s be friends,) I noticed that various characters used the word “stuff” at least half a dozen times, each time with a sort of pause before it and real emphasis behind it, as if to highlight that The Times, They Are A Changing and The Slang, It Is Entering the Noble Classes. (It was always the younger characters saying it- no “stuff” for “What is a week-end?” Dowager Violet, safe to say.)

And while I found this a little annoying while watching (me: “why is everybody saying ‘stuff’ all the time in this episode? It’s super distracting.” John: “You notice weird things.”) I am totally guilty of doing the same thing: enjoying a particular expression or turn of phrase so much that I end up unintentionally overusing it like some sort of SAT-word-dropping smugface.

You want examples? Well, for one, I use “exercised” as a synonym for “worked up,” which is something my parents have always said but which I recently discovered other people find weird. (Used in a sentence: “I am not usually one to get exercised about minor delays, but when I’ve made a reservation and have to wait for a table anyway I cross over from ‘polite customer’ into ‘total b*tch.’”)

Others: I am fond of “articulated“ used as an adjective to describe something that has joints (Articulated bus! Articulated fence! Articulated arm on a doll! ); I often simply declare “false!” when I disagree with a proposition or sweeping declaration; I say “esoteric” and “dilettante” and “idiosyncratic” more than is strictly necessary.

And that’s not even getting into the ridiculous verbal shortcuts/strange inside joke phrases that pepper our family vernacular. “Okey dokey artichokey” is one of Poppy’s favorite things to say. Whenever we’re having trouble carrying/are about to drop something, we complain that we’re “losing gription” (mercilessly mocking a friend who used this non-word, repeatedly, during a harrowing day spent helping friends move their very large furniture out of the very tiny stairwell in their apartment building.) We routinely refer to shady characters as being “shifty like penguin.” (Origin: another friend, asked incredulously why he didn’t like penguins, said with a completely straight face and without irony: “I don’t trust them. They’re shifty.”)

I love this about language: the ever-changing nature of it, the nuance, how the same idea can be expressed in dozens of different ways. So humor a language dork: what are some of your most beloved/overused words? Strange phrases you and your family use as shorthand? I live for this stuff!

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Can a total novice buy art?

January 30, 2013

From www.123rf.com- one of the millions of hits you get from a google image search for “art”

My sister and her husband are condo-shopping, and she’s been sending me listings of places they’re interested in. One place, an absolutely gorgeous, HUGE condo, was made all the more gorgeous by the really amazing art collection the current owners had all over the walls. My mom, who went to see it with my sister and who knows some things about art, said she was “shocked” by the breadth and quality of the collection, given the owners’ relative youth. (This perhaps explained the seller’s total unwillingness to negotiate on price of the condo at all- seems they perhaps are people of substantial means and can afford to sit an unsold condo for a while. Bummer for my sister, she really liked it.)

While we are unlikely to be shocking anyone with our art collection any time soon (framed print of a beer poster, anyone?) this conversation did get me thinking that I’d like to be a person who has art. I feel like a fraud even using the term – I certainly harbor no delusions that I know anything about “art,” and what makes good art, and which artists I should “collect” or anything high-flying like that. But I’d like to own one or two things that are pretty and interesting and not mass-produced. I’d like to start by buying a painting (probably) to go over the mantel in our bedroom. We have this huge, HUGE blank wall in our bedroom where the previous owners clearly had a painting hanging, and 2.5 years after moving in it’s still as empty as the day we arrived. I’d like to change that.

Trouble is, I don’t know where to begin. My parents have art that they bought when they were young- stuff from then-young artists, bought to decorate their first apartments as young adults, then their first home together. It’s not necessarily fancy stuff- while some of the pieces have appreciated (they have a super cool Jud Fine pencil drawing from 1971 that now hangs in our entryway, for example, bought by my dad for a song in the early 70s,) mostly it’s just stuff they really liked, that they’ve kept for all these years. Most of the pieces will never be hugely valuable, but is now a cool and important part of our family home.

It seems like a concept from a foreign time- people in their 20s and early 30s buying original art to decorate their places? Huh? Was that a normal thing in the late 60s/early 70s, or were my parents just the sort of people committed to the arts who prioritized that over other purchases? (That *seems* unlikely, knowing them now, but I could be wrong…) Are behind, having never bought any kind of art-thing? I suspect our hastily-framed concert posters will not have similar staying power. (Though I do still have my dad’s original Monterey Pop Festival poster hanging in our basement. It’s pretty rad.)

I’d like to start filling our empty wall spaces with some stuff that we could pass on to our kids some day- not because its valuable, necessarily, but because it’s part of our family history. But my question is…how? I am willing to save up a little to invest in something we really love- but I’m not interested in (or in a position to) drop several grand on a traditional oil landscape, you know? I would love to find something a little more modern, or by a younger artist…but I frankly don’t even know where to begin. Go check out galleries in the edgy hipster part of town, where I’m sure to feel like a poser but maybe I’ll find something fun? Look online somewhere?

Guidance welcome- artists you love, galleries in Chicago to check out, online resources- I’ll take it. Otherwise we’ll probably just end up framing another beer poster.

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Office Spaces

January 14, 2013

Satisfy my curiosity: which, if any, of the following seem weird/gross/an inappropriate use of shared office resources to you?

a) Brushing one’s teeth in the bathroom sinks
b) Washing one’s hands in the shared kitchenette sink
c) Bringing one’s own highly-scented air freshener with a very particular and recognizable scent to spray after you do…business, thus alerting everyone to who it was who just…businessed

A, the brushing of teeth in the bathroom sinks, is huge in my office. HUGE. Dozens of people do it. We are, as a group, apparently very committed to dental hygiene. We’re not just talking a quick brush, either- we have full-on flossing and mouthwash. While I can’t exactly find anything wrong with it, I will admit that it weirds me out a little. When I enter the bathroom and see a colleague brushing her teeth while I’m washing my hands, it feels strangely intimate, or something.  I know, I know, tooth care is essential and whatnot, but as a strict morning-and-evening brusher, it always throws me for a loop a little.

But I’m probably wrong.

B, the washing of one’s hands in the shared kitchenette sink, is something *I* do that seems to garner weird looks from my coworkers. Look, I like to wash my hands before I eat. The sink is right there, next to the refrigerator*, where I am storing my lunch. Am I really supposed to walk all the way across to the other side of the building to wash my hands in the bathroom sink? Is this really that gross?

C, with the vanilla musk air freshener, is just a puzzling anecdote I thought you might enjoy.

* Refrigerator side note: there are two refrigerators in our office, to meet the food-storage needs of the approximately 150 people who work here. About 2 months ago, one of the fridges up and died. In the process of evaluating the dead refrigerator, the service technician noted that the other fridge is actually also dying, limping along at a barely-cool, not-technically-food-safe 44 degrees. Splendid. The best part? Because the state is broke as a joke, it is impossible to find a vendor willing to sell us two replacement refrigerators, because they know they won’t get paid for months. So we have had to take up a collection, where employees are all chipping in, to try to purchase a functioning refrigerator, with the promise that we will be paid back by the state….eventually. Government work: glamorous!

Posted in work | 9 Comments

GMMA Day 5: DonorsChoose.org

December 21, 2012

So here we are, at our final day of this year’s Giving My Money Away. Thank you for all your comments, and the support you have given to these great organizations.

Today, I am featuring one last organization that I love: DonorsChoose.org. Donors Choose is itself not a small organization, but it allows you, the giver, to make a serious impact on a small project. Public school teachers write in to Donors Choose to describe things they need for their classrooms — things like art supplies, technology, and science equipment — and donors can give directly to those projects. Donors Choose staff members vet each project and confirm the costs submitted by the teachers are accurate.

The site is well-designed and easy to navigate. You can search by subject matter, or grade level, or zip code, and you can sort by projects that are close to completion so you can help a project cross the finish line. It’s really fun to explore, but it’s also so, so hard to pick projects to donate to because there are just so many classrooms, and so many teachers, that have to seek this kind of outside funding for things we would consider basic stuff; things like crayons in Kindergarten and class sets of chapter books in intermediate grades and microscopes in high school science classrooms.

I realize it was a total pain in the neck to ask you to seek out projects and then nominate them, so I did not get a ton of nominations.  I am THRILLED to see that many of the projects that did get nominated have since been completed and no longer need donations! So! I went off script and chose a project at a school that is dear to my heart.

I have decided to help Ms. Cintas’ classroom, so she can purchase subscriptions to Time for Kids for her class. She teaches 4th grade, a time when students are expected to transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn,” including state standards that instruct that students should be learning to process nonfiction text. I have some personal knowledge of this school, and know that most of the students are English Language Learners, for whom regular exposure to small, digestible texts is an important way to build literacy skills in English. Time for Kids provides a fun way for students to access that kind of nonfiction material. It’s precisely the kind of “extra” thing that often gets lost in money-crunched schools, and I’m happy to help them get a little closer to their goal.

Thank you again for your comments, today and all week. And if you’re looking for a way to do some charitable giving this season, but feel like your $10 or $20 won’t make a difference, I strongly urge you to check out Donors Choose. Yours could be the donation that pushes a project to its goal!

Posted in GMMA | 27 Comments

GMMA Day 4: The Night Ministry

December 20, 2012

For an overview of what’s going on here, see this post from Monday.

Today, our penultimate day of Pseudostoops’ Giving My Money Away 2012, I’m bringing back an old favorite from GMMAs past: the Night Ministry.

masthead_logo

The Night Ministry is an incredible organization. In its own words:

The Night Ministry is a Chicago-based organization that works to provide housing, health care and human connection to members of our community struggling with poverty or homelessness. With an open heart and an open mind, we accept people as they are and work to address their immediate physical, emotional and social needs while affirming their sense of humanity.

 

The Night Ministry offers services “at the moment of need on the street.” The Health Outreach Bus travels to Chicago neighborhoods from 7-11:30 pm Monday through Saturday on a regular schedule.  This model, with a predictable schedule and traveling to areas of great need, allows the bus to provide essential health care services to people who very often find it difficult or impossible to access health care services elsewhere.  Volunteers also provide meal service alongside the bus so that clients can get a meal, too.

The Night Ministry also provides a continuum of care to homeless and LGBT youth. It reaches out to them where they are — on the street — providing non-judgmental support, guidance, food, and self-care supplies. This is a particularly vulnerable population, and particularly at this time of year, when I am warm and snug with my family, it hurts my heart to think of anyone, particularly youth, living on the street. I’m grateful that the Night Ministry is working hard to help these kids.

They’re an incredible organization, and I’m happy to support them. So get to commenting! (And remember, tomorrow I’ll be choosing a project from one of the amazing classrooms featured at DonorsChoose.org to receive a $50 donation- if you’d like to nominate a classroom, let me know in the comments!)

As always, thank you.

Posted in GMMA | 29 Comments

GMMA Day 3: Back On My Feet Chicago

December 19, 2012

New here? This post explains what is going on.

Today, I’m featuring an organization that is new to me, but which I’m excited about nonetheless.

In its own words, “Back on My Feet is a nonprofit organization that promotes the self-sufficiency of homeless populations by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength, and self-esteem.” They have chapters all over the country. In Chicago, running groups that meet four times a week for early morning runs that start and finish at supportive housing residences throughout the city. Volunteers (“non-resident” team members) and residents run together, and residents set goals for running-related milestones that are celebrated by the group. Non-resident volunteers commit to running at least once a week, so that people really get to know each other and form community.

Like many of us, I suspect, I have been thinking a lot recently about community, and connection, and how important those things are for all of us. While it would be easy to say “running? self-esteem? Aren’t there bigger issues afoot here?” I found myself really drawn to this statement on the Back On My Feet website:

We use running as a vehicle to show individuals they are capable of accomplishing anything… but it’s not going to happen overnight – it takes hard work, dedication and perseverance. BoMF focuses heavily on teamwork – when we run, we run as a family and we support, encourage and motivate each other every step of the way. No one ever runs by themselves because life is a lot harder when you go through it alone.

A little cheesy? Maybe. But the idea of taking something simple like running and using it to forge actual connections between homeless men and women and volunteers who make a long-term commitment to a running group? That’s kind of great. And a program that gives  men and women a means to build skills like perserverence and commitment and showing up on time – those are the kinds of “soft skills” that the research suggests can make a real difference for folks struggling to climb out of terribly difficult circumstances. So I’m going to give Back On My Feet some money, and in the new year, I’m going to join a running group. I’ll tell you how it goes.

As always, thanks for your comments and support.

Posted in GMMA | 26 Comments

GMMA Day 2: The Women’s Treatment Center

December 18, 2012

For a quick review of what’s going on here, see yesterday’s post.

By now, my featuring of this organization is truly a part of the tradition:

 

The Women’s Treatment Center provides concrete, essential services to help women address the incredible challenge of drug addiction. For women with children, beating addiction is not just about getting clean- it’s about figuring out who is going to care for your children while you do, and repairing your relationship with them as you get better.

The mission of The Women’s Treatment Center is “to provide women with a continuum of care, recovery tools, and parenting skills to maintain a sober lifestyle as they rebuild their lives and mend the bonds with their families.”

TWTC provides essential medical, mental health, and social services in a setting that can accommodate children in residential treatment.  That means that while they are receiving treatment, mothers receive parenting classes and guidance, and are able to continue to build and repair relationships with their children, rather than being separated from them for weeks or months at a time.  TWTC is also one of the few facilities in the  country that has a crisis nursery, which can provide 24-hour care for a woman’s children when she is unable to care for them herself.  This reduces one of the major barriers to treatment, as a woman can enter detox knowing that her children are safe, well cared for, and close.

In short, The Women’s Treatment Center is committed to helping women conquer substance abuse while honoring, protecting, and building essential family relationships.  Its programs address the parallel issues of treating substance abuse and taking proactive steps to prevent child abuse and neglect.  It’s an important place, and I’m happy to support them every year.  Thank you all for helping, too.

Posted in GMMA | 43 Comments

GMMA Day 1: Hurricane Sandy Relief via Robin Hood Foundation

December 17, 2012

It seems impossible that I’ve been at this this long, but here we are: the FIFTH annual Pseudostoops Giving My Money Away celebration!

For newcomers, here is a brief lowdown on this holiday tradition of mine. Each day this week I will feature a different charitable organization. I commit to giving each organization a minimum $25 donation, and then there’s an audience participation component: I invite everyone to read about the charity, and to leave a comment on the post. For every comment that I receive on the post, I’ll donate an additional 50 cents. Comments will remain open until the next day’s post goes up. You get to give money to charity, without having to spend any! Fun, right?

I like to use this space to feature smaller and local charities that do important work in my community. It’s not that I don’t also appreciate and support the work of much larger charities – I certainly do – but in every community there are smaller organizations filling real need, and I love being able to shine a small light on some of those great organizations.

Your comment need not say anything in particular (many people just say “comment!” every year, and that’s fine!) But if you are so inclined, I encourage you to go take a look at DonorsChoose.org, a great organization that allows teachers to seek donations for classroom projects and supplies, and allows donors to donate directly to an individual project they choose. Let me know in the comments about a DonorsChoose project that you think is particularly cool and deserving, and on Friday I’ll chose one of the projects nominated in the comments to receive a $50 donation from me.

So! Let’s do this. Tell your friends, tell Twitter, tell whoever- the more, the merrier (and the mightier the donation!) This weird little thing I do is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season- thanks in advance for participating.

*****

Day 1: Hurricane Sandy Relief via the Robin Hood Foundation

I know I just said up there that I feature mostly local organizations, (and the rest of the week that’s exactly what I’ll be doing,) but I wanted to start with something a little different. The devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy was truly staggering, and the relief efforts are far from over. This period, after the initial flurry of action has died down, is also exactly the time that serious resources are needed to invest in the hard and expensive work of rebuilding both buildings and lives. I donated in the immediate aftermath of the Hurricane, but I need to do more.

The organization I’ve chosen to donate through is the Robin Hood Foundation.

They’re hardly small (they were, after all, the ones who put together the 12/12/12 concert for Sandy relief,) but I think their model is cool, and powerful. Robin Hood uses a model that they built to evaluate the impact and efficacy of anti-poverty non-profits in the New York City area, identifying 200 highly effective organizations from over 27,000 in the city. In addition to money, Robin Hood provides support to grant organizations through pro bono partners, like management training and real estate assistance. And they’ve launched a large-scale Sandy relief effort using that model.

I love the idea of a big organization that doesn’t barrel in and try to do all the work in various neighborhoods, but rather works to identify who is already there, doing the work well, and help to make them better. That’s a cool approach, right?

So hit it! Leave me a comment (identifying a deserving donorschoose.org project to nominate for Friday’s donation, if you’re so inclined,) and we’ll get this thing started! Thank you.

Posted in GMMA, Uncategorized | 56 Comments

The Christmas train: source of endless joy, terror.

December 10, 2012

John announced several months ago that This Year, we must not only buy a full-size tree (instead of the tabletop variety we’ve had the past several years,) but we also must purchase a train to go around it. Then he said a lot more about what specific train we needed, using words like “gauge” and “flyer” and “smoke fluid.”

And I rolled my eyes so hard I think I sprained something because our kid? IS NOT YET TWO. She does not need a train. She will not even notice the train, in all likelihood, and she certainly will not notice its absence if we wait a year or two or SEVEN to bring this particular pricey and space-taking tradition into our lives.

What I failed to appreciate, of course, is that the train is not really FOR Poppy. At least not yet. It’s for John. And despite my repeated skeptical responses about whether we really needed to spend money on a freaking model train in addition to the dozens of gifts and unexpected travel expenses and car repairs already burdening our December credit card statement, John kept talking about it, assuring me that it was necessary.

He finally just ordered it himself. And when it arrived and he gleefully opened the box and started removing tiny pieces from styrofoam packaging, (which Poppy immediately started flinging all over the living room,) I will confess that I was somewhat short on Christmas cheer.

But as he was setting it up, John started telling me about the train that he and his dad would set up around their tree every year, and he was just so *happy* to be replicating the tradition in our family, and I realized: it is possible that I am a total bossypants jerkface about holiday traditions. At Thanksgiving, we eat my family’s traditional dishes. (Jello salad with marshmallows, represent!) I subject him to Christmas albums by John Denver and Amy Grant and (god help me) Kenny G, because it’s what my family listened to growing up. And I’m not above spending money to make new traditions that are important to *me* – last year, I bought yards of felt and tiny ornaments and thread and craft glue to replicate the felt tree advent calendar that hung on my mom’s dining room wall when we were kids.

So yeah, I think I owed John a tradition. And while I wish I could say it was all worth it when Poppy first saw the train and gasped in joy and wonder: well, no. Poppy first saw the train, turned on her heel and veritably SPRINTED in the other direction. “Loud!” she said. “It’s loud! Scary! No thank you! NO THANK YOU!”

Poor, crestfallen, John.

But he persevered: he brought Poppy into his lap and sat with her next to the tree, holding her tight as the train careened around it, making its whistle blare every few rotations for variety. She watched that train like a hawk (perhaps checking to ensure it didn’t jump the track and start to chase her,) but by the end she was saying “twain! choo choooooooo!” and smiling.

And now, every day when we come downstairs in the morning, she narrates the train experience for me: “twain around tree. Is loud. But that’s okay. Not scary anymore. Turn on twain, Daddy! Choo chooooooo! Watch the twain!”

Seeing John’s face when she says that? Worth every penny we spent on that stupid train.

Posted in family | 16 Comments