Livingston, I Presume

Roll over! Fetch! Play dead!

I was, as Dieter used to say, as happy as a little girl yesterday when I discovered that a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago had been named the BlogHer of the Week. The post was on healthcare and our elected representatives and how the two don't work well together unless you're actually an elected representative yourself. I even got to use the word vagina (twice!).

I stand by what I wrote and in my focus on primarily Republican opponents of the public option, even as I am sick with shame about how my party--the only party I've ever called home in my entire political life--has rolled over at every step of the healthcare reform process. The Stupak amendment was really just the last, worst step. Kate Harding on Salon:

"...This is not our party. We've known that for too long, and yet the Democrats have known too well that they could bank on our money and our votes as long as the GOP remained even more not our party. But something's changed. 64 Democrats voted to block women's access to legal medical services. That may not be quite as repulsive as some Republican shenanigans, but the difference is only one of degree. If the point of women voting for "moderate" Democrats is to avoid a majority that's actively hostile to women, then those who voted for the Stupak-Pitts amendment just proved that there's no point at all. And progressive women have finally had enough. We are ready to go there. Are Democrats ready to try getting elected without us?"

Yup.

I don't know where that leaves me. I've been holding my nose throughout this entire healthcare reform process--the process largely put together by the senior senator from MY OWN STATE--and I'm starting to think that the other side has won. Because what's emerged improves things, marginally and perhaps, but when I think about what needs to be in the bills under consideration and isn't, well, I just lose hope. 

People are dying. Not because of imaginary government death panels but because of real-life insurance company profit-mongering. People are suffering. People are going bankrupt. And an appalling percentage of our elected officials think that's just fine, so long as we don't in any possible way allow anything even vaguely resembling socialism--or compassion--to creep into our system. Oh, and so long as they get to say that they TOTALLY PWNED our president. Too bad we can't pay for a new healthcare system with a tax on hot air and broken promises.

1989

It's impossible to overstate the importance of the events of 1989 on my life. I was 16 years old when the "dominoes" fell, and I was captivated. As an extemper (any speech and debate nerds out there besides my brother?), I spent pretty much every weekend for six months giving speeches about the Poles, the Czechs, the Romanians, the Hungarians, the East Germans...and I was in heaven. I can't tell you much else about what happened at the end of 1989, but I can tell you all about that (and I can pronounce all the names, from Jaruzelski to Ceausecsu). It's not at all a coincidence that 1989-90 was the only year in which I qualified for speech nationals.

When I started that school year, I wanted to be a psychiatrist when I grew up. By the end of the year, I was planning to study Russian and go live and work in the post-communist region, and that's pretty much what I did. I first visited Berlin and Prague in 1991 (and figured out that I'd better study German as well) and went back to the region, broadly defined, as often as I could until moving to Prague in 2000. Eleven years after the Velvet Revolution, Prague was certainly not the same place it was in 1989. Now, 20 years on (and five years after my departure), I'm sure it's even further removed.

I know that things have not been smooth for the countries of the region, but it has been amazing to watch--not just then but now. For anyone interested in the events of 1989 (and what has happened since then) I hope you will visit my old workplace, Transitions Online. No Western outlet is going to be able to match their offerings during this commemorative period. I am still as proud of the work I did there as I am of anything else I've done in my life, and I'm grateful that they remain on the front lines.

Happy Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall!

Edited to add: For another perspective from a post-communist crazy like me (go figure, we met in graduate school for Russian and East European Studies) on 1989, go read this post from a friend, who showed up in the comments yesterday. She and her Russian-born husband are now living in Thailand with their two kids, en route to an eventual stay in China.

Silly Sunday

Since our digital camera doesn't offer sound video, you're going to have to take my word for the fact that the soundtrack for the following is a cheesy techno rendition of Axel F. To refresh your memory about how that might sound, I recommend a visit to here before viewing the video. It should start automatically and then you can start the video and it should be like you are RIGHT HERE listening to the music with my dancing children:

Random (with teeth and SUPERCOLON!)

Is there anything quieter than an early Saturday morning? Not much that I can think of. Although I hate getting up this early with a white-hot passion, once I'm up, I love it. If I could find a way to get from prone to just out of the shower without having to make the actual step of leaving the bed, I might become a morning person.

Emerson's biting issue--wherein she shows her frustration with a situation by having a tiny, mini-tantrum and biting whatever inanimate object is closest to her, resulting in unfortunate hilarity as we watch her bite the floor, the refrigerator, the baby gate, etc.--took a turn for the worse yesterday when she eschewed an inanimate object and went straight for her big brother. It's laugh-behind-your-hand funny when she chomps down on her high chair, much less so when she bites your firstborn.

I remember the biting phase with Connery, but I remember it coming much later--and only after one of his daycare mates had been using him as a teething ring. Perhaps it's good that Em is not in childcare at the moment. Instead of getting to be Righteous Indignation Mommy when my child is the victim, I would have to be Contrite Mommy and try to smooth things over.

The girl does have a fearsome set of teeth. All four of her first molars have erupted, and the teeth in between her canines and molars are coming in daily. She has more teeth now than Connery did at age three. The correlary of that (I guess) is that Connery is six and still hasn't lost his first tooth. Get 'em late, lose 'em late?

I'm off this morning to the Livingston Fall Health Fair. It's the third year in a row I've had a booth there for my other job, and, like getting up early, it's pretty much fine once you're actually there and watching people. It would be hard to top last year, though, because last year they brought in the SUPERCOLON!, a 6-foot-tall inflatable colon that you could walk through and see polyps and other internal nastiness. I think they signed up a lot of colonoscopies that day. I just don't know how you improve upon the SUPERCOLON! Lord knows I can't compete.

Happy Saturday and happy weekend, everyone!

Getting schooled

We had Connery's first public school parent-teacher conference last night, and the three of us--Chip, Connery's teacher, and I--ended up talking a lot more about systemic failings than we did about Connery's actual performance. For a variety of reasons--excellent preschool preparation, natural curiosity, accidents of birthdate--Connery is not your typical Kindergartener, as I know I've mentioned on these pages before.

What we didn't realize until all the tests came back was how far ahead he is from a skills standpoint. He is reading at an upper second grade level and his math skills are already far above every Kindergarten benchmark. He is remarkably interested in higher level concepts (like algebra) and reasoning (like chess). I realize that this probably sounds like I'm bragging--and I guess I am--but that's not my point. My point is that he is not being served in his current environment. His teacher is concerned because she knows what his skills are and knows that her classroom is not the best place for him, but she is unsure how to help him when the system at large is set up against kids on the extremes.

In our attempts to get him some accommodation, we have been heard some amazing things: that the problem is not the system but that he shouldn't have been taught to read so early and so well, that if we advance him now, we will have no way to help him in the future, that there is just no money for "luxuries" like gifted education, even though having a gifted program is a state requirement for accreditation. I have spoken to the Office of Public Instruction. I have spoken to educational professionals in other districts. And I have now promised to pursue some grant funding opportunities to initiate a gifted program at Connery's school. But I know how the wheels turn. Even if I were to help secure funding, nothing would be likely to change until long after Connery needs it. That's frustrating.

I confess that I have always thought that parents in Montana who choose to put their kids in private schools or to homeschool were a little deluded. Montana's public schools are known to be some of the best in the country, and there are few questions of safety like those you would find in an urban setting. (A friend of mine from a large California city had to put his son in private school after researching the public school to which his son had been assigned and finding that there had been 15 murders within a three-block radius of the school in the past year. Not really a question there.) And I still believe that Montana public schools are good. But they have changed since I was a student in Great Falls many years ago. Money is tighter. Teachers have much less flexibility. Instruction is, by necessity, based on helping kids pass standardized tests, which severly downgrades instruction in critical thinking and other skills incapable of being measured by a Scantron sheet.

Given the requirements that private schools and homeschools must meet in Montana--very few--I'm not at all saying that they are a better option. But I guess I understand how in some cases they might meet individual needs better. Connery's preschool and Kindergarten years at Montessori Island School were marked by rapid development and joy in learning, as well as some remarkable instruction. I'm not at all sure that we shouldn't have kept him there--if money were no object, which it obviously is for us as it is for most families. It's disheartening to feel as if he is not working to his potential. I guess only time will tell whether it makes a difference or if we can fill the gaps at home.

Give me an "A"!

When I was growing up, I was nerdy enough to really look forward to report card days. (*cough* *Hermione Granger!* *cough*) Still, even though I was always relatively certain what grades I would find, I never stopped being nervous when I opened the little sleeve. Even in college I would hold my breath until I saw what was inside. Imagine my surprise to find myself feeling the exact same way when Connery came home with his first report card yesterday. I didn't want to breathe before reading it! As it turned out, it was a great report card, and we discussed it with him before dinner, giving him praise and encouragement. Then we got him some ice cream.

I remember getting some report card "presents", but I also know that the idea of rewarding kids for good grades is controversial. The good grade should be its own reward, or so the argument goes. The counter-argument, I presume, is something about good grades being worthwhile regardless of the motivation. I fall in the middle, I guess, just as I do on most parenting controversies. (Me? Wishy washy? Absolutely, when it comes to these kinds of things.) I have already seen that Connery is motivated to do well in school, and I don't have a problem giving him a little something extra for working hard. I'm probably not going to be the kind of parent who pays my kids for "A" grades, but I don't think Dairy Queen is out of line.

What about you? Do you reward your kids for good grades? Were you rewarded?

Not my words

I'm stunned that Maine has turned out to be not a place where people live and let live but somewhere that people sit in judgment on others' relationships. For all my sadness about this outcome, however, I am still just a straight person stewing in my own privilege to love and marry the person I wanted to, to have children with him without fear of having them taken from one of us, to be at his side in a time of need (or have him at mine) with no questions asked. The best I can ever hope is to be a good ally, and I can't speak for anyone other than myself.

For some thoughts from someone personally affected by the small-mindedness of others, I want to offer the "blessing" that Jack, a longtime friend of Chip's who has also become my friend, posted on Facebook. I have reposted it here with his permission.

A Word to Opponents of Gay Marriage

May you all be blessed to know and love a gay person, perhaps a sibling, a cousin, or child of yours.
May you all be blessed to have the strength of character to admit that your votes have harmed a person you love, and beg that person's forgiveness.
May you be blessed to receive that forgiveness.
May you be blessed to work to change your world for the better when your eyes have finally opened.

Jack did a reading at our wedding 11 years ago, and he and his husband, Johnathan, both sang at that celebration. They were married last year just before California voters approved Proposition 8, leaving them in a bizarre legal limbo. They have been together as a couple for almost the exact same amount of time that Chip and I have. It is unbelievable to me that "majority rules" can be applied to the civil rights of the two of them and of other couples like them.

Shame on Maine. I can only hope that in the not-so-distant future, people will look back at this chapter of our history as we do at the anti-miscegenation laws of the past--with contempt and disbelief.

Edited to add, quoting Melissa McEwan at Comment is Free:

John Rogers once noted that "when the Supreme Court struck down the bans against interracial marriage in [1967] through [Loving v. Virginia], 72% of Americans were against interracial marriage. As a matter of fact, approval of interracial marriage in the US didn't cross the positive threshold until – sweet God – 1991".

That's exactly 30 years after our current president was born to an interracial couple.

Election day

It just doesn't match last year's epic battle, but today's elections are still important in some places. Here in Livingston, a triumvirate of astroturf-y right-wing candidates are seeking city commission seats, making a trip to the polls a necessity. In Washington and Maine, voters have the privilege of voting on other people's civil rights, which really defies belief. I can only hope that our friends on the extremes of each coast vote the right way. I can only imagine what it would be like to be waiting for a vote to decide if the primary relationship in my life was worthy of societal recognition.

In Maine, one of the best examples of actual changing mores came from World War II veteran Phillip Spooner who spoke movingly of his gay son and the importance of equality:

If you haven't watched this yet, I defy you to do so and not tear up. Let's face it, folks, if an 86-year-old man is defending gay marriage, we are not exactly talking about a cutting-edge issue anymore. It's not radical, the idea of people being able to love and form lifelong bonds with whomever they choose. It's simple fairness and equality. Let's hope the voters of Maine and Washington stand up for that.

In other election news, the whole day is being billed as a giant referendum on the Obama presidency, as if we will be able to tell definitively after today whether he's totally failed or maybe has a chance to not fail until a couple of years from now. When this line from an NPR report woke me up this morning, it was all I could do not to scream: "Congressional Republicans voted almost unanimously against the stimulus package, and they're quick to pounce each time new job losses are reported."

Quick to pounce? Quick to pounce? Boy, I'm glad somebody is enjoying the American workers' darkest hour. You know, I hated the Bush presidency with a fiery passion, but I never let that spill over into wishing for people to lose their jobs or get killed in wars just to prove a political point. And they say the "liberal elites" are anti-American? Please. All of the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs out there are making no secret of wanting Obama to fail, and how exactly does that benefit the country?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an election to vote in. I'm going to take my son to the polls so that he can see some small-town democracy in action.

You say lost, I say misplaced

I love the library. I also hate the library.

We are blessed here in Livingston with a wonderful library--one of the original Carnegie libraries, built in 1904:

"There were only a few public libraries in the world in 1881 when Andrew Carnegie began to promote the establishment of free public libraries to make a means of self-education available to the nation’s changing workforce. He eventually spent over $56 million to build 2,509 libraries throughout the English-speaking world."

So thank you, Andrew Carnegie, whose name was in my youth pronounced CAR-nuh-ghee but has now morphed to car-NAY-ghee for no reason I can discern.

The Livingston library opened a very nice new addition shortly after we moved here, and we have wiled away many an hour in its children's room. Unfortunately, I have also spent many unhappy hours wondering where in the hell a book that we checked out has disappeared to. Most recently we have weathered the disappearance of an Eric Carle book that we checked out for Emerson. I suspect she has hidden it to prevent our returning it. Frankly, I didn't think it was that good. The character development was weak and the surprise ending? Well, let's just say that O. Henry would not have been impressed. But she loved it, we lost it, and now we will end up buying a new copy for the library.

I have been reminded of this parental failing each and every morning via a new library service whereby they send you a helpful email reminder. "ITEM OVERDUE!" the email subject line reads, and I sink lower in my chair and hit the delete button as fast as I can.

I try to be a responsible library consumer. I really do. And in my life I've only ever had to buy one book for a library because I lost it. But that's mainly dumb luck. One day I came upstairs to the checkout desk to find two librarians talking about the tragedy of a book that had been found facedown in the gutter. It was a children's book about ducks. "Who would do such a thing?" I thought to myself. "Probably teenagers attacking some defenseless child for his lunch money." Turned out  that the last person to check out the book was...me. It had fallen out of my stroller when I was packing it up and heading home. I tried to kill the duckie book. They've never really looked at me the same way.

My cred was not at all enhanced when I showed up a couple of months back to pay for a book that Connery had checked out that I was sure I had lost. "Nope," the same librarian said. "Someone turned that in after it was left at a coffee shop." *ulp* Nice work, mom.

And just as I was finishing up this post? Chip bounded in to the office holding that Eric Carle book. It had been buried under some suitcases in our bedroom. All's well that ends well or just another reason why I should stick to reading books at the library? Could be difficult with the novels, but it's probably safer.

Halloween (NaBloPoMo Post 1)

Although I've been tempted before, I've never actually taken the National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) challenge. This year, that all changes:

So that means I'll be doing my level best to get in here every day in November, even when I'd rather be watching cheesy TV, to spout off about all thing Livingstonian. This morning I can direct you to Lynn Weaver's unparalleled LIvingston 365 site, where the talented Ms. W. has been taking and posting a different photo of Livingston every day this year. For Halloween, she captured the unbelievable Halloween costume of Chad Petrulis, owner of Chadz coffee house downtown. For all of you out there who think you had an elaborate or creative costume, well, you might have, but you didn't beat Chad.

My costume? Well, I continued my streak by going as a slightly harried, 30-something mother of two. It's scary because it's so realistic.

Honestly, I admire the people who go all-out for Halloween, but I'm just not into it--for myself. (I love dressing my kids up and decorating the house!) Maybe it's because costuming my body is not the easiest thing, or because I resent the tenor of some costumes but I think much of it has to do with my fuddy-duddy feeling that Halloween is for kids.

I'm the grown-up grousing because there is a gaggle of 16-year-old barely costumed boys on my porch shaking me down for candy. I'll smile like crazy and act scared for the tiny vampires and Buzz Lightyears and even the slightly older kids, but once they hit 13 or 14, they're cut off (in my head--I mean, I always give them the damn candy). Older than that and they're likely to be tempted to grab my son's jack o'lantern and smash it on the sidewalk or throw eggs at our cars or do other not-funny-at-all "tricks." I'm not quite sure when I became the crazy old lady yelling at "those damn kids!" but there you go. It's all part of my very convincing costume.

Happy Halloween and happier November, everyone! Here's a bonus shot of my kids, who went as a ninja and a devil. Appropriate somehow: