rivka

This year at SUUSI, instead of taking a bunch of different short workshops and nature trips as I've always done before, I focused all my programming time on one workshop which met every day. For two hours every morning, regardless of what else was going on - and a lot else was going on - I immersed myself in bookbinding.

It was a wonderful experience.

We made three books in five days. The first day, we built very simple sewn pamphlets using materials our instructor had pre-cut for us. It was an easy project, but still exciting to make a real book. The second book took most of us two full days and was considerably more complex, and the third book was even more technically involved. I never would have imagined, on Monday, what I would have learned to make by Friday.

Our instructor teaches university-level business classes. Bookbinding, paper marbling, and papermaking are just her hobbies. Every morning she set up a complete workshop in a dorm study room, fully outfitted with tools, reference books, and examples of handmade books. Every afternoon she dismantled it, even removing the tables, so that a meditation class could meet in the same room in the afternoon. She was dedicated. She was also incredibly good at breaking down complex tasks into small, easily understandable steps; without that skill, I don't think her undeniable artistic talent would have taken us very far.

Here are pictures of my three books. I'll put most of the pictures and all the detailed description under cuts, because otherwise this post would be enormous.

Simple sewn pamphlet.

( more about the first book )

Game board book.

( more about the second book )

Coptic bound book.

( more about the third book )

I am clearly very much a beginner, and yet I am so proud and satisfied of these books I made. Our instructor did such a great job of choosing projects and leading us through them. I liked that we learned precise techniques, but also had a lot of flexibility and creative opportunities with the design. I doubt I'll do more bookbinding - I don't have time for my current hobbies, let alone a new one - but it was an immensely satisfying way of spending ten hours at SUUSI.

SUUSI actually got better for a while in the middle, after I wrote my last post. But you're not going to hear about that, because what happened at the end overshadowed everything for our family.

( everyone is physically okay, kids are fine, Michael and I are upset )

( cathartic whining )

The one saving grace in all of this - besides my friends, who are awesome as usual - is that I am taking an absolutely wonderful morning workshop in bookbinding. So far we've made one small and simple softcover book and are partway through a wonderfully more complex version with hard covers hinged with cloth. Our teacher has promised that we will each make at least three books - maybe four if we're fast workers. I'll post pictures of everything at the end. I am loving it SO MUCH. It's fun and exciting and so very satisfying to see something beautiful come together. I am amazed that I can do this! Our workshop leader is awesome - not just incredibly skilled at making book art, but incredibly skilled at explaining procedures in a clear and detailed fashion.

Must remember I don't have the time and energy for a new hobby. Or my old hobbies, actually.

Colin came running into the kitchen, drawn by the scent of frying pork chops.

"Meat! Meat!" he said, pointing up at the pan.

"Yes, I'm cooking meat."

He circled his hand on his chest and reinforced the ASL sign with the same word in English. "Please?"

He was crushed when I failed to reach right into the sizzling fat to pull one out for him.

1. Colin puts Alex's ponytail holders on his wrists or, sometimes, his ankles. Then he walks around displaying them to people and saying, "Pretty! Pretty!" If you tell him that yes, he is pretty, he will beam like it's his birthday.

2. He tucks humanoid toys under his chin and says "Awwwww..." in a baby-cuddling voice. The tinier and more incongruous the toy, the more adorable this is; it is pretty cute when he does it with his baby doll, and damn near fatal when it is a three-inch firefighter in full regalia.

3. He stands up on a chair, makes eye contact with the closest adult, shakes his hand in an admonitory fashion, and says sternly, "Get! Down!" Then, softly and sweetly: "Tank oo!" No actual sitting-down occurs in the course of this ritual, but he always thanks himself anyway.

4. He opens up one of the kitchen cabinets and removes its contents of paper towels. Then he uses the cabinet as a seat. It is exactly the right size.

There have been a few requests to post the entire text of the sermon I gave today. There are changes from the various pieces I posted, but probably nothing earth-shaking.

( it's pretty long, y'all. )

The service went really well. At five minutes before the hour, there were only about 35 people present, and I felt disappointed. But by the time the prelude and call to worship were over every seat was filled and there were a couple of people sitting on the floor. (This was just the Parish Hall, so it was probably about 60-70 people - not the 300 it would take to fill the sanctuary).

I felt as though the readings and hymns I chose worked well. Hymns might actually sound better in the Parish Hall, where they don't get swallowed up by the immense barrel ceiling - but also I tried to choose hymns that were quite familiar so people would be more comfortable singing out. (For fellow UUs: we sang "There's a River Flowin' in My Soul," "Gather the Spirit," "Blessed Spirit of My Life," and "We'll Build a Land.")

I was nervous beforehand, but not at all nervous once I started to give the sermon. Michael only had to signal me to slow down once.

When it was time to introduce visitors, it turned out that the Final Exit Network guy didn't bring anyone to church after all, so all my worries about that were groundless. Many thanks to

zeldajean,

selki, and

wcg, who were visitors on my behalf, as well as the home crowd:

curiousangel,

acceberskoorb, and

telerib. I felt very supported.

After church, a number of people came up to tell me how much they appreciated what I had to say. I talked to someone who had been a hospice chaplain for twelve years and, oh my gosh, a woman whose adult son committed suicide three months ago and who wanted to ask my advice about her grandson. Several people asked me to send them the text. Several other people told me, more neutrally, that I had given them a lot to think about.

In the talkback afterward, Final Exit Guy told the group that, far from thinking he was on opposite sides from me, he thought I sounded just like a representative of his organization. Because - and he had written this down - at one point I said "everyone has a right to make their own decision." That was apparently all he heard.

A range of opinions were represented. For much of the talkback we discussed making choices about when to stop treatment, and personal and medical factors affecting those decisions. We got more into questions of suicide towards the end - maybe because that's such a more vulnerable issue. Interest was expressed in an adult RE class on end-of-life issues, which I think would be excellent.

I don't know if I changed any minds today. I do think that I complicated the issue for some people who thought it wasn't that complicated before, which may be all I can hope for. And I know that it was very helpful for people who were already leaning toward my point of view.

Scene: Colin's bedroom at bedtime. Soft lullabies are on the CD player. The room is dark. We are rocking in the rocking chair, nursing. Colin appears to be almost asleep. Suddenly he pulls away and points off in the distance.

Colin: AIRPLANE!!
Me: That's right, Colin rode on an airplane.
Colin: Yes!
Colin: nurses some more.
Colin: pulls off again. Bus! A bus!
Me: Yes, you also rode on a bus.
Colin: Airplane!
Me: That was really exciting.
Colin: Yes!

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

We've been home from our trip for more than three days and he still can't stop talking about it - to the extent that his limited vocabulary allows. Because THERE WERE AIRPLANES.

Edited to add: Just had another conversation with my son.

Colin: See-see! See-see! (this is his word for nursing)
Me: You want see-sees?
Colin: bends down and picks up a marker. Marker!
Me: You want a marker while you nurse?!
Colin: Please.

So. My service is this Sunday. I drove by the church yesterday and my name was on the sign out front, the one with the slide-in letters. Holy cow.

If you're in or near the Baltimore area and you'd like to attend, the service will be held at 10am (not 11, if you've been to our church before) at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore. The church is at the corner of Charles and Franklin Streets, and there is free parking on Sunday mornings in the garage across Franklin Street from the church. The service will actually be held in the Parish Hall, which is on Charles Street behind the main church building.

The service will be followed by coffee hour (the only UU sacrament) and then, at 11:45, by a post-sermon discussion moderated by someone who is not me, in which I fully expect to wind up in a fistfight with members of the Final Exit Network.

My minister said very nice things about the sermon draft, but man am I ever terrified.

I've put the last portion of my argument (following this one) under the cut. This is the part where I try to undercut the false dichotomy which says that we either leave people to suffer under the current broken system of care for the dying, or we help them kill themselves.

( Read more... )

Yesterday it was 105 degrees in Baltimore. Today's high was 104. At nearly midnight, it's cooled down to 96 degrees.

It's hot.

But really it goes beyond hot. It's punishing. We live in an elderly three-story brick rowhouse without central air. When we turn on the cold tap, the water trickles out at blood temperature. When I hold the banister coming downstairs, my hand comes away hot. The hardwood floors soak up the heat and radiate it unpleasantly to our feet. The rooms we air condition - the living room during the day, the study in the evening, the bedrooms at night - eventually become tolerable, but when we step out into the hall the heat immediately encloses and stifles us. It is tangible, like being slapped in the face by cotton candy.

The kitchen becomes intolerable after ten in the morning. Cooking is barely to be thought of. No one is hungry except Colin, anyway.

It is hard to drink enough to keep up with the fluid loss. Nothing is cold enough for me. I drink down a pint of water and still feel thirsty.

Last night, without warning, we lost power to almost half the house. A strange assortment: our bedroom had lights but no AC. Our bathroom and hall had no lights, but Colin's room, also on the third floor, had lights and AC. The study, lights but no AC and no power to our computer network. No lights in the kitchen, pantry, Alex's bathroom. Alex's room had AC and the ceiling light but no night light.

Michael spent an hour or more trying to track down the problem. None of the breakers appeared to have been tripped. Fiddling with them produced no effect. We finally dragged the futon from the playroom into the living room, which still had AC, and slept on the floor there.

This morning the landlord's handyman got the power back on in 15 seconds. It turns out that we have two breaker boxes in the basement, in two different rooms. Michael knew the location of one of them and I knew the location of the other. Neither one of us knew that there were two.

Even with all our AC units available, it is still ungodly hot. We have to be stingy about how we run them, because of the power overload. Also they are not very efficient, and the house is not well-insulated, and the rooms which don't have AC units are vast reservoirs of intolerable heat and humidity.

Alex was up past 11 tonight. She complains that her throat is scratchy and dry, but I think it's just too damn hot to sleep.

How's the weather by you?

Meg Barnhouse breaks my heart and lifts me up with just about everything she writes. She's got a piece in the UU World this week called "Broken Buddha." I am particularly fond of this line:

The part of me I’m least proud of imagines that this Buddha’s hand detached when he reached out to someone who said something on the order of “Everything happens the way it should” and slapped them silly.

...but you should go read the whole thing.

The second Sunday of the month there is a talk-back/theological discussion after the service.

I am preaching on the second Sunday of July.

AUUUUUGH. This was going to be scary enough already!

I feel queasy every time I log in to eRA Commons, the NIH electronic research administration website.

I am waiting to find out when the study section will meet to peer-review my grant application. I was expecting them to meet in July; for AIDS proposals, which are on an expedited review cycle, the study section usually meets two months after the applications are due. But here it is June 30th, and the date of the study section meeting hasn't even been posted yet. (That's what I keep logging in to check.) So we might be talking about August instead.

I've written before about how peer review works for NIH grants. It's hard to exaggerate the stakes this time. My proposal is a resubmission of the proposal I submitted in January. This is my last chance to get this proposal funded. If it doesn't make the cut, I'll need to start over with a whole new idea.

I am not sure how long my institution would continue to keep me around if that happened. I am in a "soft money" position - required to bring in grants to cover my salary. If my grant gets passed over, which is what happens to most grants, I'll be in a very precarious position.

I am waiting for them to post the date of the study section meeting. Then I'll wait until the meeting happens. A few days after that, my score will be posted and I will probably know what I need to know. There will still be exciting waiting after that; the NIMH Council meets to discuss the reviewed grants and pick those to be funded according to their own priorities. Those priorities can sometimes be mysterious. But my score itself will say a lot, and after I get my score and summary statement I can call my NIMH Project Officer.

So every time I log in to eRA Commons I feel queasy. I keep expecting to log on, hit "status," select my proposal title, and see the word UNSCORED. Total washout. Even though I know that my reviewers haven't even met yet, that's the image in my head every single time I log in.

Why do they keep screwing around with the livejournal.com main page? I used to see my most recent comments right at the top. Why am I now seeing a bunch of celebrity gossip news?

More of my argument about assisted suicide follows. This part is really long, so I'm putting it behind a cut tag. This is also the part that needs the most work, [N.B.: Michael says no, it's the last section (not posted yet) that needs the most work. So watch for something worse than this.] because I'm not used to making religious arguments - there are so few contexts in which they are appropriate. (Of course, a sermon would be one of them.)

Opinions and argument continue to be welcome.

( Read more... )

I am sooo overdue for a developmental update on Colin. I guess that's what happens when your ceiling falls in, you start homeschooling, and you have a sermon to write.

Anyway: Colin is sixteen and a half months old.

When I last updated, he had about a half-dozen words. Now he has more words than we can count, and new ones pop up all the time. He says giraffe and shower and outside and thank you and Rebecca and all clean and grapes and glasses. He says Ashes, ashes, a down when we play Ring Around the Rosy. He knows a couple dozen signs, although he only regularly uses a few: more (which he also uses for again), all done, bath, cracker, socks. He isn't putting two words together yet (things like "all done" don't count because they're set phrases), but he can certainly make himself understood.

He is probably the first toddler in human history to learn yes before no. I guess if any toddler did it, it would be Colin, Mr. Agreeable McEasygoing. We ask him a lot of questions, and when we get something right he beams at us and says "yesss."

Conversation with my son:
Colin: (climbs onto my desk chair and stands up, then shakes his finger in an admonitory fashion.) Down! A Down!
Me: Sit down, Colin.
Colin: (beams at me, sits down).
Me: Are you the goofiest boy in the world?
Colin: Yes!

He tries to throw tantrums. They are pretty sorry. He casts himself on the ground and sort of reclines on one elbow so that he can still see you and tell whether you are reacting to him, and wails unconvincingly. He can't really hide his sunny nature for long.

He does know when he's being shabbily treated, though. For example: someone reading to Alex. Clearly being read to is for Colin, and Colin only. He's been known to slam her books shut, say "All done!", and substitute a book of his own. If he brings me a book of his and I don't stop reading to her immediately, he brings another book and another, as if he's sure that I will give up on Alex if he only tempts me with the right selection.

Colin loves: Books, again and again, especially if they have babies or animals in them. Balls of every description. Keys, not to shake the way a baby does but to insert hopefully in locks. Dogs and ducks, in real life and in pictures. Michael, with the fire of a thousand suns. After Michael leaves for work in the morning, Colin stands by the door calling and calling for him. When Michael returns, Colin catapults into his arms and snuggles in deep. Michael is everything right now.

He likes to look around the family circle, pointing and naming each of us in turn. I remember Alex going through the same stage. "Daddy! Mama! Alex! Colin! Daddy! Mama! Alex! Colin!" When we're out in public and a stranger comes within our orbit, Colin makes eye contact with them, points to me, and says firmly: "Mama." Don't get any ideas - I'm with her.

He eats well for a toddler, with a particular preference for meat and fruit. He likes to use a fork and spoon. Nursing (Colin calls it see, I think because I say nursie) is still going strong. I do see why people find toddler nursing annoying; Colin is big on gymnastics, and this morning while I was lying in bed, staying actively latched on the whole time, he first stood in a tripod pose and then started climbing up my body until he was sort of standing on my side and leaning way over to nurse. On the other hand, there are compensations. When he was an infant, although he loved to nurse, at the same time it did seem like nursing was just sort of there to him - something he took for granted. Now when I pick him up and turn him sideways he gets a sweet and excited smile of anticipation. So that is rewarding.

Colin is adventurous in a way that Alex was not. He's the type to pull out a dining room chair, climb up on the table, and brandish a knife that was left on a cutting board. At one point he found our spare housekey, pulled a chair over to the front door, and did his damnedest to insert the key into the lock and open the door.

For all that he terrifies me, he is such a fun and sweet little boy. If he only slept through the night, I'd be ready for a half-dozen more just like this one.

My sermon draft is already 2000 words long and I'm just developing the religious theme now. I've decided to carry it through to the end and then make drastic cuts, instead of trying to shorten it as I go. There's a lot that I know and believe and think that doesn't need to make it into the sermon. I'm pretty sure I'll have to get all of it said before I can figure out which pieces are sermon-shaped.

I'm going to keep posting bits. Feel free to disagree or ask questions or, you know, flounder with the issue; it helps me formulate my thoughts. At this point it's probably not useful to tell me what you think I should leave out or to comment on matters of style. I'm not there yet. I'm just getting it all out.

( Read more... )

I dreamed this morning that I had organized some kind of complicated outdoor fair at my church. It was being held on Sunday morning before the service. Everything went well until, as I was cleaning up afterward, the head of the Worship Committee leaned close to me and whispered,

"It's not going well in there."

In a series of crashing realizations, I remembered that:
(1) This was the Sunday I was supposed to be preaching.
(2) The service had already started, and I wasn't in there.
(3) I hadn't even thought about what to do for all the non-sermon portions of the service.
(4) I HAD LEFT MY SERMON AT HOME because I was so preoccupied with the fair.

I frantically sorted through various options in my mind while she looked increasingly horrified: could I give the sermon from memory? Did I have time to run home or send Michael home? What was going on in the sanctuary, if I wasn't there?

Then my sanity reasserted itself and I looked at the head of the Worship Committee firmly: "There is no way I would have signed up to do the fair on the same day that I was preaching. This cannot be my day."

Without a hitch she started telling me that the person giving the service had almost no audience and was really upset about it. Instead of panicking over how badly I had screwed up, all I had to feel was vaguely guilty that I wasn't in there being supportive. Then I hopped on a carnival ride and it carried me home.

At the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, you can pay $2 for a small leafy branch to feed the giraffes. And it is so totally worth it. We were close enough to make out the individual hairs on the giraffe's head. It was so cool.

This was Colin's first trip to the zoo since he was old enough to recognize animals. He was very excited. I wish I'd gotten a picture of him crouched next to a mesh fence with a crane crouched close to him on the other side, as they squawked companionably at each other.

He was impressed by the snowy owls, the giraffes, the chimps, and the elephants. ("Eleph! Eleph!" Who knew he knew that word?)

Yesterday I suddenly found myself barely able to walk. That was strange.

I had some twinges in my hip (the artificial one; or rather, the flesh and bone around the artificial one, given that the titanium parts can't feel anything) yesterday afternoon. It didn't surprise me because thunderstorms were predicted, and I often have some pain with changes in the weather.

But then, without warning, in the evening I couldn't put enough weight on that leg to walk normally. There wasn't the intense pain I would have had before the hip was replaced. Instead there was an overpowering feeling of weakness. I lurched all over the place when I tried to walk. It felt, I don't know, like it might feel if you tried to walk on your elbow: it's not agonizing, but there's simply no fucking way it's going to work, because your elbow was not meant to hold your weight.

I can't even describe how surreal it is to have something go wrong like that without it hurting a lot. Of course I did feel some pain: below the artificial joint at the top back of the femur, and at the inside edge of the pelvis. It was noticeable, but pretty minor stuff. It's strange to be reminded again, so strongly, that the parts of my body that hurt me for years are simply gone.

When we got home I took some naproxen and got out my cane, and with the help of those two things I was pretty much fine. Today I feel fine - a little sore in the same places, and disinclined to run a marathon, but fine. I am limping, but not more than usual.

I am thinking, though, that I might have just gotten a postcard from my future. I have always known that my artificial hip will only be good for so long. They promised me 15-20 years, which seemed like forever when I got the surgery at age 23. Now I'm 36 and my artificial hip is 13 years old. Is this what they feel like when they're starting to wear out? I wonder.

This might have been just one of those weird things that happens, and a sign that I need to unearth my old physical therapy exercises and get to work strengthening the muscles around the artificial joint. Or maybe this is the beginning of a decline in my mobility, heading towards a second hip replacement.

I try to think about how that would look. I am really remarkably functional and mobile for someone who used to have such severe arthritis. I would have a long way to fall before things got objectively bad. I could take anti-inflammatories regularly again, for example, or use a cane outside the house, or both, and those things would buy me a lot more time. I wouldn't want to have surgery again before Colin is at least three. I'd also need to time it around my planned future submission of an R01 grant.

My weird little episode yesterday might not have anything to do with my future. I do know that. But even if it was just a glitch that doesn't repeat, it reminded me that my hip will wear out someday, and that I am approaching the range I was quoted.

Which is a very strange thing.

Profile

rivka

April 2017

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Blue for Motion by syntheid
Resources: Wordpress Motion

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Feb. 28th, 2026 06:32 am

Recent Entries

I made some books.

How SUUSI ended.

So Rivka, how's that vacation you look forward to all year?

His father's son.

Four habits of insanely cute toddlers.

Massive wall of text.

I survived!

Conversations with my son.

Last sermon prep.

(no subject)

(no subject)

AUGH.

(no subject)

(no subject)

A sermon has religious stuff in it (Sermon prep III).

Developmental update, a little on the late side.

More sermon prep.

Stress dream.

Guess what we did today?

(no subject)

Profile

April 2017

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags