The Menagerie

Reviews

There probably won't be any opera reviews this season -- I may try to get to Aida in the spring, but I didn't subscribe.  One of the reasons I love opera is the connection with the historical, and I'm put off with the number of avant-garde (or would be) productions. Also, there are no more opening Saturdays, just opening Fridays.  Ugh. 

I'm so opinionated, though, I couldn't help myself but review other things in my life, so here's a smattering of my recent diversions. 

Wives and Daughters (DVD).  I enjoyed North and South (the book) and bought Wives and Daughters (the book) in the hopes I'd get around to reading it.  I didn't, but I also had the DVD set, so over the course of a couple of nights, when I was feeding Eden, I watched all 300 minutes.   

There's no unifying theme to it, say like Pride and Prejudice, but it has a similar classic chick lit appeal.  In a nutshell, a young woman  gets an evil stepmother and a scheming but charming stepsister, and there are love interests and secrets and missteps along the way.  It's Elizabeth Gaskell, which means it's on the syrupy side (none of the biting social commentary of Austen - Gaskell is kinder and gentler), but for all that, I enjoyed it.  Eden seemed to.   A

How Doctors Think.  I've been wanting to read this for months, ever since I heard an interview with the author on some NPR show (Fresh Air, maybe) and I read the first chapter online.  I heartily recommend it to anyone who, like me, is spending a god-awful amount of time with specialists and having dozens of tests performed.  It's somewhat chilling -- I didn't really want to know just how often radiologists screw up -- but very practical.  For example, "I'd like to see X sooner -- maybe in two weeks instead of four weeks," is pediatrician talk for, "I'm quite concerned about your child, but am using soothing and neutral language so you don't get alarmed."   (And now I'm not annoyed that the doctor doesn't want to see Eden very much -- the first month she was followed closely, but now we just go in every couple of months, like normal.  It had bothered me, but no more!)   A-

Intervention.  I watched this show on A&E yesterday.  I don't go in for reality
TV (other than "Who Wants to be a Superhero" - at least the first run), but it was on and I was interested.  I watched an episode with a narcotics drug user and an episode featuring a woman with a severe eating disorder.  The narcotics boy was sad and predictable.  The eating disorder girl bugged the hell out of me -- whiny and insecure and bitchy.  I couldn't stand to watch it to the end of the episode -- hopefully someone put her on an SSRI.  C+

Das Leben Der Anderen.  I'd been wanting to see this since it first came to Portland, but life interfered.  Finally out on DVD, Matthew and I got it through Netflix.  It was fascinating for a number of reasons - for one, I really enjoyed seeing Matthew go down memory lane (his father was Army Intelligence in W. Germany and they lived there during the 70s).  Second, the similarities of the Stasi then to the American intelligence complex today - well, it was impossible not to draw the comparison.  Third, it's simply a damn good film.  Fourth, I studied German for five years, and enjoy any opportunity to listen to it spoken. 

And finally, it was the most upbeat German drama I have ever seen.  Only two suicides! Das Happy-End, indeed.  A

The Blighted Cliffs: Book One of the Reluctant Adventures of Lt. Martin Jerrold.   I'm usually pretty skeptical of age of sail naval fiction.  For one, I'm a detail freak when it comes to both historical fiction and the age of sail, and an error or two will ruin a book.  Also, I'm familiar with the lives of "real" naval heroes of the era, and can't stand it when events in those lives are blatantly ripped off and called fiction.  My experience has usually been that if the details are right, the novel is dry and dull, or if the writing is good, the details are spotty.  I don't bother most of the time. 

This series -- written by someone younger than I, which I found disconcerting but cool --  was different.  For one, there's humor.  For another, the hero is a scapegrace.  There are some weaknesses -- I felt the author tried too hard with some of the humor (a bit too Fry and Laurie), the female characters were  two-dimensional, and I wasn't entirely happy with the way the hero interacted with those female characters.  But the story was compelling and historically accurate, and most of the characters were intriguing.  I'm hoping the weaknesses are resolved in later books.  B+

Eureka.  Matthew and I have been following Eureka from the beginning, but it's declined this past season.  Our take is that the show went from quirky to grand far too quickly, and once a show has gone there, well, there's no going back. The same two scientists work on whatever random problem appears, in every episode, while good ol' Sheriff Carter (with his 111 IQ) always suggests some folksy remedy that the two brilliant scientists somehow managed to overlook, but is always the key to the problem.  B-

House.  The first episode of the season was lame.  I can't believe I'm dissing a House episode, but there it is. Who cares if he "needs" his team or not?   I'm not sure why the writers keep belaboring this issue, but just get them back ASAP. (Last season's opener completely dispensed with the previous finale with little to no denouement - annoying at the time, but this time it was like watching that eating disorder girl on A&E.)  C 

Scrubs.  Matthew and I have recently watched the first two seasons.  Entertaining, quirky, but am I the only person in the world who doesn't like Zach Braff?  The guy bugs me. We watch it for the secondary characters. B+ 

Life and Work

As flexible as my work "days" are -- basically, two guaranteed days a week, most of the weekends, and then catch-as-catch-can, I still can't believe how hard it is to balance having a baby with the rest of my life.  In some ways, I think it would be a lot easier if I had a job to go to every day.  (Although here, the interruptions by Eden are much more pleasant than the interruptions by coworkers probably would be...and I'd be dealing with about the same amount of sh*t.)

Today was a rough one.  She was up at 2 and didn't really want to be fed, just played with.  (In fact, she spit up spectacularly when I tried to feed her -- I could have charged admission.)  She gooed and cooed and smiled and giggled, while I grumpily went through the motions of changing, feeding, burping, feeding, changing and back to bed.  I felt guilty...but then I was asleep and she was asleep and all was well again. 

Up again after Matthew left (6:30ish) and we had a lot of fun -- playing and gooing and cooing and smiling and giggling.  She almost rolled over from her stomach to her back, but she hasn't quite figured out how to get her arm out of the way yet. 

But although she became tired, there was no rest - I'd put her in her swing, and she'd spitup (and cry), or poop (and cry) or the dog would bark (and she'd cry).  Finally, after 2, she went down for her nap.  And I feel so worn out -- when all I did was work in bits around playing with her and taking care of her.  Wild. 

My Tuesday Pity Party

It would have been a Monday pity party, but it's taken me this long to get around to writing this post. If you're as time-strapped as I am, this post can be summed up as: Having a baby is hard. Working at home with said baby is hard. And my house is a mess because I'm working and taking care of a baby.

Now the long version:

The hardest bit about working from home with the baby is that I can't go long at all without interruption. Pretty much as soon as I hit a groove, the Peach need something and I have to drop whatever legal *thing* it is I'm doing. If it's something like a letter, it's not a big problem. But when I'm in the middle of researching or writing, interruption can really throw me off. And the busier I am, the more she seems to need attention.

Right now, I have help on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Matthew is generally in charge for a feeding or two in the evenings and on the weekends, but the rest of the time, it's all me. So...basically figure that for 16 hours each week, I'm absolutely guaranteed baby-free time -- but that I'm under pressure to work as hard as possible to pay for GT watching the peach and to pay back the blood suckers who put me through law school (damn you, Access Group!).

The rest of the time, I'm scrambling. Completely overwhelmed. The problem with solo and contract work is that, like law school, it can rapidly expand to fill all of your available time -- you're always aware of what still needs to be done. This means that even if I'm not working, I'm thinking about work. And there are all of the ordinary things that need to be done, which are done poorly if at all (there are a LOT of dishes in my sink and the laundry -- ach, the laundry). We're still converting the den to a nursery - and yes, it really is that big of a job -- and my garden is a disaster zone -- the Sweet Autumn clematis is climbing over the massive butterfly bush (because I never got around to pruning it last year -- oops) and making good progress on the lower limbs of the cherry tree. There are perennials in pots from the nursery, still waiting to be planted a good 6 weeks after their purchase.

The long and the short of this is that I'm tired. I haven't slept in my bed since Saturday night -- two nights ago, Eden really wanted to play (at 11 PM) but I kept falling asleep while holding her (yes, possible) and I finally gave up and put her in her swing so I could I sack out on the couch. Last night was pretty much a repeat -- she wouldn't settle down anywhere but the swing. Maybe when I was younger I could have managed this, but not now. Who knew 34 was old? Anyway, tonight I had better luck and managed to get her to go to sleep about an hour ago. And I am so tired that I just fell asleep after typing that last sentence. I am NOT exaggerating.

Time for bed. Tomorrow'll be very, very busy. Again.

Peach Updates

Today Eden had her four month checkup (never mind that she is only three and a half months old -- her pediatrician was going to be unavailable at four months).  We couldn't help ourselves and rather than let her just hang out and wait for the doctor under a blanket, we put her in the world's teeniest exam gown.* 

Matthew had a heck of a time keeping her from consuming the exam gown, though. She was more interested in eating it than wearing it. 

By way of history:

• When she was born (4.5 weeks early), Eden was in the 3> percentile for height, weight, and head circumference.  She weighed 4 lbs, 13 oz.
• At one month, Eden was still in the 3> percentile for height, weight, and head circumference.  She weighed 5 pounds 2 oz. 
• At two months, Eden had moved into the 10th percentile for height, weight and head circumference.  She weighed 6 pounds, 7 oz.

Her growth had been symmetrical, so we were expecting something roughly similar.  I had been guessing she was in the 40th percentile now, since that was where she'd been during most of my pregnancy.  Boy, were we surprised.

• 25 inches long (75th percentile)
• 16 inches head circumference (45th percentile)
• 12 pounds, 5 oz (35th percentile)**

Given the way my shoulders have started popping, I thought she weighed more than she did.  (It's funny to me that her weight is in the 5th percentile in relation to her height -- she's a long kid.)   I certainly didn't realize how long she was, and I hope she keeps taking after Matthew in that.  (He's 6'2, and his mom was 5'8; his sister is 5'8.  The tallest woman in my family is 5'4, and I'm 5'1.)

I don't think I'd much care about the percentiles or other benchmarks - she does some things faster than others and some things slower.  But because she was so tiny when she was born, with no brown fat, that we had to work hard to get enough food into her.  All that tracking of each milliliter she drank, guessing how much she spit up, counting the wet diapers, describing the poopy diapers -- it made me hyperaware of how she was growing.  (And silly as is is, I am really proud of the fact she only lost two ounces after she was born.  This is a lot like the pride I feel when I remember I kept a ferret alive when he was very ill and I had to force-feed him every four hours for months on end.  It's like a moral victory.)

In any case, we're pleased. She's healthy and happy, and a very good baby.  She doesn't like the shots, but gets over the pain as soon as the needle is out.  (Matthew is less happy that the medical assistant nicked an artery in Eden's leg, though, and we'll probably insist on a nurse administering shots in the future.) 

As for her ordinary life, Eden still loves the swing!  Here she is in action (she loves to sleep with her arms up like that):

*It had elephants, whales, and dinosaurs on it.  Matthew pointed this out to Eden, then said, "And we're only responsible for driving two of those to extinction."

**Numbers updated 9/23, because I still have no short term memory and just looked at the sheet.  Sigh.

Informal Poll

Chatting with my sister this morning, she mentioned a statistic she read in a magazine: 82% of people (er, women) iron their sheets.

I can't imagine this is correct, or if it is, that it's true among a different demographic than mine (say, in the 65 and up demo).  I was raised "properly" - and  while I technically know sheets "should" be ironed, I never take the time.  Who HAS that kind of time?  And how often do they change their sheets?!

So my question to you all - do you iron your sheets?  (Or pay someone to do it?) 

Much ado

On September 6, I had nine vials of blood drawn for tests to see if I had any thrombophilic disorders.  Two of the tests were DNA tests,to see if I had particular gene mutations.  (Essentially, the thought was that my "severe, atypical preeclampsia," combined with  Eden's low birth weight, indicated that I might have one or the other of these.)

If only I'd gotten a lottery ticket instead...

Today the perinatalogist called with the results -- two positives.  I'm heterozygous for the first, the prothombin mutation (one good copy, one mutated copy), which is a clotting issue.  I'm homozygous for a mutation involved in vascular diseases (two mutated copies).  The bottom line for me is that if I ever were to get pregnant, again, they would do all sorts of things to make sure I didn't throw a clot.  (As if the thought of having another preeclampsic pregnancy makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about going through it again, aside from the almost dying bit?)

I'll be seeing a hematologist to find out what this means for the rest of life.

For some reason, knowing this bothers me. A lot.  I'm the same person I was yesterday, with all the same risk factors, but this is one time when knowing made me feel worse than not knowing.  Yes, I'm glad the doctor ordered the tests and that I can minimize my risks in the future, but at the same time, I feel very depressed about it.

And yet, I must be making a big deal out of nothing - no one else I've told seems to think it's a big deal at all. Maybe it's not fair to expect anyone else to understand, but for some reason, it just makes me feel worse.  And maybe it isn't a big deal - it's not like I have, as someone said, ALS or leukemia. 

Anyway.  That was my Tuesday, along with forgetting I was wearing Crocs when I went to ex parte, and having so much work due Friday that my head is spinning.  And remembering I must go to OHSU for blood tests (lovely, more) tomorrow morning.  After fasting.  No caffeine. 

Excuses, Excuses

I've been neglecting you.  I'm sorry.  I wish I had something interesting to say about where I've been and what I've been up to, but I don't.  I work, I take care of Eden, and my free time is spent clearing out the den as we turn it into a nursery.  Slowly but surely, I'm de-cluttering the house.  This is nice for organization, but makes for very dull blogging.  Let's see...well, I read Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty one afternoon, then got back to the tasks at hand.  Good times, right?

The Peach is thriving. And she and Norris continue to bond: I had to run into Portland on a work thing, suddenly,yesterday.  This meant getting her up, dressed, fed and myself showered and ready to go in a very short space of time, then driving into the city, going into an office, working there (with her in her stroller or on a blanket on the office floor), then we went to Starbucks, back into the 'burbs, to the bank, to Target -- and she melted down in the car on the way home.  (Do I blame her?  Not at all.  I probably would have melted down much earlier, had it been my crisis.)

Anyway, she was hysterical by the time I rushed her upstairs and started changing her.  She was wet and tired and hungry and didn't know what to do with herself.  She did the tomato-face-tongue-flapping screaming while I changed her, and then I heard something else. 

Norris was howling.  Baying-at-the-moon sort of howling.  In the 9 years he's been with us, he had only howled once before, a lonely howl at the window right after we moved to Oregon from Nevada - in 1999.  Just the one, and as much as we tried to get him to repeat it, he wouldn't.

But for the Peach, he howled over and over and over again, mournfully and repeatedly, until the diaper change was over and she calmed down.  Then he parked himself outside the baby gate leading to the den-cum-nursery and stood watch until the feeding session was over.

Very odd. 

Wrong numbers

We've used voice-over-ip technology for years now, and for the most part it does very well.  It's portable, inexpensive, and usually not much of a hassle. 

Somewhere in the last year, Matthew switched from Vonage to Voip, though, and we've had nothing but annoyances ever since.  The Voip people have screwed up my business line (twice) and recently there have been odd service things going on -- calls will go directly to voicemail without ringing, some odd clicks on the line (hello, NSA?) and yesterday, for several hours, I would get a dial tone, dial numbers, and then...nothing.  When people called us, they'd get no rings, just...nothing.   I sent Matthew a text message yesterday afternoon that just said, "I hate voip."

This morning it got really strange, though.  I received a call from the Coffee Creek Correctional facility -- staff, not an inmate, thankfully -- about why I called them yesterday.  "I didn't," I said.  The woman replied curtly, "Everything is logged here.  Someone there called us."  I replied, "Look, I'm an attorney.  I know what Coffee Creek is.  And believe me, I didn't call you." 

She hung up on me, but it makes me wonder what exactly happened with my phone number while I wasn't getting calls yesterday.  Creepy. 

We are so switching back to Vonage. 

The dog is cruising

Just poking my head up long enough to share:

After I spent my FREE TIME this evening steam cleaning the upstairs carpets, Norris the wonder dog decided to whiz all over them. 

Lovely.

Crickets chirping

That's the sound effect on Eden's swing right now, and it's also pretty indicative of the last couple of days.  We've had our little triumphs and disappointments, but mostly it's nose-to-the-grindstone.

In the triumphs category:

• Eden started sleeping through the night (to the tune of 10:30 PM-6 AM) as of September 1.  I was afraid to say much about it until I was sure it was for real. (Last night was more 10:30 to 4, unfortunately.)
• I finally found a home for our old piano via Craigslist. 

In the disappointments category:

• A trial that was previously set over twice was set over a third time, primarily because the other party is a flake and didn't contact her lawyer for months.  It's a simple case and should have resolved simply, but it's dragged on since November.
• The piano won't get picked up until early next week.
• The house is a disaster. 

In the vaguely interesting category:

• I signed up for LawLink - a sort of MySpace for lawyers (bar number required).  It's very new, and I'm hoping it will get a little more sophisticated in time (it's very new). It seems like a decent way to keep in touch with my non-blogging attorney friends. 
• I will be hanging out at the law library most of this weekend, working.   

Never thought I'd see this

I was so freaked out about Norris interacting with Eden.  He really doesn't like children and usually tries to nip them. 

But as far as Eden's concerned, she's the pack's puppy and he adores her.  Licks her hands (he is so NOT a licker), whines whenever he hears her cry, and nudges her with his nose in an effort to get her to pet him.  (Maybe in another few months.)

Here's Norris supervising a stealth changing session (while Mommy and Daddy were trying to watch Scrubs and feed her at the same time):

Bound to happen sooner or later

The nighttime speech didn't work tonight.  Thank God the swing did.  (Did I mention I'm trying to get ready to be in court tomorrow in between feeding, rocking, changing, and soothing?)

I'm tired again.

Soapbox Wednesday: dealing with sex criminals

Princess Peach may have slept through the night last night, but I stayed up late working and am seriously beat this morning despite two or three cups of coffee (too tired to remember which).  I'm also continuing to work, because, well, I need the money to feed Princess Peach and buy more coffee. 

I'm working on a project that involves sex offender registration.  I'm squeamish about violence in general, but sex crimes are particularly outrageous because they completely strip a victim of his or her sense of control and leave them helpless and fearful.  These are inexcusable crimes. What to do with the perpetrators?

As a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, I think incarceration is a pointless exercise: all it does is remove the person from society for a brief period of time. Practically, it's a huge waste of human potential, however vilely those humans have behaved.  Plus, I look at it as their grad school or a criminal think tank.  Therapy rarely helps and recidivism rates are high.  And don't get me started on the trend toward civil commitment -- it gives me the creeps and makes me think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn novels. 

I'm ambivalent about sex offender registration, because I think it is overinclusive in some ways (the 18 year old and the 15 year old girlfriend, that sort of thing) and underinclusive in others (rapists who plead to lesser charges for reduced sentences). But if that guy was living next door to me -- yeah, I would want to know.   

I recently picked up a book about Australia's early days, and was reminded of Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, where the moon, like Australia, was initially populated by criminal and political prisoners.  It made me wonder...just what is so wrong with the idea of a prison colony?  Not just for sex offenders, but for anyone convicted for a particular set of violent crimes.  (And greedy corporate tools who bilk investors to line their own pockets -- Enron, anyone?)  Maybe England had the right idea. 

If the goal is to keep society safe, then a prison colony is a safety valve -- no worrying about return.  If the goal is rehabilitation, a mirrored society could provide a way for criminals to become invested in the system -- in running the colony, operating businesses, developing products. Instead of farming production of goods out to sweatshops in China, we could farm production out to prison colonies.   Ultimately, there would be a way to demonstrate readiness to rejoin society at large.

Ah, well.  My 30 minutes of musing time is up -- back to work...

Maybe it's not a fluke?

From 7 to 10, Eden was fussy.  She screamed in her swing.  She was fed, changed, played with, taken for a lengthy walk (she fell asleep and woke up the minute we got back home), fussed more, was fed again, changed again, played with again.  I read "Goodnight Gorilla" and "The Owl Babies."  As soon as I stopped, more fussing -- the whine and pitiful "Wah!" that means she's overtired and can't figure out what to do with herself.

So...I put her, squirming, into the Baby Papasan. She spit out her binki at me.  I said, "Look, kid, it's nighttime.  Time for bed.  Deal with it."

And. She. Stopped. 

I don't know how long this stern talking to thing is going to work until she gets wise to me, but right now, I'll take it. 

Un-freaking-believable

Eden had gone to sleep, woken up, fussed and fussed, eaten a bit, refused to eat, then fussed again -- all from 22:00 to 22:30. I tried putting her in bed, but no go.  Finally I picked her up and said this, very sternly:

"Eden.  We are a diurnal species.  This means that we sleep at night and are awake during the day.  Diurnal.  Not nocturnal.  Diurnal." 

I swear (or affirm) to GOD the child was asleep before I finished the last, stern "diurnal."  She didn't wake up when I put her in the Baby Papasan, either. 

Yeah, so it's a fluke -- but it's a NICE fluke!

Much better, thanks

It's amazing what sleeping in until 10 AM (three mornings in a row) can do to help your sanity.  Now -- to work!