Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Get Better

As those of you who follow this blog know, the last year has not exactly been a great one for me. It doesn't look like this year is going to be any better -- in fact I think it's going to be worse. Dad's cancer is growing again. It's obviously sending little spiderwebs out into new sections of his brain. The oncologist confirms that it's a growing, although I have no idea how fast or how far, etc., because nobody tells me this. I don't think they tell me because I don't think they register it. Dad not only doesn't remember things, I don't think he's registering things or processing things the way he used to. Sometimes he's really good, seems like his old self, and then other days he has hard time holding a conversation because he gets lost. He forgets what you just said to him so you can have the whole conversation over again.

The growth of cancer also means that dad is having problems in new areas. The scariest may be that he is now having balance problems. He's fallen at least twice, although he doesn't remember falling. The hardest time for him is the transition between sitting down and standing up. I don't think I'd ever really registered just how much balance was involved in that.

Anyhow, it's gotten really tough for me. I'm having a terrible time focusing on anything. And I spend a lot of time crying this week. I'm hopeful that will resolve itself as I get adjusted to the fact that it's now definite Dad is dying. God, what a horrid thing to say! But it's true, my dad is dying a slow, debilitating death.

And if that wasn't enough, I found that yesterday my best friends are moving to Seattle. This is going to be really good for them, but I will miss them terribly. Since they're a big part of my support system, I don't know how I will function without them. I've started crying again -- don't know if it will ever stop

Playing with Money

Okay, I admit it - hobbies are strange. I can say this because I've acquired a new one: Where's George? For those of you who don't know, Where's George is a website, more specifically, a website where you track where your money came from and where it's going. Sounds innocuous enough, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. It turns out that when you really start playing around with Where's George, you start spending your money in smaller bills. I suddenly found myself asking the bank teller if I can have that in flies in ones instead of asking her to make sure I get large bills. Suddenly my preferred build size is a five dollar bill instead of 20. Madness I tell you -- pure unadulterated madness. And yet, I'm having a lot of fun, some serious frustration, but a lot of fun.

For those of you who are not into the whole tracking your money hobby, here is a quick primer on how it works. I get a dollar bill (or five dollar bill or $10 bill or $20 bill etc. etc. etc.), then a rush off to my computer, go to the website, log in so I get credit for this event, and enter the basic information off the front of my bill. The basic information consists of the denomination, the serial number, and the year it was issued. I also enter the zip code which I'm currently residing (or visiting), and any comments about the bill what I want to enter such as where I got it. And then comes the magic moment -- I reach over and hit the enter button. This is the moment when I find out if somebody else has already entered the bill or if I'm the first one to do that. Generally, a bill is going to be marked if it's been entered, but not always. The ones that aren't marked are called stealth bills, among other things. I keep hoping to find a treasure trove out there -- a whole bunch of bills that haven't been marked. But so far no luck, I'm the first one to mark them and the first one to enter them. But all is not lost – there is the magic of a hit. Somebody could enter the bill I already entered, and I will find out where my bill went.

That is the frustrating part -- I have to wait! I have to wait until some stranger I don't know finds my bill. I have to trust the stranger is going to enter my bill into the computer so I'll know where my bill has gone. The good news is that statistically about a fifth of the bills I enter will end up being entered by somebody else at least once in the bill's life cycle. But it could be a long time. And that's the frustrating part. So why would anybody do this? The answer has to do with inconsistent rewards. It turns out that we are very motivated by rewards, as most of us know. If it is a consistent negative reward, we avoid the stimulus. If it's consistent positive reward, we seek out the stimulus. But the strongest effect occurs when it is an inconsistent positive reward, those are the events we really look for. So here you have this innocuous hobby where you enter dollar bills serial numbers into the computer in hopes of getting a hit and a hit is nothing more than an inconsistent positive reward. So you suddenly find yourself hooked. And that's how I became one of those funny people who play with their money.

Want to try it for yourself? Go to www.wheresgeorge.com and open an account. It is a free website and a cheap hobby. All's it takes is the money you were going to spend anyway and a little time. But I warn you – you might also start using smaller bills…

The joys of technology

I write for a living. I don't write novels or short stories or anything the general populations is likely to read, but nonetheless I write for a living. I write manuscripts to submit to technical journals, and I write grant applications in hopes of getting money to collect the data so I can write more articles for more journals. With all that writing, you think it would be easy for me, but it's not. Somehow it's incredibly difficult to get the thoughts in my head down on the paper. Most of the problem stems because I think faster than I write, and I really think faster than I type.

That where technology comes in. Several years ago I tried a dictation program but was really unhappy with it because it took so long to train. I plugged along and had just gotten up to about the point where it was working for me and then they upgraded Windows, and it didn't work anymore. The technology people all said to me, "look, Windows does come with a dictation program; you're going to love it." Who were they kidding? Like so many things, the Windows dictation program was much worse than what I'd been using. So I gave up on dictation programs for awhile. But a month and a half ago, I got a new 1 -- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9. I like it! It still isn't perfect, but then what is? The thing is, I can talk out what I want to say. And then I just go back and fix all the errors it makes. Sometimes I can't get the original thought, but all how much easier it is to draft out that original copy.

And that pays off for those of you who glance occasionally at this blog. Why you ask? Because it is so much easier to write a blog when I could just say what I'm thinking. I don't have to worry about my hands keep up with my head. And so that whole list of items that are in my drafts pile is likely to get and posted.

Blogging your dreams

A friend of mine, the Cheeky Librarian, sent me this link for blogging your dreams. It's a contest, which I'm likely to enter and unlikely to win. But it got me thinking about what are the things you dream of and how possible are they. For instance, I dream about economic justice for everybody in the world, about children having access to a good education no matter where they live, about available medical care, food and shelter for everyone, about a world without war, where people could visit one another across boundaries without worrying about nationality or religion. I would love to see a world where we lived with nature, instead of trying to conquer or overrun the nature. I don't even know how I would go about building economic justice in my own hometown. When the football coach who was fired makes 5 million and I'm making about 1% of that, I really don't see how I'm going to affect the difference.

I also found that I got to thinking about what dreams are practical and which ones aren't. For instance, I dream of a US political structure, where Bush is not president, where civil liberties are more valuable than so-called security measures, and where politicians really try to help the citizenry, all the citizenry, have better lives. Between you and me, I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I suppose I could submit my dream of getting rid of Bush , but that's going to happen anyway. And unless you and I get off our duffs and elect an all-new cadre of politicians, I have little hope for Congress. But that presupposes that we get a different type of candidate running for office. Of course, the real solution would be for somebody like me to run for Congress.

Which brings me to another dream -- I'd like to be a Congressional Representative. But I don't have that much hope of obtaining that one either. First place, I live in Nebraska. For those of you who don't know it, Nebraska is a very conservative state. As far as I'm concerned, our Democratic candidates would be Republicans in any other state. So what are the chances of a woman who with a very liberal political views ever getting elected in Nebraska -- probably nil. And of course I'm not rich -- seems like you have to have an incredible amount of money to even run for Congress. And finally, who wants to go through the mudslinging that is part of modern politics.

And so I will probably enter my very plebeian dream of having a backyard refuge for birds. I love wild birds and I truly do dream of having a yard which provides food, water and shelter for hundreds of birds. I'd have splashing fountains, run by solar panels. I would put lots of bushes with fruit around the edge of my yard, the part that still get sunshine (I have a big tree in the backyard). I woulf find a place to put a cherry tree and leave all of cherries for the birds. I would put up a swallow house; the summer I bought my house, there were swallows in the yard, but I haven't seen any this year. I'd have bird feeders that the squirrels could steal all the food out of.

Or maybe I could have my dream of an aviary so I could free all those poor birds at the pet store from their little tiny cages. But I really don't have a house for that. So I probably won't use that one. See it all comes down to what's practical -- after all, they're only talking about $5,000. Maybe if it was $200,000...

what's your dream? Is it practical? What could you do toward it if you had $5,000? Maybe you should enter the contest too. The contest is run by the advertising team of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive: http://www.bloggingyourdreams.com/registration.html .

Just in case you thought the Bush cared about civil liberties

Just in case we had any misconception about how much of a dictator President Bush wants to be, read the quotations about Hepting vs AT&T case. Perhaps the following is the most telling:

“"Did you go to the FISA court on this case?" Pregerson asked. "Again, your honor, that gets into state secrets," Garre replied.”

Not only are they unwilling to discuss the basics of the case, the administration is unwilling even to tell one court if they got permission from another court. That is how dictators operate – they are unwilling to let anyone know what they are doing in case they try to stop them.

Enough is enough. It is time for everyone to start bombarding their congressional representatives about maintaining American freedoms in America. Otherwise, we are just letting al-Qaeda win. They want us to loose our freedoms; that was one of the goals of 9-11. Now Bush is handing it to them on a platter. God help us all.

Another secret policy change

The Washington Post has article that reads, in part, “A decision by the Bush administration to rewrite in secret the nation's emergency response blueprint has angered state and local emergency officials, who worry that Washington is repeating a series of mistakes that contributed to its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina nearly two years ago.”

I really hope that they don’t expect me to be too shocked. Bush long ago convinced me that he wants to be a dictator. He doesn’t want to hear bad news or any opinion that doesn’t match his. He doesn’t believe in democratic processes. He doesn’t believe in individual rights. So why should his administration believe that any individual, regardless of their expertise or responsibilities, would have anything to offer on public policy?

The sad part is that we have over another year of his administration. It may take decades for us to realize the amount of damage he has wreaked, let alone reverse it.

What we need is for the states to write an emergency response blueprint that would work and provide it to Congress. Only if the record shows that there is an alternative, will we have any hope of coping when the next big disaster strikes.

Sprint just doesn't get it.

So I am reading the Washington Post today and there is an article about Sprint investing in new technology in order to improve their market share. What a joke! I am in the process of dumping every sprint product I have. Earthlink went first, then Sprint PCS. Home long distance is next. Why am I dropping Sprint? It sure isn’t because they lack web browser capacity.

Nope, I dropped Sprint because their customer service sucks. They treat existing customers like an asset that cannot go anywhere. I did not have many problems but the ones I had were huge. Like I had to sign a new contract to get the promotion they sent me an offer for but then they did not give me the promotion (they gave me a different one). Called and they promised to correct it. Didn’t happen. Called again, oh yeah, we can fix that. But instead they added the feature and changed me for it. Called back: “Too bad. You can cancel the contract if you like but it will cost you $200.” Needless to say, I was in the market for a new service.

Did offer them the chance to keep me. I wanted more minutes. But they would not give me any better offer than their new customers. Switched to Alltell and got a much better deal for the same price. Now if I could just get Sprint to give me my refund...

Sorry Sprint, too bad your customers are leaving. If you want them to come back, better improve your customer service. Oh, and offer competitive pricing.

Some things just make you feel good

The Washington Post has a story about the injured daughter of an Iraqi interpreter being brought to the US military hospital after a car bomb. It is the sort of thing that makes you feel really good. But it also makes me wonder, if we spent more time saving the lives of Iraqi citizens, the everyday people caught up in a fight with the extremists, would we win the war for their hearts?

I cannot help thinking that in our past actions we have unsettled the region and harmed many people by destroying the social stability. We should be giving them a social structure that helps them - reliable electricity, water, and sewage; an education system; and decent health care.

When it rains

I am beginning to have some real sympathy for Job. Every time I think that the bad news must be done, I get another item to deal with. First my Dad gets cancer…

Then it was my job;, improve my performance in the only area not outstanding or get another job. That was a blow to the ego. Never mind that I have been working hard and I am doing lots of things very well, the one item I am not so hot at is what they need for the foreseeable future…

Then I lose an employee slot so I have to re-juggle everything around. That would not be so bad except that I hired the current staff with specific roles in mind and the person who will have to do the work for the lost person is NOT a good hire for the job. And since it is contract position, I cannot simply find someone else… Urgh!

Then another employee makes a mistake with the possibility of a significant financial loss (33% of the contract funds). And of course, I had specifically told her not to do what she did because I did not want it to be an issue. This is still up in the air while we wait to find out the consequences. She, of course, is claiming that I never told her not to do what she did.

Then my niece could not come to visit after all. I have been looking forward to it for months. It was going to be my big treat for the summer. But increased gas prices and airline prices combined with limited time meant that we cannot get her the 1200 miles between her place and mine.

Now, as if that is not enough for 6 weeks, I find out that the lay leader of my small group at church has been arrested for "illegal pornography." He admits it is there but says he was just doing research so he could help someone he counsels. Say what? how in the world does he think that would justify child pornography? Why would you need to see it in order to understand the person you are counseling? Personally, I feel betrayed and appalled and sickened.

Guess I should just hope that this doesn't last 7 years...

New Chapter - Dad gets Cancer

My Dad has cancer. There I have said it. But it really is a very inaccurate statement. Yes, my dad has just been diagnosed with anaplastic astrocytoma, but that really does not convey the full impact. You see, he was diagnosed with the disease, but in many ways the whole family got diagnosed with cancer.

My dad is the stable post around which my family revolves. Okay, so we have one of those picture book ideal patriarchal families. Two happily married parents, 2 children ( a boy and a girl); all, for the most part, happy and loving. Add one living grandparent, a spouse, and 2 grandkids, plus assorted pets, and you have my basic family.

The thing is, we always talk about cancer as if only the individual is affected. The reality is that all of us are affected. We worry about him but we also worry about what it will be like when he dies. Suddenly we just cannot ignore the fact that he has a vastly shortened life expectancy.

It is hard to live in the present. It is hard to remember that he is neither helpless or an invalid. It is hard not to be able to do something, anything, to change the realities or the uncertainties.

Three Cups of Tea

I have just read the most amazing story about a man who is conducting a mission towards peace in Central Asia. Finally, proof that I am not the only one who believes that Bush's policies are only leading to more terror, not less. And a way to do something about it. But that is for later, after you have read this book.

It takes place at the base of K2, when a man promises a school to the porter who saves his life. The man, an American, begins an odyssey that will lead to a career building schools and other small public health projects. In an area where the US is synonymous with horror, pain, and the disruption of life accompanied by lies about helping to build infrastructure, the small NGO created out of his promise to build a school, now proves that not all Americans are bad.

The book is a must read!

Do Not Call number for Avenue

What is it with companies deciding that you want to receive an automated phone call from them at any time of the day or night? Make the mistake of buying something from one and you then are deluged with spam phone calls. Bad enough that their spam fills your post box and your email inbox, now they have to clog up your phone line as well. And they pay no attention to your indication that you do not want to be contacted.

So today I called Avenue and asked them to take me off all their spam lists. First, I had to spend about 15 minutes on hold. Then a nice woman named Adrian listened to my complaint, requested my information, and put me on hold while she did some research. She came back on line about 4 minutes later to tell me that she gave the information to her supervisor but that I should call their do-not-call list number (800.695.3198). Of course it will take about 30 days to take effect…

Maybe I won’t buy from them again… Still I need to get clothes some time.

Sympathy for Cho Seung Hui's Parents

The events of Monday at Virginia Tech were a horror that many of us will not recover from for many years. The media has painted a singular picture of the gunman, a young man with psychological problems. They have also painted a singular picture of the victims – the individuals who faced gunfire and their parents, families, and friends.

But the media has forgotten one set of victims – Cho’s family. His parents must be grief stricken by the loss of the son, just like any other parent. But they also have to bear the burden that their son was responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in the USA. I don’t know them, but all the parents I know spend a lot of time second guessing themselves when their children make bad choices. How much worse it must be when their child’s bad choice results in the death of others.

And so, I extend my sympathy to Cho’s family for the loss of their son.

Time for some rational choice making about health care

Today I read this article in the Washing Post on the Texas Futile-Treatment Law and how there is a fight to prevent hospitals from withdrawing “care when a patient's ongoing treatment is declared "medically futile." The patient in the case is described as “A 17-month-old deaf, blind and terminally ill child” who, as I calculate it, has been on life support in a pediatric ICU for about 100 days. An ethics review board decided that the case is hopeless and that it would be best to terminate life support if the mother could not find an alternative hospital to provide care for the child. The right-to-life people are all up in arms about turning off the ventilators and letting the child die the natural death that technology is preventing. They seem to believe that we need to keep everyone alive as long as technologically possible regardless of the costs. But it is about time that we thought about the very real costs of keeping infants alive at any expense:

1. This child is taking up valuable resources without any hope that he can be helped: bed space, doctors and nursing staff time and energy. What if there is another child who is denied a bed in the Pediatric ICU because there is not enough space, a child without a terminal condition?
2. What is the emotional cost to the staff? How debilitating it must be not to be able to relieve the child’s pain and suffering and even worse if they think the technology is only allowing them to make the child suffer more. According to the Post report, “doctors have declared that continuing treatment is potentially painful and is prolonging the child's suffering.”
3. Who is paying for this prolonged ICU stay? Extrapolating from Ampofo, et al (PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 6 December 2006, pp. 2409-2417 (doi:10.1542/peds.2006-1475) (who estimated the cost for a child’s influenza hospitalization - only 29 of the 325 of whom were on respirators), the average hospital cost for a 6mo- 23mo childs stay, per day, was $1,397 and the average hospital charges were $2,006. That would result in a charge for this child’s care somewhere between $139,000 and $201,000 assuming that the charges are not any more than they were for the Ampofo et al study. More realistically, the costs are higher AND that does not include the physician charges and the costs of medicines. So let’s just guess that the daily cost for this child’s care is about $3,250 per day, before attorney fees. That means the outstanding hospital bill is $325,000 and climbing.
   Who is paying that bill? If you and I are really lucky, Mom and Dad are paying it out of their pocket. Second best, Mom and Dad have good health insurance and can pay their share. Worst case, Medicaid pays part and the hospital charges off the rest of it as charity care. Why is that the worst case for you and I? Because we pay for Medicaid with our tax money, the hospitals charge us more to cover that loss, and too many losses drive our hospitals out of business.

Every dollar we spend on this child cannot help another. For example, we could be ensuring that more children are vaccinated, including the vaccinations for influenza. By one estimate, “For every dollar spent on immunizations, as many as $29 can be saved in direct and indirect costs.” So, if you use the CDC’s cost estimator for vaccines, the daily $3,250 cost of keeping this terminal child alive would buy us:

• 2,387 pediatric vaccines for influenza (which, extrapolating again from Ampofo would prevent 239 cases of influenza, 48 hospitalizations (with an estimated average cost of $292, 411) and 14 deaths. Or we could have gotten
• 1,475 doses of DTAP vaccines or
• 269 doses Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Types 6, 11, 16 and 18 Recombinant Vaccines (which prevents cervical cancer)

If we spend our money on this terminally ill little boy, we cannot spend it to save the lives of other children who have a chance of surviving!

Yes, I feel sorry for his mother. But keeping a terminally ill child on a respirator indefinitely because his mother is not ready to lose her child is insane. We could be saving lives with that money. Instead the courts will hold a hearing on the injunction in another 7 days (That is another $22750 or 1671 cases of influenza we won’t prevent, 334 hospitalizations with a cost of $2 million we won’t prevent and 100 pediatric deaths from influenza we won’t prevent).

Today I read an article in the Washington Post about a man injured at Guantanamo. One quote really struck me. His mother asked, "What did the Americans do to him?" It struck me as a huge part of the problem. She sees Americans as this undifferentiated group who are complicit in maiming her son. Americans see all Arabic people as Muslims who want to destroy the USA.

I did not do anything to her son. I deplore what I know about Guantanamo. Its very existance and police state/secret police identity are not endorsed like Americans like me. Yet how can the people of each nation know about the people of another nation? How could she know about people like me - who abhor what our government is doing, who keep telling their political leaders that the current policy is unacceptable, who want a different way of dealing with issues. How can I know about the Muslims who practice the Quran in unmilitaristic ways?

Right now, the media are busy capitalizing on the differences, the sensational. They don't focus on every day people who disagree with the policy makers. They don't make waves by letting us understand the people of another nation, particularly ones in a nation where we are at "war". The media has no reason to work toward an understanding of the people of Iraq in terms other than terrorists and victims. We hear about Sunnis and Shites, but only when one group visits atrocities on the other.

Principle 2: Justice

I am a Unitarian Universalist. I find that it generally fits my philosophy/religious views, in part because it allows for a wide range of beliefs. Lately I have spent some time considering what the principles to which I am covenanted mean. The principles are:

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Today’s topic is principle 2: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.

I find "Justice" to be a kind of muddy concept. It has no clear bright lines of it is and is not. So what is justice? Okay, I am going to take a first stab at this. I reserve the right to retract any and all of it on further reflection.

Justice is state of being for groups and communities achieved by balancing personal freedoms with freedom from harm caused by others. It embodies both the legal and the emotional by recognizing that the situation defines the balance point. Example, if one stole an ice cream cone from me, it would be a minor harm and there would be little cry for justice. If one stole a ice cream cone from a child, there is a greater cry for justice because children have less power (and presumably less ability to replace the ice cream). If that child was starving, justice demands even more of a response, because we are getting into the ability to stay alive.

Not sure I have a better explanation for what I know when I see.
For more on the Unitarian Universalists, you can go to the church's national website:
http://www.uua.org/

Personal DNA

A friend introduced me to this fun site on personality style. It goes beyond the 4 quadrant system and has multiple dimensions. I decided to add it to my blog because I thought it was so interesting. ‘Course I am interested in personality and communication styles any way so it was sure to interest me. Hope you find it fun.

This is not Soviet Union

Just in case you thought that your government was about freedom and democracy, the Bush administration is doing everything in its power to ensure it gets the powers appropriate to a secret police. The Washington Post reported on Saturday, November 4, 2006 (Page A01) that “The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk. The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage."

And not only that, if prisoners are allowed to tell the world what the CIA did to them, we might know what kinds of torture the CIA and the Bush administration are indulging in. Tell the Bush and the World that human rights are more important than his power to do whatever he wants.

From Chapter 49 of the Tao Te Ching

He is good to those who are good;
He is also good to those who are not good,
Thereby he is good.
He trusts those who are trustworthy;
He also trusts those who are not trustworthy,
Thereby he is trustworthy.

Halloween Fun

For the first time in years I was home for the trick or treat crowd. New neighborhood with lots of kids but I was not sure how many would actually be around. Turns out there were a lot - I had "treats" for about 70 and there is only about 15 items left.

I should clarify that I don't give candy. I fill a big bowl with party treats appropriate for the age 3-10 crowd, plus pens, crayons, and glitter glue. This year there were a small paint set, football stickers, clear plastic rulers with stencils on the inside, heart shaped bracelets, whistles, and dinosaurs.

Each child gets to choose one item. The teenagers are not much interested (they take a pen with a bored look) but the little kids get really excited. The parents also seem to appreciate the items. I think that mostly they are grateful that it is not more candy.

Having to choose is a real challenge for some of children. But they are not very greedy about it either. I am always impressed at how they organize themselves and let each individual choose. And only one 2-3 year old was reluctant to let it go at only 1 item. I think if she could have had the ruler she wanted (her mom vetoed it) even she would have been okay with the one item rule.

The kids are so cute that I always get a real kick out of the process. My favorites this year were the little boy, probably 5 or 6, who got the paint set. He was pretty overwhelmed about having to choose only one item so he and I went through the bowl pointing out the options. I would pick up an item, show it to him, and then put it on the other side of the bowl. This meant that older items got covered by the newer items. After about 5 items we came to the paint set. I set it down and showed him a ruler and then put the ruler on top of the paint set. All of a sudden, his eyes light up and he frantically pushes everything away from the paint set. “I want the paints!” His mom, from about 5 feet away says, “What do you say?” He turns around with this huge smile and runs toward her. “Look, mom, look what I got?” No sooner does she get a peek at it than he takes off, tearing down the drive way, yelling, at the top of his little lungs, “look dad, look at what I got!”

Another very enjoyable was the young lady who came by with her mom and younger sisters (2). She carefully shepherded them up to the door and helped them choose before taking a fancy pen for herself. As I turned to go back in the house, I heard her say to her mom, “That’s not something you see every Halloween in Omaha.” This, coming out of the mouth of 9 or 10 year old dressed as a witch, made me howl with laughter, though I did manage to get the door closed first.

Visiting with Grandma

My grandmother, who is 92, flew in to visit me this week. She came for my birthday, which is the best present I could possibly have had. Being single and living a long way from my family, I really have not had a birthday party in years. Yes, my friends have gone out to dinner with me, but always when schedules permitted, not on my birthday unless it was convenient. And no one made a cake or much of a fuss. I knew that I missed the fuss but I hadn’t realized how much until suddenly I could have family here to celebrate. Somebody is going to take the time to make me a cake and celebrate on my birthday.

There is a lesson here, both personally and societally. We have become way to busy getting things done to pay attention to the little rituals that matter. From now on I am going to remember that very little is more important than making time to celebrate the birthday or anniversary on the day of and to make cakes for others. And I can plan a party at my house for my birthdays, even it Grandma cannot come again. But I hope she can...