a poem

from Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind published by New Directions

CHRIST CLIMBED DOWN

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck crèches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagen sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody’s imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carolers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary’s womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody’s anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

car troubles.

So my recent Facebook fast was mostly to deal with a broken down car.  Scroll to the bottom if you want to see how I dealt with that.

My mom with Flaming Moe circa 1997 before my band friends t.p.ed it

When I learned how to drive, my parents gave me a little Chevy s-10 pickup.  In college, one of my friends dubbed it "Flaming Moe" partially due to the color (red) and partial irony due to the gutless little engine that thwarted my lead-foot.  Driving from Seattle to Portland in that 70 mph zone was always interesting because I never knew if I could maintain 70 going up any hills.  Oh but it was a hit with the people in my dorm, because my dad had installed two seats in the back.  Yes, you had to lower the tailgate to get in them, but they had seatbelts and everything.  Of course, when you load 8 or 10 college students in it to get groceries they weren't all *wearing* the seatbelts..... and it also meant I was the first call when a friend was moving to a new apartment. 

But I drove that thing for almost ten years, after my parents had driven it for ten, and sold it to pay our rent one very lean summer in Chicago (yay grad school!)  After all, we didn't need two cars in the city.  And the one Chicago winter it did live through did not treat it well.  The windshield fluid sprayer froze and broke.  My exhaust pipe rusted clean through, and driving down Lakeshore Drive one day, I hit a rather large pothole and when I got to work, realized I had lost my muffler.

The Black Hole. 

When we moved back to the Northwest, we bought a black Hyundai Sonata for my 86 mile-a-day commute. After fixing the window tracks, replacing the transmission (twice) and the front wheel falling off (among several other things), we dubbed it "the Black Hole" and replaced it with a purple Honda Civic.  NEVER BUY A HYUNDAI.  NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER. 

Four years later, the Civic was stolen and found abandoned, then impounded.  We started calling it "Honda Dufresne" after the lead character in Stephen King's Shawshank Redemption because it was impounded for a crime it didn't commit (and the exhaust manifold was torn apart, and if you know the book/movie.... well.....).  Honda Dufresne got me to and from Longview every day, and was a great reliable little car, until it overheated.  Which sounds like it wasn't reliable.  Except it happened 80,000 miles after I bought it. 

"Honda Dufresne"

The summer before it was stolen, I was driving home with Sam (then 2 1/2 years old) from California, and it overheated in Medford.  Put some water in it and went on my merry way, but as it turns out, it was the fan and the radiator cap.  Made it to a little town called Wolf Creek where a mechanic who was missing teeth pulled a relay out of his own car (same model) to get me to Roseburg so I could buy a radiator cap.  Made it home, no issues after that. 

*HERE'S THE PART THAT HAPPENED RECENTLY*Fast forward to about two weeks ago, driving to Bend, it starts to overheat again, but this time I'm on a highway with no services, no cell service, and I have two children with me now.  Made it to Bend where the radiator and thermostat was replaced.  Apparently, the new thermostat overloaded that used fan relay that was put in by the guy in Wolf Creek....it overheated all the way back from Bend to Woodburn, where I called for a tow truck and a very good friend to get me and my kids (and her eleven year old son) home safely.  After getting it towed to a dealership, I was informed that the head gasket was leaking (gee, ya think after driving it 300 miles while overheating and no fan?!) and that their sales department would give me $500 for it.  They couldn't offer me more for it because "it has a quarter-panel that isn't original to the car and it must have been wrecked at some point." 

Nuh uh, boy.  Homie don't play that game.  I resisted the temptation to tell him to look up the CarFax and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.....but instead told him a tow truck would be by to retrieve it.  Immediately posted an ad on Craigslist to sell it for $1000, no pictures, full disclosure.  Within 24 hours, I had it sold.  So while I was on my Facebook fast this last week, I was fixing the Honda.

stock photo but ours is this same color with the alloy wheels.  Look Mom! I fixed the Honda!

And we shall call him "Morpheus."
UPDATE Jan 2020: We still have the Toyota Matrix, but we have moved to Florida and the new FL license plate has "NED" as the letters.  We never felt like Morpheus really fit the personality of the car (not badass enough). So this car is now called NED.

Judgy, judgy!!

So I want to post about something that is possibly a touchy subject but has been bothering me for a while, mostly because I think a few people have misinterpreted my feelings on this.

I breastfeed my kids.  Sam until he was 18 months old, and Noelle for almost 12 months so far.  And I'm proud of that.  It was difficult to start, I hated (HATE) pumping, and frankly, a lot of "you're not going to be one of THOSE moms who nurses until the kid is 4, right?" questions, as if there's something wrong with that....

But here's where I'm having trouble today and this is the part I need you all to understand:  My being proud of something I worked hard at is not a judgment on you.  If you use formula, I have no problem with you.  I'm not looking down my nose at you.  I know you're doing the best job parenting you can.  Our society is not BF friendly.  It's just not.  And if you have neither the time or support to overcome those obstacles, even if you're motivated, it can be damn near impossible to establish and maintain a supply.  And if your family/husband/friends thinks it's weird, that is an obstacle, however minor, however misguided they are.  I didn't realize until Sam was weaned how lucky I was to have the support I did in every aspect from the hospital staff (yes, that matters) to our pediatrician, to nutritionally-minded family, co-workers, and husband who were willing to not only support but fight for it with me.  Yes, that matters.

Breastmilk is best, that's a fact.  Notice I didn't say formula is poison, or doesn't serve an important role.  I can't make you feel anything you don't want to feel.  If my efforts to help educate and change society's obstacles make you feel guilty, attacking me is not going to resolve it.  Being snarky on my Facebook page will not "teach me a lesson." You have to make peace with yourself and know you did the best you could with the information and tools you had available to you.

I do, however, judge medical professionals who allow the insidious way formula companies peddle their products in hospitals.  Medical professionals who give advice based on old wives tales instead of research.  Or refuse to set their own ego or laziness aside and call a lactation consultant.  They passively undermine and sabotage women who WANT to breastfeed and formula companies encourage this because it's the only way to expand the customer base.  Yes, this really happens, yes, it affects supply, and then, magically, the mother is "not making enough" and ta-da!! Nestle's stock price just went up! There's a reason formula advertising is banned internationally, and just like many other corporations, are not regulated or enforced here in the United States of We Worship The Almighty Dollar.

Notice my rant had nothing to do with mothers (or fathers)?? Notice the judgment is on the CEOs who put their bank account before your child's health (or, more pointedly, the health of children in countries that lack clean water)?? Judgment on pediatricians whose knowledge base is often sorely lacking (then they wonder why parents always second guess them.  Hello, baby feeding should be more than a one day seminar in med school).  The only other thing I have ever seen so many people take criticism so personally is singing.  And that's because when you aren't successful, for whatever reason, it feels like something is wrong with you, even though it's not. 

How many people do you know that say "I can't sing" or "I'm not a good singer"?  Those of us who are musicians know that almost everyone is capable of singing, but some people have to work harder at it than others to be successful. And if you have a voice teacher who screwed up your technique or a choir teacher who said "yeah, just don't sing this part" (and those people should be slapped), or went to a school that didn't have music at all, or parents who never sang in front of you?  Yeah, singing is going to be harder for you.  And it feels personal, but it's not.  And it doesn't mean you aren't (or weren't) ever capable.  Just like breastfeeding, singing is a learned behavior, and it takes time, opportunity, and education to learn it.  And you thought it was "natural." HA!  And if there was a way to make money from preventing people from singing, you can bet the farm all of sudden there would be criticism "why are you singing in public?" "yeah that singing stuff isn't for me" and someone would be investing millions in opera companies and recording because there's no need for *everyone* to sing....hey....I just had a business idea.....oh wait....it's been done.....some damn show run by Simon Cowell....

If I judged everyone I know who used formula at one time or another, I would have basically no friends at all (including my mother).  Some of my breastfeeding heroes are moms who in the end had to use formula. Ladies like my sister in law, who was working, going to school, and a mommy.  How she persisted and made it to nine months is amazing to me!  Two friends, one whose supply dropped when pumping, and another with a fertility problem that also caused supply issues both fought for at least a year, pumping, taking herbs, and yes, supplementing with formula. Another couple of friends exclusively pumped for months on end and considering how much I HATE pumping, my hat is off to those ladies for their extreme effort.  I would probably have given up because, did I mention? I really really hate pumping.

But mostly, I want you (yes, you) to know if you used formula with your kids, when I post breastfeeding advocacy things on Facebook, it's not to make you feel bad or shame you. Breastfeeding takes a "village" to be successful. It takes support and help to be successful at.  Hospitals, unfortunately, are more often financially invested and not always very reliable with accurate breasfeeding information, which means those of us who have been successful have a responsibility to share those strategies with people who want it.  Even if you've made your informed choice, that doesn't mean everyone else magically knows what you do. And if you don't want the info, well, feel free to ignore those posts or unfriend me. 

But please, PLEASE, quit assuming that I'm judging your parenting.