In the US we place great stock in market solutions and are suspicious in our DNA of anything that smacks of Communism, like government interference with the free market. Mind you, this attitude has recently taken a beating as banks line up for government handouts, but it is part of who we are. If Jay Leno were to ask the average person on the street if the US has a free market I think most people would say yes – or, at least the few who actually understood the question.
Now, as it happens our country also has a rich tradition of government interference in the free market in the form of domestic subsidies and targeted tax breaks but I don’t want to dwell on these because that would require research. Instead, I want to focus your attention for just a moment on another form of free market interference: coallitions.
But first, let me make it clear right now that I am not an economist. I have degrees in international politics and management so there has been some economic study and I wrote my senior dissertation on IMF policy in Mexico, which was very well-received (my professor wrote: ‘Laura – hilarious work! Thanks for making my day!!!’ on it). In graduate school I even studied for a semester with a professor who was so well-known for advanced international economics that he had difficulty remembering mundane things like which way the supply curve goes. But there my claim to economic glory ends and I have to resort to common sense like everyone else.
There is an underlying assumption that if there is a demand, someone will find a way to produce a supply. This is the underlying principal of free market theory. Remember Adam Smith’s invisible hand? Even if you majored in English or Drama you probably encountered Adam in high school but here’s a refresher: Everyone will try to maximize their own economic advantage and it is good for society as a whole for them to do this. Some of you may also remember Michael Douglas’ ‘greed is good’ speech from the movie Wall Street where he dresses down all those corporate fat cats.
So anyway, you get the idea. In a truly free market an idea or product that has a real potential to be in demand, which means people will pay money for it, will inevitably be pursued by business people who, quite properly, want to maximize their economic advantage.
Yes. . . well.
To be fair, Adam Smith has largely proven to be correct. Demand does tend to generate supply and all of us in the first world can go to the supermarket on any day in any season and buy a cheap pomegranate, which (if we disregard the ethical question of whether that’s really a good thing for society as a whole) is highly convenient when you want to make one of those fancy salads with pomegranate seeds.
Unfortunately, bringing a product to market represents the long way to satisfy greed. I mean, it’s work, right? And it may require hefty investment and some personal risk as well. So, if there’s a short cut to satisfying that same greed, Adam Smith’s same law may actually work against the good of society.
How so? Well, what if someone had a working prototype of something people really wanted, like an electric car that doesn’t cost more than a regular car and needs little or no gas to run? Adam Smith would predict that someone would make this car and sell it and if it was successful more people would make it in order to jump on the profit bandwagon. But what if someone with a lot of money really didn’t like this idea at all? What could someone with truckloads of money could do to kill a good idea even if the ‘free market’ liked it?
They could apply economic pressure on key decision makers at companies that wanted to sell this car in order to change their minds. And these decision makers might see a quicker route to the same rewards for them personally...
And there’s the rub: greed only lets you care about yourself, not the thousands of workers that work for you and depend on you to make good decisions, and not the millions of people threatened by global warming.
Adam Smith assumed that people are willing to work for their money. He failed to take into account what happens when greed meets laziness or ethical laxness or incompetence.
The results? A brilliant idea, highly in demand, killed by a few decision makers working together to maximize their own profit. A problem that could have been solved, pushed under the carpet. A huge American company, that could be standing tall and strong today, failing.
Of course, Adam Smith wasn't totally wrong : we all bought Hummers just as happily.
Who killed the electric car? Check this out and draw your own conclusions, which may be different than mine:
December 23, 2008
December 22, 2008
Power vs. Force
Early in my mediation practice I stumbled upon a book that helped me sort a few things in my own mind, although it is neither a mainstream book nor one that is typically associated with meditation. Ralf and I were on vacation in Arizona without the kids and we spent several days in Sedona, hiking around the healthful red cliffs and drinking in the scenery. Since I went to school in Pheonix for 7 years the dry, stark landscape really spoke to me, whereas Ralf, who grow up surrounded by rolling green hills and distant snow-covered mountains, found it weirdly exotic.
Anyway, Ralf was the driving force behind our decision to join a meditation Sangha and he was on the lookout for spiritual paraphelia like Buddha statues and incense to help with our practice. Accordingly, he dragged us into a psychic's shop too look at polished crystals and clumsy-looking jewelry. Don't get me wrong - I kind of like psychics because they always tell me I have a deeply happy aura, which cheers me up no end. But I'm not a huge fan of the jewelry.
Anyway, this shop had a whole shelf of books with nonsense titles but one title in particular caught my attention: Power vs. Force by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. I actually picked it out for Ralf, who was struggling with some issues at work at the time, but ended up reading it myself and getting much more out of it than he did.
I had been questioning what the point of seeking enlightenment is. Part of the search for enlightenment involves loosening the attachments you have to physical things - as at least one guru has put it, it's a bit like practicing death before you die. But it seemed to me at the time that we're all going to die whether we practice or not so why bother? And aside from the pain or discomfort we may feel during this life, does it matter intrinsically if a life is good or bad? Does the universe care? I wanted to believe that the universe does care and that there is an evolutionary force in the universe that pulls us in the right direction but Buddhist teachings seem to indicate that this isn't true, based on their reluctance to call anything good or bad. If nothing is bad, then there's no need to evolve to something better.
As for the other mainstream religions, they've never done much for me in terms of offering a compelling reason to live a good life, although I grew up going to church and you can't beat a good Presbyterian potluck. Even as a child I didn't understand why Jesus had to die in order for God to forgive my sins and why God couldn't just cut to the chase and forgive people without that unfortunate middle step, since he didn't seem to be holding the guilty parties accountable anyway. Generally speaking, God always seemed to be punishing the wrong people, if you asked, say, eight-year-old me, so I guess I feared him and hoped I would not die before I waked and all that, but I didn't really respect his judgement.
Anyway, in the early days of my meditation practice I was looking for evidence that goodness matters in some way. Not because I wanted to run amok if I didn't find the proof I was looking for but because I wanted to believe we're all headed in the right direction, despite evidence to the contrary. And this book gave me some great food for thought.
It is not a book about religion or meditation. It is a book about Kinesiology, which is the study of muscles, and what they can tell us about the human condition. Basically, over decades of conducting repeatable tests on thousands of subjects with consistent results, Hawkins was able to show that muscles weaken in response to 'untruth' and strengthen in response to 'truth.' No big surprise there, lie detector tests can also measure physical responses to lies. But the interesting bit is that the beliefs of the test subject are completely irrelevant.
Think about what this means: We are all connected in some way to some greater truth, regardless of our own petty beliefs, and actually have physical access to that truth through the unthinking responses of our own muscles.
For those in tune with their own physical responses, this may be what we call 'instinct.' Or perhaps 'conscience.'
Hawkins was also was able to calibrate some common emotions such as 'pride' and 'love' and 'hate' based on muscular responses and discovered that some concepts consistently calibrate higher than others. It will probably come as no surprise to you that love calibrates significantly higher than hate, which means that feeling love is life affirming and strengthening for your muscles. But more interesting for me was the reflection that this would indeed seem to indicate a higher purpose - in other words, the universe does care about good v. evil and in fact seems to assign a higher value, or at least more life energy, to good.
The next point of interest is that each of us calibrates somewhere on the unenlightened to enlightened range (your personal calibration can of course change over time) and it is possible to take an 'average' of the calibration of the human race at any point in time. As it happens, one enlightened person calibrates highly enough to hold the fort for hundreds of thousands of normal unenlightened people, which is good because otherwise we would all implode under the weight of our own collective negativity. Each enlightened person also makes it that much easier for others to seek enlightenment, just as the first guppies to hop out of the primordial soup made it easier for others to follow.
According to Hawkins, the human race only recently averaged on the positive side of the scale, which is a great message of hope for all of us. This means that enough folks have evolved from witch-burning haters into reasonably tolerant beings to pull us all a bit higher up the path.
This puts a new perspective on the value added by meditating and seeking enlightenment. It becomes something you do for the betterment of the human race as a whole rather than just yourself.
Anyway, make of this what you will. But consider this:
What if everything you do and think is faithfully recorded in some collective consciousness and from there influences how others think, feel and behave, as well as how high the entire human race calibrates spiritually? What if this in turn impacts our ability to grow, evolve and survive as a species?
If you knew this to be true, would it impact your life?
Now's a great time to think about stuff like that, with the new year coming up and all...
Anyway, Ralf was the driving force behind our decision to join a meditation Sangha and he was on the lookout for spiritual paraphelia like Buddha statues and incense to help with our practice. Accordingly, he dragged us into a psychic's shop too look at polished crystals and clumsy-looking jewelry. Don't get me wrong - I kind of like psychics because they always tell me I have a deeply happy aura, which cheers me up no end. But I'm not a huge fan of the jewelry.
Anyway, this shop had a whole shelf of books with nonsense titles but one title in particular caught my attention: Power vs. Force by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. I actually picked it out for Ralf, who was struggling with some issues at work at the time, but ended up reading it myself and getting much more out of it than he did.
I had been questioning what the point of seeking enlightenment is. Part of the search for enlightenment involves loosening the attachments you have to physical things - as at least one guru has put it, it's a bit like practicing death before you die. But it seemed to me at the time that we're all going to die whether we practice or not so why bother? And aside from the pain or discomfort we may feel during this life, does it matter intrinsically if a life is good or bad? Does the universe care? I wanted to believe that the universe does care and that there is an evolutionary force in the universe that pulls us in the right direction but Buddhist teachings seem to indicate that this isn't true, based on their reluctance to call anything good or bad. If nothing is bad, then there's no need to evolve to something better.
As for the other mainstream religions, they've never done much for me in terms of offering a compelling reason to live a good life, although I grew up going to church and you can't beat a good Presbyterian potluck. Even as a child I didn't understand why Jesus had to die in order for God to forgive my sins and why God couldn't just cut to the chase and forgive people without that unfortunate middle step, since he didn't seem to be holding the guilty parties accountable anyway. Generally speaking, God always seemed to be punishing the wrong people, if you asked, say, eight-year-old me, so I guess I feared him and hoped I would not die before I waked and all that, but I didn't really respect his judgement.
Anyway, in the early days of my meditation practice I was looking for evidence that goodness matters in some way. Not because I wanted to run amok if I didn't find the proof I was looking for but because I wanted to believe we're all headed in the right direction, despite evidence to the contrary. And this book gave me some great food for thought.
It is not a book about religion or meditation. It is a book about Kinesiology, which is the study of muscles, and what they can tell us about the human condition. Basically, over decades of conducting repeatable tests on thousands of subjects with consistent results, Hawkins was able to show that muscles weaken in response to 'untruth' and strengthen in response to 'truth.' No big surprise there, lie detector tests can also measure physical responses to lies. But the interesting bit is that the beliefs of the test subject are completely irrelevant.
Think about what this means: We are all connected in some way to some greater truth, regardless of our own petty beliefs, and actually have physical access to that truth through the unthinking responses of our own muscles.
For those in tune with their own physical responses, this may be what we call 'instinct.' Or perhaps 'conscience.'
Hawkins was also was able to calibrate some common emotions such as 'pride' and 'love' and 'hate' based on muscular responses and discovered that some concepts consistently calibrate higher than others. It will probably come as no surprise to you that love calibrates significantly higher than hate, which means that feeling love is life affirming and strengthening for your muscles. But more interesting for me was the reflection that this would indeed seem to indicate a higher purpose - in other words, the universe does care about good v. evil and in fact seems to assign a higher value, or at least more life energy, to good.
The next point of interest is that each of us calibrates somewhere on the unenlightened to enlightened range (your personal calibration can of course change over time) and it is possible to take an 'average' of the calibration of the human race at any point in time. As it happens, one enlightened person calibrates highly enough to hold the fort for hundreds of thousands of normal unenlightened people, which is good because otherwise we would all implode under the weight of our own collective negativity. Each enlightened person also makes it that much easier for others to seek enlightenment, just as the first guppies to hop out of the primordial soup made it easier for others to follow.
According to Hawkins, the human race only recently averaged on the positive side of the scale, which is a great message of hope for all of us. This means that enough folks have evolved from witch-burning haters into reasonably tolerant beings to pull us all a bit higher up the path.
This puts a new perspective on the value added by meditating and seeking enlightenment. It becomes something you do for the betterment of the human race as a whole rather than just yourself.
Anyway, make of this what you will. But consider this:
What if everything you do and think is faithfully recorded in some collective consciousness and from there influences how others think, feel and behave, as well as how high the entire human race calibrates spiritually? What if this in turn impacts our ability to grow, evolve and survive as a species?
If you knew this to be true, would it impact your life?
Now's a great time to think about stuff like that, with the new year coming up and all...
December 21, 2008
December 20, 2008
Christmas montage
Isn't snow lovely on those first few days? So pure and white... after about two days it totally sucks. But only five months 'til Spring!
Here are a few pictures to commemorate the Christmas season in our household:
Christmas Crafts
Angels
Arielle is very sick
Santa Daddy
Present for Mommy
Sick Bubi
Kitty on the table
December 19, 2008
The light at the end of the tunnel
Well, Ralf ended up not going to Ireland - my sweet husband who almost cooks for me decided his family was too sick to leave alone. K had a nasty cough attack yesterday and it turns out she does have an ear infection but we found a great ENT (referred to as 'HNO' here) who is treating her without antibiotics. He taped some weird seaweed behind her ear and we haven't heard a complaint since. Anyway, after K slept for 48 hours straight without eating a little ear infection seems almost like an old friend.
I had a bad night coughing but today feels better. I haven't coughed once all morning. The girls ate pancakes for breakfast and are upstairs making Christmas presents for Ralf's parents. It's snowing outside, the tree is twinkling and it's starting to look a lot like Christmas.
I am also in better charity with the doctor I went to after an illuminating discussion with Ralf. I asked him why anyone would bother going to a doctor if they weren't in need of relief. He told me that in fact, most people go to doctors with a cold here not to get a prescription but to skive out of work. Well. Who knew a cold could get you out of work? And sure enough, this doctor did give me a 2 day hall pass, which I forgot about in my purse and have no intention of flashing at work, except perhaps for the comedic value. So what we had was a failure to communicate.
The NaBloPoMo theme for December is Thankfulness and I've been much too sick to be properly thankful but I want to correct that now. Things I am grateful for:
Husbands who attempt to make chicken soup for their sick wives.
Brave little girls with green eyes who weather grown up bugs without complaining.
Sweet little babies with big blue eyes who always want to be in on the action - even if the action is zonking.
Purring orange cats who sleep on the dining room table in full glory when everyone's sick.
Frangrant Christmas trees that make it seem like Christmas.
Fluffy snow flakes that are safely outside.
Floor heating.
Family that still love you even when you're sick.
Friends that check in on you to make sure you're OK and think positive thoughts for you.
Christmas cookies.
And the 10 pounds I lost right before Christmas during my bout with the plague, reminding me that there's always a silver lining.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
December 18, 2008
Collateral damage
This morning it seems as if we have defeated the EGV (Evil German Virus). My coughing is somewhat under control and I can get out of bed. K is fit again and ate some cookies and corn flakes this morning. L went to bed with a low fever again but seems normal now and has a good appetite.
But there is collateral damage as we sift through the rubble and we aren’t out of the woods yet. I’ve stressed abdominal multiple muscles during my violent coughing attacks and it feels like I may have dislodged my appendix. And you don't even want to know about my hair. K has developed a new cough and is complaining about ear pain so we may be on the road to an ear infection. L is also coughing fiercely and may be getting a sinus infection. Poor Ralf is exhausted from taking care of us all.
This is by far the sickest we’ve ever all been. The dazzling array of germs and bugs and viruses and bacterium in the Great American Melting Pot never laid us low like this. Must be the weather.
This morning K reported that she dreamed that a boy came to our house and wanted to cuddle with her. She’s five, so this is one of those things that make you go, ‘hmmn.’ She also announced that she likes to eat her buggers, which is more like it. ‘OK darling,’ I said. ‘Just be careful who you share that information with, not everyone will understand.’ She nodded wisely and ran off.
Unless someone takes another turn for the worse today, Ralf is off to Ireland tonight for our company’s European Christmas party. I was supposed to go too and we had planned an extra day just for us but I’m still not well enough to travel and party, plus my girls need me. But he has business there and needs to go, besides he can hopefully get a good night’s sleep tonight if he can escape his needy family for 24 hours.
So that’s the update from Munich. We’re holding steady and I may even be able to get some work done today, which would be good since I have a big design deadline coming up. Thanks to all of you for your good wishes, I’m sure they helped.
But there is collateral damage as we sift through the rubble and we aren’t out of the woods yet. I’ve stressed abdominal multiple muscles during my violent coughing attacks and it feels like I may have dislodged my appendix. And you don't even want to know about my hair. K has developed a new cough and is complaining about ear pain so we may be on the road to an ear infection. L is also coughing fiercely and may be getting a sinus infection. Poor Ralf is exhausted from taking care of us all.
This is by far the sickest we’ve ever all been. The dazzling array of germs and bugs and viruses and bacterium in the Great American Melting Pot never laid us low like this. Must be the weather.
This morning K reported that she dreamed that a boy came to our house and wanted to cuddle with her. She’s five, so this is one of those things that make you go, ‘hmmn.’ She also announced that she likes to eat her buggers, which is more like it. ‘OK darling,’ I said. ‘Just be careful who you share that information with, not everyone will understand.’ She nodded wisely and ran off.
Unless someone takes another turn for the worse today, Ralf is off to Ireland tonight for our company’s European Christmas party. I was supposed to go too and we had planned an extra day just for us but I’m still not well enough to travel and party, plus my girls need me. But he has business there and needs to go, besides he can hopefully get a good night’s sleep tonight if he can escape his needy family for 24 hours.
So that’s the update from Munich. We’re holding steady and I may even be able to get some work done today, which would be good since I have a big design deadline coming up. Thanks to all of you for your good wishes, I’m sure they helped.
December 17, 2008
Death warmed over
I think I finally understand that phrase. Hopefully this is my last posting on the plague that has struck my family down.
Last night I had a webinar that I had to pull myself together for. Desperate to suppress my coughing, I snarfed down half a bottle of cough syrup. The good news is that I got through my webinar without any disgusting and off-putting cough attacks. The bad news is I got a bit drunk and woke up with a doosy of a hangover that made it impossible to determine where my flu ended and my hangover began. I spent the day unconscious in bed and didn’t stir until 4 PM.
K was just as sick as me and also spent the day in bed. She didn’t have a fever and was lucid but all she wanted to do was sleep since Monday night. Once she passed her 36th hour of sleep without eating Ralf took her to the doctor, who said she’s fine and just needs to sleep it off. She roused herself and crept out of bed twice to come kiss me solemnly on the forehead.
L had a fever last night but woke up pretty fit. However, she’s a companionable sort of baby so she crawled into bed with me and slept for 4 hours, just to keep me company.
Our cat’s been loving it – people sleeping all day is totally his thing.
Ralf went out and bought a whole chicken, which he then proceeded to boil for me. ‘I think you can turn this into a soup,’ he said hopefully, poking at the pale, boiled chicken. Then he ran off to catch up on the work he’s been neglecting, while I peered in dismay at the flaccid chicken and our totaled house - toys, books, crayons, medicines, dishes and laundry everywhere. On the bright side, the fact that I was able to notice how messy everything looked seemed like a good sign.
I think we’re sloooowly coming back to life here.
Last night I had a webinar that I had to pull myself together for. Desperate to suppress my coughing, I snarfed down half a bottle of cough syrup. The good news is that I got through my webinar without any disgusting and off-putting cough attacks. The bad news is I got a bit drunk and woke up with a doosy of a hangover that made it impossible to determine where my flu ended and my hangover began. I spent the day unconscious in bed and didn’t stir until 4 PM.
K was just as sick as me and also spent the day in bed. She didn’t have a fever and was lucid but all she wanted to do was sleep since Monday night. Once she passed her 36th hour of sleep without eating Ralf took her to the doctor, who said she’s fine and just needs to sleep it off. She roused herself and crept out of bed twice to come kiss me solemnly on the forehead.
L had a fever last night but woke up pretty fit. However, she’s a companionable sort of baby so she crawled into bed with me and slept for 4 hours, just to keep me company.
Our cat’s been loving it – people sleeping all day is totally his thing.
Ralf went out and bought a whole chicken, which he then proceeded to boil for me. ‘I think you can turn this into a soup,’ he said hopefully, poking at the pale, boiled chicken. Then he ran off to catch up on the work he’s been neglecting, while I peered in dismay at the flaccid chicken and our totaled house - toys, books, crayons, medicines, dishes and laundry everywhere. On the bright side, the fact that I was able to notice how messy everything looked seemed like a good sign.
I think we’re sloooowly coming back to life here.
December 16, 2008
German medicine
After we all decided to stay home yesterday I got really sick. Everything hurt and I got this horrible dry cough and it was just awful. The kids were relatively chirpy, which made for an unbalanced combination. Ralf felt I had no business being more sick than him and was annoyed that he had to be the one holding everything together.
German medicine always fascinates me. The packaging is indifferent. Much of it doesn’t work, or at least plenty of prescription drugs I’ve gotten here are less effective than over the counter stuff I can get in the US. It doesn’t taste good – I sampled two cough drops yesterday, one of which tasted like ear wax (and I’m being generous) and the other like bogies with a twist of lemon.
After naps, the kids felt warm so Ralf took them to the doctor. Nothing serious, just a cold, so that was good. Then I went to the doctor and requested Abuterol (asthma spray) because it’s the only thing that helps with dry coughing. Instead, the doctor said I should inhale hot Salbei (sage) tea and wrote a prescription for a EUR 200 electric inhaler device (which I didn’t buy, are you kidding me???) and some Codeine. I was excited about the Codeine, thinking of prescription Codeine you get in the US that knocks you out good, but it turned out to be some sort of lame drops you add to water and drink. It is supposed to suppress your cough, which it didn’t, and didn’t include any drugs for pain or to help you sleep. So I ended up mixing with some US stuff like Motrin and Tylenol, which made me wonder why I bothered going to the doctor in the first place. Oh, and it made me throw up.
It seems to me that doctors are rarely that good, in the US or in Germany. Obviously they have test taking skills but it seems that most of them work by their data points and don’t use a lot of common sense. If a patient comes to you and says they can’t sleep because of a chronic and painful dry cough, wouldn’t you think to give them something to help them sleep and suppress the pain? On the bright side, at least they aren’t all antibiotics happy here like US doctors. In fact, most of them would rather give you nothing.
Today both kids had low fevers and we all spent most of the day in bed – I wasn’t able to get out of bed for most of the morning, no matter how my girls implored me. It’s funny, I’d die for them but I just couldn’t get up for them. Later I felt well enough to give them some proper TLC punctuated by intensely painful dry coughing. K hasn’t been able to eat a thing without throwing it back up but she’s been fever-free and in a pretty good mood. L’s been doing better on the food front but cranky and I’ve had to keep administering Motrin to keep her temperature down.
Ralf just feels rotten but he’s functioning. And I’m starting to perk back up, too. Hopefully I'll be able to tackle some serious topics again in the next day or two...
German medicine always fascinates me. The packaging is indifferent. Much of it doesn’t work, or at least plenty of prescription drugs I’ve gotten here are less effective than over the counter stuff I can get in the US. It doesn’t taste good – I sampled two cough drops yesterday, one of which tasted like ear wax (and I’m being generous) and the other like bogies with a twist of lemon.
After naps, the kids felt warm so Ralf took them to the doctor. Nothing serious, just a cold, so that was good. Then I went to the doctor and requested Abuterol (asthma spray) because it’s the only thing that helps with dry coughing. Instead, the doctor said I should inhale hot Salbei (sage) tea and wrote a prescription for a EUR 200 electric inhaler device (which I didn’t buy, are you kidding me???) and some Codeine. I was excited about the Codeine, thinking of prescription Codeine you get in the US that knocks you out good, but it turned out to be some sort of lame drops you add to water and drink. It is supposed to suppress your cough, which it didn’t, and didn’t include any drugs for pain or to help you sleep. So I ended up mixing with some US stuff like Motrin and Tylenol, which made me wonder why I bothered going to the doctor in the first place. Oh, and it made me throw up.
It seems to me that doctors are rarely that good, in the US or in Germany. Obviously they have test taking skills but it seems that most of them work by their data points and don’t use a lot of common sense. If a patient comes to you and says they can’t sleep because of a chronic and painful dry cough, wouldn’t you think to give them something to help them sleep and suppress the pain? On the bright side, at least they aren’t all antibiotics happy here like US doctors. In fact, most of them would rather give you nothing.
Today both kids had low fevers and we all spent most of the day in bed – I wasn’t able to get out of bed for most of the morning, no matter how my girls implored me. It’s funny, I’d die for them but I just couldn’t get up for them. Later I felt well enough to give them some proper TLC punctuated by intensely painful dry coughing. K hasn’t been able to eat a thing without throwing it back up but she’s been fever-free and in a pretty good mood. L’s been doing better on the food front but cranky and I’ve had to keep administering Motrin to keep her temperature down.
Ralf just feels rotten but he’s functioning. And I’m starting to perk back up, too. Hopefully I'll be able to tackle some serious topics again in the next day or two...
December 15, 2008
Hats off to single moms
For the last two weeks, K, L and I have been suffering from fairly nasty colds, the nasty German variety that start off not so bad and escalate well past the time when the cold should be gone. This culminated in K’s fever yesterday, which fortunately went down in the afternoon so we were able to hold our annual Christmas party. The other moms, most of whom have been home with their kids for some flu or other over the last weeks, looked understandably nonplussed when we explained why K looked a bit glassy-eyed. But it wasn’t as bad as last year, when K contracted some weird Chicken Pox lookalike virus and all the pregnant women edged away from us. Or a couple of years ago when we invited all our colleagues round for Christmas coffee and poor L contracted virulent pink eye the day of. That was a memorable Christmas party – I spent most of it handing round antibiotic most towels and wiping L’s eye gunk with a wet tissue.
So as Christmas parties thrown by us go, yesterday wasn’t too bad. K was a bit quiet and peaky at the beginning then later she perked up and ran off to play.
Through all of this, Ralf has been strangely cold resilient, although he has gotten to enjoy our colds vicariously as we cough all night in stereo. So imagine my dismay when I woke up unable to stop coughing and he woke up with the flu – which, of course, trumps the common cold, even a bad one.
On an average day I consider my fate to be rather hard during German winter. I am not at harmony with nature and consider the cold weather to be my natural enemy. The kids have to be at school by 8:30 so it’s pitch dark when we wake up, and it seems to take forever to get lunches packed, everyone fed and suited up, ice scraped off the car, etc. I fantasize about the ease of life in warmer climates where you throw on a t-shirt and you’re good.
Anyway, most days I focus on getting kids dressed and fed and Ralf drives them to school but today I was on my own. This means that I had to get dressed, too, and the social conventions that dictate how ratty you can look when you leave the house are a bit stricter here than in my native Los Angeles, where you can either look crappy or faboo and still fit in. Coughing all the while.
So, enough whining about my life, which is actually blessed as long as my kids are healthy (sort of) and happy and we can afford to feed them. The point I want to make is that there are single moms who do this on their own every day. Mind you, most of the ones I know live in California where the warm weather makes a few things easier. But it’s still very demanding to do everything for kids without help every day. On days when I find myself completely on my own my thoughts go out to these remarkable women.
Epilogue to this short story: As it happens, we all ended up staying at home after getting all suited up. I had a vision of dragging my coughing kids into the Kindergarten, violently coughing myself, as seen through the eyes of the other mothers and had an attack of conscience. OK, let's be honests, it wasn't really conscience, since their kids probably made my kids sick in the first place - more like self-conscience.
So as Christmas parties thrown by us go, yesterday wasn’t too bad. K was a bit quiet and peaky at the beginning then later she perked up and ran off to play.
Through all of this, Ralf has been strangely cold resilient, although he has gotten to enjoy our colds vicariously as we cough all night in stereo. So imagine my dismay when I woke up unable to stop coughing and he woke up with the flu – which, of course, trumps the common cold, even a bad one.
On an average day I consider my fate to be rather hard during German winter. I am not at harmony with nature and consider the cold weather to be my natural enemy. The kids have to be at school by 8:30 so it’s pitch dark when we wake up, and it seems to take forever to get lunches packed, everyone fed and suited up, ice scraped off the car, etc. I fantasize about the ease of life in warmer climates where you throw on a t-shirt and you’re good.
Anyway, most days I focus on getting kids dressed and fed and Ralf drives them to school but today I was on my own. This means that I had to get dressed, too, and the social conventions that dictate how ratty you can look when you leave the house are a bit stricter here than in my native Los Angeles, where you can either look crappy or faboo and still fit in. Coughing all the while.
So, enough whining about my life, which is actually blessed as long as my kids are healthy (sort of) and happy and we can afford to feed them. The point I want to make is that there are single moms who do this on their own every day. Mind you, most of the ones I know live in California where the warm weather makes a few things easier. But it’s still very demanding to do everything for kids without help every day. On days when I find myself completely on my own my thoughts go out to these remarkable women.
Epilogue to this short story: As it happens, we all ended up staying at home after getting all suited up. I had a vision of dragging my coughing kids into the Kindergarten, violently coughing myself, as seen through the eyes of the other mothers and had an attack of conscience. OK, let's be honests, it wasn't really conscience, since their kids probably made my kids sick in the first place - more like self-conscience.
December 14, 2008
When life gets simple
Life is very simple when your child is sick. The world fades away and there are no deadlines, no errands, nothing that can’t wait. The only thing that matters is holding your child close and imparting comfort.
K was recently vaccinated and went to bed last night with a light fever that’s still with her. It’s worrisome because it’s only the 3rd fever she’s ever had in her 5 years – she had one when she was teething and one bad one with an ear infection, that’s it. But after a quiet morning she’s now feeling well enough to eat goldfish, watch ‘Christmas with Callou’ and laugh at bathroom humor (I said the word 'poop'). Also, she just complained that her apple juice was too warm so I think she’s getting better. My maternal instincts, those strings of the soul that connect me to my firstborn, don't warn me that this is anything very serious and after reading some other mommy blogs this week I am deeply grateful.
But her green eyes look so big in her pale face and a little voice in my head warns me to stay vigilant so I feel her forehead again when I bring her a fresh apple juice. A bit better, I think.
L’s got a cold but it hasn’t slowed her down at all, she's as bouncy and naughty as ever. Yesterday she sat on the Poinsettia, crushing it flat, and to my great surprise, said, ‘Oh, wank!’
My little bubis.
K was recently vaccinated and went to bed last night with a light fever that’s still with her. It’s worrisome because it’s only the 3rd fever she’s ever had in her 5 years – she had one when she was teething and one bad one with an ear infection, that’s it. But after a quiet morning she’s now feeling well enough to eat goldfish, watch ‘Christmas with Callou’ and laugh at bathroom humor (I said the word 'poop'). Also, she just complained that her apple juice was too warm so I think she’s getting better. My maternal instincts, those strings of the soul that connect me to my firstborn, don't warn me that this is anything very serious and after reading some other mommy blogs this week I am deeply grateful.
But her green eyes look so big in her pale face and a little voice in my head warns me to stay vigilant so I feel her forehead again when I bring her a fresh apple juice. A bit better, I think.
L’s got a cold but it hasn’t slowed her down at all, she's as bouncy and naughty as ever. Yesterday she sat on the Poinsettia, crushing it flat, and to my great surprise, said, ‘Oh, wank!’
My little bubis.
December 13, 2008
Really easy spicy tomato caper rotini
I made this the other night with a few random ingredients I found in my pantry and it was really easy and tasty:
1 package rotini pasta (any pasta will do, really)
4-6 fresh tomatoes
1 small jar capers
1/8 cup Olive oil
A generous dollop of chili oil
Cajun seasoning
Salt, pepper
Parmasan cheese
Cut the tomatoes and let them simmer in a frying pan with lots of oil while the noodles are cooking. After they start to get tender, add the capers, chili oil, Cajun seasoning and salt/pepper to taste and keep simmering until the tomatoes start looking saucy. Drain the noodles and add to the sauce, mix it all up and sprinkle with Parmasan.
Yummy!
1 package rotini pasta (any pasta will do, really)
4-6 fresh tomatoes
1 small jar capers
1/8 cup Olive oil
A generous dollop of chili oil
Cajun seasoning
Salt, pepper
Parmasan cheese
Cut the tomatoes and let them simmer in a frying pan with lots of oil while the noodles are cooking. After they start to get tender, add the capers, chili oil, Cajun seasoning and salt/pepper to taste and keep simmering until the tomatoes start looking saucy. Drain the noodles and add to the sauce, mix it all up and sprinkle with Parmasan.
Yummy!
December 12, 2008
A Tough Climate
Does anyone still actually believe that coal is clean or that oil will last forever? Or that building more coal burning plants and gas-guzzling cars is a long term winning strategy for the US?If anyone does still believe this please stop reading now because you are hopeless.
As for the rest of you, here’s some mixed news from the green front:
The Good:
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) officially and unanimously approved the AB32 Scoping Plan, a blueprint which charts the course for reaching 1990 global warming emissions levels by 2020.
Seven Western states (Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Utah) and four Canadian provinces (British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario) have followed California's lead by pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a Western Climate Initiative.
President Obama gets it: "...we have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country, in all 50 states, to repower America, to redesign how we use energy, to think about how we are increasing efficiency, to make our economy stronger, make us more safe, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and make us competitive for decades to come, even as we're saving the planet."
Germany met it’s Kyoto protocol goals 4 years early and as economies go these days, is doing pretty darn well. They’re also doing good things on the auto front – we just bought a Blue Motion Golf V that only needs gas about once a month, so we went from spending about $200 per month on gas to about $50. That means our car will probably pay for itself before we get a new one.
The Bad:
Despite the good, it still isn’t enough. For those of you who haven't yet seen venture capitalist and environmentalist John Doerr talk about what has been done and what still needs to be done, I recommend it.
Coal companies seem to be spending their money marketing coal as "clean" rather than actually making it clean. In reality, not one American home today is powered by a coal-burning plant that captures and stores its carbon pollution. Coal plants are responsible for a full third of America's carbon dioxide pollution, the chief cause of global warming.
The Ugly:
A polar bear in the Nuernberg Zoo just ate her cub. You can’t tell me that nature isn’t seriously out of whack.
The Upshot:
Momentum is gathering in the right direction but we have to keep it going. It's not just about turning off lights and re-setting the air conditioner, although these things help. Let's face it, people aren’t going back to the dark ages where you rode a horse to the next town and read by candlelight. Some lifestyle changes are recommended because mindlessly and voraciously consuming stuff we don’t need isn't good for the soul. But what it really comes down to is having the convenience without the environmental spillover, which means investing in new energy and production technologies. And that will require flexing our political and consumer muscles.
Everyone's busy so here's a list of the easiest things to do, where I've tried to balance level of effort against positive outcome and/or cost savings. My husband has done a lot of research on this topic and each of these ideas has already been vetted by our household.
Join and/or donate to the Environmental Defense Fund or We Can Solve It. Al Gore is one of my heroes, right up there with Tina Fey. So, when he started wecansolveit.org I signed up right away. Sometimes I donate money to support a new ad campaign and when they ask me to contact my senator or write a letter to the editor I do it. I like them because they keep me informed and make it easy for me to voice my opinion to our political leaders.
Join the Sierra Club – they do good work and will even send you a voting cheat sheet so you know which candidates actually support a green agenda. I love that because it’s hard to figure out from all the political mumbo jumbo who’s actually green. Most rotten politicians aren’t considerate enough to announce that they hate the environment and want to personally kill every last polar bear – excepting Sarah Palin, of course.
Offset your household carbon emissions by purchasing wind credits – it costs a bit more ($15/month for an average family household) but gives the wind power infrastructure a chance to grow and stablize until the day we don’t have to do anything ‘extra’ to get clean energy. East Bay folks can pick up an easy application at Whole Foods.
Offset your auto emissions with Terra Pass. Terra Passes also make great Christmas gifts.
Change your light bulbs and hang your laundry – I saved over $100/month in electricity by doing this. $1200 per year savings will more than offset the minimal additional expense you incur for offsetting your carbon footprint.
Think about what you buy – plastic consumes a lot of power to produce and creates environmental spillover as well. Plastic toys, plastic water bottles, plastic detergent/milk/juice bottles. . . try switching to wood or paper products. Paper isn’t perfect but at least with intelligent planning it’s renewable and most importantly, can be reprocessed.
This is pretty heavy stuff so I'd like to leave you with a joke:
"President Bush told reporters he won't see Al Gore's documentary about the threat of global warming. On the other hand, Dick Cheney said he's seen the global warming film five times, and it still cracks him up." --Conan O'Brien
And one more, slightly off topic:
A woman called her husband during the day and asked him to pick up some organic vegetables for that night’s dinner on his way home. The husband arrived at the store and began to search all over for organic vegetables before finally asking the produce guy where they were. The produce guy didn’t know what he was talking about, so the husband said: “These vegetables are for my wife. Have they been sprayed with poisonous chemicals?” To which the produce guy replied, “No, sir, you will have to do that yourself.”
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