Gold Dust, March 2013-March 2015 ~ RIP

Gold Dust, our sweet Buff Orpington hen, died yesterday. We had her in "hen hospice" in Aubrey's bedroom, near the brooder where a dozen 2-week old chicks are peeping away. She'd started going blind in one eye last year, but still was an awesome mama hen who successfully brooded and raised three new chicks we bought at the feed store (we don't have a rooster). This year she finally went completely blind, and even though we had her separated in a little "apartment coop" of her own so the other hens wouldn't harass her and she could find her food and water easily, she grew very thin and finally stopped eating and drinking altogether.

On Saturday we decided to bring her in the house and make her cozy in a little box filled with straw. We loved on her a little, and then put her near the brooder where she could get a little warmth from the heat lamp. When I checked on her late Sunday afternoon, I could see she was barely still breathing, and by the evening she had died.

I know a lot of people would have said "Stew pot!" as soon as she began going blind. But this was a hen who would jump up and settle down in our laps to be petted when we sat on chairs in the coop to watch "chicken TV". She faithfully raised our next generation of chickens for us, and her gentle disposition (Buff Orpingtons are known as the Golden Retrievers of the chicken world) made her a favorite.

Aubrey demonstrated compassion for an "imperfect" life form by caring for her blind chicken so diligently for so long, and I like the lesson that provided far more than the lesson of efficiency would have taught. She might become a pragmatic rancher one day, and not have the luxury of doting on a blind hen. But I'm glad she had the opportunity to express her compassion for Gold Dust, our perfect imperfect hen.

The Measure of Things

My kindergartner was given an award for "attitude" at the school's monthly Breakfast of Champions this morning. We were invited to come for breakfast and see her receive her award. Not being morning people, it was an effort to arrive by 8 AM with camera batteries charged and ready to go. But my husband, older daughter and I made the effort (older daughter had already spent time brushing and visiting with her horse, a real anomaly at that hour of the morning!)

The "breakfast" consisted of a bowl of some artificially-dyed sugary spheres and a fairly large freshly-baked cinnamon roll dripping with icing, a juice box of apple juice, and half an orange. Yikes! It was a diabetic's nightmare! The event was held in the gym, which sported posters with sentiments like "Seven days with no exercise makes one weak." But one could argue that such government-administered breakfasts makes one weak, not to mention obese! I felt sorry for the teachers who'd have to teach these sugared-up kids in the coming hours. (My daughter came home with us, as she attends afternoon kindergarten...something she found very confusing, to come to school and then leave without going to class.)

The award "ceremony" consisted of a group of about 6-9 kids from each grade level being called up all at once (many of their names unclear or mispronounced) and running a gauntlet of teachers/admins who had their hands out so the kids could run up the center and give "low 5's" on both sides as they ran through. They then went over and crowded around a teacher who distributed their certificates. It was an exercise in "mass acknowledgement"; no student really was in the spotlight for more than a second, and nothing personal was said about their achievement.

The kids had been selected for being "R.E.A.L. Knights" (the school's mascot is a knight, and R.E.A.L. stands for Respect, Effort, Attitude, and Leadership.) My daughter's certificate stated she was being acknowledged for her "attitude"...LOL! I acknowledge her attitude daily! My older daughter thought that was hysterical.  However, they didn't announce which attribute each child was being recognized for. To me, such minimal recognition wasn't worth the effort of the ceremony.

The award I would give my daughter is "perseverance." She has beaten the odds to survive and even be attending kindergarten, let alone being able to speak in intelligible (albeit difficult to understand) sentences and read from beginning readers and swing from the monkey bars and share hugs and do somersaults with her friends Marlee and Jorja. She has a 100-lb personality crammed into a 36-lb body. She is classified as developmentally disabled, intellectually impaired, and language impaired, as well as exhibiting clinical signs of sensory processing disorder and ADHD. Yet at age 3-1/2, at the hotel room in India after leaving the orphanage, she figured out all by herself how to launch iPhoto on my iPad, scroll through the thumbnails until she found a video, and play it. She also tested in the upper percentile of her kindergarten class for reading skills in the fall statewide assessment. She recently began singing parts of the Gloria from Mass ("You take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; for You alone are the Holy One; You alone are the Lord..."), yet she can't reliably tell us what she'd like to eat for dinner. She is an enigma, and won't fit neatly into measurable categories.

Most likely her "attitude" award was prompted by her indomitable spirit. Her name in Hindi means "bringer of joy", and strangers routinely comment on what a happy, joyful personality she has. And so even though this morning's awards ceremony left a lot to be desired, they did get one thing right. This girl has a winning attitude.

Hot Flash Inspired Insomnia Causes Woman to Post Blog Entry at 3 AM

My friend complained to me today about getting no sleep last night, and I shuddered, as I've had my bouts with insomnia. Well, I must have caught it from her, as I woke up tonight after being asleep for only an hour, hot as Hades, and couldn't get back to sleep. All I can think is that God gave us women hot flashes to keep us awake so we can get more done during our mid-life years. I was so tired today, I can't imagine any other reason why my body wanted to wake me up after only an hour's sleep.

My laptop balked today when I tried to download the pictures from our 9-day trip to California; apparently the 39,623 items already in iPhoto dating mainly from 2003 (hey, that's only 3,445 photos/videos per year, or 287 per month, or 9.4 per day) are hogging the hard drive and don't want to share. The deferred maintenance on photo management has now bitten me in the butt. I guess there are worse things than being a shutterbug. I try my best to cull the downloads as they happen so there aren't a lot of duplicates, blurry shots, etc., but nearly 10 "keepers" per day for 11-1/2 years has formed a ginormous photo glacier that's crushing the hard drive. I'll have to explore my technological options. (Reforming my trigger-happy ways is simply not up for discussion at this point.)

I suspect my predilection for photographing my family has its roots in an underdocumented childhood. As the youngest of six children, I have precisely ONE snapshot of me as an infant (lying on the couch at 2 months of age), in addition to the hospital newborn mugshot and a couple of studio portraits with my brother Richard when I'm about a year old. There is another series of studio portraits with Richard when I was 4 years old (about the time I entered permanent foster care), two snapshots with me at age 4, another few taken on the same day at about age 7, and two from when I won the school spelling bee in 4th grade. Then nothing until junior high, with maybe another dozen snapshots from 8th grade through my senior year in high school. Not counting school portraits, that's about 30 photos from birth to age 18, clustered at certain ages with gaps of several years scattered throughout.

My children will never wonder what they looked like at age two, or what they did on their birthdays, or what their childhood friends looked like. It's a gift I have to manage so it's not so unwieldly that they will never be able to slog through all of them. But it's my gift that says "I was there, honey. See? I saw you. You mattered, and you were never invisible to me."

By the way, Disneyland was better than anticipated after a 35-year hiatus, and it was fun sharing it with the girls. We rode Pirates of the Caribbean right off the bat, and for me everything after that was gravy. Oldest daughter talked me into riding the big rollercoaster with her at CA Adventure, the aptly named California Screamin'. I told her it's only because I loved her, and she owed me. (Shoulder massages and foot rubs were suggested.) It wasn't so bad, except the part at the beginning where it accellerates to about 60 mph in a few seconds and my eyeballs felt like they were being pushed into the back of my skull. I actually rode it with her again the next day; it was much more enjoyable than Space Mountain, which I'll never opt to ride again. Sailing into the stars in the darkness at the beginning was fun, but then it got much too lurchy. My 6-year old daughter had bug eyes at the end of that ride, and looked uncertain whether to cry or laugh, but I smiled big and told her she was "Awesome Possum" for riding it, and the look of uncertainty vanished and she smiled big back at me. She declared it "scary fun."

We shared the Disneyland experience with Grandma and Grandpa, who also hadn't been in about a quarter century. Together we enjoyed the ambiance of New Orleans Square and the paddleboat ride on the Mark Twain, and the good food at the French Market restaurant. Overall, we were blessed with short lines, good weather, and good health, apropos of the happiest place on earth.

Another highlight of our trip was spending three hours at Will Rogers State Beach with perfect beach weather...mid-70s with a light breeze. We had the beach to ourselves, with only the occasional jogger or cyclist passing by. We reveled in the sand and waves while pelicans were dive-bombing a school of fish just offshore and five sanderlings and a lone dowitcher scuttled in and out at the foamy water's edge. An abandoned sea lion pup languished on the rocks in the rip-rap jetty nearby. We were told that the marine mammal rescue had been notified of its presence. It was young and thin, and flopped about weakly at times, but mostly remained still. My daughter was thrilled to be able to see one up close, but I suspected it wouldn't last too long; the marine rescue had been contacted that morning, and when we left at 4 PM, they still hadn't shown up. Poor little pup.

We made 16 distinct social connections in 8-1/2 days (including two days at Disneyland and three different hotels), so it wasn't much of a "vacation", but it was nice to reconnect with so many friends and family members. We visited with my 88-year old mother and two brothers; had lunch with my 70-something foster mother; walked the beach with my foster sister whose husband had recently committed suicide; met another foster sister at the park with her husband and 6 of her 8 children and endured a hailstorm and captured a duck while we were there; showed my daughter my old stomping grounds, including my childhood home where I lived for 8 years and the elementary school I attended, the jr. high school where I met her father and asked him to the 9th grade dance (he was in 8th grade, so I had to be the one to ask), and the high school from which I graduated 35 years ago; met for lunch with my sister-in-law, who hadn't met my youngest and hadn't seen my 11-year old since she was two years old; saw my old therapist, who helped me get my head screwed on straight after 14 years in foster care, and showed off the family to him; had dinner with an old artist/poet/dancer/theatre friend and her husband; had breakfast with the Indian priest who baptised my husband and me 12 years ago,  our oldest daughter 11 years ago, and visited with our youngest daughter at her orphanage in India before we adopted her; visited our friends/godparents at their ranch with their 6 children and enjoyed a Friday Lenten supper and some musical interludes before taking off to rendezvous with our old church choir friends at their bi-weekly rehearsal, where we were feted with a potluck and wine and hours of making music together until nearly midnight.

We ended our string of social engagements at a park in Burbank near the airport the next morning, where we rendezvoused with my old teaching friend and her daughter and three grandsons. The boys are working child actors with parts in TV shows and major films like Frozen, The Lego Movie, and Wreck-It Ralph, but are still nice "normal" kids who had a lot of fun romping around with my two girls on the play structures.

Somewhere in there my husband also spent two long days at his business client's aerospace machine shop in Burbank, which the girls and I also got to briefly visit. 

Now we're home, and I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation! But we hit the ground running, and four days in, on top of the normal school/therapy/dance/piano/critters routine, we've set up a chick brooder in my daughter's bedroom and have 12 little chicks slowly morphing into hens (and probably a few roosters; we got five straight-run banties for us---two Buff Brahmas, two White Silkies, and one Silver Sebright---in addition to 7 pullets---Rhode Island Red, Amber White, White Leghorn, Ameracauna, and Silver-Laced Wyandotte---for our daughter's dance teacher); I've helped my daughter plant dozens of seedling pots for her "Garden Gal" vegetable/herb start business venture; and I've written the newsletter for the dance studio. The fun never stops! But it sure beats the alternative. I can't imagine ever being bored.

Time for another shot at sleep...

Survivors

I found out yesterday that my foster sister's husband committed suicide last week. I felt bad that it took five days for me to notice the reference on her Facebook post. He suffered from clinical OCD and depression, as well as some addictions, so it wasn't a complete and utter shock that he would take his own life. I suppose what was more shocking was that I found out via Facebook.

True, this is a foster sister with whom I lived for only a few weeks 31 years ago, and who I've only seen once in the past 10 years. But she is the sister who I followed home from school one day because she invited me to stay with her family when I was 16 years old and had no other viable options. She has a long history of reaching out to those in need. I am forever indebted to her for bringing me into the healing presence of her family.

Oh, sister, I'm so sad for your loss. You are an optimist, and always see the good and the potential in people who are riddled with problems. You were a blessing for Jim during the years you had together. I hope you are blessed with the peace of knowing that truth, and that you never suffer from survivor's guilt.

When my brother Richard committed suicide at age 21, I had no such sense of peace. I was 19, and utterly absorbed in launching my life. I was working and going to community college and preparing to transfer to UC Davis in the fall. I only learned later that he was upset about being fired from his job as a mechanic at U-Haul as a result of losing his driver's license because of outstanding traffic warrants. He was taking medications designed to treat what might have been emergent bipolar disorder, including SSRI anti-depressants. I knew he also had a habit of taking stimulants to stay awake and tranquilizers to help him sleep.

He called me about a month before he died, upset about our mother (who had a long history of mental illness, including probable bipolar disorder), and I told him to just blow her off, that she was a crazy b*@#ch and not to worry about what she said or thought. I was surprised  that he was still vulnerable to her erratic moods and rantings (although I was far from immune myself.) I remember now with no small amount of shame that I talked with enthusiasm about my grades and about applying to UC Davis; I was trying to make small talk, and was excited about finally moving away from southern California. But in retrospect, it probably seemed like gloating and made him feel even more like a failure. We were fairly estranged, and it should have been a signal when he called, reaching out to me out of the blue. I didn't recognize it as that; I was just happy to hear from him, and tried to share my excitement about life, about breaking away from my history as a foster child in Ventura County and leaving our biological mother behind.

When I found out he had overdosed on a mixture of alcohol and SSRI anti-depressants, I felt a sense of shock and dread. But it wasn't until he'd been on life support in the hospital for a week that I realized with sudden horror that he wasn't going to recover, as the doctors were saying there was no significant brainwave activity, that the small movements he was making were just reflexes, that there was so much damage to his brain that he wouldn't even be able to breathe on his own when they disconnected the respirator. They were correct; my mother agreed to have him taken off life support on the tenth day, without notifying me or any of my siblings. He died immediately, while I was at work. I had a premonition that he had died; perhaps it was his spirit saying goodbye in passing. I have never quite forgiven my mother for not allowing me the chance to say goodbye, despite her being mentally ill herself. It was such a selfish act on her part. But it was in utter keeping with the way she'd always treated me, which was as if I didn't really exist.

My grief after Richard's passing was tremendous and heartwrenching. I felt physically ill. I stumbled through life's requirements, got passing grades, was accepted to UC Davis, etc. But I heard a nagging voice in the back of my head saying, "If only you'd listened more closely to him, and responded with a plan to get together, to offer him real relationship, not just your vapid bragging about your academic plans, he might still be here." A drunk driver smashed into me in my VW bus a couple days after his funeral, with only the grace of God and a front-mounted spare keeping me from joining Richard in the afterlife. It was traumatic, but part of me felt like I deserved it and more.

My survivor's guilt plagued me for years; it only dissipated after many years of therapy gave me the perspective to see that there was little that I, as an immature, wounded young woman myself, could have done to save Richard. Still, I often revisit that phone call in my mind, wondering if I could have made a difference, or at least made plans to get together so that it wouldn't have been my last interaction with him. He scared me a little; I admit that part of me didn't want to be around him, as I didn't know what to do about his self-destructive behavior, and it bothered me. But I loved him, and I loved that he loved me. I thought that that was enough, at least for the time being. I guess I thought there would be time to develop our relationship later, but not then, not when I was so busy trying to invent myself.

In reading about suicide in the years that followed Richard's death, I came across the quote, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." That powerful statement has resonated with me across the years, perhaps being one of the deciding factors dissuading me from following suit when life seemed particularly bleak and hopeless. And now it is my sister Katherine living with the permanence of the decision that her husband Jim made last week. Jim's sister has launched an online attack against Katherine, somehow blaming her for Jim's act. It is surreal, but some people deal with their pain in strange and inexplicable ways. Katherine's response has been so Katherine...patient and gentle and gracious. Would that we all be as blessed by our choice of response. For it is patience and gentleness and graciousness that are truly the permanent solutions to our temporary problems. 

Hope and Beauty and Mud

The robins are back!

I noticed my first robin this year about a week ago, when the rains had turned the earth to goo and the worms were wriggling to the surface, gasping for air. It was a bounteous feast for Mr. & Mrs. Redbreast, that's for sure!

I love how the robins appear every year at the height of winter gloom, bringing with them the hope of spring. Their cheerful, upright little forms decorate the drab lawns and fields with splashes of bright rusty breasts and yellow beaks, their black button eyes gazing about with keen intent. They hop across the grass, cock their heads, and plunge with deadly accuracy, yanking juicy morsels from the ground as easily as I select apples from a bin. 

If only I could learn to regularly find such treasures buried in the mud of my daily existence! I often exclaim that I feel like I'm running through mud, trying to get to the "real" stuff of life, but slowed down by the mundane and dreary landscape of household chores and the less scintillating responsibilities of motherhood.

My goal today is to think like a robin. There's got to be some yummy delight buried in this muck!

3...2...1...LAUNCH!

Houston, we've got blog liftoff!

I've considered blogging for years, and have kept an e-journal for many of those. It started as a pregnancy journal, and morphed into a journal of my daughter's developmental milestones, then at some point beyond her toddler years turned into the Family Journal. But a blog it ain't.

Inspired by a few extraordinary bloggers I encountered during our years-long adoption journey, and by the (private) blog of KH, my daughter's dance teacher/studio owner/creative genius/seamstress extraordinaire, I've decided to enter the blogosphere.

Brief bio: I'm a 52-year old homeschooling mom, married to my husband coming up on 30 years. I have a daughter I gave birth to 11 years ago and a 6-year old daughter we adopted from India 3 years ago. Yes, I'm a late bloomer. And that will be the predominant theme of my blog. 

My goals are to become a published author (initially children's literature, but I've got at least one adult novel or memoir in me as well) and to re-learn how to play the cello after a nearly 40-year hiatus. I was given one by my thoughtful husband for my birthday last November, so I don't have any excuses! And in December I submitted my first book, a picture book I co-wrote with my oldest daughter, to Victoria Rock, editor at Chronicle Books, for publication. I'm off to the races! 

But as usual, I've squeezed in launching this blog as the "one more thing" I've done this morning before rushing around to get the kids and myself ready, so it looks like it's going to be another fire at the clown academy. (My husband coined this term a couple of years ago to describe my daughter and I rushing out the door to our destination, yelling at each other to grab a forgotten item, rushing back in for another forgotten item, etc.) But I'm happy to be here, and will be back soon with more about the travails and trappings of life as a late bloomer.