One of the major things Debi and I have in common is our love of food and our passion for making it! Although our styles are INCREDIBLY different, we both truly enjoy making fun healthy food for our families. It is not uncommon for the majority of the ingredients in any given dish I make for my family to have come directly from our hand. We garden, we harvest, we farm, we collect. One of the most common meals we eat is chicken fried moose steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn. The moose is one we would have harvested, we grew the potatoes, the milk for the gravy comes from our milk cow. The corn, of course, is bought. I would like to see the guy who can grow corn in interior Alaska!
My 10 year old daughter, Paige, wanted to make some special Valentine's cookies for her friends. My husband always talked about the sugar cookies his Mama used to make and after his dad died this past February, we found her recipe book and her special sugar cookie recipe! After baking these the first time for Marc shortly after we got home from the funeral, I also realize these were some dang good cookies! So of course, this is the cookie that I'm making for Paige and her friends and since I had the book out, I thought I would share it. I think there are better way to show love than boughten greeting cards and dead cut flowers. In my life, food equals love.
Sugar Cookies
2/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp grated orange peel
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
4 tsp milk
2 cups sifted flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Throughly cream shortening, sugar, orange peel, and vanilla. Add egg; beat till light and fluffy. Stir in milk. Sift together dry ingredients; blend into creamed mixture. Divide dough in half. Chill dough 1 hour. On lightly floured surface, roll to 1/8 inch. Cut into desired shapes with cutters. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 375 about 6 to 8 minutes. Cool slightly; remove from pan. Cool on rack. Decorate. Makes a little under 2 dozen.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Stori: Love is in the air
I love the sounds this time of year brings. After supper last night, I was walking back to the barn with my Dad to finish evening chores. We stopped for a moment to listen to the owls. There must have been 4 or 5 of them calling to each other. I'm not sure which kind were being so talkative, there are several types that live around us. They are one of my favorite bird calls, hauntingly spooky. Lonely sounding, yet comforting. We have several Great Horned Owls that hunt our fields, they are so regal looking, perched atop the very tip of a spruce tree. Dad casually mentioned mating season and how vocal they get. I had to stop and think about what he said. The huge increase of bird activity this time of year has always just been a given to me. I guess I never really thought about why everybody was so excited all of sudden. The woodpeckers have also gotten into the raucous act. Drumming on trees constantly trying their hardest to call in a potential partner. We have two kinds of woodpecker that are very common around the place. The Hairy, which is the smaller of the two, and the Downy which is a fierce looking fellow. They are the acrobats of the place, dangling upside down as they look for their treasures. Living in a cabin can get pretty noisy when a couple woodpeckers decide to look for their next dinner in your logs.
This afternoon I was walking to the barn to give the horses their afternoon feeding. I feed 3 times a day to stoke their body furnace and to help them with the winter boredom we all experience, even the livestock. It was a beautiful afternoon. We are finally getting some radiant heat from the sun, so the light was warm on my face, it was nice crisp -10 below. Not uncomfortable at all. I stopped to listen to all the courting songs around me of the neighborhood. The blue jays were having air born dogfights, trying to impress the ladies. The chickadees and red polled finches chattering away, interrupting each other the whole time. I guess it's not just colors that are impressive, but the ability to brag about them. I heard Molly the milk cow give a grunt and a sigh as she lay down to chew her cud. Heidi, my favorite lady horse's hooves squeaking on the snow with impatience. She knew what my job was out there, and all I was doing was standing there looking into the trees like an idiot. That's when I heard it. A song I didn't recognize. A shrill sweet song repeating over and over. I searched the trees for quite a while before I spotted the culprit and seen a female Pine Grossbeak at the top of a birch. Her man flew to her and they squabbled in the air for a time then flew themselves away. Grossbeaks are one of my favorites. Very shy, and very rarely come to my feeders. The males are so brilliant red, they catch your eye as they fly past the window. Mating for life, you always see pairs. Such a treat when they do visit. I guess today, they were feeling the promise of spring too.
Debi & Stori: Mouse Chat
We were chatting about our last two posts, and it was so interesting, we decided to just post our chat transcript. It IS a small world, but it sure does have a lot of tiny hidden corners.
Debi:
I would not last two hours on your farm.
I AM sorry that you've had such sad and difficult experiences with city life.
Stori:
i guess that was a public apology to you about my 1st reaction with the school news
i did exactly what you were fighting against
Debi:
You didn't owe me one. I wasn't angry with you. You are like someone from another country in that regard -- you don't understand what it's like. That reporter knew exactly what he was doing.
Stori:
ok.
i just wanted to make sure
Debi:
I think it comes down to a very simple question, for me:
Are people generally good, with some bad apples, or are people generally bad, with a few nice exceptions?
Naively, perhaps, I think they're generally good.
Stori:
i just can't trust the general public. but i would hope it would be the good way
Debi:
This is going to sound really dumb...
Stori:
i doubt it
Debi:
...but I actually believe that putting out positive, trusting energy into the world can make it manifest.
I send out love. Love reaches people. People return it.
Stori:
that is a wonderful thought
wouldn't that be a great world to live in?
Debi:
Stori, I am going to say this with no attitude at all, but that's hard to hear over text on the internet...
...but...
...we DO live in that world.
Think of you and I.
You and I do live in that world. You and I trusted each other and it worked out well. How many chances to have that same experience with other people have we BOTH missed out on because we sent out scared, mistrustful vibes instead of loving ones?
Stori:
i'll have to think about this
Debi:
I promise that I am not saying that in any kind of angry tone.
But perhaps it answers any question you might have about how I can live in a city.
Stori:
i don't take it that way at all.
Debi:
I look around me and see all these people, all the time, people everywhere...
...and I think about all the friendships I could have with them. Any of them. All of them, if I had the time.
I have been so surprised by who I can connect to, given the chance.
Stori:
ok, think about this
this is another small example of how different our worlds are
Debi:
Exactly
It's funny -- I was thinking about the types of things that would worry me in your world.
#1 among them would be letting my kids so near to animals all the time.
And me too -- a horse could kick someone! bite someone! cows are huge -- what if one fell on Sammi?!
What if one of the dogs didn't trust these new people around him/her and just attacked?
Stori:
LOL, they only fall if you push it over
Debi:
All of this, I realize, sounds ridiculous to you.
Stori:
and my fears of the city sound just as ridiculous to you
Debi:
Exactly
I can see why you'd be afraid, given the experiences (or lack of them) you've had.
And the same for me.
So if I came to visit you, I'd just have to ask a lot of questions, follow your lead, and trust you.
Stori:
the same as i would you
but i'm afraid after a while you feel like you were leading a short bus version of tour chicago
Debi:
Hell no
I'd get a kick out of watching your eyes widen and your mouth droop open. :D
Stori:
this is EXACTLY why i love the idea of our blog
Debi:
Yep, me too.
Debi:
I would not last two hours on your farm.
I AM sorry that you've had such sad and difficult experiences with city life.
Stori:
i guess that was a public apology to you about my 1st reaction with the school news
i did exactly what you were fighting against
Debi:
You didn't owe me one. I wasn't angry with you. You are like someone from another country in that regard -- you don't understand what it's like. That reporter knew exactly what he was doing.
Stori:
ok.
i just wanted to make sure
Debi:
I think it comes down to a very simple question, for me:
Are people generally good, with some bad apples, or are people generally bad, with a few nice exceptions?
Naively, perhaps, I think they're generally good.
Stori:
i just can't trust the general public. but i would hope it would be the good way
Debi:
This is going to sound really dumb...
Stori:
i doubt it
Debi:
...but I actually believe that putting out positive, trusting energy into the world can make it manifest.
I send out love. Love reaches people. People return it.
Stori:
that is a wonderful thought
wouldn't that be a great world to live in?
Debi:
Stori, I am going to say this with no attitude at all, but that's hard to hear over text on the internet...
...but...
...we DO live in that world.
Think of you and I.
You and I do live in that world. You and I trusted each other and it worked out well. How many chances to have that same experience with other people have we BOTH missed out on because we sent out scared, mistrustful vibes instead of loving ones?
Stori:
i'll have to think about this
Debi:
I promise that I am not saying that in any kind of angry tone.
But perhaps it answers any question you might have about how I can live in a city.
Stori:
i don't take it that way at all.
Debi:
I look around me and see all these people, all the time, people everywhere...
...and I think about all the friendships I could have with them. Any of them. All of them, if I had the time.
I have been so surprised by who I can connect to, given the chance.
Stori:
ok, think about this
this is another small example of how different our worlds are
Debi:
Exactly
It's funny -- I was thinking about the types of things that would worry me in your world.
#1 among them would be letting my kids so near to animals all the time.
And me too -- a horse could kick someone! bite someone! cows are huge -- what if one fell on Sammi?!
What if one of the dogs didn't trust these new people around him/her and just attacked?
Stori:
LOL, they only fall if you push it over
Debi:
All of this, I realize, sounds ridiculous to you.
Stori:
and my fears of the city sound just as ridiculous to you
Debi:
Exactly
I can see why you'd be afraid, given the experiences (or lack of them) you've had.
And the same for me.
So if I came to visit you, I'd just have to ask a lot of questions, follow your lead, and trust you.
Stori:
the same as i would you
but i'm afraid after a while you feel like you were leading a short bus version of tour chicago
Debi:
Hell no
I'd get a kick out of watching your eyes widen and your mouth droop open. :D
Stori:
this is EXACTLY why i love the idea of our blog
Debi:
Yep, me too.
Stori: the other side
When Debi first told me about this horrible thing that had happened in Ronni's school, I admit, I immediately became one of the people that made Debi feel like she had to play defense against. My first reaction was "Are you going to pull Ronni out of school?" I think Debi was a little surprised with my question. Of course not she said, why would she? In my way of thinking, there were a hundred reasons that she should of. I'm not sure any of them were valid, but they all were gut reaction. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Who did this? I was sure, it was a who, not an accident. Now I do hope I am completely wrong and it was just a horrible senseless accident, but it goes against my better judgement.
We can blame it on the media, or on the way I was brought up. We can even blame it on my total ignorance of how things really are, but I cannot help but picture cities as these dark, crowded, uncaring places that are totally filled with people out to get you. Bad things happen to people in cities. They are populated by killers, druggies, and people who work in small cubicles. I love to watch TV shows based on city life in the same way as I enjoy watching animal planet. It's hard for me to find anything to identify with.
I was raised on an acreage in northwest Colorado. The town only had about a 1000 people in it, and it was where my Mom was born and raised. My family lived about 12 miles outside of town. The road we lived on was a small two lane highway that led out of Colorado to Wyoming. Now our house sat way up top a hill surrounded by hundreds of acres of empty land. From a very young age, my Dad put such a fear in me of that road, that I would only dare to go down there if I was on a horse. Never would I have dreamt of riding my bike alone on that small highway. It was such an empty place that hours could go by without a car driving by at all. Now my Dad always said that I was safer on a horse because I could escape pretty easy across country. He always told me that someone was going to snatch me up and drive right out of the state and they would never find me. I had red hair you know....for some reason that was supposed to put me at higher risk for kidnap? So I think that is where it all started, the deep mistrust of other people outside my family. Every car coming up behind you was a potential murderer/kidnapper/bad guy. My father was a Sheriff's Deputy before I was born and I think when you work a career surrounded by criminals, you see bogeymen behind every bush. Assume the worst, prepare yourself for all. After we moved from Meeker after the oil shale bust, we moved to the front range to Canon City. My Dad got a job with the prison system in Canon that at the time I think had 13 prisons in the area. This did not improve my Dad's outlook on the world, nor lessen his fear for his daughter. Canon was a larger town than Meeker, but still not a city by any means. To me, it was huge! It had two grocery stores and restaurants, and even a McDonald's! We still lived outside of town, still had our farm animals. I was never led to believe that I was in too much danger when I was in the town of Meeker, we knew everyone, literally. Nor was it too dangerous in Canon, it was still a small town. People talk too much in small towns, a person can't get away with too much. Mess up enough and eventually you will be found out. If I was smart, I would stay safe. That was the mantra I grew up with, Stay Together. Be Careful. Don't Wander Off! I had never lived with a locked door, or a closed curtain. I don't think we even had keys for our doors.
Then I moved to Texas. I lived in an apartment building. I was scared to death. We lived in a really poor part of town and the city we lived in had over 100,000 people in it. I heard gunshots, but it wasn't from pheasant hunting. Every time a car drove by I ran to the window to see who was coming to my house. My entire life I lived with the knowledge that if you heard a car, someone was in your driveway. For the first time I had curtains on my windows, I tried not to, but people would walk by AND LOOK IN. Our car was broke into and someone stole the quarters out of the console. The majority of people were black. There was one partial black family in Meeker, we were actually related. And only a small handful of blacks in Canon. This racial diversity was something so foreign to me, it was hard to deal with. I had no racist feelings, just total ignorance. There was man named "K' that lived in the apartment above me. He would try to trade cigarettes for opened packages of food he had. Like if I gave him 2 cigarettes he would give me a half a can of Nestle Quik chocolate milk powder. Living there confirmed everything that my Dad had unknowingly taught me growing up about cities and city people. I had a customer jump over the counter of a convenience store I was working in one night and punch me in the face because I was enforcing the prepay for gas after dark rule.
After my family moved to Alaska, it was much better. People were too busy trying not to get themselves killed from the land to bother each other too much. When I lived in Grand Junction for a short time, I had a small break down on the freeway. No one stopped. Not one person stopped to help me. When I slid off the road in North Pole on the way to work several years ago, my car had barely slid to a stop before 3 vehicles had pulled over to help me. Yet, as I send my daughter off every day to go to the 5Th grade, I'm scared. She goes to school on the Air Force Base since that is the closest school to us. It is filled with people that had come from cities and were only forced to live this type of lifestyle. They bring with them their city ideas. Once again, we live way outside of town. I pass on to her the gift of social fear. Be Careful! Don't Talk To Anyone! Just because someone is in the military does not mean they are not psychotic! While other kids in her class go to the youth center, I won't allow it. The only reason those kids go is because they have no parents at home waiting for them. She asks if she can have a sleepover at a friend's house. No, we don't know those people. I can't be sure they would keep her safe. She is teased by kids in her class because she lives on a farm. They say she stinks and we must be poor because we have pigs and milk cows. What kind of people are these?
Even as an adult, the fear of the city and the people that live there still exists. My husband and I were discussing a possible trip for me to go to visit and meet Debi in Chicago a while back. His greatest issue was my safety. Will she be able to keep me safe? Would I find myself the victim of one the million crimes that exist in those places? Bad things happen in the city. There is not safety in numbers.
Now that this short explanation has turned into a long novel. I hope it might explain a small bit why my first question to Debi was if she was going to take Ronni out of school. It was the most logical step to me. See,"I told ya", my psyche said, people with get you in the city, even kids in school are not safe. If this horrible thing happened to that 10 year old boy, obviously Ronni is at danger. I know this does not make sense to most. Now I only wonder what kind of fears a city person would have walking in my world?
We can blame it on the media, or on the way I was brought up. We can even blame it on my total ignorance of how things really are, but I cannot help but picture cities as these dark, crowded, uncaring places that are totally filled with people out to get you. Bad things happen to people in cities. They are populated by killers, druggies, and people who work in small cubicles. I love to watch TV shows based on city life in the same way as I enjoy watching animal planet. It's hard for me to find anything to identify with.
I was raised on an acreage in northwest Colorado. The town only had about a 1000 people in it, and it was where my Mom was born and raised. My family lived about 12 miles outside of town. The road we lived on was a small two lane highway that led out of Colorado to Wyoming. Now our house sat way up top a hill surrounded by hundreds of acres of empty land. From a very young age, my Dad put such a fear in me of that road, that I would only dare to go down there if I was on a horse. Never would I have dreamt of riding my bike alone on that small highway. It was such an empty place that hours could go by without a car driving by at all. Now my Dad always said that I was safer on a horse because I could escape pretty easy across country. He always told me that someone was going to snatch me up and drive right out of the state and they would never find me. I had red hair you know....for some reason that was supposed to put me at higher risk for kidnap? So I think that is where it all started, the deep mistrust of other people outside my family. Every car coming up behind you was a potential murderer/kidnapper/bad guy. My father was a Sheriff's Deputy before I was born and I think when you work a career surrounded by criminals, you see bogeymen behind every bush. Assume the worst, prepare yourself for all. After we moved from Meeker after the oil shale bust, we moved to the front range to Canon City. My Dad got a job with the prison system in Canon that at the time I think had 13 prisons in the area. This did not improve my Dad's outlook on the world, nor lessen his fear for his daughter. Canon was a larger town than Meeker, but still not a city by any means. To me, it was huge! It had two grocery stores and restaurants, and even a McDonald's! We still lived outside of town, still had our farm animals. I was never led to believe that I was in too much danger when I was in the town of Meeker, we knew everyone, literally. Nor was it too dangerous in Canon, it was still a small town. People talk too much in small towns, a person can't get away with too much. Mess up enough and eventually you will be found out. If I was smart, I would stay safe. That was the mantra I grew up with, Stay Together. Be Careful. Don't Wander Off! I had never lived with a locked door, or a closed curtain. I don't think we even had keys for our doors.
Then I moved to Texas. I lived in an apartment building. I was scared to death. We lived in a really poor part of town and the city we lived in had over 100,000 people in it. I heard gunshots, but it wasn't from pheasant hunting. Every time a car drove by I ran to the window to see who was coming to my house. My entire life I lived with the knowledge that if you heard a car, someone was in your driveway. For the first time I had curtains on my windows, I tried not to, but people would walk by AND LOOK IN. Our car was broke into and someone stole the quarters out of the console. The majority of people were black. There was one partial black family in Meeker, we were actually related. And only a small handful of blacks in Canon. This racial diversity was something so foreign to me, it was hard to deal with. I had no racist feelings, just total ignorance. There was man named "K' that lived in the apartment above me. He would try to trade cigarettes for opened packages of food he had. Like if I gave him 2 cigarettes he would give me a half a can of Nestle Quik chocolate milk powder. Living there confirmed everything that my Dad had unknowingly taught me growing up about cities and city people. I had a customer jump over the counter of a convenience store I was working in one night and punch me in the face because I was enforcing the prepay for gas after dark rule.
After my family moved to Alaska, it was much better. People were too busy trying not to get themselves killed from the land to bother each other too much. When I lived in Grand Junction for a short time, I had a small break down on the freeway. No one stopped. Not one person stopped to help me. When I slid off the road in North Pole on the way to work several years ago, my car had barely slid to a stop before 3 vehicles had pulled over to help me. Yet, as I send my daughter off every day to go to the 5Th grade, I'm scared. She goes to school on the Air Force Base since that is the closest school to us. It is filled with people that had come from cities and were only forced to live this type of lifestyle. They bring with them their city ideas. Once again, we live way outside of town. I pass on to her the gift of social fear. Be Careful! Don't Talk To Anyone! Just because someone is in the military does not mean they are not psychotic! While other kids in her class go to the youth center, I won't allow it. The only reason those kids go is because they have no parents at home waiting for them. She asks if she can have a sleepover at a friend's house. No, we don't know those people. I can't be sure they would keep her safe. She is teased by kids in her class because she lives on a farm. They say she stinks and we must be poor because we have pigs and milk cows. What kind of people are these?
Even as an adult, the fear of the city and the people that live there still exists. My husband and I were discussing a possible trip for me to go to visit and meet Debi in Chicago a while back. His greatest issue was my safety. Will she be able to keep me safe? Would I find myself the victim of one the million crimes that exist in those places? Bad things happen in the city. There is not safety in numbers.
Now that this short explanation has turned into a long novel. I hope it might explain a small bit why my first question to Debi was if she was going to take Ronni out of school. It was the most logical step to me. See,"I told ya", my psyche said, people with get you in the city, even kids in school are not safe. If this horrible thing happened to that 10 year old boy, obviously Ronni is at danger. I know this does not make sense to most. Now I only wonder what kind of fears a city person would have walking in my world?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Debi: Playing defense
Almost as I typed the last of my blog post last week, a tragedy occurred within the very school community I was praising.
Last Tuesday, just before the end of the school day, a fifth grader at my daughter's elementary school was discovered hanging from a coat hook in the bathroom. He was unresponsive, and he died the next morning. Early autopsy reports label it a suicide. The community is shaken to its core -- this boy was ten years old.
The school, like any school in this litigious society, is unable to comment on whatever speculation the administration may have about what really happened. Our school principal is a man I deeply, deeply trust. He invited the school's horrified parents to meet with him, hear his story of what happened, and ask questions. The story he told of discovering this poor child reduced him -- and many of the rest of us -- to tears. I was moved beyond description watching this strong, competent, intelligent, and able leader break down under the enormity of what had happened, and then pick himself up, straighten his tie, and begin the process of helping his students and staff to grieve and heal. I imagine he will never be the same man again, in his heart, and I ache for him in the same way that I ache for the parents of the boy who died.
Our community is doing what good people should: raising money for the boy's funeral costs, arranging meals for the family, bringing in homemade lunches for the teachers and staff, and standing strong against the unconscionable media attention that has focused on the lack of details provided by the school to the tv and newspapers. I approached a camera man perched on the corner of the school grounds on Friday and asked him if they would please be sensitive to the children when they left school. His response? "We can't talk to the kids without their parents' permission anyway."
After a few moments, the anchorman agreed to interview me. His first question was "Are you considering pulling your child out of Oakton School?"
You can imagine where it went from there. I have no intention of pulling Ronni out of this wonderful school -- and it IS a wonderful school, a wonderful school that was the scene of a terrible, terrible accident. Either the boy did indeed hang himself, or someone put him there as a joke, or he got himself stuck by mistake -- but no matter how it happened, I cannot imagine a way to turn it into a systemic problem. This reporter needed to have answers fast; in the absence of fact, he was desperate to find an enemy, any enemy, the most convenient enemy. He chose the school administration. He promised to air my supportive views of the school, but the report on the ten o'clock news was an angry, accusatory one-sided rant. He told me in passing, as I left, that the good things we were doing were "not news."
This is a world where terrible things happen, sometimes. We should work to reduce the terror when we can determine its source. We should not run from it with closed eyes, frightened to recognize it, but face it with questions, ask it to show itself, and discover its weaknesses. Blame is a popular way to face what we fear; name the perpetrator and you may solve the crime, but discovering why it was wrought may bring us closer to eliminating it. As the families of Oakton School -- and especially the family of the boy whose life was cut short -- wait for these answers, I am sending my most fervent wishes for gentleness and patience to surround us all.
Last Tuesday, just before the end of the school day, a fifth grader at my daughter's elementary school was discovered hanging from a coat hook in the bathroom. He was unresponsive, and he died the next morning. Early autopsy reports label it a suicide. The community is shaken to its core -- this boy was ten years old.
The school, like any school in this litigious society, is unable to comment on whatever speculation the administration may have about what really happened. Our school principal is a man I deeply, deeply trust. He invited the school's horrified parents to meet with him, hear his story of what happened, and ask questions. The story he told of discovering this poor child reduced him -- and many of the rest of us -- to tears. I was moved beyond description watching this strong, competent, intelligent, and able leader break down under the enormity of what had happened, and then pick himself up, straighten his tie, and begin the process of helping his students and staff to grieve and heal. I imagine he will never be the same man again, in his heart, and I ache for him in the same way that I ache for the parents of the boy who died.
Our community is doing what good people should: raising money for the boy's funeral costs, arranging meals for the family, bringing in homemade lunches for the teachers and staff, and standing strong against the unconscionable media attention that has focused on the lack of details provided by the school to the tv and newspapers. I approached a camera man perched on the corner of the school grounds on Friday and asked him if they would please be sensitive to the children when they left school. His response? "We can't talk to the kids without their parents' permission anyway."
After a few moments, the anchorman agreed to interview me. His first question was "Are you considering pulling your child out of Oakton School?"
You can imagine where it went from there. I have no intention of pulling Ronni out of this wonderful school -- and it IS a wonderful school, a wonderful school that was the scene of a terrible, terrible accident. Either the boy did indeed hang himself, or someone put him there as a joke, or he got himself stuck by mistake -- but no matter how it happened, I cannot imagine a way to turn it into a systemic problem. This reporter needed to have answers fast; in the absence of fact, he was desperate to find an enemy, any enemy, the most convenient enemy. He chose the school administration. He promised to air my supportive views of the school, but the report on the ten o'clock news was an angry, accusatory one-sided rant. He told me in passing, as I left, that the good things we were doing were "not news."
This is a world where terrible things happen, sometimes. We should work to reduce the terror when we can determine its source. We should not run from it with closed eyes, frightened to recognize it, but face it with questions, ask it to show itself, and discover its weaknesses. Blame is a popular way to face what we fear; name the perpetrator and you may solve the crime, but discovering why it was wrought may bring us closer to eliminating it. As the families of Oakton School -- and especially the family of the boy whose life was cut short -- wait for these answers, I am sending my most fervent wishes for gentleness and patience to surround us all.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Debi: City Mouse
Stori's done a great job introducing herself, and so now it's my turn.
My husband and I have two daughters: Ronni is 6 and Sammi is 3. We live in a wonderful midwestern suburb called Evanston, literally four blocks from the northern border of the city of Chicago. We chose Evanston for several reasons that really get to the heart of who we are as a family. Explaining it requires me to backtrack a little into our history.
I never intended to be a stay-at-home mother. My hope, years ago when Ronni was born, was that I would be able to work outside the home a few days a week, and work from my home the rest of the time. That worked beautifully until Sammi was born, and her chronic illness (which was later diagnosed as a congenital heart defect) made it necessary for me to quit working outright.
It was a terrible shock to me, to go from managing a department of web developers to sitting home, all day, with a preschooler and her very sick and very needy baby sister. We lived in a townhouse complex in the city of Chicago, and while I knew a few people with small children, most days were excruciatingly isolating. I felt trapped, terribly lonely, and desperately in need of a community around me. My parents lived far away; my brother was single, young, and working; my in-laws, while only about an hour away, were busy with their own lives on a daily basis. I was parenting in a vacuum most days. It was, in a word, miserable, especially since I hadn't expected ever to do it.
So, when Ronni was nearing kindergarten age, and we knew the city school would not meet our standards, we began looking for a place to move. Our neighborhood in Evanston met the most important standards we'd set, namely:
- It had a good elementary school.
- I could walk to coffeeshops, the library, parks, preschool for Sammi ( who, by then, was healthier), and the elementary school.
We love living here. After my husband goes to work, our day starts with a walk, every day: to drop Ronni off at her elementary school, then Sammi at her preschool, all within a four-block radius of our house. I come home and begin working; I've been able to pick up several freelance contracts that keep me busy enough to cover the costs of our "extras." In the afternoon, I head back out to do the walking commute in reverse -- pick up Sammi, then pick up Ronni. When the weather is nice, we all stay at the elementary school for an hour or two for the kids to play outside and for me to visit with the other parents who do the same. In the winter -- which I admit is nothing like Stori's winter, not even close -- we all scurry home. Sammi is in a stroller when the sidewalks are shoveled clean enough, and when they're not, she's on my back in a backpark or pulled behind me in a sled.
We go home. We play. We read. We cook. We eat. We read some more. We put on pajamas, brush teeth, snuggle and love each other, and sleep. The rhythm of life when you have children largely varies in the details, between families. This is our City Mouse rhythm.
Stori: frozen mouse
The very first thing we do every morning is go look what the temperature is. While most people may go to the bathroom, let the dog out, or pour the coffee, we thermometer watch. My house has 4 inside thermometers, and 3 outside the house. We have 3 because the heat coming from the house changes the temp, only by maybe 4 to 5 degrees, but enough. This morning we woke to -30F. That's below zero. The temperature dictates what we will do during that day. I find myself looking at the temp probably 10 to 20 times a day. My husband and I talk about whether or not folks in the lower 48 really understand what cold is. My sister in law emails me from Minnesota the other day saying how it was horribly cold, almost -10 below! I'm thinking to myself, -10 barely dictates a coat, I don't even wear a hat at -10. The borough school district has a recess policy for the schools, any temp down to -20 below, the kids still go outside for recess. The weekend my husband and I met for the first time, it was -62 below. That has been the coldest I have seen it so far, and it was absolutely terrifying. We were camping and I had my 4 year old daughter with me. Now I don't say this to prove how tough we are, or to make it sound worse than it is, the cold is just a fact of life.
In order to exist this far north, there are certain things one has to put up with on a daily basis. My husband refers to this as your acceptable level of discomfort. We, obviously, have to deal with extreme cold. Then we also have to deal with the darkness. Never before I lived here was I so aware of Winter and Summer Solstice. Summer Solstice, June 21st, is near depressing since that is the day we start losing minutes of daylight a day. That is the day that it doesn't get dark at all. Winter Solstice almost feels like the halfway mark in a marathon. That is the day we start to gain minutes of daylight once again. It is the darkest and shortest day of the year. But once you have hit December 21st, it's almost a sigh of relief, that's the worst of the darkness..whew. It the deepest of winter, we are lucky if we even see the sun itself, it does get light, but almost dusky. In the height of summer, the darkest it ever gets is the same level of dusky. The sun never rises overhead, just circles around you along the horizon. There is no such thing as high noon in the interior. We also have 2 to 3 months, twice a year, when our light to dark ratio is almost normal.
Now there is more to dealing with the oddities of the arctic than just brrr, it's cold, or wearing sunglasses at 2 a.m. Driving a car during the winter requires either a heated garage, or 3 separate heating pads on your engine. You must have your vehicle plugged in at least 2 hours prior to actually driving or the fluid in your engine is frozen. If you didn't plug in early enough, you can always resort to a blast furnace pointed to the undercarriage of your car. You must be very careful though, or you can end up melting the plastic and rubber parts of your engine.
Every other time you gas up, you need to put in a fuel additive called Heat. This prevents condensation in your gas tank which causes water in your fuel in the winter. There is also "square tires". When a car is parked in the cold for any period of time, the rubber in the tires hardens which causes a flat spot where the tires touch the ground. Once you start driving, for a couple miles, it feels as if you have square tires since that flat spot stays there till the air can heat up inside the tire. A person must also ALWAYS carry a cold weather pack for each person in the car. Inside this pack you must have enough cold weather gear, water, food, and light to allow you to survive walking 1 mile. Now that may not seem like very far, but a mile at -40 is not as leisurely a stroll as you would like.
This may all sound like a horror story, and granted, it can get pretty miserable. But I cannot let myself forget all the beauty and advantages to living here. The clouds here are the most breathtaking I have ever seen. The amount and level of green-ness in the summer. Falling asleep at night watching the northern lights put on a brilliant show, or falling asleep listening to the birds putting on their own version of a great show. Never knowing what you may run into around the next corner, or who is behind those trees. Moose are almost a guarantee, but wolf and bear are also a very real possibility. This is a place of hardship, beauty, struggle, and adventure.l
In order to exist this far north, there are certain things one has to put up with on a daily basis. My husband refers to this as your acceptable level of discomfort. We, obviously, have to deal with extreme cold. Then we also have to deal with the darkness. Never before I lived here was I so aware of Winter and Summer Solstice. Summer Solstice, June 21st, is near depressing since that is the day we start losing minutes of daylight a day. That is the day that it doesn't get dark at all. Winter Solstice almost feels like the halfway mark in a marathon. That is the day we start to gain minutes of daylight once again. It is the darkest and shortest day of the year. But once you have hit December 21st, it's almost a sigh of relief, that's the worst of the darkness..whew. It the deepest of winter, we are lucky if we even see the sun itself, it does get light, but almost dusky. In the height of summer, the darkest it ever gets is the same level of dusky. The sun never rises overhead, just circles around you along the horizon. There is no such thing as high noon in the interior. We also have 2 to 3 months, twice a year, when our light to dark ratio is almost normal.
Now there is more to dealing with the oddities of the arctic than just brrr, it's cold, or wearing sunglasses at 2 a.m. Driving a car during the winter requires either a heated garage, or 3 separate heating pads on your engine. You must have your vehicle plugged in at least 2 hours prior to actually driving or the fluid in your engine is frozen. If you didn't plug in early enough, you can always resort to a blast furnace pointed to the undercarriage of your car. You must be very careful though, or you can end up melting the plastic and rubber parts of your engine.
Every other time you gas up, you need to put in a fuel additive called Heat. This prevents condensation in your gas tank which causes water in your fuel in the winter. There is also "square tires". When a car is parked in the cold for any period of time, the rubber in the tires hardens which causes a flat spot where the tires touch the ground. Once you start driving, for a couple miles, it feels as if you have square tires since that flat spot stays there till the air can heat up inside the tire. A person must also ALWAYS carry a cold weather pack for each person in the car. Inside this pack you must have enough cold weather gear, water, food, and light to allow you to survive walking 1 mile. Now that may not seem like very far, but a mile at -40 is not as leisurely a stroll as you would like.
This may all sound like a horror story, and granted, it can get pretty miserable. But I cannot let myself forget all the beauty and advantages to living here. The clouds here are the most breathtaking I have ever seen. The amount and level of green-ness in the summer. Falling asleep at night watching the northern lights put on a brilliant show, or falling asleep listening to the birds putting on their own version of a great show. Never knowing what you may run into around the next corner, or who is behind those trees. Moose are almost a guarantee, but wolf and bear are also a very real possibility. This is a place of hardship, beauty, struggle, and adventure.l
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