A Rainbow Crosswalk for Northampton!

13 Mar 2014 1 Comment

by Melbiker in LGBT Issues, Political, Weird Misc. topics Tags: , , , , , ,

For those of you who know me, you know that I’m pretty passionate about LGBT Rights and have been a community organizer and a vocal activist in the Northampton community since the mid 1990’s. I started with the now defunct Northampton Area Lesbian & Gay Business Guild in 1995, and then helped with the Northampton Pride Inc. organization for 11 years, until 2009. For the past 4 years until the end of 2013 I worked with the LGBT Coalition of Western MA assisting with events and joining their board of Directors.

Now, as a  re-energized supporter and activist, I’m on a new gig to secure funding for the City of Northampton to install a rainbow crosswalk in downtown Northampton in front of Thorne’s Marketplace. The project has been met with surprisingly NO opposition, red tape, or criticism. In fact, all of the parties, from  Terry Culhane, chair of the board of Public Works, the city engineer, Jim Laurila, Mayor David Narkowitz, and the Northampton Parking Commission have been more than supportive and even seemingly excited to help with this endeavor.

While in some future year, the cost of repainting the crosswalk may be included in the budget as routine, this year I need to raise the funds for the paint. The city is generously donating the time for designing the layout, ordering the paint, cleaning the street, and installing the finished product. It may be the first rainbow crosswalk on the East Coast, but even if it’s not, it will be spectacular for our city as a symbol of diversity!

Please help with reaching the goal for this endeavor by making a contribution either by check to the City of Northampton (put Rainbow crosswalk project in the memo line), or by clicking here to go to our facebook page and donate by credit card using PayPal:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here’s an example of another crosswalk that looks similar to our design:

rainbow crosswalk

Check out more Rainbow Crosswalks here!

Any donations will help! Any extra funds will go to a reserve fund to ensure that repainting will happen in subsequent years and/or more crosswalks in the city are made into rainbows. Thank you!

Melinda Shaw

Living as if there is always a tomorrow…

11 Aug 2013 5 Comments

by Melbiker in change, Family Life, Parenting, personal stuff, Political, Teaching children Tags: , , , , , , ,

Today was a 9.9 day. I saw the blue sky from my bed as I awoke and I knew it would be stellar!

Arriving in my seat at the dining room table after brewing the perfect cup of tea, I awoke my computer to look on a Facebook page for a picture of my 14 year old who had surely survived her first night at YEA Camp (Youth Empowered Action) in Charlton, MA. I was hopeful that she would experience a week of passion-building, consciousness-raising excitement. I was feeling good!

The phone rang next to me and I saw my sister Cyn’s familiar name on the screen. Family, she is but since she’s not too frequent in her calls, I had a flash of warning before I said hello. “Have you been on Facebook yet?” she asked.

“Not yet, why?”

“I think our cousin David died.” “I don’t know for sure, but it looks like it by his son Jake’s posts.” she said.

It was not for almost 3 more hours that I knew for sure what had happened. No one was returning her calls and Google searches pulled up nothing.

I was already dressed for a morning bike ride, having been granted a “do whatever you want day” by my lovely wife. It was her way of sharing the “burden” of having been gone almost 2 full days of every week for the past 2 years to care for her ailing dad. We are always trying to keep a balance, it seems, of energy, patience, and time. Time, I believe, is the most valuable and also the most elusive…

“I’m going to go for a ride,” I said. “There’s nothing else I can do right now.”

“Please be careful!” she said, as she does and has, for 18+ years.

“I always am.” I responded, as I always do.

When I head out on a ride, or plane trip, or anytime I feel like I might be in danger (for as far back as I can remember), I have surrounded myself in my mind with white light. I can visualize it swirling around me and protecting me. I ask my spirit guides to keep me safe, and today, I added, “It’s not my day. It’s not my time!”

This morning as I repeated that ritual, I felt uneasy. I thought of the speed at which we can go from alive to dead, one minute our flame burning brightly, the next, extinguished. It isn’t fair and it causes pain, mostly felt by those left behind. And then I think about the fact that I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason, yet there are many more questions than I have answers.

No one knows for certain what becomes of us when we die; I believe we’re all mostly just afraid of the unknown. Certainly, we must get a better understanding as we age? I fear we just amass more questions.

All I know is that time is moving at a speed that I cannot fathom and control and that unless I can find a way to slow it down, my flame will be blown out in what seems like an instant!

When I was young, I planned to live until I was 100, but by the time I was 40, I’d revised that to “90 or above would be fine.” Now, I’ve lowered it again and I’m aiming at 85. That gives my kids plenty of time to have kids so I can meet them all, which is something that I never got with my own parents.

My 2 youngest, “the babies, the twins, the little ones,” have just gotten back from a week of overnight camp. They have somehow grown into teenagers at only 11.5 years old, look a foot taller, and seem almost ready to venture out of the nest on their own. Not really, but they do seem much more grown up this week!

“Can we go for 3 weeks next year?” they pleaded

“Really? How would I be able to live without you for 3 weeks? Wouldn’t you get homesick?” I said.

“Well, maybe a little, but it would be fun! Please, Please, Mommy & Mama?!” they chimed.

I thought to myself, “No, that would be impossible. That’s like being one of those parents who just want to get rid of their kids and send their kids to boarding school. Out of the question! Two weeks, maybe, but it’s expensive!”

“We’ll see”, I said, as I mumbled ever so quietly… “never going to happen!”

They keep growing, even when you’re not around. At camp they do things for camp staff that they don’t do at home. Like brush their teeth on the first request as they herd their way towards the makeshift outdoor sinks. They go to sleep on schedule, get up early for extra activities, and try new foods. They bring their dishes on their trays to the dishwasher area! They clean up after themselves…And they make friends with kids who may grow up to be lifelong friends, tethered to each other through distance over the years, and reunited in old-age. These are memories that last a lifetime.

My cousin David died almost instantly from an aneurysm on his brain stem. I doubt that he felt any pain, nor had time to realize how dire it was. One moment he was there and the next he was gone. He had just turned 50 a day before, and left his parents, 2 siblings, 3 grown boys, a lovely girlfriend, 2 ex-wives, and the rest of us relatives reeling with the suddenness, the sadness, and the questions. I still see him as a young boy like it was yesterday, with taped up broken glasses and all of my sisters and his sisters teasing him because he was the only boy and we could.

A few nights ago, before our daughter went to YEA camp, she came to our bedroom where I lay, alone (on a night when the wife was at Dad’s), armed with her computer to show me a hair straightener that she wanted to buy.

“It’s only $79.00” she said. “Can I get it?”

“$79.00! Your hair is gorgeous. You don’t need a hair straightener! And that’s a lot of money!” I said

“It’s not $150.00, like some of the others! Please? I really want it and need it!” she whined.

It went downhill from there. I wasn’t going to buy something that cost that much when we had just dropped a good chunk of money on new school clothes. She continued to whine and I stood my ground. She didn’t even want to consider looking on ebay for a better price on a used one. I finally just told her I wasn’t going to argue about it anymore and to go to bed!

10 minutes later, I called her back in…

“You know,” I said, if you had come in here saying “Mommy, there’s something that I really want to buy, but I don’t have enough money for it. Is there any way I can work it off?” I would have listened with much more open ears. Instead, you came in here like a spoiled teenager expecting that you would just get what you want! We talked more, and she quickly realized her mistake and apologized. The next morning, she was up and dressed and had eaten breakfast and was ready to tackle the jobs I’d given her. I told her she’d be sore the next day, tired of stooping over to cut saplings on our back hill but would be pleased with herself when she accomplished her goal. 3 hours later, she texted me pictures at work to say she was done!

What was most enlightening about our talk that night, was that in appealing to her to think about being more of a go-getter and to work harder and to find a passion in life, she said to me, “You just want me to be a politician! You want me to be political!”

“Whoa, what?” “Hell, no I don’t! Politicians have to lie a lot, and they don’t do a lot of what they say they’ll do. The good ones are few and far between. I’d never want you to be a politician!”

“I just want you to be passionate about something!” I said. “I gave you life. I gave you a flame that burns inside you, but it’s up to you to fuel that flame!”

“Finding a passion is as easy as setting up a lemonade stand at a busy intersection on the bike path to raise money for your friend whose sister is dying of leukemia!” “You make signs and posters with her picture on it and you raise thousands of dollars, not because people care about the lemonade, but because they see your passion and want to donate!”

“Passion is getting your school to stop selling water in plastic bottles, but instead to encourage kids to bring refillable bottles in and have filtered water dispensers in hallways!”

“Passion is going out once a week with your siblings to pick up trash along the bike path!” It’s your future and your kids’ future that needs to be saved, and I’m just trying to get you to care about that. It’s getting tougher and tougher for people to live in this world and kids need to see that their choices now can make a difference. You need to help be that difference!

We’ll see what Saturday brings when she comes out of camp “empowered” in some way. I’m hoping that she’ll have learned some skills that she will use to fire herself up about some cause and to energize others to do the same. It’s not like she hasn’t had examples!

Life starts and life ends. What we do here in the time that we remain, matters. Instead of living each day as if it were my last, I want to treasure my time and live as if there is always a tomorrow!

R.I.P.

R.I.P. David Cassinelli

Thanks for reading!

Little Eyes and Ears

16 Apr 2013 Leave a comment

by Melbiker in Family Life, Parenting, Teaching children, Weird Misc. topics Tags: , , , , ,

It’s April 16th, the day after Patriot’s Day, and I’ve been in a funk since yesterday when I learned of the horrific news of the “Boston Marathon bombings” as it will be forever known.

Six days ago, as my wife and I entered into our 4 night, 5 day trip away from home and after hastily assembling an awesome team of adults to care-take our 3 kids, our biggest threat was North Korea, so we thought. We even discussed it, over sips of wine while enjoying the ocean view, seated at our favorite bar in Provincetown, that if something did happen and missiles were fired, we would want to be home with our kids. Having  arrived home at 2:45 yesterday with no international incident, it did not take long for the news of the bombings to have our full attention and deepest sadness.

As I’ve watched the reports, seen video footage, still shots, first-hand accounts, blog posts, news stories, and have seen the outpouring of emotions on Facebook, twitter, and through my friends, I can’t stop thinking about the children. And I don’t just mean mine. I mean all of the children who keep hearing, seeing, and knowing about the increasing violence and evil in the world that seems to be getting closer every year, every month, and sometimes every day.

I know my own kids and how I deal with news and violence and how it affects them, but I still worry about the cumulative  effect that each tragedy brings.

My 11-year-old twins are in a play this week and were at rehearsal from before the time the news broke until 9pm last night. We didn’t talk about it, nor did I have the news on, yet even after putting them to bed, my daughter came into my room and as I muted the TV, she asked about some bombing that her friend had told her about on Instagram. OK, well, technically she was supposed to be going to sleep, but I did explain to her that “yes, there were some bombs that went off at the Boston Marathon and people were hurt. Three were dead and many were seriously injured. No, I didn’t know who did it. OK, goodnight!”

When I was a kid, I lived for my bike and the world that opened up when I was flying through the wind! No helmet was required, only occasional hand signals were used, and the few close calls crossing the street just made me a faster biker! I grew up to be a safe and savvy road biker not only because I loved it, but because it was required. At the same time, the worst thing I could imagine was losing my parents. I would lie awake at night worrying and tearing up over the possibilities and wondering how I would go on. My dad had Multiple Sclerosis and I was not immune to the progression of the disease, and seeing it firsthand and knowing the relentlessness of the form of the disease that he had, made me even more stressed. I don’t recall my parents talking about it in terms of his future,  but I sensed that it was a bleak one for my dad and it just kept getting worse. Before long, he was bedridden, totally dependent on others to serve him and even to speak for him if he couldn’t articulate well or fast enough. It was not a life that I would have ever wanted or would wish on anyone.

And here I am now, with three  not yet fully formed kids whose biggest challenge in life to this point has been nothing harder than to grow up in a 2-mom family, bring their dishes to the sink after each meal, and put their stuff away when asked. Sure, growing up is tough, but without any serious impediments or complications, their lives have been pretty easy!

One of my personal goals for raising  my kids to be strong  and persevering adults is to not totally shelter them from the wrongs in the world, the bad people and bad things that can happen, and the consequences of ones actions that can cause irreparable harm. They may be sick of my cautions, but they can be guaranteed to hear an endless loop when they go out biking:

“Always wear your helmet!”

“Don’t just blindly follow someone across the street on your bike-look both ways every time!”

“Don’t stop for anyone, including a car who stops to ask you directions, about his lost dog, offers you a ride-nothing!”

“Stay with your buddy!”

“Don’t just do something stupid because _________ tells you to! Think!”

And the list goes on…

As parents, my wife and I try to instill common sense, reasoning, know-how, but we can’t prepare for everything. Luckily, I’ve lived through 2 big girls reaching adulthood and I know it’s possible, but I can’t help but to worry  about the unknown dangers that still lurk in the shadows.

It’s the unknown person, people, or group that wants to cause pain unto random people. How to explain that to young minds without tainting their perception that any stranger, any person that they don’t know may want to hurt them. How long can kids even have any innocence?

I don’t want to be afraid to take my kids to a concert, or sporting event, or festival. I don’t want them to miss out on what brings our family together and strengthens our bonds to friends and community because of fear of congregating and getting killed. And, I don’t want them to worry that every time one of us leaves the house that we might not come back, or that next time something happens, it may hit closer to home and hurt someone we know and love. I don’t want to have to even talk about all of this with them, yet I do have to, and I will.

They are the future, growing up tougher and stronger than we may have had to be, but that is what’s needed to promote resilience instead of succumbing to the terror. They’re smart kids, and I trust that they will heed the cautions and stay as safe as they can, and,  as kids, they ultimately want to play, and laugh, and sing, and no one can take that spirit away from them!

0416flowers2

One Hundred Bucks?!

26 Mar 2013 5 Comments

by Melbiker in Parenting, Sports, Teaching children Tags: , , , , , ,

soccer2

It’s “March Madness,” and I’m in the thick of it! My wife is also gone for a week, so I’m enjoying not feeling guilty about watching sports when we should be talking about something “important” or going over the schedule for the next few days; processing appointments, kids games, meetings, school drop-off and pick-up is exhausting!

Anyway, March basketball, especially women’s basketball, is exciting and fun to watch! It’s my favorite sport. And while none of my children has the kind of energy and obsession for basketball that I have or had as a child, they know that love for another sport, soccer. Having started high school a meager 4 years after Title IX became law,  those few years of sports programs yielded no soccer in my town. It took a while, but although soccer is very popular in the U.S. now, that was not always the case. My hands and arms know how to move the ball, yet my feet are totally inept at much more than walking, running, jumping, and pedaling. I could kick if need be, and probably deliver a solid blow, but I do not know the power of my legs at consistently kicking a ball. I’m guessing it would be awesome!

I watch my kids play soccer and feel the excitement and good-natured competitiveness, but it wasn’t until this past year while watching my 13 year-old play high school soccer that I could see the increased aggressiveness and “accidental” injury potential when my child played against other kids, sometimes 5 years her senior! My daughter is a moderately big girl, carrying about 130 lbs. on her 5’7″ frame.  She’s bigger than many, but not yet a woman. She’s a “barely-teen” in an almost grown body. Sometimes I forget that she’s still very young. She’s seen glimpses of the “real world” but in life experience, she’s barely begun.

About a month ago on an early Saturday morning, my wife arrived home from an indoor soccer game with our sullen teenage daughter in tow. Sensing that there had been an issue, I pulled my wife aside and inquired as to the problem.

“She’s upset. No one can come over for her sleepover tonight, and, her coach gave 2 other girls $100 and she didn’t get any.”

“What?” I said, “Money for what?”

“I don’t know exactly…she said something about him pulling a few girls aside and said he wanted them to get more aggressive out there and that he was going to give $100 to whomever had the most fouls at the end of the game.”

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”  I said, in a barely hushed shout!

“I need to talk to her. That’s crazy! I don’t want my child going out and intentionally fouling players! That’s bullshit! She’s not playing for him again. Ever!” I said as I stormed off to find her.

I tried to remain as calm as I could, given the circumstances. I didn’t want to over-react. Maybe I misunderstood. I mean, soccer isn’t my sport, but I feel pretty confident that my own ethics were correct that this was a dangerous incentive and was against everything that I believed in concerning sports and good sportsmanship!

Her story was consistent, with a few added details. “We were playing that really rough team that you saw last week and he felt like there were a few of us that weren’t playing aggressively enough, so he said he would keep track of our fouls and at the end of the game, “A” and “M” had 5 and I had 4.5, so he gave each of them $100! He told us he didn’t want us to intentionally hurt anyone. He also said he wanted me to grab the back of the goalie’s shirt and pull her down to the ground.” she said.

“What?!” “Why?” I said.

“I don’t know, but he wanted me to get a blue card!”

“OK…I don’t know what a blue card is, but do you know how wrong this is to tell players to intentionally foul?” “Did you think that it was OK for him to tell you that and for you to do it?” I said.

“No, but I didn’t know what to do.”

“Well, I would have made you march right back and give that money back even if you had gotten it!” I said. “And by the way, you’re not playing on any team he coaches ever again!”

After I left her room, I continued to rant and immediately sat down to call the coach, but first, I called one of the other parents to see if maybe I was missing something. After my conversation with one dad, I was left with a feeling that still, I may be over-reacting and this parent’s inability to differentiate that this behavior was wrong for his own daughter left me feeling like I was crazy.

I tried to call the coach, but got only voicemail and left a message for him to please call me.

I tried emailing him to two different addresses but they both bounced back.

That night, at a basketball game watching my same child play, I sought out 2 other parents who have girls on the “official” soccer team that the school runs, but not this recreational team which is coached by one of the girls’ dads. They both agreed with my sentiments and were appalled that someone would ever offer a reward for fouling another team’s players!

I then got home and sought out the advice from 2 other coaches who I know in the area and who I respect greatly. Both of them fired off a quick email back with fiery language toward any coach that would advocate such behavior.

Quoting one of them:

“You’re absolutely right to be so deeply disturbed by this and to question and condemn a coach who was encouraging players to break the rules of the game and possibly hurt other kids. Asking youth athletes to violate the rules of the game runs afoul of the standards of every credible youth sports organization I know of including the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, which governs school-based sports in MA. With or without a $100 bounty, it’s wrong. Tackling a goalie is absolutely prohibited and a very serious foul so paying a kid to do that is truly reprehensible.

 

I’m sure some people will say things like in basketball fouls are part of the game, but soccer is different. Fouls, the yellow card and red card, signify a violation of fair play. If the other coaches affiliated with your daughter’s team believe encouraging aggressive and dangerous play is a strategic approach to the game, they’re all wrong and they’re both poor students and poor teachers of the game. Soccer is not hockey, even when it’s played with boards. And it is simply not true that (the sport center)encourages or condones such behavior. In fact, I’ve seen players ejected and sent out of the arena for such.

 

Finally, the proper remedy for countering a team that’s overly aggressive is quicker play, not dirty play. In the long run our girls are far better served by a skill-based approach to tough games than they are by an aggression-based approach. Our girls can be both plenty tough without resorting to physical intimidation and harm.”

When I finally got a return call, it was 2 days later. It wasn’t a good conversation and it was one which left me with much anger and high blood pressure. I finally had to hang up on him after he turned the defensiveness back on me and said that he has done this before, will do it again with his players, and said to me that “you are the only one who has a problem with it!” and “I don’t have to answer to you!”

The next day, he left a message on my phone that attempted to further justify this coaching tactic, saying that he had spoken to the coach of the other team who knew what he was doing, and, he had spoken to the officials who administrate this particular venue. They pointed out, and he then lectured me, on the fact that soccer is very different from basketball and that in soccer, one can have unlimited fouls and that they don’t mean the same thing. In a condescending tone, he talked to me as if I knew nothing about sports, especially soccer.

I have to stand firm as a parent and set the example I want to set for my kids. It is never OK to justify intentional fouling as a form of aggressiveness. Soccer is already a potentially dangerous sport and can lead to catastrophic injury accidentally, never mind purposefully! I would rather my children not play any team sports than be subjected to this type of coaching!

Parenting can be a challenge for kids at any age, but the pre-teen to teenage years seem to me to be one of the hardest. As a parent, I try to mirror behavior that I’d like to see in my children, but I’ve learned that they are not always paying attention to the good stuff, yet they ALWAYS seem to notice my missteps as a parent! I have coached all of my kids in various sports, and I know that they have a good knowledge of right and wrong. How to teach good sportsmanship which seems like a common-sense notion? Do unto others? Play fairly? Shouldn’t that come naturally? Yet peer pressure and fear often win out.

Within days of that incident, I  attended another basketball game at the same daughter’s school, this time for a boy’s game. Sitting across the gym from the students’ “Zoo Crew” area, I watched my daughter as she followed suit and turned her back with the collective student body when the players on the opposing team were introduced. In total disbelief for this behavior, I silently willed her to turn around and not follow the herd, but I was unsuccessful.

I talked to her afterwards and expressed my disappointment. I tried to strongly convey that she needed to think before she followed others into lame, misguided behaviors. I fear that this lesson will need to be learned repeatedly. Perhaps many adults are still learning this lesson and that not enough parents are stepping up and saying, “NO, please don’t do that!” and telling kids why it is wrong!

And offering $100 to a kid to foul? That’s just sick!

The Unraveling of an Obsessive Housewife!

22 Feb 2013 2 Comments

by Melbiker in Family Life, Parenting, personal stuff, Relationships, Weird Misc. topics Tags: , , , , , ,

magnifyingWhen I was in fifth grade I failed the eye test at school and had to get glasses. My mother attributed it to “ruining my eyes” from reading at night by the hallway light when I was supposed to be sleeping. I remember the book I was reading,  it was A Wrinkle in Time! I thought that having glasses was kind of cool, and even wore my glasses in my school picture that year, although now I wish that I hadn’t. It was the same year that full length “maxi dresses” were in style too; some trends were just not meant to be!  Soon after that, I stopped wearing the glasses only to have to start again when I was in my 40’s, this time for good. My wife has glasses now too, but for whatever reason doesn’t like the heavy prescription ones that cost her a pretty penny so she wears cheaters that accumulate all in one location and are NEVER where she thinks they are when she needs them. I tell her, constantly, that she is missing out on a lot. I know. She doesn’t see half of what I see, especially what’s wrong.

My kids have been home all week during this cold February school vacation. One has been on crutches for a month awaiting results of an MRI which may possibly require surgery, while our son just broke his wrist playing indoor soccer  this past Monday. That night, after a trip to the ER, we “family-hobbled” into our older daughter’s basketball game and all I could think of was “please, if there is a spirit protecting us, don’t let her get hurt too!”

The kids could use some fresh air, but they can’t play outside with those injuries and it’s biting cold anyway, so as much as I’d like to shove them out just for the peace and quiet and lock the door, that’s kind of not a real option!

During this vacation it’s been impossible to have a moment of quiet with 3, and sometimes 4 kids (counting the neighbor friend as well), playing, singing, and generally horsing around! Don’t get me wrong, I love the house filled with laughter and music, but when I’ve just cleaned up from 2 different rounds of breakfast to have to start the lunch routine, I get a bit tired of it being ALL ABOUT THEM!

What I’ve learned about myself in the 13 months since I had a “real” job is that I’ve become a nightmare obsessive mother. I do the breakfast routines, pack their lunches and clean up from all of it before I start my day. I clean the grease off the stove, drips off of the drawers and cupboards and I’m the ONLY one who ever cleans the counters and the floors. Sometimes, when the sunlight is coming in perfectly through my dining room, it hits off of the stainless steel fridge and stove and I can’t help myself- I need to clean that too! It sounds perfectly dreadful when I write it, but it’s true…I’ve become an obsessive housewife!

It all started when I was a kid and watched Gilligan’s Island every day. I was a huge fan, and when a crate of radioactive vegetable seeds washed ashore which had some sort of magic powers, Mrs. Howell started moving around in super-fast motion. My sister, Rachael and I used to make plans and get up out of bed after our parents thought we were sleeping and clean our room  just as “super-fast”. We’d say “OK, let’s do Mrs. Howell!” and go at it. I became obsessed with my room being organized and clean and then we’d celebrate the next day with a trip to the store and buy a bag of dinner mints and eat them all! It is still on of my favorite memories with her.

The counters in our home are made of a mottled mixture of browns, grays, and black spotted granite. After my last job working at a granite/marble counter top company, I could have told you the name of it, but I no longer care. Where I sit working on my computer from my dining room table most days, I have a view of our counters that allows me to see every crumb and smear of food that one can’t see even if standing next to the counter. It’s impossible to see anything on it unless you get eye-level to it and look at the reflection across the surface. My wife gets very irritated when I’ll ask her from my perch at my computer to please wipe up the crumbs on the counter in front of the toaster oven, because I just know they’re going to get swiped on the floor any minute and, well, I’m even more of a bear about “my floors!” It’s the crunching of crumbs that drive me nuts and the spills of juice that no one ever sees or admits to, never mind wipes up! But don’t get me started…

Again back to my childhood…my mother used to say that I always knew where everything was. It was true-I did! She’d call me up at college and ask me where things were. I always knew where things were because I saw things and stored that information even if I didn’t need it. I also was a very curious child which got me into some trouble and probably will continue to until I die, but I’d rather be a curious sort than complacent, any day!

So, here I was last night, sitting next to my wife enjoying a TV show together, when she moves her hand across my face and then backtracks to my chin again, flipping her finger over a spot where a chin-hair is obviously poking out. Well, that got me started on having to find and remove that damn hair. If you’re a woman under 35, you probably have no idea what’s in store for you as you age. No, no one ever tells you that you have these whiskers, and if you have impaired eyesight already, it’s unlikely that you would ever notice them on others. Hence, my own wife, (who is my first defense(after me) against publicly humiliating myself as one of those old women with chin hairs) can’t see anything!

Staring at the elusive “hair on my chin”  in the mirror…I realized that the light on “my side” of the bathroom where my sink is only illuminates the left side of my face. For about 6 years, since we’ve been in this particular house, I’ve been at a disadvantage! No wonder I have chin hairs that are growing on the right side of my face! So, now that I can see them, they do exist, but before, they didn’t bother me at all nor did anyone ever let me know!

As I viewed my face in the mirror, tweezers at the ready, I pondered many aspects of obsession. If I was blind, and I couldn’t be so bothered by the drips of ice cream on the cupboards and the floor, or the food splattered in the microwave, or the multitude of other dirty things that bother me, would I actually be a less stressed-out person? I’m sure I’d complain less, which brings me back to my last blog entry, my experiment with trying to go a week without complaining. I failed. I can’t do it. I admit that it is near-impossible for me to not have issues with something everyday. And, the other thing I realized is that even though I’ve asked for my family to help gently point out  my complaining to me, they don’t notice, which says something else which I’m not planning to delve into at this time. I’ve concluded that if I can’t even recognize that I’m doing it, I can’t really improve on something that I don’t know that I’m doing.

What I have tried to do instead is just try to be more positive. Thinking more positive thoughts daily is an improvement and what I can commit to. Taking time to be still and quiet and clear my mind… yes, I can commit to that. I’m trying to let things go more…to see but to not obsess as much. Hopefully soon, I can work on not looking so deeply at things and so much that I only see what I need to see. It’s extremely hard to unlearn something that has served me well as a multi-tasking, over-achieving business person and a mom. These days, everything seems hard.

Three days until school starts! Yea!

Snow is coming? Tomorrow?  Shit! I really need to get a job!

tuck in snow

Seeking Flowers and Rainbows!

29 Jan 2013 2 Comments

Photo Jan 28, 7 00 42 AMI used to make New Year’s resolutions, but now I’m resolved to the fact that they don’t work for me. Since I don’t like failure, it would just be a downer to attempt to stop eating chocolate anyway, and besides, it is good for women (potassium and anti-depressant, and good for your heart too), so I’ve heard!

I recently started a new book called SUPERCOACH: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life, by Michael Neill, a renowned success coach.

I was somehow seduced by Amazon’s description of the book which promised that in a “fun and easy-to-read way,” I would learn:

“secrets of transforming your life and the lives of the people you care about most—your family, friends, colleagues, and clients.

Inside, you will learn:

· How to stop thinking like a victim

· The secret to financial security in any economy

· Proven techniques to produce dramatic changes in yourself and others

· Simple ways to create lasting relationships

· The key to lifelong happiness

· Strategies for increasing productivity, energy, well-being . . . and more!”

I haven’t read that much of the book yet, so I decided that I would chronicle some of my lessons learned here for your amusement, but as my NY’s resolutions have historically gone astray, so may this adventure…

In the first of the 10 Chapters, entitled The Art and Science of Make-Believe, I was introduced to the radical idea that:

“The world is what you think it is!”

One of the exercises that he had us do was to look around our surroundings and make note of everything that is green. After I did that, he wanted us to close our eyes and then make note of everything we remember that was brown in the room. Of course, I wasn’t looking at the brown things.

Translated to my life right now, I see mainly the things that I’m looking for. I see the cold of this harsh winter and the isolation that it makes me feel. I see the difficulty I’ve had landing a job and the wagon-full of bitterness and disappointments that have come from not being chosen each time. I see the accumulation of stress from maintaining three kids and their busy schedules while juggling the responsibilities of our home and my resulting short temper. I see the relationship I have with my wife and the challenges and strains we face with her weekly absence as her ever-increasing responsibilities for an aging parent take their toll. I rarely see the other things because so many negative things fill my screen.

Since my big girls were young, we’ve exposed all of the kids to poetry by Shel Silverstein. One of my favorite poems in his book, Falling Up! is called “Complainin’ Jack”, and it goes like this:

jack2

“This morning my old jack-in-the-box
Popped out– – and wouldn’t get back-in-the-box.
He cried, “Hey, there’s a tack-in-the-box,
And it’s cutting me through and through.“There also is a crack-in-the-box,
And I never find a snack-in-the-box,
And sometimes I hear a quack-in-the-box,
‘Cause a duck lives in here too.”Complain, complain is all he did– –
I finally had to close the lid.”

Last night, around the dinner table, I told my family about the book I’m reading, and about an exercise in it that I was going to start trying to do the next day, today. I let them know that I’d need their help.

“My exercise will be hard, I know, but it is something that I’d like to try to do. I am going to try to stop complaining for a week,” I said.

“If I complain about something and go on and on about it, I want you to just say, ‘complaining!’  I  don’t want to have a discussion about it. I just want you to call it to my attention.”

I explained that every time I became aware that I was complaining, I’d have to start over again.The author of the book said it took him a better part of a year to go a week! I’m guessing it might take me that long, as well, but if I can ever accomplish it for real, I’m thinking that it will help me drastically improve my outlook on life, right?! Because instead of seeing piles of shit everywhere, I should be seeing flowers and rainbows, right?! We’ll see.

My 11-year old daughter asked, “What if you complain when you’re alone?”

“Like what? In my head?” I asked “No, I don’t count that.”

“No, like if you’re alone and you are talking to yourself out loud,” she said.

“Well, luckily, I don’t do that, but if I did, and no one was there to hear it, I wouldn’t count it.”

I’m still stuck on that one, though, because negative thinking is still negative. I just know that I can’t count everything or I’ll never even get to a day without complaining! For crying out loud, I probably complain in my dreams too!

So, ends day one. I have to start over again. I’m in bed typing this and my back is killing me from shoveling and sanding almost my entire 300 yard driveway because my car wouldn’t get up it and the plow guy didn’t come until 5 minutes ago! I’m going to start again tomorrow. One day at a time!

Image by Melbiker

Snowballs From Heaven!

07 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by Melbiker in Family Life, personal stuff, Political, Relationships, Weird Misc. topics Tags: , , , , , ,

snow angelI don’t like mysteries. I mean, I absolutely love mysteries in movies and books, but that’s because I like figuring them out, deciphering clues, and out-smarting any author or director that thinks they can trip me up. I take pride in my observational skills, rising to the challenge of any unknown that can be known. I do not, however, enjoy anything that’s left hanging, like an odd noise in the night that can’t be sourced or an item that appears in my home that has no known origin-such things will leave me feeling incomplete.

As I enter the second week of 2013 (13 being my personal number, FYI), I have not mourned 2012 one iota. In fact, I could kick 2012 back into the mid to late 1990’s and stamp it as one of  the most useless, degrading, and unsatisfying years of my life to date.  I have categorized groups of years as such before, but never one lone year, until now!

What makes it so forgettable isn’t really important because it would require remembering it, which I don’t want to give the energy to, but suffice it to say that it was not good. It is time to move on to sunnier days, like the one we had out there today.

I decided to exercise outside today even though it was in the low 30’s and with the windchill, I’m guessing it barely hit 25 degrees in the sun, but the sky was bright blue with only a few clouds in sight. As I basked in the warm sun hitting my face, I entered my “blissful zone” enjoying the beauty of the snow-covered expanse of rolling fields along the almost-deserted road. I was energized by the cold air, mesmerized by the dots of light reflected by the sun on the gurgling stream, and all was good in that moment…

And then “SPLAT!”

A foot ahead of me to my right, was a large plop of snow that had come directly down and smacked the ground with the thud of a well-placed snowball. I was passing a large pine tree, so that would have seemed logical that it fell from there, and once I regained my normal heartbeat, I looked up, as anyone would, to see if more was to come.

What I saw, and what I should have known, was that after the last day of 40-something degree weather, there was not one single tree with one ounce of snow on it as far as I could see. Now, I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking the same thing…I must have been wrong. There must have been an icy spot between some limbs, or a nest, or something that could have held a hunk of snow. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t find any proof of that. When I say the trees were bare of snow, I mean that EVERY tree was clear of snow! There was no way in hell that the snow came from that tree or any tree around me and that’s what I believe!

The next logical option was that someone threw it at me, except for the fact that there was no one out there and unless they could throw it straight up, navigate between the limbs of the tree, it would be unlikely, almost impossible, to land it where it did. I walked on, as there was nothing else to do, and pondered how I’d explain this weird happening to myself.  I knew that for whatever reason, this was a sign, but for what, I didn’t know.

Taking a quick trip back in time about 10 years or so, I am reminded of another event in my life that caught my attention, literally. I was driving along a busy 2-lane highway in a neighboring town, deep in thought on auto-pilot when my “check engine” light suddenly caught my eye. I looked down at it quickly and then looked back at the road, only to see a deer quickly darting in my path. I believe that the light, which then turned immediately off, saved my car and possibly my life. I could have easily hit that deer had I still been locked in thought.

I believe in angels. For me, they don’t fall into a mysterious category at all because I know that energy can not be created or destroyed, but it can be changed. I believe that the energy surrounding me daily is made up of whispers of loving and protective souls who have passed, other incarnations of myself, and reflections of my future self. These molecules of energy are always surrounding me but I know that I need to be in an “open” space/place in my life to be able to hear them. Some people call it intuition but I believe it’s more than that. It’s the “knowing” that guides me to seek out places or people or experiences and choices in my life, and when I feel it strongly, I know that I’m listening and following the right path.

I know that many people may think that social media is a waste of time and that too often people can let themselves be sucked into a time-devouring hole of uselessness, which is very often possible if we succumb to that on a daily basis, but I like to think that some good can also come from my time, especially on Facebook.  I don’t really care what people are eating and where they go for dinner or vacations, but I do care about the causes that they invest their time and energy promoting. I have learned about exciting technologies, been inspired by amazing work that people are doing all over the world, been encouraged by the humanitarian organizations and the energy that people have to spread good deeds daily. It is truly inspiring to be tapped into such a wealth of amazing and caring networks of people and it adds value to my life.

On  December 20th, the day before the supposed “end-of- the-world-as-we-know-it”,  a good friend of mine forwarded me a friend of hers’ “explanation of what it all meant.” If you take the time to read this explanation, you may come away with much more hope, as I did, that good things are to come. I do believe that we have the power to shape our future and our lives and that we need to keep reminding each other of ways we can be those better selves. I am choosing to surround myself with more positive energy in 2013 and not wallow in the deficits of 2012!

Many of my Fb friends have  posted this guide that I have made my credo as well. It’s easy to remember, is concise, and its wisdom and clarity will endure for all ages:

credo2

Happy 2013! May your year be as fine or better than mine!

Driving “One Direction” to Music Hell!

16 Nov 2012 2 Comments

by Melbiker in Family Life, Parenting, personal stuff, Weird Misc. topics Tags: , , , ,

I was 28 years old when my first child was born. I always thought of myself s a pretty “youthful”  parent when they were growing, up and hopefully my big girls will concur now that they’re 21 and 23, but who knows. They may all think I’m old and out of touch even as I try to stay current on things that matter to them. Music is a big part of all of our lives evidenced by the cacophony of sounds in our home coming from the three youngest kids who play violin, cello, trombone, saxophone, and trumpet. They all love to sing, hence music fills our house from canned sources and their creations constantly! Due to their influence and exposure, I do know and enjoy many of the current top artists, and join them in singing/harmonizing to songs that please me!

I drive my 13-yr. old daughter to school most mornings, and on that 20 minute drive, barely awake myself, I’ve given up on the control of the sound waves and let her surf the stations for the songs she likes the best. I like to please my kids, but there are definitely limits that I hit when it comes to music.

For some brief background, I need to go back to my own childhood, riding in the car with my mother. My mom, as I may have mentioned in a previous post, was a musician who not only directed instrumental groups, musical theater and various choirs since she was a teenager, but played piano and sang soprano with esteemed groups like the Tanglewood Chorus and the Boston Pop’s Chorus. She taught piano out of our home most days and directed the adult and children’s choirs at our church. She was what I’d call a “pitch snob” as well, contorting her face and discretely (sometimes not so much), plugging her ears when sounds did not resonate well with her, and, she discriminated against (translation=shut it off!) most music that wasn’t musically pleasant to her ears.

When I rode in the car with her, we mainly listened to classical music, or opera. As one of her 4 children, I rarely had the opportunity to switch the radio station and if there were even pre-set buttons in our car, I never had the opportunity to learn how to use them. The airwaves were hers and we just had to learn to deal with it! Luckily, since I was a musician as well, I could deal with it most of the time, but I NEVER learned to like opera no matter how much I heard it!

As a young child, we had a reel-to-reel tape recorder that my dad used to tape every single church service or concert that my mom was ever in. We 4 kids each had our own small tape that we could record on, which we did, ad nauseam. We recorded songs, acted out plays and musical performances on a multitude of instruments as well as every conceivable conversation or fight that we found interesting. I distinctly remember at around the age of 10, playing my Sears “light-up drum set” while singing The Partridge Family’s “I Think I love You” with my younger sister Rachael while I banged away! Music was a giant part of our lives as it is for my own kids. (This is a real picture of my drum set from the Sears Catalog of 1969!)

As a teenager, I did my best to sway her to music that was at least of the same century, and had some limited success when she took up folk guitar in the 1970’s. Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell,The Mama’s and the Papa’s, and James Taylor made the cut, but she had a distinct dislike for bands like The Who, The Doors, and Iron Butterfly (In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was one of my older sister’s favorite albums!). She tolerated some of the quieter Beatles songs probably because they had good harmonies, but with most of the other music she would wrinkle up her nose in disgust.

I’m not going to generalize like my mother did and say that all pop music is crap. I like lots of musicians, like Bruno Mars, Adele, Carrie Underwood, lady GaGa, Maroon 5, Coldplay, The Black-eyed Peas, Train, Rhianna, and have been known to listen to some Eminem and other rap music. I like singable, non-offensive, and music that I can harmonize to. If it has a good message, even better. If it has no message, but a nice tune and instrumentals, that’s fine with me too.

Back to my conversation in the car with my own child and my now tortured life…it’s all about One Direction these days. I can deal with the 32 One Direction posters taped to the walls of her room (only because we still need to paint the walls a new color), and I really don’t care what she listens to on her headphones or in her room, but I-can-not-tolerate-their-music! I think the clincher for me was when I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live last season and their lack of musicality mixed with their really poor dancing made dislike turn to intolerance.

After plugging her mp3/phone into my car stereo connection, she turned on a new song I’d never heard before. I gave it an excruciating 2 miles before I just couldn’t take it any longer. I don’t know if my mother’s spirit was lurking in my car or what, but the words that came out were definitely channeled through me from her!

“I just don’t know how you can listen to that stuff? There’s no musicality to it at all! Don’t they sing about anything else besides how beautiful she is, what he wants to do to her, how he needs her, wants her, loves the flip of her hair! Why is all of the music these days about living for the moment? Like there isn’t a future or something? Isn’t there any music that you like which doesn’t rage adolescent hormones ? I didn’t have to go through this with your two older sisters-at least they had good taste in music!”

In an instant I realized that I had turned into my mother!!!

Sorry mom. Now I understand.

While I’m at it mom, thanks for tolerating my Partridge Family music playing incessantly and my loud drumming on my cheap drum set. I really appreciate that now!

And remember that tiny microphone I found in Dad’s workroom and hooked up to my violin to make it electronic? Thanks for letting me make so much noise!

Oh yeah, and in sixth grade when I was learning to play the french horn, I know it was pretty loud and obnoxious in the beginning, but thanks for sticking it out with me. I haven’t exactly found that patience yet for your granddaughter’s trombone, but I’m sure she’ll get better soon!

My bass guitar? Well, that was just cool and fun, but in all fairness, I left that at school for the most part.

Until I had my own gaggle of noisemakers, I just had no idea how excruciating it could be! And yes, I do know that when they’re gone, I’ll be complaining that it’s too quiet!

Undecided Voters?

01 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Melbiker in personal stuff, Political, Republican Party, Weird Misc. topics, women's rights Tags: , , , , ,

Halloween is over and Election day is right around the corner…five more days until we will hopefully know if it’s time to scream with joy or cry and get into bed and hunker down for the next 4 years!

I see the polls. I hear the pundits talking, but I’m sick and tired of all of this jockeying and just want it to to be decided so I/we/the country, can move on with our lives.

When I hear about the undecided voters, I can’t help but wonder if they are really paying attention. If a woman is undecided, I would have to ask if she has all of her marbles. Barack Obama is the only choice who cares about a woman’s rights!

I was surfing through my facebook feed yesterday and I came upon this video of Donna the Deer Lady.  I have to say that my curiosity was piqued by this silly headline, and as I listened, I was certain that it was someone punking the radio hosts, but I was wrong. What I heard, was a fairly intelligent woman complaining about the overuse of  “Deer Crossing” signs on busy highways and their obvious results which lead to more deer crossing in those spots due to the signs!

This woman was serious and wanted her concern to be taken seriously. “Please, can’t someone take them down so that we don’t have so many deer crossing on busy highways?”  Certainly, there are less populated places for deer to cross in small towns and at already designated crosswalks, she implied! Holy crap! Is she a shining example of  the undecided voter?

I also saw a quick clip yesterday of a four-year old girl who was crying about the election. Her mother video-taped her sobbing, saying that she was crying about  “Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney,” as she was upset about the plethora of mentions of the election. Even she is done with all of this craziness! Anyway, I had a vision that  it would have been great if someone could have showcased all of the nasty things that have been said towards Obama from the GOP campaign through the eyes of children, maybe using play dough like Saturday Night Live used to do with Mr. Bill. If kids wrote the scripts, we’d see just how clearly Mitt Romney has been lying and bullying and using millions of dollars to buy this election. Kids know when they’re being lied to and they know when things aren’t fair, and adults could use a good dose of that non sugar-coated reality!

Here’s hoping that next wednesday I’ll be able to get out of bed!

Who Owns my Uterus? Rights, Responsibilities, and the Realities of a Romney Presidency

13 Oct 2012 1 Comment

by Melbiker in abortion, Inequality, Parenting, Republican Party, Weird Misc. topics, women's rights Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This week, the Romney/Ryan campaign showed their true colors clearer than I’ve seen them before in this campaign. Under their leadership, the Supreme Court could change in ways that would plummet a woman’s rights back to pre-Roe v. Wade era, an embryo would have all of the rights accorded to a living being at fertilization, and it is very likely that marriage would be only defined as a right of heterosexuals, obliterating any progress that states have made in legalizing same-sex marriage.

Any woman would be crazy to vote for Mitt Romney. Any man who loves a woman or has a daughter would be voting against women to cast his vote for Mitt Romney.  Mitt Romney, the surrogate for the Tea Party’s regressive, misogynistic and racist group of haters and elitists would cause a downward spiral for woman that would be irreparable for many generations. A Romney win would ensure the appointment of 1-4 possible Supreme Court Justices who would most surely repeal Roe v. Wade, a woman’s right to an abortion!

To begin with, it is unconscionable to support such ludicrous reasoning for eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood. If  women do not have access to the free services that PP offers, there is no doubt that the number of unwanted pregnancies would rise due to lack of contraception. If women do not have access to routine procedures that could prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, aid in healthy pregnancies, screen for early detection of cancer, provide for abortions, and many other services that are offered, the strain on our health care system through emergency room care would be monumental, or, women would suffer without these services altogether.

For a party that seems so concerned with the rights of the unborn child, where is the concern for those who are alive and needing assistance? Where is the outrage for the child that was not aborted, yet has a life-threatening illness but has parents with no insurance or way to pay for care? Are these Republicans really so short-sighted that their reasoning ends when the sperm meets the egg? Do these extreme Republicans really believe that if these babies could talk that they would say that a life of hunger, poverty, no resources for basic health care, and in many cases, physical, mental and verbal abuse  is worth it or preferable?

As a lesbian, my kids were not created by accident. They were planned for and invited into our lives with much forethought and hard work. While I understand that heterosexuals aren’t always that careful or strategic with the choice to have kids, I do know that many people take this responsibility very seriously and would not want to be surprised by an unwanted pregnancy.

In New York City,  53 high schools now offer female students Plan B, which is a compound that prevents ovulation or fertilization if used within 72 hours of unprotected sex. 7000 girls between the ages of 15-17 get pregnant in the NYC school system annually. Imagine, if we could prevent these unwanted pregnancies, the subsequent need for abortions, and the unnecessary birth of more unwanted children which often comes with even more societal repercussions! Seriously, abstinence programs don’t work. Kids are going to experiment or be forced into sex whether we as parents like it or not. Let’s protect our girls and give them a chance to grow up with as many advantages as the boys get to have.

As a business owner for many years, I know that I have paid up the wazoo for insurance in my former business. I had health insurance for my staff, insurance for participants who used the facility, unemployment insurance, liability insurance, and even insurance in case I forgot to pay the premiums on my insurance! It’s a protection that I never took lightly, especially liability insurance. It didn’t just stop there with my premiums though…I fixed safety issues immediately, maintained all of my equipment when there were problems, kept icy areas safe and plowed, put cones up outside wet bathroom floors, posted signs about safety issues, filed accident reports and dealt with insurance companies when there were issues. I knew my responsibilities  and acted accordingly, yet I don’t see that same thing happening with the issue on the liability when it comes to unexpected pregnancies.

It may not be my area of expertise, but I surely know that to make a baby in the “conventional” way, a man is required. Yet all of the talk of abortion and a woman’s right to choose seems to miss the most important precursor to pregnancy in the first place. Put into a perspective that I can relate to very well, I’d say that there is a liability to having intercourse in the first place, yet I hear very little talk about the male’s part in this responsibility.

Imagine a society where every sexual encounter comes with an implied legal responsibility. Why are both parties not responsible for proving and providing the same level of contraception to protect against an unwanted pregnancy. It is an impossibility for the man to get pregnant, yet it seems to be predominantly men who are writing the laws that would either take away a woman’s right to choose what she can and can’t do with her body if she gets pregnant. According to the most recent statistics in the U.S. almost half of the 6.7 million pregnancies are unintended. That’s 3.2 million! And according to these same statistics, 19% of them are unwanted. Most of them, as you can read for yourself, concern minority and low-income women. The choice to have an abortion, if you ask any woman who has had one, is personal, difficult, and wrought with much emotion, and involves factors much more complicated than a simple “it’s against GOD’s will” approach.

The  Right-Wing Conservative Tea Party has a clear inability to separate the issues of Church & State. As Paul Ryan clearly stated in the VP debate this past week, he can not separate his religion from his political views when it comes to abortion. He supports the platform that abortion should be illegal except for in cases of “rape, incest, and (lo and behold he’s put it back in to his speech…) the life of the mother.”  Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic as well as Ryan, knows that his religious views, although similar, SHOULD NOT be and WILL NOT be imposed on anyone else’s choice for what is right for their body.

So who is responsible for these unwanted children? Whose liability is it? Seems to me that it falls predominantly on the women. And why is it that the healthcare system does not cover this under the Republican Right-Wing agenda either through contraception or abortion services? Because women are not seen as having equal rights. Apparently, women do not have the ability to decide what is right for them and their bodies because men seem to know what is best?

As a mother of 4 girls, it scares the hell out of me to think that we may have a President Romney. This is not a choice that should be difficult if you are a woman and a mother. If Romney gets elected, your rights will dissolve. There is no place for religion in politics and that was settled long ago.

What will be next- eliminating the right of women to vote?

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