I, with the uniformed mite, ask WHY?

Why the UC Regents should reconsider that enrollment cut...

Based on the following gem, from a comment, on an article, on the enrollment cut, by the UC Regants, from the US News and World Report site, about which I care as a UC Alum:

"The uniformed mite ask WHY?"

I suggest that the knead four hire education is grater then ewe mite think. As an aside... I love a mite in uniform.

P.S. It snowed last night!

P.P.S. The terribly awkward structure of the above sentence beginning "Based on..." was intentional, too. I haven't completely lost all sense (just almost all cents).

P.P.P.S. Okay... I will stop now.

From the Archives of our Lives

We had a wonderful visit from Steve, Jayne, Thomas and Paul (Dan's oldest brother and his family) several weeks ago, but it just happened to coincide with my work situation taking a left turn, so while I have had photos and things to say about it for a while, I never managed to do so. It's long overdue by now, but I will hope that "they" are right when "they" say, "Better late than never!" Unfortunately, I seem to have lost more than half of the photos from that time in the intervening weeks. I had, for instance, some really cool shots of our nephews hanging about in treetops like monkeys, but I have not been able to locate them. *sigh* I do, however, have a couple of the photos I took back at the house (after the boys went and got sunburnt at the nearby water park). The less camera-shy members of the family appear somewhat more often than the rest of us. I, for instance, never handed the camera over to anyone else, so I just don't appear at all!During their visit, we went out to eat quite a lot... in fact, I think we did more eating than anything... which was great, since it allowed us to try some of the restaurants we had not yet been to. We also went to Old Salem (which took much more time than anticipated) and did a few other things around town. I managed to cook dinner one night, but it wasn't one of my more shining moments. :) There were plenty of fun moments, including the time when a young girl tried to pick up on Paul in the local Fuddruckers, where the burgers are enormous and the clean-up staff ask for tips in not-so-subtle ways. Back to Paul's admirer... I won't repeat what her friend said in response since it was shockingly frank, but the admirer managed to tell Paul he was "hot" straight out. I, of course, found this to be delightfully funny. I can afford to find it amusing since I am not the mother of teenagers. Speaking of teenagers, Sonic seemed to be a favorite destination for the visiting family, so trips to get drinks and munchies were frequently on the agenda. I didn't object to that either.

Wherever we were, there was an abundance of silliness. I attribute most of it to the boys of the family. I am sure that Jayne and I always comported ourselves admirably. I'm quite sad not to have some of the other photos to share that would have captured even more of the levity, but these few shots will provide a peek at the Connecticut clan's visit to our spot on the globe. While this is arguably *not* the most exciting place to be, we hope they will consider coming again.

Where We've Been (There's No Place Like Home)

I have been MIA for a while, but that mostly has to do with the move we just completed. We moved into the house we'd already been living in. Sounds strange, perhaps. We had intended to move elsewhere, but when we gave notice here at the temporary furnished housing, our landlord made us an offer within 5 minutes that we, well, couldn't refuse - a very significant reduction of our rent, and the opportunity to move our own things in. So, last weekend, he moved his things out, and we moved ours in. Many many thanks are due our friend Erik, who came and helped for the weekend, allowing us to be completely unpacked and settled by the end of one week!

The majority of my time has been spent packing up the landlord's things and unpacking ours. When not doing that, I have been couponing (got to love $220-worth of groceries for $118, though I am determined to do even better), job hunting, budgeting, changing our address and doing a variety of other home-related tasks, including things I haven't done in ages, like ironing shirts for Dan, cooking dinner every day and baking sweet goodies for him to take to work. All in all, I have been more busy than I was when I was working full-time. It's been a good busy, though, and I feel the healthiest and most content I have in a long time, in part, I am sure, because I seem to run up and down the stairs in here a few dozen times a day! I am a domestic goddess, until I am called upon to do something else... and dare I confess that I kind of enjoy it?

We still have some kinks to work out when it comes to sorting out life as it will be now, but I'm feeling much more settled and happy than I was for a long time. In the good news department, MooMoo recovered well after having almost all of her teeth pulled (she now has only one fang, poor dear), Daniel was hired permanently at his new job with a possibility for a review and raise in three months, and we think we can scrape by with things as they are if need be. More money would definitely be handy, though, so perhaps those of you inclined towards prayer can pray that we find another source - work for me, a raise for him or whatever is needed.

Here's a slide show of our new digs - it's a 2 bed 2.5 bath townhouse, for those of you who haven't seen it. It's complete with such budget-conscious items as $1 garage sale curtains and a tablecloth re-purposed as a "headboard"! (As an aside, We decided that the initial investment would be worthwhile in both energy savings and eco-friendliness, so we've put energy-efficient bulbs in all but about 4 or 5 fixtures and lamps in the house.) While it would be lovely to be able to replace some things (my desk, for example, is a $20 folding table from Walgreens) and there are plenty of things on my "someday..." wish list, I have been pleased with the way things have turned out, and what I didn't have to spend to do it!



Finally, what post would be complete without plenty of cats? Here are assorted kitty pictures taken this morning... Monte LOVES the roses Dan bought for me, as you can see. I don't have the heart to tell Monte that they weren't for him.
I'm going to try to backtrack a bit here in the next few posts, because there is plenty I haven't written about, including visits from loved ones and other of our recent activities. Stay tuned, as I hope to get going on the blog again now that we have a comfortable place to live and a semblance of order and serenity in our lives.

Local Color

Fall has many charms, and several of the more tasty charms are for sale at the local farmer's market. This one has absolutely captivated me. It's quite large and quite diverse, with local products featuring prominently in the offerings, which I like very well, indeed. I like to support the local economy, and I like to be as close to the source of the food as practical. Here are some highlights from the market.

First, my sweetheart in a house made of pumpkins.


Taters, sweet and otherwise.
Some of the many varied pumpkins for sale.

Apples, apples and more apples!
Apples aren't the only cider-fruits round these parts.
Colorful blooms.
Green pumpkins.

Of course, there are other forms of wildlife in town... some that are just as native as well, I am.


Napping red wolves.
Kitties!!!See ya later alligator, and after a while crocodile.
And my favorite, a cute little Wallaby that let me pet him and nuzzled my feet.
Isn't our world amazing and beautiful!

A New Season

These days, few things make me quite so excited as the beginning of the NHL regular season. I'm glad to have somewhere to invest my nervous energy and something to follow with interest that has the potential to be quite positive. We decided to go to the opening game of the Hurricanes' '08-'09 season last night, and we were delighted to discover that we could make it to a 7pm weeknight game on time from here when traffic and weather permit, though we plan to do that very seldom indeed. The journey also had the advantage of taking us by a gas station selling 87 for $3.17 per gallon. At home here, it's more like $3.60+ these days, so that was another pleasant surprise.

In other good news, the Hurricanes won, it was the fullest house I have seen in the 11 months I have followed the team and, aside Dan's from missing most of the second period haggling with an RBC Center employee at the ticket window who appeared to be trying to make a spot in the hall of incompetence for herself, we had a nice time and managed to get home before midnight.

As an aside, Dan has decided that earplugs are in order for him at all future games, which was a valuable observation. His hearing has suffered some over the last few months/years, and all of the arena noise is just too much for him, even though there's nothing like a live game and he loves that part. I'm somewhat more compassionate than I might otherwise be to that particular situation because I have a mother with hearing loss whose experience was shared with me some growing up. In fact, I learned enough from mom that I was able to recognize some behavioral signs of Dan's hearing loss before he recognized what was happening and his doctor actually caught the physical fact in testing.

Also aside, a consequence of the ticket window fiasco was that once I went back to the ticket window with Dan to have them fix the overcharge and the wrong seats (among other things), we decided to get some food, and when we headed back to our seats, Senator Elizabeth Dole happened to be right outside the door we needed to go through to get back. She was kind enough to shake our hands and greet us kindly before moving on. It may have been a photo-op, but we had no cameras (only incredibly overpriced Hardee's food) at hand, so you'll just have to take my word on that one.

I'm the last person to find politicians awe-inspiring, but she is a history-maker (the first female senator in NC) and a long-time civil servant who served with five presidents and ran for first lady, so to speak, so given a chance to shake her hand, I will take it.

All in all, it was a fun evening. I'm very grateful for fun times like this one that we get to share. Perhaps it can mark the start of a new season in our lives with more to obviously celebrate... (and I do mean more than just a new NHL season)!

By Divine Appointment

I thought I was going to see my doctor for the follow-up after a skin biopsy. That's what I had in mind... Well, that and asking the doctor if we can start trying to conceive again, since he had done a series of tests to determine my baseline health. I guess you could say that a lot rested on this appointment. However, according to a black woman named Jennifer from Ohio that I met in the waiting room, that was only one of the appointments I was meant to keep today. She says I had an appointment with her as well, only God had arranged this one.

I had arrived at the doctor eager to get the whole business over with. While I am getting quite used to the sort of exam that this office specializes in, I have never gotten used to the indignity of them. I checked in and looked for something to read to pass the time. Thankfully this office has a variety of magazines, unlike the office in Raleigh where I went through the majority of my short pregnancy and post-miscarriage care. That office offered reading choices for two life-events only: happy pregnancy and happy menopause. However, in this office, the smallish magazine that caught my eye was one called Miracle, which happened to be about achieving pregnancy through infertility treatments. I flipped through it, and looked despondently at a chart demonstrating the relationship between rising age and failing fertility. This month I turn 34, and the point at which pregnancy is attended by additional counseling about all the things that can go wrong is one year away. I soon discovered that this particular "miracle" booklet amounted to nothing more than fancy pharmaceutical literature, but it was enough to make me wonder as I put it back on the table if I would be devouring it in a year or two, hoping it held answers we desperately wanted.

My name was called, and, after a routine collection of specimens, I was ushered by a nurse into another waiting room. A tall, neatly groomed black woman sat down across from me. We smiled, and I made a passing remark about how we had made it to the second waiting room, which is always encouraging. She laughed and chatted a little bit. She was here, she said, because she had miscarried a few months ago, but she was now pregnant again. I smiled and congratulated her, and then I told her about my own miscarriage in February. She looked at me and, in dead earnestness, told me that I was going to have a baby. "How can I know this? I don't even know you? All things are in God's hands, and you are going to have a child." She then got up and laid her hand on my shoulder and told me she would be praying for me long after I had forgotten about this day. By then, I had started to cry quietly. "Don't be afraid. You must not be afraid, and never question God's ways. You do believe in Him, don't you?" I said yes. Her name was called, and she disappeared into the back of the office with a final few words of encouragement.

A few minutes later I was called back to the exam room. My eyes were still moist, and the nurse asked if I was okay. I told her I was and that I had just had an unusual - not unpleasant, just unusual - experience with another patient in the waiting room. I had a lot of time to think while I waited, draped in a paper blanket, for the doctor to come check the biopsy site. Most of that time I prayed silently and cried a bit more. It's an emotional day today, and that little impromptu laying on of hands was all it took to help me find my crying place.

The doctor exam was unremarkable, except that he couldn't find the biopsy spot, it had healed so well. He told me we can try to get pregnant, and wrote me a prescription for prenatal vitamins. So far, so good.

As I left, I met the same woman in the back office hall. She said, "Looks like we're on the same schedule," and we walked out together. She told me that there was such a thing as anointing, and that she was passing it on to me. We chatted a bit. She told me I would have news that everything would be fine by Christmas, and that when I got the news, I would remember that there was a black woman named Jennifer in this doctor's office that had encouraged me today. She told me that God had arranged it so that we would be there together and meet. At that point I couldn't help but laugh. A few days ago the doctor's office called and told me they had to reschedule my appointment by about 40 minutes, so I came in later than was my usual preference. I came in when Jennifer did.

I couldn't help but think of another strange encounter in a hospital hallway when my dad was desperately ill in the ICU. We weren't sure (and the doctors weren't convinced) that he was going to live, but a blond woman in the hallway of the ICU told me that my Dad would walk out of the hospital. I remember clinging to her words, hoping that even though the encounter was exceptionally strange, that her words were somehow true. He was wheeled out of the hospital, as are all patients, but Dad recovered after more than one close call and figuratively, if not literally, he did walk away.

The part of me that isn't entirely jaded, that part that isn't completely cynical, that part wants to believe that Jennifer from Ohio was in fact keeping her divine appointment with me. Because while I am still not sure that it's entirely rational to believe anything this gentle stranger said to me, there was a confidence in her words and her eyes that could have persuaded me of almost anything. I've been pretty hopeless lately. It's been easy for me to lose sight of the good things in the midst of all of my worries. If Jennifer persuaded me to have hope again, after a difficult molar pregnancy, job losses, a traumatic move, a skin cancer scare and months of waiting in what has felt like limbo, then perhaps there is something of God's hand in hers on my shoulder. Jennifer could be an angel, she could be a charismatic person with a strong conviction of God's workings, she could be almost anyone or anything. I believe that she is a woman who kept a divine appointment to encourage a stranger. God bless her for that... and, you will forgive me, won't you, if I cling to a hope that she also turns out to be a prophet?

What I forget

I don't do a very good job of predicting the future. Not in big things; not in small things. For instance, every time I think, "Hey, I'll have time/energy/lots to say and will get a new blog post up," something comes and takes the wind out of my sails. I guess I am rather easy to deflate these days. Time I have. A desire to share what's on my heart I have. The ability to know how to do that, I don't.

Dan and I were talking last night, and I realized that one of my self-preservation mechanisms is working overtime. That is, as badly as I want and need people to socialize with, and as rapidly and drastically as my social circle has shrunk lately (talking to people at work online was a huge part of my contact with the outside world), I think I am uniquely reluctant to make any connections. This has been true since we moved to North Carolina to some extent, but it has become worse in the last two or three months. I think this is largely because I don't know where we will live in a month, and I am so afraid of letting people down and losing new connections that I don't want to connect with anyone new. This means I don't want to go to church here, either. We've been so busy with moving and guests and other impediments large and small that it has been very easy just to not go. I don't want to volunteer, even though I am sure there are plenty of volunteer organizations in the area that could use hands. The future is so uncertain that I feel paralyzed in the present.

It's all very silly, I know. Especially for someone as naturally social as I can be. I talk easily with people, as evidenced by what happened this last weekend when Dan and I went to Raleigh for a free Hurricane's hockey event. We were sitting in line (it was a long line and we brought chairs) to get into the building for player autographs. The sun was intense in the line area, and I was sans sunscreen, so Dan suggested that I go sit on some nearby steps that were in the shade of the building. I took his suggestion and my book and plopped down on the stairs. I had been there about 3 minutes when a woman came and sat near me and started talking with me about her two passions: writing (she has self-published a novel) and the Hurricanes Booster Club (she's on the club's board). By the time I left that spot, I knew quite a few things about her and may have had a new connection, except that I counted the hours between my current home and the club activities she mentioned that I could really enjoy and decided a bit sadly that it wasn't for me. It's not hard for me to make connections. It's just hard to want to maintain them when my life is in flux and I don't know where I live or what I will do for a living in a month or two.

I find the same reluctance in my job and housing search. Both have been fairly anemic so far, in part because until Dan is hired solidly by his company and until we know what his job will offer by way of benefits and pay, I don't know where I want to live and what sort of job I will need going forward. Can I take a lower-pay part-time position? Do I need a full-time position with benefits? Where should I look? Near where we live now? Near where we left, since that's where I would rather be if Dan's job falls through? I have a deep longing to be settled, to have my familiar things around me. I don't like sitting on someone else's furniture every day and cooking with strange dishes. I want to feel like I have a home again, and I can't bring myself to feel that here, even as I spend more of my time "keeping house".

There is a bitter sweetness to my life in this moment. I am happier in some ways than I have been in many years. In others, I am more depressed than I have been for a long time. It's no mystery to me why I feel either way, or both ways. All of the little gains and losses of life add up to one big muddle, and until I feel a strong sense of direction, I fear I will feel that I have lost my moorings.

The most ridiculous aspect of all of this is that I have sometimes lost sight of what makes this time of life no different from any other, namely that I am never in control, and I never know what the future holds. Every aspect of my life can change in a moment, and greater chaos than I feel now can come at the most routine of times. What does that mean? Well, all that I am feeling is subjective. I'm enslaved to the whim of the moment, the latest bit of news, the newest change of circumstance. I lose sight of the fact that God is unchanging in his love, and that while I may allow myself to be tossed about by circumstance, a firm foundation is withing reach if I dare to put down roots. I'd like to, and I need to... but I am afraid to try.