Its Raining Out-So I'm Cooking...

So, Its been awhile, but all this rain is forcing me to do some indoor activities. These include reading Mark Bittman's latest book Food Matters.  Which has started me back to doing something I used to do all the time, cook up beans, only now with more flair. I made two pots of beans, Chickpeas which I added lemon juice, sea salt, cilantro, olive oil, & black pepper. I saved some for my rice I cooked yesterday. I also made lentils and a whole pot of lentil soup.  The problem is, I added a can of stop-n-shop tomato sauce.  I didn't realize had more than tomatoes in it. I has something called "spice" I am not sure what that means, but the soup tastes VERY salty now. Bittman claims "spice" can be another word for MSG. (Great I am trying to eat healthy, but instead I am giving myself palpitations with MSG.) However, I cannot find anything that substantiates that.  Anyone with info I would be happy to hear from.

Birthday Blessings

I had to update my blog asap. I spent my 40th birthday in birthday funland. I didn't want my 40th year to be remembered as bad. I had a great day, with lots of friends etc. My husband is amazing. He got me some fabulous gifts and has a heart of gold. He really treated me. I couldn't have asked for anything better. Plus I forgot to mention that it was also International Women's Day. This is a holiday that is near and dear to my heart for many reasons. (Not just cuz it is on my birthday.)

Anyway, that is all I have time for. I am supremely grateful for all the love and joy I have in my life.

My birthday wish would be to keep joy and love in my heart and surroundings. To have a happy and healthy family, for there to be peace on our beautiful planet, and for all children to be safe, fed and happy. That and for a personal shout into the universe for our family to be green by going green, getting more green and giving green away!

Turning Forty on the Rag

I am not sure what is going on with me-could be I am turning forty or it could be I am turning forty and will have my period at the same time, who knows? All I know is I am a little blue. Turns out that spring is not giving me the happiness I so need, nor the energy-even with the windows open.

Turns out I don't want to do much of anything-not exercise even though I know it will make me feel good. Not write, because it is so much work. I am only typing this because, well because I don't know what else to do right now. Home from work and I certainly DON'T want to clean the house.

Turning forty is supposed to be fun, the new 30 or something like that. I should go back out and get a tattoo, but I think around here it is too WT for us these days. My family isn't around, my friends are far away-I guess I am turning forty without the fun. I just want to cry, & I don't want to post this, but it is what I feel. And how honest is an online journal if you don't write what you feel?

I want to feel better, maybe if I just type away and post it, it will all be gone, all out there and into the world for better or for worse. So I don't have to feel so sad and well simply blue. I know we have plans for the actual date and I am excited to be with my husband and with the people that are nearby, but my mom and sister and family aren't here, my two closest friends are too far away caught up in their own lives at the moment-death and birth can really occupy the body.

Agh - cripes what is the use, I also don't want any fucking phone calls related to this. That is not what this is all about. I guess it is all about life and how getting caught up in the reality of life has kept me from being the fun loving person I know I am. The fun loving person I am fighting to be beside my gene pool of financial anxiety.

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2:50pm
Update:

I just exercised, so of course I feel better now.

Let me explain my self better. I do not blame anyone for my emotional outburst. I am upset primarily because I need a shift of consciousness in my life. Things are far too hectic in my life . I am scrambling to maintain friendships with people I love and never see, with people who are close and with those of whom are far away. I believe the type of person I am is someone who wants time to be with those of whom I love and enjoy their company on a regular basis. The time and energy this requires is more than I have to give-that is the unfortunate part. I am so tired, so stressed that I barely have time to ejnoy my family let alone my friends. The shift I am talking about is something that I would like this household to undertake, but I am not quite sure how to do it. It is not only about getting a new job with less stress, it is also not just about finances-it is about enjoying life. isn't that why you have family and friend to begin with?

Writing for Women's History Month

Over at What Tami Said there is a Women's History Blog Carnival from March 1st-13th. Submissions are due by Feb. 28th. For any woman who is interested in submitting a post, visit the above link to find out what the criteria are.

I think it sound fairly interesting. I hope to have something ready for the deadline. I am not sure that I will as I haven't really had any writing time for myself in quite awhile. It is odd, apparently I have either time to exercise or time to blog - not both. Considering that I am turning 40 next month and my cholesterol has been high for the past couple of years-I actually need to start getting healthier. So exercise has been winning out. I have a fear of becoming a medical statistic of family abandonment. But that is a whole other thing to write about. Anyway I really enjoy What Tami Said and I think that the carnival should be an interesting read.

Don't Flush that BlackBerry!

My husband told me something totally disturbing that he observes at work. Men go into the bathroom stall in the mens room talking on their cell phones. The stall for all you uneducated female readers is where men go to poop not pee. (Or a place to go if you are a homophobic married right wing republican senator interested in touching another mans "feet".) They do this in the corporate world while on a conference calls/business calls some of the time! How do they wipe? Where is the "clean" hand? What do the other people in the conference think of this invasion of privacy?

Men also think it is OK to use their BlackBerry while in a stall. This is called BBWP. My question is, how sanitary is that blackberry afterwards? It gives a whole new meaning for the BlackNuggetBerry as in YUCK! They leave while still using it and they DON'T WASH THEIR HANDS! My husband (who thankfully does not own a blackberry) observes this on a daily basis. I am happy to say he is equally as grossed out as I am.

Flashback Sunday or Recollections from Mammary Lane

image taken from AMNH website

We went to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC today. As we were getting ready to leave we slipped into the hall of mammals and I had a flashback to two years ago.

We were in the museum and my newborn (now two) was crying. My two year old (now four) was running around like a chicken without his head. I nursed my baby on the wooden seats with giant elephants as a backdrop. That is to say-I whipped out my mammary gland right there in the darkened Akekely Hall of African Mammals. How appropriate!

It is fun to link an institution as fabulous as the AMNH with such an amazing memory. I was exhausted and tired back then-I guess little has changed. I doubt I will ever get the chance to nurse again. So I am glad that I will always have the Hall of Mammals to remind me of my human-ness.

Dr. Tiller Needs Your Help

I received this letter from the Feminist Majority Foundation
and thought that it was worth passing on. Dr. George Tiller and his remarkable staff
need your help. They provide a really difficult service for many women and
families in need. I urge you to write his staff and thank them for the work they do
and if you have the money to donate to his help keep his clinic up and running.

This post was cross posted at BlogHer

Dear Birdsword,
Dr. Tiller needs your help! The extremists are trying to shut him down. In what could become a "witch hunt", a grand jury has begun its investigation of Dr. George Tiller for supposed violations of Kansas abortion law.

The grand jury was convened after the extremist group Operation Rescue joined with Kansans for Life to file a citizen petition under an 1887 Kansas law. It took only 6,186 signatures to launch this latest attack in a relentless campaign to close down this vitally needed clinic.

We must do all we can to keep this clinic safe and open. Please donate today - half of your contribution will go directly to Dr. Tiller to defray legal costs and half will go to our clinic defense team working to protect this clinic as well as many other women's health clinics across the nation.

Please also show your support by sending Dr. Tiller and his staff at Women's Health Care Services a letter, letting them know how much you appreciate their continued work to protect women's health and lives in the face of continuing attacks on their clinic.

Despite over 20 years of anti-abortion harassment, intimidation, and violence, his clinic was bombed in 1986 and he was shot five times in 1993, Dr. Tiller remains steadfast in his mission to provide compassionate and quality healthcare to women seeking late term abortions because of illness or very troubled pregnancies. He is there when few other doctors will help.

The Feminist Majority Foundation's National Clinic Access Project, the oldest and largest in the country, has worked with Dr. Tiller for more than 15 years to counter the constant attacks and threats of anti-abortion activists. We must make it clear now that we will not allow a small group of zealots pervert the law to advance their extremist agenda.

1. Donate now to help Dr. Tiller and the Feminist Majority Foundation keep clinics safe, open, and free of harassment and intimidation.

2. Please send Dr. Tiller and his staff a letter of support, reminding them how many feminists stand behind them in their fight for women's lives.

For Women's Lives,

Eleanor Smeal President	Katherine Spillar Executive Vice President

Remember, January 22nd is the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade.
Without clinics, there is no choice. Please show your support today!

It hurts-edited version

In my job there are so many devastating stories I hear on a regular basis. This blog is not where I can talk about them without feeling like I am breaking my agencies privacy laws. I want to tell the world about the sad stories I hear, about the lives of women who need health care, family planning, food, shelter and a safe place away from their abusers. I can't tell their stories, but I can say that there are so many more "stories" I hear on a regular basis, many would break anyones heart. I can't talk about them. I probably can't even post my unedited version.

I want to document about the other services I provide and how thankful that the patients are getting a procedure that they need in a health, respectful, clean environment. I am thanked and hugged on a regular basis for the services I provide. I can't post about this for fear of retribution from crazy people.

It is hard not to be able to talk about this stuff. So here I am vagueness and all venting, clearing my head and moving forward.

Mandatory HIV Testing in NJ

Recently I posted a response to mandatory testing on Our Bodies Our Blog website regarding mandatory HIV testing in the state of NJ.

I probably was writing too fast and thinking about what toys the kids were throwing in my lap as I typed, because I did not get my point across very well.

I shall say I am NOT for the state forcing patients to do things they do not want to do. I am for making mandates to make sure patients get the health care they deserve. There are a few issues that concern me about OB/GYN health care and HIV testing.

1. Physicians in private practice do not always do what the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) suggests. They don't always test gonorrhea and chlamydia on all OB patients. They are selective in that for clinic patients they will test, but not private practice. Read into this, I certainly do.
2. Physicians/clinicians don't always have the time to educate their patients regarding certain tests. A patient will actively decline a test without really being educated about the test. So someone who is offered and declines HIV testing may be refusing because she thinks she is safe. There is the strong probability that nobody spent a significant amount of time educating the patient as to why this test is important. MD's use pre-judgement just as much as the rest of us do. They will pre-judge a patient, or use their own values to help a patient make a decision. For example to to fetal testing or not. This test is often pushed in an OB/GYN office not HIV testing.

So maybe the state mandated HIV testing for a variety of reasons. Cost being one, and also Physician accountability. ACOG recommends HIV testing for all women, not all MD's offer the test.


Also I would like to say that there are many tests that are mandated upon a patient at the hospital level that are regulated by the Department of Health (ie the state). I find it interesting that mandatory HIV testing is so openly discussed, while I have never heard any opposition to other tests being done.

Again, I will reiterate I believe HIV testing should be offered to all pregnant women with the same counseling offered for genetics testing. I do not believe the state has a write to force a patient to do a test if s/he declines.

Hope that clears things up-or opens up the discussion some more.

The Struggle to Survive

I have to work tomorrow and I am going to miss my sons very first soccer practice. He has been looking forward for this since Nov. when I signed him up, so has his little brother. Hopefully my husband will remember to catch it on video.

I love my job, I hate the hours. (oh and the pay).

Yes I know this isn't world news, nothing to do with politics, but in a sense it does. I want to know which of the candidates for presidency is really listening to the sense of unreality for working families. I could go on about this, but really it is very stressful for me. I take care of so many people who are so poor. I know that I am lucky to have a roof over my head and shouldn't complain, because at least my kid is going to play soccer, he eats well, stays warm and has clean clothing. I take care of families who cross the border under terrible conditions, only to be treated like dogs in this country. Many can't read or write. I believe they still deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Do any of the politicians think about this?

I take care of pregnant teens, boys, girls, men and women with sexually transmitted diseases, yet "abstinence only" is the trademark slogan of our donkey of a president.

I work in a community where living with rape and surviving rape is common. Where sexual abuse by a family member is also common, where drugs, alcohol, prison, are part of the community. Many are struggling to remove themselves from this situation. While others just fall again and again. Yet I have to believe that my voice will somehow make a difference to someone. I hope the patients listen, I know politicians won't.

Up Dreams! and other alt. realities

My older son (4) got a bit annoyed with me today because I didn't know what and "up dream" was. It's an awake dream" he told me excitedly. (DUH MOM)

son : "I had another one, I was a power ranger and there was a girl"

me : (thinking to myself, a girl, why is he dreaming of girls he is only 4) "What was the girl doing?"

son: "she turned into a power ranger- we just transformed ourselves."

he danced merrily off to "up dream" some more.

Recycle Your Tree

Your Christmas tree making you sneeze? Sick of all the needles on the floor? It is time to dump your tree. All you people with dying Christmas trees go to this site to help you figure out where to throw out your tree responsibly. I got the info from the Green Guide email go to "tip of the week" for more info on recycling your tree.

Happy New Year to everyone!

I don't HEART huckabee

GAG I just quickly read an interview with Tim Russet from Meet the Press posted on Crooks and Liars. I am going to vomit. If Huckabee becomes president we are a doomed nation. This man will bring down the ice age with his ignorance and religious beliefs. When did becoming a fundamentalist minister make it OK for a person to run for president?
Here is an excerpt from the MSNBC site regarding abortion and punishing the MD (who by the way appears to be male):

GOV. HUCKABEE: It would be. And I think you don't punish the woman, first of all, because it's not about--I consider her a victim, not a, not a criminal. You would...

MR. RUSSERT: But you would punish the doctor.

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think if a doctor knowingly took the life of an unborn child for money, and that's why he was doing it, yeah, I think you would, you would find some way to sanction that doctor. I don't know that you'd put him in prison, but there's something to me untoward about a person who has committed himself to healing people and to making people alive who would take money to take an innocent life and to make that life dead. There's something that just doesn't ring true about the purpose of medical practice when the first rule of the Hippocratic Oath is "First, do no harm." Well, if you take the life and suction out the pieces of an unborn child for no reason than its inconvenience to the mother, I don't think you've lived up to your Hippocratic Oath of doing no harm.

Huckabee is CLUELESS, ignorant and not fit to be the president of the US. Maybe he can start up a cult and move to another country or something. Isn't that what crazy cultist people normally do?

NFL HELL/Saved by Flavor Flav

3 yes, you heard me 3 fucking channels of NFL football last night. So much for watching TV. Between HBO re-runs and football there was nothing on. But why 3 channels? CBS, ABC (?) and whatever channel 9 is here. WHY??? I don't recall this ever happening before.

I felt bad for all the poor dudes in the sports bars around the nation. I am sure they didn't know which channel to look at first. I imaged the headlines the next day :

AP reports Local Hospitals Inundated With Drunken Whiplashed Men. ER doctors reported: "The 20 -30 somethings were drunk with whiplash, while all the over 40's ended up in the cardiac unit suffering from mild heart attacks. These men are so out of shape, that all the head spinning, beer guzzling and wing sucking forced there fat tired bodies into overload."

I guess I could've read. Instead I zoned out to the Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav. Totally hysterical, and very un-PC. The feminist in me cringed at poor Bridgettes vagina jokes, but a roast is a roast is a roast.

RIF and RIP

In my quest to read I have finally started a book- The Kite Runner. I am reading it because my cousin told me "It is the best book I have ever read.". It is disturbingly interesting, and frustrating to read in snippets, but I am enjoying get lost in the book. I usually do not read books that are being turned into movies because I can't stand the hype, but I know I won't ever get a chance to see this movie in a theatre any time soon.


I also have been trying to read the weekend news papers as I feel I am sadly uninformed about local, national and international news. I was really happy to read the Sun. NYTimes magazine about people who passed on this year. The people (and animals) they are highlighting are surprisingly not celebrities. It is refreshing to read about people who have made their mark for actually doing remarkable things such as:
soldiers speaking out against the US Iraqi war machine
a sportsman suffering loss with dignity
reporters who reported the truth and not fact sheets from the government
a brilliant black blogger who lived in quiet anonymity
heroic intelligent women who decided to be something other than follow traditional norms
animals who taught humans about communication
and many others whose passing would have gone on unnoticed by most of us even though they all left and indelible mark on humanity.

I suppose a really awesome blogger would set up links to all these people. I guess you'll have to find them on your own as I have to get the kids to clean up and turn off that damn tv bc we certainly broke the American Academy of Pediatrics 2 hour limit today.

NJG vs X-mas paper

So this NJG (nice Jewish girl) finally figured out what you NCG (nice Christian girls) already know. Shiny wrapping paper can blind you.

After wrapping 7 gifts or so for my co-workers with some shiny paper I unknowingly purchased from retail hell giant the Christmas tree store I felt blinded. I hate wrapping, this took longer and I should've worn sun glasses. Why does anybody buy that stuff anyway? I will know better for next year!

PROUD WINNER of the QUEEN OF CHEEZE AWARD

I currently am the proud winner of the Queen of Cheeze award, for cheesiest post on 12/16/07 . This is probably the cheesiest thing I have written to date, but where else can I write this important family stuff? My kids have to have something other than crazy rants to remember me by!

Oh and if you haven't heard of this award yet don't worry you aren't out of sync with the blogging world like I am, it is because I just made it up. I don't even have a fancy widget for it, but would love one. (anyone interested in teaching me how to make widgets?)

Snow, Beautiful Snow!

I am so thankful for our neighbor coming and plowing us out. It gave my husband and I time to take the kids outside and go snow boogie boarding on their new snow boogie boards (thanks to their great aunt B and uncle M.). We had a blast, screaming and yelling as we slid down our little backyard hill. Now they are upstairs, warming up and getting ready to drink hot cocoa, with yes marshmallows in it.

There is nothing more precious than watching my children go down on their sleds with their daddy smiling, giggling and screaming! What fun!

HOLIDAY MEME

As asked at Blogher, here is my first MEME ever.

For all the complaints I have heard around the net, it was actually kind of fun.


CHRISTMAS MEME

1.Real tree or artificial or treeless? Any special traditions with the tree? real tree

2. Eggnog or Cider or Mulled Wine? none

3. Spiritual or Secular celebration? spiritual

4. Favorite Christmas music? El Vez-the Mexican Elvis singing Christmas songs in espanol rockin'!

5. One special holiday memory.
when my husband to be dragged me out for a walk to the Hudson river one freezing cold Christmas morn, and asked me to marry him!
HANNUKAH MEME

1. Describe your Menorah. wehave about 5, my grandmothers covered in wax, each son has a pretty painted one, my mom got us a serious silver religous one, and our friend gave us a funky one

2. Sour Cream or Applesauce with your Latkes? APPLESAUCE ONLY!

3. Favorite Holiday dish. Latkes

4. Were you with Family this year? yes

5. One special Holiday memory. My sons 2 & 4 jumping up and down to light their menorahs every night and explaining every night that they can't blow out the candles.

Chrismakah

Yes, I know to some that that is anti-religious or whatever, but to us it is the fun word we use to celebrate this time of year. We celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas. Today we put up the tree, and later tonight we will light the menorah. Sometimes it is a tricky situation-as with my family who still are uncomfortable with all things Christian. But to me, it is a celebration of light, love and family. I enjoy both holidays with equal amounts of anticipation, cooking, and fun.

I can't expect my husband to give up a holiday never mind a religion he loves, and I know he doesn't expect me to give up any of my traditions either. I am sure through the years this will take a lot of working out. But I have faith in our love and think we will do what is best for our children. So family be warned-don't be so negative about that which you do not understand. Acceptance is key to understanding and love!