The Working Mom

The presentation I gave at WordCamp Utah went really well. It was the first time I’ve ever done anything like that. I prepped as much as humanly possible. I practiced as often as I could. I must have updated my slides several times every day for about a month leading up to the conference. AND I also had anxiety dreams almost every night especially the week before. In my nightmares, everything that could go wrong, did. I’d left my power cord at home. I left my laser pointer somewhere. I lost wifi connection and couldn’t find my presentation. My nose began to bleed spontaneously. I mean literally everything my subconscious could do to undermine my confidence, it fed it into my nightmares.

The irony is that I’m not here to tell you that “… and NONE of it came true… everything was fine!”. Well, everything was fine, but that’s not the end of the story. The truth is that almost everything I dreamed actually came true. I did accidentally leave my computer’s power cord at home. I couldn’t find my laser pointer when I needed it. The wifi did get disconnected from my laptop in the middle of my presentation. Really, if you told me that all of that stuff would really happen, I would have run from the room screaming, called up Joseph Scott and told him to forget it, I couldn’t do it! In the nightmares, when all of these things happened, the world basically ended. My presentation was a complete failure and life ended there. Every night, in the middle of the night, I’d wake up, jot something down on a piece of paper I needed to remember so that I could prevent the catastrophe I had just envisioned.

But despite all these things coming true, life did not end. In fact, nothing happened. Thankfully, my battery lasted long enough to survive the length of my presentation. It did die eventually, but not until about halfway through the day – hours later. The wifi timed out on my laptop and disconnected, but I kept going even though the cool slide remote I had on my iPhone no longer worked. (In my opinion: a design flaw in the app to have it only rely on wifi and not bluetooth!!) The arrow keys work perfectly well to move the slides!! And the laser pointer I realized later I left buried in my purse so I just made do without it.

All the anxiety and thinking the sky would fall if any of these things happened, and even my desperate attempts to prevent them – they happened. When they did, there was a logical solution. And life went on.

I think I know I spend too much time worrying about what could happen. I spend too much time trying to plan for all conceivable contingencies. And the truth of the matter is that, when a problem is real, there is usually a solution at hand as well. I won’t say always. But usually. It certainly isn’t worth the time spent worrying about the “what ifs.”

Seems like everyone is doing okay except me. I’m really not over it. If you ask me anything about him I will spontaneously burst into tears. Sometimes you don’t even need to ask. I was listening to a song and the lyrics were “I forgot to tell you I loved you” – I burst into tears. I told him I was sorry, but I forgot to tell him I loved him. I keep remembering to do things that I don’t need to do anymore. I get up in the morning, and my first thought is “I have to walk the dog”. I go to bed, and I look at the empty spot where his bed used to be. I miss hanging out with him on the couch, and the way he’d curl up by my feet and keep them warm while I worked.

Sam is already talking about what dog we should get next. And part of me is glad for that because if/when I’m ready to put myself through this heartbreak again, at least I know I won’t have to twist his arm. On the other hand, I am so not ready. No dog I get will be him – it won’t do the things he did, it won’t be the same. Not to mention, we have no idea what our life is going to be like in a few months. Are we moving? Where will we live? If we have to live in apartment for awhile, it would be better for us to wait. Maybe by then the spontaneous crying will stop.

Late in the middle of the night, Charlie’s (our dog) spine suddenly ruptured. Most likely from all the various ailments he’s been dealing with, and the medication to help him. He was in terrible pain, more pain than I’d ever seen any animal in. I didn’t want to see him suffer anymore and decided to put him down. I didn’t want to stay to see the vet do it, but he’s been faithfully by my side for the last 12+ years, I couldn’t bear to let him die alone. I can’t really get the picture out of my head of my dear friend dying before my eyes. I know he’s at peace now, even though I am not.

All this on the eve of my daughter’s birthday. At first we weren’t going to tell her, but I don’t like deception so we told her in the early afternoon. She’s definitely handling it better than I expected, (and certainly better than I am)

Sam told me about this app he saw a write up about that’s called You Gotta See This!. What the app does supposedly is this: You click “record” and then wave your iPhone around (slowly) and it will take several sequential photos and based on the movement of the camera and the gyroscope in it (assuming iPhone 4 compatibility only here), it will line them all up to create a picture. Now this picture will NOT be a panorama. It will be what they call a “Panography” – basically a series of (outlined) photos, overlapping each other to create an effect associated with David Hockney. (I wonder if, as an artist, he is thrilled to become another Ken Burns, where people can computerize his style.)

I was really intrigued by the app and was this || close to buying it, but then noticed the reviews. People were really annoyed that you could not get rid of the seams. The developers retort: “Stitched Panoramas are not Seamless. This is by design. ‘You Gotta See This!’ is not a panorama app. The purpose of the app is to create what is called panorama collages or panography”. (Side note – Chapter One in Developing Applications for Dummies: Standard responses when things don’t work the way people want them to: 1) “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!” and 2) “The application is working as designed.” Ugh. )

Fair enough – but it seems to me that getting rid of the seams would be possible. I can understand that the point of the app is to create this cute effect, and I can see using it every now and then – but I can also see getting kind of annoyed that I don’t have the option to create the photos without the seams. I’d rather have some stitches not line up perfect and have most of the seams go away (or at least their “shadow outline, or Polaroid outline” go away) and let me touch it up with Photoshop, but still allow me to have a really cool big panorama picture – than be forced into always having a “cute effect” picture. The user base clearly wants this feature, and they don’t seem to be giving in and have no intention to.

Is it just me, or does that seem… petty? Silly? You’d think that an iPhone app developer, given the feedback on how to make their app better or more useful, would do so, especially since I would imagine the change to do what people are asking for, would not be a huge leap away from what the app is already doing. Given the choice, if another app that comes along does something similar, and does get rid of the seams, I’m all over it. Personally, I’ll take functional and useful over cute.

You can read more about the app and see some samples of the pictures it creates on the developers website: boinx.com

If you want cute photos, (or hope they’ll get the hint from their userbase) – you can also buy the app here:

Just so I don’t leave you hanging about the dog…

Friday was a really bad day. I went to see him in the morning – he was still not doing well, getting worse. He looked horrible. I looked in his face and silently pleaded with him to hang on and get better. I talked to the vet over the phone in the afternoon and he suggested one last treatment before we gave up. All along we were treating his problems like they were ulcers – except the medication that should have worked simply wasn’t working. If it wasn’t ulcers – the other options it could be was cancer or inflammatory disease. He suggested giving him steroids to see if it helped.

A few hours later, I stopped in to see him. I brought the kids with me because I wasn’t sure if they were ever going to see him again, and I was getting ready to tell them to say goodbye to him. But when they brought him out, they put him on the floor, and he ran over to us, wagging his tail. Before he was shaking non-stop (most likely from pain), but he was hardly shaking at all – this was only hours after they started him on the new treatment. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We took him outside so he could pee, he did, then pulled towards the car like he wanted to go HOME. This is not the behavior of a dog that is giving up!

The next morning he looked even better. They told me if everything continued as is, he could come home that night. I couldn’t believe it! The dog had literally come back from the dead. That night I brought him (and about a dozen medications LOL!) home and he’s pretty much back to his old self now.

I’ve been told this is not a “cure” – his stomach is diseased. What this buys us is some more time with him. Whether it’s cancer or inflammatory disease, the steroids will eventually stop working. In the meantime, we are so glad to have him back with us for however long we can keep him. I still don’t know how I’m going to cope when the eventuality comes. He’s like my daemon / animal spirit. He’s always by my side and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to say goodbye to him.

This is the last of the shots I had stored up from our vacation. My back was doing a bit better today, but then I was cleaning something on the floor and it got tweaked again. With the exception of one day, I have been posting a picture every day – but not sure I’ll be able to keep up now. We’ll see.

Good thing I still have a just a few more photographs from vacation to post. At the moment I’m completely bed bound. I threw my back out on Friday, it was just about tolerable until last night (Saturday). I didn’t sleep well, was in pain for most of the night that just got worse and worse. Thankfully there’s an “After Hours” doctor office nearby, so even though it was a Sunday morning, I was able to get in and seen by a doctor (or at least a nurse practitioner as the case may be). Lots of anti-inflamatory meds, pain meds, and muscle relaxers, and my back is again just tolerable on pain. I’m not quite sure how I’ll survive tomorrow. I still have tons of work piled up from vacation, so it’s not like I can just dose up on pain meds and be all set. They totally knocked me out today. But even just sitting doesn’t ease the back pain.

The Beach House we stayed at must have been a butterfly haven. I was once told that people like to plant for butterflies, but not enough people plant for the caterpillars (that turn into butterflies) – but this house must have had both types – since earlier in the week we saw that monarch caterpillar, and then later in the week we kept seeing monarch butterflies. (Obviously not the same creature, but it was funny the in order in which we saw them) I particularly like monarch butterflies – and according to wikipedia, they’re supposedly seen across the U.S. but I can’t remember the last one I saw that wasn’t in some kind of “butterfly zoo.”

Another unique-to-this-area insect: Lightening Bugs / Fireflies. We used to see them every summer when I was a kid in NY, but I haven’t seen one in so long. I don’t believe there are any in Utah at all. I was really psyched to have Rachel and Zachary see them and chase after and even catch a few. (We let them go after a few minutes of watching them up close).

Well I’ve plowed through another book. It’s like a whole new world has opened up for me. The fact that I haven’t read a book cover to cover (not counting the last book I read) since before 2005, I think, speaks for itself how awesome the iBooks app is. In any case, I thought that now that I’m actually reading (YAY!) I’d include some book reviews on the site.

The Help is my most recent read. Written by Kathryn Stockett, the story takes place in the early 1960′s in Jackson, Mississippi, during the Civil Rights movement. The book presents an interesting (fictional) perspective of black maids that worked for white families in that area. The core characters are a young white woman, and two black maids who tell their stories, and enlist the help of other maids to also tell their stories that eventually get put together as a book. They risk their lives doing this.

Having just finished reading what was basically a love story, I wasn’t sure I was going to get into this book, but I got sucked in immediately. The author switches perspective several times throughout the book, and some of the text is written in “conversational” English – as the person you’re reading about would think or talk. But it’s done very well and doesn’t cause you to stumble trying to follow along. The perspective changes can be a little weird at times, and sometimes I forget who is doing the thinking – but I guess that helps make the point of the book.

It reminded me how relatively recent the civil rights movement took place. I would like to think that a lot has changed since then but really, who am I to say that and/or how would I know. How many things from that time period still linger, but are not as noticeable or socially acceptable to be as obvious. The author is white, and I wish I knew if she did in fact interview people who lived through this time in history to get a realistic as possible perspective. I would assume so. I would also love to know how someone who is black feels about the book – especially someone from that time period. Do they feel the book portrays a relatively accurate description? I know the point of the book is to show how we’re all just people. We’re all the same. Of course this is true, but how we are treated by others can vary greatly – and I’m sure that sadly sometimes the color of your skin can still influence that treatment.

The characters are very well defined and I’ve found that this is an important key for holding my interest in a book. I feel like I know these women. I wasn’t ready for the last page of the book, because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to them. It was a great book and I highly recommend it.

If you’ve read the book, I’d love to know what you thought about it.