So there we were, lying on the floor in various positions, tables overturned, chairs overturned, fake burns on both of my hands, the lights out and the scenario started. The first go around, only the adults really yelled and tried to act like it was real with varying degrees of believability. By the fourth and final go around, the kids were screaming, the adults were yelling for their kids, some people were resisting being helped, others were being obstructive to the CERTs; it was very chaotic. There were open wounds, there were broken bones, there were head injuries, there were people stuck under stacks of plywood. It was a mess. At one point I had been triaged and put in a chair in the triage area but since I was being left alone, I decided to faint, throwing the triage person into a tizzy since they were dealing with a heart attack and a back injury at the same time.

Here are some of the things I found most interesting about the whole exercise:

1. how stressful it was – the combination of the noise, the cries for help, plus the fact that it made the Boston bombing feel that much more immediate.

2. how hard it was not to help others. I felt that with the injuries I had – the palms of both hands badly burned – there was really no way that I would be able to help with anything, but I found it incredibly frustrating not to be able to.

3. how hard it is for a lay person to triage injured people correctly. The coding is green=minor injuries, yellow=more severe but not immediately life-threatening, red=life-threatening injury or condition, and black=deceased. I was coded yellow twice, green once and red once, when really burns like that would be yellow.

It certainly did get me thinking about how one does respond in an emergency.

Anyway, GC came home and told me about it and her results on some of the tests and I decided to try it out to see what happened. I took the light skinned/dark skinned test, the European American/African American test and the straight/gay test. The results are given as:

strong preference for group A

moderate preference for group A

slight preference for group A

neutral

slight preference for group B

moderate preference for group B

strong preference for group B

My results for the light or dark skinned and for the European American/African American both came out with a slight preference for light skin and European American. Given the culture in which I live and that I have lived most of my life in predominately white neighborhoods I wasn’t surprised and was actually pleased that I hadn’t come out even stronger toward whites. It seems that even for the majority of African Americans that they come out with a slight to moderate preference for light skinned, European Americans. Cultural influences run deep, y’all.

I got started thinking about the difference between prejudice and racism (or ageism, homophobia, etc.). Prejudice is not, of itself, inherently bad. Prejudice is the immediate judgement,  the pre-judgement, we make about a person or group without actually knowing them. Evolutionarily it is protective. It was to our benefit to be able to make very, very quick and accurate decisions as to whether or not a situation was dangerous. So picture yourself in an empty street, no one there, dark or dimly lit. Now picture a group of 3 people coming toward you. Does your feeling of being more or less safe change if those three people are elderly white women? What if they are late teen, early 20′s black men? Have your feelings changed? What if they are dressed in suits and carrying briefcases? Do you see how these different scenarios change your feelings? That is prejudice at work in your life.

So prejudice is not altogether a bad thing. Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be in danger from a group of hoodie-wearing young men than you are from a group of elderly women so you should be more on guard. The problem lies when prejudice becomes racism, when your prejudice starts influencing your actions. Mostly we can, if we understand our prejudices, be on guard against them and work to accept people as we get to know them. Unfortunately, our prejudices can create unconscious expectations which can then affect others. For instance, there have been studies done on teachers’ unconscious expectations about student achievement which can have profound effects on actual student achievement. If a teacher somehow believes that boys do better than girls at math, the boys in that teacher’s class generally will do better than the girls in math. When there is a systemic belief that white kids do better than black kids, that black kids aren’t really cut out for academic achievement, then there becomes an entire population that believes they aren’t as smart because of the color of their skin.

Knowing whether or not you have those unconscious assumptions about different groups can help you counteract them and that is where the worth of those tests lie for the individual.

You may have noticed I didn’t give the results of the straight/gay test. Here it is and here is my explanation: I showed a moderate preference for gays. I had expected to be neutral and was surprised to have as much as a moderate preference. After thinking it over, though, this is what I decided. Most of my encounters with people are with straight people and while I have and have had gay friends, I have had more straight friends. But, almost all of my encounters with gays have been either positive or neutral. I have had numerous encounters with straights, mostly men, that have been negative. So it’s the cumulative effect of all of those encounters, positive, negative and neutral, that have tipped the scales over to a preference for gays.

I’ll probably go back and take a few more; I’m interested in the gender and religion, particularly.

There are times in all of our lives when we feel like this, battered and trampled and lifeless. We feel very much that we are in fact clay, heavy and inert, incapable of doing much of anything at all. It may be illness or depression or it may just be the unceasing demands of our lives draining us of energy.

We are like my (former) (future) garden. If given no help, no nurture, nothing much will grow beyond weeds. It is possible that a lovely weed may eventually root, that something beautiful will grow, but more than likely it will be dandelions and crabgrass. This is an extended metaphor to say that we all need care and tending to grow beautiful in whatever way we were intended to grow beautiful. Do not think that you have to do it all on your own. Find what fertilizes you. Find the seeds you want to see growing in your soul and plant them. Ask for others to help nurture and encourage you. Bloom.

And then sometimes, even without the nurture and fertilizer and seeds and help, sometimes something unexpected and lovely pops up out of the most unlikely looking soil. This is what happened in my poor battered, trampled (former) (future) garden: Two hyacinths survived and are coming up.

While in Connecticut we met up with an internet friend of mine for a lovely dinner and tour of New Haven – thanks, Marjorie!! Also in CT, we ended our tour of the college and when the nice guide asked if anyone had any questions, we asked where should we go for lunch. And had a lovely, yummy lunch at a bookstore cafe, thereby combining two of my favorite things – food and books.

We took a side trip down to Newport, RI to goggle at the “cottages.” If you haven’t seen them, just google Newport mansions and go to images and scroll through for a bit. It was too cold and windy to get out to look at them, but holy moly those places are huge and gorgeous! GC and I would look at them and decide that maybe the gatehouse would work for us; we’d get lost in the main house. There’s also a section of town with old, old houses, about as old as they get in the US – I think 1723 was the oldest date we saw. Plus there’s all that ocean there to look at:   Like this!

I managed not to get on the wrong road at any time while in Providence or Boston. Read that sentence again and congratulate me. It is truly an epic achievement for any of you who haven’t had the dubious pleasure of driving in those cities. I have heard it said that they just paved the cow paths and called them roads in Boston and I believe it.

We only dissolved into helpless giggles four times. I think. Two waitresses think we’re crazy and one tour guide thinks we’re rude. We’re sorry.

And a picture of GC’s “deconstructed s’mores” from an excellent restaurant in Medford, MA:

  Looking a little precious, but still really tasty!

There will be more college looking, but she’s getting a better idea of what she wants, so we’ll let you know in a year or so where she ends up.

Hopefully, it won’t be our basement.

In the comments to the post, Lora wrote that she wished that she had the kind of sex ed my daughter has when she (Lora) was in school and I replied, “Oh me too, me too. If I’d felt more empowered and better able to stand up for myself I could have avoided several unpleasant encounters.” And Julie chimed in with “like date rape.” Um, yeah. Like that.

The thing is, I have never really categorized my experiences as date rape to myself. It’s always a yeah, well, sorta, kinda, but not really. Even now, writing this I’m having trouble with it. In one instance, I was on a date in college with a graduate student, first date, and we ended up going back to his apartment and having unprotected sex. I didn’t really want to but I didn’t know how to express that and I, at the time especially, thought that if I couldn’t express the “no,” then it did mean yes. And, in particular, not saying no before we went to his apartment meant yes. If I ended up in someone’s apartment with them (or dorm room or whatever) I believed that I had then abdicated my right to say no, that my “yes” was implicit in my going to that private space with them. And the person I was angry with afterwards was me. It never, ever occurred to me to be angry with the guy involved. He was just doing what guys do – try to get you to have sex with them.

Even now, thirty years later and much better educated about sex, rape, empowerment, etc. I’m still having trouble with moving my anger from me to him. I realize that we were both acting from what our then current culture had taught us and maybe I shouldn’t really expect anything different from who we were then. I don’t know. There is a part of me that does think, wrong though it may be, that when you willingly get yourself into a situation where something happens that you don’t want, you are still in some way culpable. Your (my) willingness to put myself in a dangerous situation means that while I’m not responsible for the bad thing that befell me, I do bear some responsibility for putting myself in danger.

I find myself looking at my daughter and wanting it to be different for her. Most importantly, I want her to feel empowered. I want her to feel that she and only she is in charge of her body. I want her to feel comfortable expressing her sexuality. I want her to have a good and satisfying sex life. (I can hear the thud of my mother’s body hitting the floor as she faints from here.) I want her to be able to say no, even if her clothes are half off and it had been a yes up until then.

I also want her not to put herself in the dangerous places. I want her to be safe. I don’t ever, ever want her to be hurt. I know I can’t protect her from life and I don’t want to make her afraid. I just want her to be aware.

What do you all think about this? Please be kind and considerate in your commenting.

It’s not that these kids were planning on raping or even wanting to rape; it’s that they didn’t really know WHAT RAPE IS. I particularly liked the definition “that consent is (in the words of Dianna E. Anderson) an enthusiastic, unequivocal YES!” And if it isn’t an enthusiastic, unequivocal YES, that means it’s a no. And if she or he can’t say no, because they are drunk/drugged/handicapped/unconscious/etc. that means it’s a no. For any sexual contact at all. Everyone needs to know this – everyone.

—–

There are things I dislike about my kid’s school, things that annoy me, things they aren’t doing particularly well, but there is one thing they are doing well. Sex ed. They have a program called Teen PEP. It is a program in which teens, juniors and seniors, are taught to lead workshops for middle school kids and the freshmen and sophomore classes on topics including, wait, I’m just going to copy and paste here:

Understanding Gender
Postponing Sexual Involvement
Human Reproduction
Pregnancy Prevention
Preventing Sexually Transmitted Infections
Family Night (they invite their parents and do a workshop on talking to your kids about sex; it was fabulous!)
Understanding & Preventing HIV/AIDS
Alcohol, Other Drugs, & Sexual Decision-Making

The workshops they lead are called:

Let’s Wait Awhile: Postponing Sexual Involvement
Later, Baby: Pregnancy Prevention
Don’t Pass it On: Preventing Sexually Transmitted Infections
Talk to Me: Family Night
Break the Silence: Understanding &Preventing HIV/AIDS
Sex on the Rocks: Alcohol, Other Drugs, & Sexual Decision- Making
Understanding Sexual Harassment
Homophobia Reduction
Preventing Dating Violence
Sexual Assault
Unwelcome Advances: Understanding Sexual Harassment
Bridges of Respect: Homophobia Reduction
Break the Cycle: Preventing Dating Violence
Power Play: Acquaintance Rape

The workshops are given during health class to ALL students unless their parents specifically opt them out. They focus not only on giving information but also on tools to use the information. Things like how do you say no to your boyfriend? How do you pass on alcohol or drugs when friends are pressuring you? What makes a relationship abusive?

My daughter applied to be one of the peer educators. She had to fill out an application including essays, get recommendations from teachers and adults outside of school, get interviewed by the teacher who leads the class and she was chosen. If she learned nothing else for her entire high school career, this class would be worth it. I wish all high schools had it.

On the bed curled into a little ball of fur.

Hanging head off of bed.

top half on, bottom half off.

And finally, why are you taking pictures of me on my bed?

The best is curled up into a little ball with the head on the flank looking outside. It’s hard to believe that she can actually curl herself around that far.

Growing up, we never observed Lent. I only knew of it from my Catholic friends and knew that it involved giving up chocolate for what seemed like forever. Somehow, I didn’t think it was for me. I still find the giving up chocolate or something you like kind of, um, not exactly silly, but kind of pointless. I mean, if the whole idea is preparation, penitence and prayer for Easter, spending 40 days yearning for chocolate seems distracting from the real purpose. But maybe that’s just me.

In a larger sense, we can all use a time of reflection, a time to think about the purpose of our lives and whether we are fulfilling that purpose or not. In that way Lent isn’t just for Christians. Or at least the concept of the time of reflection isn’t just for Christians. In that spirit, I’m taking a Lenten study at church for the next few weeks, called The Hole in our Gospel. From what I’ve read so far, and discussed so far, it seems to be addressing how we can put into action the call to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and comfort the sick. We talked about making sacrifices, and what sacrifices are we called to make. I threw out the idea that our sacrifices don’t need to be necessarily sell the house, sell all my possessions and move me and my family to Africa to minister to AIDS victims. We make a sacrifice every time we choose to take two hours to take a legally blind person grocery shopping, we choose to give up a family dinner to make dinner and eat with the homeless families being housed at our church, we choose to give up a Saturday to go shovel sand out of someone’s house from hurricane Sandy. I do believe that and I also believe that if we all gave up everything and followed Christ, no one would be left to grow the food, make the clothes, diaper the babies, research the medicine, etc. etc. BUT, what I don’t know is where is the line? Should I stay in my comfortable house and spend the money to build that lovely sun room, deck and patio or was I supposed to sacrifice that? I just don’t know. Some days I think I’m a good person and then there are days I think I’m a parasitic twit. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Food for thought, though.

A friend posted a link to this on Facebook for Ash Wednesday, and I thought it was so lovely I thought I’d put it in here. I’ve linked the title to the original post.

Blessing the Dust

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

In other news, the boy child had a root canal yesterday. About a month and a half ago someone’s head collided violently with his mouth in gymnastics. I wasn’t a witness so I can’t really tell you what happened except I suspect both kids were probably fooling around. Y’know, thirteen year old boys. Anyway, a few weeks later I noticed it was starting to discolor a bit. He had a scheduled dentist appointment a week or so after that, so I just let it go until then. The dentist said the root had died and the kid needed a root canal. So after some trying to find a recommended endodontist who was also in our insurance network, we found one and made the appointment. I’ve never had a root canal so I couldn’t really tell him much about it and he was nervous. Understandably so. The doctor was wonderful. She was gentle and carefully explained what she was going to do and what she was doing while it was going on so no one, either boy child or me, got freaked out about it. The tooth is now filled with medication and plugged with a temporary plug and will be filled and finalized in two weeks. It didn’t even really hurt him very much. And, he got ice cream.

I’ll take pictures of the storm and let you know if we survived.

I’m truly grateful that everyone in my family is home (one winter the husband managed to be out of town for all six snowstorms) and safe and no one has to travel anywhere tomorrow.

Here goes:

one really big soup pot

5 – 7 lbs. cut up chicken, including skin and bones (I used to have a grocery store that butchered their own chickens and could get bags of backs and necks for almost nothing – if you have this option you can skip the whole getting the meat off the bone step)

4- 5 onions, peel, cut into quarters

4 – 5 stalks of celery – leaves are good, cut into 2″ chunks

4 – 5 carrots, cut into 2″ chunks

5 or so cloves of garlic, peeled

10 or so peppercorns

several large sprigs of parsley

about 2 teaspoons of Herbes de Provence OR 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/2 teaspoon dried sage leaves, 1/4-1/2 teaspoon rosemary

You’ll notice that all of the amounts for the ingredients are approximate. It really doesn’t matter too much if you have more or less of something; it all seems to work out just fine. Toss everything into the pot and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer. If you did the bag of backs and necks, skip down to the *. After 45 minutes, scoop out the chicken pieces and let them cool enough to be handled. Remove the meat from the pieces and throw everything else back into the pot. I cut the cooked chicken into chunks and freeze in one cup portions in sandwich bags to use in soup, quesadillas, burridos, enchiladas, chicken and biscuits, chicken salad, whatever recipe needs cooked chicken. Simmer the pot for anywhere from 2-4 hours, although I’ve let it go longer if I was out of the house for the day. * Strain the whole pot into a smaller pot that will fit on your refrigerator shelf. Throw all the stuff in the strainer out. Let the second pot of strained stock sit in the fridge at least overnight. All the fat will rise to the surface and harden. Scoop it off and throw it out unless you are saving some to make matzo balls with (yum, yum). I then strain the stock through a fine mesh strainer into quart and pint jars, filling them only 3/4 full (or else they break!), and freeze. If you only need a small amount for a recipe, it’s just fine to thaw some in the microwave, pour out what you need and re-freeze the rest.

You can make broth the same way, just use the carcass from roasted chickens. It’s a great way to make use of them if you get rotisserie chickens from the store. Stick the carcass in a freezer bag until you have 2 or 3 or 4 and then have at it!

It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s in small increments and most of the cooking time is hands off so it really isn’t hard to do and it makes a HUGE difference in the taste of soup.