Bad mommie update

It appears that Rachel's drama teacher is going to get her out of detention.

Not sure how I feel about that.

But I won't intervene.

I did, however, intervene when the same teacher told me that, unless I drove to the school to bail Rachel out, the teacher was not only going to prohibit Rachel from going on a field trip but was also going to give Rachel an unexcused absence for that upcoming class because Rachel forgot her permission slip.

Seemed a bit hypocritical to me.

I told the teacher that I was trying to make Rachel accountable for the consequences of her actions which was why I let her be tardy on Wednesday but that I didn't think an unexcused absence was appropriate, especially from the teacher who was getting her out of detention.

Don't get me wrong. I was nice and the teacher and I reached an appropriate accommodation whereby she got her permission slip but Rachel still had to follow through on her responsibility.

To top it all off, Rachel told me that she kinda wished she had detention so that she could have some extra time to get all her work done . . .

Bad mommie

Oy.

Do I feel guilty.

I'm a mean mommie.

I've been getting frustrated with Rachel's tendency to sleep through her alarm. Actually, she gets up and turns it off when it goes off and then goes back to sleep. She doesn't hit snooze or use the second alarm that's built in to her clock. So, most mornings, I have to wake her up which I resent. She also tends to stay up late which makes it harder for her to get up in the am.

I've been telling her that I don't want to fuss at her about getting to bed at a decent hour so it's her responsibility to get herself up. I specifically told her last night that she was responsible for getting herself up this morning since it's my day off and I wasn't setting my alarm.

It's an especially big deal right now since she's doing the fall play and has play practice each Monday, Tuesday and Thursday after school which she can't miss. Detention for tardiness is either Tuesday or Thursday.

Well . . .

Her alarm went off at some obnoxiously early hour. I heard it. I heard her turn it off. Her bus comes at 7:42 am and at 7:44 am, I woke up and realized that I had heard nothing since her alarm. So I intercom'd her (hey, I wasn't getting out of bed).

She apologized. She begged. She cried.

But I played the hard-ass and said no, I won't drive you to school.

She slammed the door on the way out to catch the city bus which would make her a half hour late.

I felt so bad. I even thought about calling in an excuse to the school office . . .

But I didn't.

picture credit

Maybe there's hope

Poll Results

How successful has his (W's) presidency been overall?

Not at all	48%	11,366
Somewhat	29%	6,855
Very	24%	5,598

Total Votes: 23,819

Note on Poll Results: Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who chose to participate. Poll results are not reflected in real time.

Although I am still concerned about that 24% . . .

Search terms

Someone found my blog today using the search terms,

"i have light colored blemishes on my toes."

hmmm.

Coming out of the closet

I feel like I'm coming out of the closet. I've struggled with whether or not to even go here.

I don't want to alienate anyone and I don't want anyone to feel judged.

Atheism.

It's such a sticky subject. And it's everywhere these days.

It's been a progression for me. I read What Jesus Meant. I read Misquoting Jesus. I read The God Delusion. I'm reading God is not Great.

I'm feeling released, a sense of relief. Permission to acknowledge what I'm increasingly convinced is true.

And yet, I'm aware that many of those close to me are on the other side of the divide. Since none of our relationships are based in the slightest on a shared belief in god, I'm not sure why I'm worried that, if I unequivocally state that I don't believe in god, we'll no longer be able to be friends.

But, I am.

I also resent, slightly, the feeling that while they're allowed, even encouraged, to broadcast their beliefs, I'm not supposed to come clean about mine.

This feeling is probably completely self imposed.

I'm absolutely uninterested in the dynamic expressed in the PostSecret postcard above. Just as I always saw the matter of faith as a personal matter, I also see the matter of atheism as a personal matter. I don't want the responsibility implied in the above image. My journey away from belief was a personal one and I'll not impose it upon anyone.

Why, then, am I writing this? It has been a sea change for me. It's something I'm very tuned into right now. It would feel hypocritical not to be upfront about it.

Why would you?

On Wednesday as I was braving the evening rush in order to drive downvalley for a meeting, I was listening to NPR and caught the first of a two part series on the shoddy treatment a fellow Coloradoan, Ron Hinkle, has been receiving from this great country of ours.

Since I missed part two on Thursday, I checked out the story on NPR's website and was absolutely appalled to read that,

In addition, last week Hinkle was notified by the finance department at Fort Carson that a $3,000 enlistment bonus will not be honored because "he failed to fulfill his contract" due to his injury in Iraq.

That's simply obscene.

My outrage inspired me to email both Ken and John Salazar. I hope I'm not the only one.

This isn't going to make Blogger look good

Blogger blocked PostSecret as a spam blog. Oops.

Frank is asking for help in getting Blogger to fix its boo-boo. (I emailed Blogger at support@blogger.com) Ironic how it happened on Sunday, huh?

9/16/2007

Blogger has locked PostSecret

(Blogger sent me the following message late last night. Please email them to unlock the PostSecret Blog ASAP. PostSecret has not been fully unlocked by Blogger yet. Sorry, I know this is frustrating for you - it is frustrating for me too.)

Your blog is disabled
Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on September 16, 2007. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

I did enjoy this guy's take on it.

Update: As of approximately 1:20 pm ET, PostSecret is back.

PostSecret this week

This week's PostSecret spoke to me. Fully half of the 20 secrets this week either connected with me personally or struck me as a truth.

Since I had a hard time picking a favorite, I went with the first image, which made me laugh.

PostSecret last week

I recommend it

I was visiting some blogs this evening and getting a bit impatient with the predictability of today's subject matter when one of the blogs solicited comments by asking the question, "Where were you when you found out?".

It started me thinking about how I had gone to work about 6:30 am that morning (also a Tuesday) and, not long afterward, was sitting at my desk listening to NPR's Morning Edition when Bob Edwards mentioned, basically in passing, that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

I pictured a small Cessna, thought, "wow, how do you manage that?", and continued on with my morning's tasks.

Until a short while later when Bob Edwards told me that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center.

At which point, I was immediately alarmed and knew that this was no coincidence.

Since my desk/office is upstairs in a quaint Victorian and the rest of my co-workers all work downstairs in a set-up that makes it virtually impossible for them to listen to radio news, I spent the rest of the morning hustling downstairs to give them updates: now they're saying a plane crashed into the Pentagon; one of the towers just collapsed; the other tower collapsed; a plane crashed in Pennsylvania . . .

One of my bosses suggested closing for the day but I didn't see what purpose that would serve. What were we going to do, go home and sit in front of the TV? So we stayed open and worked and I listened to the radio, while looking out the window at the gorgeous blue Colorado sky.

I have a vivid memory of looking at Aspen's Main Street, noting how the world really didn't look any different.

This evening, while thinking about all of this, I found NPR's Sep-11-2001 Morning Edition in the NPR archives and just spent the last couple of hours listening to it once again for the first time since that morning.

It's an interesting experience. I recommend it.

Little Voice

A good time was had by all.

We had only been there for a little while when three of Rachel's classmates came in which was nice since it gave her someone to hang out with.

When Javier Dunn started playing, the crowd was still pretty small (it never got huge) and Sara Bareilles sat out in the audience and video'd Javier.

At that point, I figured out why her album is called Little Voice. She's tiny. I had watched some YouTube videos of some of her shows and since she performs sitting at her keyboard, you don't get a sense of how small she is. But, just look at her next to Rachel. She's tiny.

Speaking of keyboards, the show almost didn't go on. After Javier Dunn's 6 song set, there was an extended delay. One of Rachel's friends, Kassie, had to leave so Rachel and another friend went backstage to ask if Sara would play Love Song first because that was Kassie's favorite. Sara told them that they might not even be performing since the keyboard that both she and Jon McLaughlin use wasn't working and they were desperately trying to fix it.

About ten minutes later, a cheer sounded onstage, the big screen which functions as a curtain raised and Sara started with Vegas. Belly Up is such an intimate venue. When she was about to launch into Love Song, Sara had a conversation from onstage with Rachel and her friends (sadly, Kassie had had to leave by that point).

Javier, Sara and Jon all have a good stage presence and an ease in chatting with the audience. We had much fun dancing and got to chat with both Sara and Jon at the merchandise booth after their sets.

And afterwards, I was the uber cool mom and gave one of Rachel's friends a ride home, all the way to El Jebel (20+ miles one way).

Wow!

Sara Bareilles, Jon McLaughlin and Javier Dunn for $8 at BellyUp Aspen tonight.

The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster for free at the Snowmass Oktoberfest tomorrow afternoon.

Sweet!

(can you tell i'm excited?)

post topics sitting in my drafts file

I can't motivate enough to actually write about them so instead I'll tell you what I might write about if I had the energy . . .

The Squid and the Whale

Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Soul Stew Revival

Monster

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals

Tipperary by Frank Delaney

Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg

Crystal Palace Open House

The Letter Project

The Last Mimzy

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Brothers and Sisters