Parental Advisory

Today has been one of those few days at work where just being "reactively available" is all that is required of me. There's a terrific number of things you can do with your time when you have the time. I kept the bed on my back till almost 9am. (with my cell phone handy...no really, his name is handy) I went to the gym for a good long workout. (with my cell phone, handy) I made it into the office just in time to take me and my cell phone handy out for a nice long lunch. Now, handy and I are are back in the office at the near-close of this reactively available Wednesday and it's only right that I tickle the keyboard for atleast a few mins today and post a blog.

Last night as I was toggling between a late night e-mail exchange on the Technical Computing Initiative scope-of-work for fiscal year '07 (yawn) and my 3rd attempt on the trickiest game of free cell ever(#27945), I went on a quick search for a document I thought I needed and stumbled across a word doc I had composed a couple years earlier. I had appropriately titled it: "Probably an ignorant list of things to keep in mind when I have kids" There were a few things on that list that even the two passing years of accrualed wisdom caused me to scoff at but deeper down the lengthy list I began to remember that there was a reason why I was compelled to record such a meandering list of thoughts and suggestions for my distant but all-too soon destination to parenthood. I wrote it because just 6 years fresh from high school I am already losing touch. I remember making a pact with one of my more patient and "born-to-teach-pre-school" friends that she would raise all our booger-nosed, dirty-diapered brats from infancy through grammer school, and I, the more in-touch and terminally cool would swifty see them thru puberty and on to social greatness while keeping them firmly grounded in their morals and academic responsibilities.

I would raise a generation of Lindsey 2.0's.

The upgrade of course being that they will swifty sail through puberty and acheive social greatness while maintaining standards and intelligence, blah, blah blah, blah blah. Just a few of the minor glitches in Lindsey 1.0.

Now, as I round another turn in my mid-twenties, I gush at the sighting of a boogered-poopy toddler, and gasp at the sight of teenagers today. I didn't write the list because I thought I would fail at checking the temperature of milk or mastering "the **Shannie Shuffle". I guess I knew enough at that point to think about the many ways my young adult will judge me and look to me for more then just the basics...I'll be forever under the scrutious eye of hypocrasy watch.

I guess in parenthood I should count on many more days and years of being "reactively available." Sleeping in and long lunches may not commonly been on the docket, but I'll always keep my cell phone, handy.


**Shannie Shuffle: This amazing rock, cradle, and bounce that my sister Shannon used to coax any child into a sleepy and/or sedated submission.

Hurricane LaTrina

I should admit that this could be a pre-mature level of depth for this, just a second blog entry. However as I lift from the fog of the last week, I feel I should address a “Lessons Learned” from what could have been and did feel like something of a relative to the Hong Kong Flu and Montezuma’s revenge.

Last Tuesday began as something of a stray from the ordinary. I had occasion to dress somewhat more respectable then my usual jean + top attire and rather then cruise down south into Lake Oswego for a day at the desktop in a cubicle, I was among the under-caffeinated and restless inching their way into downtown. Each year my company hosts an “Agency Business Meeting” It’s something like the state of the union address, rather it’s not president of country to country, it’s president of company to company. Anyhow, as lunch was finishing up and afternoon meetings were getting started I felt the slow creep of a headache and nausea. One hour past that slow creep I was high-tailing it out of the parking lot and rushing home to try a number of things that would hopefully relieve the now pounding headache and fierce cramping in my abdomen. I don’t wish to go too much further into the next 4 days. Not because I can’t color your imagination with visuals, but because eventually I should get to the top 5 lessons learned in my own personal un-natural disaster.

1. Just because you’ve regained an appetite, that doesn’t necessarily mean eat.
2. NEVER treat diarrhea and constipation within 2 days of each other.
a.) While I haven’t done the research, I’m certain that over-correcting either way can be fatal. Or at least feel like it.
3. Violent fits of emesis will cause you to lose muscle control and sometimes that means a change of clothing.
4. Never attempt in a public restroom what you have not yet completed successfully in a private restroom.
5. What does not make a relationship stronger at least opens plenty of space for ridicule and mockery.

While the cause or proper name of un-natural disaster ’06 is TBD. May God be with you and yours.

Like blocks of the Tetris: So are the days of our lives

I was asked in a meeting today to take minutes.
To take minutes.
Do I need a stop watch for this?
A watch with a second hand?
I don't wear a watch.

Now of course, taking minutes means taking "notes"--ofcourse that's what it means, I knew that. (ahem) At any rate it got me thinking down the rabbit hole about minutes, real minutes. Minutes that seem to stack like that of a tetris game. They keep coming in quick 60 second allocations, they keep piling, and if you're spry enough to retrieve them and arrange them in productive order, you win and so it continues...other times they pile at erratic random and game over. You lose.

See that beaming young couple up there in the right corner? That's me and my fiance Josh. He's changing jobs, my job continues to be a spectrum of re-definition, we're trying to sell our cars, apply to schools, we're looking for a place to live, we're juggling financial priorities (do we go on a honeymoon, or get our knees operated on?)...and per the mention of "fiance" and "honeymoon"...we're attempting to organize a wedding that keeps sprouting many new and challeging moving parts. All part of a complete and fulfilled life including other activities such as friends, family, church callings, civic duties, sport and recreation, eating, sleeping, breathing...

In a fit of self-intervention I am telling myself to keep up the daily winning and losing of metaphored Tetris battles. Winning is great because there is no interruption and the game goes on, losing is equally great and equally important because at some point, we all have to stop and exhale between games.

I think I like taking minutes.