10.  Successfully repress memory of the more shocking “Uncle Poopy” stories, including the one about what becomes of the tomato seeds we eat when summer blossoms over the sewage treatment facility…

9.  Stop stockpiling oldschool “soft white” incandescent light bulbs and resign selves to brashly lit fluorescence of our future.

8.  Name it and claim it.  If this turns out to be the false doctrine we believe, then:  blame it and defame it.

7.  Stop throwing away money on fancy designer labels such as Jenny-O, Dole, Bob’s Red Mill and La Banderita.  Invest in junk bonds instead.

6.  No more crying about the West Wing.

5.  No more energy-siphoning from Xcel Center outdoor Trinitron outlets.

4.  Stop calling Michele Bachmann “Princess SparklePony,” at least in mixed company of the insane.

3.  Kick butt in the Poncy Buckleshoe Mayflower Descendents vs. Invincible Meatpacking Ellis Island Descendents annual Americathon.

2.  More fondue.

1.  End zombie-like haze of exhaustion caused by staying up all hours to stare in grateful wonder at iridescent and tranquil beauty of sleeping boys.

It is 6 a.m. in the 'hood, and I can hear the Four Blowers of the Snowpocalypse.  Weatherman Keith is throwing around terms like "major snow event," "travel snowtastrophe" and "heart attack weather."  Be safe!

So, I was thinking about “sniglets . ”  Oh, are you even old enough to remember those (or dork enough to remember those)?   Rich Hall was so cute, and I loved him.  I had (and still have) all his books, and my secret dream was to get a singlet of my own making into one of his collections.  Sad to say--one of many regrettable life failures—I never joined the pantheon of sniglet immortals.  And forget it, I am not selling them on Ebay (okay, I just checked Amazon and they have 68 used copies of them starting at $.01, so they’re not that valuable, sniffle…).

What got me thinking about sniglets again yesterday:

1.        When a girlfriend said Miley Cyrus reminded her a lot of herself when she was 16 (I think she was being dryly funny, but then again I do definitely see the resemblance--all that gorgeous hair tossing and crooning and high-kicking in pointy boots she does…).

2.       Tovi bringing me Unexpained Sniglets of the Universe and asking me to read it to him.

because:

1.       Rich Hall reminds me of myself when I was 16 (sad, huh--geeky thirtysomething man with a bad body wave and slushy “s”’s?)

2.       No one has ever asked me to share sniglets before and now I did read some to him and he laughed—that nerdy little mini-Me.

Hubby loves sniglets too, FYI, but only because I programmed him.  You know how they say married couples start to look more and more alike?  Well, they also start to think more and more of the same things are funny.  This is called “spousal evolution” (one of my failed sniglets), and I must admit, women are mostly responsible for it.  It’s how the race survives, people.

Anyway, we sat up late re-reading sniglets, and, I, missing Rich Hall wondered what on earth ever happened to him?  Hubs and I realized we had experienced the enigmatic truths of at least a half dozen sniglets just during the morning routine:

Hemoplugs:  small pieces of toilet paper applied to hubby’s shaving wounds

Age of Clausibility:  the age at which one stops believing in Santa (as Hubby and I discussed, for us, very young)

Aquacoustics:  special sound waves in the bathroom allowing almost anyone to sing on key

Barcuuming:  using the dog to clean up bits of food that have fallen on the floor (in our house, also: Bird-hoovering)

Litmusload:  any load of laundry that comes out the color of the one misplaced darker item (guess whose fault?—more spousal evolution needed there!)

Nutrasecond:   the brief moment of sugary pleasure before the aftertaste of an artificially sweetnened beverage sets in

Todlitter:  debris of toys, food, etc, left behind after a young child has left

Rumphump:  the seat on the school bus directly over the wheel (where Toe got stuck)

...and that takes us to about 10 a.m.

Damn those conscientious Danes!  I am having so much trouble with Scandinavia.

Copenhagen has been bumming me out.  As an eco-conscious and reasonably responsible person (I recycle), I felt like my family’s carbon footprint was pretty dainty.  I mean, we live 4 humans and 2 mutts in under 1000 square feet, we are a single car/behemoth family and one can usually see her breath in the chill of our winter home (although, in summer you can too…). We waste very little here.

Anyways, now those Danes and their Kashi-crunching friends come out with the “Five Great Eco-Crimes We Commit Every Day.”  Bollocks.  I am convicted!

1.       Coffee.  The average cup produces 125 grams of CO2 emissions (mostly through production, a little through brewing).  If that doesn’t sound too bad, listen.  If 6 cups of coffee are made/consumed in your household or business per day, that equals 175 Kg of CO2 per year, or the equivalent of a transatlantic flight.  If you’re thinking you’re off the hook because you just drink the one Caribou or Mocha Moose, sorry.  The WWF (the environmentalists, not the wrestlers) have calculated that it takes 200 liters of water to produce the coffee, milk and sugar of just one takeout cup of latte.

2.       TP.  Nothing anyone can say will separate me from the love of my toilet paper.  However, it is kind of eye-popping to know we use about 7 billion rolls of the stuff in the U.S., nearly none of it from recycled paper.  Apparently we like the long wood fibers from fresh, live towering majestic forests of the Northwest which allow for supreme fluffiness.  And the recycled thing with TP creates a challenging, although mistaken, mental image.

3.       Fast Fashion.  Yes, it’s that $6 Jonas Brothers tank top you picked up from Target or the 2 for $10 Christmas sweats with sequins from Wal-Mart.  You bought them and either wore them once or at least far less than a garment lifespan would allow, then cast them aside.  Even if you gave them to the Goodwill when they started to look a little shabby or dated you, the textile mills kept cranking them out for you and created over 3 million tons of CO2 emissions in one year just in America to do it.

4.       Laundry.  Oh, Mr. Snuggles, we like you.  We are the wear-once- and-wash culture, and we smell like a meadow!  Apparently, we should be holding our noses for a little more funk.  One study showed that less than 8% of an average household laundry “mountain” (inflated in size by all that Fast Fashion, no doubt) is actually soiled.  The rest we are washing because it was on the floor or isn’t freshly laundered, creating a half ton of CO2 per household per year.  I spent some time in Germany, and I have to say I prefer not to be able to identify my friends approaching by their scent, but it is only a lifestyle choice.  I suppose the earth is more important.  (Although, between us, what if you are one of those cursed people who always spills?  In grade school they called me “Shaky”).

5.       Food Wastage.  I have to say, this does not happen much in the BlueCollar house, but it does happen.   Hubby and the lads like their bread extremely fresh and are finicky about the ripeness of fruits.  I say, scrape off the mold and move on, but I grew up a little differently than my spouse.  Most of the food that gets tossed in our house is whatever Roo didn’t feel paired well with fine red ketchup.  But the typical U.S. household throws out about 1/3 of its food ($48 billion dollars worth) including 379,000 tons of potatoes (forgive us, Ireland) and 5 billion somewhat spongy grapes (mercy, César…).  Food waste means 15 million tons of CO2 emissions every big fat year.

Santa called the other day, and thank God.  Just in time.  Okay, so it was really Hubby using the intercom feature on the cordless, but Toe bought his Ho Ho Ho.  After a sleepless night, a long day of hard learning at the hands of Emotionless Swede (hmmph, more on her later…), and general autistic overload, our eldest son was within moments of getting one hellacious lump of coal for Christmas—also maybe an institutionalized mother.  A stern Santa put the meltdown in check with sage advice about not using the whiffle bat to “herd” his little brother to the lunch table nor collapsing in tears because the sun won’t “lay down” when you ask it to so the Christmas twinkle lights can come on.

I love my fleet of boys.   Hubby  is such a good partner and father, with the bonus of minimal upkeep.  He lets me cut his hair with an amateur’s chrome clippers and goes on and on about how good it looks.  He pats his head dramatically, admiring himself, puffing out his chest in fake machismo, “I look just like Keifer Sutherland!”  C’mon, I have eyes.  He looks a little more like Ivan Sutherland, but the compliment is for me, not him.  The last haircut I did for Toe was so short we have been calling him “Anne” (as in Frank) for a month.  It fits the lad: pale, skinny, shorn.  I feed Toe Power Bars and spike his peanut butter with pureed everything (spinach, ham, winter squash) sprinkle a dash of instant breakfast in his milk glass to bulk him out, but the clipped head is large and distracting.  Hubby is dangerously close to looking like a domestic  terrorist with his new ‘do—you know, the kind who live in rural Montana and name their children after characters from Wagner opera?  Still, he’s so handsome and so easy to please.  And he doesn’t even like Das Niebelungenlied.

There is so much joy and honor in being a family.  No wonder God wanted us to be part of one, whether biologically or through adoption to Him.  Plus, it’s fun.  On a typical homebound, family Fleet Maintenance day, I get to do stuff like:

·         Slow steam a large cut of cheap beef with North Carolina bbq seasonings because you have no idea what to do with the hideous thing , then act all matter-of-fact when it turns out your menfolk find it tenderly, deliciously awesome.

·         Cut all the buttons off threadbare clothes and add to “button box,” then play manufactured “button game” with fascinated pre-K kids who love the colors, shapes and clickety clack of the fancifully conceived game (aka: channeling Grandma Agnes).

·         Sip hot coffee and outline your interminable “to do” list in the pre-dawn as your 3 yr old runs through the house calling, “Dinosaur, where are yoooooooooooou?”

·         Cure serious injury by simply blowing on it and declaring, “all better!”

·         Pray earnestly for the mistaken ideas of your Bushite brother (and in-laws).

·         Fall in love with the back of your 4 yr old’s neck because that boy looks just like your Dad, whom you miss every minute.

·         Tweet your simple, mundane happiness.

My sister is one of those cat people.  Not one of the ones who lives alone with 40 cats, wears a stocking hat in summer and mumbles to herself on the street.  She's one of those who can't sleep at night if you tell her you saw a stray wandering out in the cold.  She is a cat person like I am a dog person, God help us.  We definitley have a sisterhood of compassionate insomnia.  She lies awake nights with worry over the falling MN temps and homeless kitties, over the limits of the open hand.  In the same darkness I am agonizing over neighborhood dogs on chains too short, puppy mills on the news, the woman who left her dog in her car at the Mall of America.  We scheme to relieve animal suffering till our breaking points and collaspse in exhaustion, unable to rest the mind.  We are little understood by some.  We delay errands and forego meals so we can walk dogs at the Humane Society.  We cry in the parking lot because we can't take them all home to an elaborate dream ranch where we would expend every electron in our cells caring for orphans and animals.  As the poor man in the Bible who loved his little ewe lamb like a daughter, we hunger for a kinder world.

Our parents raised us to have a powerful love for God's critters, and maganified compassion for all life, bordering on a psychiatric disorder.  It's our sibling cross to bear--one of them. Thank the LORD there are six of us, our own little therapy group.  It's an unusual double helix to live with, but we take baby steps.

So, Katy the Catwoman lives in a lovely neighborhood by a city lake where she is socializing feral cats. She has done this in every place she has lived her entire life.  Yah, it's kind of like trying to tame a chipmunk, but it is part of her destiny (on a mission trip to Cambodia, the villagers where she worked gave her a nickname that basically meant "the lady who loves cows and dogs and kisses pigs," so you can see this is a bane she carries across international borders). Though she is about 7 minutes from a major mall, she regularly has more wildlife congregating on her back porch animal tent city than the Lodge at Itasca.  Racoons, voles, possums, cats, rabbits.  I think a fox once, and maybe a badger  (somebody swears they saw Sasquatch out there, but we'd all had a lot of Limoncello that holiday). Some neighbors are supportive--one managed to capture the matriarch of Katy's wild kitty kingdom and had her spayed, then re-released her.  Others shake their heads and hang their bird feeders a little closer to the house. 

My sister sometimes calls me in the pre-dawn (genetic farm link: up before the rooster) and whispers into the phone--as though she may wake my already twirling children, "I have a family of coons here."  I tell her, "There has been a dog crying in a locked porch down the street all night--do you think I should spring him?"  We consider the law, the rationality of our experiences, discuss options.  She describes the materials of the newly upgraded kitty condo she has built outside to blunt the brutality of the coming winter: appliance boxes, packing foam, sponge rubber seat cushions and discarded fleece, self-heated water dishes and nylon windbreaks.  She would prefer the cats come inside and spend the winter with her, but knowing they won't she has made the best haven she can devise.  In a cold world, she has given what she can.





 

Join us in the fight for justice!
Come show your support for the Autism Healthcare Protection Act at an important town hall meeting. This is our chance to ask influential legislators to end discrimination against individuals who have autism by private insurance companies. We need to muster as many parents, friends, and family as we can to urge these legislators to support the Autism Healthcare Protection Act -- so please ask your three closest friends to join us as well.  

The town hall meeting will be held on Thursday, December 10 at Powderhorn Park Recreation Center in South Minneapolis. 3400 - 15th Ave South, Minneapolis / 6–8 pm and is hosted by the Minnesota Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities.

The Autism Healthcare Protection Act (HF 359/SF 312) would require private health insurance to cover medically necessary care for individuals who have autism. The insurance companies fought this bill last year and narrowly defeated its passage. Why? Because the health insurance companies do not want to pay for intensive early intervention behavior therapy (IEIBT) of the type that we provide to young children like yours. If your private insurance covers our services, then you are among the lucky few. Too many families are struggling to afford medically necessary treatments and therapies such as IEIBT when their private health insurance ought to cover it. Now is the time for all of us to come together to help every individual on the autism spectrum get health insurance coverage for medically necessary care.

Here’s how you can help:
come to the forum on December 10th, 2009
bring three friends and/or family members
register to speak at the town hall meeting by calling Anni at (651) 523-0823, ext. 112 or send her an email at ASimons@arcmn.org  
stand up at the forum to ask the legislators to pass the Autism Healthcare Protection Act.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or concerns. You can read more about the town hall meeting at: http://www.mnccd.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B574EE29D-1D5C-44F0-AEEB-6E374B54FA79%7D

Thanks in advance for your help!