It Could Happen to Anyone

I just heard an NPR piece about Michael Morton who after spending 25 years in jail for killing his wife was finally released because of DNA evidence.  He had written his wife a note saying how sad he was that she wouldn’t have sex with him on his birthday and based on that piece of paper stuck to a mirror the prosecution painted an ugly picture of a killer.  The police and prosecution where so convinced of his guilt that they didn’t investigate evidence left behind my the real killer.  The story in it’s entirety is here.  What disturbs me most about this story is that it could happen to anyone.  I can definitely see myself being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  In the same way, accidents can happen.  Dearest Husband and I watched The Descendants last night.  It’s about how a family deals with a tragic accident befalling the wife/mother.  At anytime something could happen whether it be a terrible mistake or a crazy coincidence.  And let’s face it–sooner or later everyone experiences hardships.  A friend of mine was recently pulled over for speeding.  After talking with the officer and receiving a ticket she learned that the officer felt that she shouldn’t be driving and her license was suspended.  She was a little shaken up about being pulled over and my guess is that the officer thought she was too old to be driving.  She’s an incredibly vibrant person and I can’t imagine how anyone would question her abilities but for that officer at that particular moment something was amiss.  I guess my point is that things happen and what really matters is how we deal with it.  One of the reasons I practice this Buddhism is because I want to be in rhythm with the universe at all those critical moments.  I want to have good responses and make good decisions.  I admit that my basic nature is to make stupid split decisions.  I think of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo as putting money in the bank of acting intelligently.  Next time I need to make a withdrawal I will be calm and have my wits about me.

 

 

Posted in Buddhism | 24 Comments

Win a signed copy of Jenny Lawson’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

This is my first giveaway!  Basically I read Jenny Lawson’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and I peed myself laughing–or I have a urinary tract infection–either way this book is freaking hilarious!  It’s a memoir by The Bloggess whose blog I LOVE!  You can find her here.  Basically the book is about all that stuff we wish never happened but made us who we are.  Spoiler Alert:  If you don’t like the word vagina, don’t sign up for the giveaway–she uses it so much I’m wondering if she secretly has 2 vaginas.  All you have to do is leave a comment with an experience that you wish never happened to you but helped form who you are today.  At the end of the week I’ll choose one special winner.  Good Luck!

 

UPDATE:  Well this was a hard one!  There were some good experiences!  Thank you everyone for your comments!  Without further ado the winner is…Michelle P!  Enjoy it!

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Shrine in Crestone by Lori

Greetings to those at My Human Revolution, Jennie asked me to do a guest post, normally I’m over at my other home, so here goes, thank you so much for reading!

The winter after my step father died was sort of hard, I was working a lot of hours, my mom was working as many as I was, and it was very cold in the San Luis Valley where I was living at the time.

I had a dog, a border collie named Suzie, who needed a dog house. My dad had been known for having a boat load of “crap” one of those I vastly remember was a dog house, so I grab my step brother Marvin, and head 45 miles away to get said dog house, on the way there we got to talking about his time in prison, and how he had found Buddhism and how it had changed his life.

I had heard years before about a shrine, in Crestone Colorado and asked him if he might want to go see it. We decided why not, and went. The first thing we found was a Hindu temple, the priest there was so graceful about showing us through the temple, he put some paste on our foreheads and rice. I don’t remember much about the statues we saw or anything, only that it was exceptionally peaceful there. He invited us to the full moon ritual, which I am sad to say I never made it back to. He was amazing and gave us directions to where the shrine was located.

I drove to the base of Crestone Needles, this was shortly after Halloween, and it had just snowed. The drive up to the base of the mountain truly felt as if we were transported some where else in the world, as if we weren’t in Colorado, but in Tibet, or someplace equally awesome. We parked the van, and took off up the trail we were assured ended in the shrine to Buddha. Now it had just snowed, and I was not wearing hiking boots, nor was I really that well equiped for a hike, yet we took off up this path, every now and then we would see animal tracks. I saw clearly several times that a cougar had crossed our path. Marvin kept assuring me that Buddha was protecting us, I am sure he just didn’t want me to chicken out on him.

Flags lined the path as we walked up the mountain, close to a mile maybe further, when suddenly around the corner came this golden visage, surrounded by flags, was Him, the statue of Buddha. I remember the feeling of awe and how it shook me to my very core, it said on a sign there that this statue held a part of a statue in Tibet. I know next to nothing else about this, but I will say when ever I need to get back to that feeling, that statue is where I head in my mind.

Posted in guest post | 4 Comments

Book Connection: Why be Happy if you Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

This isn’t a book review–it’s a book connection.  I don’t know how to review a book.  I either connect to a book or I don’t.  So far I’ve devoured all of Jeanette Winterson’s novels: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Sexing the Cherry, Written on the Body, The Passion–the list goes on.  Why be Happy of you Could Be Normal is an autobiography so I didn’t quite know what to expect.  In fact it has a lot of what I think of as Jeanette Winterson elements such as references to a vast variety of literature and poetry.  It is an adoption story which is probably why I’m drawn to her in the first place–being adopted myself.  “Adopted children are self-invented because we have to be; there is an absence, a void, a question mark at the beginning of our lives.”  I was adopted because my birth mother gave me away–left me in the care of someone else.  In my case it was a far better situation to have been adopted.  Not so for Jeanette.  I write about how I found my birth family here.  Do all adopted children have abandonment issues?  It’s likely that we do.  Jeanette also confronts her desire to love and be loved even though her adoptive family was a far cry from a role model.  She understands her desire to be for other women.  Certainly in all her novels Jeanette plays with sexuality and gender roles–another thing that I love about her.  She’s like Virginia Wolf on steroids.

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

RIP little car

What’s worst than running out of gas in the middle of nowhere?  Car breaking down while husband is away.  Last time I was home alone I wrote about it here.  This time I planned to host a Toso (long chanting meditation) and then have a margarita girls night afterwards.  I have to do something besides sit at home and miss my family.  The only reason I’m not off on spring break vacation with everyone is because I have to work–not everyone gets all school holidays off like DH does.  Yes rub it in!  So I go out to get a bag of chips for the evening fun when my car temperature goes up and there’s steam coming out of the front hood.  We originally bought this car because I was taking the bus into the city to work everyday and it just seemed simpler to get a second car.  Because it was a park-in-the-tenderloin car we decided to get a reliable but not a break-into-me car.  I paid cash to a kid one day on my lunch break and came home with an old mazda.  It was that easy.  Upon my arrival, the van immediately got nicknamed the Big Car and the mazda was deemed the little car.  She was zippy and took me over the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge everyday.  We were giving her a second life–complete with 2 kids and a Wado Dog.  She seemed happy.  Didn’t really have much trouble for years until one day the check engine light came on because of a problem with her catalytic converter.  Then she started collecting water in the front seat after every rain.  Someone hit the passenger side mirror with a garbage can (uhck um) and it’s hanging loose.  And finally while my husband is out of town the radiator all but exploded.  The cost of all the repairs would exceed her blue book value.  So we’re saying goodbye to the little car!  I have fond memories of strapping down car seats and Wado Dog hanging out of the window.  May your next life bring few bumps in the road.  You will be missed!

May you always have flowers in your rear!

Posted in Random Shit | 13 Comments

Winter Always Turns to Spring

I was asked to do a guest blog post!  Totally honored!  Check it out here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Big Ouchy

I haven’t quite gotten past using words from when the kids were little.  Ouchy just has a certain quality to it that abrasion seems to be lacking.  It’s as if an ouchy will heal faster and just saying the word will decrease the pain.  The Boy got series of ouchies this week.  The first was an infection on his pinky finger which he can barely feel because of his brachial plexus birth injury affecting his entire right arm and hand.  Infections in his hand are not infrequent unfortunately.  Here is a pic.

That's a mean infection!

Then he got a second ouchy that tore the skin off his finger, aggravating the infection and gave him a smart abrasion on his face.  He’s been explaining to everyone at school what has happened to him.  I wasn’t actually there at the time of the incident but Dearest Husband saw it go down and said he was afraid for a minute The Boy was concussed or worst.  In The Boy’s words here is what happened: “At the top of the stairs outside I was going down the metal railing and at the end I couldn’t touch my feet to the stairs anymore and there was a railing that I couldn’t get over so I flipped over facedown onto the ground.”  Yea.  Ouch.  Here is a pic.

Face Plant Injury

I’m actually surprised it wasn’t more serious.  If sliding down railings of an outside staircase sound good to you–think again.  But seriously  the question has to be asked: How much should we encourage our kids to take risks?  One of The Boy’s first Occupational Therapists said when he was just learning how to scoot (crawling requires the use of both arms), “Let him fall and figure out how to do things himself.”  Letting The Boy fall was hard–the monkey bars where especially hard. But The Boy figured out his own way of doing things.  He’s older now and still trying to live in a two handed world with one working hand.  Sliding down a railing isn’t the best idea granted, but we let him experiment and this was certainly an epic fail.  But I think if we were the kinds of parents that talked about how dangerous everything is and didn’t expect him to push his limits he wouldn’t have figured out half of his accommodations.  I hope next time he tries sliding down the railing he learns to slow down before he gets to the end.

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

If All Else Fails–Steal it!

I’m not an advocate for theft.  In fact I’m a pretty good rule follower.  But I do have an experience where I stole something and what I gained changed my life.  I have been told I was adopted for as long as I can remember.  When I got old enough to ask questions about my birth family, my mother would say that when I turned 18 I could find out more information.  So right around my 18th birthday I requested that the court send me all information regarding my birth mother and the adoption.  It turns out the adoption was closed and very little information was released–none of it identifying.  But I had a few details like what hospital my birth mother was in and what drug I was born addicted to.  It turns out heroin doesn’t cause brain damage and I’m just fine, but I was a very sick newborn.  After reading through the packet of information I decided I didn’t really want to find a woman who took drugs right before giving birth so I put the papers in the bottom of a box and forgot about them.  A year later I happened to run into my foster brother who reintroduced me to our foster parents.  I was only in a foster home as an infant for a few months while my adoption was being finalized.  My foster mother remembered a few details about my case.  She said that my birth grandmother originally wanted to adopt me but for various reasons couldn’t.  The fact that someone wanted me was huge.  Now I have always been told that I was so special and that my parents were so happy to have me as their daughter.  But being adopted also means that my birth mother rejected me and I’ve always felt the weight of that while also feeling the love of my parents who adopted me.  Fast forward to just after I graduated from college.  I ended up moving to the town where I was born.  Occasionally while walking down the main drag I would wonder if my birth mother walked down the same sidewalk.  Where did she live?  What was her life like?  What did she look like and did I look like her?  I would have moments where I was overwhelmed with curiosity.  Finally I decided to steal my birth mother’s records from the hospital.  I didn’t have her name but I had the dates in which she was a patient and I knew that she delivered a baby girl.  Within a month of having the idea I had in my hands my birth mother’s file which included her name, an old address and the name of my birth grandmother who I knew at one point wanted me.  Once I got up the nerve, I rang my grandmother.  She remembered the month of my birth.  She said she knew one day I would find her.  She also said I had a sister.  Soon I was introducing myself to my sister and meeting her for the first time.  I couldn’t have found a better sister!  Also, it turns out I look like my birth mother.  At one point I was worried about my parents having hurt feelings about me finding my birth family.  I’ll never forget my mother’s response, “In times like this your heart can only get bigger.”  My heart and my life are bigger now.  Like I said, I’m not an advocate for theft.  But sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

 

 

Posted in Being Adopted | 23 Comments

In A Perfect World

In a perfect world my son wouldn’t have been injured during birth.  He would have 2 symmetrical perfectly functioning arms and hands.  But we all have to figure out what to do with what we’ve got–and let’s face it, everyone has issues.  It’s amazing the accommodations he comes up with to do 2 handed tasks with one hand.  He amazes me.  Since he’s had to deal with this since birth, finding ways to do things comes natural to him.  It would be harder to lose the ability to use a hand later in life.  Still sometimes he needs a little extra help.  So I was shocked to find out that The Boy has been dropping his lunch tray in the cafeteria every week at school for the last year and 1/2.  No-one-told-us-this-was-happening!  Of course his teachers are claiming that there was no stigma attached to being the child who always drops his tray.  Seriously?  We took home a tray and practiced different techniques.  Within a few days the problem was resolved.  What really upsets me about this is that the problem went on for so long.  How was it acceptable to just assume that because of his difference  he can’t carry his tray and so you just keep letting the child embarrass himself for-a-year-and-a-half.  Parenting a child with a sever brachial plexus injury has been challenging.  He’s had 3 surgeries and as he gets older figuring out night time splinting and range of motion exercises get’s harder.  But this is the first time in almost 8 years that I feel like because of his hand he was made to feel different.  I’m so incredibly disappointed.  

Posted in Brachial Plexus Injury, Motherhood | 15 Comments

Not If, When

Last night I had a very vivid dream of dying with my husband in a car accident.  I awoke with a terrible raw feeling inside.  Maybe it was because DH and I recently starting watching the TV Show Awake, or maybe it’s a throw back from a time when I was prone to nightmares.  In the dream, I was driving and as the collision occurred everything slowed down.  Just like in a movie I saw broken glass floating past DH’s shocked face.  We were on a date night and the thought crossed my mind as we were hurtling through the air that no one would love our kids like we do.  And this is a haunting thought.  It just so happens that DH and I just recently hired a lawyer to do our living will/trust and will finally have a plan in place for just in case.  Actually it’s a little embarrassing that it’s taken us so long.  If it happens I know friends and family will step up and do their best, but I can’t imagine how devastating this would be for the kids.  We even found a home for our lovable but very bad Wado Dog.  I have to believe that in the end everything would be fine.  The kids would somehow manage to get through.  It’s also important to have in writing what you would like in terms of life prolonging medical treatments.  Let’s face it–we’re all walking toward our death someday.  We can’t escape the cycle of life and we might as well plan for it.  I’m not suggesting that we dwell on this inevitability.  But we can at least be prepared.  Maybe everyone reading this already has a living will/trust–awesome!  But for those of you who keep meaning to do it but don’t quite find the time–please take action.  There are even some online forms which are free to download.

Death

Posted in Random Shit | 6 Comments