Let's call it a day

Henry, Me and Sophie, 2001

The reason why I posted this photo is that it makes me happy. It's been a wildly interesting week, albeit draining. Not only did I get engaged in a discussion with a twenty-five year old on Huffpost over cognitively disabled individuals and whether or not they are persons, human or non-person humans, but on Facebook I also fell into the Trap That Leads Nowhere of debating the traditional western scientific model versus integrative care that has worked for our family. The latter discussion was actually good-natured (although it pained me to have to interact at one point with Vaccination Militant Paul Offitt) -- and I learned something, too, given another physician's sensitive responses. The one with the Woman Whose Only Credentials for Debate on Disabled Individuals Are An Undergraduate Degree in Philosophy/Bioethics and Being the Mother of One Two Year Old was almost nauseating at first and when all is said and done, I've relegated her comments to the dustbin, coming from someone either truly evil (superstition) or sociopathic in the vein of Nazis, racists and the like. The Facebook discussion and the Huffpost back and forth were neatly tied up by the doctor I was talking to on Facebook when I told him that I'd been engaged in a far more upsetting discussion about humans, persons, and nonhuman persons or nonperson humans. His response was Tell her you need to read her thesis in the original 1930s German before you can comment further. I checked LIKE on that and moved on. Gretchen, my real-life friend and fellow blogger commented on one of my posts with a quote of Elizabeth Taylor's character in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:  I'm sorry. I could never keep my fingers off a sore. Don't you love that? I'm always going to be one who fingers the sores, opens my mouth and types furiously. But I'm also going to be one who says, you're right, I'm sorry or Thank you for opening my tiny, little mind. It makes me want to post a photo of the inimitable Liz as Maggie: 

So, yes -- back to the interesting albeit draining week. On Tuesday night, I drained my car's battery at the lacrosse field where I idiotically kept the ignition on for over two hours, charging my phone and reading while both boys practiced. On Wednesday, I went to our huge local outdoor mall to return some jeans that I'd bought for Oliver that he had determined were "uncool," and since I was talking on the phone (speaker) while looking for a parking space, parking and then walking to the Gap, I had absolutely NO IDEA where my car was parked. I walked up and down the aisles of three different levels of the lot, pressing my automatic lock thingamajig. Did you know that they beep through several floors? I finally found my car, but not before I had shed a few tears and wet my pants a tiny bit. I'm not kidding. And then, on the way out, when I fed my parking ticket into the little machine, followed by my credit card to pay the $3.00 charge, the machine spit my card out and it fell onto the floor. I was in one of those unattended lines, people were honking in line behind me, and I couldn't open the car door to retrieve my car because I was so close to the machine. Eventually, an attendant came to my rescue and while kind, he couldn't speak English so didn't understand that my card was under my car, had fallen and couldn't get up. He eventually understood, gave me my card and I scratched off, but I wet my pants a tiny bit more. I am not kidding.

So, the photo makes me happy because I love how happy I look. I am pregnant with Oliver in the shot; our family would soon become complete; I had no knowledge of the internet and still wore a beeper, carried cash and had no friends on Facebook.