Alchemy and Anxiety

I don't know about you, but I feel so weird these days, so out of sorts, so self-conscious and aware and filled with adrenaline and disgust and anger and -- should I go on? I miss blogging, too. I miss marking my days here and the casual way I'd throw out some thoughts and observations, a bit of poetry, a rant or two. I'm not tired of blogging or of blogs, either. I am preoccupied. I am so afraid of normalizing that POS running the country, the sycophants that support him, those that still maintain we must come together. Come together, my ass. I'm as overwhelmed as every other woman by the toppling of the patriarchy, too. When is the head dude, though, the Sexual Predator in Chief, going to get his due?






I'm baking a lot of cakes. I baked this one:

Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream

and I made five of these:

Apple Toffee Crunch Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream

I made about a million of these:

yeast dough rolled in cinnamon sugar

It came out like this:

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread with Caramel Glaze

Baking, unfortunately, does not alleviate the stress of the Repubs screwing us, over and over, now with their new tax plan which is really another version of their healthcare plan, which basically reinforces the direction the Disunited States of America is going which is a plutocracy. I want to say f*^k all of them, but I tire of cursing.







I also made the most killer cinnamon buttercream.

Butter, sugar, egg whites, cinnamon

Honestly, that stuff is nearly sexual. A silky sweet meringue that takes butter and transforms into something that melts on the tip of your tongue, just a trace.

Alchemy.



I had my first paid gig at The Los Angeles Times on Saturday. Here's the link.


#gigeconomybaby

"Drug Mule Fer Real" - Part IV

That's how my good friend Mary Beth brought a recent article in the Los Angeles Times to my attention yesterday in her inimitable North Carolina accent. We went back and forth on Facebook making jokes about coconut cake and cannabis, Sophie's seizures stopping and me finally relaxed. I wrote about medical marijuana and epilepsy years ago on this blog, wondering if I might have a sort of peace pipe circle with Sophie in the center receiving the smoke "second-hand." I've thought about making brownies or cookies or even venturing up to the local medical marijuana store (they dot every block in these parts) and buying some. But I've never done it -- and I personally haven't smoked the stuff in one hundred years, so I just don't know where to start.

I'm looking into this seriously, now, and let me tell you something: if medical marijuana stops Sophie's seizures or even eases them, I'll get high every single day for the rest of my life. I'll be a drug mule fer real.

Hold me to that. If you know anything about this or have suggestions, please email me and let me know.

Read the article HERE. Read this story HERE.

Sarcasm, not just implied

Romanian institution for disabled children, 2006

Funding for home health aides would be cut by 20%, and services for the disabled would be slashed by $100 million -- on top of deep reductions already made in those programs.


That could be the last straw for Michelle Franklin, 45, of Stockton, who receives just under $800 a month from the state to care for her schizophrenic son and an elderly neighbor. If her payments drop by 20%, she said, she may have to commit her child to a state mental hospital. "I love my son dearly and it's going to break my heart, but if they cut my hours I may have to make the decision to let my son go," Franklin said. "That's going to end up costing the state a lot more in the long run."



-- Los Angeles Times, Thursday, November 17th, 2011, in an article spelling out upcoming California budget cuts if revenue is not as expected in December.

"I earn my pay," adding, "Republicans earn their money."

-- GOP state Rep. Lou Blessing, Speaker Pro Tempore of the Ohio House of Representatives, in response to a proposal to cut taxpayer-financed politicians' salaries as a balance to cuts in teachers' taxpayer-balanced salaries, November 6th, 2011


(I was going to post a number of quotes from Newt Gingrich about shared sacrifice, and some information about the enormous amounts of money the man and his lovely wife have spent at Tiffany's over the years, all while espousing his individual "frugality," but I threw up a little bit in my mouth as I perused the stories and decided to call it a day.)

It's time for another installment of:

This morning I glanced at the headlines of the Los Angeles Times newspaper and read that the poverty level in the United States has reached historic levels and is higher than it's ever been in more than fifty years. It's becoming quite the cliche to talk about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer and the middle class disappearing. The blame seems to lie on the shrinking availability of jobs.

Wow. But what do I know?

Last week I read about a woman who I went to college with who also happens to be a very powerful and very wealthy businesswoman on Wall Street. During those halcyon student days, this young woman and l  lived in the same house; I even typed some of her papers for her (just so you know, I was a typist extraordinaire, typing more than 125 words per minute on my Smith Corona Electric for $1 a page). I'm not going to tell you her name, but I read in the big news last week that she had just left -- or was "let go" from -- a company that Bank of America had recently acquired and that it's possible her lawyers will negotiate a $5 to $10 million dollar severance package for her. 


I also read in the paper this week that the same bank that is negotiating with the woman who I used to type papers for is also laying off up to 40,000 people. 


But what do I know? I made $1.00 a page in 1985, and I remember they were really good papers.

I smell bullshit. Just sayin'.

I just don't get it

I opened the newspaper last night -- the local section of the Los Angeles Times -- and read this headline:

Man who assaulted 3 disabled women gets 8 years

I'd heard about this horrific case more than a month ago and wondered then why it hadn't gotten very much attention. The convicted man confessed to sexually assaulting three "mentally handicapped" women at an El Monte, California day care center where he worked. He confessed to raping three women who were severely developmentally disabled, one of whom wore diapers. The eight-year sentence was "the product of a controversial plea bargain." The mother of the defendant said that she had gone to authorities the same day her daughter reported the assault to her, but the rapist was not arrested for almost a year -- a period during which he assaulted others. As part of his sentence, the rapist will have to register as a sex offender upon his release.

What the hell? 

I generally don't talk about such things on this blog -- there are many great blogs that I would call "activist" blogs -- those that admirably expound and explain and argue about the nuances of disability and disability rights. There's also the whole emotional aspect of things like this -- those of us who hand our disabled and non-verbal daughters and sons over to aides and teachers and therapists, etc. every day at school do so with what I imagine is about the biggest leap of faith a parent can muster. If we didn't take this leap and let our imaginations run wild, I think we'd keep our children locked up in a room at home. However, most of us have been stymied at least once, if not continually, by callous school officials who condescend to our fears and make lame assertions of how they know best. Here, in Los Angeles, at our local school, I've spent weeks arguing with Sophie's school about a new policy that would rotate the aides riding the bus with Sophie -- a "budget cut" that basically takes away the aide who I know and who knows her and replaces her with virtual strangers. When I objected, the school official basically laughed off my concerns, told me that the person would be "trained" by a school nurse (the same school nurse who works there for three days a week and who I had to educate about seizures when we enrolled) and that I would have "to trust the system." I have many friends and acquaintances that face equal frustration when they attempt to advocate for their children in many different venues, including inclusion and even basic medical care.

You know that expression "helicopter mom" and the whole parenting debate that circles it? Just like the tiger mom controversy, I tend to dismiss these cultural debates as a luxury for the elite, those who parent disabled kids or not.  I might contort my face into a mask of pleasant accessibility when even my friends bring it up, but my eyes are rolling crazily in my thoughts. But in reading about a man who gets only eight years in jail for assaulting three disabled young women, I'm going out on a limb and saying that those of us in the trenches have to damn well know how to fly a helicopter, too.

Heartless on Heart Day

A Great Depression Soup Line

Are you as confused as I am when you hear about Republican efforts to privatize Social Security? Periodically, I get those little notices in the mail that tell me how much money I will receive when I retire, based on how much I've earned so far. When I look at the amount, I sigh and file the paper away, hoping that one day I'll be able to work more -- which brings me to Sophie, the reason, however worthy, that I am unable to make a more solid contribution to our family's livelihood. Many of us who care for our children with special healthcare needs can't properly enter the workforce and use our education and skills because of the difficulties of finding proper childcare, the expense and quality of that care and/or the instability of our children's medical situations. We navigate all the complex systems of care and file papers and negotiate services only to eventually face catastrophic cuts in these services in the name of "balanced budgets" or, worse, "freedom from government," as the hated (and, yes, I do hate them and know that I've lost readers here because of my stated strong feelings against tea partiers) Tea Party and its supporters call it. As a disabled person, Sophie will qualify for Social Security benefits at eighteen. She currently receives in-home supportive services that enable her to be cared for at home as opposed to an institution, like she might have been many years before we, as a country were enlightened by the notion that it is civilized to care for our most vulnerable citizens, the elderly, the sick, the disabled.

Many of these social safety nets are being decimated, their necessity and humanity all but stifled under rhetoric, fear and political bullshit. And while I understand there is much graft, corruption and misuse of government funds, I firmly believe we can root that out without cutting these programs. Bernie Sanders, the great independent senator from Vermont wrote a beautiful, informative op-Ed piece in today's Los Angeles Times about Social Security that I hope you'll take the time to read, even if you are a tea partier.