Cold Spaghetti

“Goodnight, Will. I love you.”

“I love you. Mommy? Will you ask Daddy to come in and cuddle with me?”

“Daddy’s working. How ’bout I cuddle with you?”

“No. I need Daddy. You can go work.”

“Why do you need Daddy?”

” ‘cuz Daddy’s a boy and we’re faster than girls.”

A gorgeous, huge, vibrant, rainbow hung over our neighborhood yesterday afternoon. I got a few pictures of it as it started to fade… cascading over our house.

That’s Paul and the kids walking up to our porch. Will is wearing Kate’s floppy yellow hat, which he wore all day yesterday. He’s become very fond of that hat.

Meanwhile, out in the back…

Paul is continuing to amaze us in his endless knowledge and abilities. And despite the craziness with ordering materials, calls to my Dad to discuss building strategies, and a huge range of coordination madness…. I think he is really enjoying it. Or maybe it’s being out in the perfect weather. Either way, he has kept up progress and took down the old cypress boards to find the original lathe board and a peak into some of the structural pieces of the house. He has started blogging again, so check there for more pictures and updates on the gory details.

This time of year always feels rushed… not enough time for anything. But this year — this year makes all the other years look like a cake-walk.

So I’m letting go, or at least trying to talk myself into it. I have enough presents for my children to pass for Santa’s arrival on Christmas morning. (Normally, we would just have Christmas another day but Will has an advent calendar this year and has been pretty savvy with it.) I did manage to (finally) write thank-yous with Will for his birthday, and that is about all I can handle. Everyone else? Think about the fun of opening presents and cards in the New Year!! We love you enough to not be rushed.

Our quick update:
— Foundation is poured, piers and flashing installed, ground level, debris and dirt cleared. Dumpster is ours until next Monday, so Paul started gutting the back today. All the siding is off the back of the house, Will says that “Daddy took the skin off the back of the house.”
— All official paperwork has been submitted and accepted in the Dean’s office. No going back now: I’m defending the prospectus next Thursday. The defense is being advertised throughout the school… I’m afraid I’ll be haunted by the post in the elevators for weeks. Practice defense is Tuesday.
— I’m working to have the next draft to committee by Monday. This is a major feat, since I’m tried, stressed, and distracted by my duties as the one who makes holidays happen in the household. We’ve got a Christmas tree up and decorated and stuff on the house outside… that is as much as I can fight for right now. The kids seem to appreciate it.
— The final happened and class is done. An appeal on my behalf was made to the department chair to not cap my hours and pay me for the full time I worked on the class (roughly 50% more than “allowed”). It would amount to several hundred bucks we weren’t expecting (the hourly rate is less than we pay our babysitters; to have it capped is just insulting). So I’m really hoping that it gets put through. I did really, really enjoy doing it though… despite getting a parking ticket on the last night.
— Took family portraits of Valerie (my friend/mentor from Lima) and her husband and new baby this past weekend (up on the FLC site); great visit with them this weekend.
— Kate needs a blood test as part of her check-up from Nov. 28th and I have to find time to take her to Children’s for the draw. So far, no time has seemed suitable. And where is that doctor’s order, anyway?

… construction has begun. In earnest.
Paul and Will started the digging and brick moving… but someone else laid the foundation.
Will and Kate provided oversight. If only we could get them to move all this dirt.
Above, Paul shows about how high the addition will sit (lower than the house, but still up on piers). These pictures are actually a little out-dated, as we now have piers and flashing up on the foundation.
I had the 50mm while taking these, so I couldn’t give a full view of the back. But this is the general idea. Here is where it all starts…!

This afternoon, 4:45pm.

—-
Me: “So, what’s the next step?”

Committee Chair: “Well, I’m fine with everything.”

Me: “I think that’s everyone?”

Committee Chair: “How soon can you defend?”

Me (joking, a little): “I’d go in an hour if I could.”

Committee Chair: “How about tomorrow?”

Me: “Okay.”
—

WAIT, say dear readers, how can this be? You JUST got your comments Monday! You just finalized committee members! And you’ve been asked to defend… 3 days later??

Well, yes. My committee chair actually made a few phone calls to see if we could move that quickly. But unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, I still have to make the presentation) we couldn’t figure out the logistics with schedules, so we have to wait until at least 2 of the 4 committee members are in town… which will be DECEMBER 20th! I have a defense date! December 20th, 2pm. It seems too surreal to even celebrate it.

To all that is good and right with the world: please help see that my family maintains all current organs and has no reason for glue or stitches. I need at least a semi-calm two more weeks to make changes and get prepared…

Update on The PhD Grind:

— TWO committee members (official ones!) added today. I now have FOUR committee members with various links to the department/school and one Really Good Reader. Both “new” members gave Very Good Substantive comments that came out of their close reading of my prospectus (that alone is worthy of my eternal thanks). Both were very supportive, encouraging, enthusiastic, and complimentary. Both felt that I could defend soon… but I think I want to make changes as per their comments first. I need to find the energy to make these adjustments and push for a defense date… I wish I could just do it now and get it done!
— Even more surprising and delightful: one committee member and I are exploring the mentorship thing. She handed over some Very Raw Data for me to play around with in an attempt to carve out the seeds for a working paper. It’s related to HIV. It’s theoretically rich. And there is no pressure. Perfect.

E-gads! It is starting to sound like I am actually a doctoral student!

In short, exactly what I’ve been hoping for is starting to materialize. I feel a little off-balance as I’m not used to actually getting what I ask for… do a feel a rug loosening under my feet, or can I trust my legs to hold this time around?

It’s official. I’m calling myself a photographer.

An offer of a semi-reoccurring photography “gig” (am I hip enough to use that word?) came through a few weeks ago, so I had a choice to make. Be official or let the offer slide? I decided to throw caution to the wind and put myself out there. I’m not sure why I hesitate to use these official words. Maybe I feel uncertain about putting something so personal into a business model (typing the words made me cringe). Or maybe I hate being pigeon-holed and “photographer” sounds so specific and defined. Either way, odd though it may sound, this was a big deal for me, the choice, the commitment, the stake.

But I did it and now it’s so. Introducing… Four Leaf Clover Photography. It’s still pretty basic (be kind). Website tweaking once the world stops spinning (or I get some help from my favorite web-minded folk).

Maybe I can actually have a hobby that is self-supporting?

The first official venture was a fundraiser for the school. For a donation to the school in lieu of a sitting fee, I offered to photograph kids/families before the holidays. The whole thing came on a little last minute, but a few families took up on the opportunity — and it was great fun! I’m happy overall with the results and learned a lot. I’m hoping to have the opportunity to do this more often and continue to learn. To that end, suggestions welcome.

It’s World AIDs Day. A day to remember a terrible virus that preys on the marginalized, impoverished, and powerless.

And here’s a thought.

We’ve tracked early cases of AIDs to Europeans decades before (and in Americans at least a decade before) those curious cases of Kaposi Sarcoma started popping up en masse in 1981. So what was it about those cases, in particular, that caught the attention of the CDC? Why had we missed it for so long before?

It was because of who had them: men with access to medical care at established institutions, seeing practitioners who had connections to the CDC. Regular medical care gave them a history of wellness so that providers did not assume them to be chronically unwell, therefore noting when sudden and rare illnesses and common infections flared to cause a seemingly quick death. Who were those previous cases? The ones long before the 1980s? These AIDs-related deaths were among the homeless, addicted, or destitute. People who did not have access to ongoing care or practitioners with CDC connections and who are perceived to be in ill health as a constant state. These are people among whom odd infections and illnesses do not seem out of place, so why would anyone care? Why would treating them, observing wellness, or tracking their illnesses matter?

Let’s imagine for a moment if, back in the early 70s, we had a health system where anyone could have received basic preventative medicine. Where even if one was homeless, or impoverished, or an addict — that they had a provider with a sense of this person’s overall wellness so that if something unusual occurred, they would have had a chance of recognizing it. And what if some provider did begin to question the incidence of unusual combinations of sarcomas and other opportunistic infections — and pointed it out to the CDC — in the early 1970s?

Consider, for a moment, if this would have happened. We would have had possibly as much as 10 years lead time on this crushing epidemic. We wouldn’t have incorrectly labeled AIDs as a disease of gay men and instead, may have seen it as it is: a disease which prays on the marginalized and disempowered. Ten years and a more correct assessment of one of the (if not the) world’s greatest health threats. That was what was at stake. If these things had occurred, perhaps we wouldn’t even have a World AIDs day today, because we wouldn’t need one.

So in honor of the day, consider the importance of health as a human right, not a privileged award. Advocating for the diseases of today means also advocating for the health of the most vulnerable. Consider what could be at stake…?