Secular Confessions

http://labtestsonline.org/understand...idtips/start/1

This article has some good advice to prepping kids for blood tests.

http://kidshealth.org/kid/feel_bette...RelatedArticle

This is a good video and maybe since your kids like science and learning.....maybe it would be helpful to see this before hand. Maybe too he would want to learn about blood and all the different kinds (or at least a few of things) that can be learned from testing blood?

And yes I would definitely bribe him. Medical procedures in my family earn people presents. :)

I think bribing for medical procedures is not a bad thing. They're no fun to go through and it will be nice for him to associate it with something fun afterward. When I was a kid I had to go into Boston for regular, not really fun at all procedures and I still remember going to Chinatown for dim sum afterward, or getting a stuffed animal after surgery, or the welcome home signs my mom would put up at home and a special meal she'd cook (usually a cheeseburger-she made awesome cheeseburgers). I'm all for you and him doing something special together afterward, at least.

I think there have been studies saying that something sweet during and immediately after a shot will lessen the pain. Maybe a lollipop while it is happening and then a fun activity after?

I remember when I had oral surgury (had 2 extra teeth in the roof of my mouth found on xrays, not coming through luckily) and the pain after was the most I'd felt up until that point. I remember my mom changing my bloody gauze and I must have been on pain meds because I the memory itself in a hazy sort of one. My mom and dad were talking in the other room and my mom asked my dad to go get a vcr and he said, "Really? I thought we couldn't afford it right now" and she said, "Anything to make her happy".
Gah, that's a great memory that I haven't thought about in a long time. I was really, really happy about that vcr!
I will have to ask Kai what he's been hoping for. The great thing about him is that he will probably say something really simple like an ice cream cone.

There's no doubt to me that a bribe for a blood draw is a good thing! I might use that for my DH if he ever needs to get blood taken. He's so queasy about medical stuff that it would be comical if it weren't so serious.

That's a great memory about the VCR, Bridget. It made me smile.

OMG, I have to share with you guys because I know you'll find it funny. I was procastinating today on the Internet and saw that Snoop Dogg had retweeted someone's picture that was a photo they'd taken of their reasons why they weren't voting for Mitt Romney and the top 2 reasons were "His name is Mitt" and "He a Mormon and he ain't got no ho's." :D Classic.

Too funny! He ain't got no hos is the exact reason I'm not voting for him!:winks:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by girlwonder

I think there have been studies saying that something sweet during and immediately after a shot will lessen the pain. Maybe a lollipop while it is happening and then a fun activity after?

---

This gets a big thumbs up from me.

I always bring lollipops to the dr.

Ok, I have a strange question for you ladies. When you were a child, or even now, did the concept of infinity feel scary to you? To me, I remember in church when they would say that we would live in the kingdom of god for all eternity, I would sit and think about that foreverness and it felt disturbing to me. And to think of the universe being infinite, like beyond the stars was nothing...that gave me goosebumps.
Tonight when I was tucking in Savana she asked me if she could bring her turtle light that makes stars on her ceiling outside and see the stars. I told her it wouldn't work because the light would have nothing to reflect off of. She said she had been meaning to ask me what is past the stars and planets. I told her that as far as we know it goes on forever. She insisted there HAS to be something and it HAS to end. Granted, she was overtired so, like, the blanket twisted wrong could make her cry but she got teary and said that thinking about that made her scared. I wondered to myself if that was a common fear or if it was interesting her and I both felt the same about it.

Oddly enough I was listening to a show on npr today. Sawyer was chattering about something throughout but the gist of it was that the concept of eternity was actually a banned subject at one time because those in charge decided God was the only thing that was infinite and that the idea of anything else being so was blasphemy.

Anyway, I think I'm babbling now. I did have a glass of red wine and Guinness. My two favorites.

I think the concept of infinity is a scary concept when you really examine it, no matter how old you are. I remember being overwhelmed by it as a child.

Yep, I and lots of other adults I know are still scared of the concept of space, infinity, etc. There are some pretty creepy videos on youtube comparing the size of Earth to other heavenly bodies and it does make me feel very small and insignificant. It's fascinating and scary at the same time. Same with the ocean...the parts we haven't explored, the things we don't know about.

I don't know if I really ever thought about it as a kid but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of kids do.

When I think of all that space out there and all that's still unknown about the universe, the human body and consciousness, it mainly makes me feel surprised that religion is so limited in the things it does try to explain.

Regarding the topic of helpful men making their ladies hot and bothered for them, it reminded me of this book someone gave me after Bodhi was born. Check out some of the pages:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...Z5eHCM-kNY#p=0

:laugh:

L. yesterday, Bodhi saw the pic in your siggy and said "I like S_ _ _ _ because my legs are sore!" I thought that was totally random and funny. Plus, I think you're right about all the concerned moms on APA. On that note (about parenting genius), Bodhi is still being such a sweet, well-behaved boy. We played a game at dinner tonite where his 9-day-older cousin kept turning me into things like toads, napkins, and a moose. Bodhi would have to kiss me on the cheek to turn me back into me again. He'd be across the room and hear his cousin say "you're a chicken!", and B would walk dutifully over to kiss my cheek then go back to playing. Finally Bodhi ordered him to "stop turning my mom into different things!" His Nana and Grampa were so touched.

Oh, and he escorted himself to the potty twice to make poops on his own. Still a big deal in our book. I think he likes the orthopedic over-the-potty chair used by his Nana since it has the handles he can hold onto. Hey, whatever works, right?

Sorry to just jump in like this but what-a-day! I knew as soon as I woke up that everything just felt 'off'. By 8:40 I was wishing it was time to hit the bar. Work sucked. So much so there's a big story in there but there's more important things to whine about so I'll just skip all that.

I did get to the bar after work and had 3 drinks in 1.5 hours (the time between the end of my workday and the 'late' bus home). I was nearly passed out on the bus (nothing to eat all day) when my cell rang. It was my cousin and I was hoping she was going to suggest we go out. No, my grandfather was at ER and she'd heard from possible liver failure. So as soon as I get home I grab my mom and my car and drive the 20 miles to the hospital to see him. I think he's going to be ok-it wasn't nearly as bad as Melly was led to believe it was, but could be a real problem. We just won't know till the results come in tomorrow. I was there till about 10:30 at night. After a week of hell and Friday being the icing on the devil's cake of hell I get home at 11:00.

To find Jesi and her bf on my porch waiting for me. Jesi has not been pleasant with me of late, so I was a bit anxious to see her marching to my car. She's 'done' being at her dad's. He's still relying on her to do ALL the housework and take care of Conner. Not only that, but she admitted he's been drinking heavy for the last month every night after work. Drinking till he passes out and she can't wake him up. She was trying to wake him tonight and he kept yelling at her. She had enough and called Bobbie to come get her and Conner (and the bf too).

On the one hand, I am relieved a little for my own selfish sake because she gets it. She admitted that she knows this had been going on for years between us and that's what made me leave. I've always invited the kids to come with me, but they chose to stay with their dad. So hopefully none of them feel abandoned (my worst fear). I don't think any of my girls do but Conner's so little yet. Anyway, the fact that Jesi admitted that she knew it wasn't me is a tremendous relief. Not that I'm perfect. Far from it. I definitely know what my faults were, but I was always willing to work on our marriage. Sadly, Rich wasn't.

On the other hand...I feel terrible for the kids. And for Rich because he's destroying his relationship with his kids. There's nothing I can do and I feel so helpless about it. Sure, Rich is a grown up and he's responsible for himself, but it's so unfair to his kids. They deserve better. :(

That's all I've got. Believe me-the work story is a 'good' one in and of itself (b!tchworthy) but in comparison to what I got going on in my personal life...it's nothing.

Oh, Chrissy...hugs. I am very glad Jesi sees what is happening.

Oh, Chrissy. You need a day to just put up your feet, eat bon bons and take a bubble bath. I get what you're saying about Rich. I geek bad for him too. He has to stop drinking around the kids, though. It is entirely possible to spend the majority of your time sober and have the occasional drink in moderation. Rich can't do that. I do worry about Connor, who's at such a vulnerable age, as well as the other girls. It's not just the fact that he might do something outrageous while drunk, it's the type of behavior he's modeling. It's hard to teach kids to be responsible and proactive in those circumstances. I do wish he'd get help and that you could get Connor more so he's not as exposed to drunk daddy.

Sorry about the rest of your daddy, Chrissy. It's constant hardships for you. :( If you were to pack up your kids and escape with them to some small tropical island to just get away from all that heavy stuff, I wouldn't blame you. You remind me (looks-wise) of a woman I once met in Belize who did just that - dropped out with her kids and ran a cafe/bookstore for backpackers. It can be done...

I got a call out of the blue yesterday from a dear friend - an APA mama actually - who has a lot of experience with Alanon - for relatives of alcoholics. We talked a lot about my sister who is now in recovery, and she's getting me to think about joining and learning about the program. She's fairly secular (part of a church similar to UU) herself, has had struggles with the definition of God in the program, and yet she's made the program work for her for years - takes a leadership role in the community now, in fact. I'm intrigued. Worried about the time commitment, especially now that I likely have to start a new job, but will give it a sincere try when I get to it. There are online options for Alanon. Chrissy, maybe you could find help in that resource too.

I am glad that Jesi is coming around although I do hope she apolgized to you and gave you a great big hug to comfort you about your grandfather.
Okay, so Savana and I aren't alone in our fear of the infinite. I do remember thinking about it during church, the thought of eternal life. I would think of it and then try to shake the thought. It left me feeling...disturbed. When I wasn't doing that I was trying to trying to focus on one ceiling fan blade and see how many times I could follow it around with my eyes. That passed the time quite nicely.

Also, hugs to all of you who deal with alcoholic loved ones. I do believe I have one in my house as well.

I actually was always fascinated by infinity. I remember watching PBS's Nova show (Ky watched the debate and was upset that Mitt mentioned canning PBS because Nova is his favorite show, we watched one right before the debate on material science/engineering and now he is thinking of being a materials engineer instead of a biomedical engineer, he is so science focused and I love that about him). Neil de Grasse Tyson, the black guy who is on there usually when they speak of astro-physics was speaking of how there is no end to the universe. Even when I was a kid and read stuff about that, I found it interesting and wondered what would eventually happen once it was stretched to its limits.

I read Neil de Grasse Tyson's autobiography recently and made Ky read it this summer (Ky didn't read it though so I will have to make him read it again because he told me a fib about how it was too much physics in it and he didn't understand so I read it a month later and it really wasn't that much science lingo in it that he wouldn't understand. Plus I get really into books and was cracking up at Neil - he is my buddy now that I know him via the book lol, like I said I get into books and especially good autobiographies - he is freaking hilarious and very vain and intelligent. He had a funny story about being in grad school and for some reason thinking it would be a good idea to be a stripper as a part time job until he visited a strip club and saw a portion of the actual show and then it came to him that he should be a math tutor. The portion of the show was the strippers putting on asbestos laced cups after soaking them in lighter fluid, then lighting them up and dancing a revue to "Great Balls of Fire" lol).

Neil also mentioned that via his work at the Hayden Planetarium in NYC that he has received many a letter from angry moms after he gave a performance based on the infinite nature of space and time. He said kids would be crying and moms would tell him he should be more sensitive to the kids' feelings. So I think it is a common thing to be afraid of infinity. I used to want to go into astronomy though when I was a kid. Like Ky, I loved science, I still do and am happy Ky loves it so much. I would sit and imagine what was out there and think of how we are all so entertwined and connected and as such would see myself and a grain of sand and oceans all as individual objects that cause the universe to have the exact characteristics that it has at this particular time.

Erin

I really don't have any desire to look into alanon or anything like that. My feeling is it's his problem. He can deal with it. If the kids want counseling or whatever, of course I'd set that up but I'm not interested in learning anything. Just stop f'n drinking or stay out of my life.

Conner is here and it's likely he's going to be with me more than 50% of the time now. The way things are in NY, Rich would have to blatantly break the law while intoxicated before I could do anything about keeping Conner 'away' from him in a supervised visitation scenario anyway. The courts will not listen to family statements or anything like that. Well, they do and they might scold/warn him, but until he actually does something he will be allowed to see his son unsupervised. That's just how it is.

I'm not running off either. My entire extended family is here. I couldn't be happy living away from them. I guess I love them more than I hate the cold (which is a great deal) because otherwise I would have moved away from upstate NY 2 decades ago. :P

I wasn't serious about you running off and starting fresh, Chrissy, although I'd be tempted in your shoes. I have some serious reservations about Alanon myself. If it weren't for the tremendous amount of respect and admiration I have for this friend, I wouldn't even be considering it for my own situation.

I have not had any experience of being fearful of the concept of infinity. I think I actually can't completely even grasp it. I try to imagine it, just going on forever, and it's so difficult. Consciously I can say yes, I can picture this never-ending stretch of space, but deep down in my conceptual awareness, I can't just KNOW it as deeply as I should be able to. Just like I could slog through math most of the time in school and get everything right, but only every once in a while did everything click and I realized that there was a whole other level of awareness that I could be experiencing if I actually really understood math better.

I just did a quick search of it and here is an interesting article about it. I tend to get anxious about money issues or I sometimes ruminate on accidentally hurtful things I said to people years or even decades ago. And spiders. But not infinity, or change, or even death.

Shoot, DH and the twins just came home and Soren is napping. Better go head them off at the pass.

I don't know how he saw it, but DH spotted a few red spots on the roof of Mira's mouth. She doesn't have a fever, isn't acting sick, and isn't being any fussier than normal, so I don't know if it is HFM or not. I did dream last night that she had a really, really bad case (in her mouth; she never gets a mild case of anything anyway). Considering her stellar personality, I can't even begin to imagine just how tough that will be anyways.

I can't remember if my kids had that...it seems like one of the girls did when they were little, but I don't remember it being a big deal. Whooping cough was the worst. Bobbie had it. :(

So my big, bad week at work ended up with a terrible Friday. My boss is something of a micromanager and I've witnessed her undermining my colleagues a few times. Yesterday was my turn. She'd ordered a brand new Macbook Air for our VP. Mountain Lion is the new OS and that's what it came with. Because it's new and Cornell is slow at updating their services, SEP (Symantec Endpoint Protection) and our EZBackup systems aren't officially supported on Mountain Lion yet. In theory, they should work but because CIT won't give the 'ok' my boss (Lisa) wanted me to downgrade it to Lion (the previous OS). I told her I didn't think I could but she said that I MUST because the computer needs to have EZBackup and SEP installed. She refused to either allow me to test them on the new OS or use alternative programs (Time Machine and another antivirus) on the new computer. She went ahead and purchased the Lion OS for it and told me to install it.

I wasn't the only one that told her it wouldn't work. Faye also tried to convince her but she wouldn't listen. I even chatted with my former boss (a mac guru that many outside of Arts & Sciences call when they're stuck on really bad Mac problems) about it and he kept shaking his head and saying it wouldn't work. He said even IF I could get it installed on there (which he doubted I could), it would be completely unstable and would likely crash. He also went on to say that Lion itself is unreliable. He's had 3 machines fail and come back as 'bad' hard drives, but was able to retrieve the data, reformat the drive, and put Snow Leopard on, upgrading to Mountain Lion (skipping Lion altogether) and have the same 'bad' drive run just fine. Mountain Lion is the 'fix' for the bad OS that Lion was. So again, even if I could get Lion on it, he didn't recommend it at all.

I went back to Lisa and relayed all this. I think she should know that John is really a mac genius most people around the IT crowd at Cornell know this or have at least heard it through the grapevine. Yet she STILL insisted I do it. Make it happen! Hell...if my former boss the mac genius doesn't think it will work, I'm pretty sure I cannot make it work. But she's the boss so I'm gonna waste my time trying to make the impossible, possible.

After I left for the day, she sent out this email to Cornell's network admin list:

Quote:

---

We just purchased a new MacBook Air (running Mountain Lion). We are using SEP and EZ-Backup in our unit, neither of which have been confirmed supported yet on Mountain Lion. I saw the following post that suggests that we can’t rollback to Lion (and have heard this from others): https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0

How are folks dealing with new Mac purchases? Is anyone having success running the current SEP/EZ-Backup on Mountain Lion?

Lisa

---

She doesn't mention it was her own team that told her it wouldn't work. She wouldn't have even been Googling the issue if we didn't go to her a number of times on this. I know when we regroup on Monday she's going to have a different plan, but it will be all her idea. It will be "so-and-so said we should ______" and even if it's something I initially suggested she won't acknowledge that.

She did the same crap to our sys admin guys over the zero-day IE compromise stuff the other week. They found the solution and pushed it to the test group and she got mad that they didn't discuss it with her first. She made them pull it back. Ted, meanwhile, had sent the solution to Cornell's security team. The next day they sent out that same solution to the whole security list via email and Lisa told Ted that was what she wanted them to do...hello! The security team got the info from Ted and it was the exact same thing he'd done that she had a fit about. So he went through AGAIN and pushed it out to the test machines. It was days of hemming and hawing and testing and waiting when if she'd just trust that her team knows wtf they're doing, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. She made Ted & Brandon redo all their work and waste time trying to explain to her why they knew what they were doing and in the end, she came up with the same solution but wouldn't credit them that it was the exact one they discovered and tried to implement days before.

I'm willing to waste hours and days on trying to make Lion run on a machine built for Mountain Lion. Geek me loves that. But it's difficult to really put my mind to that task given how busy we are. I need to focus and spend hours researching and trial and error. I can't get that. And I really resent the fact that she cannot simply take our word for it. I spent the majority of Friday myself looking into it. If there was a way it could be done, I would have found it. But the OS is built into the firmware, so Apple prevents you from being able to easily install any OS you want. What did she think I was doing all day Friday?

Oh, man, Chrissy. What a nightmare. Reminds me of what was going on at my work where they wanted us to do one thing, we kept coming up with reasons why we couldn't do that, and finally they magically change their minds and scrap the whole thing. I truly understand. Seriously frustrating. I wonder, and same with your case - why do they hire us and rely on our expertise if they don't trust us to know our jobs? It's ridiculous.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gwenn

Oh, man, Chrissy. What a nightmare. Reminds me of what was going on at my work where they wanted us to do one thing, we kept coming up with reasons why we couldn't do that, and finally they magically change their minds and scrap the whole thing. I truly understand. Seriously frustrating. I wonder, and same with your case - why do they hire us and rely on our expertise if they don't trust us to know our jobs? It's ridiculous.

---

That's exactly what Ted said when she did that to him over the zero-day bot...and exactly how I felt over the whole Macbook Air fiasco. It's been over 24 hours and I still feel so angry about it. If she dares question me about what helpdesk tickets I handled on Friday I won't be able to keep my temper.

Man, that's tough. It's really hard to do one's job if the boss doesn't trust that you actually know what you're doing. I once had a boss that told us we had to do things her way. Like if we had to do A+B+C, she wanted us to do it as A+C, then add B, like that makes any kind of difference. And it was always because 'I said so'.

I'm beginning to suspect your best chance of being promoted is to be an idiot.

While I'm whining about work, can I ask if there's anything wrong with not having goals beyond keeping up with what's necessary to do your job? We're expected to list career and lifetime goals for our self assessments. I resent that. If I'm happy with what I do, why can't I just want to stay till I retire? They act like that indicates you're unmotivated and lazy, which isn't the case.

I always tell people my goal is to be a seasoned veteran doing exactly what I do 5, 10, 20 years down the line. (Not completely true. My goal is to retire when I'm 55.) But I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be a really good soldier instead of a general. If I'm asked to elaborate, I tell the story of my past experience in a leadership role, and how it wasn't a good fit for my interests. The kind of boss who's disappointed in the fact that you don't want to climb the ladder is one who's disappointed that s/he can't dangle the prospect of a promotion in front of you like a carrot.

Well this is a Cornell HR thing. There really isn't any room for me to be promoted at Alumni Affairs. I'd have to leave and go to another college or unit within Cornell. And they frown upon people doing that too much. Kinda hypocritical of them I guess...but in other professions maybe it makes sense. If I were a lecturer, I'd probably hope to be a full professor some day.

System Administration interests geek me, but realistically I dint want to be stuck in a cube all day. I LOVE interacting with our users like I do. I need it to feel fulfilled. I have no interest in management whatsoever.

I hate that too chrissy. we have to do the same thing. And work plans where we have to have special projects and goals on top of normal job stuff. I have no desire to move up in what I do.....and really I cannot be promoted. There is only one above me and he's only a year older than me and no way is he planning leaving. I could maybe at some point look to get a job if one opened at the mother institution but that would require moving 2 hours to another state....and I love my city and love my house.
I get plenty of variety in my current position....and my boss gets to deal with big problems that arise and budgets.


I am currently in a hotel all alone. So boring and I wish I was at home. Dh said Cosmo has spent most of the night in the laundry room at the door waiting for me to come home. :( Molly whined a bit but is otherwise ok with me gone. She has gone in to see if Cosmo was doing something cool in there and left when she realized she wasn't. LOL

I really don't like at all being away from DH and my girls.