Lift Up Your Hearts!

Jon has graciously lent us Heather and Jonathan for a week! They arrived yesterday. I met them as they were descending the escalator; Jonathan saw me and shouted, “Grandma!” quickly followed by “Dad-o?” We reassured him that he would see Dad-o after we drove home. On the way he announced, “Aunt Jan't 'Pan!” He knows we’re associated with Aunt Janet, but he can’t see her this trip because she’s in Japan.

By the time we arrived, Jonathan was asleep, so he didn’t get to see Dad-o until he awakened. When he did, he walked into Dad-o's office for a joyful reunion, though he was quickly distracted by the view from Dad-o’s window: “Swim!” At this point I was at the grocery store, so he had to wait about 20 minutes, but as soon as I returned I heard, “Grandma home! Go swimming!” So we did.

Jonathan was a good sport about getting out of the water before he was ready, and about eating our pad thai dinner with chopsticks. At first he called a piece of shrimp “mushroom” but adopted the corrected name as soon as I informed him. After dinner we went shopping and Jonathan now has a lovely new pair of running shoes—a.k.a. sneakers.

After we pulled into the garage, Jonathan asked to be able to “’tend to drive.” So I stayed with him in the car while he took over the driver’s seat and pretended to drive. All went well for a while, as he talked about fastening the seat belt, and pointed out to me that his feet couldn’t reach the pedals. He steered, and adjusted the knobs, and learned how to turn the overhead lights on and off. Then the garage light, which is turned on when the door opens and turns itself off after a while, suddenly plunged us into darkness. I turned on the car light, but Jonathan was unsettled enough that he decided it was time to go inside and find Mommy.

Then I made a mistake. I asked him to stay where he was while I got out of the car and turned the garage light on so we could see to get into the house. The mistake was in shutting my car door. I turned on the light, and Jonathan, in his effort to open his door, locked himself in the car! I wasn’t really worried, since the keys were inside the house with Heather, but tried to talk him through unlocking the car. He knew exactly what to do, and kept pressing the button, but he was pressing it in the “lock” position. Finally, through chance or thought or instruction, I know not which, he pressed it to “unlock,” and we went into the house.

There are several contrasts to their visit a year ago. For one thing, Daddy's not here, and for another we're not locked down by a hurricane. We’re sad about the former, but the latter is a great improvement. This year, Jonathan made himself at home immediately with the toys in “Jonathan’s Cupboard," took them out, called them by their names, and began to entertain himself for long periods of time, providing delightful running commentary along the way. His language and vocabulary have grown so much, even since we saw him in July. Heather and Jon’s habit of not modelling baby talk is evident. One exception is “choo-choo train,” which he occasionally uses instead of “train.” He picked that up from a book; some authors have a lot to answer for.

One of Janet's classes was discussing the causative have, such as "I had my hair cut" and "I had my bike stolen." She noted that the latter can make it sound as if the person caused his bike to be stolen, though that is not the way it is normally used. That set me thinking. To me,

I'm glad I learned English as a child, when accepting such subtleties was still easy! Any comments, grammar experts?

It began when I said to Porter, "I'm riding to the post office; do you want to join me?"

The post office is less than two miles from home, so as part of our effort to make our gasoline supply last as long as possible, I had decided to go by bicycle to mail an important package. Porter was happy to come, but suggested we continue on and see how far we could get on the nearby bike trail. Bear in mind that our bicycles had seen but little use for a long time. Intrepid or foolish, we filled our water bottles, figured out how to work our new helmets, and took off.

For those to whom this has meaning: we crossed over the I-4 bridge! And went a bit further, to one of our churches, then turned toward home. I'd like to tell you how exhausted I was when I finally glided into our driveway, and how every muscle in my legs was throbbing...but Janet climbed Mt. Fuji this weekend and I'm sure after I read her report I'll feel a little silly...and a lot wimpy.

It was a lot of fun, though.

It was a triathlon, in an out of shape, over 50 sort of way.

We still haven't been able to fill up the cars since the gas panic Wednesday night. Not that we tried very hard, but the one station we pulled into on our way home from choir rehearsal Thursday night was out of gas. (It's not that our choir meets two nights per week; we sing with two churches.) So instead of driving to the park for our thrice-weekly run, on Friday we rode our bicycles.

1. Ride to the park.
2. Run (or walk/run in my case)
3. Ride home.
4. Jump in the pool.

Works for me.

The terrifying power of panic to disrupt and destroy was best illustrated this week in Iraq, where the stampede provoked by rumor of a suicide bomber killed and injured innocent people in numbers exceeding the wildest expectations of any individual with a bomb in his backpack.

As a far-off planet reflects the fiery sun, panic made its power known here on Wednesday, also. Driving to choir rehearsal on Wednesday night, we could have filled our gas tank easily at any of a number of stations along the way, for the price of $2.69/gallon. On the way home it was a different story. While we had been happily singing, word began to spread that Florida was running out of gasoline. The Orange County School District cancelled all non-essential bus service (sports, field trips) and announced that even with the cutbacks parents might have to begin driving their children to school in another week. This was enough to convince half of Central Florida that they needed to buy gasoline, NOW. Those calm, quiet gas stations we had passed earlier in the evening now had lines of waiting cars that stretched for blocks, and police officers on site to keep order. Prices had jumped at least 10 cents per gallon. A few stations had no lines—because they had run out of fuel.

We chose not to join the snaking lines, trusting that our 3/4 full gas tank would see us through until the situation stabilized. During hurricane season, the recommendation is that you don't let your gas tank get below half full. Maybe that's a good idea year 'round, because it wasn't Florida's disaster that caused this shortage.

Even before Hurricane Katrina, when we were paying around $2.55 for a gallon of gasoline, the adjustments made necessary by the increased price fueled many a news story. From the tone of the reports, one would think we were in a crisis of terrible proportions, but their content was encouraging. People now had to think twice, it was said, before making a trip by car. They were combinging trips, carpooling, using public transportation, walking, and riding bikes. All of which looks like good news to me.

News reporters, it seems, are most enthusiastic when reporting bad news, and love to expand problems into disasters. I don't believe you can call our fuel problems a crisis, even post-Katrina, any more than I believe we have an obesity crisis, although most Americans are undeniably overfed and underexercised.

Nonetheless, I will use the media's terms and make the encouraging prediction that if we don't interfere with the process too much, the energy crisis may go a long way toward curing the obesity crisis.

If you have contacts in the Mississippi area, please check out this friend's plea for locating missing relatives.

Pressure is increasing on schools to remove that nutritional disaster called soda from their vending machines and replace it with healthy fare like water, juice, and milk. In response, the soft drink manufacturers, not to be caught with their profits down, have succeeded in spinning milk into soda. Take a delicious bottle of milk, add sugar, artificial flavor, and sometimes even carbonation, give it a name like Milky Way, Starburst, or Bubble Blast, and voila! — a drink no calf would recognize.

Schools are happy; they can continue to expect income from their highly profitable vending machines. Soft drink companies are happy; they've found a way around the threat to evict them from campus. Apparently even mothers are happy, as they are finding this an easier way to get some of the benefits of milk to children who whine for breakfast soda. So why am I such a grumpy old lady about this new trend? After all, I do love hot cocoa, an early form of sugared, flavored milk, and I'll admit a cup of steaming Milky Way flavored milk on a cold night sounds delightful. Two things, I suppose: There's a difference between an occasional cup of cocoa and having fat-laden, artificially flavored sugared drinks several times a day; moreover, I am saddened at the realization that so many of the next generation are growing up with no knowledge of the delights in drinking plain, cold, smooth, perfect-with-a-plate-of-Grandma's-cookies milk.

By this time last year we had already experienced our first major hurricane, Charley, but Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan were September storms. Now we are not even into September, and we are up to K in named storms, with Tropical Depression 13 forming in the Atlantic.

Unless she takes an unexpected turn, the bull's eye of Katrina's target is New Orleans, but even far-away Pittsburgh is preparing for trouble, fearing heavy rains will cause flooding and trouble for the area's dams. Last year the remnants of Ivan made quite a mess of Western Pennsylvania. Our friends in Ohio and Indiana may be in for some rough weather, too. But it's New Orleans that needs our prayers most at the moment.

In England, Darren and Debbie Wyatt are fighting in court to save the life of their 22-month old daughter, Charlotte, who is severely handicapped. Charlotte is no Terri Schiavo, with her parents and her legal husband in disagreement over her medical care. The Wyatts' battle is with England's medical and legal system, with doctors who insist Charolotte has no "quality of life," and a court ruling giving the doctors authority, against her parents' wishes, to refuse to resuscitate Charlotte if she stops breathing.

Bottom line, though no one is admitting it: The United Kingdom's socialized health care system is financially strained, and it costs too much to keep Charlotte alive.

Unquestionable reality: Some types of medical care are expensive, and resources are not limitless.

Critical Question: Who should make medical decisions for you and your loved ones? Some would say the ultimate authority should rest with some form of government, whether legislative, judicial, or a medical review board, because otherwise the limited resources will end up going to those with the most money rather than those who are most deserving. I would argue that someone who doesn't have enough money for medical care has room for appeal: insurance, friends and family, charities, other governmental programs, fundraisers, pleas to the general public. It may not be easy, but there is room for hope. Where can you turn when an institution, under the influence of philosophies that may differ vastly from your own, decides that you—or your child, or your parent, or your spouse—no longer deserve to live?

Focusing on Charlotte's quality of life, or on what decisions you would make were she your own child, only distracts from the vitally important issue: Who has the authority to make life and death decisions for you and your family?

If you believe that we can trust governmental and institutional authorities to make the wisest decisions, I have a public school system and a war in Iraq to sell you.

We awoke to our first hurricane warning of the season: Hurricane Katrina is heading towards South Florida, but that doesn't mean we're in the clear. It doesn't look like anything we need to worry about, but it's worth noting. I observe that the first hurricane warning comes one letter of the alphabet further than the last hurricane warning of last season.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Typhoon Mawar is aimed straight at Janet, and it's a lot stronger than Katrina. I'm trusting the mountains will remove some of its fury before it reaches Kofu. Classes have been cancelled for the first two periods tomorrow, although the teachers still have to come to school.

This has been going on long enough I'd better post a notice here: our phones have been out since some time after 3:30 p.m. today. This is the biggest problem we've ever had with our almost entirely delightful AT&T CallVantage Voice Over IP service. It's not a local problem, as other CallVantage customers in the midwest and on the west coast have reported the same problem. Apparently when you call us, you get the "All circuits are busy" message. If we try to call out, we have a dial tone, and the phone appears to dial, but the connection is never made.

We can still access the Internet, except for getting our phone messages; we can't access the CallVantage site, which also tells me this is a major problem, and that it is AT&T's, not ours.

I'll post here when service is restored. In the meantime, I have my cell phone on, and you can post messages here (via comments) if need be.

After lunch we used our United Arts two-for-one card to visit the Orlando Museum of Art and their new M. C. Escher exhibit. I’ve been a fan of Escher's works for as long as I can remember. The travelling exhibit is from Portland, Oregon, and most of the prints were anonymously lent. The collection represented works from the obscure to the famous, from all periods of his art. University of Central Florida composer Stella Sung created the ambient music for Orlando’s presentation of these works, and the exhibit was complemented by a video presentation of Escher-inspired animations created by UCF students.
Since the museum is not far from the Winter Park Borders, we stopped there instead of at the one near home for me to use my 30% off coupon. That Borders just happens to be in the same plaza as the Cheesecake Factory…so we had “dinner” there: the incomparable Avocado Eggroll appetizer, and the Fabulous Chocolate Mousse Cake dessert. The Cheesecake Factory is high on the list of my all-time favorite restaurants, and their Avocado Eggrolls epitomize my idea of what makes eating at a restaurant worthwhile—absolutely delicious and much too much work even to attempt to reproduce at home.

It hasn't been this hot in Orlando since 1950.  Today's high was 97 degrees, officially, though when we were out in the car its thermometer read 100.  Naturally we chose today to struggle about  a dozen heavy boxes up the the aluminum ladder and pack them into the attic.  But there was really no point in waiting till October....

I've noted before some of the problems with epidural pain relief during childbirth, and my latest reading, Lise Eliot's What's Going on in There: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life confirms my worries. Here are a few of her concerns:

• Every drug used for epidural anesthesia can diffuse out of the epidural space and enter the baby’s circulation. The good news…is that the total amount of drug reaching the baby is considerably lower than in systemic administration. Nonetheless, whatever dose does enter the mother’s bloodstream crosses quite efficiently to the baby’s circulation.


• Although many studies report no effect…on Apgar scores or cursory neurological exams, few of them have used wholly unmedicated mothers as a control group. Using more sensitive indices of infant behavior, some studies have found that newborns…are less alert, less able to orient toward stimuli, and less mature in their motor abilities than babies of unmedicated mothers. Greater exposure…makes babies jumpy and more irritable. The effects are most pronounced on the first day after birth, but some have been found to persist up to six weeks of life.


• The most common side effect of epidural administration is…a reduction in the mother’s blood pressure. Maternal hypotension is at least partially responsible for the fact that the baby’s heart rate often slows down for a while shortly after an epidural anesthetic is injected. If the mother’s blood pressure falls too low for too long, it can seriously compromise blood flow to the placenta, reducing the fetus’s supply of oxygen. These serious side effects are prevented by giving the woman fluids through an IV….If this countermeasure doesn’t work, another drug may be needed to prevent her blood pressure from falling too low and compromising the baby.


• Many studies have now shown that women who receive epidurals have longer labors, on average, than women receiving systemic analgesia. This is especially the case during the pushing phase…. Women receiving epidurals are more frequently diagnosed with dystocia, the failure of labor to progress, four times likelier to require forceps, and two or three times likelier to end up having a C-section, than women receiving systemic analgesia or no pain relief.


• Although most babies are not significantly affected, epidural anesthesia may compromise the health of the small subset of babies already at risk due to illness, prematurity, or a difficult delivery. Encouraging more women to have unmedicated deliveries would be better for babies, and for the women themselves, who would be exposed to fewer side effects, have shorter labors, and might be in better shape to begin breast-feeding and bonding with their babies right after delivery.

None of these concerns surprised me. What I did find astonishing was her report of the difficulty in getting reliable data on the adverse effects of epidural anesthesia relative to no anesthesia at all, instead of relative to other forms of pain relief: “There are simply too few ‘natural’ deliveries to enroll in a clinical study!” Upon reflection, I believe there are more mothers who chose unmedicated delivery than she implies, though I’m also certain the numbers are far lower than they would be if the public were better educated about the joys of natural childbirth and the dangers of anesthesia. Two additional reasons come to mind for the lower numbers available for study: Those who chose natural childbirth often do so for reasons that would also make them reluctant to have their newborns’ lives disrupted by clinical study. And, sadly, the hostile atmosphere frequently encountered by those seeking to avoid unnecessary medical interventions in the births of their babies often drives them underground, where they avoid observation for good as well as ill.