I did get an e-mail from my sister Julie this morning, describing an alarm clock that went off at 3:20 AM, spices in the medicine cabinet, and the old classic, switching the salt & sugar. I pulled that one on my parents once, and I didn't really get much of a reaction, just a wry thanks from my mother. Still, it makes me glad---even though she's still just a baby--that we have a daughter, not sons. (I should add that that I do want a son as well, so we'll likely be getting this form of treatment ourselves, at least once or twice, at some point down the road.) Of course, in true sisterly style, Julie's note ended with health advice, since she'd read my post about health care and my blurb about my guts. Ah, sisters. Never too busy for the occasional dollop of advice.
Rhode Island has just emerged from a historic rainfall--nearly 16 inches in two days, and over 20 for the month of March--and is still recovering from even more historic flooding. Route 95, the main interstate thoroughfare, has been closed for over a day. President Obama declared Rhode Island to be in a state of emergency and dispatched FEMA. There are pictures all over the internet--from news sites to Facebook--showing parking lots flooded up to the windows of cars. The Warwick Mall was
submerged under three feet of water, as was a Toyota dealership not far from here. The damage is easily counted in many millions of dollars. North Kingstown isn't a valley, and is close enough to Narragansett Bay that the rivers drain with reasonable efficiency, but one local road was underwater. Annaquatucket Road, which follows the (normally tiny) Annaquatucket River through the woods, was still closed last night. The river discharges into a lagoon right alongside this condominium, and features a large pond, impounded by the causeway supporting Route 1A. Thanks to the main road, and the small drainage culvert, the pond overtopped and covered Annaquatucket Road. I went wet-wheeling through it Monday night before it was closed, and was momentarily worried that I'd lose traction, land in a ditch and total the car. At least that didn't happen.So Rhode Island is still drying out, and will be for several days. Many have lost their homes. It's possible that some businesses won't recover. This was a hurricane without the wind, and in fact, rainier than many hurricanes. Some of the worst hurricanes in history have overwhelmed areas more with rainfall than wind: Galveston in 1900, Camille in 1969, Andrew in 1992, Mitch in 1998. The rainstorm just past wasn't nearly as intense as those monsters--16" in two days, as opposed to 24" in one--but it was no ordinary April shower.
Now Julie's advice had to do with stress management, which is a smart approach. There aren't many people I know--and I'd have to think--who don't have a degree of stress in their lives. Stress is a human instinct, like all of our other mental conditions. Stress motivates us to do stuff. The brain can also become hyperanxious, and have what you might call a mental allergic reaction to things that are comparatively minor. It's a warming from our brain, often by means of physical symptoms. I've felt plenty of it in the last year over finances and employment. Then, sometimes I get wigged out because the Celts can't find a decent backup power forward (or, some nights, a starter). Stress is a complicated phenomenon I couldn't pretend to explain fully. And Julie's sisterly concern that I might need help managing mine is welcome...I've never tried accupuncture. I'm game, though we can't even afford our weekly jaunt to Starbucks right now. So we'll see. For all the idiotic right-wing cries of the end of freedom as we know it, Obama's health care reform isn't nearly socialistic enough to get me accupuncture right now. So I'll just rely on the usual methods: Kate, Eva, Jasper, a little gym and singing time, and making plans.
Since I've been a kid, I've loved to draw maps and come up with groups and organizations that did stuff. Every Thanksgiving, Uncle Jack, Aunt Pam and our cousins Jessica and Evan
would come over. For several years running, Jessica and I would set up a little office in the basement with card tables and foldable chairs. I'd ransack a filing cabinet down there for neat-looking documents and forms (all from Dad's past business dealings, mostly Able Shipwrights, which he'd been required by law to keep for 7 years...since he never complained, I'm supposing those 7 years had expired). And Jessica and I would set up our business: International Bank Branch, or IBB. (So named because Dad was VP of a local bank branch at the time, I guess. I won't bother to defend my childhood ideas, any more than I will my current ideas. Either you're on board or you're not.) And we'd shuttle family members through, making loans, taking deposits, all the things bankers do...right?
And of course, aside from Thanksgiving, there were all the obligatory secret spy maps with hideouts and headquarters and weapons of various types. Just things I liked to do.
So I think it's no great mystery that I've settled on cartography--mapmaking--as a major element of my career, and also that I'm getting a bit entrepreneurial about it. I'm making plans to establish a non-profit group to scientifically investigate coastal and offshore archeological sites in the Near East. Now that I'm deeply into writing the business plan, I'm discovering whole new pools of enthusiasm in myself I'd forgotten all about. For on top of being a sales pitch and best estimate as to expected performance, a business plan is a questionnaire for the entrepreneur, an opportunity to explain his or her goals, methods and expectations. I'm having lots of fun with it.
So that's one thing, but of course it doesn't pay the bills--and wouldn't for quite some time, anyway--but it keeps me smiling through the other mundane issues which spring from having only a part-time job, but full-time expenses. Kate, who might never post another entry again, has just started her sign language instruction business. It's really not my tale to tell, so I won't go into details, but she's basically a franchise owner for the Signing Time instruction company. Kate is younger--in some cases, by a couple of decades--than the women she's working with and advising. In those cases where these women have advanced degrees, Kate, who has yet to finish college, has to overcome quite a bit of trepidation. And there are plenty of times when she can hide turmoil behind a quiet face. I've gotten much better at divining the turmoil, but Kate can be anxious at all times of day. She's told me about the anxieties of starting her own business, while not feeling fully qualified, and I can identify. I think that we're both somewhat in the same position--entrepreneurs with ideas, also being aware of holes in our knowledge--is a great common point of experience. Kate sets about managing a staff of teachers older and in some
cases more lettered than she is, and I set about looking to raise a hundred grand or two to fund my Indiana Jones jones.Hey, at least I've got the jacket and the hat! No whip or gun, though. But I do want to learn karate.
Kate has said many times that she'll feel wistful once Eva's no longer a baby, but graduates to toddlerhood. She cherishes Eva's helplessness (and before long will probably start hankering for a replacement baby, so I'd better go full-time soon, huh?). It's a thrill watching the little girl gain the ability to express herself and do things. She's gotten noticeably stronger, and when you're holding her and not looking out, she can grab a lip and pull pretty hard, or nail you in the eye with an inadvertent fist. She regularly beats on Kate while nursing. She just flails away with her free arm while sucking contentedly.
Another trend is vocalizing. She's got a larger vocabulary, so to speak, of whines, yelps, cries and coos, and one I love especially: a good, old-fashioned "ppphhhbbbtttphbbbtpphhttbb!". Only Eva's are particularly wet and sloppy, and will leave a trail of dribble down her chin. Maybe I shouldn't be encouraging her in this, since she now does that more than almost anything else. She's my daughter, she already passes enough gas for 3. Perhaps I shouldn't encourage her in even more socially indecorous behavior. It used to be that if I made that sound back to her, she'd stop and stare at me if I'd just dropped an F-bomb (only she doesn't stare that way when I really do drop an actual F-bomb...but, moving along). Now, she smiles and says "pphhhbbtttbbphhbt!" back. It started out as more of an expression of frustration, when she wanted something or felt confined in her chair (since we still strap her into her bouncy chair at home). But now it's become more of her running stream-of-consciousness commentary. Kate will bring her downstairs in the morning, and Eva is spitting away happily. I don't really care. It still makes me laugh, so I won't be trying to make her stop any time soon.
(Kate I'm sure thanks me for this.)
But more exciting is the progress Eva is making toward crawling. Several times now we've seen her in the company of other babies. With the exception of her cousin Daniel (son of Kate's sister Cori), who's just indescribably huge, Eva dwarfs every other infant she's around. (Truth be told, she's longer than Daniel, but that kid is built like a defensive lineman.) Eva is larger than almost all of the 1-year-olds, but is still immobile, and relatively oblivious to her surroundings. It's a bit painful to watch her sitting there like a lump, while smaller babies crawl and walk all around her, pursuing toys or even paying attention to her, and she grows scared and frustrated and begins to cry (especially if one of them stumbles across one of her feet). Even at this very early stage of life, when none of the kids can really do much, I have to remind myself repeatedly that she's generally younger than the other kids. In time she'll have the strength and muscle control to move around and play with other children. But not yet.
She's nearly crawling, though, and as friends balefully tell us, our lives will be (even more) over once she starts. Right now, Kate puts her on a rug or on the bed, and places a toy in front of her a foot or two away, and challenges Eva to go get it. Eva's staring straight at the toy, plainly wants it, and starts pumping her legs a bit, but moves nowhere. After a while her arms get tired from holding her upper body off the floor and she collapses facefirst. Eva might lie there for a moment or two, or turn her head to the side and look a us piteously, before trying again. She can't quite get her hips off the floor and her knees under her yet, but she's coming closer. Her latest acrobatic feat is to coil both legs up and then kick them both at once, launching herself a few inches forward onto her face. She's getting there.
Just like Kate and me.
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