where were you when America came to its senses..

and Obama's health care reform passed?

I was in Chevy's (Mexican chain restaurant, one of my guilty pleasures) in Auburn (Historic gold mining town in the Sierra foothills, on the route from Tahoe to San Francisco).

Before I continue this post, since I'm sure you are on tenderhooks, the weekend with our new friends was lovely. I very much enjoyed their company, and I sincerely hope they felt the same way.

The only really embarrassing kid meltdown moment happened when they were not around to witness it. When we spend a day at the ski resort we don't respect the childrens' nap schedule. Geekygirl can do without a nap, at four she is outgrowing them, but Geekyboy does need a good two hours kip after lunch. However napping at 1pm doesn't really fit in with a day of skiing. So instead of a nap we give him some juice, and some M&M's, and he breaks on through without his sleep until we leave the resort, usually at around two thirty. He is a trooper, our Geekyboy. I think our new friends were rather taken aback by our laissaiz faire attitude to the daily rituals of the toddler, and I know I would have been too. When Geekygirl was our only child, her naps were sacrosanct.

It was such a beautiful day on Saturday that we we really pushed the envelope. Geekydaddy and our guest daddy had pulled the last ski shift of the day. The other little boy and his mum had sensibly gone home for his nap, and I was left managing my sleep deprived, sugar filled kids. I had taken them outside and they were running around the outdoor bar/restaurant at the lodge. It all started to go haywire as they both ran in opposite directions, into the racks of skis, down toward the parking lot, oblivious to my instructions and pleadings. I ended up putting an angry, defiant Geekygirl into time out, and afterwards she was so enraged by my discipline and so determined to gain control over the situation that she said "I'm going to show everyone my bottom". And she did. She pulled down her leggings and mooned all the folks enjoying a nice apres ski beer.

It was actually quite an effective tactic on her part, as I ended up laughing too hard to parent properly. Disaster was averted as the band started playing and I danced around to the bluegrass music with the children. I'm sure we made quite a sight, clopping about in ski boots, but all my self conciousness was completely obliterated by the bare bum incident. It made for an entertaining dinner story for our guests, after we returned everyone home safely to the cabin!

But back to Chevy's and healthcare.

As we waited for our table, both Geekygirl and Geekyboy stared wide eyed at a fellow patron. This man had a hook instead of a hand. It wasn't quite a 'captain hook' style limb, it had a simple pincer like function, but it was no modern prosthetic. I didn't stare so obviously at the poor guy, but his condition prompted me to wonder why he had a plain old hook fixture instead of a true artificial hand.  A man I knew back home in the UK had lost his forearm and hand in an accident, and he had sported, over the years I knew him, a progressively more sophisticated series of "Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi" black gloved artifical hands. I wonder if a lack of decent health insurance had left this man with a hook instead of a discreet atrificial limb that would have made him less of a spectacle. I don't recall seeing anyone in the UK with a metal hook for an arm in recent years, and I know that the one armed person I knew wasn't at all wealthy so I"m assuming that the NHS covers prosthetic limbs.

After we were seated and eating I noticed the kids again staring, fixated, at a fellow customer. This time it was a woman in the booth opposite. I found myself staring too this time, at a woman who was clearly trying to turn herself into Malibu Barbie. Skinny, toffee coloured and with unfeasibly large, extremely eye catching, perfectly round breasts. She was wearing hot pants and a teeny tiny shirt which was straining heroically to keep her covered; clothing scanty even for California in March. I  don't think I've ever seen a woman quite this distorted by surgery in the UK, either. but I have heard rumor that quite frivolous body enhancing surgeries can be obtained on the NHS.

It did amuse me that the children responded with the same rapt gaze of horror and wonder to the woman with  blimp-like breasts as they did to the man with the hook-like arm.


After I returned to the car and flipped my phone to facebook, I heard the news that Obama and Pelosi had gotten the votes to get the health reform bill passed. The contrast between the two very differently enhanced people we had seen in the restaurant started a debate in my head about healthcare; about the needs of individuals versus the cost to the taxpayer. Should everyone be entitled to the best in artificial limbs? Should health insurance cover cosmetic "enhancements"? What about IVF?

This new legislation is, in my opinion, a huge step in the right direction despite its flaws, finally dragging the USA up into the club of truly civilized nations that meet the medical needs of all their citizens.

As medicine and its technology advances though, these questions of cost, benefit and moral obligation are only going to get thornier, both here in the US and around the world. It is going to be an interesting few years.

apprehension

We have been fortunate enough to make some new friends recently. They are fellow parents at daycare of a boy in Geekyboy's class. We've socialized a few times with the kids, and had a very nice time, but this weekend we're taking our relationship one step further. They are coming to stay with us for the weekend at our place in Tahoe.

I'm nervous. It is a big commitment spending the whole weekend with people, especially people you don't know all that well. There is a lot of conversation to be had. Lots of potential for awkwardness. Lots of dishes to wash.

I spent money we can't really afford on a new coverlet and matching throw pillow for the guest bed. I've been to their house you see, and it is rather well appointed, whereas our Tahoe place, though it has many charms,  is furnished mainly with tatty things the previous owners left behind.

I packed nice clothes for myself, though usually I spend the weekend in my sweatpants or my ski undies. Quite often we don't even find time to shower, so I'd better squeeze one of those in this weekend if I can.

I recycled the 50 old copies of Star and Us magazine I have laying about and replaced them with "the Economist" and "Scientific American" (we do actually subscribe to those magazines, I didn't buy them specially!)

And I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the children behave well all weekend. I know that these friends are not coming to judge my parenting, but who doesn't feel a little under the microscope, dealing with the usual day to day drama that is to be expected with a four and two year old.

So, parenting gods, please smile on me this weekend.  I"m hoping that my kids don't fight with their little boy (an only child, unused to having to negotiate for playthings). Please don't let them bash him over the head with trains, toy saucepans or electronic games. I'm crossing my fingers that Geekygirl doesn't do one of her middle of the night fits of the screaming ab dabs about pyjamas or pull ups and wake the entire house. I'm really counting on neither of the children biting me in front of our friends. And please, please, please, even if all of this does come to pass, please don't let Geekygirl call their little boy, who is in that rapid "hear it once and repeat it forever" phase of language learning right now, a "penis head".

It will be fun, right?!

The journey is the destination

This is written across the front of one of my cross country ski shirts, and is meant to convey a message about that sport, but I feel it is a good slogan for parenting, or just life in general. I took up cross country skiing when I met Geekydaddy. The first winter that we were dating he paid my share of a ski lease cabin, something he and his friends did every year. He's always been a generous guy. At the time I was a post doctoral fellow with very little disposable income, and he figured if he wanted to see me at all I needed to come up to the cabin. I now know that he was very much hoping I would love the mountains and their associated sports as much as he did. It was a wise move on his part, this was the beginning of a long love affair, with the mountains and with each other.

Geekdaddy is an avid winter sportsman, he skis and snowboards like a pro, having spent most of his youth in Switzerland. We have a fantastic picture of him on the cabin wall,  taken when he was in his late teens, performing a jump from a peak in Verbiere on one of the very first snowboards. I love to downhill ski too,  though I am far less skilled, but I had never tried the cross country "nordic" type of skiing. I don't know many Brits who do. You may have seen it on the winter olympics, men and women in vivid lycra outfits flying along groomed trails with an arm and leg action just like those NordicTrak gym machines. By the end of that first winter I was hooked. The trails, winding peacefully between snow coated pines, reminded me of how I pictured Narnia, when Lucy first walks through the wardrobe into the land where it was 'always winter but never Christmas'. I loved the rhythm of the push and pole movement and the pounding of my heart in the cold air, the struggle to climb the peaks on the flimsy toothpick skis, and the thrill of careening down the hills, barely in control. That first winter I bought a second hand set of skis, boots and poles. Geekydaddy was a little concerned about this level of commitment, though I assured him it was to the sport, not necessarily to him!

Yesterday we got Geekygirl up on cross country skis for the first time. She has experienced the sport before, being towed in a pulk (rather like the sleds used by arctic explorers to pull their supplies across the tundra), but this year we felt she was ready to try under her own steam. The expedition started badly. Though bright, it was a cold day and occasional gusts of wind would whip ice crystals against our faces. The sensation was too much for Geekygirl, and she started to howl. This set her brother off, so I stood at the entrance to the trails holding two wailing children, my supply of tissues decimated after the first five minutes.

My holiday reading of "Raising Your Spirited Child" - a great book if you have such a creature in your life, reminded me that she likely was genuinely overwhelmed by the situation, so I kept my cool, empathized with her, and talked about the plans for the rest of the day while we waited for Geekydaddy to assemble the pulks. We bundled them in, still hysterical, watched by concerned fellow skiers, mainly young couples who were probably silently thinking "God, I'll never have kids". With a supply of blankets, tissues and stuffed animals cocooned into their pods, set off, hoping the motion and the scenery would soothe them (and us!).

It worked. I had forgotten how much I loved the sport, as I felt long unsused muscules stretch and strive, felt my lungs open deeply to capture oxygen in the refined mountain air. The snow was powdery and the pulks glided almost effortlessly, as we pulled our entranced passengers though the forest. They dozed, and we strode on. Before returning to the lodge to eat, we even got Geekygirl up on the little skis we had rented for her. Geekydaddy learned to ski at four, and from the day she was born he has looked forward to teaching his daughter. Things sometimes don't go well between Geekdaddy and his daughter. They frustrate each other, (they are too similar!), he finds her very hard to parent (which she can be), and I was crossing my fingers that this oh so important Father Daughter moment would go well. I left well alone and let him do it his way.

And she loved it. She let him support her, she listened to him, he was encouraging and patient and funny and she got the hang of it. Best of all, after lunch when we asked her if she wanted to ride or ski she said "I want to put my skis on again" and had another try. I noticed her lovely, inward smile of pride at her achievement. Then she was done,  she discarded the skis, and hopped back in the pulk. We did another few laps of the trails, side by side, towing a child each. I looked down at my trusty skis, remembering that first season and casting my mind back over the intervening years. I spoke my thoughts out loud to Geekydaddy.

"Remember when I bought these skis, and you thought I might be making too much of a commitment to you?!"

The journey is the destination.

And this year we are thankful for....propane.

I know, it isn't exactly politically correct to be thankful for fossil fuels, but I have good reason.

I'm also thankful for the regular things too, of course my family, our jobs, our good health, and our home. We're lucky, and I"m grateful for it.  The kids even managed to sit at the Thanksgiving table for  oh, at least 6 minutes, none of which I was actually sitting down, mind you, and they even tasted a few mouthfuls of the sweet potato casserole and the fennel and orange baked halibut (no turkey for us, I"m a pescatarian) in between blowing bubbles in their chocolate milk and complaining that they wanted their ice cream. They at least enjoyed the spiced apple cake that we miraculously manged to create despite a) the recipe, Gorden Ramsey's, being in metric weights and my only having American cups at hand, (thank you google converter), b) the kids adding the baking powder without my supervision c) not having the right shaped cake tin, and d) baking it at 7000ft.

That takes me back to the propane. We are celebrating our Thanksgiving at our cabin in Tahoe. Geekydaddy and I bought this millstone vacation home the year we married, gazing starry eyed into a future of gamboling dogs and giggling children growing up together in this mountain hideaway. This was back when buying real estate in California seemed like a good idea. We love the house, we bought it to use, not as an investment, but lets just say it is a good job that we don't need to sell it any time soon!  I"m thankful for that, too. And since I'm feeling sentimental, I'm also grateful for the vast beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I was knocked down by the sheer scale of the scenery when I first moved to California, and never tire of the peaks, crags and views.

The house we bought was perfect for a couple and a dog. It had a small galley kitchen, a big living room for parties, and was heated by two wood burning stoves.

This meant that upon arrival, usually around midnight on Friday night the house was at the same temperature as the outside; usually below freezing. We would put on hats and double layers of clothing, light the two fires using cold logs hauled up from the basement, then knock back a couple of Scotches and retire to bed fully clothed under two down comforters. Usually the place would be warmish by morning, but on the coldest weekends the house would reach a habitable temperature by about Sunday, just in time for us to leave. This was no hardship for two hardy skiers. Central heat, who needs it, we crowed.

Once Geekygirl arrived I managed the frigid arrival routine by snuggling her with me in bed, but once her brother joined us it became impossible for me to keep them both warm while Geekydaddy struggled with the fires. On one impossible evening two winters ago I held two freezing howling children while Geekydaddy's frantic firemaking efforts caused the chimneys to billow black smoke back into the house, meaning we had to open all the windows to the blizzard outside, dissipating the meagre amount of heat we had generated. We decided that we had to get central heat put in.

Last year we remodelled the whole place, and spent our Holidays in South Africa instead.  Yes, we took an almost three year old and an almost one year old half way around the world on 27 hours worth of flights. I am very thankful not to be doing that again this year!

It was completed (well almost, but that is another story!) this summer, but this is the first winter weekend we have spent here since the revamp. The seasons change fast up here in the mountains, we were last up in October when it was a balmy 65oF, but now there is a foot or so of snow crunching underfoot and a distinct chill in the air. We arrived late on Wednesday night, pulled into our new garage (instead of having to dig our way to the door), left the kids sleeping warm in their car seats while we flipped the heating switch and waited for the house (ambient temperature about 0oC) to get warm. I ran the kids duvets through the dryer to make their beds snug-buggly, and by the time they were ready the house had already reached 5oC. They hardly stirred on transfer. We unpacked the groceries, knocked back a welcome beer, then put ourselves to bed and hour or so later, the house already quite pleasantly warm.

Central heat is an amazing thing. Thanks, propane!