Interventional Radiology: An Essential Skill for Motherhood

I never entertained the idea of going to med school, chemistry has been a passion for as long as I can remember, but the Saturday before Halloween I wished I could trade places with my grad school roommate (now a radiologist). Barnacle Boy wanted to be a Munchy for Halloween. The Munchies are cartoon characters BB and his friend ML cooked up last year. To make the Munchy frame, I ended up threading long wires through casings along the outer edges of the costume. This process would have been much easier if I had gone to med school, become a radiologist and spent years placing stents in arteries. Who knew?

You Know, Hamsters Die When They're Overhandled - Moms just Stress

As Barnacle Boy (Crash Kid's sib) and I walked home from school this afternoon he popped out with "Hamsters die when they're overhandled, you know." "I know," I replied, wondering where exactly this conversation was going. As far as I knew, the hamster had been just fine when I left for the college in the morning. "Do you remember when I got sick as you and Dad were going out to dinner and you stayed home to take care of me?" I made an acknowledging noise. "I think it was because I had too many things to do that day and it made me sick, like it can with hamsters." Short pause. "Mom, I think you might be overhandled."

Technological Lemmings

Coming back from a trip today, I tried an alternate route. I was following the instructions of my GPS down a back road and noticed quite a bit of traffic coming in the opposite direction. Turns out the road was a dead-end. We were all lemmings, following the technology down the road!

Like a Shepherd

Driving with Crash Kid to church tonight to cantor, I told him I thought I would have trouble singing the communion hymn with a straight face. "What is it?" I broke into song:

Like a shepherd he feeds his flock,
and gathers the lambs in his arms.
Holding them carefully close to his heart,
leading them home.

Crash is giggling by the first line and guffawing by the end. "They're pretty messy to hold, Mom!" "Yep, all I can think about is my white shirt at the end of the day."

Holy cards of the Good Shepherd favor white robes, fluffy lambs and bucolic scenery. After my sojourn as a shepherdess this summer, I realize we've been sold the sanitized version. Newborn lambs are not fluffy and white, the ewes do not always trot sweetly along at your side and those white robes will never be the same after a day in the pasture! Our urbanized culture pulls a misty nostalgic curtain over Isaiah's point.

God cannot be the God of the holy cards. It would be as if I were only my kids' mother at the end of the day when they are scrubbed, sleepy and tucked into their clean white sheets. Instead I'm their mother when they are sticky, tearful, bloody and worse.

I told Crash my experience as a shepherd reminded me that God was willing to pick us up even when we were at our messiest. Crash? He said, "I think God is most willing to pick you up when you're messy." His theology isn't bad!

Trains, planes and automobiles

The corridor from Washington, DC to New York is well traveled, probably too well traveled. Last weekend a round trip to Baltimore, some 200 miles total took six and half hours. Given that most of distance was on interstates, we should have been able to do the trip in about four hours. Our average speed was just over 30 mph - and there were no major accidents, just volume and a fender bender off to the side.

Today I took the train down to Washington DC, 40 miles further away. The entire trip, office door to my hotel, local train to Amtrak to Metro, took just over three hours for an average speed of about 45 mph. And we spend $35 billion a year on the highway system (nationally - add in the local contributions and it's yet more)? The system seems near collapse in some locations - the I-95 corridor being one of them. Invest in trains.