On the Banks

Still not voting

I still don’t vote, but have to say I am relieved – OK, pretty happy – with the results of this week’s midterms.  Not because I think the Democrats are any better than the Republicans (or, fundamentally, very different from them), but because they are to some degree at odds with them, and to the extent that they are there will be gridlock: both parties able to do much less to interfere with my life and the lives of others, and maybe even less able to wage aggressive wars with my tax dollars. (OK, maybe not that last part.)

So why didn’t I vote for it, if I think gridlock is such a great thing?  Because I don’t believe in it.  I don’t believe that decisions about what people can and can’t do with their own lives should be made by majority rule or any variation thereof.  I don’t believe that a bunch of overpaid egotistical farts in Washington D.C. should be able to vote on whether my husband can play poker online or whether the police can steal your property because somebody sold the wrong kind of drugs on it or whether or not women can choose to terminate their pregnancies.  These are not things that should be up for a vote.  In fact, I think the things that can legitimately be determined by voting are pretty limited: who I want to be president of my local bridge club; when our next board meeting should be; where to hold the next Buffy sing-a-long.  In other words, all things that are part of voluntary associations, *not* things that involve forcing someone else to do what you want them to.  I don’t get why that is such a difficult concept for so many people, and why they look at me like *I’m* the weirdo when I suggest that things might be a lot better if our society weren’t founded on coercion and force.

…All that is not to say that I wouldn’t abandon this principled stance if the stakes were high enough.  If I really thought that I could help to end our country’s imperialist foreign policy, end taxation, free all the people in jail for drug crimes, etc. etc., I’d have to really think about it.  But for the most part, I don’t think that these things can be accomplished from within the system – certainly not by voting for representatives or presidents.  It’s just not what the system of pork and special-interest lobbying rewards.  I have to admit, ballot initiatives are a different animal.  If there were an initiative to end the war on drugs in my state, would I vote for it, even though I don’t think these things should be decided by a vote?  Yeah, I probably would.  The benefits would just be too overwhelming not to.  And the principle at stake not a fundamental one. 

Anyway, lots of rambling to say:  I’m glad the vote turned out as it did, but the stakes weren’t high enough for me to go participate in a system I think is wrong.  (And no, I don’t believe a Democratic congress will help end the war in Iraq – they didn’t lift a finger to oppose it when they could have, why would things be any different now?)

The trek home

I’ll preface this one by saying that neither my Sweetie nor I are car people.  He can at least drive pretty well.  The last time I tried, I was attacked by a small bottlebrush tree in my parents’ front yard.  This will of course all change as we settle in to Connecticut, but as that is several months away I don’t need to think about it right now.

So we wake up at 3:00am to call the airline and see if we can get on an earlier flight back to New York.  This time, Delta’s incompetence works in our favor.  The woman Guy speaks with shouldn’t have been able to get us on to the 6:00am flight, because it went to a different airport than the one we were scheduled for, but she did, and also released our original booking.  Rather than admit her mistake and call for a manager, she randomly transferred us to the international desk, where we are told that no, we shouldn’t be allowed to make this change, but since it’s already been done and it’s not our fault she screwed up, we’ll stay on the 6am flight.  Yay Delta incompetence!!!

We head out to the airport, stopping to fill the gas tank on the way.  OK, so on top of the earlier preface, I just want to add that it was really, really, early and neither of us was fully awake.  I’m told that what happened next involved a gas nozzle appearing to malfunction and being pulled out at precisely the wrong time.   What I do know is that my Sweetie ended up standing in a small puddle of gasoline, with more gasoline on his pants and on his shoes.  He carefully maneuvered the car away from the puddle and we fished out a clean pair of pants from the luggage, which he changed in to.  The old pants went in the trash and we hurried on to the airport.

Once there, however, we realized that the pungent odor of petroleum had not left us.  We both look down at his shoes and realize the absurdity of our situation:  My husband of half-middle-eastern heritage, who has not shaved this morning, is attempting to travel to New York in gasoline-soaked shoes.  Me, I’m just traveling on a library card.  Nope, no red flags here.  We decide to tell security about the shoe situation, and they tell him to take them off for screening, and while they recommended he not wear them on the plane, it was OK if he couldn’t find anything else.

And now that I’ve written that, I realize more fully the danger we are in at the hands of these people.  This was only a week or so after passengers were allowed to carry handcream onboard an airplane, provided it’s put in a little plastic baggie separate from other purse or bag contents.  Handcream.  But gasoline-soaked loafers, apparently, are OK. 

As it turns out, we didn’t have to worry about endangering our fellow travelers.  Just past security was a gift shop that looked promising.  Now, I’m not really sure what “golf slippers” are, exactly, or who uses them.  I’m fairly certain they don’t play a role in the game of golf itself.  Whatever their purpose though, they were the closest thing to what we needed that was available in the pre-breakfast hours at Baton Rouge airport.  I scrambled through a pile of them to find Guy’s size and paid for them, while he tossed his old shoes into a trash can, put the new ones on and emerged looking like he just got off work at Disneyland.  I spend the rest of the trip trying really hard not to add to the humiliation with explosive bursts of laughter.

It’s getting close to departure time now, so Steamboat Willie and I hurry on to our gate, get there in time to board, and even manage to stow the heart-rate monitor under the seat in front of us.  Yay us!  The rest of the trip home is uneventful – or maybe I’ve just blocked it out – and we arrive home in Brooklyn, ready for next week’s adventures in… Customer Service Hell!!!  Stay tuned…

The next day

We meet with Dr. Collins, get footage of him doing our cord evaluation, and most importantly, find out about our baby’s cord:  It’s wrapped twice around his neck, but loosely, there doesn’t seem to be any compression based on the ultrasound image, and his heart rate seems unaffected.  He measures four days bigger than he is, which I say is good.  Then we talk with Dr. Collins, he shows me how to use the monitor, packs it up in a box for us and we all go out to lunch.  Rich, spicy Cajun food which later makes me acid tummy, but when Guy asks Dr. Collins about my doing ballet (I’m *only* doing some warm-up stuff at the barre, and a little on the floor, nothing exerting!), given this new information he says that’s fine, AND… when my Sweetie asks about CHOCOLATE, Dr. Collins says a little won’t hurt.  “Anyway, you can’t stop ‘em”, he says of we Preggos.  Later that afternoon, I will relish my first Dove bar in years.

That night, we have dinner at Tope La, where my Sweetie has some kind of fish dish that comes with yummy chipotle mashed potatoes and a delicious avocado-orange sauce.  Yum!!!  There’s live music – a guy on guitar playing Johnny Cash, Elton John, and everyone else, and doing it really well.  We give him some dollars on our way out and can tell he really loves what he’s doing.  Very cool.

After midnight...

OK, a less-than-perfect trip

So we spend 11 hours in the Atlanta airport, thanks to the incompetence and disinterest of Delta airlines.  Note to self: Never fly an airline that’s about to be bought out by another airline.  Or really, any airline that is artificially protected from competition.  Which rules most of them out.  Hooray for Jet Blue!!!

Finally, through some error on Delta’s part, we discover that they have inadvertently hired a human being.  His name is John Ferguson, and not only does he work for Delta, but he’s been put out in public, where he might actually come into contact with passengers.  Yikes!  Someone’s head will surely roll.  In the meantime though, John Ferguson’s competence and kindness very nearly make up for the half day of service-person sadism we have endured thus far.  He manages to get us on a flight *and* to ensure that our bags will arrive on the same flight, if not before.  Thank you John Ferguson!!!

We arrive after midnight at La Michelle Inn – an old plantation house turned into a charming French inn and restaurant.  The landscaping is dotted with statuary, and what appears to be a little shrine to the local frogs.  Our room is ornate, French and comes with a balcony overlooking tomorrow’s wedding grounds.  The bathtub I want to take home:  One of those old, ceramic footy ones.  With a big shower curtain that goes all around.  It’s after midnight, but I *must* have a bath!  Partly to wash off all the bad customer-service ju-ju, and partly because I don’t know if I’ll be able to tomorrow night.  Once again, one good experience seems to make everything else wash away…

Musings on parental prejudice

I so don’t want to be one of those mothers who divide the world into “people who are parents” and “people who aren’t.”  So many people have told me this is what happens, and I see the righteousness of parents everywhere: throwing their parenthood in your face as if it excuses any kind of behavior on their part and requires some sort of tribute from you.  The kind of people who ask, witheringly, “are *you* a parent?” and then proceed to dismiss anything you might say upon learning you are not.  I don’t want to be like that.  I don’t want to be someone who divides the world into uses and thems and then tosses aside the thems as if they’re not fully human, or of any value to them.  I don’t want to be like that!

And yet parenthood does change you.  All of a sudden, the stakes are so much higher than they ever could have been before.  Nothing else can ever matter this much.  And to live in the world with people who *on’t have that, for whom life doesn’t matter as much in precisely the same way, must be a little like living among people who… well, who place a lower value on human life.  It must feel something like riding buses in treacherous terrain in China – the drivers are so reckless, take such senseless risks for no good reason, that you start to think they don’t value their own lives much.  And someone who doesn’t value their own life isn’t going to be very careful with someone else’s.  They are a danger to be around.

Which must be something like what it feels to be a parent.  And of course it’s not fair, or even accurate – there are plenty of very good people who care very much about life and about the lives of others and who are not parents.  Just like there are plenty of parents who don’t seem to care about their own lives or the lives of their kids.   

Later...

We arrive at LaGuardia, check in at the electronic kiosk and go to the agent to deliver our luggage.  I open my wallet to get my ID and see staring right back at me… the empty slot where my driver’s license belongs.  Oh no!!!  My mind races back, and I realize I must have left it on my scanner when I made a copy of it for our temporary Manhattan abode landlord.  I’ve heard of people getting on to flights with no ID at all, and figure this might be a good opportunity to test the system out. 

Guy is already making plans to reschedule our whole trip, but I’m pretty confident I can make this work.  I go up to one of the pre-security screening agents and explain to her what has happened.  She asks whether I have any picture ID at all, and I say yes, my Broadway Dance Center student ID.  She looks at it, and asks if I have any government-issued ID.  I say no, just my driver’s license and passport, both of which are at home.  She then says… I swear I am not making this up… “what about a library card?”

After the moment it takes me to comprehend what she has just asked me, I dive back into my wallet for the New York Public Library card that I was issued nearly ten years ago, and that has *no identifying information on it whatsoever* other than my signature and a barcode that, if referenced, would bring up an address that has absolutely no connection to me at all.  I hand it to her, smiling, and she takes it over to a supervisor who agrees that, yes, this constitutes government ID and combined with my BDC card, will get me on my flight.

Yay Homeland Security dunderheadedness!!!

A perfect trip

Our car driver is the same one who took us to the hospital to find out that Miles had died.  Big fat chatty guy with long hair in a pony tail.  I remember being irritated by him on that trip.  I was stressed out, not even sure I had reason to be – fully expecting to go in to the hospital and receive reassurance.  He was going on and on about traffic from Brooklyn to Midtown East and how to avoid the bottleneck by the bridge and I just wished he’d shut up.  I was stressing but I still really thought I’d get reassurance.  It couldn’t be anything else.  It couldn’t.  Nothing else fit in my head.  Nothing else made any sense.  And it still doesn’t.  It still doesn’t make sense.  That’s what is ultimately so unfathomably sad – so pathetic those around them can’t even fully see it – about people who have lost a child: their minds cannot even contain what has happened.  They are like tiny little animals crushed by forces beyond their comprehension: a tsunami, a hunter’s rifle, a lawnmower…

Today was different.  Guy and I are flying to Louisiana, to meet with Dr. Collins, the only person in the country who seems to know anything about cord accidents or to believe that they are preventable.  The driver was chatty again, talking about the pre-Thanksgiving traffic out of New York, how calls for fares had suddenly started pouring in yesterday, and it must be people taking off early for Thanksgiving… I think for a moment about telling him where we’re going and why, about how he’s a part of it too.  He’s a part of our history and doesn’t even know it.

We’re about 10 minutes into the trip when I realize I’ve forgotten the video camera.  Shit.  We’ve got to go back.  It’ll cost us at least 20 minutes of travel time and the dispatcher – who called at 7:20am to suggest we change our 8am pickup to an earlier time because his drivers are telling him LaGuardia is really backed up – tells the driver to add $10 to the fare.  Which is fine.  We go back.  We’ve got the big fat chatty driver.  And we may miss our plane.  And I really, genuinely, truly do not care.  I just felt my baby moving and all is right in the universe.