Twas Brillig

Photo taken of my 3-year old son by his 6-year old sister. This Wordless (Tuesday and) Wednesday, which is suddenly becoming very wordy, is my segue back into our happiness discussion which started with a poll (which you can now find in my sidebar). If you haven’t voted, please do! Tomorrow we’ll start discussing some of the results from my poll. There are currently over a hundred votes! Polls will close this Friday at midnight (as requested by BloggersAnnex, who graciously picked up the poll and posted it on their site too as their “poll of the week”).

Wow, what a day!  I learned last night that Mile High Mamas (the “mommy-blogger” section of The Denver Post) was going to be publishing a post of mine today.  It’s now up and running and I’d be honored if you’d go and take a peek… and leave a comment!!!  Ahhh, it’s great to be in Denver.  I feel like I’ve been officially initiated into the coolest club around!

Then, my dear friend Dr. Bolte (smart, sassy, hilarious) asked me to be a guest-blogger today.  So I wrote her my scandalous story about sneaking into Middle Eastern countries with an ILLEGAL passport.  (Yeah, she’s totally going to Guantanamo just for allowing such a post to be on her site…)  So, um, go check that out too!

And then, dearest Heather of the Extraordinary Ordinary is going to be our Soap Opera Sunday host for the month of September.  Thanks, Heather!  She’s introduced the monthly theme (a theme that EVERYONE should have a story about!) and put up the Mr. Linky there.  So, go looky-looky!  (Remember that you don’t necessarily have to write on the theme, the theme is just there to get your memory juices flowing!)  (Also, if you’ve already written a post on the theme, don’t hesitate to re-post it as a Soap Opera Sunday!  A lot of us probably haven’t read it before!  This is a way to get some new exposure to an old post!)

And finally, thanks so much for all the votes in yesterday’s poll.  The response has blown me away.  We’re up to about 65 votes on each poll at last count.  Keep voting.  Send your friends.  We’ll discuss the results during the coming week.  FASCINATING stuff!!!

Forget politics and religion.  The thing you really can’t talk about is “happiness” — or its flip-side, “depression.”  The masses will eat you alive.  Everyone has a strong opinion, a strong personal experience, and even perhaps an unfair judgment or two… or three.

So… let’s do some polls.  How I love vizu and their polls, because I can ask you questions that you might otherwise be afraid to answer.  But with a poll, you know that I have no way of knowing how you voted.  Therefore, you can answer honestly.  And then I think we can have a fascinating conversation, based on the data gathered in my poll, over the next few days.  So, ready… set… vote.

This first one is one of those fun ones where you can check multiple answers, so click on everything that applies to you!

Online Surveys & Market Research

And now, the final question:

I’ll leave these polls open until midnight on Friday. I’m interested to see where this discussion goes!

Did I mention (no, I didn’t, verbally, but you may have seen it in my sidebar) that I’m going to THE kickinest party tomorrow night?

Uh… yeah.  This thing’s gonna be HUGE.  They say that even the Cre8buzz boys are gonna be there.  I know, right?  I’ve had kind of a school-girl crush on these guys ever since I joined Cre8buzz over a year ago (wait— haven’t you joined?  Why not?).  I’m using mantras and aroma-hypno-therapy candles, chanting to myself, “I will NOT make a complete fool of myself in the presence of such coolness” over and over again.  Let’s hope it works….   And the groovy chicks from Mile High Mamas will be there too!  And then all the political bloggers who happen to be in the area (which are many, of course, since we ARE the home of the DNC) will be there too.  Apparently there will be live blogging during Obama’s speech.  Yes, folks.  Live blogging.  It just isn’t a party without the live blogging.

Okay, so I probably won’t be blogging during Obama’s speech, unless it’s to tell you that the appetizers are good, or that everyone besides me and Amber are drunk, or that Mr. Lady really IS wearing the fishnets she promised she would.  Otherwise, no.  No live blogging from me.

In anticipation of the occasion, I bought myself some new make-up.  The goal is for this make-up to make me look younger, smarter, and fifty pounds lighter…  That way, I can fool everyone into thinking I’m… well… more than just a fat housewife.  Unfortunately, I am, in fact, just a fat housewife.  So, yeah.  Wish me luck with that.

Also, my husband’s sister and her friend are coming out to visit us tomorrow (and yes, I’m dragging them to this blogger bash.  They wanted to see the “Denver Night Life”— uh, are we talking about the same Denver?— and I didn’t want to have to explore the intricacies of Public Transit all by myself.  Everyone wins).  They’ll be staying with us, in my guest room, until Monday night.  And where, oh where, do you suppose my computer is?  Ahhh, yes.  My guest room.  I think that we can safely say, then, that my online time will be greatly diminished over the next few days.  So if you don’t hear from me, don’t think that it’s because one of the crazy DNC protestors has eaten me.  (Dude.  I totally hope that one of the protestors DOES eat me.  That would make an awesome blogpost.)

Fret not, though.  I will somehow find a way for Soap Opera Sunday to be hosted here this weekend.  (Speaking of that, I’m looking for a theme and a host for September.  I’m just throwin’ that out there.)

Okay, off I go.  Tomorrow’s a big day!  I gotta get my beauty sleep!  (Read:  I gotta stay up all night cleaning so that my sister-in-law doesn’t think we’re pigs…)

A member of the bishopric called me in on Sunday morning, right before church was about to start.  Now, anyone who’s been in the church for more than a month knows that when the bishopric randomly call you in, it’s because you are about to be given an assignment.  I braced myself, knowing that they might stick me in nursery (two of my own children are in the nursery, so while I suppose it would be “fair” it would also mean that the two hours a week that I DON’T take care of them would be taken away from me).  Or maybe they would ask me to lead some music in one meeting or another— I’ve often had those callings and I enjoy them.   Or maybe I would FINALLY luck out and get that assignment to teach Sunday School.  That’s the one I’ve been pining for, and I’d heard that there were a couple of openings.

So when he said, “boy scouts,” I nearly had a heart attack.  My poor, pathetic life flashed before my eyes.  *cough*cough*cough* Excuse me?  Boy scouts?  REALLY?  Have you MET me?

When he asked me if I would accept the assignment, I said, “yes,” because that’s what I do— even though everything within me was screaming, “NO!  Please NO!  For the love of all that is holy, NOOOOOOOOOO!”

Brian was waiting out in the hallway, having whisked the kids off to their various church classes, eager to hear my news.  When I told him, he let out a stream of laughter.  Then when I told him I needed to buy myself a scout uniform and wear it to all the meetings, I thought he might burst a blood vessel in his face from the force of his guffawing.

Now, Brian’s an Eagle Scout, so he’s been through all these programs before.  Once he got his manic laughter under control, I asked him what exactly I needed to do— what was expected of me?  How hard was this really going to be?

Then he smiled and said, “I have ONE memory from Boy Scouts.  My scout leader was a woman about your age.”  Aww, he was going to share a heartwarming story with me!  Yay!  Maybe I really COULD make a difference!  He went on, “I remember one time, she bent over, and I could see STRAIGHT DOWN HER SHIRT!!!!”  He grinned the biggest school boy grin you can imagine.  I just stared at him, blinking.

That was it.  That was the one thing he remembered from scouts.

Note to self:  wear a high-necked T-shirt under my scout uniform.

“You’re a hard worker.  One of the best employees we’ve ever had.  With your knowledge, work ethic, and skill set, you will have no problem getting a job at another hospital.”

Kind as they are, these are not the words that a man who just uprooted his whole family and moved them to a new state wants to hear.  A man who just bought a new house, who just signed his kids up for ballet, swimming, and piano lessons.  A man whose family is finally out of limbo and settled for the first time in over a year.  A man whose “special needs” child is finally starting to get some help.

The program that he is implementing here, which they begged him to come and implement, takes about three years to get up and running.  That’s no secret.  And it’s worth it.  He can take a hospital from archaic to highly functional in three years and then he can maintain the processes and keep everything running smoothly.  Hospitals who don’t have a similar program are falling way behind the curve and won’t be able to catch up.  Unfortunately, he’s a computer geek working among non-computer people and while they want the program, they don’t understand that these things take time.  Apparently, even though they were informed of the time table from the beginning, they are getting antsy.  They want things up and running… NOW.

It’s been three months.

They’re ready to pull the funding and shut down the department all together.  But they haven’t… yet.  Right now they’re just threatening.  Constantly threatening.  And while Brian and team are making progress, they simply can’t shave two-and-a-half years off this three-year process.  He’s killing himself and receiving only criticism in return.  You can only imagine the pain and stress that this is causing him.

Brian puts in long hours and comes home tired and empty, like his life has been sucked out of him.  The sparkle and wit that define his personality are all but extinguished.  He’s too thin, too pale, too tired.  He can’t sleep, he hardly eats.  And he’s all but stopped talking to me— not because he’s mad at me or I at him, but because it would just be the same conversation every day.  Things aren’t going well.  I guess there’s really nothing left to say.

I don’t know how to help him, though I’m dying to.  I know how hard this is.  I know the immense pressure he’s under.  Four kids, one wife, a house, some cars, loads of medical bills.  He’s crumbling.

It’s so easy to glance behind, like Lot’s wife.  Brian left behind his dream job when he left Utah.  He loved the hospital system there.  He loved his coworkers.  He was working hard and having fun and loving every minute of it.  He was valued.  Adored.  It was a huge sacrifice for him when that powerful intangible something told us to leave.  But he knew it was the right thing, and he did it.  He did it for God, he did it for me, and, mostly, he did it for our son.

Sometimes, just because you do the right thing for all the right reasons, it doesn’t mean that everything magically works itself out.  Or, maybe, it does.  But things don’t always work out the way you thought they should.

Deep breaths.  Just keep taking deep breaths.   We know that this was where we are supposed to be.   We didn’t come on a whim.  Much prayer and soul-searching and research were done before we chose this job among the others that were being offered at the time.  We are going to be just fine.

But the “what-ifs” are constantly beckoning, begging for attention.  What if we’d stayed in Utah?  What if we’d chosen the job in Chicago?  What if…

This post is just BEGGING to be in list form.  So, here goes.

1.  So, the other day, as I was making my blogrounds, lo and behold, I stumbled on a post by my dear friend Ramblin’ Red of Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-child who had, astonishingly enough, given me this award:

I guess that makes it official, folks! My blog? Is BRILLIANT! (Or brillante, but… whatever).  Because Red says so. Specifically, this post. Now, I suppose that the tradition with these things is that when one is awarded, one passes it on. Hmmmm, this is starting to sound an awful lot like a Meme— and I have made no secret about how I feel about Memes. I don’t like them. I don’t want to be tagged with them. I don’t want to tag other people with them. And yet… this one feels just a tiny bit more special. I mean, the word BRILLANTE was used!!! So, I’m going to pass it on. And I pass it on to my real life AND bloggy gal-pal Charrette for her post, “Lifetime Vigils.”  If you haven’t already, go over there and read it and you’ll see why I would give it such an award.

2.  My blogroll is officially UP AND RUNNING.  It’s complete, as far as I know, so please go and look at it and make sure that your link appears as you’d like it to (and that it works…).  If you’re not on my blogroll, it’s your own darn fault.   And what I mean by that is, just let me know and I’ll add you.  Go on.  Don’t be shy.  Someone recently described my blogroll as “Free Linking! It is like the 70’s era of free love, but in the blog world.  Thanks for the free love…”  Exactly, folks.  Free Bloglove.  That’s what I’m all about.  Of course… it never hurts if you… um… return the favor…

3.  Who here hasn’t heard of BloggersAnnex yet?

It’s this new site, dedicated to publishing the best of the best posts from Bloglandia.  The idea is that everyone who is the least bit inclined can join and then  can submit a post or two or ten thousand to be published.  But here’s the catch:  only one post makes the cut per day.  Hahaha.  Wicked, isn’t it.  This way, it’s an honor to be published there.  And also, readers always know that when they land on that site, there will ALWAYS be something worth reading.  AND GUESS WHAT!!!  The post that was chosen today? is ONE OF MINE!!!  So… I beg you.  Go over there and read my post.  It’s short.  And then comment there, so I don’t feel like an utter fool.  That would be awesome.  And then, read the other posts that have been published (there are only two or three others so far, all of which are far more brilliant than mine), and then join BloggersAnnex and submit YOUR stuff!  EVERYONE has something lurking in their archives that they’re just dying to repost and give more traffic to.  The more the merrier, right?

Okay, dudes.  A list of just 3 things.  Wow.  I really limited myself today.  Impressed, aren’t you!  Of course, they all have homework attached to them.

As for me, I’m off to go finish reading Breaking Dawn.  I’m a bit more than halfway done.  And this is all I have to say:  “RENESMEE?”  Are you frickin’ brackin’ KIDDING ME????  I’m pretty sure I’m stupider for having read just this much.  And yes, I’m going to go finish it. 

I KNEW I was better than just about everyone else!  I KNEW it!  And now you know it too.  Though, I realize that this WON’T be news to most of you.  I mean, OBVIOUSLY this would be my result:

(It does make me wonder, though, how smart people do on such a quiz.)

Thank GOODNESS I’ve managed to find a way to channel all that brilliance and get RICH.

Oh wait…

Interestingly enough, Hypatia is the only female of all time who was considered a “Universal Genius.”  (We know of more men who qualify— possibly because throughout history men were given more opportunities to display their intelligence, possibly because men simply tend to do better in tests of logic.  But I’m SO NOT GETTING myself into THAT debate!)  I’m pretty sure that I, um, don’t exactly measure up to Hypatia’s genius.  Or, you know, even the brilliance of most of my acquaintances.  Still, I can tell people that some silly internet quiz says that I’m a Universal Genius, and therefore I MUST be!  Because silly internet quizzes DO NOT LIE!

Also, in a somewhat related vein, there’s a part in Becoming Jane where Tom LeFroy tells Jane Austen, “I think that you consider yourself a cut above the company— secretly.”  This, of course, is on the heels of her announcing to her friends that she considers him to be pompous and arrogant.  The line (in fact, the whole story) is not historically accurate— we have no reason to believe that he said anything like that to her.  Still, I found it intriguing.

I was talking with my dear bloggy friend Jenn in Holland a while back and we were discussing how we have both felt, for much of our lives, like we were the fish out of water.  Not in a dibilitating or alienating way or anything morbid like that.  Just that we were… a little different from the rest of the crowd.  Whether we were at Church, school, society in general, we just felt a little bit different.  But the more people I talk to, the more I hear this story.  It got me thinking that perhaps EVERYONE feels like a fish out of water.  Does anyone ever actually feel like they fit in?  Like they are one of the crowd?  Like they belong?

And, even more interesting, do you think that you’re not just “not a part of the group,” but better than the group?  I’ve been contemplating this for some time, and I decided that it was time to poll Teh Internets.  Remember that with my polls, your answers are completely confidential— I have NO WAY of knowing who voted how.  So… be honest!

Online Surveys & Market Research

And by “better,” I mean any of the following: smarter (like me and my Universal Genius-ness), more moral, more righteous, more interesting, richer, better dressed, better coiffed, more experienced, more successful, better with money, funnier, prettier, deeper, more charismatic, more charming, or any other thing that YOU think makes YOU better than others.

Polls close tomorrow at midnight (Mountain Time). We’ll continue the discussion after the poll results (and your comments) are in!