Tea with T.

Are you “mom” enough?

The media is a wicked mistress, especially when it comes to manufactured holidays like Mother’s Day.  Time magazine’s latest cover didn’t help matters much, either.

 

Mother’s Day ads are filled with images of mothers holding babies, toddlers delivering self-portraits, men carrying breakfast trays and elderly women being hugged by multiple generations.  Nice.  But not always the picture painted in homes hither and thither and yon.

 

The uproar over whether Time Magazine’s recent cover of a woman breastfeeding her combat fatigue wearing, half-her-size son, for me had less to do with whether it portrayed an inappropriate relationship with her child (?) and more to do with the fact that she was color-coordinated in clean, tight clothes and her hair was brushed (probably her teeth, too – that lucky woman) and she didn't look sleep-deprived.  Most women I know who breastfeed do not look highly polished and stylized doing so.  Motherhood is a deliciously messy business.  I don’t care how old the clinging kid is.  And their headline of "Are you mom enough?" -- well, them's just fightin' words to mothering individuals. Everywhere.

Beauty is as Beauty Does.

My teenage daughter is enrolled in a Women’s Health class at our local community college and for a recent assignment had to write about beauty.  I do not know what the requirements of the paper were, but I did get to read the response, since I’m the one that pulls the papers off the family printer (it’s one of the small perks of being the grown-up).  While I do not know the What & Why of the paper, I loved the gist of it… what makes someone beautiful.

The paper spoke of how people use the word “Beautiful” for many things found in nature, art and a multitude of other nouns, and how there are multiple synonyms for what’s being described and how they can apply to all of our senses.  My girl then pointed out that words like “skinny, thin, flawless, tan, blonde” are not synonymous with beauty and that many of the descriptive words people use when describing who they consider to be “beautiful people” apply only to what is seen.  My daughter went on to say that to her, beautiful has very little to do with what she sees and that if she were “blind from birth” she would have the same criteria she does now, things like: 

Read Me.

Like Alice in Wonderland's many treats with tags that read "Eat Me" or "Drink Me" -- today I invite you to lose yourself down the rabbit hole of other writers.  Through a very fun tunnel that calls itself, the Ulitmate Blog Party 2012.

 

For those of you new to Tea with T. here's a bit of info. about what you're getting into:

Tea with T. Katz was started years ago with the intention of being a place for a bit of tea and conversation served by me, someone who has been called “an absorbent observer” over the years.  I have collected a lot of stories and experience -- from time spent in the music industry; television production; teaching piano; being a mom; and just being related to some of the wackiest people on the planet – and I allow all of this to brew and steep, until its ready to be served.  These tales, like the multiple varieties of tea are sometimes spicy, sometimes sweet and rarely, if ever, bitter.  You guys get to be the judge of whether what’s poured is hot, cold or downright i.c.y. (I’m a storyteller, not a saint).

What you will never get from me, is poetry.  Like Haikus.  But, just to assure you that you're not missing anything... here's one for the road: 

 Tea Haiku:

Complicated life

Cannot change a bloody thing

Tea makes all seem sane

Autism Awareness - Homeland Preparedness

April, according to the powers-that-be, is Autism Awareness Month.  As the mother of a 15 year son with autism, every day is another day to discover new things about autism and I do like to say that we strive to find the “awe” in the middle of it all.  In addition to Autism Awareness Month, April is also historically the month of showers that precedes May flowers and the color chosen to symbolize Autism Awareness Month is blue… ironic, because both are adequate symbols of the occasional tears and sadness that come with autism.  For both parent and child.

 

While I’m happy that autism has its own month, research foundations, catchy slogans and bumper stickers, autism and I are not friends.  I don’t like it, not one little bit.  It is, at times, terrorizing.  There’s a long list of things that I don’t care for about autism, but in particular the rage-filled anger, anxiety and the self-injurious behavior that comes with my son’s inability to communicate (which sometimes overflows and hurts me) are the things I truly dislike.  You may have heard, but the word “hate” is not one I use loosely, and honestly, I can’t even say that I hate autism… because I love my son.  

Contest Time! Coffee-mate Free Flavor Friday

It is not a secret that I am a big fan of tea and coffee.  I happen to take mine with creamer, and my favorite happens to be Coffee-mate.  You should know that they do not pay me for my opinion or for sharing this information with anybody (tho’ I not-so-secretly wish they would).  I’m just a fan of their product.  But, I’m an even bigger fan of Free Stuff, and it is one of my great pleasures to share that Free Stuff with you.  So, on that note, I bring to you:

Coffee-mate’s Free Flavor Friday.  Which my Friends over at Coffee-mate tell me goes a little something like this: 

Weird as weird can be. News at 11.

I don’t know about you, but I find that the news can be a terribly depressing pool to swim around in.  It is because of this, that every now and then, I like to go out of my way and read Weird News, sometimes simply for the headlines:  “Hoarders Trash Pile Seen on Google Maps” or “Toothless Woman Robs Bank for Denture Money” and I can hardly bring myself to type the one about the man who was recently arrested in Florida – “Man Claims to be Elvis’ Brother and Half Orangutan” making the Elvis part seem average.  Yeah, bizarre news helps me realize that no matter what happens in my life, there can always be something worse.  And weirder than normal.

 

But before you think me critical, know that age and experience have taught me that normal is a relative term (and NONE of my relations are normal, BTW).  Because, rather than judge, I actually find some tales relatable.  Like, the story about the thief who was sentenced for urinating on a power station transformer, knocking out the electricity to over 2,000 homes.  Nope, that’s not weird at all.  Because, my ex-husband had the dubious honor of working long, strange hours as a sound engineer with pint-sized, larger-than-life Phil Spector back in the day.  Far out Phil, rather than do his “business” in the men’s room, once toddled out to relieve himself on the power racks of A&M Records.  No electricity was lost due to his actions, but a whole lot of r.e.s.p.e.c.t. got electrocuted that day. 

Best. Words. Ever.

Not too long ago I came across a list of the 100 Best Words Ever.  Seems you CAN Google anything, because that is exactly what I typed into the search bar.  I happen to love words and wanted to know what others thought were the Best Words Ever.  For me, the list of Best Words Ever changes, based on whatever is going on in my life at the time.

Last year was…interesting, to say the least, what with all of the drama that people brought to my table (including, but not limited to: my ex and his band of merry inner demons; the re-finance people and their magnifying glass of seemingly never-ending monetary minutiae; my folks and their increasing medical dramas that unfortunately comes with aging; and one person who I believe has lost his rubber handled safety grip on reality).  With the rather large vat of lunacy I’d been served, I found I needed a better list of words to express the emotions that come with it.  So, on went the Google Goggles in search of the Best Words Ever, to describe what seems to have been one of the Worst Years Ever.  Here, are 22 of them:

 

A re-salute to that which I resolute. Again.

Another new year on the horizon and again I sit with pencil and paper to sketch out resolutions.  Notice I said pencil, not pen, as I’m not totally committed to this year’s list (which sort of resembles last year’s list) yet. It’s not that I think the resolutions are not worthy of being carried out, it’s just that I’m not sure I have the intestinal fortitude to do what needs to be done.  I’m a bit of a pansy when it comes to facing down my inner dragons, especially the ten to twelve pound one that’s been hanging on for dear life to my flank region for quite some time.  That little bugger just won’t let go (nor will he willingly be shoved into a pair of jeans I’ve got hanging in my closet that I’d like to get back into).

 

Misery loves her company and according to Time Magazine, I won’t be standing alone in the cold with a possibly broken resolution list. The magazine says the Top 10 Commonly Broken New Year's Resolutions are these:

 

A penny for your healthcare.

So, this guy walks into a clinic and dumps 2,500 pennies onto a counter to pay a disputed $25 medical bill and ends up getting fined $140.  No joke.  Authorities and the staff at the Utah medical clinic where this actually happened were pretty cheesed at him, but he’s kinda my hero this week.

 

With all of the talk about healthcare in America and who should be paying for it, I sort of feel the need to vent about healthcare (they call it health care – yet somehow, it doesn’t always feel like they do).  More specifically, I want to rant on my tiny soapbox about the healthcare I’ve already paid for and am still paying for.

 

When my son was about three years old he dislocated his elbow and had to be taken to the hospital.  In an effort to position the wiggling, whimpering toddler into place for the x-ray, the radiologist inadvertently rotated the arm just right and everything popped back into normal alignment.  A happy humerus made for a happy kid who just wanted to get out of Dodge, but a doctor’s examination was needed before he could be released.  When the doctor arrived, he saw a smiling child on his father’s shoulders and signed some forms from across the room sending everybody on their merry way.  Four weeks later a bill arrived, itemized to show costs for triage, x-ray and $500 in doctor’s examination fees.  Excuse me?  I’d even pay for new subscriptions for the dingy gray waiting room, but I was not paying that.

 

You know what happens when you don’t pay?  They send large, hairy goons with lead pipes to break your kneecaps.  They don’t really.  But it can feel that way.  What they really do is put some poor sap earning the bare minimum of wages and drinking the strongest forms of caffeine on a phone to call you over and over and over again until you snap.  While I have never been able to reason with a person over the phone (have I mentioned how much I dislike the torture device that is the telephone?) – I do likes me some letter writing.  So, I wrote a slightly snarky note to the collection agency telling them that the only way I was paying a doctor $500 for his autograph was if he happened to be Man-on-a-Cracker delicious and starring on a top-rated medical drama on NBC Must See TV Thursday nights.  Until then, people – my autograph will grace no check to you.

 

They stopped bothering me.

 

I understand that medical costs are high, due to malpractice insurance and the like.  But, when I was asked to pay $11 for a baby pacifier in 1992, I was more than little post-pregnancy hormonal and cranky about it.  My daughter will be celebrating her 19^th birthday here shortly and I’m still more than a little pre-menopausal hormonally cranky about it.

 

Overall, I’ve been a good citizen and pay my medical bills in a timely fashion.  Co-pay checks get written as soon as I sign in at the desk (the pens is already out, why not) and if the final bill is in the three and four digit range, I line up stamped envelopes and make payments (planning mac & cheese and under $1 per serving meals the whole time).  For the last year, those envelopes have been begrudgingly mailed to pay for the time my autistic son swallowed 53 magnets and a screw (yes, you read that right).  The hospital called one year after the incident to say they’d made an “error in billing and were missing $1,500 (from the hundreds of thousands of dollars already paid).  Being that good citizen (and a total rube, in retrospect) I said I’d pay it, but would have to pay them in installments.  They informed me that because of the time lapse, it had already been sent to collections and I would be charged interest.  Wha?!   Really?  This is the first I’m hearing about YOUR admitted mistake and I not only have to pay for this billing error, I have to pay interest too?  That right there is the apotheosis of insult to injury.

 

They did not care.  They put goons in galoshes on stand-by.

 

To say I passively-aggressively send my envelope monthly would be a lie.  It’s been pointed out recently that I just aggressively-aggressively do things.  So, I sit at the dining room table that serves as my desk and write checks in the worst possible cursive (that 4^th grade Mrs. Parker would NOT approve of) and issue pox-like curses under my breath the entire time.  Now and again, I even scribble mean looking stick-figures on the outside of the envelope (if the goons show up, I want them to know I’m not to be trifled with).

 

Whatever happens to healthcare in our nation, I’ll continue being the good citizen that pays for her own healthcare.  But, I’ll have you know that there is a five gallon water bottle in my hall closet that I’ve been stashing pennies in for the last twenty years – and I’m not afraid to use ‘em.  Or, make a billyclub out of ‘em.  You know, in case the goons do decide to show up.  And I’m pretty sure the fine for that is going to be more than 14000 pennies.

 

Blogher '11

There is a line in This is Spinal Tap that is one of my all-time favorite quotes.  It’s the one where Nigel Tufnel talks about how they turn their specially crafted amplifiers up to 11 (while all others only go to 10) in the event, “… we need that extra push over the cliff.”  This weekend, I got my own personal “push over the cliff” at this year’s BlogHer Conference 2011.  As someone who compulsively writes into a cyber vacuum every week, it was nice to be surrounded by over 3,000 of my fellow bloggers, and feel that gentle push over the cliff, to keep moving forward.

 

If you have the chance to attend any kind of gathering of your “tribe” I would highly recommend you do it.  Whether it is a gargantuan gathering like a conference/convention or a smaller group – there is nothing like the positive energy in a group of like-minded individuals.  Since this conference was attended by primarily females, there was also nothing like the chocolate driven energy provided on nearly every flat convention center surface (Dove Chocolate, Dove Bars, every corner of the S’mores Suite, etc.)  Yeah, there was a whole lot of endorphins wandering the halls of the San Diego Convention Center these past few days (I cannot vouch for certain which hormones filled the hallways a few weeks prior at Comic-Con 2011, but I’m going out on a limb here and say it might have been testosterone).

 

Anthropologists use the term “tribal society” to talk about groups of folks organized largely on the basis of kinship.  Any time you have the chance to gather with peeps who think like you, it is a pretty good thing.  It bolsters the group, makes them stronger and if you share a meal or a pot of tea I’d like to think happier, too.  But, we have to work at, and seek out, our “tribal” members and this is not as easy as it sounds for some folks.  Back in 1985, a cross-section of Americans were asked by a group of researchers how many confidants they had the most common answer was: three.  Less than a decade later the answer from 25% of those polled was: zero.  One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.

 

At the University of Chicago, Psychologist John Cacioppo found that isolation and loneliness affected stress hormones and the circulatory system adversely; increased the risk of suicide (young or old); impaired efficiency of sleep, along with a host of other issues.  Mother Teresa said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”  We the People, need socialization.

 

My son has a developmental disability that leaves his socialization skills and ability to interact in any kind of “tribal society” a bit off the mark.  Autism is considered a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) that affects the central nervous system, which inhibits social, speech and learning skills.  As the woman who loves her son as only a mother can, I can honestly tell you that the quirky behavior that often accompanies autism makes it more than a little difficult to gather tribal members.  My son has a great desire to be “part of the crowd” but the crowd doesn’t always respond to his advances.  As a result, the computer fills the need he does have to interact with others.  Mark Zuckerberg, thank you for helping people connect and share via FB, if I didn’t think you seemed slightly adverse to it, I’d hug ya.

 

As a whole, human beings are wired to interact with others.  Even my son, with his wonky autistic wiring wants to make contact, but goes about it a little alien-like.  No matter!  All of us can, and should, push forward to find our community – our network of people to exchange information with.

 

There are those who dismiss the onslaught of social media as superficial.  That’s too bad.  Because I can tell you that some of the happiest people gather on Facebook and Twitter.  Sure, there are some angry fingers slamming away on keyboards by some terribly unhappy individuals out there (relax, I’m not naming names here – at least, not today) but, by and large, you’ll find most posting and tweeting has happy content.  Why?  Even by the glow of a computer monitor, smart phone or pad/tablet…those faces are lit up by the connection made with other human beings.  Earlier this year a survey revealed that 47% of Americans use social media.  There may not be a lot of face-to-face time involved, but there is interaction.  There is a meeting of the minds.  There is socialization.  Not conventional socialization, mind you.  But socializing is happening, nonetheless.  Even my son, with his resistance to social interaction, is happier and more grounded when he has his clan to connect with.

 

As for me and my tribe?  These past few days we gathered in groups.  We listened to the words of our elders (or younger, yet more experienced leaders).  We bonded.  We feasted (boy, did we feast).  Our souls were nourished and we’ve moved over the mountain, having gotten that extra push over the cliff.

 

So, don’t be so quick to snub social media and the bloggers* out there waiting for you to discover them.  To read many of these writers is to sit down with a friend over a cup of tea or glass of wine (*cough cough* Jen Lancaster) and a chance to get to know them better by their words.  Almost all of them give you the ability to speak up, too (via comment link under each essay/article), email or through Facebook and/or Twitter.  No, it isn’t the same as sitting down to a meal or over a campfire, but for this 21 century tribal society – it serves a purpose.  It is, after all, called social media for a reason.

 

 

*Ooh!  Allow me this quick shout out to --

the QC Report, Jennsylvania, JustAddFather, CJaneCreate, GingerMandy, TheTypeAHousewife, RussianHillLife and more to come!