Observations

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Daughter, 11 years old today! Yaaaaay!

She really got shortchanged in the birthday department, as our household is totally engulfed in pre-move chaos. Before I left work today I ran up the street to the Chinatown giftshops and got her a necklace -- a four-leafed clover encased in lucite. It was the perfect gift (price-wise) for a girl who tends to lose her possessions, and give away the rest.

Later, she will get In n' Out Burger, and frozen cheesecake. Maybe I can find the candles, maybe not.

Today, Big Son's class went to Glide Church and helped feed the homeless.

Big Son's observations:

"Homeless people are nice and they don't smell bad," and "Homeless people drink a lot of coffee."

He said it was great, and he wants to do it again.

I wrote this story today -- well, I wrote part of it last week.

I am SO OVER the Fed meeting, already. Just cut those goddamn rates again, please, and move on, ok? Jeesh.

Speaking of moving on, we're moving to The Shack, one week from today. We now live in a filthy, dusty house, out of half-packed cardboard boxes.

I will miss the kitchen in our house now, with its lovely green view, and I will miss being so close to the train station in the morning.

Even now, I have to leave the house while the kids are asleep, to get to work by 6:30. At the new house, I'll have to take a bus to the BART station. The first one is at 5:57 am, which should get me there in time.....that is, IF it's reliable. I have no way of knowing if it is, until I try taking it every day to see.

If it's not reliable, then I don't know what to do. I guess I could buy a bike and ride it to the station. It's a little scary at that hour, but it might be all right.

After Hub moves back to Tokyo in a few weeks, no one will be there when the kids wake up.

In addition to the reliability of the bus, I worry about the reliability of 12-year old Big Son, as far as waking up and getting his little brother ready for school. I admit I am really worried about this.

We can't really afford a babysitter, now that our financial picture has dimmed. So the kids have to step up to the plate, and be more independent again.

Changing my working hours isn't possible, as long as I'm on the markets team. And I don't see myself getting off that team in the foreseeable future, until I move back to Tokyo in a year and a half.

I just have to figure everything out.

In the meantime, I have a lot of thoughts to keep me awake at night.

Baaaaaaad Mother

Thanks, everyone, for all of your wonderful comments. Dawn apologized. (Read the post two below this one, if you want to know the whole story.)

L., thanks for explaining. I agree that I should not have sided with a commenter whose intention was only to hurt, and I am sorry for doing so.

And you know, I realized, I was spending far too much time arguing on her blog. A couple of years ago, when I first found it, it was a different blog, and I was a different blogger. It attracted a wider variety of commenters, and I had the time to compose carefully worded responses, articulating every little nuance of my view. Lately, though, my role seems to be the lone voice of dissent, dashing off hasty, typo-ridden comments that all but invite misunderstanding. So I think I'll be a lurker there for a while -- hey, I lurk just about everywhere else.

Anyway, why the title of this post?

Today, I took Big Son to his basketball game (they lost, but he scored his first-ever basket -- YAY, BIG SON!!!) and then went to the supermarket on the way home and bought stuff for dinner.

I went home and Hub asked, "Where's Daughter?"

"Didn't you pick her up at Japanese school?"

"Didn't you....?"

We looked at each other and panicked. Japanese school had ended an hour and a half before.

I ran out and jumped back in the car.

Ironic, isn't it? After starting a blog-comment debate about how we're raising our kids, we do something like this. And it had nothing to do with discipline or any of our "laissez-faire" parenting attitudes -- it was all about plain ol' disorganization.

Hub later apologized, because he realized that he had in fact told me he would pick her up, but then for some reason got it into his head that I was going to do it and spaced out. That's not like him at all -- he has been under a lot of stress lately, with his impending move back to Tokyo.

Anyway, as I was driving there, I realized that I wasn't worried about anything bad happening to Daughter. She's not a little kid anymore -- she'll be 11 in a few days, plus she has a lot of common sense.

She waited outside for a long time, but when no one showed up, she went back into the school, told one of the teachers, and waited in the office. The teacher called our house, and Hub apologized and explained the misunderstanding and said I was on my way.

As soon as she got in the car, she started to cry.

"I was so worried that something bad had happened! That was really BAD PLANNING!"

Yeah, that summed it up pretty well.

Decades from now, I'm sure she will still be saying, "Remember that time that no one came to pick me up?"

On the other hand, if this is the worst thing we've done to her in 11 years, I don't think she has too much to complain about.

I had a bad day yesterday, but someone had a worse one.

I will keep on updating the post below this one, until the dead horse's bones are nothing but dust.

In the meantime, I want to share with you a mistake that someone other than me made at work.

A friendship that faded, PART 2 (UPDATED) (...and UPDATED again)

(NOTE: I'm tired up updating -- any readers can still interested in this sorry case can follow it themselves at Dawn's blog, under her post of Jan. 19. And no, she still has not apologized. Perhaps I ought to just make a donation to Planned Parenthood in her name to get some closure, and move on? Heh.)

This does not refer to the post below it, except for a similar outcome.

For nearly two years, I was a frequent commenter on a well-known Catholic blogger's site. I don't share all of her views, but I enjoyed her site, and even bought her book. My opinions often clashed with those of the blogger and most of her commenters, but I rarely felt any hostility there. And when I did, the blogger would remind her commenters to be nice.

I was always very honest there, and very open about how I am raising my children.

Today, a commenter there observed, "L - your kid will wind up dead like Heath Ledger."

I replied,

I'm going to reply to you quickly before Dawn deletes your comment.
What possible good could come of what you just said? What would make a person say something like that? Please think carefully about this. If you were really concerned about a child's welfare, and wanted to get through to the parents about something you think they are doing wrong, I advise you to stop using threats.

But Dawn didn't delete the comment. Instead, she said,

A reasonable person could conclude that a child parented the way you claim to parent yours would indeed wind up like Heath Ledger.

I am truly parenting my kids exactly the way I described on Dawn's blog, and here on my own blog.

And when I never return to Dawn's site, she will not have to waste any time wondering why.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATED: While I don't plan on going back to Dawn's site, for obvious reasons, a friend of mine emailed me Dawn's subsequent response, and follow-up comments:

Dawn said:

I am sorry that you feel that way.

You volunteered a great deal of information about your parenting choices. You wrote:

"If [my daughter] is old enough to procure it [contraception], she's old enough to "handle" it [sex]. I was a minor when I obtained hormonal birth control, and my parents did not need to know -- it was none of their business, and my daughter's sexual choices are none of mine."

In response to a question, "But would you allow your twelve-year-old to give up trying to do well in school, or stop eating vegetables, or become anorexic, without a fight, on the grounds that it is her right to do as she pleases with her life?" you wrote:
"Except for the anorexic part -- I have indeed."

In other words, you have stated that you have allowed your daughter to give up things that are extremely important for personal health and growth -- doing well in school and eating vegetables -- "without a fight."

Another commenter wrote to you, "But it seems to me that parents have a right, and indeed a duty, to fight with and for their children to persuade them of what is right. To do less is to abdicate the responsibilities of parenthood."

To which you responded:

"One cannot abdicate responsibilities that one has never accepted in the first place. I obviously have a very different idea of what my 'responsibilities' are, as a parent, than other people in this comment thread."

Again, a reasonable person could conclude that the child of a mother who admits having given up on her own child's health and well-being "without a fight" would indeed wind up like Heath Ledger.

You yourself introduced the topic of your own laissez-faire parenting in an effort to defend it. The onus is on you to explain why the life of a daughter whose own mother gives up on her well-being without a fight would not end in tragedy.
Dawn Eden Homepage 01.23.08 - 9:04 pm #

"Again, a reasonable person could conclude that the child of a mother who admits having given up on her own child's health and well-being "without a fight" would indeed wind up like Heath Ledger."

Dawn, I disagree very strongly.

Reasonable people should know better than amping up a disagreement about parenting attitudes with a pointlessly cruel reference to the lonely death of a celebrated young actor in (to date) ambiguous circumstances.

And reasonable people don't use refusing to a police a 12-year-old'saversion to vegetables as evidence of a mother's lethal indifference to her child's future.
Jody Tresidder 01.23.08 - 10:26 pm #

It's not just vegetables, Jody, but the whole idea of denying that parents "have a right, and indeed a duty, to fight with and for their children to persuade them of what is right." And I do believe that, to use the other specific example, doing well in school is something extremely important to children's well-being. A parent who refuses to counter a child who is giving up on school is likely to end up with a troubled child. There are plenty of statistics to back this up.
Dawn Eden Homepage 01.23.08 - 10:33 pm #

"Again, a reasonable person could conclude that the child of a mother who admits having given up on her own child's health and well-being "without a fight" would indeed wind up like Heath Ledger."
Wow.
But think about what "giving up" entails when it comes to kids, who are eternally changing their minds. Do you honestly think L. would allow her children to stop eating vegetables (or keeping up in school) if it got to the point where it was having a real impact on their health or mental well-being without seeking professional help? Didn't her anorexia answer show that? Step back for a second and consider human nature, not ideology.

So many debates here come down to how much control the government (neighbours?) should have over our lives. And it seems that nobody actually wants others to have the final say in how to conduct their family lives. So why shouldn't everyone be allowed to make their own parental decisions, as long as they're not genuinely abusive?

I really fear for how ugly this US election year will be. And I'm living in Canada.

Dawn, I've really respected your policy (and enforcement) of not allowing personal attacks on posters here. I can understand losing one's temper, but I am really disappointed by your attack on L., who seems to show you every courtesy here and whose only offence is in having opinions you don't like.
Terezia 01.23.08 - 11:27 pm #

"The onus is on you to explain why the life of a daughter whose own mother gives up on her well-being without a fight would not end in tragedy.:

I truly feel bad if L was offended, but I agree with Dawn's sentiment, and don't feel that there was anything cruel or unfair in the way in which she cast it.
Joanne 01.23.08 - 11:39 pm #

Terezia, I'm sorry to disappoint you.
L. has gone out of her way to give personal information about her parenting techniques and characterize herself as a "laissez-faire" parent. Now that a person has accused her of advocating a style of parenting that leads to tragedy, she is acting offended.

To my mind, of course when parents admit to "giving up" on their children rather than attempting to prevent them from making harmful life choices, their children will be more likely to suffer depression, sexually transmitted disease, unintended pregnancy, suicide, etc. That is a given.

This is a very personal issue to me. My mother gave up on me, condoning and even encouraging my sexual promiscuity, and I got so depressed and traumatized by my unhealthy lifestyle that I nearly killed myself. My father, while not condoning my dangerous behavior, also neglected to assert himself when he could have given me a strong message against having sex outside of marriage. It is only by the grace of God that I am alive, let alone free from sexually transmitted disease and without an abortion or an out-of-wedlock child.

If L. does not agree with this assessment, she is free to argue why her child will beat the odds of other children whose parents do not attempt to prevent them from making unhealthy life choices.
Dawn Eden Homepage 01.23.08 - 11:45 pm #

-----------------------------------------------------

(Note of apology to Homesick Home readers: Sorry if I am appearing to flay the flesh off a long-dead horse, but I will continue to post updates as long as I see them, as I await an apology from Dawn. I do not expect one, but I hope she surprises me.)



"If L. does not agree with this assessment, she is free to argue why her child will beat the odds of other children whose parents do not attempt to prevent them from making unhealthy life choices."

With the greatest respect, Dawn, there is no parent who can plausibly promise the world that no harm will ever befall their child. And there is a nasty threat implicit in using the headline example of Heath Ledger as a warning to a mother on this blog that she's practically asking for the same ghastly, lonely death for her own kid.

L. has argued consistently from a thoughtful (& loving) personal position about the limits of parental rights over their children's decisions.That doesn't remotely oblige her to make empty boasts about how this is a guarantee of their future wellbeing!
Jody Tresidder 01.24.08 - 8:27 am #

Dawn, I can understand how personal issues colour one's view, and I'm sorry if your upbringing was not a happy one.

But unless your parents are now raising L.'s children, you have a complete and intimate knowledge of the context in which L. parents, or you own a crystal ball, you have no way of knowing how L.'s children will turn out, and to make unqualified attacks like that doesn't do much for your case (or your credibility the next time you tell a nasty poster not to attack others).

I sincerely hope you're able to work through your parental issues in a way that brings you peace and allows you to see others' situations with a clearer eye. Projecting your disappointments in an unwarranted, nasty way on others who have been courteous to you really won't help that process.Good luck to you.
Terezia 01.24.08 - 10:07 am #

Dawn, I am coming back one final time, to humbly ask you to apologize.

I do not expect you to apologize for condemning my values, and my belief that teenage sex isn't inherently evil. Nor do I expect you to apologize for calling some of my parenting choices "unhealthy" in your view, and I understand why you think they are.

Contrary to what you stated, I did not "go out of my way to characterize" myself as a "'laissez-faire' parent" -- another commenter characterized me as such. I responded that my kids don't think I'm a "laissez faire" parent at all -- in fact, they call me "The Mama Monster." And you know my nearly two years of commenting on your blog that I send all three of them to Catholic school, against the wishes of my anti-Christian husband. I don't think any Catholic school can be characterized as a "laissez-faire" environment.

Nor do I think I can be fairly characterized as "a mother who admits having given up on her own child's health and well-being," simply because I happen to view my parental responsibilities in a very different light than you and some of your commenters do. In fact, this is exactly the kind of topic on which I have had many a spirited, civil, debate on your blog, which is why I kept coming back to it.

I ask only that you apologize for agreeing with the commenter who told me, "your kid will end up dead."

If you see nothing threatening in that -- if you think it is nothing more than a "reasonable" conclusion rather than a vicious proclamation that harm is due to befall me, then truly, you are not the person I thought you were.
L. Homepage 01.24.08 - 11:19 am #

FWIW, I've been lurking on this thread, and I do not see the comment in question as a threat.

It's the end of an if-then statement: Based on what you've said about your child-rearing concerns, if I understand them accurately, I predict your kid is going to end up dead. subtext, unhappily and early death, caused by bad habits not corrected by a concerned mother (or father, I suppose).

That's what I took from the comment. I do not see a personal threat to you, and have trouble making it into one.

One comment about Monster Mama put up against a whole lot of "that's none of my business what my child does" sort of postings - the many out weigh the few.

umm... This next bit is only about how you presented yourself in this discussion, ok?

What I took from your writing is that *You don't care what your child does*. You aren't interested in training her to think or be herself, or consider healthy choices, or maturity, or the simple fact that simply because one can do something, it's not always a good idea to actually do it.

I have no idea if that is what your life and child-rearing is *really*like. But that's what I got from what you wrote on this thread.

(FWIW, again, I've been on the receiving end of 'you're a bad parent' messages. Our kid turned out to be mentally ill, which in a way was a relief - the rages and fire-setting and all wasn't all our fault. We're struggling with limits and independence and choices now ourselves as she gets older - but her judgment is still sometimes worse than dreadful because of her illness.)

P.S.and, judging by what I hear of the local Catholic High Schools, yes they can be characterized as "laisse-faire".
Elaine 01.24.08 - 4:50 pm #

L, What if an even younger girl, say eight or nine years old, went to a PL facility and requested birth control paraphernalia....What if they were your daughters? Would that make you reconsider your views?
I recall watching a Dateline NBC show where kids in Cambodia as young as five were engaging in sex with foreign pedophiles....What if it were a nine year old having sex with a 12 or 13 year old....It happens in this country, too....Whether one is 12 or 13, 8 or 9 years old (and younger), the same moral, ethical, and legal rules apply in this situation.....Ultimately, those who support PP's values put themselves on a collision course with common sense.....
NYC 01.24.08 - 5:24 pm #

Elaine,You wrote of L's comments here: "What I took from your writing is that *You don't care what your child does*. You aren't interested in training her to think or be herself, or consider healthy choices...."

Here are three statements - excluding the "Monster Mama" description L's kids apply to her AND L's caveat that she would certainly take action over signs of anorexia - that L. made in this thread that do not support your reading.

Can you read these statements - and perhaps think again whether they are evidence L. doesn't "care" ?

1." I have only the right -- and the responsibility -- of teaching my children about the health risks and legal consequences of drugs, smoking and sex. But I realize at a certain point, I will have no control over what they do outside my home, anymore than my parents had control over me."

2."I now have an 11-year old daughter, and I admit I am VERY uncomfortable with the idea of her, or someone as young as she is, being sexually active. The vast majority of people this age are NOT mature enough for sexual relations, which is why the majority of them are not engaged in it."

3."I am certainly giving her much more information on the subject [of sex] than my parents gave me."
Jody Tresidder 01.24.08 - 6:32 pm #

A friendship that faded

I was reading another blog (which I won't link, since the writer strikes me as a very private person) and remembered someone I haven't thought about in years.

A college friend of mine moved to Tokyo, married a Japanese man, settled in the 'burbs on the Odakyu line and had a baby. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and she and I renewed our friendship via email. We wrote each other almost every day for over a year, and sent each other things in the mail that we couldn't get in our respective countries at the time.

I was having trouble making friends with other mothers at parks in LA, when I took my kids to play -- they just didn't talk to me. My friend living in Japan was having similar problems, and instead of blaming it on her particular neighborhood (which I decided was my problem), she blamed Japanese culture at large, and her foreign-ness.

She now has two children and is entirely homeschooling them, to keep them out of the Japanese educational system. When we moved back to Tokyo and we put our kids into the public system, she regaled me with horror stories about how traumatic it would be for them. Fortunately, she was wrong.

Speaking with her was awkward at times, and then she stopped returning my phone calls -- and after a while, I got the hint and stopped making the effort.

I always felt bad about this. The whole time we were emailing each other, I imagined moving back to Japan and hanging out with her while our kids played together. I think she might have imagined the same thing, because I remember she started telling me about apartments in her neighborhood.

But I didn't want to live in the 'burbs -- I wanted to live in central Tokyo, because I knew I would be going back to work fulltime and didn't want a long commute. I knew that if I was going to spend long hours in an office, every single minute of my precious home time with my small kids mattered, and it was worth it to pay extra rent to live closer. Every extra minute that I spent on the train was a minute that I wasn't spending with my kids.

I remember telling her this, and she asked me, if time with your kids is so important, why work fulltime? Why not work part time (like her), and live in the 'burbs (like her)?

There were two main reasons for our decision. One was that Hub and I did the math, and if we lived on his salary alone, or supplemented with a part-time salary of mine, we would have to live in his company housing, which was more than an hour outside central Tokyo. We simply couldn't have afforded rent anywhere closer. So the tradeoff was that the kids would get more time with me, but no time with Hub on weekdays. He would leave very early in the morning, while they were still asleep, and return most nights after they'd gone to bed. This arrangement works fine for some families, but we decided it wasn't what we wanted.

As it turned out, we rented an apartment which was about 10 minutes from Hub's office. So he could be both a workaholic and a dad -- he would come home, eat dinner with us, bathe with the kids, read them a story, and....return to his office.

The other reason I wanted to go back full-time was that I like my job. This is the hot-button reason, the reason that working mothers are supposed to suppress, lest they get labeled selfish and hear that their priorities are screwed up. Which is more or less what my friend implied, when I said it to her.

"Why don't you wait until they're older?" she asked.

Well, I said, because after taking four years off from fulltime work, I feel as if the time is right, for me, for our family, to go back to it.

In over six years in Tokyo, I ran into my friend only once, with her kids at an event. She was with a group of her homeschooling friends, and we spoke only briefly.

I should mention, I have a few other friends who homeschool their kids -- it works very well for some families. So I'm sure I never made any snide comment about her choice, because I truly have nothing against homeschooling and think families should be free to do it if they want to.

Maybe my friend is just one of those people who likes to be around people who are similar to herself? Maybe that's why she had so much trouble adjusting to Japan, and part of the reason why she balked at putting her kids in Japanese school?

And part of the reason why she dropped me as a friend?

I may never know.

Body Stuff

I'm thinking of ordering this book for Daughter.

I've heard it has actual photos of vaginas. (I have a feeling I am going to be too prudish to look at those photos. )

Dongurigal has a post up about nicknames for vaginas. Daughter named hers herself, soon after she learned to talk -- she calls it her "girl place." I like that.

Illahee recently wrote a body-related post , too, about being overweight in Japan. Daughter is skinny -- not overweight at all. But her mother is (ahem!) a bit on the curvy side, so the "fat" issue is probably going to come up in conversation from time to time after we move back.

A while back, I got this book for Big Son, since he's almost a teenager, and....he is too embarrassed to look at it. In fact, he keeps putting it back into MY bookshelf, which is his way of saying that he is not ready to think about such things. Oh well -- he will know where to find it when he wants to read it.

Okay, back to the moving boxes now. I can't order any books until our move is over, anyway.

Quotable

I asked Daughter, "Is Mama fat?"

And she answered, very earnestly, "I've seen fatter."

Life is.....beating me down.

I swore that the next time we packed to move, we would be moving home.

Why can't it be so?

This will be our fourth move in a little over three years. I am really tired of it. I thought that when we finally bought our own place, we could stay put for a while, but that didn't happen.

My lack of sleep is really getting to me. I look at all the boxes, ready to be packed, and want to cry.

But I'm not sad -- I'm angry.

I need a vacation. We went to Napa for a day in September, but haven't been anywhere since. I've only taken time off to chaperone kids' school field trips and go to doctor appointments. I didn't take any time off over the holidays.

But no time off for me, for a while. We need to move before I can even think about it.

I was thinking, reading the news today, about Mizuho buying a stake in Merrill, and it reminded me of this story I wrote a few years ago. It was about another Japanese megabank, but the point is the same.

Once such a behemoth lurches to an upright position, it's unlikely to stay in its own backyard.

See? SEE? I told you so! The Japanese megabanks are coming! They're coooooooooming!

I will be hiding under the bed, if anyone needs me. (...whimper...)

P.S. (to the post below this)

Funny -- the kids would rather be with Papa than Mama at any given moment. Papa is fun. Papa takes them out to dinner and buys them cool stuff like the Wii, and doesn't nag them to pick up after themselves.

But when they're sick?

Guess who they want to sleep next to them.

SPLAT!

Greetings, from the House of Vomit. So far, only Little Son is a walking biohazard -- hopefully, the rest of us won't catch it, but we'll see.

He threw up NINE times, Saturday night, which is a new record for our family. He seemed better Sunday, but commenced regurgitating Sunday night.

I am not sick myself, but have essentially pulled two all-nighters, followed by long Litany of Laundry days, washing sheets and pillows.

He doesn't have a fever. He doesn't want to sleep. Staying home with a feverish, sleepy kid is infinitely different than staying home with an actively grumpy kid spewing bodily fluids.

But the good news is, we raised about five grand for the family of the girl with leukemia. Whenever I need cheering up, I just think of that.

Damned if we stay, damned if we go.

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. Since I write just market-related stories, I can't possibly do all of them, but I love to know what people are wondering.

I had an incredibly unproductive day at work today -- all I wrote was my market report, and made very little progress on any of my features.

Most of this was due to the fact that at around 1:00 am a car alarm went off inside my head -- well, actually outside my window, but it sounded like inside my head. I didn't get much sleep after that, and whenever I am as sleep-deprived as I am now, I thank god that at least I can write a decent currency market report without using the part of my brain that shut down from exhaustion. But as for enterprise reporting, forget it -- especially since I developed a splitting headache as the day wore on.

Events of last night didn't help me feel restful, either.

Hub got home really late, so I slept in the kids' room because Big Son said he was "scared." (He has had a chronic problem falling asleep ever since his friend died.)

Then Big Son started crying and said that after Papa left, "every night will be like this."

He said, "I don't want to stay here! I want to go back to Tokyo with Papa! Why can't I go?"

I fully expected this. No matter what we decided to do, Big Son would be saying this now.

If we were all moving back together in March, Big Son would initially have been happy, but at some point then he would have realized he was leaving his school and his friends and said, "Why do I always have to leave my friends? Why can't we stay?"

It sucks for him to stay here, but it would suck for him to leave, too. But it sucks worse for the other two kids to go back to Tokyo right now, so we're staying.

Then Big Son said, "I'm going to get so upset that I'm going to get F's in all my classes, and then we have to go back to Tokyo!"

It sounded like a threat, so I told him, it won't work -- even if you do that, we have to stay here, so you'd better not do that.

I asked him if he would be willing to see the free school counselor sent from St. Mary's again, and he said, "No, I won't go -- I don't want to miss any classes" -- showing that he still cares about school, which is good. But rejecting free therapy? Not good.

So if this crying at night becomes a pattern, I guess I should probably find someone for him to see outside school time, but that could get expensive -- I have good insurance, but they don't pick up all of it.

Oh well. We'll see. I got a list of therapists' names and phone numbers from my own doctor yesterday and have started Googling them to see their backgrounds.

On Sunday, our school is having a bowling event for a girl who graduated last year, who now has leukemia and is having a bone marrow transplant in a few weeks, with a very uncertain prognosis. Any local readers of this blog can come to Serra Bowl in Daley City between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, and bowl two games for $20 (including shoe rental), with all profits going directly to the girl's family to help with their astronomical expenses.

I'm really glad I got involved in planning the bowling event, because it forces me to remember that there are many families out there with problems far, far greater than ours.

Help me out, people.

So my personal life has gone from the usual stress to overwhelmingly logistically complicated. Nothing is awful in a big way, but a myriad of tiny awful things drives me batshit insane, like death by a thousand cuts.

We're moving, to a much smaller place -- so.....house found, movers booked, packing commenced, possessions jettisoned, etc.

The kids lose their health insurance as soon as Hub leaves -- so......paperwork ready to get them on mine, at (gulp!) great and unexpected expense.

Hub's organization will pay for tickets to Japan for the family, but only one-way tickets (since technically they're repatriating us), and those have to be used within 180 days of Hub's return -- so....I'm now scrambling to plan a trip to Japan this summer.

Summer day camp? No money for that! See above -- plan to stay in Tokyo as long as possible.

But wait! There's a tenant in our Tokyo apartment, who's not leaving yet. Okay, scramble to stay with friends. We are PERFECT houseguests -- three kids who will be left unattended while their mother goes to work. Yes, work -- do you think I can get my company to agree to let me go to Tokyo all summer, unless I do my currencies job and cover Japan, too?

Oh, right -- I had better clear the working-from-Japan idea with people at work! Heh -- just a little detail there! Well, since the Big Boss himself was the one who proposed the idea, I should be able to pull it off somehow.

Even before all my logistical problems started, I was wondering how I was going to fit in at work. I've been struggling a bit during my first months in my new job, to try to find my niche both on my team and in the San Francisco office.

One challenge is that I am on the markets team, and market coverage has always been the bane of my existence at every financial news job I've ever had. A few years ago, I told the Big Boss himself that instead of covering markets, I would rather be beaten repeatedly with an iron shovel -- in those very words. Bless the Big Boss, he either doesn't remember that I said it, or he chose to believe I was kidding, because he hired me back, to feel the sting of the iron blade once more.

At my last wire job, I was known as somewhat of a high maintenance employee. Um.....actually, my nickname, given to me by the second of the four bureau chiefs for whom I worked, was "freak show." I was pathologically unable to keep my big mouth shut, and given the intense, pressure-filled (often poisonous) atmosphere of a financial newswire bureau in Tokyo, I had (1) lots of things to complain about, and (2) a dearth of people who wanted to hear these complaints.

One of my co-workers once said to me, "You know, you're good at your job -- otherwise, they would fire your ass in a second, because everyone thinks you're really irritating."

Learning from my past mistakes, in my current office I've tried very hard to be "That Quiet Employee Who Just Does Her Job and Works Hard and Then Goes Home to Her Children and Doesn't Bother Anyone."

(Note: This tactic recently backfired. I suddenly found myself at risk of being, "That Quiet Employee Who Just Does Her Job and Shows No Leadership Ability and Risks Being Viewed as Spineless and Less Capable Than Other Louder Members of Her Team.")

Anyway, what does all this blather have to do with you, my blog readers?

STORY IDEAS. I need them. FROM YOU, all you darling normal average people on the street.

I'm writing for the masses now, not for Cow Bones' institutional wire subscribers who want to read all about currency forwards and options volatility curves and candlestick charting and technical crap.

I love writing for a general readership, but the scope of my beat is a bit narrower than I hoped. I thought, hey, I can write about how the weak dollar affects investing in international funds! No, wait -- a fund reporter already did that one. Oh, how about how the weak dollar is bringing more foreigners here to shop! Hmmmm, that's obviously a retail story, and a retail reporter already wrote it.

Today, for instance, I thought about writing about the currency of a certain small Asian nation, and I first cleared it with our Emerging Markets reporter, to make sure she wasn't already on it. She told me a reporter in Asia is working on stories about this very country, and that I had to check with him, too. I also proposed an idea about a certain policy-related subject, and our Washington bureau chief told me I needed to run my idea past our brand new markets/econ editor as well. Sigh.... But least it looks as if I will be able to do those stories, once I get everyone's okay -- so far, no one is getting all territorial on me, thank god.

So what do you want to read about? I can't guarantee I'll write about it, but if anyone has any suggestions, I would LOVE to hear them.

I am not yet a "freak show," but lately I am in danger of turning into "That Employee Juggling All The Personal Logistical Stuff"--- so I need to come up with some really great stories, to compensate for this.

Over the years, I've consistently gotten some of my best story ideas from cab drivers. Alas, I don't take cabs in San Francisco.

But maybe I should start....?

Taking It All Apart

So our life is now for sale on craigslist -- want to buy a piece of it? It's being disassembled, deconstructed.

We're downsizing. We're moving from a four-bedroom, two-bath house to a two-bedroom, one-bath "Victorian cottage." You know what "cottage" means in real estate jargon, right? SHACK. It's a SHACK, with lovely mouldings and original fixtures, and probably mice. It's amazing how my values change when the Japanese government will no longer pay most of my rent.

It was built in 1906 -- before or after the great earthquake, I know not.

You know how I can tell I lived in Japan too long? I hear "1906" and I think, whoa, that's not even Taisho --- that's MEIJI!

In my head, I maintain a long, complicated, continuously updated list of the stuff that's not coming back to Tokyo with us. Our possessions are all mentally pre-sorted into "to be brought back," "to be discarded," and "undecided." In some ways, this interim move will make our inevitable trans-Pacific move a little easier, because it will eliminate many"to be discarded's" early, and force me to cull some of the "undecided's," too.

But today I spontaneously got rid of some "to be discarded" bedding, and I was surprised at how wrenching it was.

We had a black, metal frame bunk bed. I had offered it to friends, but didn't hear from them, so I posted it on craigslist today, as an experiment, to see it anyone would actually pay money for it. I listed it for a hundred bucks, and amazingly enough, within a couple of hours, I had two queries.

The first guy wanted it immediately, and came with a truck to take it away. I said he could have the mattresses that came with it, too. "Yeah, I want them, please," he said. "And I'll take any other bedding you're getting rid of -- I have a lot of friends."

Great, I thought. This would save me a trip to the Salvation Army, because I did indeed plan to get rid of some old comforters.

He was young, very overweight and somewhat sweaty. A student, maybe? I sure wouldn't want him sleeping in the top bunk over me.

He brought an older Hispanic man to help him dissemble the bed. The older man said to him, "This will cost you extra," and the heavy, sweaty man said, "Fine."

The old man said he needed an Allen wrench.

"I'm not sure we have..." -- I started to say, but Big Son cut me off.

"Here you go," he said to the older man, after pulling one out of a box of toys.

The man was impressed. "Wow, he has tools and he keeps them handy! Good boy!"

Big Son proceeded to help the older man with the bed, even offering useful advice about the easiest way to take the pieces apart.

Meanwhile, I went upstairs to get the mattresses and extra bedding, and that's when I started getting upset.

I had decided to get rid of the black corduroy comforter that Hub and I had slept under since coming to San Francisco, and also an ugly flowered comforter that had been my late grandmother's. They were cheap, not so warm, fraying around the edges, steeped in pain and seeped with tears many times over. They were the two blankets I crawled under whenever I was having a bad day after we moved here.

The bunk bed mattress wasn't in the bed frame -- it was up in the kid's room, on the floor, because it was comfortable and lately it had been Little Son's bed of choice. In fact, I had laid beside him last night and read him a story, on that very mattress. I had just washed the flannel sheets yesterday, not knowing I was about to sell the bed, so it still smelled of fabric softener and my little boy's hair -- that fruity kids' shampoo he uses. Clean scents of warmth and comfort.

Here I was, handing all of this over to the heavy, sweaty man.

I helped him carry it to his truck, and he set the mattress down in the street to make room in the truck bed. There was something so jarring about seeing my little boy's mattress, with its fragrant sheets with moons and stars on them, on which less than 24 hours ago I had been lying with him....IN THE STREET. My brain screamed, "WRONG! This is just WRONG! This does not belong out here! Put it BACK!"

Tears sprang into my eyes. I knew it was silly --- hey, I still have the little boy himself, the center of all the warmth and comfort, without whom the mattress would be devoid of meaning. It wasn't Little Son in the truck bed, just a replaceable thing with a superficial connection to him.

But it made me realize how transient and illusionary our stability is. One night I'm snuggled up next to Little Son in a warm, cozy bed, and the next afternoon, due to the unconventional, unstable circumstances of our current life, that very bed is unexpectedly out in the street, about to go home with a heavy, sweaty stranger who will probably be the one sleeping on it tonight.

The younger man asked me, "You okay?"

"Sorry," I said. "I lost my grandmother."

This was true, except it happened a dozen years ago. Today, I was just losing her ugly, flowered comforter and some other bedding that we didn't need, anyway. I couldn't even begin to explain to him all the stuff about our unstable life.

"Aw, sorry, ma'am," he said quietly, before we loaded the rest of the bed frame into the truck.

The older man came up to me and said, in his thick accent, "Your big boy is good with tools. He helped me a lot. He's a very good boy."

"Yes, he is. Thank you," I said.

I stood in the street and watched them as they drove around the corner, taking little pieces of our life away in their truck, flowers and flannel stars flapping in the breeze.

So...........anyone out there want a dining room table?

Happy New Year!

Matthew of Childs Play x2 duly put up my post last night (sorry for giving you grief, Matthew -- but I do go to bed early these days), so I can now link to it.

If you want to read about my family's holiday traditions, click on over. And when you're done reading it, check out the photos of his adorable twins, Swee'Pea and TheMonk.

And a happy new year, to one and all.