Bankruptcy: Red is the New Black

Tyranny is always whimsical.

--Mark Steyn

So Dad made me read this article by Mark Steyn, a Canadian emigre who has an excellent grasp on political issues and who will, incidentally, make you laugh your butt off. (It's ok--it reattaches fairly easily.) In the article, "Live Free or Die!", Steyn argues that America has entered the first of five stages in the death of a free democracy. Stage One, in his view, is when we start accepting governmental "help" with things that have never been the government's true responsibility--things like childcare, care of elders, and housing. Steyn sees this progression as something like what happens when you give a middle-schooler cigarettes: at first it seems so harmless, but then you're hooked and the outlook is not so good.

Anyhow it's a great article and you should read it, but what it got me thinking about was politicians one can compare PBO to. Steyn makes the point that the changes we've been making lately are much larger than the past presidents we can compare PBO too--they're bigger than the New Society, the New Deal, or Carter's attempts at sweatering the nation. So I got to comparing and contrasting PBO with some presidents of the past whose reach might have exceeded their grasp.

(Apologies if any of ya'll voted for him; I'm not trying to be disrespectful. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but just think about it for a bit.)

The most obvious comparison, in that it even occurred to the dudes at Time Magazine, is with FDR, whose campaign slogan should have been "As Different from Teddy Roosevelt as You Can Get While Having the Same Last Name." Roosevelt, of course, is the one that some folks who were not paying attention in high school economics think saved us from the Great Depression. Sadly it is likely his fiddling and Hoover's actually prolonged it, but Hoover was usefully out of office and thus could be blamed for many things while Roosevelt got accolades for anything good that accidentally happened. The media felt it was their duty to report things as encouraging, to get people to spend money and not riot in the street demanding bread and so forth. In this way, PBO is like Roosevelt. Things are still President Bush's fault.

He can be forgiven; blaming your predecessor has a long and noble history in politics, although the blame is usually not done this crudely (i.e., hopping up and down and pointing one's finger and shouting, "he started it!"). PBO also resembles Roosevelt with the whole fiddling with the economy bit, although he has far out-fiddled Roosevelt, who could only dream of nationalizing entire industries and the country's banks.

(Incidentally, the fifth amendment to the Constitution forbids nationalizing the country's banks. Nobody seems to have noticed this.)

PBO resembles Wilson, Carter, LBJ, and a number of other political figures to a greater or lesser extent. What troubles me, however, is less how the man himself performs his duties than the characteristics of events lately.

It ought to always make us prick up our ears when people say things like, "we need to dispense with this piddly check or balance because we are in a great emergency, and the government needs powers it doesn't have". The argument wasn't good when it applied to the Patriot Act, and it still wasn't good when it came to the Stimulus. It becomes far less believable when, months later, we are still being asked to dispense with checks, balances, and even good business sense in order to bail out various chunks of the private sector. Anyone with a nose should be able to get why you need to obey checks and balances even more in an emergency. Nobody ever says, "Sure, I don't have any problems right now, but I have some extra freedom and money laying around--why don't you guys take it." There always has to be at least an attempt at an excuse, because most people will resist brute force at first.

Today I was bothered by the proclamation on the morning news that the recession is lifting--oh, and they also expect unemployment and foreclosures to rise, but not to worry, the administration says the recession is definitely on the way out. Getting rid of problems by re-naming them (anyone remember how we've re-branded "The War On Terror" as "overseas contingency operation"?) is troubling because it's only one step away from getting rid of problems by blaming a handy scapegoat group. Then you have to go after the scapegoat group, and then when you still have problems and no group, you have to say that the group is somehow still managing to affect you and build up even more rhetoric against it (those dang bourgeoisie/Jews/immigrants/Irish/rich people/poor people/fill in the blank). Not helpful in actually solving problems and involves a lot more expense, usually, what with having to build camps and whatnot.

Then there is the fact that everybody that this administration has been associated with in Illinois politics seems to be doing things the old-school Chicago way. It's possible that the administration can have a bunch of corrupt friends who forget to pay their taxes and yet be pure as the driven snow, but the fact that no one is even given pause by these associations is a bit weird, don't you think?

The Husband and I were talking, and the Husband jokingly said that If These Trends Continue to their logical conclusion we are on the road to communism. I responded that no we weren't, technically, headed toward communism, since communism is the centrality of the collective. In other words, the government has to be totalitarian in communism ostensibly to make sure everybody has equal stuff. When you have a totalitarian government that does not pretend to enforce equal stuff, what you have is not communism but fascism. The unfortunate tendency to equate fascism with National Socialism confuses people. The Nazis were only a particular breed of fascist, but fascism itself is just centrality of the state, unvarnished with anything except possibly a twisted patriotism. (Therefore, the idea the political beliefs are a spectrum, with fascism at the extreme right and communism at the extreme left, is false. For one thing, Republican principles {if not actions} espouse small government with limited power.)

This should make us stop. Americans still remember the Soviet Union too well to be wooed by overt promises of Making Us All Just As Good As Anybody Else, but we are easily swayed by promises that we will be kept safe and out of wars--that the name of America will be respected abroad--that the economy will be fixed--that only the really bad people will be hurt by innovations in our basic principles.

I'm not comparing PBO to Hitler, ok? That would be silly and melodramatic and anyway you would stop listening to me. But put it this way-- I can't think of a time in history when the current political strategies were used that led to MORE freedom and peace. I'm just sayin'.

Cheers,

Breanna

Guess Who Hit Ten Pounds?

I knew it wasn't my imagination that he was eating all the time. Brother has had his one-month doctor's appointment finally, and has confirmed that he is a chunk.

Ten pounds, 22 inches. That's 3 1/2 pounds and an inch he's grown in a month. Yikes.

And by the way, this is how we've been napping lately--our special "nap bed" on the couch. You'll notice we didn't want to take off our gardening hat for napping. Because, you know, you might need to get up and garden quickly.

Cheers,

Breanna

"Adapt"

"Well, when my nephew came last summer we played a game with him called 'Adapt.'"
Harold: "Oooh, that sounds exciting! 'Adapt!' How do you
play that game?"
"The adults basically do whatever they want and the children have to adapt."

--Red Green

So I promised, a while ago, to write a second post about the decline I think America might have in store. I started to write a high-falutin' one about how people in dark ages manage to make beautiful things, etc., and then it occurred to me, as I started to enumerate attitudes that I thought would be helpful At Such A Time that said attitudes were always helpful. So you'll just have to take my word for it that, although anticipating a new Dark Ages might be alarmist, I'm not actually terribly alarmed about it. Talking about that would make the post too long. Instead, I shall talk about the attitudes, since they are helpful anyway and not alarmist. :)

The game "Adapt", which a lady I know who has a broken foot has been playing, is a very useful game, and this is the game we should all be ready to play. In other words, although you do a thing a certain way right now, what if you couldn't and had to do it another way?

A very easy one to play with is, say I had no electricity. How would my clothes get clean? Clothesline for the drying, natch; I'm not so jazzed about washing clothes in a five-gallon bucket with a plunger. I have heard recommendations on another blog that is no longer up to wring laundry that you must wash by hand in an industrial-grade mop bucket wringer. Since I love industrial-grade mop buckets (if one absolutely MUST have a mop bucket--I don't have enough moppable floor to justify one) this made sense to me. Will I run out and buy a mop bucket, just in case? No; but I bet that mop buckets are not going to be the first thing people mob onto in the stores in the event that our electric system becomes more like, say, Columbia's or New Orleans's and I could get one if I needed it. Anyway, I do have a five-gallon bucket and a plunger, currently on other assignments.

I think it's probably healthy to always play a little Adapt, even if you never have to actually adapt. I don't mean just things like how would you get along in an extended power outage, but also how would you get along if you had to move in with family, or they had to move in with you? How would you celebrate if you always buy an ice cream but now you can't afford it?

So the central attitude I think is helpful is, of course, "be ready to adapt." The others flow from this and can be treated in less lengthy form.

1) Don't expect the government to help you. It's not really their job, and at any rate they're not very good at it. (See: New Orleans reference above.) If you get help from them, awesome, but think of it as gravy and set about building relationships with family, friends, neighbors, and church folks. This is a much better hedge against eventualities than Social Security. Of course, don't depend on others either--depend on the strong Son of God, but I'm saying if you have a choice between which temporal things to form relationships with, go with the people you know rather than the state.

2) Remember that sooner or later there's always a blizzard. Or a flood. Or a glorious revolution. In other words, we live in a world of sin and sorrow, so preparation for the manifestation of sin and sorrow is a good thing.

3) That being so, always keep some necessaries put by. Food, medicine, lamp oil, Snickers bars, whatever you'd want during a week-long blizzard/flood/hurricane/civil upheaval. This is not alarmist, it's just how people have always lived until really recently when they started moving into apartments with microscopic pantries and great big TV nooks.

4) For Pete's sake, keep cheerful. That's been the hardest struggle with this foot o' mine--the temptation is to complain all day long because every time you go to do something, you're reminded that you can't do it the right way or the easy way. However, complaining won't make my life any easier, and it won't make my family's lives any easier, and it won't make the situation change faster, so all it accomplishes is that we are all that much more miserable. So don't fuss when you play Adapt. It means you lose 67 points.

5) Pray. This is one of those you-should-do-it-anyway things. I had a professor who was a flake but who was right a lot accidentally; she said that it's called a "spiritual practice" because you practice it in daily life so it's there when you need it. Ignoring the fact that spiritual practices that are solely for our own benefit are probably not valid, it makes the point that it will be a lot easier to rely on the Lord for hard things in the eventuality if we rely on Him for less-hard things right now. Try trusting Him for the grocery budget or your irritating second-cousin who is coming to visit, and then I imagine it won't be quite as hard to trust Him if you ever find yourself in Corrie Ten Boom's shoes, hiding Jews in the upstairs closet.

Now I must go read to Miss Boo, so that's all for today.

Cheers,

Breanna

Sanity

"Discipline at first seems hard, not only to the person being disciplined, but also to the person doing the discipline. So often we shy away from the reality that of those choices up in that list of what motivates actions, we have to choose the hard ones."

--Like Mother, Like Daughter

In a world (or internet) where I've seen everything about discipline from using a switch on 1-year-olds (honestly, who thinks that's okay?) to never speaking firmly to your child lest it harm his developing psyche, here from a mom of many is an article on spanking that makes a bunch of sense. It pretty much says what I think about spankings but I have never been able to put it so well.

You should go on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter (in the sidebar) and check out THEIR sidebar for the rest of the discipline series. Most well-written, most sensible.

Might I mention for the record that I only ever spanked a kid I babysat once... when he kicked me in the chest. Hard. The spanking wasn't hard, it was just instantaneous. He, his brother, and his sister all stared at me as though I had suddenly acquired a third head. Then I snuggled all three of them very lovingly, we watched cartoons, and I never, ever got sass (or a kick) from them again. Something to think about.

Of course, MY children will never need/have never needed spankings...

(...I'm lying...shamelessly...)

...but it's good to think about all this anyway.

Cheers,

Breanna

Apple Blossom Time

So the apple trees are in blossom, and my thoughtful husband took a picture of them since I can't easily wander out and smell them, what with the gimpyness and all, but here is a very sweet picture first:
Mmmmmwah! (All Miss Boo's kisses have sound effects, especially when we kiss Brother. And Miss Boo pronounces that "Broba", by the way.)

Here is the garden, waiting for things to spring up and fill the bean poles. Those wall o' water tomato dealies look impressive but the tomatoes are still scraggly little babies. We'll see if they spring to life or not. But aren't the pavers gorgeous? Who has paved English-style paths in their garden, I ask you? Someone whose husband works for a cement company, that's who.

Here is one of my pretty apple trees. Considering that there were about ten blossoms last year and almost no apples, I'm thinking we might have a more apple-intensive year, wouldn't you say?

Here is little man in his sumo pose.

Just in case you were wondering how diaper-changing is happening when it's very inconvenient to haul a poopy child and a broken foot all the way into the nursery--well, we are playing the game "Adapt."

May I just say, for all the fam to hear, how awesome the Husband has been through this whole gimpy episode of my life? I don't know how many husbands there are out there who do things like work hard all day at the office ("the office" being a place where you have to wear steeltoes and a hardhat) and then come home and change babies, cook dinner, and clean up after a wife who's been tootling around bumping into things in her wheelchair all day--but I bet it ain't many. And when it comes to doing all this without an inordinate amount of fussing, I bet there's only one. That's my man. :)

Happy Tuesday, ya'll,

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S.

Did you know that when we were little, Kenny, Uncle Dunkle, and I all used to say "Happy Memorial Day"? Because it was, like, a holiday and of course you were happy on Memorial Day? Kids. They just don't understand the deep connection between picnicking and the dead.

Yay! Clean Clothes!

So it's not gardening pictures, but nevertheless we got a lot of indoor work done as well today. My wonderful inlaws were up for the weekend. (See Opa sleeping with his grandson on his knees? Aren't they just the cutest thing?)
Some kinds of help are the kinds of help that helping's all about...

... and some kinds of help...

...are the kinds of help we all can do without. Thank you, Miss Boo, for putting the folded laundry back in the basket.

Turn around and let Mama take your picture!

*sigh* Fine. I'm turned around. Happy now? I need to get back to my laundry-folding duty!

(Actually, this was not a snotty face--it was a I'm-anticipating-getting-flashed-in-the-eyes face.)

We've got the garden half-planted and we're only one day into the long weekend. Tomorrow we plant the other half and then sit around for the rest of the day, sipping beverages.

My floor is vacuumed.

My laundry is in the process of getting done--with a woman's touch! (Nothing against the Husband, but male laundry is rather... utilitarian, isn't it?)

Miss Boo is getting chased, dirty, cleaned up, and happily exhausted without much input from me and my foot.

It's a good weekend. :)

Cheers,

Breanna

Planting a Garden & Baked Beans

...Are taking up all my time today. With any luck we'll have some cute Miss Boo gardening shots later. Just a note to let you all know that I'm still still alive and--er, kicking. One-footedly.

Cheers,

Breanna

Ambitions Realized

"You'll call me Jamie boy...."

--The Black Swan

(shout out to Kenny!)

When I was younger I wanted to be, variously and depending on what I was reading at the time, a ballerina, an entymologist, headmistress of a school (thanks Jane Eyre), a nurse, and Elizabeth Bennet. Conspicuously absent from this list, you will note, is princess; replace it with "musketeer" and you'll have a better idea of my ambitions--I wanted Errol Flynn's part in The Black Swan, not Maureen O'Hara's.

It occurred to me today that I've had all these roles (except musketeer) lately. The nurse part is obvious; I've been headmistress and an entymologist simultaneously while teaching Miss Boo about worms; Elizabeth Bennet comes in because the Husband likes Pride and Predjudice too and fancies himself as Darcy; and the ballerina thing just lately because I've been balancing on one foot--effectively, if not gracefully. So maybe I'll get hold of a rapier and work on that musketeer thing, eh?

Anyway, this is just a note to let you all know we're doing fine, I'm just not getting as much blog time as I thought I might, what with the being chair-ridden thing. I'll try to get my other Dark Ages post and some more pictures up soon... I haven't forgtten you!

Cheers,

Breanna

Something Else I Was Googling

...the full lyrics to Loch Lomond. Enjoy.

(Miss Boo likes to fall asleep to this song and one verse just ain't enough.)

Cheers,

Breanna

Pictures, Pictures

I promised, and I deliver, although a day late.
He's really a smiley kid. I keep trying to take a picture of him smiling, and he gets all mesmerized with the camera and stops smiling. So you'll have to take my word for it.

Here are bare Brother toes, since it was pretty hot when we took the picture.

Miss Boo has been fond of "ize"--which is Boovian for, of course, "icewater".

See? Hot for May, at least 'round these parts.

So Brother has been hanging out in just a t-shirt and diaper, chillin'.

We're still doing good as far as the foot thing goes. I was sort of moping around, feeling like I couldn't do anything, until I realized that there must be lots of mothers out there in wheelchairs, and they get things done. Of course, they probably also have handicapped-accessible houses, but hey-- I can hop and wheel around and get some things accompished. I discovered yesterday it's possible to sweep the kitchen floor in a wheelchair if you're very creative and think it through thoroughly.

The church folks have been wonderful, popping around with meals unexpectedly and offering to babysit and do laundry if we need it. I admit that I'm going to have to be more hard-up before I let the church ladies see my holey socks and spit-up stains, but we may come to that yet. I suspect the Lord is teaching me something about pride. Anyway the babysitting thing may be the start of a long-term deal, should I access the 14-year-old who's been offered up to me and should she turn out to be steady. I could see myself paying her to help out afternoons in August, when I've got to deal with (hopefully) a bumper crop of tomatoes, or when I've got a backlog of sewing to do. (She is homeschooled and done with her schoolwork around 1pm, so I'm not flouting the child labor laws. Though I do love a good excuse to use the word "flout" in a sentence.)

Well, that is about all the news I have for now, except that I did find an article on how to keep potatoes overwinter in my climate. If you want it, comment, and I'll post, but I suspect only Mom will want it and I'm going to show it to her anyway. :)

Cheers,

Breanna

The Long Twilight

"The hand on the heart for the national anthem... and you and the Romans are the only ones to ever do that, so be very careful."

--Eddie Izzard, Dressed to Kill

A theological/philosophical/social post, so skip if you are just looking for the cute babies. :) Haven't had a second for a camera today.

This is a detail from a bigger picture called "Triumph of Death," painted during the most recent Dark Ages-- the ones that included the Black Death, among other niceties. I include it to show that even the people who lived during the Dark Ages thought that they were, well, Dark Ages.

The Dark Ages, referred to a bit more euphemistically as the Middle Ages, have been on my mind lately both because I've been reading a biography of Eleanor of Aquataine and because I've been viewing our recent progress here in the West with a troubling image of the last two centuries of Rome twiddling in the back of my mind. (How can something twiddle and be troubling at the same time? Not sure, but this does.)

Rome wasn't built in a day, and it didn't fall in a day either; it sort of slowly declined, whatever Gibbons wants to say. In Gibbons's famous opinion, Rome declined because the namby-pamby Christians took over and made it stop being such an effective military dictatorship. This may be true, in which case it was not the Goths but actually the namby-pamby Christians who took down the greatest military power the world had known since Alexander. In any case, Roman society was rotting, because Roman society was based on values that do not keep well--namely, civic pride ("Rome is awesome!"), monetary gain ("you make a little, I'll make a little, everybody wins"), and a sharp demarcation between the real people ("citizens") and the conveniently non-people ("slaves"). It had its other downsides too, of course, like the whole feeding religious dissenters to lions as public entertainment thing, but for the sake of discussion, let's just take the three attitudes I've listed.

Now I'm going to hit a sacred cow with a hammer and point out that Americans love to bash themselves. In a perverse sort of way, this is our version of civic pride ("America is horrible"). It's been an American tradition since at least the War Between the States to point out our deficiencies. Back then we usually compared ourselves to Europe, and now we generally compare ourselves to places like India or Tibet, but we still like to compare and come up short. (Christians are not immune to this, but by the grace of God we might compare ourselves to Scripture instead of other countries.)

So there's one Roman attitude we have, and it's a dangerous one; it makes people stay self-focused while feeling very self-righteous at the same time.

We are, of course, seeing the outcomes of our attitude toward monetary gain at the moment. "You make a little, I make a little, everybody wins" only works when everybody is also honest. The Bible has plenty to say about debt, swindlers, and rulers who make life rough on the poor, so 'nough said--go look it up in Proverbs yourself.

"Well," you are thinking, "at least we don't have slaves any more, so the third thing isn't happening." I would argue, however, that we have all sorts of categories for "real people" and "convenient non-people". The most obvious and heinous convenient non-people are, as I've written before, the unborn. However, there are other categories of people who fit the bill too.

We don't really believe that old people have anything to say about today's society; still less that a white, blue-collar guy who watches football and eats red meat might have anything to contribute to the discussion. We already know what he thinks, right? And anyway he probably didn't even vote for PBO. We don't think stay-at-home moms, especially if they chose to stay home, have much to contribute, being as how they're not self-actualized and all. And don't lets even get started on those fundamentalist Christians-- they can be counted on to be wrong.

So what's my argument, then? Do I expect the darkness to descend here within the next five years? Since only the Wicked Witch of the West has a crystal ball that actually works, I don't know. It's possible that America, the modern Rome, could fall quicker than her counterpart. After all, Rome lasted 800 years and spent about 200 years falling. We've had about 200 years, so proportionally our fall should take 50 years.

But I think we are in what you might call the long twilight. While this makes me sad for a country that has been at times truly great and that has always striven to do the right and noble thing (even if it failed), that's not really the biggest concern for Christians. For us, the biggest concern is whether we will let God light the coming Dark Ages the same way He lit the last ones-- with people copying and studying and reciting Scripture in the darkness like the beacons of Minas Tirith.

My simple suggestion, in case our fall is accelerated and the barbarians come a-knockin'? Memorize your Scripture now. You should be doing it anyway.

Miss Boo has just wakened early from her nap, so even tough there is more to this topic, I must go. I'll write more later about the actual Dark Ages.

Cheers,

Breanna

You Might As Well Learn New Things

If you have to be in a chair a lot, that is. I have been learning...in articles like this.

In case you are someday surviving on rose hips to avoid scurvy, you're welcome.

Now if I can just find someone who can tell me how to keep potatoes overwinter when your winters are pretty dang wintery, I'll be set.

Cheers,

Breanna

Wheeling Solo

I almost entitled today's post "flying solo" but then realized that while flying would be really convenient right about now, I can't fly, I can only wheel around in my chair. So anyway, today is the first day that the Husband had to be back at work and Miss Boo, Brother and I are by ourselves. It's going surprisingly well.

I've moved everything we might need out to the living room and barricaded off the areas of the house where Miss Boo can get into more than the usual level of mischief; I've set up a little temporary nap-bed on the couch for Miss Boo (which she is enjoying at the moment); and Brother's bassinet continues to reside beside my chair(s). I've got one necessary phone-call out of the way, and am dressed although I haven't figured out yet how I'm going to brush my teeth and am thinking it will have to wait until the Husband shows up for his lunch hour. So all in all, I think we're doing pretty well.

There is a pair of robins who are trying to build a nest in the fir tree outside my front window. The lady robin tends to choose sticks and things that are a nice, middling size. The husband robin tends to haul up things that are too big for him to carry, thus he ends up either trying to fit them in the nest and then finding they don't fit, or he drops them before he gets them all the way up to the nest. It's quite entertaining to watch and just confirms that one way men and women are different is that women are born nest-builders. If it was all husband robins out there everything in a house would be one color and there would be no such thing as curtains. Or doilies.

Well, enough pictureless post for now. I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow and get them posted. Brother changes by the day now.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S. Thanks for all the prayers. I know that's why things are going as well as they are and why I'm nearly pain-free. Love you all!

It's a Good Thing I'm Sitting Down A Lot

Beacuse Brother is turning into a moose through much eating. Seriously, I think the kid puts on chins and inches in the night. Not to mention the record-setting pooping. But that's good, right? :)

Magical mystery fingers, chins and...

..inches.

(A picture from earlier this week for comparison purposes. See what I mean?)

On the foot front (which makes me sound like a war theatre) the swelling is mostly down but the bruising is now awesomely impressive; I can look very noble by sticking my foot out and saying modestly (and honestly) "well, it doesn't hurt that much..." Note that this would be less noble-seeming if everybody didn't believe I was lying. Simpering in the wheelchair adds to the whole pathetic-Colin-in-The Secret Garden vibe I'm trying to achieve. (He was the one in the wheelchair who threw fits, remember? Not Dickon the cool Yorkshire peasant kid who was probably autistic now that you think about it.)

The Husband is impressing me hourly. Not only did this beautiful man let me SLEEP IN this morning (do you realize how rarely a mom of two littles sleeps in?) but he's been fetching and carrying for me all day and watching the very mobile Miss Boo, and cooking for all of us. What a guy.

Does this mean that if you were all able to beam here from your respective homes that I wouldn't take the help? Noooo.... but it does mean that when God gives you a broken fifth metatarsal, He apparently gives you the grace to deal with it as well. I knew He would; it's just hard to feel graceful sometimes when the lady is telling you how to turn your broken foot for the x-ray machine.

(Speaking of, you know that part in Logan's Run where they're going to give Logan a new face in the Facetron 3000 or whatever it's called, and they the lasers go all crazy and kill the Facetron operator? Well, the table that moves you around for the x-ray machine at the urgent care clinic sounds just like the Facetron 3000 did in that movie, and I kept expecting lasers. Amazing what your mind will leap to if you've seen too many movies and are not allowed to have any of the good painkillers.)

Anyway, happy Saturday!

Cheers,

Breanna

Real Pictures at Last!

Firstly, the foot: This is my Darth Mom foot. (Turn to the dark side.)

This is my Regular Mom foot. (There are starving children in Sri Lanka that would be happy to have that.)

Here's my crutches-- they are easier than the wheelchair for a surprising number of things, including maneouvering in the bathroom.

And finally, a sleeping baby picture to make up for all the foot news. :) He sleeps in his bassinet right next to my recliner and my wheelchair, making it easy to deposit him when he's sleeping/when Miss Boo is about to ride the dog.

I'm fairly pain-free today unless I forget and do something stupid, when my fifth metatarsal reminds me I need to keep the foot at 90 degrees and not put any weight on it. :D The foot doc also said yesterday that I don't need to sleep with the walking boot on, so last night was heavenly in that I could let my leg air out all night. It's amazing what becomes a pleasure.

Well, well, I hope you have a good day, and we will have the best day we can.

Cheers,

Breanna

An Anatomy Lesson

So, the foot doc guy with the Quebecois name explained it thusly: there is a big strong tendon (the peroneus brevis tendon, see above) that hooks onto the bump (tuberosity, see above) on the outside of your foot. It is so strong that when I dumped my ankle over in the parking lot the tendon jerked hard enough on the bone (fifth metatarsal, see above) that it broke it. It is barely a purple fracture, which are harder to heal than the red fractures (see above).



Therefore, since the tendon would be pulling on the bone every time I took a step, and breaking up any trying-to-heal places, I can't put any weight whatsoever on my foot for five weeks.



Yay.



But I get me a cool wheelchair to roll around the house in, which the foot guy prescribed because he felt sorry for me when I mentioned Brother. And when I mentioned also that there was a Miss Boo in the picture, he felt really sorry for me. A very nice guy, for a Quebecois. (Actually I think he's from Tennessee, his last name just happens to scream QUEBEC.)



Also, I can't cook dinner for five weeks, so the Husband will have to do it (boo hoo). And I get to ride in one of them cool motorized carts, should the Husband decide that he needs my assistance grocery shopping. Since I will only have this privilege for five weeks, I intend to be the most annoying motorized cart driver there is and drive down the middle of the broad aisle at Walmart very slowly, and try to go down aisles that are too narrow and bump things onto the floor and then act like I don't notice them, and bother store personnel to reach the high items and then decide I don't want them, and so on and so forth. We have to take our kicks where we can get them these days.



The icky part is, it's baths and not showers for five weeks. I dislike baths on account of I don't like sitting in my own filth, but baths are better than no washing at all. And at least I've got my one good foot to get in and out of the tub with.

So my adventures of the next few weeks will be less...adventurous than I had planned. But the Lord must know this is a good idea. I wish He'd tell me just why, but He has His reasons I'm sure. At least that's what I keep repeating to myself. I'm not in much pain, so that's a blessing, and perhaps I'm meant to build patience. (And socks. I've been so bored I've been knitting like a madwoman.)

Cheers,

Breanna

Foot Update

Actually, it's not that painful. I don't know if I'm brave or numb or just real full of ibuprofen, but as long as I'm not trying to move around the foot is pretty ok. Feels about like a badly twisted ankle the day after, but without the loose gooshy feeling.

Here are the bones of the foot. :) You can see the metatarsals; the one I broke is the pinky toe one on the outside of the foot (not the phalanges, which are the actual toes, but the bones leading up to them). What a whiny little bone to break, eh? I broke it up there near the top where it hooks into the ankle.

I see the podatrist (who does surgery, who knew?) tomorrow at 3:15 and he will tell me whether or not I need pins. I'm sort of hoping that he'll say, "Heck, you're 25! You have great circulation in your foot! You don't need pins! Get outta here!" but I think he'll probably say "Standard of care is pins and we need to put them in." I'll keep ya'll posted.

In the meanwhile my mother-in-law is with us, taking care of the kiddos and my house and I am just sitting here with nothing to do but feed Brother and blog. Sorry for no pictures of my boot; I'll try to hobble to the camera later today and capture how everybody is dealing with the crisis.

Continue to pray for the Husband, if you would; he is desperately underslept and has to have the Corporate People here this week, spreading Company Morale and Looking Things Over. They generally love everything he does, but it's still stressful for him.

OK, with that I'd better close until I can get some pictures. Sadly (or actually fortunately) my foot doesn't look too impressive, just a wee bit swollen and bruised. I don't even have nasty pictures to show, go figure.

Cheers,

Breanna

So I was kickboxing an evil ninja and...

...I broke my foot.

Actually the kickboxing part is a lie. And the ninja. Actually I was just walking across the church parking lot and twisted my ankle, and broke my fifth metatarsal, but doesn't the ninja story sound more exciting?

I mean, who breaks their foot just walking? It wasn't fancy walking or snowy or muddy or anything. I was wearing heels, but they were low and mom-ish, not stillettos.

Thank the Lord my in-laws were coming up for lunch anyway, and could sit with the kiddos while the Husband whisked me off to urgent care. All the way there I kept denying the obvious:

"Maybe (ouch) it's just (ouch) a sprain?"

We got to urgent care and they took x-rays, and said "yep, it's broke" and also cautioned me against putting ANY weight on my foot. I would need to use crutches. Oh, and they didn't keep crutches there at urgent care. How I was supposed to get to my car was a mystery; perhaps most people have magic carpets when they break their feet.

Anyhoo, I am now established in the Big Chair with my foot in a boot brace, being waited on and having to hop back and forth to the bathroom on crutches that we rented from Shopko. (Yes, we have the money to buy crutches; but my dear sweet mother-in-law broke her ankle not long ago and has crutches that will fit me, and it was only an eighth the cost to rent crutches as buy them.)

On the upside, since I gave birth to Brother earlier (and since such a birth costs around five grand before insurance) I've hit my out-of-pocket max already on the insurance, and presumably everything is free. Which is good since the urgent care people tell me that I have to see an orthopedic guy who will probably want to put pins in my foot. I'll likely get one of them cool cards to take to airports, so they don't assume I'm a shoe bomber. Score!

So next time you see a ninja, punch him real good for me. It must have been invisible ninjas. I can't figure out any other reason for a perfectly healthy person to randomly break their foot in a flat parking lot.

Bleah!

(You'll forgive me if I can't sign off "cheers" as usual.)

Breanna

How I Stay Sane

Sometimes...

...they all sleep at once.

Ahhhhhhh. :)

Cheers,

Breanna

Muppet Theology

Is it weird to see theological points in movies? What about if it's a movie with muppets? OK, I know it's weird. But in the movie Labrynth, Jarred the Goblin King (who is, appropriately enough, David Bowie), does a very good Lucifer impression.



Sarah, the main character, has battled her way through a big maze trying to save her baby brother from being turned into a goblin by Jarred. Jarred, who has been trying to make Sarah fail the entire time ("It's not fair!" says Sarah. "You say that so often," replies Jarred. "I wonder what your basis of comparison is?"), now gets on his dignity. He asks how Sarah can be so ungrateful, when he's been doing all of this for her. He's only been what she wanted; he wants to give her everything she wants. "If only you'd just bow to me," he says sadly. "If only you'd let me rule you, you could have anything."



Which makes you shiver when you think about what it almost quotes-- "Bow down to me and I'll give you all these kingdoms."



To which the appropriate answer is not Sarah's in the film ("You have no power over me"-- he clearly does, he's bigger than she is, for one thing, and has a goblin army; she has a dwarf, a muppet, and a fox who rides a dog) but "The Lord rebuke you!"



The thing about Jarred in the film is that, at least at first, he seems charming, witty, even stylish (for the 80s). He's obviously a good con man and has obviously done this before. Our adversary has perfected his con down through the centuries, but he's not terribly creative. It's pretty much the same con he ran on Adam and Eve: it's reasonable to disobey, because look at what I'll give you.



Lewis has pointed out that in the story of Faust, which is a bit more highbrow than Labrynth, Mephistopheles is supposed to represent Satan. However, it's not Mephistopheles, who is witty, charming, and humorous, who really represents Satan--it's Faust, who is singleminded, desperate, uncreative, and humorless, as well as willing to do anything to realize his ambition.



So what's the point of all this? I was just thinking about obedience today, and how disobedience can seem reasonable. (I've been reading about Baalam.) I wondered why Baalam, who actually had the Lord speaking to him audibly, would think it was a good idea to take off riding where the Lord didn't want him to go. David Bowie was what I came up with. Every sin seems reasonable and okay at the time, otherwise we wouldn't do it.



Then, of course, you have to praise the Lord, because He generally sends us donkeys. :) (By the way, did you ever wonder why, when the donkey talks to him, Baalam isn't amazed? The donkey asks why Baalam hit her, and Baalam doesn't say "You can talk? Why did you never talk before?"; he says, "Because you were being snotty!" He doesn't actually get amazed until he can see the Angel of the Lord. Bizzare.)



(Oh, and if you don't get the donkey reference, go read up the Baalam story. The donkey keeps Baalam from getting killed, like he deserved, and he repents.)



So my meditation today was, "Watch out for Goblin Kings--and pay attention to donkeys."



Cheers,



Breanna

Fingers in the Dirt

So on Saturday we got real ambitious and decided to upgrade the front yard. I've been wanting a herb garden, and the flower bed could use some snazzing up. Also, the rose bushes that were there were dead as doornails, and the sight of their twiggy corpses was depressing.

Miss Boo decided to help out.
Luckily when she digs, she only moves a teaspoon of dirt at a time, or the hollyhock would have been in trouble.

Here is where Brother spent the gardening time-- he rode sleeping in the sling the whole time. He was less smushed than he looks in this picture, though.

Miss Boo helping plant one of the 3 new rosebushes I got for my birthday. (Austrian Copper, a cool rose "cultivated since the 1500s" according to its tag.)

The finished project-- there was nothing but lawn here before.

A blurry shot of my cool birthday pansies from my mother-in-law. Sorry I didn't get a better pic. :)

Now I must read "The Selfish Giant" to Miss Boo or I will have the equivalent of a Zulu uprising on my hands.

Cheers,

Breanna

A Simple Inquiry

They are constantly forgetting that their bodies can effect their spirits....The patient is left wondering what sin has caused his faith to ebb, when a simple inquiry into what he's been eating and drinking for the last 24 hours would reveal the source of the problem.

--The Screwtape Letters

Disclaimer: As far as I know, all the people who will read this are not taking any of the medications I might mention below. But if you are, 1) it's none of my business and 2) I assume you have gotten the prescription legally, and so you and your doctor have determined you really need the medication--so don't take this blog as a recommendation you stop your meds or as a slam. My thoughts below are simply my thoughts on what I find an interesting topic.

Ok, on to the blog.

The quote above is from a passage where Screwtape, the Undersecretary of Hell, is describing in a letter to Wormwood, Junior Tempter, the dual nature of humans. We are, he says, weird amphibians, half spirit and half animal, and our animal nature can impact our spiritual nature and vice versa. Screwtape then goes on to turn the discussion toward sexual purity (or rather, since it's Screwtape, impurity), but the quote got me thinking the other day about depression.

There's something of a controversy in Christian circles over whether Christians can even get depressed. My take is, clearly, they can, unless Elijah, David, Paul, and numerous other people weren't really saved. There is also controversy over whether Christians should take antidepressant or mood-stabilizing medication. A few thoughts on that, though I believe they apply to non-Christians, too:

1. Studies have shown that a half hour of brisk walking in the sunshine every day for a month raises seretonin levels in the brain as much as Zoloft.

2. Studies have also shown that post-partum women suffering from "baby blues" or mild depression have improved their mood to normal by taking a fish oil supplement. There have been similar results with vitamin B-6.

3. Americans get less sleep and poorer-quality sleep now than most people in the developed world.

4. Some of the side effects of chronic dehydration are nagging headaches, difficulty thinking clearly, and depression.

So to me the question is not so much whether depression is necessarily a lack of faith, as it is whether depression is a symptom of physical neglect.

Now, can depression be a spiritual issue? Absolutely; it clearly was for Paul and Elijah; but David experienced highs and lows and impulsive behaviors that probably would have gotten him a diagnosis of being bipolar in this century and was never rebuked for the moods (though obviously the impulsiveness led to sin on some *ahem* occasions). So it seems to me that when facing a down mood, the first thing to do is "inquire into what you've been eating and drinking the last 24 hours".

I don't mean that if you eat nothing but twigs and leaves you'll have a perfect, elevated mood, but if you're subsisting on beer, chicken nuggets and Hohos, you're not giving your body anything to work with--except, ironically, the antioxidants in the beer. We tend to eat less vegetables than we need, less (also ironically) of good fat than we need, we don't like B-6-rich whole grains, and we don't drink enough water.

So my approach to depression would be this: fix the easy things first. Exercise. Get more sleep. Eat and drink better, take a fish oil supplement. If you still feel depressed, do the spiritual work (or do this at the same time and anyway, because you ought to be maintaining your walk with the Lord all the time)--examine your heart and repent of what needs repenting of, surrender where you need to surrender, forgive where you need to forgive--you know the work the Lord has for you. Immerse yourself in Scripture and get in the habit of praying every time your mind isn't occupied with something else. Especially pray if your mind gets occupied with depressing thoughts.

Then, if after doing both those things you still don't feel any better, maybe you need the antidepressant medication. This needn't be a long process; give each intervention a week to work. The antidepressant won't kick in for a month anyway, as it has to reach a certain concentration in your bloodstream. You will at least have a solid record of trying to present to your doctor, who will unfortunately likely be very ready to write you a prescription anyway (not being counselors or pastors, they like to write prescriptions because it's what they know how to do). But it's better to have tried and know that you're really taking necessary medication.

I'm not willing to say that nobody has the kinds of imbalances in their brains requiring meds, but on the other hand, if you CAN fix it without expensive medication that has side effects many people find troubling, why not?

And now to the idea that a Christian's joy is in the Lord and they shouldn't have to work on their mood at all, they should just be happy all the time: bull puckey, not to put it too finely. As I've mentioned, there are numerous examples in Scripture of godly people who got depressed, discouraged, and even despairing. For that matter, the Lord Himself got discouraged in Gethsemene. The point is, when you get depressed, to strengthen yourself in the Lord. As Tozer said, just be honest in prayer. You know you should tell the Lord, "You know my name, it's written on Your hands", but honestly you have to say, "Lord, I feel like You've forgotten me. I know You haven't, but that's how I feel. You'll have to adjust my emotions because I surely can't." I find honest prayer, while attempting to obey regardless of how I feel, is much more effective than a grin-and-pretend-to-have-the-joy-joy-joy-down-in-my-heart attitude.

Then there is also meditating on the warlike psalms, but that might only work for weirdos like me. :) ("Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who prepareth my hands for war" for some reason works wonders for me when facing the twenty-seventh dirty diaper of the day.)

There you have my thoughts on depression. Hope I haven't offended anyone--like I said in the disclaimer, if you're taking medication I assume you really need it. But maybe you'll appreciate some of the other coping strategies I've outlined. I've never met anyone on Zoloft who would turn down an extra bump for their mood.

May the joy of the Lord really shine on you today,

Breanna

P.S.
I'm 25 today--a quarter century and automatically a better driver, according to my insurance company. Or as I told Miss Boo this morning, Mama is an old, old lady. When you're 18 months old, 25 is very old indeed. :D