Saw the South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela at Carnegie Hall. It made me homesick for South Africa. It's a country that gets under your skin.
My favorite baby in New York turned one year old. Happy Birthday, Eryn!
Took a Circle Line cruise around Manhattan, courtesy of the NYU College of Nursing. It's the only nice thing they've ever done for us, and I half expected them to corral us down in the hold for a lecture on advancements in pressure ulcer treatments, but it was lovely all around. Whatever you think about New York, you have to admit: it's magnificent to look at.
There's also amazing views from Eryn's parent's apartment near Washington Square (hi Mike and Gina!)
Got angry at this article about the (female) aid worker who died in Afghanistan last week. Like every death in Afghanistan, it's a tragedy. But the author of this article asks the question what drives WOMEN to risk their lives in war zones. It asks how a parent would feel if their daughter announced she wanted to work in a war zone and implied that this (and other) "brilliant" young women didn't belong in war zones. I say, why do I belong in a war zone any less than a man? My parents certainly weren't thrilled, but they weren't any less thrilled than the men in Iraq's parents. I had just as much to offer development goals in Iraq as any man did, and just as many qualifications to be there. Though it may have been an unusual choice, it was a valid one and totally unrelated to my gender.
The article also references a book called Emma's War, by Deborah Scroggins. This is one of my least favorite books ever. The Emma of the book was in Sudan for all of the reasons, and her behavior was appalling and individual, not representative of every female humanitarian worker as the author of this article presents her. I would go so far as to say that the Emma of the book was an anomaly and an embarrassment to the many qualified and responsible female aid workers working around the world.
Cleaned out the freezer. For reference: we moved into this apartment in September of 2009.
Came across this interesting tidbit: every dollar invested in helping women avoid unintended pregnancies saves $4.02 in federal and state Medicaid expenditures. Straight from those genius people at Kaiser Family Foundation (kff.org). Why WHY do people continue to think that family planning isn't there business, or that the government shouldn't be involved? Because the government is definitely involved when it is paying those Medicaid bills. There are states (Louisiana) where Medicaid pays for more than 50% of births.
Had a doula client who had a baby. I left my house about 4:15 am Saturday morning and the baby was born at 1:38 am SUNDAY morning. But there's something about birth that puts you into a sort of time warp where time moves in a different way, more quickly and more slowly, and puts you almost in a parallel universe, where you recognize that the world is going on around you and yet that the world you are in at the moment is somehow entirely outside of that. I left the hospital at just before 4 am and rode the subway home with a pirate, two butterflies, Waldo, a monkey, and the Grim Reaper. It was Halloween after all. A side note: I took NJ transit to my aunt's later that day with a bunch of New Jersey Jets fans on their way to Meadowlands Stadium for a game, and I have to say that I will always choose the Grim Reaper over Jets fans to ride a train with.
Enjoyed the last few weeks of our CSA, including more tomatoes than we knew what to do with:
Spent Halloween at Beth's in New Jersey. Someone TP'd the house. Wasn't me! Also went to a haunted house in her neighborhood.
Saw my friend Hana's choir, Ghostlight, perform at Trinity Lutheran Church. Their concert consisted entirely of music related in some ways to nightingales (the birds, not the nurse), which there is a surprising amount of.
Saw the most impressive chalk art I've ever seen.
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