Living the Dream: the Sandwich Generation

It's not that I'm on a low carb diet, I just, for a minute, maybe would like to go without one of the crusts on my sandwich - for like, I don't know, a full week.


If you're over 40 and have kids, you know what I'm talking about. Addressing the needs of your aging parents, and your maturing children at the same time. Right now, as both my husband and I are in the financial services sector and managing to keep our jobs) our lives are like a crazy chicken salad in the middle - with my elderly (89 years old) Mother in Law as one of the crusts... and a whacky blended group of progeny, ranging in ages from 15 to 24 as the other.


About 8 years ago, I had a brief encounter with this reality when my fairly young (73 years old) mother went from healthy as a horse to very sick and died shortly after her diagnosis. It was 10 weeks total of going from complete independence to doing her shopping, then laundry, then housework, then making health care decisions with her, then for her, and then, well, managing her estate. With my kids being 7 years old at the time, and one of the daughters living in Chicago, they all were very forgiving and tolerant of my attention to her needs. And, my husband did a fabulous job of filling in the gaps.


Our current reality is that we recently helped Lila, my Mother in Law move from the family home of 40+years to a senior's apartment. She is very healthy, and we were happy to get her into a safe environment while she could enjoy the facility and the extra social activities the facility offers. Part of the move was not just furniture, but moving all of her utilities, banking, insurance, you know... the bills! Even before this, we did all of her grocery shopping, ran her errands, sometimes with her, and sometimes without her. Now, we have established a fairly routine pattern of how we provide this support. And now, she needs more. She wants us to manage more of her business affairs, as she doesn't understand all the mail she gets. She's still feeling isolated, and wants to "get out more". Her house needs to be updated, cleaned up and sold. I love Lila dearly, and I know that in addition to all we are doing for her now, she's looking for another 4 or 5 hours a week with us, minimum.


The other crust is a wonderful weave of our (Scott and my) children - My 15 year old twin boys who split their time between their dad's and my house, Scott's 24 year old daughter who is a grad student and lives at her mom's home Chicago, and Scott's 18 year old daughter who lives independently in a small town about an hour west of us. They all need different things from us as parents. Not too many years ago, it centered around broken bones and scraped knees, struggles with homework and relationships with teachers. Now, as they all make the transition to adults, they need more emotional support.


Not as easy as a shot of neosporin and a bandaid! As they start making decisions that heavily impact their later lives, we do our best to provide the right level of support - enough so that they know we are there, not so much that we stop them from learning about the choices they make, It's a fine balance, and each one has their own "flavor of support".


So we spend our days making a living, and supporting our extended family members and working to keep our relationship (marriage) alive. I now understand the lifestyle so well utilized by our ancestors - having family members live with or close by for a long time. It doesn't fit today's world, and trust me, I don't think we could handle everyone under the same roof!


I love all of the members of our not-so-extended family and treasure the time we have with them. It won't last forever.... so I guess I get both crusts for a while. Next time I'm at a sandwich shop I'll just order chicken salad on a lettuce leaf... and smile.

Garden Dreaming: Veg-Out 2010

Don't bother looking it up - Veg-Out 2010 only exists in my mind, and well, now this little blog post. Veg-Out 2010 is what happens when I'll be in a meeting, or on a conference call and look out the window to the many inches of snow, and my mind starts to wander to warmer times full of tomatoes, raspberries, Green beans and cucumbers.

About this time every year, I look at the little garden in the back yard, all covered in snow, and start considering what to grow during our itsy-bitsy growing season. I typically plant seedlings on Memorial Day ( call it June 1st) and the last harvest is somewhere in mid-September (because even though there may still be stuff waiting to be picked, the cool fall nights turn the tomatoes less than sweet and the basil gets a little wonky).

That means I have 90 days at the most to plant, carefully feed and water, tie up, trim up and dotingly watch the literal fruits of my labor make their way into my kitchen. That is, unless it's little food like raspberries, or grape tomatoes, or something else that may get popped in the mouth of the picker... the true joy of growing your own hangs in that very moment - that one second time frame from stem to palette.

see - you witnessed Veg-Out right there - I get very distracted when talking about my kitchen garden this time of year!

So, what to plant? Do I try new kinds of tomatoes, spend $5 on a plant that might not work? Do I send away now for heirloom seeds for lettuce that the bunnies will most likely get? There is a tricky balance between novelty and productivity in my garden that pushes me to the same crops every year. I won't plant things like corn, watermelon or even pumpkins because produce/square foot ratio is not high enough. Not when I can buy 12 ears of really awesome sweetcorn at the height of the season for $2.00. I'd use my whole garden to get that many ears!

So - any of you who garden, challenge me to do something different. If you want to know what I typically grow, visit my post from last year!

Democracy in action at caucus night - checklists and worksheets

I confess, I pretend to be a politico. People think I'm an activist, when that's not what I am, I'm an organizer. Not of people, but of processes and paper.

In preparation for Caucus 2010 (Held last night), I spent a good number of hours walking through the administrative process necessary to support all the activists. I developed checklists to make sure we weren't missing anything or anybody. Worksheets were created to gather data about delegates, alternates, precinct chairs and cochairs. I tabulated votes for the straw ballot for the govenor's race. I developed a system to ensure the tabulation was accurate.

I walked in with a plastic box full of paper, which I distributed to all 30 precinct caucus rooms. At the end of the night we walked out with those same papers, just a little heavier with the addition of some ink. Volunteers will assemble to do data entry.

It's not glorious -I'm no Norma Rae. It's work that must be done so that the best of political action process can take the spotlight. I've had the breath of a campaign staffer on my neck when the votes are being counted. I've taken the call from the state party when our delegates aren't ID'd within the Vote Tracker. Without this administrative support, the system would fall apart. Or would it?

Maybe I could have picked the rabble-rouser path. But I doubt it. Like mother nature, I move things from chaos to order, from high pressure to even keeled.

So, I'll be happy being a bureaucrat. Creating documents that people hate completing... but I know that someone needs that information more quickly then the time it takes to interpret caucus minutes that were scribbled on the back of a well used grocery list.

In doubt? Just think Katherine Harris in Florida in 2000, Coleman V. Franken, hanging chads and absentee ballot envelopes. The process must work for democracy to work.