Sue Stuff

Important reminder - please read!

suecochran — Mon, 18 May 2015 17:39:40 GMT

Hi,

This is going out to all of my closest family and friends and some acquaintances, so some of you already know this, since I sent this out in an e-mail, and posted it on Facebook, and now here on LiveJournal. It bears repeating.

A few days ago some friends of mine (of whom it must be said up front ARE ALL OK, the PEOPLE AND THE PETS), lost their home to a 3 alarm fire. The dad was out of town for work, and the mom of their three children (all four of whom were home), were in their basement when the smoke detector went off. The door in the basement that they tried was on fire, and thankfully the door on the first floor was accessible, they all had had fire safety training (even the dog), and they got the people and the pets safely out.

I went out and got a replacement battery for our smoke detector, which had a dead battery when I first started moving in to the house, and which I had set aside to get a new battery, and then promptly forgot about it. I'm not stupid, and I've known the importance of smoke alarms for years. We have a CO detector, and now we have a working smoke detector. But I am forgetful and the move (as most of you know) was stressful, and difficult, and felt like it would never end. That's no excuse for this lapse.

My friend credits their smoke detector with saving their lives.

Please, please, please, check the batteries on your smoke and CO detectors, and if you don't have those, please GET THEM. I already had one friend several years back die in a fire, and I never want to hear about another again.

Thank you, and pass this message on to as many people as you can.

Hugs,
Sue

Nancy Lebovitz's 60th Birthday party at Balticon

suecochran — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:26:03 GMT

I'm hosting a 60th birthday party for Nancy Lebovitz, at the consuite at Balticon this weekend, on Sunday night, May 26th, from 9pm until midnight. I'm volunteering at the con suite, which is the only way I'm able to attend the con this year. I invite all of Nancy's friends to join us, and if you can, please bring some food and/or drink to share. If you can't manage the money, I TOTALLY get it, so please bring yourself and your smile :)

Nancy knows about the party. I wasn't sure if she would like a surprise party, so erring on the side of caution, I cleared it with her, and she sounds pleased about it. Feel free to bring instruments, songs, stories, anything else you think that Nancy would enjoy.

RSVP is not necessary, but it would be helpful to know about how many people plan to attend. Thanks.

Sue :)

Request for ride and room for me at Concertino this weekend

suecochran — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:10:22 GMT

Hi - last minute, of course, but I've decided that if it's at all possible, I want to attend Concertino this weekend. I need a ride (I'm happy to share driving) and a room share (floor space is fine). I'm in SE Baltimore, right near the tunnels and bridge. Please call me, as getting online right now is difficult. (410) 285-0510

Random thoughts about death and coping with loss

suecochran — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 10:19:38 GMT

I sympathize and pray comfort for those of my friends in the filk community who have lost loved ones recently.

I just wanted to share some random thoughts I have about death, loss, and helping friends and family cope when someone they love dies.

When you just don't know what to say, one of the best things to say is "I just don't know what to say," It's a start.

What can you do? Hugs are good. Offers of help are good. Even if you feel like you want to avoid cliches, sometimes they are all you can think of. It's ok to just say "I'm so sorry for your loss."

Someone who lost her husband at a young age said to me "What I have learned from this is that it just f***ing sucks." Yeah. Damn.

It's hard to know sometimes how a person will respond to "They're in a better place now." It might provide comfort to one person, but just make another one angry. It's perhaps more prudent to just listen instead of talking when you don't know.

When someone young dies by their own hand, even if I barely knew them, it makes me feel such regret that I didn't get to know them, that I wasn't there to share with them my experiences of depression and thoughts of suicide, and how I got past those terrible times. I wish that I had been able to provide hope and help. But to an extent, that is a sin of pride. We all want to think that if we only could have figured out "the right thing to say" it would have prevented this from happening. But you can do and say all the "right things" in the world, and still not be able to prevent a suicide. If the person isn't able to take it in, you can't make them. I know that those left behind feel rage, guilt, and terrible sadness. I share in those feelings, and I can also feel a great deal of sympathy. There but for the grace of God go I.

There are many people whom I never knew, who have passed away, and then I read all of these wonderful memories shared by their friends, here on Live Journal, and on Facebook, and I think "Wow, I wish that I had known him/her, and now I never will get to." I now make more of an effort to talk to people whose faces are familiar to me from years in fandom, but I have never spoken to before. I also accept the fact that I will never get to meet a lot of people. And it's OK. I'm so grateful for the folks I do get to meet and spend time with.

I have always been blessed with friends, but in recent years I have begun to make the effort to tell people that I love them, and appreciate them, some more often than I used to, and some for the first time. I want them to know it beyond a doubt. I realize that you never know when the last time you get to spend with someone will be, and it's good to take every opportunity for a smile, a hug, an expression of appreciation and gratitude that you can.

Even if we believe that death of each individual is "God's will", if we believe in an afterlife, that we will be with all of our dear departed ones in someplace heavenly, it still hurts to experience the loss of that person right here, right now. It's important to acknowledge those feelings.

There is no one "right way" to grieve, no one "right amount of time" to grieve. There is only one way to get to the healing, and that is to go through the pain. Thank goodness we have loved ones to share and to care, to help us in our darkest hours, to provide solace, listening ears, steadfast shoulders, encircling arms. Because really, it just f***king sucks.

Some reflections on filk after Contata 2011, resonding to Aya's postings

suecochran — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:12:23 GMT

This was originally intended to be a comment to Aya in her "Filking and Frolicking" LJ, but it was too long. Oh my, Sue Cochran has a lot to say? How unusual for her!

Anyway, here are my reflections about the definition of filk and some other responses to what Aya and some other folks wrote in her journal.

I will venture my toe out into the scary waters of trying to define "filk", or at least how I define it, and what it means to me. I don't agree that "filk is what filkers do." However, I do agree that "music is what filkers do." At Chicon in 2000 (that year's Worldcon), there were several different music rooms to choose from. Steve McDonald was doing primarily Beatles music in one of them, and I happily joined in. Filkers were present and were singing. However, I would not call most Beatles songs "filk music". I don't know enough of their music to say that NONE of their music is filk. It's possible. It's just that I don't consider their subjects to be filk music, they are mostly love songs. There are certainly many songs that are "found filk". 39 is one of those. I'm sorry that Weird Al doesn't like to call his music filk or himself a filker, but I certainly think his song about Anakin Skywalker is filk. It seems pretty straightforward, and I don't see what all the ruckus is about. However, I do think that a person has the right to define himself. If he doesn't want to be called a filker, that is his prerogative. I still think that this non-filker wrote an awesome filk song :)

To me, filk music includes a very broad variety of styles and topics, but it's still narrower than "what filkers sing". I think that maybe a lot of the fighting about the definition of the word "filk" is really about inclusion, about what is "allowed" to be sung in a circle - that some folks think that if a song is defined as "not filk" then it "can't" or "shouldn't" be sung in a filk circle. I think that most cons, and certainly filk cons, have more than one room for filk, so if there is an objection shared by enough people to singing "non-filk" songs, perhaps those who feel that way can go into another room, or grab a stairwell or piece of hallway or lobby.

I know that I have been very happy to be introduced to lots of different types of music, and also to spoken stories by people such as Ian Hanley and Harold Feld, on subjects not necessarily "filk" when I have attended conventions. Before I got into the filk world, I had never heard the folk music of Christine Lavin, Tom Paxton, Eric Bogle, Fred Small, Stan Rogers, and many, many others. I am happy to sing along with these, as well as the songs of Tom Lehrer, and Weird Al, and Alan Sherman, in a filk circle. But there are times when I too want to "get back to the filk music".

So what is filk, to me? Filk is about literary and media science fiction and fantasy, (also collectively referred to as "speculative fiction"), horror, magic, the SCA, superheroes and other comic book people, genre movies and television shows like Star Trek and Star Wars, Harry Potter, Buffy and Angel and Firefly, The X-Files, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Gallactica. Filk is about fandom and filkdom, fanac like going to cons and being a dealer, a gamer, a costumer, a filker, an author, an artist, and the fans themselves. Filk is about technology and the world of science, scientists, and scientific knowledge, and musings about what the future might be like. Songs about space travel. Original music and parodies. Folk and rock and new age. So in my mind, that's a pretty broad definition.

I realize that the borders are murky. Why are songs about dead cats sung at filk sings? Or live cats for that matter? Many fans love cats. What about songs that are social commentary, songs about politics and religion? Again, I welcome those too at a filk circle, but I don't know if I'd call them "filk".

All of this said, I must make a comment about labels and definitions. Lately I have been moving more in the direction of not labeling or defining myself too much. I used to be an ethical vegetarian, for 20 years, until a health problem came up that resulted in my starting to eat meat again in 2004. I tried again for a year after the problem was resolved to be a vegetarian, but after a while I went back to meat. After a few more back-and-forth decisions to and not to eat meat, I decided that I really didn't need to claim some definition in the matter. I eat what I feel like eating, when I feel like eating, and for whatever reason I feel like eating it. Nobody else needs to be involved. I feel better about it now.

In closing, I also want to speak to Aya's posting about the difference between the academic study of music, and music as it exists in the world outside of academia, the practical side of music, if you will. It's the same divide as is portrayed in the classic book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." In that novel, there is this discussion/depiction/distinction made between the "romantic" and the "classicist" view. The first is the one who enjoys the experiential world of riding a motorcycle. They thrill to the sensations, they love the wind in their hair and the vibration beneath the seat, the sense of freedom to explore, the company of another person to share it all with. But if their motorcycle breaks down, they are at a loss. They have to take it to the person who, on the other hand, is the classicist, who enjoys the motorcycle as a material thing, a vehicle. They love to take it apart, to see how it all works, how the parts fit together, they marvel at it in what might be called an academic way, and they enjoy the puzzle of how to fix a particular problem when the machine breaks down. These two views are also not necessarily mutually exclusive. I'm sure that there are people who love all the ways to enjoy their bikes, who love to travel AND who know how to maintain their machine. I'm sure this synergy also creates a whole appreciation of the motorcycle that is greater than the sum of its parts.

These two approaches are not mutually exclusive, much as the enjoyment and importance to someone of the text of a song is certainly not mutually exclusive to the enjoyment of the music of that song. I have written poetry, and I have written songs. When putting words to music or the other way, music to words, in the best cases, the whole that is created is likewise greater than the sum of its parts. There are songs I enjoy hearing on the radio, but part of my enjoyment is taken away when I can't hear the lyrics clearly. Lyrics are fun to read, but they are only a part of the song they go with. Both the text and the music are expressions, are communications, as Tom Smith said to you. When the two forms of communication come together, you can get what my HS boyfriend called a "music-gasm". I have been moved to tears by reading something, but when it's set to the right music, a lyric can be even more incredibly powerful.

Nancy Lebovitz needs someone to work for her @ Lunacon this weekend

suecochran — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:24:19 GMT

Hi,

I'm posting this wherever I can to see if someone is available and willing to work for Nancy Lebovitz at Lunacon this weekend. If so, please call me asap and I will let you know what all is involved. Phone is better than e-mail - my home phone is (410)284-2129. Thank you very much!

Sue

I'm feeling grateful for my kitties today!

suecochran — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:21:39 GMT

I haven't posted here about my cats in WAY too long. Our household of kitties is down from 4 to 2. The user pic was taken in 2006, shortly after acquiring our 4th cat, Cloudy. All 4 cats were on our bed, in the apartment we had back then, in SE Baltimore.

We had to re-home our male, Cloudy (grey short-hair around 5 years old), this past July due to territorial issues (he was terrorizing our Niles), and our Louisa (we had her for 11 years, she was in her teens)had to be euthanized this past September. :(

We now have Niles who is 11, and Kuro who is around 6 or 7. Niles is our Maine Coon beautiful boy, and Kuro is our pretty black mama cat with a white star on her chest. She came to us already pregnant in 2004. She went into labor in my lap, gave birth to 4 kittens on my bed (which I took photos of and also videotaped), and then overnight she had 2 more kittens in my closet. That was on December 18th of 2004. We were fortunate in being able to place all 6 kittens with friends.

I am so grateful for my furry babies. Niles is my son Matthew's kitty, and he also sometimes comes upstairs to spend time with me. Kuro is my cat, she pretty much follows me around the house and wants to be wherever I am. When I am away, my boyfriend Gerry says that the cats follow him around and meow at him, as if to say, "Where is the woman?" When I come home after a few days or more away, Kuro greets me at the front door, throws herself down on the floor, and grabs onto the carpet and pulls herself along, stretching out so I can give her tummy rubs. Both Niles and Kuro are such loves. They sometimes will groom and/or cuddle up to nap together, but sometimes the grooming sessions quickly devolve into skirmishes. Niles almost always loses these, and ends up being the one run off the bed.

I'm going to attach some photos of these goofballs. Enjoy!

Expansion of marriage rights, some more thoughts on marriage and child-rearing

suecochran — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 03:40:35 GMT

I just took a look at my last post (about gay and poly marriage rights) again, and had some more things to say about that.

I remembered another two snarky Nancy buttons (who would have thought?):)

"Gay marriage? Haven't they suffered enough?"
"Gay marriage? Haven't we suffered enough?"

Kidding aside, I have some more thoughts about all of this.

Certainly there are many troubles in heterosexual monogamous marriages. [Sorry, I think in button slogans. It's a hazard of the job].

"One nuclear family can ruin your whole life."

Of course there are many individuals and couples who choose to remain childless, or are unable for whatever reason to have children. However, the vast majority of people who get married do have children. And of course more and more lately, many people who are not legally married, or coupled, also choose to have children. So the discussion of marriage rights inevitably (IMHO)leads to the considerations of parenthood and child-rearing.

The isolation, and myriad difficulties of raising children in so-called "traditional" or "nuclear" families has been noted by many authors of articles and books over the years, and now probably blogs, etc. too. I think that we're a lot less likely to mess our kids up terribly (we all mess them up somewhat, there are just many varying degrees of damage that we do), if you have more adults in the mix. They could be parents, or so-called "extended family" - whether it be aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, older siblings, next-door neighbors, teachers, nannies, good friends, etc. My point is, the more people of all ages and different backgrounds and personalities who are involved in the upbringing of children the better, I think.

Kids get a wider variety of ideas about the choices they can make in their lives, who they can be, what they can do, and how they can think, with more role models around. And with many hands to share in the chores and joys of baby care, the parents have less stress, and can be happier, more productive people, and better parents. No matter how wanted a kid is, how much love a parent has for their child, let's face it, taking care of babies' needs can be tiresome, stressful, and overwhelming. Lack of sleep, the incredible responsibility for a tiny little bundle of id that needs, needs, needs, and for a long time just cries and eats and fills their diaper, and isn't capable of giving back yet, is really a lot to handle. It's amazing that so many of us do OK, and some of us even do a great job of it.

John and I brought Matthew to his first convention when he was all of 13 days old - it was Darkover 1995. He grew up going to many cons in many states over the course of his next 15 years, all throughout the year, and therefore he has friends who live in many different places, and he has come into contact with all kinds of different people. We stay with friends we've met at cons a lot of the time when we travel. He gets to see them many times throughout the years.

Growing up in fandom, he's always been treated with respect and and kindness, and taken seriously by other kids, and adults of all ages and personalities and professions. He has been able to hold his own in conversations with them. These conversations over the years have expanded his vocabulary, his knowledge, and understanding of a wide variety of subjects, and have contributed tremendously to his self confidence. He has empathy and tolerance of people who are different from himself and our family and friends in many ways. He doesn't understand about prejudice, bigotry, or why the heck people care about such things as skin color or religion or who people like to have sex with when they make friends with other people. (Or why on Earth people smoke or drink alcohol or take illegal drugs :) since we don't tend to have many friends who do those things. BONUS!)

One of my proudest moments as a parent came in recent years when Matthew came home and told me about being teased by some kids from school and the neighborhood. This was repeated often. So many fans know this kind of behavior. I sure did. I felt from 4th grade on like an outcast a lot. I was smart, I LIKED school (heaven forbid), I liked to read, I didn't care about clothes or appearances. I got teased. So what did Matthew say to me about these kids? He said basically this: "Mom, these kids think they're so great. They make fun of me, they tease me, they don't want to talk to me except to make fun. I have a few really good friends. I don't need these guys. They're stupid. They will probably never make much of themselves when they grow up. And I have something that they'll never have. I have fandom." (sniff)

A friend of mine who has been in a few straight and other relationships in their time let me in not too long ago on a "secret" - which I hadn't actually considered - that lobbying for the right to gay marriage is really about the right to gay divorce - and especially about gay custody rights. The right to keep seeing the kid you've helped to raise from birth even though your co-parent (the kid's biological parent a lot of the time) and you call it quits - oh, yeah. That's a right worth fighting for.

Need a home for Cloudy cat

suecochran — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 02:23:16 GMT

I sent out an e-mail and a Facebook posting, so if you got that, you can skip this. If not, please read, and help if you can. Thanks.

Hi all,

Many of you are not in the Baltimore area, but just in case you have friends or family in this area, or even nearby enough that I could drive to them, who might be able to help us out, I'm including you.

Unfortunately, we need to find a good home for one of our cats, Cloudy. We had Cloudy from 2006 until last summer. We love him dearly, but we just couldn't keep him any longer. Two of our friends in VA tried to help us - they've had him since July, but even though they love him very much, they just told me today that they are no longer able to keep him. We can't take him back, because he terrorized our other male cat, Niles, who is just too submissive to defend his territory. So we really need your help to find him a good home.

Cloudy is about 5 1/2 years old, grey male short hair cat, BIG guy, around 16 lbs I think, and he has been neutered. He's in good health, and is a total love - he enjoys a LOT of attention. He is very playful, and he shows his affection by face-butting, climbing up on his people, and kneading and purring. He got along fine with our two female cats, but is very dominant and territorial - an alpha male for sure. I think he'd do OK with a female or two, maybe more, but I don't know if he'd get along with another male. He probably would be happiest as an only cat. He has his claws intact but does not scratch, or bite, and he does not spray. He's been very good with my friends' kids, who are 7 and 10 years old. He likes catnip and chasing a laser pointer red dot :)

If you, or anyone you know, is looking for or would be willing to take in an adult cat who hopefully has many good years left to live and be a loving pet for an individual or couple or family, please let me know ASAP. I want Cloudy to have a good home, so please ask around if you can. We are so grateful for any help you can provide. Thank you.

Hugs,
Sue

My thoughts about marriage rights

suecochran — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:04:53 GMT

Nancy Lebovitz has a button that says "Respect traditional marriage; one robot, one octopus." I've been thinking about that for a while since Shore Leave in June, and I felt that I'd like to express my thoughts and feelings (regarding that snarky sentiment but in a more serious manner) about marriage rights. After noodling around with these thoughts for a while, I came up with the following (which is probably, unfortunately, too long for a button, but maybe Nancy can tweak it down to something more manageable).

"I DO respect traditional marriage. That's why I want the same rights for my LGBT and poly friends - the legal protections, access to sharing in decision-making and visitation in medical situations, and the joy of standing up before friends and family and making vows to acknowledge and celebrate their relationship(s)."

Further lessons on medication and mental health

suecochran — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:18:49 GMT

In part as a result of understanding my most recent medication issues, Matthew did some rethinking his current medications for his ADD.

Now he is doing MUCH better, too, on his new med, which is time release, but it's also a different med than his previous one, which was also time release.

We had been having SO many problems with him, with his remembering to do his homework and chores, with falling (not failing, but worsening) grades, and even not handing in his schoolwork, which I didn't get - how could he DO his in-class school work and fail to hand it in - don't his teachers ask the kids to hand things in? Parent-teacher meeting after meeting since late in 6th grade (he's in 8th now), the same damned problem, which NOBODY helped us really address - WHY is he forgetting to write down his homework on a daily basis? How am I as a parent supposed to KNOW what the heck his homework is if there is no mechanism for that except Matthew's remembering to write it down in school? I didn't/don't want to have to accompany the child to school (I actually threatened that), teachers and Gerry kept saying that Matthew just "needs to remember" "needs to be better organized", and they thought "he is just being lazy/irresponsible/forgetful" while I kept suggesting that MAYBE there was actually an organic problem, and his school, unlike some other area schools, does NOT have a website where we could check to see what the homework was each day.

After the first several parent-teacher meetings that we went to, someone finally suggested the bright idea that the teachers each sign Matthew's agenda book at the end of each class where he is supposed to write down his homework.

Me: "GREAT! Thank you! Let's do that then. Well, how would that work, exactly?"

THEM: "Matthew would come up to us at the end of class and have us sign where he wrote down his homework assignments, and if he had none he would write 'none' and we would sign it."

ME: "So, Matthew would have to remember to come to YOU?"

THEM : "Yes"

ME: (Face palm) "Um, excuse me - - - if he could REMEMBER to come to you to sign his book, he could REMEMBER to write down his homework - but the problem, you see, is that HE DOESN'T REMEMBER!!!" "Sigh."

So after hearing about my little saga, Matthew did some thinking about his issues, and he came to me and suggested that his medication was also a problem. He was increasingly having a really bad "bounce-back" time - when the med wore off (this was concerta, which he had to keep having bumped up due to his growing so much in the past 3 years since he got the ADD diagnosis and started on concerta back in 5th grade) - he had started saying many things which made me think he was depressed, he felt angry and irritable, then an hour later he'd come to me and say he didn't mean those things he'd said, it was the medicine wearing off.

He had been saying he "didn't care about school, didn't want to be in GT, just wanted to be in regular classes where he would NOT be challenged, that he hated school, that he didn't see how the things he was learning would matter to him in life after school, that he COULDN'T do the work, it was too hard," blah blah blah.

This had been going on for many months, actually over a year I think, since sometime late in 6th or early in 7th grade, I believe. He's in 8th now. And then he said he thought he needed to be on a higher dose of the medicine. And he asked to start the medicine earlier in the morning. He had what I'd call the same thing as I did - a sudden epiphany. "Mom, you know the 2 classes that I have the worst grades in - that got worse on this last report card? Those are my first two classes of the day. I don't think my medicine has kicked in yet."

So off we went to the pediatrician, whom we both hold in very high regard, Dr. Dan Sarko. And Dr. Dan said "We've already got you on a pretty high dose of concerta, and obviously it isn't working for you. I'd like to start you on a different ADD medicine, called Vyvance. It is basically adderall, but has an extra molecule attached, which makes it time release." He started Matthew off with a conservative dose of 50 mg, and after 2 weeks we upped it to 60 mg because Matthew said that the medication was wearing off too quickly after school before he could get his homework done, but he said that the bounce back was less extreme than he had on the concerta.

So after a week on the new med, Matthew has been really good at remembering to do his chores and homework first, mostly without being reminded, he says he feels much more alert in his first 2 classes because he's taking the medicine a whole hour earlier than he had been doing, and he said of his own accord "I want to try to get all As on my next interims". This from the kid who until recently said "What's wrong with getting a couple of Cs - it's not going to ruin my life - what difference does it make?"

Lesson learned - AGAIN. The right medication at the right dosage at the right time can make a HUGE difference in your ability to function and enjoy life. And that you really have to be vigilant about observing yourself when you're on medication especially, and evaluate how you are doing, so you can be your own best advocate in your health care.

Once again, there is a Nancy button for this: If it goes away when I remember to take my medication, it probably isn't a character flaw.

Really important medical information - and RANT about my psychiatrists

suecochran — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:21:55 GMT

So. I am livid and relieved simultaneously. I had been feeling VERY low in/of energy since around New Year's. I figured at first that it was just because I'd worked SO hard at getting the house cleaned up before the holidays. And when I say "cleaned up", I mean WE NOW HAVE AN ENTIRE USABLE FIRST FLOOR - the living room, dining room, and kitchen are all usable, reasonably organized though cluttered a bit, but for the first time since we moved into this house back in January 2008, the place looks like adults live here! Which is HUGE for someone with ADD, and OCD hoarding. We will actually be able to have PEOPLE OVER for dinners and gaming and parties. Matthew doesn't have to be ashamed to have guests over anymore. I have put an "after" photo at the end of this entry. I didn't put the "before" photos on disc yet, so that will have to happen another time. But I digress.

Things had gotten really bad. I was staying in bed and sleeping more and more for much of the day, and even when I woke up, I didn't feel rested, and I kept yawning, I had no motivation or desire to get anything done. I thought maybe it's just the weather, although I'd been using my full spectrum light. It was just frustrating as hell. I was taking caffeine, and stretching, and I'd go downstairs late in the day and try to do dishes, but I just could barely last long enough to do a sink-full - and right now about every dish and utensil we own is in need of washing. Thank God Matthew has been doing laundry for us, to earn game time on his X-Box 360.

Then after thinking about other possible causes of this malaise, I had this sudden epiphany yesterday, and I will tell you about it at great length - but behind a cut. Here goes...

After all the drama with John that started last April and dragged on through the summer,with the dropped medical coverage for me and Matthew, I FINALLY got Matthew and myself on Medicaid in July. This was from when I applied for assistance in MAY. So the paperwork all went through, and I made calls to see which of my current doctors would accept my new Manged Care Organization, Priority Partners. Many of them did, but a few didn't. I had to switch psychiatrists. I had my old doctor write me three more months of scrips right before I left her care, and I was told I had to see a new therapist before I could see the new psychiatrist. I thought "Fine, I like to be in therapy. My friend Tangent had actually recently been suggesting I see one, so that's great, and it's all covered, no cost to me." So I met with the therapist, and she's been very good for me. She helped me focus and set some goals, including clearing up and cleaning up the dining room and living room. Which I intend to post before and after pictures of once I can. Then I finally met with the psychiatrist, Dr. Safer, in October. I still had some meds left over from Dr. Martin, and this new guy wrote me scrips which I could fill after my old meds ran out. All well and good.

Here's the problem - this guy, after going over my list of current meds, wanted to make some changes. You have to understand what kind of a threat this felt like to me. I told him, I told him multiple times, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" "It took me TEN YEARS of trial and error with a very long list of medications, during which time I felt it necessary to take Matthew and myself away from John in Virginia and to stay with my parents in New York while I was between medications and waiting for the new ones to kick in, and 6 visits to the hospital from 1999 - 2002 for suicidal ideation, to get me to where I am now, which is basically happy and functional for the most part. I still have problems, relating to the bipolar mood swings, and the OCD hoarding, but I'm working on them. I have a happy and stable love relationship, I have a really loving and intelligent, happy child, I have my own business even though it's been on hiatus for a while, but I get things done mostly, and my downs are less frequent, less debilitating, and aren't long lasting, and I haven't been suicidal since I got onto lamictal at the end of 2002. The last pieces of the puzzle that is me fell into place in 2007, when I realized I had ADD after going over the list the doctor gave me to see if Matthew had ADD (which he does, also). And then I found that adding caffeine to the regimen helped increase my energy, productivity, and happiness even more. And using my full spectrum light helped too. So this stranger, who by the way comes across as a doddering old man much of the time, who can't keep my name straight and has to look at his notes to remember who I am after 4 or 5 visits, wanted to muck around with my meds. I really held my ground, except that he insisted on changing my ADD med from methylphenidate (Ritalin) to Metadate. He said "It's the same thing. It will just help you so that you won't get that "dip" in the afternoon". I told him that I don't GET a "dip" in the afternoon, but I let him give me the scrip.

It can take me a while to notice things, and to remember things. I don't know if there is Alzheimer's that runs in my family, my cousin told me recently that my grandfather had it, which was news to me, and I don't think it was ever documented, but it's a possibility. I noticed a change in my memory after Matthew was born 14 years ago (ACK!), which I thought was "Mommy brain", a phenomenon observed by many of my friends after their children were born, and also I started taking psych meds after Matthew was born (one of them I took before he was born, Xanax, to stop the panic attacks I was having in my third trimester, one of which might have brought on the pre-term labor I had at 29 weeks which was scary, so even though I was worried about the med's affect on the baby, it was better than delivering him that early), and now I take 7 different medications daily, which also might affect my memory. Well, I had some left-over Ritalin, so I don't know precisely when I switched from the methylphenidate to the metadate. But I suspected upon retrospect that it was RIGHT AROUND the time that this low energy problem started.

It was early afternoon yesterday when I finally had this realization. I called my regular physician and asked him if there was anything else that he could test me for, because as the lethargy and fatigue started getting alarming, I had him test my blood for mononucleosis, low thyroid, and low iron. Those tests were all normal. I even called my father's hematological oncologist, or oncological hematologist, to ask if it was possible I'd inherited my father's blood cancers, multiple myeloma, and/or Ig G cell dysplasia, but I was told it was unlikely I had either because they usually manifest in older people, and my metabolic results from my blood work would have showed some kind of problem if that were the case. The more I thought about the medication, the more I got VERY ANGRY. I called to make an appointment with my psychiatrist, and thankfully, they had an appointment last night at 5pm. All I could think of was "I TOLD him not to mess around with my medicine regime, and he just HAD to FUCK with it. Jesus Christ!!! A whole month and a half that I could have been getting things done, which is REALLY important, especially now, since my mother told me that she would only pay our rent for 4 more months, and I have NO IDEA if I'm going to be able to generate enough income to make the rent money. I applied for disability but it's in process of my first appeal, and God knows how long that might take, or if I will even ever get it.

So I saw the doctor at 5pm. Somehow I managed to yell at him diplomatically. It's a talent. He told me again that the metadate was the same as the methylphenidate, and I really don't get why if that's the case, why he had to CHANGE the damned thing, and I informed him that sometimes different formulations of medications react differently in different people. Which as a shrink, I think that he ought to have KNOWN already. The man must be in his late 70s or early 80s, and presumably practicing psychiatry (say that three times fast) for a good long time. Sigh. So I got him to write me the scrip. Even then, he insisted on giving me two 20s instead of 4 10s which I used to take. But at least it's the same medication. He insisted I take them twice a day, but I decided I'd start out doing what I used to do, and take them all in the morning.

I took one in the afternoon after I got back from his office, and lo and behold, I actually felt like DOING things last night! I decided to get to sleep early (which I really ought to have done, but instead I played on Farm Town and Zoo World on Facebook, and watched more of Heroes first season which we got out of the library here in Dundalk - they do free 7 day rentals on some movies and a lot of television shows we like). I took my new(OLD) meds this morning, along with several swigs of Pepsi, and I felt the old energizing effect - yay! I got a LOT done from around 10:00am until 2:00pm, and then I felt a bit sleepy and I figured I'd post here and on Facebook and then take a nap, and then go back to the first floor and tackle the dishes and make dinner (which rarely happens around here, usually people forage for themselves, but I know it's better for us if we eat meals together as a family, and now that we have a DINING ROOM!!! I want to do meals more often). I also want to make some bread in our bread-makers, a white and a rye, which don't take too long to prepare and are done with prep and baking time inside of 3 hours, and some soups in the crock pot and on the stove. I know this is very ambitious, but a person's reach should exceed their grasp, etc.

So thanks for reading, and maybe this information will be useful to you or someone you know. Medications really do have different effects on different people, and you KNOW how you feel, and the doctors you have really need to listen to you!!!

Hugs!
Sue

And here is one photo of the way our living room looks now! :)

Some Rosh Hashanah humor (found this on a friend's note on Facebook)

suecochran — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:25:37 GMT

On the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, there is a ceremony called Tashlich. Jews traditionally go to the ocean or a stream or river to pray and throw bread crumbs into the water. Symbolically, the fish devour their sins.

Occasionally, people ask what kind of bread crumbs should be thrown. Here are suggestions for breads which may be most appropriate for specific sins and misbehavior:

For ordinary sins - White Bread

For erotic sins - French Bread

For particularly dark sins - Pumpernickel

For complex sins - Multi-Grain

For twisted sins - Pretzels

For tasteless sins - Rice Cakes

For sins of indecision - Waffles

For sins committed in haste - Matzoh

For sins of chutzpah - Fresh Bread

For substance abuse - Stoned Wheat

For use of heavy drugs - Poppy Seed

For petty larceny - Stollen

For committing auto theft - Caraway

For timidity/cowardice - Milk Toast

For ill-temperedness - Sourdough

For silliness, eccentricity - Nut Bread

For not giving full value - Shortbread

For jingoism, chauvinism - Yankee Doodles

For excessive irony - Rye Bread

For unnecessary chances - Hero Bread

For telling bad jokes/puns - Corn Bread

For war-mongering - Kaiser Rolls

For dressing immodestly - Tarts

For causing injury to others - Tortes

For lechery and promiscuity - Hot Buns

For promiscuity with gentiles - Hot Cross Buns

For racist attitudes - Crackers

For sophisticated racism - Ritz Crackers

For being holier than thou - Bagels

For abrasiveness - Grits

For dropping in without notice - Popovers

For over-eating - Stuffing

For impetuosity - Quick Bread

For indecent photography - Cheesecake

For raising your voice too often - Challah

For pride and egotism - Puff Pastry

For sycophancy, ass-kissing - Brownies

For being overly smothering - Angel Food Cake

For laziness - Any long loaf

For trashing the environment - Dumplings

For those who require a wide selection of crumbs, we suggest a Tashlich Mix available in three grades: Taslich Lite, Medium, and Industrial Strength.

Happy 5770! :)

Powerful intention for a cure for neuropathy by the end of 2009

suecochran — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:41:44 GMT

It has occurred to me lately after several recent occurrences that my intentions have become very powerful.

I did the est training in 1983, and one of the things I remember from that time is this: "If you keep telling the truth, eventually your word becomes law in the universe."

I have been scrupulously making every effort to live in integrity and responsibility and truthfulness for a long time now. These things happened in the past few weeks:

1. I was at Jeanneane's house, and Gerry and Matthew were, it seemed to me, INCESSANTLY calling me on my cell phone, to the point where I said something to the effect of "I am getting sick of the sound of that cell phone ringing. I wish I could have some quiet!" Very shortly after that, my cell phone stopped ringing. I mean STOPPED. Then I lost it, and obviously I can't call it to find it since it's not ringing.

2. Our basement flooded. We had to start pulling up carpeting and the linoleum tiles underneath. When it was wet, it was very easy to pry the tiles up. We could NOT deal with doing it all at once however, and had been working on it in fits and starts, and we borrowed a dehumidifier from someone on Freecycle, so the floor dried up considerably, and we still had carpet and tile to pull up. I actually THOUGHT one day "It would be much easier to pull these tiles up if they got wet again." Didn't even say that out loud. And later that day, or possibly the next, the darned basement flooded AGAIN.

3. We've been struggling financially for a while now. I was discussing the past 2 occurrences with Gerry, and saying that my intentions were becoming powerful, and I'd better be very careful about what I put into the universe, so he said "Why don't you ask for a bag of money to fall on our house" and I said basically "Oh, no, that might result in a huge bag of money falling out of a plane and crashing through our roof!" So I said "Why don't we just say we'd like a large sum of money to come into our lives soon, 'an it harm none'." So a few days later, Gerry found $220.00 in cash on the street where he works. He looked around to see if anyone was looking like they were looking for money, but nobody was, and nobody at his workplace was complaining about losing money, so into the bank it went.

In light of these things, I therefore have decided that I ought to put my intention to some larger and very important issues. I am starting off with a disease that plagued my father for the last 30 or so years of his life, and which I've been living with since the week I turned 40 in 2001. It's peripheral neuropathy, and it usually happens to people who are diabetc, but neither my father nor I were diabetic. It can also be familial (inherited), and it can be due to cold injury such as my dad sustained during his stint in the Army in the Korean War, or as a side effect of certain medications. It manifests in nerve weirdness - sometimes it feels like pins and needles, sometimes stabbing pains, sometimes numbness, sometimes hypersensitivity to touch. I've had all of these. It's painful to stand and to walk for extended periods. I've managed at times to walk a few blocks, but I can hurt for a day or more if I try to do more than that, and at times I can't do more than a half a block. I use scooters to shop in the grocery store if they have them, and I use a scooter for distance mobility, like at conventions.

I miss walking. I used to walk a lot when I lived in NYC, and took walks with neighbors and with Matthew when I lived in VA. I would dearly like to be able to walk a long way without pain again, and to see my friends who have neuropathy out of pain and likewise able to walk distances again without pain.

So I am hereby putting this intention into the universe: I want there to be medical breakthrough(s) that lead to treatment and then a cure for neuropathy by the end of this calendar year of 2009, an it harm none. I know that there are many people in different fields of science trying to figure out the mysteries of nerve function. Christopher Reeve and his wife did a lot to push for research into nerve regeneration to enable people with spinal cord injuries like his, so people could regain the use of their limbs. Now that stem cell research is once again legal, I have high hopes that this intention will be possible. In the same way that John Kennedy pledged to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade of the 1960s, I am putting forth this intention.

I fervently and respectfully request that everyone who reads this will pray, affirm, do magic working, send positive energy, whatever goes along with your belief system, in support of the realization of this intention. Our will is powerful, and I believe that prayers for the good will be answered in the affirmative. Please join me! I would love to take a long walk with my friends and family again!

Hugs,
Sue

John called me - WHEW - thank you all SO much for your love and support and help, it has been invalu

suecochran — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:39:14 GMT

John called me just now to let me know that someone had alerted him that I was trying to reach him about the medical coverage lapse, which he didn't know anything about. I don't know who reached him, he didn't say, and I didn't want to push it. I told him that he might be hearing from other people, and just to let them know that he did speak to me.

I got an e-mail contact for him in case anything like this ever happens again. I still don't know where he is staying, just that it's a hotel. He said he didn't remember the name. I know which Lockheed he's working for.

He asked me for Matthew's and my SS# and birth date info, and our address, and he will check into what happened. That's all I wanted. So he will let me know when it's all straightened out.

I am SO relieved, I can't begin to tell you.

Thank you all so much for your help and concern. It means so much to me and Matthew.

Hugs,
Sue

Update - some good news

suecochran — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:39:17 GMT

OK, first of all, THANK YOU to all of you who have written to me with hugs and support and ideas. Bless you!

Clarification: John has kept up with his child support payments as of last Friday. It's the medical and pharmacy benefits that have been stopped.

I left a message with the Lockheed Martin Legal Department a little after 10:00am today, stating the situation, letting them know I don't want to make any trouble, and I just want to get this resolved. A friend of mine in NY who is a police officer advised that I do this rather than the missing person's report at this point.

I had called John's old work number yesterday and left a message on the voicemail of the woman whose number it is now, and she called me back to tell me that she has a phone listing for John, and she had his boss's name and a phone number for him as well, so I just called and left messages on both of those numbers. So now I wait...but at least I have a feeling of hope that this will be all I need to do. I will post another update when anything else changes.

Thanks again, you guys are awesome :)

Pretty dire emergency - please help if you can

suecochran — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:49:06 GMT

Well - I'm very worried, and Nancy Lebovitz suggested posting here to see if anyone has any thoughts on what I can do to resolve my current situation that I haven't already tried.

John and I have been separated since 2005, however, he agreed to allow me to stay on his medical coverage until we decided to finalize the divorce. He is also legally obligated to provide medical coverage for Matthew until he is 18 years old - he is 13 now.

John recently got a job in Huntsville Alabama at another location for Lockheed Martin - he has been an employee of LM since 1999, his assignment in VA ended, then he worked for 8 months in New Mexico, and then he got the current position. He has a cell phone now because Jeanneane insisted that he do so. He doesn't like to be "bothered", so I've rarely called him to talk to him. He never set up his voicemail. He had been getting spammed on his e-mail so he shut it down. I had asked him to please be contactable by Matthew at least, so he set up an e-mail just for Matthew to contact him on his domain of fiawol.org John and Jeanneane and Matthew and I had dinner on March 25 or 26, a day or so before he was due to move down to Huntsville. He said he was going to stay at a hotel until he could get an apartment or house to live in, so presumably he is still staying in a hotel now, since it's been such a short time since the move.

Neither Jeanneane nor I have any other contact info for him but his cell phone. Jeanneane reminded me that his domain of fiawol.org is currently shut down, and John indicated to her that he didn't know if or when it would be back up. Neither she nor I have heard from John since he left Virginia, and he hasn't answered his cell phone, which I called ever few hours all day yesterday. I don't know which Lockheed Martin office he is working in or from, or if he's on a contract elsewhere in some other office.

Yesterday I discovered that both Matthew and I have had our medical and pharmacy benefits discontinued, as of March 31 for the pharmacy, and April 9 for medical. John never said anything about this to me, or to Jeanneane. I hope that it is some kind of glitch - that he just failed to fill in some paperwork or something, and that it wasn't deliberate. I don't think that he would have done this on purpose, to Matthew especially, but I just don't know what to think, or do. I originally called to find out about my pharmacy benefits yesterday, because I had tried to get a refill on two prescriptions, and the drugstore told me to call CVS Caremark about my pharmacy benefits. I did, and I was told I could not get any further information without John's "LMP # and PIN", which I don't have. They said it was on his pay stub - he has his paycheck automatically deposited in his checking account. A friend said that maybe I can go to the house in Lorton (which Jeanneane still has a key to, since she still has some of her stuff there), and see if I can find a piece of mail that would have that information in it, but Jeanneane said that the last time she was there, all the papers that had been on his desk were not there anymore.

My physical health and sanity are dependent on 8 regular medications. I am now out of 2 of them. I spent half the afternoon yesterday in tears and near panic. I had a breast biopsy last week (it was benign, thankfully), but now I'm wondering if I am going to have trouble because my coverage ended before that, evidently. I don't know which one of a dozen or so Lockheed Martin facilities in Huntsville John might be working for, or what hotel he might be staying in. I was told by several of the people I reached yesterday on the phone that all I could do was to look up on Google the phone numbers of all of them, call them, and ask if John worked there - which I did. No luck. Either the numbers were no longer in service, they were someone's private line, or there was a message. I explained to the few people I did actually speak with what the situation is, and I was told that because of "privacy issues" nobody was allowed to tell me if John worked there, or what his phone number was, and that there was "no way" to get a message to him. I find that really hard to believe.

What would be my options in case of emergency - which I think this IS, but what if Matthew were sick, or dead, God forbid? How am I supposed to contact this man? I feel so stupid for not pressing John to tell me any details about where he would be, or insisting that he set up his voicemail, or start a gmail account, or SOMETHING. He's always been so reticent about talking to me, and I've tried to leave him be for the most part. I feel frightened and frustrated and angry. I'm not sure what else to do. Here are some things I'm considering doing, besides just keeping on calling him on his cell phone.

- Keep calling Lockheed Martin locations and talk to anyone I can who might be able to tell me some other way to get a message to John through work.

- Call Lockheed Martin's legal department and alert them to the fact that John is now failing to provide his minor child with medical coverage.

- Call every discount hotel in Huntsville Alabama and ask if John is staying there.

- See if there is some way to get a message via one of his characters on World of Warcraft, which as far as I know is the only other thing John does besides his job.

- Post on Live Journal and Facebook to get ideas from friends.

- File a missing persons report with the police.

- Send a registered letter or regular letter to the last address I have for him in Lorton to see if it gets forwarded to him, if he's set that up.

Meanwhile, my friend Anne Zieger suggested that I go to a clinic near where I live in Baltimore to see if I can get some low-cost medication to tide me over until we get this resolved. I'm going to call about that today. The two meds I'm out of now are imipramine, 150mg, and lamictal, 300mg. I found out that getting a one month supply of JUST those two would cost me over $400.00, which I absolutely do NOT have right now.

If anybody has any other suggestions for me to find John, I would be very grateful. Thanks for listening.

10 things I've done meme

suecochran — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:26:33 GMT

Hi,

A friend just linked to a post he'd done in 2005 about this meme, 10 things I've done that most people probably haven't, and I thought I would try to think of some stuff that would apply to the meme for myself. Here goes!

1. When I was in elementary school, in the early 1970s, my sister and I took part in some testing that Brooklyn College students were doing, a few years in a row. They came to our home and picked us up, and we went to the college, and then they brought us back home after the testing. I believe that they were psych students. We just had to answer a bunch of questions, both verbal and written. It made me feel important.

2.In 1972, when I was 11, I got to ride on an elephant at the New Jersey Orange County fair. It's skin was very bristly, which surprised me. Years later when I was an adult, I also had a ride on the back of a donkey at a Ren Fair. I didn't get to touch it's skin, though.

3.In 1976, when I started High School, my first boyfriend and I used to go underground at his apartment complex, and see areas that had not been designated yet for other uses. When his family moved in there, he discovered that his front door key also unlocked all these doors to places connected to his building in the area, and we had free run of this wide expanse of concrete structures. It was very surreal down there, it had ramps, and the lines of the area were asymmetrical - it felt SO cool, like our own little private world. (I found out years later that one thing they finally did with some of the space - they made a small synagogue there!) Some of my first "make-out" sessions were in that place. And we talked and talked for hours there, too.

4. My first babysitting job was when I was 12, and it was for 3 children, ages approximately 2, 4, and 6. I kind of doubt that most babysitters start out with the responsibility of that many children at that young an age. I continued to babysit for the family until I was around 19, including on summer vacations from school. I had gone to college starting in 1980, and then I left for a few years. I went back in 1983, and stayed until 1986. The last year I was there, I ran into the oldest girl from that family - she was a student there! I said to her, "PLEASE, tell me you're a freshman!" I never did finish college or get a degree. I attribute that to my being undiagnosed with bipolar 2. The depression and anxiety made it very hard to complete things.

5. When I was in JHS, my friend Anna and I formed a group of 6 girlfriends who met periodically to talk about large issues, like politics, religion, and sex. We were definitely influenced by some of our parents, who were in similar groups. I don't know how many other kids our age were interested in starting up and maintaining over the course of many months to a year or so, this kind of "rap" group. We felt very mature because of this, and just enjoyed the ability to discuss our different views and feelings about the world.

6. I was fortunate enough in February of 2000, to be invited to attend a friend's baby's birth. She had a doula with her, and the doula was training another woman to also be a doula, and I was there to provide morale support, and to take photos and video. At the moment of actual birth, my friend had her husband on one side and the doula's assistant on the other side holding up her knees, the doula and a nurse in front of her, and I had a camera in one hand and the video camera in the other hand, and I got great shots from both cameras of the baby emerging. What an amazing experience!

7. On the 4th of July of 1995, my husband was in the Air Force and worked at WHCA, the White House Communication Agency. We got to see the fireworks on the mall from the South Lawn of the White House, with two of our friends from the filk community. It was really neat :)

8.In October of 1982, I traveled to Israel, and stayed there for 6 weeks. For the first few weeks, I visited with a friend from HS, who was at the time living just outside of Jerusalem. It happened to snow in Jerusalem that year, an unusual occurrence. The rest of the time I spent living and working on a kibbutz, called G'vat Hashlosha, near Petach Tickva, around 10 miles from Tel Aviv. I worked in their show factory, making shoes for the German Army, which was part of the reparations from the Holocaust, for the German Army to help support the kibbutz with that work. Most of the people I worked with there were kibbutzniks, rather than volunteers, like I was. Hardly any spoke much English. I mostly smiled and nodded at people, and for some of the time, we communicated by trading songs. I know some Hebrew songs from my time in Hebrew School, and also a few in Spanish and French. It was nice. I was also living there when it was Halloween, which the Israelis there didn't celebrate, so I hung out in the grapefruit orchards that night with many of the other volunteers, who were from England, Scotland, and Australia, mainly. We had a bonfire and told scary stories. I think some people also bobbed for apples. It was really cool to talk with the other volunteers about the customs in their countries.

9. In August of 1982, one of the counselors I became friends with at a Weight Watchers summer camp in Connecticut, asked me if I wanted to go with her to visit a friend of hers in Michigan. I really liked another counselor who went to the same camp, and she lived in Michigan too, so I agreed to go. Once I arrived at my friend's house, she told me she'd decided to move to California, and asked me if I'd like to come along with her for the ride. Her stuff would go separately by moving van. So I did - we drove from her home (her family just happened to be next-door neighbors of Lee Iacocca), and stayed in Chicago at her cousin's home, and in a series of youth hostels (I had at the time a lifetime membership card to the American Youth Hostels, so we had a discount at each AYH location) and a few motels in St. Louis, Missouri, somewhere in Texas, Flagstaff, Arizona, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and finally in San Diego, California. We took one day out to see the Grand Canyon - just beautiful, awesome. We of course took turns driving, and passed some of the time reading to each other the John Irving book, "The World According to Garp". It was a wonderful experience.

10. During the 1970s and 1980s, I had a variety of temporary and permanent job positions in New York City. During that period of time, I had jobs both in the Empire State Building, at Fuji film (file clerk), and a long-term temp position at the World Trade Center for 10 months with ADT, in their accounts payable department. Going up in an elevator when you know there are dozens of floors below you is an unnerving experience. The buildings actually had an express elevator to around the 70th floor, and then you could change for a local elevator. And there was an elevator that went all the way from the lobby to the restaurant, Windows on the World.

Writer's Block: Nature Gone Wild

suecochran — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:02:42 GMT

I don't remember the name of it, but on a PBS show Gerry and I saw a while back, they showed a deep-ocean dwelling fish that spends part of it's life as one gender, and if it lives long enough and/or grows large enough, it changes gender. Hmm, sounds like a few friends I have...

Shiva Information

suecochran — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:59:21 GMT

Hi -

I am staying in town for a couple more days than I'd planned. I just wanted to spend more time with my family here. Gerry left for Baltimore just a few minutes ago, since he needs to work tomorrow. Matthew is here with me, and I guess we'll take the Dragon Bus home in a few days.

For those who wish to pay a shiva call, here is the information:

Monday July 28th and Tuesday July 29th from 2:00 - 8:00pm
The home of my mother, Rivalee Knapp
We are Reform Jews, so any folks who are Orthodox please let me know and I will arrange for some food that will be appropriate, and paper plates, etc. Please call me at (516)766-3658
You can take the LIRR to Rockville Centre, and it is a few blocks' walk to here.

By car - take the Belt Parkway to the Sunrise Parkway, take the right fork towards Merrick Road, go straight up Merrick Road to Davison Street, and make a right on Davison, and 1 block to Lenox Road, and turn right onto Lenox. The house number is 31, and it is on the right side of the street. There is street parking for 2 hours, and there is metered parking further up the block as well as a lot with muni parking. There are two entrances to the house - take the left entrance - there are 4 steps down. It is the only side that has a buzzer. The apartment number is 2N. We hope to see you here. If you are planning to come, please let us know so we can figure out refreshments. Thank you.

Thank you so much to all who sent condolences both here on LJ and in e-mail. It is much appreciated. I will be printing out your replies for my mother to have. Dad's obituary is in today's New York Times. I will also be posting the eulogies my sister and I wrote for Dad.

My dad has lost his battle with illnesses, and is finally at rest

suecochran — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:18:26 GMT

Almost 8 weeks to the day of when my dad's final battle with illness began, he passed away last night, Friday July 25th, around 8pm, in the hospital. He was 79 years old. He put up quite a fight, and there were several gains and then many set-backs, and we really held out hope for a recovery, but in recent weeks it looked more and more like that just wasn't to be. I thank deeply all of my many friends and family members who prayed for him and sent healing energy over the last 2 months. It is much appreciated.

Gerry and I will be leaving for New York today after Gerry gets off of work and we gather some things we will need. We will arrange to pick up Matthew from the Dragon Bus (he is currently visiting friends in the Boston area) en route to my mom's place in Rockville Centre on Long Island. The funeral will be tomorrow, Sunday at 1pm. If anyone wants details on where the service will be held, please e-mail me at sue dot cochran at g mail dot com. I will be pleased to see anyone who wishes to be there, and I totally understand if people are unable to make it. If anyone wishes to make some kind of monetary contribution in my dad's name, he would prefer that it go to the Neuropathy Association. Both my dad and I have been plagued with peripheral neuropathy for many years, despite neither of us being diabetic, which is a main cause of the condition. It is a scourge that should be wiped out as soon as humanly possible.

Dad was born in Brooklyn, New York. He is a First Generation American on both his mother and father's side of the family. He was the only child that both his parents had. His mother committed suicide when my dad was only a few months old - she had post-partum depression. They didn't know much about that back then. His father remarried, a woman named Syd, and they had one son, my dad's half-brother, Malcolm, who is 10 years younger than my father. But my dad was raised by his maternal grandparents, who also were raising his cousin, Adele - she was a few years older than my dad, and they regarded each other more as siblings than cousins. His grandparents were Orthodox Jews, and kept kosher.

My dad went to a Yeshivah through 8th grade, and his Jewish identity remained an important part of his life. The last celebration that we all took part in was Passover in April of this year. My dad always officiated. I have, somewhere, a videotape that I made of Matthew's first Passover at my parents' house. I will have to find it and watch it with Gerry and his folks sometime. George and Syd were my grandparents, and I didn't know until I was 13 that Syd wasn't my biological grandmother, and about Dad's original mom's death. Syd and her family were and are our family. I got to spend some time with Syd's niece Esther when she came out to visit my dad a few weeks ago. It was good that they got to see each other that one last time.

Dad served in the Korean War - he was a cook in the Army. He received awards for his service, and although he didn't mention much about his time in the service, around the 50th anniversary of the war he got involved with a few different Korean War Veterans Associations, and my parents went to several luncheons sponsored by the groups. Dad displayed his medals in a plaque on the wall at my parents' home. He once told me that although he never questioned why we were in the war in Korea at the time he was there, after the Vietnam War he started to think that we shouldn't have been involved in either situation. But he was proud of his service to his country nontheless.

My parents made many friends throughout their lives, through neighbors, temples, work, and travel. When I think of my dad's character, an old-fashioned term comes to mind that I feel well describes him - "Hail fellow well met". He had such a great, friendly personality, and just about everyone his life came into contact with thought very highly of him. His smile just lit up the room, and his laugh was loud and hearty. He laughed often.

He was a very giving, supportive, nurturing and affectionate father. He'd had a difficult relationship with his own dad, and he told me that he was very happy that he had daughters instead of sons, because he wasn't sure how to deal with boys - it was related to the hard time he had with George. But he was very good with Matthew as he grew up, very loving and caring with him, and with his other two grandchildren as well. He was very proud of all of us, and expressed it well and often. He was a good writer, and I cherish the entries he made in my elementary and Junior High School memory albums. He also had a good relationship with his in-laws. After my maternal grandmother's death (we called her Bubbie), my maternal grandfather (Zaydie), came to live with us. He lived with us through two moves, and died in 1983, at the age of 94. He and my dad got along just fine.

My dad's life was filled with music. He loved classical, jazz, and opera particularly, and has a great collection of records, tapes, and CDs. He also was an avid reader, of newspapers and magazines on a wide variety of topics, as well as books. He graduated with a degree in English from Syracuse University. He didn't do much traveling, but did make one trip to Europe before marrying my mother in 1959. Dad also loved wordplay, always making puns, some bad, some good. He and my mother enjoyed games of Scrabble, and our family game growing up was Canasta. He would sing a line from a song at the drop of a hat. He attended one filk con, with my mom, Contata of 1994 - the first one. They enjoyed it very much. My dad didn't watch much television, usually only Channel 13, the local PBS station. But he did like M*A*S*H, and he watched cartoons with me and my sister when we were little.

My parents had two daughters, my younger sister Amy and myself. They have three grandchildren, my son Matthew who is 12 1/2, and Amy's two kids, Leah who is 6 1/2, and Michael who is 2 1/4 years old. My dad had many friends, some of them life-long. He was much loved by his family members, whom he kept in regular touch with all through his life. He was always active in many things, until he got too weak to make it out of bed much, in the last half year or so of his life. Before that, my parents were avid theater and concert goers, and spent time visiting with friends, and enjoyed going out for meals. My dad volunteered with an organization who set up phone talks with new Russian Jewish immigrants. I used to sometimes overhear his phone conversations with one man. My dad spoke a bit of Russian, and also Yiddish. The man appreciated my dad's help so much, he invited him over to meet his family, and put on a big spread for him. Dad always punctuated his phone conversations with frequent nods, and "Uh huh"s, and approving sounds of acknowledgment of what the other person was saying.

I was always very close to my dad - the family kind of split along those lines - I was Dad's girl and Amy was Mom's. Each of us resembled the parent whom we "sided" with. I see many traits in myself that are my dad's legacy.

He will be very much missed.

Writer's Block: If at first you don't succeed...

suecochran — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:39:36 GMT

I tried a Nordic Track once, and it was awful. I'm fine at the elliptical trainer, but on the NT I thought I'd likely break my neck.

suecochran — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:46:52 GMT

Well, I've accomplished a good amount of things lately, and I am pleased.

I completed a number of things from my to-do list of January 3 in the last several days, plus other things as they came up. Some things are still pending, but will have to wait a bit.

1.) I set up the switchover from one home to the next for our gas and electric with BGE (Baltimore Gas and Electric). January we'll have to pay for both places.

2.) I set up budget billing and automatic bill payment with BGE too, while I was at it. I used to just pay all the bills by check, but I've gotten bad about keeping track of bills, so I've set up many of them to be paid automatically.

3.) I picked up 2 packs of photos from Wal-Mart :) I need to have someone help me set up the photo scanner I bought over a year ago now, so I can scan them into my computer. Since John bought me the digital camera in June 2005,I usually use my digital camera for my photos; that way I can easily get them uploaded to my computer and onto the smugmug website where I keep galleries of my photos, but lately the digital camera is acting funky and unreliable, so for my most recent photos I used a regular "disposable" camera.

4.) I arranged to switch to Vonage instead of Verizon for our phone service. in order to save some money on our local and long distance (we still will have Verizon for our DSL) - and our phone number is staying the same. We got the new box of Vonage stuff by UPS today, so I don't need to find the old one that the adapters came in to plug into the walls. I was planning to try and find the old box, which is buried in the bedroom somethere, but now that the new one's come, we'll just use that one and return the old one which I'd never opened. I was also going to move the stuff that's in FRONT of the walls so I could locate the places to plug the Vonage equipment in, but now that we've actually started living in the house, there's no need to plug anything into the walls in the apartment, but I do need to tell Vonage when we want to switch our phone service over to the house. Now I also need to get a jack installed in our bedroom, because there appears to only be one in the dining room, right outside the kitchen.

5.) We spent our first night in the new house on Saturday! It was kind of a spontaneous decision, because we found out we were getting Lily (Gerry's daughter) for the weekend, for the first time since September! Yay! I don't know exactly what was going through Linda's mind - maybe she is getting nervous about our upcoming court date on January 15. I had meant to write a long post about that situation a while ago, but never got around to it. Suffice it to say, we'd been kept from our regularly, COURT-ORDERED visitation with Lily for several months, and had to hire a lawyer to make sure that we got that situation straightened out. Maybe it's because of getting the house that Linda let her come stay with us. In any case, it was wonderful to see her. She and her cousin Miranda (Gerry's niece, his sister Mary's daughter) stayed over at Jean and Buzz's on Friday after our buffet dinner, and then at our place on Saturday, after a LONG 6 player game of Settlers of Catan at Jean and Buzz's. Jean was kind enough to make dinner for all of us since we hadn't gotten any food for the house yet at that point. Everyone except Matthew played. We'd never had to use the expansion set before. The Chriests and Joneses had only played a few times before, Gerry and I had taught them sometime in the past year. It was Buzz's first time playing, and he and Jean played as a team. The other players were Gerry, Lily, Miranda, Mary, and myself. Gerry won, just beating Mary by the fact that his turn came before hers. I'd like to get them all into played Cities and Knights of Catan, because I find that to be much more fun and interesting, but I know they will want to get more proficient at the basic game before learning the more involved one. All except Lily, who's played C&K with me once or twice, and really likes it. Matthew also prefers C&K, but he doesn't like playing with more than 2 or 3 players. He hasn't had the attention span for a long game. Maybe if I have him take his ADD meds on the weekends, when we play games, it would help him. I'll try that next time.

6.) We got a double bed for Lily from our friend Mary McQuade on Saturday morning, along with a couple of lamps, a small table, a large drafting table (her late father had gotten it at an auction, and I've wanted a drafting table for a long time!)and a small plant pedestal. There is more to come, but we need to wait until we clear room to take the other things she has for us - some bookcases, 2 recliner chairs, and a queen bed for Matthew. Meanwhile, Matthew is sleeping on 2 sleeping bags on the floor in his room, until the bed is available. I'm not sure if it's a queen or a full bed that Mary has for us - if it's a queen, he will have to have something else to add height - maybe John can make him a captain's bed, which would add some drawer space for him, so that would be nice.

7.) We moved our mattress into our 3rd floor bedroom and the mattress and box-spring and frame for Lily into her room Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, our box spring (we have a queen bed) didn't fit up the stairs, so we had to toss it. Buzz had even tried cutting the bottom part of the box-spring in half (the bottom is wood, but the top is metal) and it still wouldn't fit up our staircase, so we're meanwhile just sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Maybe we can find a wooden platform on Freecycle. That would be FABULOUS. Or another queen mattress. It was also hard getting that up the stairs, but it folds some, which of course the box-spring didn't.

8.)I informed the landlord in writing of our intention to move out, gave them our new address for them to send out security deposit to, and paid the last month's rent.

9.) I cut up a LOT of 12 x 12" paper into 8 1/2 x 11" so they would fit in the Staples copy machine, then did a large print run some days back at Staples for the buttons I owe my friend Mary McQuade, and for GAFilk, which is next weekend (eep!), and just to have for stock in general.

10.)I had Gerry print off this morning the Dave Alway memorial buttons that Kira (whom I met at Confluence in Pittsburgh last July) kindly e-mailed me so I can make more of those buttons up to hand out at GAFilk - which is especially important to me because that was the last time anyone in fandom saw him before his untimely death last year right after that con.

11.) While I was cutting up the paper, I talked with my friend Jeannette, who lived right across the street from me in Lorton, VA. She is still living there. We spoke for probably over an hour. It was really nice getting to catch up on things in our lives. It had been way too long since we'd spoken to each other.

12.) The storage area (10 by 10 feet) is now emptied of all our stuff - I can't recall if I'd already mentioned that previously - it got done before the New Year started. Gerry's parents have been gradually moving boxes of the stuff at their place in his old room across the street to us, and Gerry's been moving the boxes of my books gradually up to our place on the third floor, and we have one small Freecycle bookcase up in our room.

13.) I started sorting my books into categories last night - OY! I've got 17 categories already - History, Politics, Sociology, Science, Literature, Art and Architecture, English Language, Healing, Organization, "How To", Science Fiction, Computers, Mythology, The Mind, Self-Improvement, Non-SF Novels, Humor.

14.) Gerry and I did a grocery store run to at least have a few things at the house to make for the next few days.

15.)We brought over a bunch of kitchen and bathroom stuff, including our shower attachment. I prefer to have a long hose and variable head shower, so I can use it to clean things that don't fit easily under the bathroom faucet. It's also useful because you can remove the shower head when you first turn the water up to the shower from the tub faucet, so you don't get a blast of cold water when you're starting out. Gerry likes baths better, and our new tub is SO much nicer than the one in the apartment. He changed out the shower heads last night. Oh - when we shower, the curtain doesn't "attack" us - I hated that about our apartment's shower. The curtain rod is inches closer to the tub than it is in the house, and every time I'd shower in the apartment, I'd have to tuck the bottom of the curtain up and "plaster" it to the tub top with water to keep it from touching me while I showered. Ick. We actually had bought a rod from Home Depot that has a nice outward curve in it to install in our apartment bathroom, and then - you guessed it - we never got around to installing it. I don't think it's really necessary in our new place. But we may do it eventually, just to give a bit of extra room.

I guess that's the main stuff that's gotten done.

Today's To-Dos

suecochran — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:39:17 GMT

Today I'm home because it is just TOO cold out and I didn't want to deal with driving Gerry to and from work so I could have the car. There are things I'd like to do if I had the car, but none of them are major priorities. The things I need the car for, I can wait to do until Gerry's back from work.

At home:
1)Call BGE and have them transfer our billing from the seller/landlord's name at our new house to our name.

2)Gather all my CQ paperwork together and add up expenses and income for 2007.

3)Prepare slogan masters for a print run.

4)Choose sets of papers for the print run.

4)Call or e-mail Dan B. and ask him for the con and hotel information he wants.

Outside:
1)Take masters to Staples and do the print run.

2)Go to Wal-Mart, pick up photos and drop off film to be developed.

3)While I'm doing paperwork, call a friend I haven't spoken to in a while and catch up. Headsets for phones are wonderful things.

Things I'm Grateful For

suecochran — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:13:46 GMT

1)My breath.

Oprah pointed out on one of her shows some years back, in talking to people about keeping a gratitude journal, that if you can't think of anything else that you're grateful for, you can start with your breath. Not everyone can breathe on their own. There are many people who have to live, for a short time or for a long time, on ventilators. I get very scared when I feel like my breathing is threatened - I mean, everyone probably has this reaction, but I think I'm more sensitive about it than other people. When I'm highly anxious, like I was when I was in my third trimester of pregnancy in the summer of 1995, it manifested as a severe phobia of water. I could not even stand to think of or hear the words "swimming pool" or "ocean". I felt like I was going to drown. I'm just now getting over a nasty upper respiratory bug, and there were a couple of days there when it was VERY hard for me to take a deep breath, or breathe through my nose at all. So yeah, breath.

2)Gerry.

He does so much for me and for our family, and does the majority of it spontaneously, willingly, and mostly cheerfully. That is a huge gift right there. He gives me love, affection, attention, encouragement, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, silliness, and all kinds of other wonderful things. I love him so much.

3)My business.

I really enjoy what I do. It gives people pleasure to read my buttons and magnets, and I really enjoy almost every aspect of making and selling my merchandise. I love choosing the paper colors and patterns, I love doing the copying, I even like cutting out the circles, and pressing the buttons. The only part I really have trouble with is loading and unloading the car when I have to travel to cons, and dealing with that in the rain and cold is doubly difficult. Mostly I've had Gerry to help me because he wasn't working from the time I started the business until last month. Now he has to work, and I need to think about how to cope without his assistance.

There are more things I'm grateful for, but I'll stop here for now.