My dad's pretty smart

When my folks were here a couple of weeks ago, my dad talked quite a bit about water. He’s always been interested in water and water policy, and has always said that the good health we enjoy here in the US can be tied to our water supply getting cleaned up. In 2003 when SARS first made the news (remember SARS?), he said then that he’d bet real money that the spread of SARS would end up being traced to contaminated water in Hong Kong. He was right.

As you might remember from your college science classes, our planet is pretty much a closed system (opens as a PDF). The various components we have are what we’ve got to work with, and that includes water. I’ve always been puzzled how it is that some places run out of water when the amount of water stays roughly the same.

But when Dad was here a couple of weeks ago, he pointed out what happens when people drink from a bottle—whether it’s water or soda or juice—and don’t finish the bottle. What do you do? You put the cap back on, right? And toss the bottle with the remaining water or liquid trapped inside. So that water is effectively removed from our system. Multiply that by a bazillion people around the world who drink bottled drinks and you can see how our closed system might be losing water.

I knew my dad was a smart cookie but I have to say that simple comment about capping bottles* opened my eyes.


I started thinking about the vegetable waste we’ve been tossing in the trash—that vegetable waste is full of moisture and we haven’t been letting it get back into the system. We don’t put it down the disposal because our kitchen sink plumbing has a severe hairpin turn under the floor of our basement, and we’ve clogged the snot out of that pipe with predictably disgusting results. So we’ve been tossing carrot peels, strawberry tops, and all the rest of that kind of stuff in the trash.

Ready for the compost bin

So a day or so after my folks returned home, I started carting those bits of vegetable matter out to the closest of the three compost bins in our backyard. Now I will say, the previous owner did a lot of gardening and she clearly used those compost bins (and took the compost with her when she moved). We, on the other hand, have done nothing with them. I’m not sure we’ll do anything with the resulting compost except think of it as a buffet for the bunnies and squirrels in our yard. But at least this way, that moisture from the vegetable rubbish will be back in our closed system.


*The water bottle in the photo is probably four years old. I refill it every night and use it to fill up the cat fountain.

Father's Day

My dad with Doug & me and our kitties

Father’s Day is always a weird day for me. I’m part of a an extensively blended family – I like to say my family tree more accurately resembles a spider’s web what with the various step-mothers and step-siblings I’ve had along the way.

I’ve always just had two father figures though: my birth father and my dad. Barker was my birth father – I am the first of two children from his marriage to my mother. He and my mother split when I was very tiny and he remarried shortly thereafter. My mother didn’t marry again until I was six years old and that’s where Dad came in.

I was estranged from my father since I was 12 years old for good reasons. We had some contact again when I was in my early to mid-20s but nothing past about 1986. Nothing that is until one of my step-sisters reached out to me in 2004, looking to make amends for something she thought she’d done that hurt me. I learned then that Barker had died nearly five years earlier.

Growing up with Mom and Dad and my brother and two sisters, I never felt as though I fit into the family. I am the only one with brown eyes, like Barker, and I look a lot like him. I’ve long felt like I was an alien or some sort of imposter hiding with my blue-eyed siblings. And I always thought that Dad sort of felt that way too, just not quite sure about me or how I fit in – best example I can think of would be when a dog adopts a kitten, and somehow the two species make it work.

Even with that sense of not belonging, of being somehow the alien, I learned a lot from Dad. He might be surprised to hear this, but I think one of the reasons I am so very disciplined is because I watched him and learned to be that way myself. I also learned to stick with things, even when it’s difficult, and I learned to be generous when I have the ability to do so.

Here’s to you, Dad.

Through someone else's eyes

I read a blog post earlier this week about a woman who ended up having serious heart issues. She’d gone to the hospital three times previously but her symptoms were atypical (which is quite typical for women and health issues—we aren’t men) so no diagnosis was made. Fortunately the fourth trip resulted in her getting the treatment she needed.

But that’s not what I’m writing about, although the way women’s health issues manifest themselves is worth writing about – just not today. In the "gosh this is a small world" moment, I read a comment on that post from my mother. She posted something about Dad having been taught in medical school that patients will tell their doctors what's wrong, if only the doctors will listen. 

This particular blog writer lives in Cape, which is where my parents lived for 18 years. She'd been a high school teacher, which is how I knew of her. I didn't know she knew my dad or that he'd been her doctor before my folks moved to Idaho over 20 years ago. She replied to my mother's comment: 

I think that your retired physician husband was actually my endocrinologist for a time before you moved out west. I was so upset when you moved out of state.

I have to say, though, that he actually sought ME out before I was his patient. It was the night of Christmas Ball, and he was there for coronation ceremonies because his daughter* was in the court. I was her teacher. When your husband called me aside, I assumed that he wanted to discuss something about his daughter. I thought his daughter was delightful, and I was genuinely concerned that something might be wrong with her.

He started by first saying, "Don't tell me who your doctor is, but are you under a doctor's care?" For a split second, I thought that maybe he was inferring that I needed psychiatric help! He went on to tell me that my eyes were too dilated and that he could see that my thyroid was enlarged, and then asked if I was being treated for my condition. I told him that my doctor had prescribed liquid iodine. "Well, that's not enough," he said, assuredly.

He then advised me to go back to my doctor and demand a T3, T4, TSH, and iodine uptake test. I was so impressed that he cared for someone who was not even his patient, and that he took the risk to go out of his way to say something! Eventually, I became his patient, and then I went through separation anxiety when he moved. Just in case we are talking about the same doctor, please thank him. I have never forgotten his caring attitude.

I asked her if she minded if I quoted her here. She said not all. "Your Dad went out of his way to help me, and I am proud to be quoted as having said that." 

See, I know my dad’s a neat man. But to me, he’s Dad so I can still hear the dad who would tell me to get up, or eat my broccoli, or help with chores or well, you get the idea. Just a dad being Dad. This is a different side to him, one I wouldn’t have seen growing up and it’s really cool. 

*She's talking about my sister, Amy. 

Odds and ends from my trip

While on the plane, I watched Survivor over someone's shoulder. I don't get the appeal.

I'm glad to leave the high desert even though it's beautiful, mostly because my nose is cracking and bleeding.

I'm also glad I had charge left on my Zune so I could listen to music.

While at the Oregon Youth Challenge program, I saw this slogan:

People may not believe what you say. They will always believe what you do.

So I’m sitting on the plane next to a man who was happy to tell me about his wife and four children, ages 22, 20, 18. and 16 and how his children tell him (and his wife) that they want marriages or relationships like their parents. And yet he’s gone two weeks at a time with a few days in between the trips. Is that really what his children want?

What do they want to emulate?

I just eavesdropped/watched some episode of Survivor (guy in the next row across the aisle has it on his iPad), and in this episode family members were brought in. It was clear to me who really truly had a close relationship with the visiting person—the actions were so loud that even though I couldn’t hear the audio track, I didn’t need it.

Some of the contestants clearly had very strong family bonds with those who visited them. You can fake hugs but unless you are an Oscar caliber actor, I don’t think you can successfully fake the emotion and strong family bonds. I want that with my family.

I think I have it with my younger son and his family although I want more, I want them to know in their hearts of hearts how much I love them and how committed I am to them. I have work ahead of me with my older son, and so does he. That kind of relationship is a two-way street and I’m committed to doing my part.

My parents showed me this kind of commitment this weekend. My mother made a point of telling me how proud she is of me—my favorite line was when she told me I looked too small to be so important in what I do. But her words, while fantastic, didn’t say as much as her actions (and my dad’s actions) did. They drove six HOURS to see me for a few hours and have dinner with me. While I might want to argue with what my mother said, her actions practically hollered at me. And I am humbled and thankful for that message.

I have proof

My dad is not so fond of kitties these days. He's more of a dog person, and doesn't like it when a kitty wants to sleep with him. To each their own, although at some point I'll write about the differences I see between dog people and cat people. Yes, I know it's been done to death, too bad.

Anyway I found this photo as I was sorting through loose pictures to decide which should go into albums, which should be given to family, and which should be pitched. From left to right is my brother, Doug, our dad, and me. Dad is holding the mama cat and we are each holding one of her kittens. First I cracked up at how cute the kittens were, and then I marveled at my dad holding not just a cat, but a Siamese cat. Now THAT is advanced kitty-ology! I don't recall if the mother cat had just the two kitties. I think she was the cat we named Cinnamon, and I believe we kept one of her boy kittens, and named him Simon.