Busy, Busy, Busy

Hey, folks—I'm still around. I'm just very busy.

I have two book manuscripts on my desk, one on getting healthy by eating right and one on etiquette. Just finished two journal articles, one in Japanese medical English and the other in Taiwanese medical English. I'm working like crazy to get everything done.

And my oldest baby—Becky, 23—will marry her sweetheart, Li (26), on Sunday, August 6, my forty-seventh birthday. After the wedding, I may post some links here when photos are available.

Meanwhile, if you don't hear much from me for a while, you'll know why.



Updated 4 p.m., August 1, 2006: Becky and Li have come up against the first glitch with their wedding plans, and it's a biggie: Li's godfather is a minister, and he agreed several months ago to officiate at their ceremony. The ceremony and the reception will take place at a catering facility that offers complete wedding packages, which they signed up for because they're both working full time and she's also working on her master's degree in social work full time. Now they haven't been able to get in touch with the minister for several days. No one knows where he is. Ack! I am attempting to continue breathing. They may very well have to resort to asking the catering facility to get a minister or justice of the peace for them from the list of officiants that the facility works with. If they can't get an officiant in time, I guess the reception can go on and they can head over to the local city hall on Monday to get married there.



Updated 10:15 p.m., August 1, 2006: Whew! Becky and Li finally heard from the minister. He'd been unreachable because his mother had been hospitalized. He'll still be the officiant.



Updated September 15, 2006: Wedding photos are here.


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It Just Is

So when did you decide to be straight?

Did you wake up one day and decide that because your parents always put dresses on you when you were a girl, that meant you had to grow up to be a women who is attracted to men? Or was your decision to become a man who is attracted to women based on your enjoyment of all those neighborhood football games you played as a boy?

Sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it? Who decides to be straight? You just are who you are, right?

But those gay people—they decided to be gay, didn’t they?

Of course my brother Wally decided to be gay. Who wouldn’t want to grow up gay in the Bible Belt in southeast Texas and be told he was an evil sinner? Who wouldn’t want to fall in love, as a teenage boy, with another teenage boy, when all the adults are wondering out loud when he’ll ever get around to dating girls? What adult wouldn’t want to ache to touch his lover but yet be made to feel that he shouldn’t ever kiss him or hold hands with him in public? Who wouldn’t want to be asked to leave the hospital room of his dying soul mate and be told by nurses and doctors, “Only family members, please—you’re not family”?

Sexual orientation isn’t a choice. It isn't caused by your race or ethnic group. It isn't caused by your politics. It isn't caused by your economic status. It isn't caused by coming into contact with people of any specific sexual orientation. It just is. Don’t believe it? Watch this video, and then read what scientists have to say.




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Real Women with Real Bodies

I am astounded by the power of The Shape of a Mother. What it does is what the Internet was meant to do.

It's a blog that tells the Truth—with a capital T—about women's bodies during and after pregnancy. Advertisers, TV, and movies make sure Americans see only svelte naked bellies and perky naked breasts on women, making plenty of women feel that they become ugly because of the changes pregnancy brings to their bodies. The Truth is that pregnancy and post-pregnancy female bodies are normal. The Truth is that they're beautiful, because they've given so much to sustain a new life.

If you're pregnant or have had one or more babies and feel you must hide your "ugly" body, go see the Truth. If you're a man and you think you don't or won't like women's bodies once they've been changed by pregnancy, you need to see the Truth and get educated.



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The Discussion

Well, my husband (Ed) and I had that discussion about how his lack of time-management skills affect our relationship and our family life.

If you're uncomfortable with my openness on this topic and this part of my life, I'm sorry for your unease but I don't apologize for being upfront. Because attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) often has a stigma attached to it—the way anything to do with mental health does—I'm committed to being honest and public about it, to help get rid of the stigma that's imposed by silence and to let those who have AD/HD or live with someone who does know they're not alone. That commitment is also one of the reasons why I use my entire real name on this blog. I stand behind what I write, and I want people to know that if what I experience is similar to what they do, I'm a real person, which means their experiences are just are real as mine are. I love Ed and our son Neil, who also has AD/HD, with all my being, but love doesn't make living with AD/HD easy; just ask my Paxil, which I take because of situational depression. (That means that living in a situation of constant stress, caused by all the AD/HD around here, causes my depression—not that my abusive childhood didn't predispose me to depression, but that's another story.)

When I sat down with Ed for our talk, I wasn't nonjudgmental at first, the way I'd planned to be, though I was beforehand when rehearsing in my head. ;-) Don't we all behave better in our imagined scenarios than in reality? I confess that I started out yelling. Several years of Ed's increasing lateness had gotten to me, especially during last week, when our sons were camping locally with Ed's parents so that we could have a break. I'd very much wanted Ed home from work on time so that we'd have the maximum amount of time together possible—he's my favorite person in the whole world.

But when I'd calmed down, I explained how I knew that his time-management problem was a handicap but that people learn to work with handicaps—someone with a broken leg learns to walk with a crutch rather than give up walking. Ed's come so far in learning new behaviors since his AD/HD was diagnosed in 2000; he wouldn't have been promoted to foreman at work if he hadn't. It's just that relationship skills are the last area for him to work on, and I'm tired of being last. (And of course this isn't intentional on his part.) I explained that by working so late all the time, he's trained his boss (the company owner) to believe that he's superhuman and needs no rest away from work. But if he keeps this up, he'll burn out and suffer physically eventually. And I said that I knew he didn't mean to deprive me of himself, but by not setting an alarm on his cell phone or using some other method to remind him when the workday ends, he is depriving me. And he's depriving our sons of himself, of an on-time dinner, and of an on-time bedtime, which makes them crabby and groggy—and increases Neil's AD/HD behaviors from lack of sleep.

Besides Ed's AD/HD, his upbringing is operating against him. His parents both have AD/HD, and they came to believe that employees don't have the right to ever speak up when they're placed in an intolerable situation—that being assertive means in-your-face nastiness, so it's best not to speak up at all. That is, they mistakenly think that assertiveness means aggression. And that's par for the course with AD/HDers; they see no gray but only black and white.

Ed has been slowly unlearning this, but he's not done yet. He will have to retrain his boss to think of him as a human being who needs rest and has family duties, and that will be a long haul, because Ed's worked there 13 years, just as long as we've been married. None of the other employees' wives have jobs, much less their own business like I do, so Ed is an oddity among his cabinetmaker peers in that he is expected to share family duties equally with his wife. This has never been a problem for Ed, but it is foreign to the culture at his job, so he may encounter resistance because of this when he starts to change his behavior.

Going on Ed's past history with learning new behaviors, I predict it will take him a few false starts before he gets this one down. I've often said, exasperatedly, to him that it must be a requirement for being a cabinetmaker that one have no concept of time. A dear friend of mine is also married to a cabinetmaker—and both she and he have AD/HD—and they both agree that he operates on what they call "glacial time."



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AD/HD: A Day in the Life

Time management is an issue that affects lots of two-career households, including those with freelancers like me.

My workday runs from about 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, with lots of breaks for child care. My husband and I have three children; the 11-year-old and 4-year-old are still at home (the 23-year-old's on her own), and I am responsible for their care during the workday—on top of working in my home office—until my husband gets home, because paying for child care would take a big chunk out of our income. My husband's job is a hour's commute away, but that's if he's driving over the speed limit.

Our arrangement, since our 11-year-old's birth, has been that when my husband, Ed, arrives home from work, he is completely responsible for child care and for making dinner; he's also responsible for the bulk of child care on weekends. (I got more satisfaction from this when the boys were very young because Ed did all the diaper-changing when he was home.)

Someone once asked if this was fair to Ed. Hell yes, it is. He may work hard, but when he's working, he's doing only one job. I, however, am doing two jobs—editing and child care—when I'm working. Our arrangement helps me recuperate from having to be on duty with the kids (in the summertime, at least) all day long, and it gives my husband plenty of time to bond with the boys. He's always been fine with this arrangement; I didn't have to push him into it.

Our fights usually have to do with Ed's lack of a sense of time, which is related to his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). He's a foreman for a small cabinetmaking firm—and I do mean small; there are fewer than 10 employees, even counting the owner—so it's not as if he has the weight of a huge company on his shoulders. His workday is supposed to be 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. But things come up near the end of the workday, and instead of his quickly planning out how they will be handled the next day, he's taken to handling them immediately, thinking that they won't take long at all. But of course, they always take a long time. So he leaves work at 5:00 p.m. (tolerable), 5:30, 6:30 ... last night he left at 7:00 p.m. and was home after 8:00 p.m. His boss doesn't require him to work late all the time. And it's not as if he's an emergency department surgeon who faces unexpected operations at the end of his shift to save people's lives.

This problem with gauging time means that (1) I am responsible for the kids for a much longer time than I'm supposed to be, under our agreement, and (2) no one knows when dinner will be, which makes the kids and me crabby. That means I have to stop working at 7:00, when I usually do, but dinner's not ready and the kids are hungry, so I have to make dinner. By the time we eat, it's time for the kids to get baths before going to bed, and they're whining, "When will Daddy get home?!"

Ed promises over and over to leave work on time—unless there's an emergency, and that, I would understand—but lately, he never manages to. Everyone's schedules are thrown off, I'm angry, the kids are whiny, and he's not happy because I'm angry.

I know that these are the kinds of issues that both parties must talk out—honestly, at length, and without the kids around. They should set aside some time to talk, making it official by getting a babysitter. They should talk about the feelings that are behind the actions, have empathy for each other.

I should go do that, but it's hard to feel like bothering, because I've told Ed many times exactly what I think about what feels like his lack of respect for my time. And each time, he says he knows he should pay attention to the clock and just leave work at 4:30. But then he doesn't. He even did this all throughout this week, when we had a vacation from the boys and could have more time together. It's gotten to the point that I don't believe his promises. And that situation is so typical of life with an AD/HDer.

I don't know how this issue will be resolved, given that with Ed, poor time management skills are one of his handicaps and not a lack of respect. We'll see.

Updated



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What's "Working Full Time" for a Freelance Editor?

What does "working full time" mean to you as an employee? As a freelancer or consultant?

To me, as a freelance copyeditor, it means that my workweek ranges from 25 to 40 hours, but then most of my work is substantive editing (heavy copyediting), ESL editing (smoothing the nonstandard English of authors who aren't native speakers of English), medical editing, or ESL medical editing, rather than straight copyediting, so it isn't speedy enough to allow me to zip through it and work fewer hours. After 22 years in publishing, 11 of them as a freelancer, I do charge healthy rates (hourly, page, or project, depending on the client and the project), so you'd think I could get by with fewer hours and still meet my living expenses. But my husband and I

• Live on expensive Long Island (New York State)



• Own a home, a dinky, no-closet-space, 1,400-square-foot place that is vastly overvalued in an overheated housing market



• Have three children. We're paying the lion's share of our daughter's costs for her impending August 6 wedding. We also paid a good portion of her undergrad tuition within the last 5 years; she's paying postgrad tuition herself now because she's been financially independent for just over a year. Then there was private preschool tuition this year for our youngest; our school district doesn't yet offer preschool.



• Have his parents (ages 70 and 71) living in our home. Though they pay us a token rent, they're on a fixed income, so we cover a lot of the expenses that they'd have to cover if they lived in an apartment somewhere else.



• Pay full monthly health insurance premiums (about $750/month) by weekly deductions from my husband's weekly paychecks. The firm he works for is so microscopic that it can't afford to pitch in for any employee's coverage. But for years, our insurance came through my company, and we paid those premiums in full ourselves.

Though my cabinetmaker foreman husband commands healthy hourly wages, his income alone couldn't anywhere near cover all of that by itself. Before he was given a substantial raise a couple of years ago, my annual gross income was pretty close to his. You betcha I'm competitive enough to be working at increasing my gross income to match his again. ;-)

Individual life circumstances are going to affect what's full time for any particular freelancer. What's full time for you, and why?



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Vacation from Parenting

My husband and I are getting a parenting break this week. Even though we’re both still working, it feels as if we're on vacation.

My in-laws have taken our 4-year-old and 11-year-old sons camping locally for the week. We'd forgotten what uninterrupted conversation was like. And I'd forgotten how I can drown in my husband's eyes. We rarely get the chance to just sit and stare at each other when the boys are around. Damn, even doing lawn care together during the weekend was fun—and we've been married 13 years! Now I'm wishing we had other nearby relatives who'd let the boys spend a few days with them during the summer. I could really get used to having more than an occasional evening alone with my guy.



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Calling All Bibliophiles

Have a look at LibraryThing, where you can, for no fee, catalog up to 200 of the books you own or have read. (If you want to catalog more than 200, you pay either $10 a year or $25 for life.) You can make your list private or public; you can post book reviews; you can tag your books; you can use one of the little JavaScript extras to automatically post to your blog a partial list, with miniature pictures of book covers, of books you've read; you can find other people who've read the books you've read; you can find lists of all the good books others have read but you haven't yet ...

A June 27 article in the Wall Street Journal called LibraryThing "social networking for bookworms." Whatever it is, it makes my little editor's heart very happy.



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The Rise of Religious Bigots in America

Seems to me that American religious bigots are increasing in number—or are at least being more upfront than they have been in decades.

Take, for example, the story of the Delaware school district that insists on praying "in Jesus' name" at school board meetings, despite a Jewish family's request for a more inclusive "in God's name." The aggression of the Protestant religious right in shoving its beliefs down everyone's throat frightens me and makes me ashamed to be a Christian. I don't want everyone thinking that all Christians act like these bigots.

My beliefs match those summarized by the Christian Alliance for Progress:

• Compassion and care for "the least of these": We follow Jesus' call to compassion and his command to "love your neighbor as you love yourself."



• Responsibility and obligation: We heed the call to take up our cross—to transform our lives, but also to do more: to move beyond the "personal" and to take responsibility in our communities and country.



• Justice for all: We stand against powerful systems of human injustice in our world, as Jesus stood against them in his.



• Equality and inclusiveness: Like Jesus did among women, tax collectors, Samaritans, and others, we reject hurtful exclusionary distinctions between "us" and "them."



• Faithful stewardship: We follow Jesus' call for responsible stewardship—caring protection for the environment and sharing of our worldly treasure.



• Right use of power: We turn away from fear; we use the power of God that flows through us to protect the innocent and build justice in the world, not to coerce others to our will or force others to accept our vision.



• Spiritual foundation: We turn to God as our spiritual foundation.

What this means, among other things, is that I don't feel the need to press my religious beliefs on anyone.

I'm quite familiar with extreme Christians, so my abhorrence of religious bigots comes from experience. I was raised as a Southern Baptist to believe that men are leaders and women are not, to believe that being gay is a sin, and to go out and talk other people into believing the same things. As a young adult, I was so turned off by Baptist beliefs and the Baptist attitude that being human is bad that I avoided all religion for almost 15 years. I then spent about 10 years as a Presbyterian. Now I'm again reevaluating my spirituality, tired of the anti-gay stance of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Whatever your religion, there is no reason to force it on other people. Doing so devalues the concept of free will and the worth of each human being, tenets held by most major religions but apparently forgotten by today's bigots.



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Keep Out of North Korea

George Bush just doesn't know when to stop. North Korea, whose nuclear weapons are apparently rather ineffective, is the next nation Bush wants to invade. But hell, the U.S. has nuclear weapons too. Why do we have more of a right than other nations to have WMD? You do realize that if the U.S. invades North Korea it'll be World War III, don't you? It's time for new EditorMom protest items: T-shirts, tote bags, stickers, lapel buttons, coffee mugs, and more.



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Polishing Gems

I don’t often write here about what it is that I do for a living, because this blog is a place for me to write about politics, religion, human rights, and parenting as seen through the eyes of an editor. I’m analytical in my work, and that carries over into how I see the world. I analyze it and the people in it. But I figure that maybe you might want to know what I’m doing when I’m not blogging or parenting, so that you can understand what I bring to this blog. So in this post, adapted from comments I posted at Evil Editor’s blog, I explain how I spend my workday and how clients find me.

As a professional freelance copyeditor with 22 years’ experience in publishing, I say using the services of a professional editor is worthwhile. But why?

Authors hire freelance copyeditors because they know that their opus may have weak spots, and they want to maximize their chances of getting a publisher to buy their manuscript. If a publisher thinks it has to work too hard to whip a manuscript into a book that'll sell, it won't bother taking it on.

How do you find a freelance copyeditor, and how do you know if the critter is proficient?

After you’ve had your manuscript critiqued by a writers’ group and revised it, do an Internet search on the phrase “freelance editor” or “freelance copyeditor.” Peruse the web sites of several of the freelancers who are listed in the search results. Look for a philosophy of editing, a client list, a résumé, a project list, and affiliations with profession-related associations. E-mail a few freelancers whose sites inspire confidence. Ask about their working process, their rates, their time frames. Of those whose responses you like, request a sample edit. This generally isn’t free, but because a sample is usually 5 to 10 of your 250-word double-spaced pages, it won’t be that expensive. Choose an editor on the basis of compatibility and how well you like his or her editing; don’t choose the one who says your golden prose is perfect as is. Choose the editor you feel will help your writing sound like what you meant to say in the first place. Then get a written contract and dig in!

Now, why should you go through working with a writers’ group first? Because that will deal with the big-picture issues. You can go directly to a copyeditor, but then you’ll be paying a great deal more because your work may very well need substantive editing, which takes longer, rather than copyediting. You can find definitions of the levels of editing here.

But can’t you just ask freelancers for references and contact them? Yes, but looking at a freelancer’s client list and résumé will tell you about the copyeditor’s background, how long he or she has been in the business, and how many—and which—clients have actually trusted him or her to edit.

Isn’t this process an awful lot of work, on top of the hard work of writing? Yes. But if you were looking for a new, expensive car, you’d likely take the time to shop around for the best value and the best warranty. Why would you do any less for the manuscript you’ve sweated over for months or years?

You know what? Everyone needs an editor—even an editor! Whenever I write for publication, I always have a colleague review my work before I submit it. An editor is a second (or fourth or fifteenth) set of eyes that can spot what you can’t see because you’re too close to your work. You know what you meant to write, so you see it on the page even if it’s not there.

I understand just how precious an author’s work is to him or her. That’s why I advise taking extra care in finding the right person to work with. I work both with publishers and directly with authors, and I treat each manuscript with respect, recognizing how much effort went into crafting it. My job isn’t to slash and burn. It’s to point out areas where readers may need more information or where they’re given too much of it, to get rid of wordiness, to point out lapses in logic, to polish the author’s gem until it shines.

That’s what I do all day—polish gems.

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Horticultural Guy

My son Neil, who just finished sixth grade, made a video of himself creating several different masterpieces in horticulture class during the school year.

Be forewarned: You need DSL or cable to view it, and it's a Flash video. It's 15 megabytes, so it takes a while to download. If you don't have Macromedia Flash installed on your computer, you can download it for free. Also, Neil doesn't have my editing gene, so there are a couple of typos on title screens. He's the cute blond kid. ;-)



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Not Good News

This isn't good. My father-in-law, A, who underwent a prostatectomy a few weeks ago, may very well have a blood clot, which could cause a stroke or a fatal heart attack.

The last few days, the veins in his legs have been bothering him, and last night, one of his legs swelled up. He put in a call to the office of the Veterans Administration hospital physician who performed his surgery. My mother-in-law, D, came upstairs to tell me this a few minutes ago. My background as a medical copyeditor prompted me to say that the problem could be a blood clot. Just after she'd gone back downstairs, she came back up to ask why I always had to be right—the physician called back to say that yes, indeed, it could be a blood clot, and it could be higher than his leg, and he should get to the VA hospital emergency room right away.

D and A just left. I hope he'll be okay. He and I have had a stormy relationship over the years, but I'd like for him to be around a while longer. He's 70.

Updated 6:47 p.m., 6/26/06: Amazingly, A and D are now back home. A doesn't have a blood clot; he has an infection in his leg. What caused it, no one knows. I've suggested that he get tested for diabetes, because he seems to get infections frequently lately.

Whew. Bullet dodged. Must've been all those good thoughts you all sent out.



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Clients Who Make Work Worthwhile

I love my job. I spend my workdays helping authors say what they really meant to say. And some of them give me gifts, such as the following lovely e-mail that I found in my in-box this morning from one of my clients, an orthopedic surgeon in Korea:

Hello Katharine:

Dr M again. How are you doing? I bet you have a great time.

I am so pleased to hear that my article, "_______," which was edited by you, will be published next month by Journal X.

I am preparing another article for Big-Name Journal, americal volume. So I need your sincere English editing because My English is not good and acceptance by Big-Name Journal is so difficult as you know. So please find the attached file entitled "_______." If you have any questions or any requirements, please contact me Via E-mail.

Thank you again very much for your warm heart and good jobs.

Not only is Dr. M a sweetheart of a guy but he also refers his colleagues to me. What a great way to end the week!



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Cow's Milk Is for Calves

I've always thought that cows' milk is for calves, not humans. I rarely drink it now; I use soy milk in my morning bowl of cereal. Research reported today (or here) seems to confirm the inappropriateness of cow's milk for humans:

Commercial cows' milk increases uterine size in young ovariectomized and sexually immature rats, according to a report in the May 1st issue of the International Journal of Cancer. ...

Similarly, in immature female rats, consumption of commercial cows' milk was associated with significantly higher uterine weights than was consumption of artificial milk. Uterine weights were, however, significantly higher in rats that received milk and estrogen solution than either of the other milk-treated groups. ...

Dr. Sato concludes that milk and dairy product consumption should be kept to a minimum. These products "contain sex steroid hormones, which promote the development of hormone-dependent cancers (prostate cancer in men, and breast and ovarian cancers in women)" [emphasis added]. Dr. Sato also does not recommend milk for prepubertal children."

Yes, people have been drinking cow's milk for eons, but only for the last century or so in the United States has the dairy lobby machine (such as the American Dairy Association and the National Dairy Council) pushed it so much. What American who's ever been near a TV doesn't know about the "Got milk?" campaign? And the United States is one of the few countries in which people drink cow's milk past childhood. The dairy machine wants you to drink milk for strong bones and teeth, and and it even claims, on the basis of spurious interpretation of research, that milk will help dieters lose weight. But here's the real scoop on cow's milk consumption and weight:

Children who drink more than three servings of milk each day are prone to becoming overweight, according to a large new study that undermines a heavily advertised dairy industry claim that milk helps people lose weight.

The study of more than 12,000 children nationwide found that the more milk they drank, the more weight they gained: Those consuming more than three servings each day were about 35 percent more likely to become overweight than those who drank one or two.

"The take-home message is that children should not be drinking milk as a means of losing weight or trying to control weight," said Catherine S. Berkey of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the study, the largest to examine the question in children.

The National Dairy Council has spent $200 million since 2003 to promote the idea that milk can help people lose weight. Some research has suggested that calcium or other elements in milk may cause the body to make less fat and speed its elimination, but the studies produced mixed results. ...

The researchers examined the relationship between the children's milk intake between 1996 and 1999 and their weight over a one-year period. Those who drank more than three eight-ounce servings of milk a day gained the most weight, even after the researchers took into consideration factors such as physical activity, other dietary factors and growth. The association held, even though most of the children were drinking low-fat milk.

"That was surprising," Berkey said. "Apparently this applies to any kind of milk."

But a lot of the cow's milk consumed in the United States comes from cows that have been given antibiotics and hormones, such as bovine growth hormone, so it could very well be those substances, rather than the milk itself, that are causing cancers.

I'm going to stick with soy milk, thank you very much.



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Waxing Rhapsodic About Buying More Free Time

Well, Peapod just delivered more free time for my family, and I am a very satisfied first-time customer. No, you have not been transported into a commercial.

I picked a larger delivery time range (3:30–7 p.m.) for my grocery order than most people would want to do because that was after my middle child was home from school (last day of this school year), because I got $1 off my order for not choosing a peak delivery time, and because I'm here pretty much all day most of the time anyway, my house also being my office. The driver was friendly and brought the bags of food up my driveway and to the front door, where he handed them off to my sons and me.

The produce was all in good condition, and the frozen foods and meats were still cold. The store warehouse was out of stock of one first-aid item and two fresh veggies, so I wasn't charged for them. The driver handed me a printout of my order and coupons for $5 off each of my next four orders. If I want to use manufacturers' coupons next time, I'll just hand them to the driver, and they'll be entered into the system and the amounts will be deducted from my bill, which is a direct debit from my bank checking account. The driver's smile threatened to wrap around his head when I gave him a $10 tip.

Next week will be a bigger test: We'll order lots more veggies and fruits and more of other items in general. This week we needed fewer items than usual because grocery shopping last week got postponed from Tuesday night to Thursday night, leaving us with more food than we normally have in the house on shopping night.

After the driver left, it took the boys and me 10 minutes of assembly-line unpacking, and we were done! The spousal unit's still at least 30 minutes away from finishing his commute home, and all he has to do when he gets home is cook dinner, instead of cooking and then shopping, then putting the groceries away with me when we're nearly zonked after a very long day, trying to be quiet as we do so because the boys are asleep. Tonight he'll be more relaxed and will smile more, which means the boys and I will also.

Smiles might not be in Peapod's online inventory, but they sure are in the grocery bags.

Updated 6/28/06: We had our second Peapod delivery tonight, and all the food was lovely, including the beautiful ruffly fresh kale. I'm hooked on Peapod!




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Groceries Delivered to Your Front Door

Now, this is just too cool!

My husband (Ed) and I ordered our groceries online tonight from Peapod, which works through the grocery-store chain Stop & Shop (the largest food retailer in New England, covering Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island) to deliver groceries. (Peapod also works with the Giant Food chain in Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland.) Peapod's been around for a while, but it's new to Ed and me. It was founded in 1989, starting out in the Chicago area. It expanded into other areas of the country, had some bad experiences in places that weren't ready for it, cut back, revamped, and ramped up again. Here's Peadpod's official company history, from its web site, with a little editing by me for consistency and readability:

1989–1989: Andrew and Thomas Parkinson pioneer the online grocery delivery concept, establishing Peapod in Evanston, Ill. Combining backgrounds in consumer product marketing (Andrew was a brand manager with Procter & Gamble and Kraft) and technology expertise (Thomas was the founder of a software company), the brothers establish Peapod as a lifestyle solution for busy families.

1990: Peapod partners with Chicago-area Jewel Food Stores to fulfill orders. Peapod begins test marketing to about 400 households in Evanston, IL. The company provides software and modems for customers who have to dial-in directly to the Peapod shopping system. During the early days, Andrew, Thomas and their families do the picking and packing—making deliveries with their own cars.

1991: With Evanston, IL, proving a success, Peapod expands its service to the surrounding suburbs and Chicago.

1993: Peapod launches service in San Francisco with Safeway.

1995: Peapod launches its first advertising campaign; the company gains 4,600 members. (Until this time, Peapod built its customer base largely through word of mouth.) Peapod initiates service in Columbus, OH, with the Kroger Company.

1996: Peapod reaches a customer base of 43,200. Peapod partners with Stop & Shop to offer "Peapod by Stop & Shop" in the Boston metro area. Peapod joins the Internet, launching its own Web site: www.peapod.com. Inc. magazine names Peapod to the "Inc. 500" ranking of the fastest-growing U.S. private companies.

1997: Peapod opens the first Stop & Shop wareroom in Watertown, MA, just outside Boston. In June, Peapod completes a successful initial public offering, listing its shares on the NASDAQ.

1998: Peapod initiates service on Long Island, NY, with Stop & Shop, and in Texas with Randalls and Tom Thumb. In July, Peapod delivers its one millionth order, to a customer in Chicago.

1999: After growing business in the Chicago market, Peapod pursues a centralized distribution model: moving from 12 store locations to one dedicated warehouse outside Chicago, in Niles, IL.

2000: In June, Royal Ahold takes a 51% ownership. Peapod names current president and CEO Marc van Gelder. Van Gelder joins the company from Stop & Shop, a subsidiary of Royal Ahold. Peapod initiates service in Norwalk, CT, with Stop & Shop. In September, Peapod acquires Streamline.com operations in Chicago and Washington DC. In November, Peapod partners with Giant Food (a Royal Ahold subsidiary) to launch "Peapod by Giant" in the Washington DC metro area.

2001: Peapod begins servicing communities in Virginia and Maryland, partnering with Giant Food. In August, Royal Ahold buys the remaining shares of Peapod, establishing the Internet grocer as a wholly owned subsidiary of the international food retailing and foodservice company. Peapod pursues a bricks-and-clicks strategy, engaging in exclusive relationships with Ahold U.S.A. grocers—Stop & Shop and Giant Food—and planning growth in markets where these grocers have a presence. Peapod replaces its Niles, IL, warehouse with a new 75,000-square foot, climate-controlled distribution center (a former Streamline.com facility) in Lake Zurich, IL.

2002: Peapod by Stop & Shop expands service to Cape Cod, MA.
Peapod continues to grow revenues 20% despite having closed five markets not strategic to Ahold (Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Francisco).

2003: Peapod achieves profitability in four out of five markets. In April, Peapod introduces service in Hartford, CT, with Stop & Shop. In July, Peapod delivers its five millionth order, to a customer in Chicago. In October, Peapod initiates service in New Haven, CT, with Stop & Shop.

2004: In April, Peapod introduces service in Rhode Island with Stop & Shop. In July, Peapod introduces service in Mt. Vernon, NY, with Stop & Shop. In August, Peapod introduces service in Baltimore with Giant. In September, Peapod introduces service in Cromwell, CT, with Stop & Shop. Peapod names Andrew Parkinson as president and general manager. Parkinson is the company founder and past CFO. In December, Peapod introduces service in Watchung, NJ, with Stop & Shop.

2005: In April, Peapod introduces service in Milwaukee, WI. In August, Peapod introduces service in Danbury, CT, with Stop & Shop. In November, Peapod introduces service in Wanaque, NJ, with Stop & Shop. In November, Peapod introduces service in Somerset, NJ, with Stop & Shop.

2006: In March, Peapod introduces service in Medford, NY, with Stop & Shop.

Peapod had absolutely everything we wanted except for special anti–hair ball cat food and the store's own brand of cheese bricks (Cheddar, Muenster, and Swiss); Peapod wanted us to buy the more expensive brands of cheese. On his way home from work tomorrow evening, Ed will buy these items at the store. Meanwhile, sometime between 3:30 and 7 p.m., a driver will deliver the food to our house (aka my office). If Ed's not home from work by the time the driver arrives, I'll take a break from work and put away the groceries.

There's a $6.95 delivery fee for orders of more than $100, which our order is; the fee is $9.95 for orders of less than $100. Tipping is optional, but you bet I'll tip the driver for making things easy for us. We can pay on the site by credit card, debit card, or direct debit from our checking account. Next time, I'll choose the latter option because we always shop on the same day and have put aside the funds for it, so why not just put those funds in the bank account instead of carrying cash to the store? And next week, shopping online will be even easier, because Peapod will have kept track of what we bought, so that we can buy the same things if we need them again.

This seems like a wonderful service for families with kids. What we've done for years is this: Ed gets home from work at 6 p.m. On Tuesday nights, after he's cooked dinner (while I'm still working), we all eat together. He makes the grocery list and then heads to the store to shop. (No way to we want to shop on weekends, because the store's a madhouse then. And I'm not going to stop work on a weekday to do shopping while the kids are in school, with a sitter [in-laws], or with me [ack!].) Meanwhile, I wrangle the boys through bath time and into bed.

But with this service, Ed can stay home and we can double-team the boys. A much more restful evening!

I'll let you know how well we like the quality of the fresh foods after they're delivered tomorrow evening.

Damn, but I love the Internet!

Update



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Preschool Graduation

Last Wednesday, my youngest, Jared, graduated from preschool. The whole thing was, of course, adorable, and I wanted to gather up all the graduates and snuggle their cute baby cheeks. Here is my favorite set of cute baby cheeks, in triplicate:











Jared (smiling at his family in the
audience) walks in to “Pomp
and Circumstance.”














Jared waits to sing with his classmates.














Jared gets his goodie bag and
diploma from teacher Miss Connie.



Jared son preschool graduation EditorMom

Friday Crankiness

It's a gorgeous summer day outside and it's Friday, but I'm feeling cranky. Sure, I'm perimenopausal, but there's just too much garbage going on in the world right now:

The House of Representatives approved a nonbinding resolution, 256–153, that "praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of a larger global fight against terrorism and says an 'arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment' of troops is not in the national interest." I guess they think the Haditha massacre is mere collateral damage, just as the 2,500-plus dead U.S. soldiers and the 40,000-plus dead Iraqi civilians are.

Apple Computer allegedly produces [or here] its iPod audio devices in a sweatshop in China, where workers toil for 15-hour days for a monthly income of about $50 so that millions of Americans can have slick toys with ear buds.

U.S. inflation is higher than most of us think, so the Federal Reserve may have to keep boosting interest rates. Makes me think back to when I was a young adult just starting out during the high-inflation 1980s, when I had a car loan on a Chevy Chevette [here's one—not mine] with a 21% interest rate. Don't wanna go there ever again!

My erstwhile Protestant denomination, the Presbyterians (actually the branch called the Presbyterian Church USA), is holding its biannual national meeting, the 217th General Assembly, in Birmingham, Alabama, through June 22. One of the perennial debates will go on again: whether to ordain noncelibate gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people as ministers, members of session (the governing body of each individual church), and deacons (who are pretty much lay ministers who extend the work of the individual church's pastor in caring for church members and the community). The assembly will discuss the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church, which contains the controversial recommendation that "the General Assembly approve a new 'authoritative interpretation' of the PC(USA) Constitution that maintains the current ordination standards of the church but grants ordaining bodies greater discretion on a case-by-case basis in determining if any departure from a constitutional standard is a departure from 'essentials,' therefore disqualifying for ordination to church office, subject to judicial review." This is fence-sitting Presby-speak for Yeah, you individual churches can make ordination decisions on your own, but you'd better be careful when you ordain GLBT members, 'cause if we don't like ya, we'll put ya through the church's judicial wringer and take back those ordinations. I call myself an erstwhile Presbyterian because I'm tired of waiting for the denomination to align itself with its more liberal contingents and stop discriminating. The PC(USA) currently commits spiritual violence against would-be leaders who just happen to be GLBT. It's time to move past the fear and loathing.

There has to be some good news out there, but I'm just not seeing it today.



Bush Iraq war collateral damage Haditha iPod Apple Computer sweatshop China
inflation economy interest rates Presbyterian GLBT LGBT gay lesbian ordination
discrimination spirituality EditorMom

"Breast-Feed or Else"

Says an article [or here] in today's New York Times:

Warning: Public health officials have determined that not breast-feeding may be hazardous to your baby's health.

There is no black-box label like that affixed to cans of infant formula or tucked into the corner of magazine advertisements, at least not yet. But that is the unambiguous message of a controversial government public health campaign encouraging new mothers to breast-feed for six months to protect their babies from colds, flu, ear infections, diarrhea and even obesity. In April, the World Health Organization, setting new international bench marks for children's growth, for the first time referred to breast-feeding as the biological norm.

I so wish there was such a label!

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has proposed requiring warning labels, on cans of infant formula and in advertisements, similar to the those on cigarettes. They would say that the Department of Health and Human services has determined that "breast-feeding is the ideal method of feeding and nurturing infants" or that "breast milk is more beneficial to infants than infant formula."

But that may not happen for quite a long time because, as the Times article says, "critics say the new campaign has taken things too far and will make mothers who cannot breast-feed, or choose not to, feel guilty and inadequate."

Of course there are some mothers who can't breast-feed, and they shouldn't feel inadequate because of that. But why worry about the feelings of those who can breast-feed but choose not to? Do medical researchers worry about the feelings of people who continue to smoke in the face of evidence that their behavior can kill them and make others around them ill?

It's time for mainstream medicine to stop tiptoeing around mothers and say that if babies are to be healthiest—over their entire life span—they shouldn't get formula, unless it's a medical necessity. I'd go even further and say that formula should be available only by prescription. And more physicians should be recommending that moms follow the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which say that children should be breast-fed for a minimum of 1 year. But the AAP really should be recommending that children be breast-fed until they wean themselves. After all, the average age of children worldwide who wean themselves is 4 years. Nature programs children with healthy needs for a reason, and they should be allowed to have those needs met.

Of course, it's also time to make it illegal for formula manufacturers to provide and hospitals to hand out formula samples to new mothers. It's time, too, for employers to be required to at least set aside one room as a private place for their female employees to pump breast milk to be saved, in a clean refrigerator in that room, for their babies. And it's way past time for Americans to get over their squeamishness at seeing women breast-feed in public. If a woman's breast-feeding, she's feeding her child, not waving her boobs at people as sexual enticements.

And if she's breast-feeding, she's saving health insurance policy holders lots of bucks over her child's lifetime, by providing the food her child was meant to have.

Updated 6/16/06: Watch an antiformula, pro–breast-feeding public service ad done by the Ad Council. (You'll need a broadband or cable connection.)




breast-feeding breastfeeding breast EditorMom