Festive

I feel clever, oh so clever.....

It's Tuesday, so naturally I was at the Thrift Store bright and early this morning. I scored some nice goodies: a Michael Kors skirt for $3, a few books, some crafting stuff for Weston, and a pair of cap guns. As I was about to check out, a particularly entertaining customer was talking to the staff, so I pretended I was looking in the glass case by the register so I could keep eavesdropping. You would not believe the characters that hang out at the Thrift Store here. Oh. Well, maybe you would. Never mind. Anyway, as I casually looked over the jewelry, watches and little trinkets, I saw it. The most beautiful three-strand shell pink necklace the world has ever known. I waited ever so patiently for the clerk to come get it out of the case for me, and then quickly checked the price tag. How much would it be? Five bucks? Ten?! Would it fit in my holiday budget?? My quivering fingers turned over the tag. $1.50, my friends; can you believe it? I snapped it up so fast the crazy Thrift Store people thought I needed medication.

I tried it on as soon as I got it home. Perfection in pink, it was. But something was missing. Just the littlest thing. Something, something, what was it? And then my eye fell on some of my Christmas ornaments. The little flesh-toned orbs I bought last year for the nursing-themed Christmas tree that the Breastfeeding Support Group entered in the decorating contest at the Officer's Club. They are all different skin colors: bronze, tan, chocolate, peach and pink. The perfect matching shade of pink. Could it be? It's so crazy it just might work, I thought. Trembling, I affixed the ornament to the center of the bottom strand of the necklace. It was just right. I felt BRILLIANT. If you have ever met me, you know that I have no talent whatsoever and that this stunning success is something on the order of Scooby Doo proving Fermat's Last Theorem.

Of course, not everyone can pull off a Christmas ornament around her neck, but I'm just the girl to do it. And, there's not a lot of places you can wear something so fabulous, but I'm working up a list: The BX, the Commissary, the library, the playground.....

My life in cats

It's Chusok weekend here in Korea. If you're interested in Korean holidays, you can read a little about it here. It's kind of like a Korean Thanksgiving, only I doubt there are any apocryphal stories about ill-prepared immigrants and naively friendly natives. Even if there are, they are all written in Hangul, so I wouldn't know the difference, now would I?

Despite my complete ignorance of Korean culture, I'm game for participation in the local holidays, and today I am thankful for cats. Starting today, we are lucky enough to be cat-sitting the beautiful Mishka, who is one of our upstairs neighbors. Her family, who has not been here very long, has embarked on a two-week multi-destination trip back to the states, and I cannot decide if I should envy them or feel sorry for them, or both. But either way, today I have been thinking about all the cats I have loved and lost. Here they are, in roughly chronological order:

Charlie- I got Charlie when he or she was a kitten and I was a small child. The mother cat lived in my Aunt Luella and Uncle Butch's barn and I had my choice of kittens. Unfortunately, Charlie and I did not have long together; the cat had some sort of seizure and dropped dead in my arms shortly after. It's a wonder I wasn't scarred for life, don't you think?

Smoky- My dad found Smoky tied up in some trees in the woods near where we lived, and cut him down and brought him home. He was a beautiful big gray cat who liked to yowl and car surf. One morning he rode off on my dad's car and never returned.

SillyBilly- My dad found SillyBilly, a beautiful calico cat, when she was a kitten. He's always been a little vague about the details of this late night acquisition, but my sister and I were thrilled the next day when we got up and found our new pet. You know, I'm getting a little suspicious of these mysterious cat-finding trips of his, now that I think about it. Anyway, she lived with us for quite a while until she got hit by a car down the street and was returned to us in a cardboard box by one of the neighbors.

Fluffer- Fluffer was the son of SillyBilly and was a fluffy black cat. He was very mellow and would let us dress him up, but I don't remember what happened to him. I think he just disappeared.

Chebosco- Chebosco was a male orange and white cat, and I don't know where he came from or where he went. That's funny, because I really liked him. You know, now I'm getting a little suspicious of these unexplained cat disappearances and might need to have a little chat with my dad.

Katie and Kelly- When I got out of high school, I worked in a pet store for a year or so before I went to college. I should totally write a post about that place because it had everything: flashers, larceny, pathological liars, and mud puppies. One day, a kid brought in these two teeny tiny siamese kittens and said his male cat had dragged them home. They were only two or three weeks old, and I took them home and we bottle-fed them until they were strong and healthy enough to eat cat food. Katie, the boy cat, was always glossy and a little wild- he moved around my parents' neighborhood for years until finally they didn't see him anymore. Okay, now I'm definitely going to talk to my dad about this. I just hope he doesn't have some cat-fur quilt hidden in his closet or something. Kelly, the girl cat, had an obsession with pushing her paws into things and was a big licker. She was always sickly, probably because she was bottle-fed formula instead of breastfed, and died fairly young.

Lewis and Clark- After Lloyd and I got married and moved to Pensacola, the first thing we did was adopt Lewis and Clark. Their original names were Tyler and Cassie, and they were not related but had bonded deeply in their foster home. Clark (formerly known as Tyler) was an old male orange and white cat, and Lewis (formerly Cassie) was a sweet, younger, long-haired gray and white female cat. We had a pleasant, but short-lived relationship with both of them. Well, I did anyway. Clark didn't care for Lloyd, and the feeling was mutual. He moved in with the neighbors, much to Lewis' dismay, and soon died of feline leukemia. Lewis liked to follow us on walks through the neighborhood, and one day she followed us down the street, then peeled off to investigate something. When we returned, she was laying dead on the street. I was very traumatized by this and embarked on some immediate retail therapy. One of my purchases was a bright red leather tote bag by Kenneth Cole. I carried it for months and called it my 'dead cat tote'. People looked at me strangely, but that's never bothered me, and it made me feel lots better. After Hurricane Katrina, I donated the dead cat tote, along with my entire work wardrobe, to hurricane victims who were trying to relocate and start new jobs. I hope it helped somebody else as much as it helped me. I got some additional cheer out of it, because it was a splendid tax deduction. Thanks, Lewis!

Bella (pictured, above)- I got Bella as a kitten from someone at work shortly after Lewis died. An email message was going around about kittens available for adoption and one of them was a calico, like SillyBilly. I wanted that one, but it was already taken. I decided to get one anyway, and picked out Bella. Her name is Bella because I wanted something derived from SillyBilly and chose a girlish version of Billy. She is kind of a strange cat, not super friendly, and she hated Lloyd on sight. One day, when she wasn't very old, she didn't come home and we started looking around the neighborhood. We didn't have any luck, but a day or two later she hobbled home. We took her to the vet and found that she had two broken legs. Apparently this is a common cat injury when they get hit by a car. The car strikes them, breaking the leg on the car side, then they get tossed down the street, breaking bones on the other side. After several very expensive surgeries, with pins and everything, Bella was almost good as new. When we left Shreveport for Korea, we decided to leave her with some Catholic friends there. They immediately took her to family pet night at their local parish and had her blessed with the special water, and she still lives there happily in holy catrimony.

And that's the last of the cats. For now. As soon as we get to a place where we can have cats again, we are loading up. Don't worry, I plan to keep a VERY close eye on my dad.

Again with the milk

Breastfeeding, as you may know, is a subject near and dear to my heart. You can read how it all began with Lactating Superfriends, or read a more recent rant about the evils of formula companies here.

Everyone in the universe should read Motherhood Uncensored's outstanding post Breastfeeding is a privilege, not a right. It's about a woman in Ohio who was fired from her factory job for taking 'unauthorized' breaks to pump milk for her baby, while co-workers received no censure for taking similar breaks to smoke. The facility was a Totes/Isotoner factory, if you need any more reasons not to buy any ugly small umbrellas or stretchy gloves.

And thanks to Stefanie for the title idea. I did little to no real work, you have plenty to read, and I didn't even have to think of my own title. Now, that's what I call optimization!

On Vices

I'm a fan of vices. Really, I'm not sure what I'd do without them. Especially here at Osan. You NEED your vices here, there's no question about it. But unfortunately, the vice options are limited. Your choices are: alcohol, coffee, OTC drugs, and online shopping. Oh, I guess I could smoke, chew or devour online po.rn, but I do have SOME standards. So anyway, leaving out the more odious choices, I'm batting about .500 here, which is working out okay for me, but I really need to up my average a little bit or I might get cut from the team. Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, we were discussing what a hopped-up drunk I am.

This place is BORING, people. If I was clever, crafty, or perhaps even just smart, I could produce something with my free time: sloppy sewing projects, hideous scrapbooks or appalling art. Maybe even a crappy book! Or I could embark on a no-holds-barred self-improvement plan. A motivated person could really whip herself into shape here: stair climbing every day, kimchi for three meals a day... This place would definitely make a high quality fat camp. I could even keep my house clean cleaner.

But nope, none of those things for me! Part of the problem, of course, is that my 'free time' is after the boys go to bed, and I am a mere husk of a woman; the deflated remains of a slightly overripe fruit, innards sucked dry. But that's not why, if the truth be known.

The truth is, I don't WANT to do any of those things. I don't need improvement or ugly crafts. I'm good enough.

Unfortunately, though, I do have a little issue: vices are quite costly, I'm finding. I just spent almost $100 to have a couple of months' worth of coffee shipped here, and let's not even talk about the wine bills. I was thinking of whipping up some home brew but that would be venturing perilously close to producing something useful with my free time (see above). So, I welcome suggestions from all my clever friends in the computer! I also welcome coffee and wine. And chocolate.

Got Milk?

Got milk? Or do you need to buy it? Either way, chances are good you've been hosed over by a formula company without even knowing it. Most of you probably know I'm a big fan of breastfeeding, but I didn't start out that way. Before Weston was born, I read all the books and decided that I would try it, because it's clearly the best choice. But I knew it could be challenging so I thought I would see how it went. I even had bottles and a can of formula waiting, just in case. I believed, like many others, that formula was an adequate substitute and would have been fine to feed my baby. Luckily, Weston latched on right away and didn't delatch until his fourth birthday. I got more and more interested in breastfeeding, learned more about it and gradually became something of a zealot.

Formula, also known as artificial baby milk, was never designed to be the best alternate to breast milk; it is junk food for babies. Look at the label. It's full of high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil and about a million chemicals. You might think some scientists and doctors got together and came up with the very best way to artificially feed infants and came up with a good recipe, and that manufacturers use the highest quality ingredients. But neither of those very reasonable assumptions are true. It is made in the cheapest way possible to maximize profits and it's virtually unregulated. And, just to add insult to injury, the containers are coated with BPA. You can't compare it to breast milk. It's like equating Tang to oranges or Cheetos to cheese.

Now, don't get me wrong. Formula is important, and sometimes people really need it. But formula companies go to great lengths and expense to convince mothers that they don't have enough milk and that artificial baby milk is as good as breast milk: Why bother with all that messy, inconvenient nursing business when you can just mix up the latest and greatest formula in a handy bottle, they say. It's just as good and everyone does it. Nipples hurt? Having a hard time getting started? Don't worry, just get some formula; it's just as good. In fact, we'll send you home from the hospital with some, and then we'll send you some in the mail for free! Oh, you don't need to sign up for it. We'll buy your name and address from the hospital where you gave birth. Makes it look like the doctors and hospitals endorse it, doesn't it?

In our country, there are some standards. The standards are weak because there is a lot of money to be made selling formula. You have to spend money to make money, so we see a lot of expensive advertising campaigns and outrageous sums spent on lobbying congress to keep those so-called standards low. I'd like to see them spend a few of those dollars coming up with a better recipe for artificial baby milk for the people who really need it, but they don't have to. They get more bang for their buck advertising and lobbying and they don't give a rat's ass about babies.

The advertising practices are harmful to everyone. Even if you successfully breastfed for as long as you wanted, their time-tested and successful techniques designed to discredit breastfeeding and promote artificial feeding probably contributed to any issues you may have had: discomfort in breastfeeding in public or pressure from your friends or family to wean. If you formula fed and didn't need or want to, formula companies are likely largely to blame. Families who do need to formula feed pay an inflated price for low quality food for their babies so formula companies can continue to fund their advertising and marketing campaigns that harm and kill babies all over the world. Approximately half the cost of a can of name brand formula goes to advertising. That's why the name brands cost about twice as much as store brands even though the ingredients are identical.

In developing countries, where there are no standards, babies DIE every day because of the practices of formula manufacturers. They bribe doctors to tell new mothers that formula is best and their milk isn't good enough. They give out free sample cans of their artificial baby milk. The mothers go home, use up the samples, and their milk dries up. Then, they can't afford to buy the formula, so they dilute it too much or substitute animal milks. Or, they don't have access to enough clean water to prepare the formula and keep the bottles and nipples clean enough and the babies get infections. Estimates vary, but as many as 1.4 million babies die every year because they are being given an inappropriate substitute for breast milk (UNICEF).

But now, Enfamil has managed to violate even the pathetic U.S. 'standards'. They are claiming that one of their concoctions offers the same benefits as breastmilk, which clearly violates truth in advertising regulations. This kind of complaint is regulated by the FTC, and you can click on the link to get to their homepage. There is a button on the upper right to file a consumer complaint, and it's super easy to do. If enough people complain, perhaps some action will finally be taken.

Lactating Superfriends

Most of the time we lead ordinary Osan lives- changing diapers, going to the playground, congregating at pizza night on Mondays, and frantically, furtively shopping online while we suck down wine. Oh wait, that last one might just be me. But when the lactaphone rings or the boob-signal lights up the night sky, beaming a beacon of hope in the shape of a huge shining mammary, we drop everything and bounce into action. I am Colostra, able to destroy vicious organisms in a single squirt.

Some people just call us 'Osan Breastfeeding Support Group, but we call ourselves 'Lactating Superfriends'. That has a much nicer ring to it, don't you think? Wherever nipple confusion rears its ugly head, we will be there. Whenever supply is low, we will be there.

What? I'm crazy, you say? Fine. Have it your way, but if that's the way you're going to be I'm totally not going to show you my suit.