Ideate

October 13, 2009

Okay. Let me admit right up front that I'm not gung ho about the verb I chose today, but I have an idea, and I wanted to share it. Most of us who spend the month of September trying to create awareness about pediatric cancer get overwhelmed when the pink of October rolls in.

I do not begrudge anything that the Susan B. Komen Foundation has accomplished. Walter's mother, Janice Buenger, died when her breast cancer relapsed in her brain after a decade of clean scans. My grandmother endured terrible, and ultimately unsuccessful, chemo for breast cancer back in the early 70's before good anti-emetic drugs were commonly available. I'm not going to criticize any of the awareness building or fundraising efforts for breast cancer. In fact, I'm going to sit at the feet of the Komen Foundation to admire and learn.

One thing that is going on from now until the end of the year is the Yoplait yogurt Save Lids to Save Lives promotion. Yoplait will funnel at least $500,000 and up to $1.5 million to the Komen Foundation if you buy their product (This, if you are counting, is a whole pile of lanyards!)

I eat a Yoplait yogurt almost every day. I'm going to save the lids, wash them, and send them in. Every time I send them in between now and December, I'm going to add a letter, thanking Yoplait for its corporate social responsibility and telling them that September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness month and that they should consider a Gogurt! Save Kids campaign in 2010. I probably won't have much impact alone, but if the rest of you yogurt eaters out there saved your labels (to show your buyer power) and reminded Yoplait that Kids need their support, too, we could start a movement.

What do you think?

Walter, wanted me to make it clear that I don't want you to send me your yogurt lids. I want you to send them in yourself, with your own letter suggesting the Gogurt! Save Kids campaign for 2010.

Celebrate

October 11, 2009

If you have a holiday tomorrow (October 12) come celebrate Columbus Day with us and make some lanyards.  We have a growing number of events asking for lanyards and can always use an extra pair of hands.  If you have to work, send some good wishes and inspiration our way!

Read

October 9, 2009


This is the front of Jane Long Middle School. Erin was only two-years old when Davis started sixth grade there. Around the same time, we begin a family love affair with Brian Jacques and Redwall. Over time Erin grew to love those books and would need the next in the series as soon as it appeared (always the hardback version, so our set would continue to match). For the unfamiliar, the books chronicle a variety of good woodland creatures like otters, moles, mice, badgers, hares, and hedgehogs who must battle and vanquish the bad creatures: weasels, stoats, ferrets, rats, foxes, and wolverines (the whole concept of weasels, stoats, and ferrets being the bad guys resonates with me). The good creatures live in or near Redwall Abbey. They sometimes leave there for various quests or missions, and they always enjoy a good banquet which might include these dishes I found listed in Erin's Redwall Cookbook (which includes various recipes for dishes featured in the books):


Spring Recipes

• Hare's Pawspring Vegetable Soup
• Crispy Cheese'n'Onion Hogbake
• Vegetable Casserole à La Foremole
• Gourmet Garrison Grilled Leeks
• Stuffed Springtide Mushrooms
• Abbot's Special Abbey Trifle
• Spiced Gatehouse Tea Bread
• Honeybaked Apples
• Hot Mint Tea

Summer Recipes

• Hotroot Sunsalad
• Brockhall Badger Carrot Cakes
• Great Hall Gooseberry Fool
• Cheerful Churchmouse Cherry Crisp
• Rosey's Jolly Raspberry Jelly Rock Cakes
• Afternoon Tea Scones with Strawberry Jam and Cream
• Squirrelmum's Blackberry and Apple Cake
• Guosim Shrew Shortbread
• Summer Strawberry Fizz

Autumn Recipes

• Mole's Favourite Deeper'n'Ever Turnip'n'Tater'n'Beetroot Pie
• Bellringer's Reward (Roast Roots and Baked Spuds)
• October Ale
• Autumn Oat Favourites
• Hare's Haversack Crumble
• Harvestberry Sunset Pudd
• Loamhedge Legacy Nutbread
• Dibbun's Delight
• Golden Hill Pears

Winter Recipes

• Shrimp'n'Hotroot Soup
• Veggible Molebake
• Stones Inna Swamp
• Savoury Squirrel Bakes
• Outside'n'Inside Cobbler Riddle
• Rubbadeedubb Pudd
• Nunnymolers
• Applesnow
• Mossflower Mulled Cider

Makes me hungry just writing them down.

Anyway, as a younger child Erin always thought we were dropping Davis off and picking him up at Redwall Abbey. She persisted in calling Jane Long "Redwall" long after she knew better, and always looked forward to being a student there (which I am grateful to say worked out for her).

To bring a long and rambling entry to an end, I learned today that the administration, faculty, staff, and library professionals at Blinn College where my mom works has stocked their library with all 19 volumes of the Redwall series and dedicated them to Erin's memory. I most excellent tribute!

Protect

October 5, 2009

So, how do you equip yourself when you walk your dog(s)? A leash? Probably. Non-skid shoes? Possibly.

Willie and Teddy took me up behind the pond to Willie's Wilderness Wonderland after work this evening. We had about four inches of rain this weekend so I let them off the leashes on the theory that I could follow their tracks if they got out of sight. They immediately got out of sight. I heard them, though, moaning the pathetic whimper of dogs on the trail of SOMETHING IMPORTANT. I tracked them back to the sheds and found Willie scuffling with a 15 foot section of six-inch pipe on top of some piled up telephone poles. He was determined not to let the pipe get the better of him.

He was absolutely certain that the pipe contained a critter.

I could not convince him otherwise.

I picked up one end of the pipe and raised it as high above my head as I could. Nothing came sliding out. I let that end down and walked over to the end that Willie was bothering over, shooed him off, and lifted that end. Again, nothing.

As I was lowering it, though, I heard gentle scrabbling, as if something in the pipe was trying to gain its footing. I positioned myself to take a look. Just as I brought the pipe to my face, Willie rammed up against the other end, jamming the end of the pipe against that soft spot between my chin and my teeth, right below my lower lip. Much to Willie's dismay, in his moment of triumph, I dropped the pipe, snapped the leash on him, and dragged him home to investigate the damage.

Note to self:

Add to dog walk equipment list: one rubber mouth guard to protect teeth.

Merge

October 1, 2009

You may have noticed that I finished my volume of Lord Peter short stories last week and have added one of the books I got from Elaine for my birthday to my WeRead list: Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman (NOTE: this book is not about people who used to be born between September 23 and October 22; SECOND NOTE: Do you have to get a surgery in Sweden to have your astrological sign changed?). I also continue to slog through the plotting and murders of I, Claudius and the rip-roaring, laugh-a-minute Closing of the Western Mind.

The first paragraph of Ex Libris begins:

"A few months ago, my husband and I decided to mix our books together. We had known each other for ten years, lived together for six, been married for five. . . .[we had mingled most of our possessions] But our libraries had remained separate, mine mostly at at the north end of our loft, his at the south."

I chuckled to myself as I read the idiosyncrasy of this, then I stopped mid-chuckle. Uh oh. It's never good to laugh at the black kettle when you are the equally black pot. You see, Walter and I will celebrate our silver wedding anniversary in less than two weeks. Our book collections (which number in the thousands of volumes) remain segregated, just as they have been since before we married. Ack!

I promise I did not intend to keep them unmerged. Had I the time and space to consider an appropriate schema, I would interlard them in an instant. That's what we did with our record collection almost immediately when we returned from our honeymoon. Never mind that one of us had 200+ LPs and the other had two. Willie Nelson's Pretty Paper snuggled right into the holiday section and Lawrence Welk has always insisted on occupying a space of his own.

Thinking about merging books and music led me down memory lane. Like quite a few people my age, I got sucked into the bold promises of the Columbia Music Club, which you may recall promised you some unGodly number of albums for a penny, and all the subscriber had to do was by a few more piddling albums at the "club price" and then you could quit, having made a great deal. Also like other kids (was I that irresponsible then?), I almost always forgot to mail the little postcard back in, saying that I didn't want the album of the month.

At some point this created a pretty sorry dilemma for me. I had my rock albums organized alphabetically by artist, my classical albums by chronology, my jazz albums by type (fusion, big band, dixieland, and vocal) and so on, with rock comprising the largest section. Lo and behold, one month my (unordered-but-shipped-nonetheless new record was Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits). The lead-off batter for my alphabetical collection became Mr. Soft Rock himself. I didn't mind a couple of his songs, but did I really want the first cover that anyone saw when they perused my collection to be the one featuring "Copacabana" and "I Write the Songs"?

I could only think of two ways to solve my problem. I could either reorganized the way I kept my collection, but since I had made some pretty conscious decisions about lumping and splitting (this as some of you might recognize is a very personal choice and one's choices about lumping and splitting may underlie and explain why certain couples never combine their book collections. . .do you organize histories by regions, eras, or authors first?), I found it difficult to give up my alphabetic scheme. That led me on a search for an album that would precede Barry Manilow in the alphabet: Aerosmith? Too metal-y. ABBA? Too pop-y. Then I hit on The Alan Parson Project. Drop the "the" and it fell handily in front of Barry Manilow and his nose.

Luckily, over time, and with more disposable income, my collection grew, and Barry Manilow got pushed back further from the front. I eventually decided I could have put him back in the M's all along, thus burying him almost completely.

Ah well, I'm sure none of you have similar little compulsions about the things you collect and organize.

That's almost all for the evening, except to remind you that it is a very lanyard-y weekend. Mazel Tov and thanks to Allie in New York who is lanyarding with her friends tomorrow for her Bat Mitzvah and to the ladies in The Woodlands who have arranged a beading extravaganza for Saturday afternoon and to Kristen Smith's rugby team who will do a little team building, socializing and lanyarding on Sunday afternoon. Robby Bennett will launch Where's the Rabbit at Santa Fe High School on Saturday evening and will have lanyards available and on display made by the Santa Fe Lady Indian soccer team before and after the show.

P.S. When I walked Willie and Teddy down to Willie's Wilderness Wonderland this afternoon to sniff out field mice and bunnies, the trees were filled with cowbirds. I had to keep the experience to myself today. Ten years ago, my mom and I took the two-year old Erin on a walk on a similar day, and my mom (always the Master Naturalist) explained to Erin that cowbirds were not her favorite because, instead of building nests, they put all their energy into laying eggs. They leave their eggs in other birds nests, abandoning them to be raised as foster children. Often the nest-builders babies get squeezed or even booted out of the nest to make room for the cowbird eggs. Erin hated that story and for several years after that would often run through the backyard shooing away the cowbirds that flocked there, saying "Go away you mean old cowboy birds. Moo doesn't want you here." Today she wasn't here to chase them away and my mother was on a trip down to the coast. I had to do all the remembering myself.

P.P.S. Walter said that he can't imagine ANY academic couple that would merge books and that's not all, They've been separated twenty-five years, and they will stay separated another twenty-five years if he has anything to say about it.

Realize

September 27, 2009

Do you ever feel like you have bitten off more than you can chew? Really, it's pretty easy to find yourself in the disciple/New testament situation where you've invited 5,000 people over for supper and to your embarrassment, you have nothing to serve except a couple of fish (and who really likes fish all that much, especially when you had your mind set on burgers) and some bread that you bummed off a little kid. (Actually, this never happens to me because as many of you know, I have an oversupply of rectangular salmon in the freezer. Still you get my point.).

In fact, I feel that way a lot. I look at my yard, which by the way has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it hasn't placed that high on the to-do list since mid-July 2002 when Erin first got diagnosed. Truthfully, it had fallen fairly low on the list after Davis signed up for competitive soccer some time late last century. We keep up with the mowing and from time to time the flower beds look okay, but I have neglected the deep work that makes yards and gardens sustainable. So, for instance, if cleanliness is next to Godliness in Louisiana iris beds, all I can say is I wonder what slovenly-ness is next to?

I knew things had gotten bad last Tuesday. Nico (12), Adam (9), and Ian (4) came over to wish me birthday. Adam headed out to the lake's edge to see if the rain had done anything to raise the water level. He came back with this conversation starter:

A: You know the grass at the edge of the lake has gotten very tall. I think out of control.

V: I know. Since Davis was gone this summer, we hire the lawn mowing out, and the person mowing the lawn didn't trust himself enough to get to close to the edge of the lake He was afraid the mower would pull him in.

A; It really doesn't look very good.

V: I know. I need to get out there with the weed eater and knock it all down.

A: I can help.

V: (thinking this was a theoretical conversation and a theoretical offer of help) Okay.

A: What do you have on on your schedule for this Saturday?

V: I have soccer during the middle of the day, until around 3:00 or 3;30.

A: After church on Sunday, then?

V: After church will be fine. I'll pencil you in.

So, my buddy came over today and we made some headway on the yard down by the lake. We used a lawn mower, a weed eater (with appropriate eye-safety gear), two sharpshooter shovels, and a couple of pairs of gloves. We carried four loads of dead sticks and branches to the brush pile, three loads of pulled weeds to the compost, and finished with a grape and a cherry popsicle. I'm not done with yard work, but I'm no longer over my head. You might can even see some eyebrow hairs if you look carefully.

I love this example because it's one that bears repeating.

You can find help for almost anything if you ask nice, if you look in the right direction, and if you accept even unsolicited offers of help with grace. You should also say thank you deep, wide, and frequently (if fact, there is actually no way that you can say thank you too much or too many times), and it's even better when offers of help move up and down a two-way street.

I relearn this lesson almost every week, whether it is the set of Albertson's bonus stickers that came in the mail this week from Margaret B. (She doesn't shop at Albertson, but she knows someone who does and asked for their help in my bonus sticker saving project for getting pots and pans for the abuse victims building a new life at Phoebe's Home) or whether it is the refilling of the lanyard board when new opportunities roll in with a short fuse. Thank you members of the Beaders Hall of Fame!

I'm pretty sure I didn't know this real meaning of this lesson until after Erin got sick. I think back then I thought of help as sort of a quid pro quo thing. I would turn down offers of help, just so I wouldn't incur a favor debt. If I did accept help, I never wanted to stay in favor debt for too long. At some point I realized that no one was keeping score on Help Given versus Help Received, and even if they were, there was no way I could ever even the score back up (much less win). I kept playing anyway, and worked on saying thank you gracefully. It may be the most grown up thing I have ever done.

Choose

September 22, 2009

Announcing the world premier of two new lines of lanyards:

The Pat Lacey Manyard

The Christian Year Lanyard

Wander

September 21, 2009

• I will be 100 or 31 tomorrow, depending on whether you are counting in base 7 or hexadecimal, and that introduction, my friends, signals how this entry will go (hint sort of like the title of the post).

Q: What's worse than driving a vanload of middle school girls to their soccer match?

A: One of them finding a cricket colony in their shoes when they start to gear up (This blog would have to come with a sound track for you to fully understand the mayhem and squealing that ensued as one after another now-deceased cricket came out of its dark and aromatic hiding place).

Q: What's worse than driving a vanload of middle school girls to their soccer match after they discover a cricket colony in their cleats?

A: Eating lunch after the game, when three-fourths of them order a cup of dirt for dessert (chocolate pudding, crumbled oreos, and gummy worms) and then let the worms crawl out of their mouths continuously.

• You probably didn't know but the online order form for lanyards went on the blink over the weekend. I fixed it this morning (using "fix" in the sense of repair rather than the Southern sense of I'll get around to it pretty soon).

Several years ago, the county decided that residents of rural Brazos County needed a fixed permanent address with a street name and house number instead of a rural route address, so they could have a county-wide 911 system and emergency personnel could find everyone. At the time, Walter unilaterally made up a name for our street and the street on the other side of the lake. We didn't really poll our neighbors. he just chose Cypress Road and Blue Heron Road and we had signs made. Davis bought me a Tom Tom. I think it is pretty amazing that the little road that Walter named first showed up on emergency responder maps, than official county maps, and now is embedded in the satellite map that Tom Tom accesses. Very grass roots.

• I listened to Book Notes on C-Span on Saturday and they interviewed Rosalind Wiseman who has written several books including Queen Bees and Wannabes and most recently Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads. She suggests the novel idea that we'd all be better off if we treated everyone we encountered with some dignity and respect. I have heard and overheard a lot of rude behavior lately--on tv and radio, in sports, and around campus. Ms. Wiseman's suggestion made me think about what I teach about influence. I am rarely influenced by someone yelling at me or acting like a jerk towards me. I don't think I ever change my mind about something if it comes with an insult or hostility. Why does that seem to be the currency of exchange in so many instances these days? I'm going to work really hard to dial it back in my world and I hope you will, too.

Please consider coming to the lanyard workshop on Friday afternoon/evening if you are local and not committed to one of our local high school Friday night activities. There are a growing number of opportunities to display more of our lanyards, if we have them available.

• For those interested in ordering we now have three available specialty lines (with more to come soon): the Christian Year lanyard (with special beads denoting important events in the Christian year and liturgical colors), the Pat Lacey manyard (featuring very manly, non-shiny beads like rocks and wood and shells and an emergency bottle opener attachment), and the Colby Ash camo manyard for hunting enthusiasts. I will post photos on the Erin's Dream Lanyards (and Manyards) website in the next couple of days.

If this felt like you were reading Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, you are exactly right. I followed my brain where it led me today.

Drive

September 17, 2009

Did I tell you I named my car Rosie, after Erin's bear?

There is something about Rosie that I think would help a lot of people--even my friends who still need larger, less-gas-consuming friendly vehicles, like space shuttles and battleships to get around town. Rosie has a range of gauges, but one has shaped my driving habits in ways I never suspected it would. Look at the picture on the bottom left: there's a little mock up of a battery on the far left and within the long, flat geometric figure there's the abbreviated word CHG in white one end and PWR on the other. In the center you see a lighted squiggly that reads: ECO. When I brake the CHG lights up and I get more bars on my battery. This requires no skill and not much effort on my part. However, when I accelerate, something else happens. If I start out at a relaxed pace, the ECO light stays on and the light within the flat bar edges to the right. If I take a jackrabbit start, the space above PWR goes all RED, and the lovely, glowing ECO snaps off, irritated with my selfish, perhaps even boorish, behavior.

I don't know if you ever played little mental games with yourself: not stepping on cracks in the sidewalk (to keep your mother's back healthy), putting on your left shoe and left sock before you do your right shoe and right sock, or just in general competing with yourself. I read a blog entry this week about a man who assured victory for his basketball team one evening by keeping his tongue inserted in the opening of his beer bottle for an entire quarter of the game.

I have not started driving with my tongue in a beer bottle to assure my safe arrival. However, I have become obsessed with interested in Rosie's gauge. It's a comfort to know that I can have PWR if I want it, say when I want to drag race with the car next to me as the light turns green, but under ordinary driving conditions, it has disciplined me almost into a Stepford driver. No more jackrabbit starts for me. Gentle is the driving word of the day. I studiously avoid having the ECO light blink off, disappointed in me that I couldn't control my heavy foot. I can't help watching it.

Others probably have more spunk than me, or at least a healthy disregard for authority, but if you are like me, this gauge will trick you into being a more economical driver, just by showing you the red.

Ripple

September 13, 2009

I fit this morning's dog walk in between downpours, and Willie and Teddy pranced happily along really appreciating the loamy smells that follow a good drencher. I ended up putting Willie on the leash a little earlier than I expected because he was certifiably sidetracking, and I wanted to make the loop before I got caught in the next wave of storms and would have to blow myself dry again before Sunday School. We turned the corner onto Charlotte Lane, and Teddy paused (pretending, I suppose, that she was a bird dog). I followed her gaze and saw what looked like a smallish flock of songbirds pretending to be buzzards. I immediately thought that I had come across of game of birdy charades, and they were acting out the vulture scene from The Jungle Book (I don't remember the scene exactly, except the vultures had bangs that covered their eyes and Liverpool accents) or maybe they were doing impersonations of Wallace and Junior from Hank, the Cow Dog. I watched a little longer, and they were indeed, lurking, hopping on one foot then the other, and circling something in the middle of the road. I don't know a whole lot about songbirds, but I am pretty sure they don't usually dine on road kill. Our trio moved a little closer, me hoping to catch a glimpse of what they thought they had captured; Teddy and Willie hoping the birds were so intent upon their flat breakfast that they would become a couple of mouthfuls for the dogs.

Alas, they flew off before Teddy and Willie had a chance for a schnacken, leaving my line of vision clear. I discovered the intrepid birds investigating the roadkill had found something even better: a Lunchable. I think I saw a bottle of Ripple in the ditch they were going to wash it down with.

No, that story wasn't a set up just so I could use the word ripple (especially because that would be as a noun and not a verb). Actually, the whole rest of the post is about how a tossed stone can send out ripples. Back in July I told you about a College Station church (A&M United Methodist), where some of Erin's friends and doctors attend, planned to commission an anthem in her honor and memory. I got an update on that event this week. The composer, Dr. Dan Forrest, and Sterling Allen, the Music Director at A&M UMC have started tossing texts around and find Erin an absorbing and motivating subject. The world premier of this chorale work will be Sunday morning, January 24, 2010 at 8:30 and 11:00 with Craig Courtney conducting. If you would like to support this effort with a donation towards the commissioning, you can send a check payable to A&M UMC and memo'ed to "Buenger Anthem Commission." Checks can be mailed to A&M UMC at 417 University Drive, College Station, Texas 77840. The absolutely cool thing about this giving opportunity, is that if (when) the church exceeds its commission needs, all the leftover money will go to a permanent arts program honoring Erin to benefit children like her who love to sing and create through the arts.

Lanyards are also continuing to ripple, splashing enough that I have had to drive traffic over to the http://chooseaverb.blogspot.com website that I have set up for Erin's Dream Lanyards (and Manyards). I am launching two new lanyard lines and a new manyard line this week, so you will have to remember to click over later in the week and check it out.

Last Friday's lanyard workshop at the house was a great success again. Magician and performer, Robby Bennett drove up from Houston to make a lanyard, perform some sleight of hand for the kiddos, turn down my offer of tamales, and talk about some of the logistics of putting Erin's Dream Lanyards in the lobbies before and after his shows. Locate the next odd Friday (September 25) on your calender and make plans to come and string some beads. If that doesn't work think about the 9th or 23rd of October or the 13th or 27th of November. If we can't coordinate schedules, just give me an email, and I'll come to your place, on your schedule. I have at least two new groups who can't make it to my place that have started their own lanyard workshops. Thanks Terri, Amy, and Michelle.

Not only have things gone great on the "making" side, but there was a mini-bead drive yesterday at The Bead Fountain. Thanks Jennifer and all of you who donated a string of beads to our cause. There is also a tentative bead drive sponsored by the Holy Cross Youth for Christ group from Holy Cross Lutheran Church. When they launch, I will let you know the details. We are also sending an increasing number of our creations to homes all over the country (I shipped 30 to Indiana and a dozen to Michigan last week). I have a couple of specialty venues that I will tell you about as I nail down the details.

I have to say, that all the do-gooding inspired me so much that I have started my own little project. When I was a kid my grandmother collected Green Stamps. This was a double win for me, because she let me lick the stamps (mmmm, tasty) and put them into the little booklets AND she often let me use some of the stamps at the Green Stamp redemption store for little gifts for myself. Albertson's has their own version of green stamps (on a more limited basis). You get little (non-lickable) stickers with each purchase and you can collect and redeem them for cookware.

My idea is to collect the stickers and redeem them for pots and pans and give them to Phoebe's Home/Twin City Mission to help people who are trying to start new lives. If you shop at Albertson's and are throwing your stickers away or declining them at the check out, grab them for me. It will give me a double thrill. I love to stick them in the little booklet because it reminds me of my grandmother, and I will love to get freebie cookware for people who literally don't have a pot to cook in. If you like this idea, pass the ripple on.

Also tune in to Doug Vance's radio show Family Affair, on 89.1 KEOS this Friday from 6:00-7:00 where I will attempt to talk about Pediatric Cancer Awareness month for the fourth year in a row, but this time without my wingwoman, Erin, by my side.

Donate

September 11, 2009

Did your outdoor plans get scrapped because of the weather today? Jennifer Fountain at the Bead Fountain is having a bead trunk show. She is setting up a display to ask customers to buy a string of beads and donate them to Erin's Dream Lanyards. Here are the details in case you have an itch for beads:

College Station Bead Show

Saturday, Sept. 12

10a-4p

1804 Brothers Blvd # D
College Station, TX 77845-5474
(979) 694-2323
Get directions

Semi-precious Gemstones, Freshwater Pearls, Czech Glass beads.

Simulate

September 9, 2009

Note: I updated the facts I list below to reflect that actually two new cancer drugs have been approved for pediatric use in twenty years. I will change the actual PDF tomorrow, so you can print it again if need be.

Today presents another satisfying calender opportunity: 09/09/09 (right, Erin F?).

My phone rang yesterday. I looked at the incoming ID and expected Elaine's voice to come cheerfully piping through the receiver. Instead, it was my friend, Adam's sweet voice, inviting me over for a play date this afternoon. I'm going to knock off work a little early and go to his house to play X-Plane, which mostly involves Adam skillfully maneuvering planes through flight simulation software and me watching carefully trying to figure out how he can keep track of so many different instruments and gauges at the same time.

I have known Adam most of his life. When he was a little guy he didn't smile much for the camera. A couple of years ago he had shifted to the cryptic "Mona Lisa" smile.


Now, I get even more:


But it his broad, rarely photographed smile that comes when he has just completed a tricky landing that makes me want to hang out with him and play X-Plane.

Tonight the US Men's team plays another World Cup qualifier, this time against Trinidad & Tobago with kickoff at 6:00 Texas time. I sure hope the game is in hand after the first half so I can switch to President Obama's Health care speech at 7:00 without having to weigh to merits of major policy speech versus soccer.

AND speaking of planning ahead, please put this week's Lanyard Workshop on your calender (Friday, September 11, 4:00-7:00 at my house). September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.

I have created a Neuroblastoma Cancer Fact Sheet to support Erin's Dream Lanyards. (Click here for your own PDF). Here's what it says:

Neuroblastoma Fact Sheet

What is Neuroblastoma?

Neuroblastoma is a common but overlooked cancer in kids. It is a cancer of the sympathetic nervous system, and usually presents as a solid, malignant tumor that manifests as a lump or mass in the abdomen or around the spinal cord in the chest, neck, or pelvis. Neuroblastoma is often present at birth, but is most often diagnosed much later when the child begins to show symptoms of the disease. In the majority of cases (73%), neuroblastoma has already spread to areas outside the original site at the time of diagnosis.

Some Statistics about Neuroblastoma:

• 5%-7% of all childhood malignancies, but 15% of pediatric cancer deaths

• about 1 in 6000 children will be diagnosed with neuroblastoma by the age of five

• 1 in 100,000 per year in the US

• average age at diagnosis is two

• about 25% of newly diagnosed neuroblastomas are found in children under the age of one

• children under the age of one have a cure rate as high as 90%

• children with high risk disease have a five-year survival rate of around 55%

• relapsed neuroblastoma has no known cure

Why does Erin's Dream Lanyards raise money for neuroblastoma research?

• Over the past two decades, only TWO new cancer drugs has been approved for pediatric use.

• Only 3% of the National Cancer Institute budget goes towards pediatric cancer research.

• Young patients often have a more advanced stage of cancer when first diagnosed. Approximately 20% of adults with cancer show evidence the disease has spread, yet almost 80% of children with cancer have disease that has spread at diagnosis.

• There are 15 children diagnosed with cancer for every one child diagnosed with pediatric AIDS. Yet, the US invests approximately $595,000 for research per victim of peditric AIDS and only $20,000 for each victim of childhood cancer.

• Research funds are scarce as most money is diverted to well-known adult forms of cancer, such as breast and prostate.

• In 2005, the American Cancer Society provided only 2.5% of funded grants , or 1.85% of dollars spent on research to pediatric cancer.

Note: I updated the facts to reflect that actually two new cancer drugs have been approved for pediatric use in twenty years. I will change the actual PDF tomorrow, so you can print it again if need be. I have to leave for soccer right now.

Laugh

September 7, 2009

I spent the weekend with the team formerly known as the Mystic '97 (ASIDE: it is almost impossible to cheer for them by their new name, the Dallas Texans Aggieland 97 Girls Red. Even with my fertile imagination, it's hard to figure out a good acronym or nicknack name for them). The little, but growing, former Mystics got roughed up pretty well in the tournament, though they did manage a game where they both scored and won.

I know that some of you think I must be masochistic to hang out with Erin's old teammates and their increasingly stinky bodies (only after playing, otherwise their bodies smell quite lovely), but frankly they make me laugh. What other way could I spend my time, engaged in a 6:15 a.m. breakfast conversation, where a group of girls adamantly demands to know, "which stooge (of the three stooges fame) do you think I'm most like? Which stooge do you think Lexie is? Do you think I'd make a good Moe?" Fortunately, they never figured out that to make the grade as stooges they would need to slap and poke each other a lot more than they actually do.

Overall, the weekend went well. I check quite a number of family-duty kinds of items off the checklist:

Visit with Aunt: check
Dinner with mom and both sisters: check
Brunch with cousin: check


But was missing on some other items:

Utensils at dinner with mom and sister (Medieval Times): oops
Map to soccer field for first game: oops
Ability to judge whether the person at the convenience store would be able to give accurate directions to soccer field: oops

Otherwise, I made it home in time for a nap on Sunday afternoon.

Game

September 4, 2009

I got out of the habit of posting and recognizing great folks who have chosen great verbs in honor of Erin. Earlier this week I received an email from Janine Rodriguez. In part, it said:

I am going to be taking part in the Extra Life fundraiser for the Texas Children's Hospital-more specifically, to benefit the Texas Children's Cancer Center (More info on the fundraiser:
http://extralife.sarcasticgamer.com/ ) and am doing this in honor of Erin.

We exchanged a few more e-mails to decide the most Erin-esque name for her team. In the end, we chose Erin's PPR Club (I think in this case the PPR stands for something like Power Players Rule, not the original slightly scatological meaning. And, in case any original PPR Club members are wondering, I don't think this makes those games members of the official, real PPR Club.). Here's the full skinny:

"Extra Life is a 24-hour charity video-gaming marathon to raise money to fight pediatric cancer. Every penny of the money raised will go directly to benefit pediatric cancer treatment and research at Texas Children’s Cancer Center at Texas Children’s Hospital. TxCCC is one of the largest pediatric cancer and hematology centers in the WORLD, and sees kids from all 50 states and over 80 countries. Every child gets the same ground-breaking treatment, regardless of their family’s financial situation.

Extra Life begins on October 17th at 8am and ends on October 18th at 8am. During this time gamers from around the world will pull together at the same time and play video games for 24 straight hours. All games and gaming platforms qualify from Nintendo, to PS3, to poker on your cell phone. Each gamer can raise money individually or as part of a gaming team, and the goal is to find at least 4 people who are willing to sponsor them at $1 an hour to raise a minimum of $96.

I have created a team (Erin's PPR Club) in honor of Erin. We will have an Erin power hour about 18 hours into the game-a-thon where we will play all the Wii games that Erin loved so much. Our team is open to anyone who wants to join in on the fundraising/gaming so pass this info along to any Erin fans you know who might be interested."

Once again, I'm amazed and honored that Erin has inspired people like Janine to go the extra step and do more. Thank you.

It also gave me a new experience, since I don't think I have often had the chance to use "game" as a verb. For people my age, "game" has served great as a noun for decades, and I believe it's useful to expand my horizons and stretch from time-to-time.

On the whole the semester got underway without too much unpleasantness. I admit that I was out of teaching shape, and tireder than I should have been at the end of the day on Tuesday and again on Thursday. I have had a little time to continue on various projects, and am slowly putting together a website devoted completely to the Erin's Dream Lanyards (and Manyards) project, with the build happening as I can squeeze it into my schedule. It's a work in progress, so I would appreciate feedback of any sort.

In about an hour I am headed to Dallas for a combined family visit and soccer weekend. I hope some of the rain I am driving into makes it down to the Brazos Valley. If I have weather the storm, I think my yard and gardens should too.

Postpone

August 31, 2009

I have to re-schedule the Lanyard Workshop/Planning Session set for this Friday (9/4). My aunt had a turn of bad health, and my mom and I decided to visit her this weekend. We will resume the following Friday (9/11). By then I will definitely need to re-stock the inventory. I took a dozen to Tomball on Saturday and will have 100 lanyards headed to Houston this weekend. I need to send another 25 or so to Indiana, and of course these don't include the individual orders we need to fill.

Thanks to everyone for all their help with these monster orders: particularly, Kristen and the PACAA workshop in Pennsylvania, Terri and Amy in College Station who help each other follow one of the mottos of Erin's Dream Lanyards ("Friends don't let friends bead alone."), Laura, the champion and record-holding lanyarder (who is personally responsible for making 100 lanyards over the past few months), Mary Ann, Madge, and Janice who have helped with the finishing effort for this collection. And thanks to all my other beaders and lanyard hustlers. We are making a big difference, and from what I can tell from messages I'm getting, many more people would like to figure out a way to pitch in.

I am working on ways to make that easier. In the meantime, email works great if you need lanyards, want to make lanyards or supply beads, need information, or have ideas you want to share.

Tomorrow is my first day back in the classroom since last December. Willie and Teddy have done their best to keep my mind off the return.

Willie noticed (wrong verb, but I can't think of a stronger one, perhaps tumbled to, discerned, discovered? Is there a verb form of Eureka?) that one of our neighbors--no, not Mr. Goat-keeper or Mrs. Emu-keeper--released a herd of domesticated bunnies into Willie's Wildnerness recently (I don't know why, but he does this occasionally when he gets tired of feeding the herd and cleaning their pens). Anyway, the nature area behind the pond where Willie likes to cavort and sniff good dogly odors has all of a sudden morphed into Willie's Wilderness Wonderland of Soon-To-Be-Feral Hasenpfeffers.

I took him out for a spin down to the compost pile the other afternoon, and when I turned left at the end of the driveway towards the compost pile, he bolted right. By the time I caught up with him, he had covered about 300 yards. I found him by following the huge scores left in the dirt as he gobbled up the ground in huge, galloping strides. He called it his "scratched earth" policy. I think I can still hear echos of his call to me from the distance "catch me if you can."

I will say that he has convinced me that he has overcome the disability caused by his recent cervical stenosis flare up. Those weeks of limping and subdued behavior were a front to get me to let down my guard.

Teddy's approach has been subtler, but no less effective. Her first form of misdirection to distract me from my impending return to work involved a purloined loaf of blueberry/peach bread. . .left unguarded out of sight, but not out of Teddy's range on the counter by the stove. I didn't even notice its disappearance until Wednesday morning when Walter wanted to know where I stored it when I put away groceries. I found scraps of wrapper scattered around back in Davis's room, but not even a crumb of breakfast bread. Every morning since then, Walter has looked down at Teddy and said "A little slice of blueberry/peach bread sure would taste lovely with my first cup of coffee, don't you think Teddy?"

Yesterday, I caught Teddy in flagrante delicto (see meaning number 1, not meaning number 2 in Merriam-Webster). I found her red-handed (red-pawed?) behind almost shut cabinet doors under the kitchen sink, trash can tumbled over, the powerful scent of canned tuna wafting through the kitchen. Only her plumed tail visible. Dogs in trashcan? Nothing new. Twelve pound dog in upended trashcan, wedged in tight space, with dog-protection rubber bands still around the doorknobs of the cabinet doors where the trashcan is stored? We have had dogs in the house for the entire twenty-five years of our married life, including labs, a rottweiller, and some pretty effective chow hounds. NONE OF THEM ever raided the trashcan under the sink, even if we left the doors wide open, much less had them snoot themselves past taut rubber bands holding the doors firmly shut. Does anyone sell burglar bars for the trashcan cabinet?

Actually, I think they have been watching C-SPAN a little too much. When Teddy saw that I had work clothes, not house shorts on when I came down this morning, she hopped onto my lap and presented my with a petition. She and Willie have demanded that I hold a Town Hall meeting so they can air their grievances. I think they just want to make sarcastic signs and harangue at me. I may just let them, though experience with recent townhall events tells me that they don't actually want to hear my explanation, and problably won't listen to me, even a little bit. Maybe I can postpone.

Plan

August 27, 2009

I've fielded some calls and e-mails about plans for the weekly lanyarding workshop now that school has started back up (and I hope you all had a great first week back).

Here is the plan for this week:

I have between 125 and 150 lanyards from the Pennsylvania workshop and a local workshop that are beaded, but not finished, and three large orders to fill. Therefore, this week, August 28, I am having a finishing workshop. If you have a crimping tool and know how to use it, come on over--after school or after work.

Here is the plan for next week:

Lanyarding has spread significantly since Erin started our group last spring. Everyone who is interested in helping with planning is invited to come over on September 4 for a planning meeting. Again come over after school or work or as soon as you can. If you don't like to plan, but like to bead, you can come, too.

Here's the plan for the rest of September and Beyond:

Even though we are a little up-in-the-air about how often to continue our regular lanyard workshop (right now, I'm thinking of odd numbered Fridays, so in September that means the 11th and the 25th), I am currently scheduling workshops at your place on your schedule. So, if you have a youth group, scout troop, soccer team, margarita drinking club, or service organization who would like to make lanyards, give me an email (vbuenger@mays.tamu.edu), and I'll coordinate schedules with you. Remember, September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.

Like I mentioned, I have a generous stock of lanyards so if you would like to carry some to your school or workplace to show off and stimulate interest, let me know.

Introduce

August 26, 2009

My Congressman, Chet Edwards, showed he was a patient, gracious, and I have to say, brave man. He stood up and answered all questions--some many quite hostile--for two hours in front of 1200 people and maintained his poise. If you don't understand what this means, you have probably been on vacation and had the national news off of several weeks. I had the amazing opportunity to introduce him tonight at the Health Care Town Hall he was holding.

When I visited with Chet backstage beforehand, he thanked me for my willingness to introduce him and apologized for asking me to do something so hard. I told him that compared with other things I've faced this didn't seem that hard.

Here's what I said and here is a link to the entire town hall first hour of the actual video (for my intro, skip the commercial and go forward into the video about 40 seconds) and here is the second hour.

Good evening and welcome. I’m Vickie Buenger, an almost lifelong resident of Brazos County. Many of you know me better as Erin’s mom. My daughter, Erin, died this April after fighting cancer for seven years. She was almost twelve. It is because of her that I am here tonight.

I have the pleasure, privilege, and honor to introduce to you a man long on credentials: he’s a nine-term U.S, Congressman, representing the 17th district of Texas, a senior member of both the House Budget and Appropriations Committees, and Chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee. In addition, he serves on the Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee, as vice chair of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, and co-chairs the House Army Caucus.

You could get this information from his website or resume. I’d like to introduce the man I know through my daughter Erin with whom he shared warm respect and mutual admiration. She viewed him not only as her Congressman, but as a great person and a great friend. She admired him as an attentive listener and a caring and thoughtful person.

Here’s the story of the first time Erin and I met Chet, in her own nine-year-old words, which she felt compelled to send to The Eagle, so everyone else could know about their Congressman, too:

“I went to Chet Edwards’ office in Washington D.C. to ask for his help with a bill about pediatric cancer research. We were scheduled for a short meeting, but he gave us more time and even made people wait while we finished talking. He listened to me and my mother and took what I had to say seriously. He is good to me, and I bet he will be good to you, too.”

She left out the part that impressed her the most that day. He kept a big bowl of Skittles in him office and shared them with her as we talked.

As their friendship deepened and grew, we got to know many facets of Chet. He was a true family man and dad–Dining in the MSC at a pre-game lunch, between rapidly flowing conversation and clattering forks, Chet looked over and noticed Erin, sitting at his side, was eating everything on her plate, except her piece of roast beef. Without missing a beat, he reached over and cut her meat into bite-sized pieces for her and without a word about it, continued his conversation. Now, I don't think cutting other people's meat is necessarily a skill you have to hone to be a good Congressman (in fact, it might bother your colleague if you cut up his meat for him at a Congressional banquet), but it sure told me that Chet was a clued-in dad and that he cared about people.

As a fifth grader Erin was chosen to teach her fellow students about how a bill becomes a law. She wrote Chet for his advice, and learned that he would be in town the day she had to teach. So instead of advice, she asked him to come to her school to help her out, adding in her email to him “and you would be a great visual aid.” In fact, he did help her co-teach and was the best visual aid any fifth grader ever had.

We have this caring, thoughtful person with us this evening, Erin’s “Best Adult Friend” and our Congressman, Chet Edwards.

Share

August 24, 2009

My sister has asked me to do an entry that features a topic that many of my readers who have connections to pediatric cancer will find familiar, and because that group has both experience with the topic and are, in general, made of hearty stock, they would not faint nor shrink away. However, some of my readers are, let's say, less experienced, so to protect their innocence as well as their squeamishness, I will speak (write) obliquely. You may still want to skip this entry entirely.

If I were to write this entry:

I would tell you about what happened when my fifth-grade self ate two and a half dozen batter-fried shrimp.

And about the night my freshman year in high school when I traveled with the varsity track team. We stopped at a diner for a late night supper. . .teens at one long table, adults across the room. I was pumped to be with the team (mostly very handsome, cool, fit, young men), but also uncharacteristically shy. At some point during the meal, I glanced towards the adult table and saw one of the men resting his elbow on the table and his cheek on his hand. He had a lit cigarette between "tall man" and "pointer." I've seen pictures of people with tracheotomies, smoking through the hole in their neck, but I had never seen someone smoking out of their ear. This cracked me up just as I took a very large swig of tea. I lost my breath and couldn't control my laughter, and in a matter of moments, I had blessed the table.

I also painted all the walls in our bathroom once, when in my great rush to make it in time, I ran, grabbed the doorjam for leverage, spun myself around, and managed to do what divers and skaters would consider a 360. I don't think a shotgun or machine pistol could match my range.

Not that all the stories I have about this topic involve me. I was once the designated driver for my friends who went to the hurricane races. On the way home, I checked my rearview mirror and noticed one of them had undressed and was holding all her clothes out the open window about to drop them out. Luckily, I had spare workout clothes in the trunk.

Davis had the inauspicious luck to get sick at school on the first day of fourth grade. I barely convinced him to go back when he felt better. At the time he thought he would prefer going through the remainder of his life with a third grade (plus half a day) education. I suppose that would have saved on college tuition.

Erin, of course, had her own experiences with "sharing" and her own way of talking about it. None, however, were as cute as my four-year-old niece's comment last week, when she explained to my mother that "There I was, and my beef stew just came jumping out of my mouth."

Okay, I'm sorry. I should have kept all this to myself, but I had to share.

Watch

August 20, 2009

I know someone will visit this site today and need some inspiration. Try this and see if it helps.

Erin's Dream Lanyards at PACAA:

Hyper Miling/Hyper Smiling

August 19, 2009

Things are really heating up on all my fronts: health care, lanyard blitz, and oh nooo! the start of school. Luckily, I have a new wingwoman (an incidentally, I now know why those photographers that make art of new cars earn so much money and appreciation).

Now you know why I can hyper mile and hyper smile, simultaneously.