The morning after...

I am quite apolitical.  I hate arguments, I hate feeling anger and angst towards others.  It makes me miserable and unhappy.  I think it started as a kid in a very argumentative family.  I always was the peace-maker.  I wanted people to be happy.  I have found this quality as it followed me into adulthood to be both a positive and negative one.  I don't engage in fights, I am pleasant, I avoid conflict unless it is morally offensive or dangerous.  But the converse side of it, is I don't always take a stand when perhaps I should because of fear of causing dissent.  Now, as we look towards the next several years with a Trump president I wonder, will I be forced to take a stance and be courageous in my views as we fall of the cliff of insanity? Or will I be a sheep?  Like the thousands of kind, well-meaning Germans who went along with Hitler.  Not because they supported him or thought what he was doing was right but because they were gentle kind people who didn't want to cause conflict, dissent, or risk their own lives.  I wonder which I will be.
Today I sobbed over an election result.  Never before have I cared so deeply.  Always before the politicians were a horse a piece.  Who won was not going to change the course of our history all that much (except maybe the exceptional way our country elected our first black president 8years ago!).  But today felt like a million steps backwards.  Instead of shattering a glass ceiling and electing our first woman president.  Instead of electing our only sane choice we let our caveman emotions let us pick not only the most unqualified person perhaps in the history of our country but also a fool and worse a dangerous one.  By appealing to people's biases, Trump won the presidential election.  He made it ok for people to not just be subtly racist and sexist and discriminatory, he allowed them to be proud of it.  I always feared living in a rural area and raising my children there because when you surround yourself with lots of white people it is easy to fear what you do not know.  Instead of appreciating the richness of the cultures of others and perhaps even being envious of their rich traditions compared to the blandness that the melting pot has left many of us with we fear what we do not know.  Instead of learning to share, to take a turn at the table, to appreciate the differences of others and how wide that makes our world view, we instead because close-minded and shallow and insensitive.  Today I learned that being rural is not just the problem, our entire country is the problem.  I will be making sure that my residency applications are all to large states that voted blue because if anyone is going to be able to maintain a tiny sense of what I had hoped for our country it will be these large states that can (hopefully) stand firm.
Be ashamed America.  Be so very ashamed.  We were not electing a contestant for a reality show.  We were electing the leader of what was the greatest country in the world.  We can only pray and hope that somehow these next few years will go quickly and nothing catastrophic will happen but when you let a man with no respect for others or institutions or laws into the White House, the chances we'll get off that easy are dismally slim.  And that is why I cry.  Because not only will I be ashamed that my daughter will have to learn of this man in history classes and know that our country, her parent's generation was unable to make the country a better place for them.  That we let loose the monster that has the potential to collapse our nation.  That perhaps this is truly the end of what was a great nation and the history books will document the folly and the fall.  But I will be ashamed that sexism and racism are so much more alive and well in our country than I thought.  I thought each generation pushed us forward but found that perhaps the desire to go backward was deep in the hearts of so many people.
As a white American I apologize to all the rich diverse people of our nation who must feel so alone and so threatened today.  Courage to all of us as we face the next 4 years.

The Cake Full of Regret

Exam week was last week and I was ssooo looking forward to this glorious weekend of relaxing, having really quality one-on-one time with DLO and Mr. Wonderful and getting lots and lots done.  Somehow the weekend went way too fast, was way too stressful, nothing got done that was supposed to and I woke up at 4a to head back to school on Monday with a whole bunch of regret.

To preface my stupid cake story, I take time with DLO VERY seriously.  Choosing to go to medical school while she was a baby made me decide I had three priorities in life: DLO, Mr. Wonderful, and school.  Sort of important things like paying bills, chasing down contractors for our "almost" finished house, making doctor's appointments and such come 4th, self-care (ie, the thing that used to be my joyous hobby: running and cycling) a distant 5th.  And cleaning other than when anyone comes to visit a very very distant 6th.  I am ok with a dirty house if I can feel good about the quality and time I spend with DLO around the very consuming studies (and additional burden of driving in my case).  

Sssoooo, that brings us to the stupid cake.  It was Mr. Wonderful's bday smack-dab in the middle of exam week.  Which meant, I wasn't even home for his birthday and I sure didn't have time to celebrate any other day of the week (I did leave him a big goody bag and card the morning I headed to school for exams if that counts!).  So bday celebrations were left for the weekend and I tried to "go big" in my attempt to make up for any potentially perceived neglect.  I brought his favorite take-out home on Friday, we went out on a date Saturday night (only our second since DLO was born...yikes!), I made him breakfast Sunday morning and then made him a lemon curd cake from scratch.

This cake was a thing of beauty.  I made the lemon curd from the eggs laid by our very own flock of hens (very proud about this! love our chickens!), I made the cake from scratch, I made the frosting from scratch...all while trying to juggle DLO for the entire day alone (Mr. W was working on serious new house projects that had to be finished!).  She was being her normal, rambunctious, inquisitive self with a small dose of crankiness because I missed the nap window of opportunity. So there I am, exhausted from the week of exams, a few bad nights of sleep because DLO was sick, trying to make this darn cake, and trying to get DLO to just hang on a minute so I could finish the cake.  Suffice to say, the cake turned out great (at least one small consolation) but I was left feeling a bit sour about the wasted DLO time and the frazzled nerves caused by one little stupid, not worth it bday cake.  I'm sure Mr. W would have loved a box cake just as much.  It's amazing how angry you can get about time wasted when you have so few hours to waste.  And any time I miss the opportunity to spend quality time with DLO makes me unhappiest of all.

And to wrap this rather boring and unexciting tale up: as I'm just arriving at school 3hrs of driving later, Mr. W calls to tell me he's taking the cake to work so we don't over-indulge.  I pretty much wanted to cry.  So much for a wasted day of cake making.  Never again!