Geeky Mom

I’ve been reading with interest several posts about the lack of women pursuing Computer Science degrees. As you all may or may not know, Mr. Geeky teaches CS at Bryn Mawr, an all women’s college. Part of why he wanted to come to Bryn Mawr was because he is very interested in increasing the numbers of women in CS. And then there’s my own geekiness. I very well might have become a CS major if it hadn’t been so hardware and serious code-oriented in the late 80s/early 90s. Also, I was the only woman in the one CS class I took. I nearly failed, both because I found the material simultaneously boring and incomprehensible and because it was an 8 a.m. class. What can I say? I’m not a morning person.

Mr. Geeky and I went Christmas shopping today. Though we have indulged Geeky Girl’s propensity for pink and purple, we generally try to interest her in things that are not gender specific. Two days ago, Geeky Girl and I were home alone and I was making cookies. I asked if she wanted to help (Geeky Boy would have helped too if he’d been there). She said yes, but then she never showed up. I cut out all the cookies and baked them and had a pile of cookies to decorate. I harched upstairs to ask her if she wanted to decorate. This time she came down immediately. I asked her what had kept her occupied for the last hour.

“Barbies,” she said.
“Oh really,” I said. “What were you doing with them?”
“Playing Star Wars.”
“I see.” Geeky Girl has a slight obsession with Star Wars.
“Only, I don’t have enough boy Barbies to play right.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, I just have one and that’s not enough.”

So naturally, I decide she must have Star Wars action figures for Christmas. Mr. Geeky agrees. Now, the way presents work at our house is that there are presents from us, wrapped and then presents from Santa, unwrapped, that mysteriously appear after they go to bed on Christmas Eve. Mr. Geeky and I had already decided to get them each some kind of portable game unit from Santa since that’s what they both asked for. (We settled on the Nintendo DS, btw.) For presents from us, we settled on the action figures for Geeky Girl and a microscope set for Geeky Boy.

After scouring the land for everything today, we wrapped what we needed to and hid the rest. Then we decided to open the boxes from Mr. Geeky’s parents. They way overdo Christmas and I have big issues about it that I should probably have investigated at some point, but let’s just say that every year, I have a conniption over the presents they send. At least this year, they wrapped the presents and in each box, they put a list of what what included and for whom. For Geeky Boy, they got a PSP (thanks for telling us; good thing we didn’t get that and yes, that’s part of my conniption). Geeky Girl’s stuff is, well, girl stuff: dolls n shit^tm.

And that’s why I say, this is where it starts. Geeky Girl is 6 and she’s already gotten the idea based on what her grandparents and other relatives and friends give her that video games are for boys and dolls n shit^tm are for girls. I nearly had another conniption over that. I was lucky in that my dad never really thought of us as girls and my mom didn’t really force us into girl stuff until we hit puberty, so we got pong and then intellivision and I spent lots of money at the arcade and I was the only person I knew who had their own computer at college (no hard drive, mind you). I want Geeky Girl to decide for herself, not to feel like something is a “girl thing” or a “boy thing.” She already thinks that. She tells me what things are for girls and what things are for boys. Oh, and you can bet that Geeky Boy has been trained–by us, that is. He’s great with her. He teaches her how to play his video games. He doesn’t tell her that it’s for boys.

This kind of shit drives me batty because it happens so early without you really realizing it. The world is quickly divided into pink and blue aisles and FSM forgive you if you walk down the wrong one. (Actually, the FSM probably wouldn’t care, but whatever.) For what it’s worth, Star Wars figures are in the blue aisle and the Padme figure is pregnant (because that’s what women are for), but we got it anyway. *This* is what makes parenting hard, because you’re not just fighting against your inlaws or a couple of backwards people, you’re fighting and entire industry.

Not that I want to take up arms or anything, but it’s getting desperate. Thanks to David, who’s been blogging up a storm about these things.

Someone remind me. Aside from the resolution about Iraq, have we officially declared war on anyone? I mean we’ve been in some kind of vague war since I can remember–war on drugs, war on poverty, war on crime, now war on terrorism. And maybe we’re in an age where we don’t wage war on a specific country, but you can’t use this vague war to excuse spying on your own people or spying on organizations that are using their first amendment rights.

I think what creeps me out most about the whole thing is the vigorous defense by the administration. Methinks they doth protest too much.

Well, the cold is in full gear and oh, what a cold it is. It could be worse, mind you, but since this is the first cold of the season, I have nothing to compare it to. So, to me, it’s bad. I am medicated, but it’s pretty mild medication–sudafed and advil. Anyway, the medication isn’t quite doing the trick and if anyone has suggestions that don’t make me feel too wacked out, I’ll take them.

So here was my day. Like you care, but I need to share. Kids have a half day, as I mentioned. In the two short hours they were away, I managed to write a little, read a little, and do some laundry. Then Mr. Geeky took us to Arby’s for lunch. I know, he’s a sweetie. He dropped us back home while he went to parent-teacher conferences (the reason for the half day). I do more laundry, a little blogging and when Mr. Geeky gets back, it’s time to go out into the world. I have to go to the post office and the grocery store, which are pretty much right next to each other. Well, the line at the post office is out the door, of course. Oh, and did I mention I’m in sweats because all my clothes are in the wash. I also have on no makeup and my nose is running. Lovely, just lovely. I have two packages, one small, one medium. They’re not too heavy but after what seems like hours, they start to gain weight. No one in the post office looks happy. It’s not a pretty place to be. There’s got to be a better way. And it cost me a fortune to mail that stuff. And I’m not done!

Okay, so I leave the post office and drive around the corner to the grocery store. It’s before 5, but it’s still packed. I hate going out during the holiday season because people who don’t normally leave their house are suddenly out in droves because relatives are coming or whatever. I see this woman, age unknown, but likely beyond retirement age, who has almost literally painted her face. Her eyebrows are nowhere near where her real eyebrows should be and her lipstick goes way beyond where her real lips end and it’s like a frosty purply color that looks horrendous. It looks like what kids do to those Barbie makeup heads. I was frightened. Oh, and people like her are wandering around the grocery store. Luckily, I’m so out of it, I don’t notice too much.

Anyway, I’m wandering around in a daze with a list but with a desire to go down each aisle to stock up through Christmas. By about aisle two, my left eye starts watering. My nose is still running, not a tissue in sight. I sneeze every other aisle, at least twice. People are looking at me the same way I was looking at the painted lady. This is not good. I’m walking down the aisles sneezing, kind of hunched over, with my left eye half shut and watering. Could be bird flu, could be ebola. No one’s getting near enough to find out.

Finally, my cart loaded up, I plant myself in a lane. Of course, I pick the lane with the guy who has no talent as a checker. There were two people in front of me. He screwed up something on each of them. He almost forgot to charge me for my groceries. Rang them all up and then printed a receipt without completing the debit card transaction. I should have just left, but I bet that woman behind me would have been stuck with the tab. I had to bag my own groceries, too, which is what they do up here. By the time I was through the line, the entire store had cleared out.

Two hours later, I’m home. Mr. Geeky unloads and cooks dinner. I’ve declared a state of emergency for myself.

It’s official. I have a cold. I’ve had it all weekend, but last night, I became a little stuffier, a little runnier. I actually don’t mind having a cold as long as it’s feverless (which probably means it’s the flu; hey, I’m not a doctor). I don’t get sick very often, once or twice a year. Ironically, it’s almost always right before or during Christmas. There have been a couple of Christmas’s where I have been very sick, made worse by the drugs I chose to take to keep the illness at bay. I think this will be gone by Christmas and even if it’s not, it’s not so bad. I can’t smell the tree or the cookies, at least not until the Sudafed kicks in, but I’m still very functional. Yet, I have a good excuse not to be. Best of both worlds, really.

The kids have a half day today. I’m going to try to finish off the rough draft of my proposal this morning. I have presents to mail and a couple more to wrap. I have grading to do. Our grades aren’t due until after break. My plan is to grade one portfolio a day. So I’ll try to get that done today too. And I have movies to watch: White Christmas and March of the Penguins. I’m trying to distract myself from things like this and this. To quote my favorite singer, “Oh what a world we live in.”

This is exactly why people protest the Patriot Act and Bush’s recent spying. Being visited by the FBI because of a book you’ve checked out reeks of a totalitarian and paranoid regime.

I say it again: Why aren’t we rioting?

By the way, you can’t spell patriotism without riot.

Ok, the geek in me is pissed. The House Judiciary Committee has introduced a bill that criminalizes the copying of video through an analog source. For those of you who don’t know what this means, here’s a good explanation. Basically, it would make a good portion of what I do for a living illegal. My institution could be fined (well, we’d be exempt from the fine, but we could still be dinged). Worse, there would soon be no devices that could circumvent copy protection at all. The thing is, all these kind of laws do, and the technology that gets developed in order to support the laws, is make it harder for us normal, law-abiding citizens to mix and mash our content. The criminals always find ways around the technology. I’ve written the committee for whatever good it will do.

1 C. chocolate wafer crumbs
1/4 C. sugar
3 T melted butter
1 C heavy whipping cream
2 T milk
3 1/4 C. miniature marshmallows
2 T white creme de cacao
1/4 C. green creme de menthe
1 pt. vanilla ice cream, softened

Combine crumbs, sugar, and butter. Press along sides and bottom of 9 in. pie plate. Chill.

Whip whipping cream. Chill. Melt marshmallows and milk in pan. Cool. Add creme de menthe and creme de cacao to marshmallows. Fold this into whipped cream. Spread layer of ice cream on crumbs. Then spread marshmallow mix on top. Chill in freezer. Set out of freezer about 20 minutes before serving.

One of the reasons I love Christmas (despite my atheistic ways) is because I have so many fond memories of the season. As a child, it was a time when everything was right with the world. We did nothing but hang around the house, make and eat cookies, work puzzles, play games, and enjoy each other’s company. When Mr. Geeky and I got together, we spent many Christmas’s with his family, who do it differently. They get up really, really early, open presents, then go down to his grandparents house, open more presents over punch and donuts, then they go to another relative’s house for Christmas dinner, open even more presents and finally go back home. Each event involves increasing numbers of relatives, some so removed you barely know their names. By the end of the day, you’re stuffed and exhausted from opening presents, remembering people’s names, and being nice to old aunt Petunia.

At my house, we had Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, usually after our Christmas Eve service, which started at 5:45. I sang in the church choir for years and I loved singing in the Christmas Eve service especially. In fact, my first solo was during a Christmas Eve service. My mother was terrified on my behalf. After a lovely service, we would come home and we’d eat a great meal. My mother was an excellent cook. We almost always had a similar meal to Thanksgiving: turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, bread. But usually my mother would experiment with something and, unlike Thanksgiving, we had pear salad, a half of pear topped with mayonnaise (or sour cream) and shredded cheese. I know, it sounds weird, but I liked it. Then we had grasshopper pie for dessert: vanille ice cream, creme de menthe mixed with marshmallows and cream and creme de cacao on top of a chocolate wafer crust. It’s really good. I’ll post the recipe, really.

We also started the tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. This started when we were really young and antsy and my parents used this as a bribe to get us to bed. Eventually, though, there was a present specifically meant for Christmas Eve, usually new pajamas. Mr. Geeky and I have continued this tradition with our own kids. Since we’d done all our formal duties–Christmas dinner, church–on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning could be dedicated to opening presents and playing with them. My dad would make French toast sometime around 9 or 10 o’clock and we’d take a break from playing to eat. None of us were out of our pajamas before noon. Friends would stop by. We’d call aunts and uncles and grandparents and thank them for presents and tell them what Santa brought us. We’d run around the neighborhood showing off our toys. Occasionally, there’d be snow and we could sled, or we’d have new bikes or skateboards. All in all, it was a truly joyous and fun time.

The first time Mr. Geeky and I decided not to travel for the holiday, Geeky Boy was 5 and Geeky Girl was 1. Though we’d spent Christmas before with my family and Mr. Geeky knew how I usually spent the holiday, now we had the opportunity to decide what our own traditions would be. Since I was doing most of the planning and preparing, I went primarily with my own traditions, making Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, and leaving Christmas day to relax and enjoy our gifts. On Christmas Eve, after the kids had gone to bed, it began to sleet. The next morning, we got up, opened presents, and at breakfast. Shortly after breakfast, we lost electricity. The ice had built up to about an inch think on the wires. Thankfully, we had gas heat and most of the toys didn’t require electricity. Mr. Geeky had received a James Bond DVD collection and had his laptop at home, so he spent the evening in bed watching as much of James Bond as his laptop battery would allow.

We only went to Mr. Geeky’s family one more time after that Christmas and we all found it pretty exhausting, though there are parts of it that are really fun. Now, we all appreciate our own more relaxed traditions with its focus on the immediate family. I certainly appreciate having an extended family around and there are times when I miss the hustle and bustle of having all those people around, but there aren’t too many other times when I get to really appreciate my husband and my kids. It took a few years, but I can say with certainty that we now have our own traditions.

Not only is it Friday, but it’s my last day until January 3rd. Hooray! Hooray! I will have a million things to do when I return, but I will do my best not to think about it. I’m trying to finish my proposal next week, which I think is completely doable. I’m feeling pretty good about it. I really appreciate everyone who stopped by and gave me feedback on my rough thoughts. Mr. Geeky was laughing at me last night because I was reading a collection of articles (most of which I have read before) and I said, “I can’t wait to get to the one on audience. It looks interesting and I haven’t read it before.” He said, “You’re sick. You deserve a Ph.D.”

No one will be in the office today. It should be really quiet and low key. I have a few things to finish up, but not much. I’ll listen to Christmas music–yay! People will probably stop by and chat. Actually, the whole week has been fairly low key. Though it’s been a little busy, there has still been a lot of talking, mostly about our work at a high level. Various people have stopped by to chat about the future of technology and education. It’s been fun. And that’s really why I like my job. I get to have these conversations and call it work.

Next week, I’ll write and bake and shop for presents. I’ll watch movies and read. Finally, a real break.

For me
For Bitch, Ph.D.
For Atrios or Daily Kos

Or anyone else you know on the lists.