Monthly Archives: July 2010

My friend Jennifer is one of the finalists for Mamvation. In case you’re unaware, Leah Sedgie takes a Mom for a seven week lifestyle makeover. Mamavation picks one mom who needs to lose weight and gives them nutrition counseling, exercise counseling, medical advice and accountability.

Jenny sent me an email that included: “I’m done being fat and I’m doing something about it. I want the nutritionist AND the social media microscope to make sure I don’t fuck this up.” She continued with, “All people have to do is go to www.mamavation.com and click @jennydecki under the earth footwear ad once a day between now and July 12th.”

Weight loss is extraordinarily difficult (I just spent two horrible weeks on Freshology), and I’m proud of Jenny for being willing to do this publicly, but I’m mostly delighted for her, and her new life affirming attitude towards food and exercise. I’ll be voting for her each day, and I hope you will too.

I haven’t really talked about Ford, and my trip to their headquarters in Dearborn. Ford has some incredible safety innovations that they’re just announcing, and they really do appear to be geared toward young families like my own. I’m unclear on a few things, so I want to get all my information straight and share it with you shortly.

I can tell you one thing, blogger trips are strange. I was surrounded by perfectly lovely women, but I was alternately longing for more time alone, or that my family would have been with me. Scott took us on a fabulous tour of the The Rouge, and I have to tell you it was amazing. From a historical perspective it is a treasure. After you’re standing there for a few minutes you have the facepalm moment of The Rouge, yes, we touched on this in high school, and then studied it like crazy in Econ 101. Supply Chain – d’oh!

I have cars to tell you about. I recently drove the Acura TL, and my husband and I both agree that if we were better people we would own that car instead of the Jaguar. I’ve also GOT to tell you about the Cadillac CTS-V, and how I have no reason to know but I suspect it might possibly get up to 135mph very very quickly when you’re getting on the 101 freeway late at night.  This week I’m driving the Lexus LX 570, which we would also be driving… only we’d be rich with a bigger family. These cars are all absolutely spectacular for very different reasons.

Also, our summer vacation plans have changed. Mr. G. had some unexpected things surrounding work, so we won’t be taking the most fabulous family vacation ever. I am very sad to say that this year my family will not be glamping with the kind folks from Ocean Futures Society at Catalina Island Camps.

There isn’t much good news for me, as it relates to Catalina, but there is good news for you. For the past few years my favorite family vacation of all time (yes, better than skiing) has been five days in Catalina every August. I’ve written about it before, but I’ve been deliberately vague. Why? Well, as happy as I am to review cars and technology, I’m not looking to show up at my favorite vacation in the world and talk about blogging.

Everyone knows that what sucks for the blogger is typically wonderful for the reader. If you’re looking for an amazing vacation check out Family Camp at Catalina Island Camps. The Horners run the camp all summer long, and they are amazing hosts. Jean Michel, Murph, and Holly bring passion and academia to camp. Travis makes everyone fall in love first with his food, then with the garden and it’s magnificent compost.

The camp is as active or as relaxed as you’d like it to be. My family prefers a very active vacation, but plenty of folks show up with a stack of books, and loosely supervise kids at play. The snorkeling is world class, and do NOT miss the night dives. They are amazing. As of this writing there are still cabins available, and since you can fit 12 in a cabin, it can be a very affordable trip if you have a family you love to travel with. I will be insanely jealous, but nevertheless delighted for you, should you take this wonderful trip.

This morning I read about Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani. The Iranian mother of two will be stoned to death any day now, because she is a convicted adulterer.

Without delving into the collective cruelty of a country that would punish people for the “crime” of intimacy. I wont’ even talk about the fact that she has been in prison for five years. I do need you, my readers to stop what you are doing and carry a very important message to your communities. Please ask everyone know face to face and online, to call their representatives and ask their government officials to intercede on behalf of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani.

It’s not enough that Ashtiani will die, but how she will die is horiffic. According to CNN:

Ashtiani, 42, will be buried up to her chest, according to an Amnesty International report citing the Iranian penal code. The stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately.

That a woman is to be stoned to death in Iran is not, in and of itself, newsworthy. What is newsworthy is that this is a state sanctioned stoning.

If you are in the US, you can easily look up your Elected Officials here, and a message that includes: I am urging you to take immediate action regarding the imminent stoning of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani in Iran, and to take a stand regarding the ongoing human rights abuses.

If you are on twitter, copying and pasting this into your timeline is highly recommended. @UN when will you intercede on behalf of #Ashtiani? http://bit.ly/bCeWGe

The United Nations does have a presence in Iran:

The most pragmatic part of me has only a little hope that Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani will survive this, but I’ve come to learn that miracles do happen. I believe that the internet empowers everyone, not just those of us with a few Twitter followers and some coding skills.

So I am asking you, I am begging you to contact your elected officials here in the states, contact everyone possible in Europe, Africa and Asia. I’m hopeful that Australia, South America and Canada will be absolutely livid, and that we can save the life of one mother, and perhaps many more. Because I think we all know that this is only one of many.

If you have data about who to contact, particularly outside the US (as I don’t have much information about that) please leave it here in the comments. Hopefully we can reach more people.

Update:

This is how a stoning begins. Naturally Jack found it at this site.

Update: Ashtiani’s flogging five years ago was done in front of her children her son speaks to CNN again.

This morning my mother sent me a simple email. The subject line read: So Sad, and the body was a link to Dr. Arthur Rosenbaum’s obituary.

In the picture he’s smiling. Dr. Rosenbaum was not much of a smiler. He’s the man who takes your child’s eyeballs out retracts the skin around your child’s eyes, moves the muscles, and then puts them back in their sockets everything back into place. Eye surgeons are not a jovial bunch.  Alexander’s exams would typically elicit a smile at some point after he had cooperated, and only then the three of us would relax.

Dr. Rosenbaum was a huge part of my son’s life. When Alexander was six months old we started seeing him once every two weeks. Alexander had strabismus and amblyopia. He was born with eyes that were crossed, and one eye that didn’t move as much of the other, a lazy eye if you will. Eye exams for infants are neither simple nor short. You cannot examine a  baby who is crying, rubbing their eyes or napping. Poor Alexander, who has worn patches on his eyes and glasses since five months of age, would cry and then rub his eyes, conking himself out so that then he’d fall asleep, and our exam would be delayed. Dr. Rosenbaum would leave me with my sleeping baby, and return to the room afterward to continue the exam.

By the time Alexander was a year old we’d had two exams that had turned into six hour days. Dr. Rosenbaum never appeared frustrated, and his confidence that this was just a phase kept my worries at bay. Alexander and I both grew up in Dr. Rosenbaum’s office.

June 11, 2002 was the date of Alexander’s first surgery. Dr. Rosenbaum removed Alexander’s eye muscles nearest his nose, and reattached them so that his eyes would align. The goal was to uncross his eyes. The day of my son’s first surgery I aged ten years. Another surgery followed seven short months later, and the glasses and patching continue until this day.

We stopped seeing Dr. Rosenbaum every week, and it stretched to every two. Soon Alexander only needed to see him once a month, and before I could blink Alexander was big enough to sit alone in the exam chair. For the past few years we saw the doctor only once every two to three months. Dr. Rosenbaum was quick and efficient, and though kind, he never spoke to my son like he was a baby. Alexander was always part of the plan.

Last December the office went haywire, and we were told that Dr. Rosenbaum would be out of the office until February. I agonized about what to do, and after sleepless nights we decided to switch Alexander, temporarily, to another office. I felt terrible about it at the time, and up until yesterday I was certain that we’d see Dr. Rosenbaum any day. You see, when you went to Dr. Rosenbaum’s office at UCLA it was like being at the United Nations. People flocked to him from all over the globe. I always knew how lucky we were to live so nearby a world class surgeon like he.

It’s not just losing a doctor. My son would be blind in one eye, but for Dr. Rosenbaum. Alexander would not be able to make eye contact with people, and even if he’d been able to adjust physically, my son wouldn’t have been given the gift of a typical childhood. Dr. Rosenbaum had magic in his hands.

I think of all the mothers, and all their children who passed through Dr. Rosenbaum’s practice during the last 36 years, and I’m so grateful that my son was one of them. I think of the surgeries he preformed and the combination of art and science required to get those results. I look back at the toddler exams that exasperated both Dr. Rosenbaum and me, and I think how lucky we were, how incredibly blessed to have been his patients. It is simply tragic to lose a great man at a relatively young age.

Later today I will have to tell Alexander about Dr. Rosenbaum. I am absolutely unprepared for the pain this will bring my child.