Sadness for Tucson

     I write this with a very heavy heart as Tucson is one of my favorite places in the whole world.  I spent my college years there at the University of Arizona and as I tell most of my friends, "Once a Wildcat, Always a Wildcat".  I lived very close to where this tragedy happened which made me realize that it can happen to any of us.  This tragedy touches me in several ways.  My husband is a politician, my son has a diagnosed mental illness, it happened at a place I am very familier with and I have friends who were near the action.

     We often wonder what could cause someone to do something so horrific but the real question is why were we unable to stop it from happening in the first place.  I ask that question because I so many times see families screaming for help only to be told "they are not a danger", "they are in full control", "they are dealing in reality" and many other things that are frustrating when trying to get help.  In most cases, who knows these people best, the mental health professional who sees them for a five minute medication management or a 45 minute therapy session or the families who live with them 24 hours a day for most of their lifes.   

     In this particular case, Pima Community College had raised red flags about this student.  Everyone keeps saying they should have reported him.  I pose the question that if they did what would have been done.  He had not hurt anyone, he had not threatened anyone, he had not done anything to anyone.  So what would have been the reason to have him "locked up". 

     I have heard the news media say that the college notified the parents.  Well what should the parents have done.  Once a child reaches 18 years of age a parent is no longer privy to their medical records. In the case of psychiatric records, that can reach to the age of 15 in some states.  This man was 22 years of age.  So even if the parents were aware, what could they have done. 

     I can propose a scenario that I have heard over and over again.  I want to make clear that I am not advocating that we lock people up and throw away the key.  I do think, as with any illness, there is a responsibility to the person with the illness that society look out for their well being and the well being of those around them.

      Scenario:  John Smith has had many problems over the years growing up and never quite fit in.  He has always been a bit of a recluse but never got into any trouble.  He spends a lot of time playing video games, watches some tv and is an avid reader.  He is very engrossed in politics and the unfairness of how certain things are put forth in this world.  He will speak about this to few people because he does not trust anyone.  He lives with his parents who are very concerned about him because he never socializes with anyone.  He cannot keep a steady job and as time goes on seems to be coming more and more delusional about the state of the world.  His parents have expressed concern to the authorities who have asked if anything has happened at home to which they reply no.  One day, John gets very angry at his parents and starts throwing things, yelling and carrying on.  His parents call 911 and he is taken to a local hospital.  He is assessed and sent home saying he is no longer a danger to himself or others and competent to make his own decisions.  He is now mad at his parents for making him go to the hospital.  He becomes increasingly paranoid.  Over time, his behavior becomes more and more irratic but not enough to call 911 but continues to be bizarre.  Occassionally, John can be seen talking to himself as he walks places or driving down the street. 

What would you do?  Is this man a walking time bomb?  Would you lock him up?  Is he going to kill a member of congress or another person?  Most likely not.  However, clearly he needs help.  But how do you make him get help.  If he is unwilling to go and he is determined to be competent and able to make his own decisions how do you do this? 

The incident in Arizona should be a wake up call to the nation that our mental health system is broken.  We ignore the problems hoping they will go away .  We treat people with mental illness like they are animals that should be locked up forever instead of people with an illness that need treatment.   The funding is miniscule at best in most places.  States that closed mental health hospitals and promised to put those dollars into community programs did not.  Mental Illness is a treatable disease that with education, support and advocacy can help convince those who have it to seek treatment and help those families affected find resources to find help.

Seeking treatment is what we want people to do.  But when we as a society put a label of shame on mental health issues those who may have looked for help will not.  They feel they can conquer this problem.  They cannot.  It is a brain disorder and it can be devastating.  We must find a way to help people when we see a problem.  When someone like this man in Tucson is showing severe signs of mental illness don't throw it in the laps of the family. It is everyones responsiblilty to make sure that help is there. Help them understand the severity of the disease.  Help them understand that it is not anyones fault.  Help them get through the crisis.  Refer them to NAMI so additional information is available.  Knowledge is power  Do I know this would have prevented this or that it did not happen?  No, but perhaps it could have helped. 

What this young man did was wrong.  There is no doubt about that.  My concern is as a society we must make sure we watch for the signs of trouble, we help the person heading for trouble, we help that person's family, and we make sure that this type of tragedy never happens again.  Do I have all the answers, No.  But I think we should open the dialogue to begin talking.  Since Columbine we have seen too many killings that could have been prevented.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Congresswoman Gifford and her family, Christina Green and her family, Judge Roll and his family and all the others affected by this horrible crime.  I know Tucson will be able to heal through prayer and community.  The desert southwest is a strong and beautiful place that reminds you how beauty and ruggedness work together.  God Bless Tucson.

2011 Starting out Noteworthy

     I noticed that my last entry had been in October 2010.  I apologize but with the new job and other things in my life my blog has taken a back seat.  With the new year, comes new challenges, opportunities and much to discuss. 

     First, let me start with, what an eventful year this is starting out as.   January 1 started with the opening of Waterbury CT's City Hall.  After an extensive renovation of a building designed by Cass Gilbert, the City Hall had its dedication on January 1.  All the local politicians were there in their glory.  Cass Gilbert's granddaughter was there and spoke about how proud she was of the renovation work that was done.  About 500 people showed up to see what had been done with their tax dollars to the building.  Sad in a way that only 500 cared to come down to the festivities considering the City of Waterbury has over 100,000 people.  Anyway, we were able to tour the building which was magnificent.  Breathtaking is probably a better word.  It was brought back to the glory it was in the early 1900's when it was built with original colors as well as clean white marble and shiny brass.  This is truly something for the City of Waterbury to be proud of.  Truly something for my husband on the Board of Alderman who worked very hard to get done to be proud of.  Congratulations Paul!

     On January 5th, I had the honor to attend the Governor's Inaugural Ball.  It was a ball (ha, ha!).  It was fun to see all the dresses, men in tuxes, and the various politicians out doing their thing. 

     On January 7th in New England we had a snowstorm that was predicted to dump 1 foot of snow in areas around Connecticut where I live.  It was predicted to start in the afternoon.  The forecasters said once it started it would get heavy fast.  They were correct.  Streets were shut down, I-84 came to a stand still, people were stranded, people abandoned their cars on the highway, and overall it was a mess.  We simply did not heed the warnings.  We laughed because school was cancelled but when I look back about the time that the first flake came down, the youngest group would have been getting out of school.  In my city, we have large hills with narrow streets.  This means that buses have to negotiate cars and other items to get around.  Imagine doing that in the snow with a bus full of 5 to 10 year olds that are not your kids.  I think it was a smart move.

     Now, move to January 8th.  I get a bizarre message from my son "Daddy was close but he is fine".  I was very confused so asked what he was talking about.  Before he answered I got my answer from the Washington Post.  Congresswoman Gifford was shot by someone in Tucson.  My son text me that it was at Oracle and Ina close to where my ex-husband lives and some very close friends of mine live.  Immediately, I made a phone call to Tucson to make sure they had not been to Safeway as I know they go there from time to time.  Thank God for my friends, this was not one of those days.  Unfortunately for many, they were not so lucky.  My prayers and thoughts are with them and their families.

     After receiving this awful news, we were on our way to a Gala at the newly renovated City Hall.  This was to raise money to continue to keep up the gardens and other aspects of City Hall.  This City Hall is probably one of the most beautiful in the country, if not the most beautiful.  The Gala was lovely and my hats off to Cathy Smith and her team for a lovely evening.  It was like having cocktails in a palace.

     Now move to January 12th.  Another big snowstorm has moved up the east coast and paralyzed the State of Connecticut once again.  This time Governor Malloy has requested all non-essential personnel stay at home.  State employees now have a day off.  The City of Waterbury has closed down.  The City of Danbury had declared a level 3 emergency which means if you are not essential personnel you will be arrested if you are on the street.  That is in effect until noon. I would definitely be considered non-essential personnel.  I cannot imagine what an MBA can do to save the world!

     So in 12 days, there have been snowstorms, balls, galas, openings, shootings and only God knows what else.  I can only imagine what the rest of the year holds.  I am exhausted already and the year has just begun.  I hope I can catch my breath this weekend before another round starts. 

Happy 2011 folks!!!

3rd Annual Heroes & Heroines Award Dinner via @constantcontact

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/3rd-Annual-Heroes---Heroines-Award-Dinner.html?soid=1103180195423&aid=NGJ8D_swYSU

The MOM Movement

I am in the middle of a personal crisis regarding my weight.  Up to the age of 40 I never weighed more than 120 pounds.  At that time 120 pounds was fat to me.  I usually hovered around 115 and was a very happy camper.  However, when I turned 40, I became very ill and spent a total of 3 weeks in the hospital on I.V. steroids and then 3 months of oral steroids.  Needless to say, after that I looked like a balloon.  I knew it was bad the day I went to see my mom at the nursing home and was greeted with "Wow you got fat!"

Well, that was 9 years ago and I have struggled like all American women with putting it on and taking it off.  Most people who look at me believe I am overreacting to my problem.  But after years of fitting into size 4 clothes, size 12 is not cool.  I managed to get down to 115 again a few years ago and did great but food became my enemy once again. 

My husband is involved in politics which means that we are out quite often.  This practice of hob nobbing means food and wine are readily available wherever we go.  People do not take no for an answer.  They insist on feeding us or hydrating us.  The problem with that is I may as well take that food, paste it on my thighs and call it a day.  Forget my liver, I may need a transplant at the rate it is going. 

Today I have decided that 147 is too much.  I need to drop at least 17 pounds and preferably 25 pounds.  I am realistic.  I am now 49 years old and cannot pass as a kid any longer but I do need to take care of myself if I plan to make it to 79. 

So if I tell you I do not want another drink, or a salad is just fine, or that I really do not want the chocolate, please understand that I probably do want it but really don't need it.  I don't want to offend you, I am only trying to do what is right for me and my family.  I need to get motivated and exercise.  I must get out of this chair so my joints don't whine so much when I move to do things.

Thank you for all the food offers but I will be trying to eat healthier and exercise a bit more.  If you care to join me please post.  Maybe we can start a movement.  Who knows, we can call it the MOM movement (Middle-aged Overweight Mothers).  Catchy huh????  Let me know if you want to join me!!!!

Getting Ready for School

School is starting soon. Isn't it funny how all our lives are set up with school?  My life, even though I am not a teacher or a student, is set up by semesters of school.  Granted I do still have a child still in school but I "work" for a living so school should not matter to me.  But over the years it has.

Back to school sales indicate the fall has started.  Living in the northeast that means the leaves should be turning orange but in the southwest it meant that it was still beastly hot until late October.  The other thing back to school sales indicate is the traffic is once again going to be awful.  Going back and forth to work for people that get stuck behind those big yellow buses will probably not be joyful.

And what is it with these towns and cities that think no one has anywhere to go at 9 and 3.  They have schools that have no where to drop off kids except on the streets in front of the schools on a busy street.  Traffic backs up for miles and everyone is getting all upset.  Granted it only takes about 10 or 15 minutes for the buses to load or unload but people get very frustrated.

And if that isn't bad enough, what is it with these kids who wait in the house for the bus and when the bus gets there they walk as slow as humanly possible to get on the bus.  The worse part is nobody says anything to them. I would be giving my kid a good boot in the butt.  "You're holding up the traffic Junior, get it in gear!"  Isn't that what our parents used to say?  Oh wait, our parents didn't have to say that because we walked 10 miles to school and they (our parents) walked 25 miles to school in knee deep snow.  I wonder how deep the snow was in the southwest desert in September.

Then Christmas comes and we all get a 2 week break from the school bus hassles.  We can get to and from work again without getting stuck behind the big yellow buses and all those slow kids.  You know who I feel most sorry for;  the school bus drivers.  Those poor souls have to put up with the sulking in the morning when they go in and the crazy antics on the way home.  They have to listen to drivers cuss them out for being in the way, they have to deal with parents who are not happy because Johnny had a problem with someone on the bus and because some idiot like me writes a piece talking about the big yellow bus.

Well after Christmas, all the college kids leave and back to school the other creatures go much to the relieve of their parents until June.  Then we get a couple months off again from getting stuck behind the big yellow buses unless you are unlucky enough to live near a summer camp that uses buses to get the kids into camp.  If that is the case you are out of luck, I am sorry to say.

Now after all this is it any wonder that my life still runs on a semester base.  I follow those buses everywhere.  I see them go by my house in the mornings, I hear them pick up the kids.  I get stuck behind them at the local school.  I try to plan my day so that I do not go down the road where the school is at the time school gets out but somehow I always end up there at dismissal time.  I guess I should have been a teacher so that my biological clock could have been in sync with the school year.  Perhaps in my next life.

Good luck to all the school bus drivers, teachers and students that will be going off to school in the next couple of weeks.  Students please try to move a bit faster to the bus, you are just aggravating the world by being slow and one of us sitting in a car may be the person you sit in front of for a job someday.  We may just recognize you as the slow poke who held us up in the morning on our way to work.  That may not be such a good thing for you.

Resumes: What Does it Really Tell Us?

In the last year of my unemployment, I realized that my resume never fully reflected the work that I have been doing.  Granted I have not been employed in the conventional sense of the word but I have been working.  As a matter of fact, I have probably worked harder in the last year than I have in the last several because I have had to juggle 3 positions instead of one.  Let me explain.

First, I got laid off from a job that although I enjoyed it, until I was laid off I never realized how stressed out I was.  Marketing for the skilled nursing market was competitive and at the end, cut throat.  At the end of my run we were all fighting for a few patients and many people were getting laid off so they were opting to stay home and take care of family members instead of putting them into a nursing facility.  So my new job became looking for a job.  That is a full time job in itself.

Second, while looking for work in the first few months, my time was taken up solely by that.  After a bit, there was not as much time required as my sources were drying up and so I began to dedicate more time to my volunteer work with NAMI Waterbury.  That started to become the focus of my life.  I attended Chamber of Commerce meetings to promote NAMI Waterbury, I went out to do presentations on NAMI, I taught classes, ran support groups and so forth.  Along with this I was still looking for work.  In the meantime, someone asked me for help on the Salvation Army in Waterbury so I volunteered for that.  Again, my time was now taken up looking for work, volunteering for NAMI and volunteering for the Salvation Army. 

Third, while all this was happening a friend of mine approached me to tell me she was starting a technology company that would revolutionize the way we communicate.  She wanted to know if I wanted to be part of it.  Why not!  So I began to help with some of the marketing materials, some of the data base development, business development, software testing, sales, design team work and so on.  All this is done pretty much gratis as the company is pre-revenue.  This company is working very hard on making the correct connections and will be a very important one in how the world communicates in the future.  I will be a part of that group if all goes as planned which is great.

Now what I did not think of as I was still out looking for a "job" is that all of what I have done over the past year, paid or not, has been experience.  I did add the NAMI experience to my resume but I never added the other experience because I did not think of it as important because it was not "paid".  Is that how we value ourselves?  Are we just prostitutes to the world of companies and businesses? Do we have no shame?  Maybe we should be arrested as well as the ladies who walk the streets at nights if that is the way we value employees.

The work I did over the last year was more valuable than most of the work I have done in the many years I have had a "job".  That reason is I was able to do things that my superiors at other jobs never gave me the chance to do.  I was always held back for one reason or another.  There was always someone ahead of me or someone more important that had to be in place.  But now I was the person in charge that could make decisions or at the very least could follow along to find out how things were done.

I have now seen a business start from the beginning.  An idea became a company and is growing into a living thing.   I have looked for sales people, technology people and I have gone out on sales calls.  I have lived leaner than I have lived since I was in my early 20s.  I am stronger now than I ever have been although poorer than I have been as well. 

Employers look at my resume and see a gap of work history of one year but they are sadly mistaken.  I have worked the last year, just not in the conventional sense of the word.  Not in the paid sense.  Those of you who did not hire me or interview me because you saw that gap, your loss!!  I am the best there is.  To the company who let me go, you really lost because I am a loyal employee.  To NAMI, the Salvation Army and SentryBlue, I am glad I have been able to give you my time because you appreciated every little bit I could give you and I will continue to give you whatever I can.  It has been worth more than money and that is the biggest lesson that I have learned from this whole experience.  Giving is definitely better than receiving, that is a lesson the whole world needs to learn!

Crazy Things

Have you ever wondered how things in your life got so crazy and out of control when you used to think you had everything in control?  There was a time when I was convinced that I had complete control over the way my life ran.  And for the most part that was true.  Then as my kids grew older, when I should have been gaining more control of myself and being able to do the things I want to do.  Then life got out of control.

When my oldest was still at home, my youngest was still little.  So clearly I still had control of the house.  Unfortunately, when the youngest became a teenager, the oldest moved away, my step-son had graduated high school and decided to move in with us (which I do not mind at all most days) and suddenly I have lost all control of my house.  I no longer have a living room.  I have an office/living room/all purpose storage room.  My husband's den has been turned into the hangout for the kids.  The kitchen is a grazing ground.  Even our bedroom is not a sanctuary any longer as they come bounding in there for advil or band aids at any time. 

I purchase $300 worth of food and within 2 days it is gone.  Where does it go?  Well, at times it is left out so my 2 lovely dogs can devour it because heaven knows they need people food.  If soda is purchased, a 12 pack is gone in a day.  Now my kids are big but they are not huge, I cannot figure out where it goes. Oh I forgot the friends.  They are in here at all hours of the day and night.  My husband does not seemed phased by this but it drives me insane.  I am trying to keep my sanity by ignoring it but it isn't working.

They also appear to think I am made of money.  They cool the outside in the summer with my air conditioning and heat the outside in the winter with the heating.  They must think the the neighborhood needs lights because when the middle one comes home at night, he never shuts any of the lights off when he goes to bed.  They also have the house lit up like a Christmas tree when we are out at night while they are usually in the basement.  I am sure that Connecticut Light & Power must love us.

Forget showers, first I couldn't get them to take them.  Now I can't get them out of the shower.  I am in and out in five minutes.  My kids are the kings of the hour shower.  The water company and oil company love us too.

Anyway, the lesson is that we have spoiled them rotten.  But I am sure that I would not have done it any different.  Someday they will all be gone at which time this house will be incredibly quiet, the den will be a den, the living room a living room, the kitchen a kitchen and our bedroom ours.  I am sure we will be lonely.  The one thing I do pray for is that each of the three gets at least one just like them. I really hope that each of them has a girl for extra punishment.  That would be true payback for all they have put us through because these boys hover over anyone they love and I am sure girls would scare them silly!!

I love you boys!!!!