Make some time, friends, this is long

A couple of weeks ago I went with my union to lobby my state legislature over the weekend celebrating the birthday of Dr. King. This was amazing in many ways, so it's been hard to start to write about. Here's what I got:

-I was surrounded by purple which may, it turns out, be my least favorite color. SEIU has chosen purple as its color. In general, I've found that folks who choose to like purple have a different relationship to their favorite color than others. For instance there's a whole store devoted to selling purple things.

Walking around the capitol building and seeing hundreds of purple people representing for childcare workers, mental health workers and nurses helped me get it, though. We were a presence, and that came through loud and clear and in tacky tacky bright shades of purple. It killed me, but I saw its use. Next time any of you people start a union PLEASE, how about black? Maybe black with some dark grey, or silver studs... I mean unity and visibility are great, but come on.... The best part is that folks wear all shades of purple, lavender and plum (I myself was wearing a somber aubergine.) so in our unity we clash terribly with one another, even as we represent.
Wait, I assure you this story gets better. (But it continues to be purple the whole time. Keep that in mind.)

-We were celebrating something huge. SEIU organized the 17,000 "Family Care Workers" in our state. (Note: Family Care Workers are also known as "In-Home Care givers" or folks like my mom who take in neighborhood kids for dough, and as a way to get paid for staying home with their own kids.) These folks care for 40 percent of the kids in our state. They now have a historic contract which made me want to cry more than once. It's a little complicated, but it goes like this: Poor folks need childcare in order to work, and they can't afford to send their kids to places like Hilltop, or places like anywhere in most cases. The state subsidizes care at about $500/month per kid. (My school is like $1000/month per kid. So if we want to do the right thing and offer our amazing services to kids from working class famlies, we need to suck up around $6000 of revenue. Which, we can't afford. So, most moms who get this subsidy send their kids to a Family care provider. The provider gets about $25/day per kid. This is not a living wage, and it means that poor folks can't get care, so they can't keep jobs, and as someone who spent a few years working in women's shelters I can tell you that this results in families living in hotels,cars and shelters.

Happy news: these folks got together. They got the state government to realize that this workforce (officially considered independent contractors who work for the parents) really works for the governement. The state pays these women to care for the poorest kids who need the most. So the state agreed to allow the care workers to collectively bargain WITH THE STATE which is fucking huge. The contract promises all family care workers that they will get higher subsidies for kids from low-income families. Also, they get some of the training folks at my center get about child development and learning, AND a very small few will get a teeny weeny bit of health care benefit. It rocks.

- Also, these women were awesome. They were all ages and sizes and most had loud voices. They all know about how to love children, but they also knew how to hold folks accountable. The staff were translating all the proceedings into Spanish and Somali because you can care for kids in any language, especially in a country without an official language (so far!) which also made me cry a little bit. For the record: I'm still off the smokes and therefore loopy and weepy all the time. I'm getting used to it, and kind of think it's nice how crazy and wrecked I get about everything.

- I got to hear Jone Bosworth Head of our brand new Department of Early Learning. She kicks ass and takes names and I'm totally stoked to have her on my side. She (a beauracrat) quoted Thurgood Marshall "When they tell you 'Go Slow' they mean 'Don't go." P.s. I think I have an unconscious block against spelling beaurocrat properly. I don't know why.

-We stayed at a place in Tacoma called the King Oscar Motel and Convention Center. This brought me no end of pleasure even though the flourescent lighting ALMOST made my nonsmoking self go out of my mind. (And, dude, didn't all the guys and women in those Union movies and stories all smoke?) Also I went out with two crazy union people to wander the strip around King Oscar's until we found Kareoke. The place is called Longitude 84 Sports Bar. It was startling well (flourescently) lit. The lighting conspired with the well spaced pool tables, electronic dart boards and few booths to feel like a cross between a Boys and Girls club and a Greyhound station. The Kareoke was hard core with few but serious performers. I sang "Walking After Midnight" "Mr. Jones" and something else. It was wicked fun. I even beat some old broad at pool by accident when she sunk the eight after lecturing me on calling every shot. Tremendous.

-We asked legislators to fund the Family Workers Contract. The governor has said that she'd like to offer the same subsidy rates to centers (like mine!) so we also asked folks to support that part of her budget. Lastly, we told folks that we are working on a way for workers in centers to collectively bargain with the state too. This sounds great in most ways, and also, kind of wierd, because I'm used to a more traditional model of a union. This kid includes everyone and says there's no bad guy, no "bosses". While I think this kind of organzing is great for kids, I don't think it'll have any impact on the long and glorious tradition of protest songs.

- We have an incredibly beautiful state capitol. I am SO sad I didn't bring my camera, but I will next time. I looked up at one point, while we were sitting in the atrium on some stairs eating lunch and making our plan. We were under this incredible dome, and there was a big old golden seal in the middle of the stairway with George Washington's face on it and that was surrounded by velvet rope, which I always find compelling because it reminds me of the Smithsonian and the bank when I was a kid at the same time. Anyway, I looked up while we were practicing our "message" and saw this 8 year old kid on the top stair across from me, and he was the coolest kid ever, I could tell. He was just walking along, and then, casual as anything, he popped the wheelies out of his shoes and just skated right along the top marble step under this pinkish dome just slow and easy as you please.And the staties didn't even try to stop him! Dude, I would have given anything to be in his shoes.

-I know I'm not the first to say it, but Jamie Pedersen House Democrat from Capitol Hill is the most charming politician I've ever met in my whole life. Also asked great questions. (Also comically short. I've discovered that dudes who are short AND are cool with that cannot under any circumstances be overestimated or stopped. Go Mr. Pedersen Go.) I know it's kind of demeaning, but also he's fucking adorable. I didn't want to say it, but I did. There.

- That's all I can think of about it right now. Everyone I spoke with was so respectful and seemed to be very excited about what can happen in our state for child care and education right now. I'm not very familiar with political excitement, really so it felt strange, but in a nice way. I was also representing my school in some way, which is wierd because we kick ass, AND we're in a wierd limbo. Folks from all over the country have heard of Hilltop Preschool AND I work with school agers afterschool which sounds like babysitting, which it's not. So, it felt funny. I felt like I was playing a part most of the time, but then from time to time I'd find that it was really me talking to organizers and reps and senators and aides, and that the smart ass cynic who was so uncomfortable had just taken off around lunch time.

Maybe, it's not so bad, my friends. It can work.

Headline: Yoga leads to carpet cleaning

Beware, friends, cause they dont' tell you this at the ashram, or the Y... yoga is not just about flexibility, strength, spiritual onenes with the cosmos and looking like Madonna. Oh no, it's also about opening yourself to your inner housewife.

This morning, as I leaned forward on my yoga mat, my attention kept turning from my body and position to the dark, nasty stains on my rental-colored carpet. These stains are the result of my cats' hairball and eating until vomiting habits, and I have scrubbed them before, but today, the shadows of Kitty Digesting Fluid were too much for my sensitive soul. I tried to gently refocus on my shoulders and hamstrings, but it was a struggle to tear my mind away from the filth. I finished my practice, and got my ass a rug-doctor from Safeway.

I rented one before, when I was equally desperate after a particularly well-attended New Years party. I'd assumed I'd be paying half my paycheck, but was stunned to discover that it's only 21 dollars (which for those of you keeping track of childcare salaries, is actually only 1/4 of my paycheck. Thank goodness for the union... oh and my sugardaddy.)

If you ever do this, (or want to clean anything else without filling your house with yucky chemicals) I highly recommend the book Better Basics for the Home by Annie Berthold-Bond. (Basically, everything comes down to vinegar, washing soda, borax and tea tree oil in differing amounts, but it's comforting to have someone else tell you how much, and why it works.) She's incredibly practical, wise and has thought of virtually anything you might want to clean. When we first got Trinity (the only cat I've ever had to housetrain) this book sat on my bedside table. Now it automatically opens to the pages on odor-removal, which are dog-earred and tear-stained.

Rather than buying the good Doctor's soap at Safeway for ten bucks, I just used a little simple green with borax and washing soda, and now (part of) my carpet is Poorly-Installed-by-Cheap-Landlord clean again. (And I didn't have to do this "experiment-with-homemade-hippie-dippie-cleaner-and-hope-I-don't
permanently-mark-my-carpet" which can be stressful. (I'm now taking a bit of a food break, but will return to the fray and finish before my allotted 24 hours are up.)

Tomorrow, I look forward to my monkey-mind obsessing over the super clean smell in the air instead.

These things happen to other people....

I'm pretty crazed and confused just now on account of the whole no nicotine thing, right? Last night I went to a party, and stayed up "late" (these folks have kids) drinking whiskey, only because NOBODY at this "party" smoked, and therefore I did not run the risk of getting tipsy and immediately bumming a smoke from someone. (I did, during a quiet moment, sneak outside, and kind of casually perused the porch, poking around behind the bigwheel, an old desk rubber balls, hoolahoops and stuff hoping to locate *an old butt lying around on the porch* from the last time I'd been there, like a month ago. ("Which", my tortured psyche was telling me "would have quite a bit of tobacco in it because of course I couldn't ever smoke a whole one at this house before the six year old would come out and catch me at it and lecture me. Heartbreak. Guilt etc.) Ewww. This skulking only lasted a minute before I caught myself at what I was doing and hied my ass inside, disgusted.

So, anyway, just completely whacko these last couple of days. I "talked about my feelings" on a phone call with my seester (thanks, dear.) which may have been a terrible idea and then was kind of a wreck, and got myself all worked up and wacky in the middle of my messy nest of a "my husband's away so I can knit/eat/read/sleep/draw anywhere I damn well please" living room. Just losing my shit... my stomach actually hurt from churning all that nasty emotionality around with all the detox tea, and my stomach is made of iron, friends. Iron, or perhaps Titanium which gets stronger with age.

When (here's the amazing part) suddenly, I realized that I could go running and feel better.

I've been running (very sporadically) since last February when a dear friend convinced me it would be the secret to quitting the LAST time I tried. (He even took me out to buy sassy blue shoes.) I have run cheerfully and sleepily and lots of other ways, but never to meet a clear and present need. Just out of some obligation and a fondness for looking at scenery slowly. Today, I ran to change the way I felt, and it worked, and I felt great and came home and did yoga to music (?!) everything in the whole world became sparkly and open and kind of animated. Including my stomach, and the piles of yarn, and the cat fur all over the couch. Amazing. Tremendous.

I think it also might be time for me to write the second fan letter of my whole life to Ani Difranco for her record that I downloaded for free from her website, which feels kind of wrong, though obviously condoned. And probably to not use so many quotation marks. I'm compensating, here people.""""" Anyway, I've always liked Evolve, but it was part of all the mind-blowing that happened here in my living room today.