Punting again

I've written a number of posts in my head, just haven't gotten to the keyboard when they're fresh. Several posts about autism, more on the economy and the torture that is uncertainty, balancing between prudence and deprivation, the mixed feelings of usefulness and futility engendered by a substitute's rate of pay (better than minimum wage, but barely a drop in the bucket, especially when no jobs come up for several days), the mix of exhilaration and anxiety brought about by moving forward with our attempts at child #2 before Trillian has secured a new job, the fact that Trillian tentatively, maybe has a job in the pipeline but it's moving at a corporate pace (see uncertainty above), the affirmation in hearing school professionals describe Scooter as "utterly delightful" and clearly mean it, my thoughts on the series I watch that have been renewed or canceled (because you all care about my opinion on that). And maybe a few recipes thrown in.

Instead...

The wind picked up as I walked the dog tonight. Far, far off lightning flashed, diffused by the clouds that were obscuring the stars for once. The thermometer said it was still warm, and I certainly was fine in a t-shirt, but there was a delicious chill in the breezes that passed over my face.

I really do love this place. The ease of finding solitude while never being far from people and always feeling safe. All I have to do to enjoy some nature is step out my front door--if that's not enough escape, I can bail off on any of the nearby trails, including the one that starts one house over.

Certainly this place is not perfect, and some of the specifics will come out as I write about some of the aforementioned topics. But there's a lot to be said for a place where a daily walk counts as a moment of meditation.

*sigh*

Longer posts on actual topics coming soon, but...

Skimming some comments on an article I was reading, someone remarked that one aspect was 'ludacris.' Really?! We're now learning our spelling from rappers?

In the kitchen: eating our veggies

Trillian and I joined a CSA and are rolling in veggies now!

For me

For my birthday, the only thing I could come up with was a footbath. I've had to put off bunion surgery--indefinitely now, given the job situation and my soon-to-occur attempts to get pregnant. But my feet have been killing me, so I'm trying just about anything I can. My dance teacher suggested the footbath, and I found a decently priced model over at Amazon.

But I didn't get the information passed along in near enough time. And then when Trillian mentioned it to her parents, it turned out that her mother has had one in the garage that she doesn't use anymore, same brand as the one I wanted, same basic features, shy only one non-important frill. So she brought it by for me to try, saying I could either keep that one or at least use it to decide if I wanted a different one.

Then as my birthday present, they got me a gift certificate to Amazon. I'm supposed to use it on something I really want.

Except I find that very hard to do. Not that I don't have some frivolous desires, but I do tend to make myself justify most of my purchases.

If I had received the gift certificate a few days ago, I would have used the money for the gluten-free items we purchase in bulk from Amazon (case discount, plus free shipping). As it is right now, I have two academic books sitting in my cart. One of them I definitely want on my reference shelf. The other I could probably get from the library, but it's very much in my field and will end up in my personal library some day. They would be the responsible purchase.

I don't have any well-formed idea of what else I might consider. Other equally practical items for other areas of my life, maybe. But even those aren't exactly leaping to mind.

Of course, I could just sit on it for a while and wait until Battlestar Galactica's final season and Pushing Daisies are on DVD...

Reviewing 9th grade genetics

I was a biology geek anyway and enjoyed pretty much everything we did. Including dissections. (We had lunch right after that period, and while my friends would be pushing their food around their trays, not particularly hungry after what we'd just done, I'd be saying, "You gonna eat that?")

But one of my favorite units was genetics. Some of it was the sense of wonder--microscopic strands of nucleotides dance into position, resulting in a whole human being. More than anything, however, I loved the Punnett squares. All the wonder in a handy logic-puzzle format. I could calculate my chances of having a blue-eyed child with my crush at the time. (50%. Same as with the donor we've been using.) And then I could expand the square to account for more than one genetic trait.

Of course, genetics is not as cut and dried as all that. There are times when there's a step between dominant and recessive. (Exhibit A: My hazel eyes, the result of a brown-eyed and a blue-eyed parent.) And then there's sex linkage, where a gene appears only on the X-chromosome. A benign example of this is the calico and tortoiseshell patterns in cats. The gene for color is on the X-chromosome, and any tri-color pattern requires two color genes. Since males only have one X-chromosome, they will have two colors max (or be a sterile XXY male). This is also what's at work with hemophilia and color blindness.

Which brings me to the catalyst for this reminiscence.

In the past year or so, in the midst of all the tests administered to Scooter in preparation for school and general evaluation, there's been a bit of an asterisk to some of his vision testing. Various medical practitioners have pulled out the standard color-blindness testing book (the Ishihara color test, apparently) and had Scooter take a crack. Before all this, doctors either didn't try the test or didn't expect him to be able to read the numbers due to his age. But there have been honest attempts recently. The last two had the professionals shrugging and saying, "He's not totally colorblind, but he may not be seeing this correctly either. Let's try again in a bit." Scooter would read the first couple right and then got less certain. When he was asked to trace what he saw, he'd go over part of the number and then trail off. We couldn't decide if he really couldn't see or if he was just being non-cooperative.

Scooter's most recent eye exam has confirmed that he definitely cannot see all shades of color. He seems to have the most trouble with lighter shades of green and red. If you check out the linked color test, he would probably see a 71 (or a 21, as mentioned in the caption). He can see a difference in red and green, but I have no idea what they actually look like to him.

So I was interested in tracking down the genetics of this. There was no color blindness in the donor's profile--and that's more complete than my own medical history. And I wasn't aware of any color blindness in my generation or the one above me.

I remembered to mention this to my mother in one conversation. It may not have been until our next one that she was able to vaguely recall her uncle having some form of color blindness.

And so I was able to recreate this gene's path:

• My mother's maternal uncle is color-blind. His sister, her own mother, is a carrier.
• This gene misses her one boy-child, but is passed on at least to one of her girl-children. My mother is a carrier.
  
• My mother only has girl-children and passes it along to at least one. I am a carrier.
  
• I have a boy-child and am therefore responsible for his only X-chromosome. By the luck of the draw, the one he got includes the color-blindness gene.

It's a three-generation gap in expression, but it makes perfect sense, in a way I learned to figure on paper more than 20 years ago.

(And I've been told kids remember nothing from junior high.)

Things that could be posts unto themselves, but that would require sustained thought

Into my second week of subbing, and I have a nearly full schedule. Diving back into teaching like this is exhausting, particularly since I have yet to go a day without some completely unexpected event. Short version: fire drill, locked out of a classroom, speaker didn't show up. Here's hoping tomorrow goes without bumps.

But I haven't posted here for a bit, so I thought I'd treat you to my fleeting thoughts:

• I've been dealing with a lot of migraines lately. It had been years--as in, since before Scooter's birth. Most of these, as I now suspect earlier ones had been, are hormone-related. There's not much I can take that gets rid of them. And since I'm taking a daily aspirin, I've had to lay off the ibuprofen, which would take the edge off.
• The daily aspirin is in preparation for a new round of trying to get pregnant. It's probably unnecessary, but I had some borderline blood results that make it not a bad idea.
• Besides the migraines, I've been experiencing other hormone-related pains and discomfort, also reminiscent of before my first pregnancy. I'm trying to view this as a positive--maybe my body is finally ready to support another pregnancy.
• I started the second book of the Twilight series. And am finding it very easy to put down.
• It has been proven to me, yet again, that I just shouldn't doubt any of the facts Scooter quotes me about the solar system. He has long insisted that Venus is the hottest planet. I couldn't believe this is the case since Mercury is closer to the sun--and then I looked at a couple of the books he checked out from the library and found out that Venus is indeed warmer than Mercury.
• I owe my supervisor an email. And an explanation of why I decided not to submit paper proposals to two different conferences.
• I'm not on Twitter and have no real interest in it. I already have to deal with information overload with blogs and Facebook. I think Twitter would push me over that line.
• I'm making truffles tonight. My excuse is that my birthday's coming up, but does one really need an excuse for chocolate?
  

(insert witty sub pun here)

Reasons for an Aspie not to be a substitute teacher:

• The job, by its very nature, is not at all consistent. There is little opportunity to develop a routine. Each day is new classes, new students, new schedule, new room, maybe even new school.
  
• It can be unsettling to be the official teacher for a subject she does not know well, creating some anxiety over not looking less than intelligent.
• It requires a lot of interaction with a whole host of people she does not know. Lots of small talk and processing new information quickly.

Reasons an Aspie (with previous, successful teaching experience) might be a pretty good sub:

• Previous practice has given her confidence in her ability to maintain acceptable order in nearly any classroom.
• She will already have a number of scripts to handle varying situations, both for conversations with people and for handling information outside her areas of specialty.
  
• Her attention to detail and need to get things right means that lesson plans will be followed closely.
  
• This also translates to a conscientiousness that means she'll do more than read a book and ignore all but the loudest outbursts. She will most definitely not lose concentration long enough that some students sneak out (as happened to a different sub on the day she was at the school for an observation).

Guess what I'm doing to make a little money!

I am the newest addition to the substitute roster for Springfield Public Schools. It was much easier than the application made it out to be. And they're definitely happy to have someone who is more than just a warm body.

Two of my classes today met in the school library to work on their research papers. The head librarian admitted to me that he usually dislikes it when a teacher sends their students to the library with a sub. But he also made a point of telling me that my previous experience as a teacher was quite obvious and that I had handled the students very well. Not that the students were all that troublesome--it was mostly an issue of keeping them from talking too loudly and gently nudging them back on task. The librarian was actually disappointed to hear that I wouldn't be the teacher's sub for the remaining days he'll be out.

It has been nice for me to find a way to earn something to stretch our savings for the time being, especially since subbing pays better than the minimum-wage jobs I would otherwise be after. I've also missed being in the classroom, so this is a way to sate that.

But boy do my feet and hips ache from a day on my feet!