I did not know there was an evacuation drill at the preschool today. (No reason I should know).

Anyway, the alarms go off, I come boiling out of the family room to find solid steel double doors auto-closing all around me and boichick on the other side of them, and I've got to tell you, for the next few seconds there, I turned into Indiana Jones.

The One Word Pain Scale

The 1 to 10 pain scale has meant a brilliant breakthrough for medical treatment because it allows us to quantify, track, study, and thus appropriately respond to pain...

as long as the person who has the pain can deal with translating their visceral experience into abstract numbers in a consistent and meaningful manner.

This is actually pretty difficult, especially if you are not used to talking to medical professionals about your pain.

Therefore, out of my own abundance of experience, I give you the 1 to 10 pain scale in 10 keywords.

1. What
2. That
3. Crud
4. Crap
5. Sh*t
6. Dammit
7. Fuuuck
8. Hissss
9. Aieeee
10. BAM

Now, in actual practice, there's only six points that matter. "What" and "That" don't provide much medical information, and "Aieeee" and "BAM" are self-explanatory.
 It's the middle range of "Crud" through "Hisss" that it's really essential to be clear on.
 But, for the sake of a solid understanding, I'm going to go through the whole scale one by one.

1. What
"Something is off."
It's not zero, there's not nothing there, but whatever pain there is, is off stage.

2. That
"This part of me has some pain."
The pain is now on stage, but it's part of the background.

3. Crud
"Yeah, I'm hurting today."
The pain has now moved to the foreground.

4. Crap
"I am having to fight to stay fully functional."
The pain is front and center and in the way. All the regular things you do are taking extra time and energy and effort to do while dealing with the pain.

5. Sh*t
"I hurt too much to be fully functional." The pain is now making it impossible to get through all of the things you regularly do.

6. Dammit
"I hurt too much to think straight." The pain is so distracting it derails thoughts and interrupts conversations. Concentrating (on anything but the pain) is really hard.

7. Fuuuck
"I hurt too much to sleep."
 The pain is actually waking you up.
NOW ENTERING THE DANGER ZONE.
If you cannot *sleep*, you cannot *heal.*
If nothing else, always remember that #7 = Can't Sleep.
 Medical professionals would *like* to get the pain down to #4 Crap -- they don't really want it down to #3 Crud, because at Crud a person who is still seriously recovering is going to be pushing themselves too hard-- so they would like to get it down to Crap, but they MUST get it down below #7 Fuuuck. Fuuuck is the point at which the pain itself will actively prevent you from getting better. Above this is the point at which the pain itself will actively prevent you from communicating and cooperating with your medical team.

8. Hissss
"I hurt too much to talk with you about how much I hurt because it is taking active concentration just to deal with the pain and not scream."

9. Aieeee
"I am screaming."

10. BAM
"I am flailing, squeezing/shaking/throwing things."
The pain is so overwhelming that the logical mind is no longer in control of the body's actions.

Pain is weird. Different types of pain hurt differently: you don't bear an ache the same way as a bump on the head, you don't bear either the same way as a burn. Sometimes you get used to a pain, sometimes you get worn out by a pain. There is a world of things that influence how you feel your pain: how stressed you are, how tired you are, how happy you are, how distracted you are, how hopeful you are.

None of that is important at the moment a medical professional asks you to put your pain on the pain scale.

What is important is that, when a medical professional asks you to put your pain on the pain scale, you answer with whatever is most accurate for *this* pain, at *this* time, for *you*.

That, and that you never feel ashamed of your answer.

Boichik is telling us the adventures of his new little rabbit figures. Apparently they are both thieves. Tatee asked what their names were, and I popped off "Bunny and Chives".

My man's got to be in a lot of pain today to have found that *that* funny.

Has anyone else observed that some subconscious part of their brain apparently thinks that the Internet works as a place? Like, when you were going to a place in your house to do something there, and once you get there, you forget what it is you were coming there to do, but you know that if you just hang out in that place for a few more minutes, what you came there to do will come back to you and you will be able to do the thing and be productive there? 
There is a part of my brain that clearly expects getting on the Internet to work this way. 
Obviously, it is not a part of my brain that learns.

Hire Old Immigrant Women & They Will Save Us All

Crones and grannies make awesome stealth members of the Resistance within our institutions. They have a lifetime experience in making sure people get taken care of no matter what. Hiring immigrants is good for our country but hiring older immigrant women who have personally survived fascist regimes to fill positions of judgement and authority is spectacular for our country.

In related news, my big scary food assistance review went very well today, thank you for asking. <3

"Our body of ongoing research shows that people from working-class backgrounds tend to understand themselves as interdependent with and highly connected to others. Parents teach their children the importance of following the rules and adjusting to the needs of others, in part because there is no economic safety net to fall back on. Common sayings include “You can’t always get what you want” and “It’s not all about you”; values such as solidarity, humility, and loyalty take precedence.

In contrast, people from middle- and upper-class contexts tend to understand themselves as independent and separate from others. Parents teach kids the importance of cultivating their personal preferences, needs, and interests. Common sayings include “The world is your oyster” and “Your voice matters”; values such as uniqueness, self-expression, and influence take precedence."

I am watching this happen in the shift between how I was raised, and how we are raising boichik. Right now we are working hard with him on the art of knowing when not to ask, when not to complain, when not to express himself. That is to say, in our position, we must teach him *not* to persist... and I feel painfully aware of the potential long-term implications this could have for his chances of greater adult success.

http://trib.al/IiHkln0

When we first started becoming more observant, the surprising wisdom that I discovered in Shabbat was not that it forced me, as a homemaker, a day of the week of getting off the treadmill, but even more that it forced me, as a homemaker, to hold some energy in reserve to make an ending to the week.

I need to regain that wisdom.

This is the face of the woman who came home tired, slapped some pre-cooked mac and cheese into an oven dish, glopped some tuna and a can of button mushrooms on top of that and covered it with slices of extra cheese, heated for half an hour and called it dinner.

This is the face of a woman whose four-year-old now thinks she is the best cook in the world.

Caregiving Means Living on Stolen Time

The thing they do not realize, when they tell parents/caregivers to take time for ourselves, is that our time does not arrive to us unlabeled and unclaimed. All the time that comes to us arrives already in possession of our loved ones. In order to "take" time for ourselves, we have to wrest each minute of it away from loved ones who are holding onto it as a lifeline, because they cannot care for themselves.

It is not that we do not value ourselves. It is not that we do not understand that we have to take care of ourselves to be able to take care of others.

It is the obscenity of having to take away from those who have too little, in order to be able to give them anything at all.