wait for it

Morning food duties are typically dispersed thusly: --Greg makes the children and himself breakfast --Amy makes herself breakfast and packs the kids' lunches. Greg has been traveling, which means his duties fall to me. And once again I stand in awe, in my kitchen, at the complexity type 1 diabetes brings to our lives. Every meal, every bit of food take in requires extra layers of work, but school lunches feel to me especially difficult, as they must be prepared in advance and packed up for someone else to give the shot. To pack Theo's lunch for school, the following considerations must be made: What food is on hand. Of course. Though I hit the grocery store seemingly every other day, we're always out of something, or something that they like, or something packable. A balance of reasonably healthy food products. From what's on hand, what's healthy? Unlike meals at home, during which desserts can be demanded, they have to eat whatever I pack them, so I try to make it...

The following is a post from February 2010. As I prepare to teach theatre to community leaders in June (register here ), I'm thinking about the homeless women I spent Monday nights with a few years back. Let's be honest: the work I did there would make a grantwriter salivate. The local newspaper, even. But I always hesitated to draw attention to the women, to bring in a journalist or photographer (pajamas were the attire that time of night); I didn't want to exploit them or have them think I was there to make myself look good. And yet attention can bring awareness, money can bring opportunities. In this post, I struggled with these ideas. In the end, I never did any public forum, but I did write about them and teach others how to work with the homeless. For more posts on my work in the shelter, click here . There's a scene in the film "Julie & Julia" where Julie, who is cooking and blogging her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Coo...

He's probably used to it by now. A teacher. Referring to Theo's skipping out on lemonade that the rest of the class was having. "Yes, but that doesn't mean he's happy about it," I said. She backtracked. She brought him diet coke. He was happy. People say the darnedest things about diabetes, and they're lucky I don't hit them. I'd walk three houses away, then walk back. This woman had suffered severe complications after the birth of her child. After coming home from the hospital, she couldn't walk alone, and getting from the bed to the bathroom required help she referred to as "dragging." One day she decided she needed to move. She managed to walk to a house three away, then back. After some time, more houses. She was seeing me to learn how to begin weight training. More recently she joined an Indian dance troupe that performs locally. But what do you wear to dance? There's a guy in the gym who keeps tabs on my shoes. I show up in ...

The woman said this: If there are to be challenges in my life, I don't want them to happen here. Under the umbrella of a talk on nutrition, I had used the word "challenge." I had also recommended my practice of eating chicken nuggets for dessert; had praised human nature's need for pleasure; and written down a specific brand and percentage of dark chocolate for the woman to buy. But challenge , this I meant in light of the work one sets out to do. She wanted to do her business at the gym and leave, and I argued for more intensity: Make it worth it. You've driven this far, now make your work worth your time. My suggestion, arguing for a worthy workout if not a challenging one, was a gentle reminder, but not meant to override her approach, a good one. Her phrasing suggested she's not opposed to a challenge, and will apply herself in the right context. I picture her at 65 taking up violin, perhaps. I offered this: in mastering a challenge here, at the gym, I s...