It’s Friday! I made it through another week. I exercised three (3) times. That right there is cause to wonder if the world is ending. Because, I hate exercise. Mostly. I get bored with it. So, I am trying to do a variety of activities. Anyone want to go hiking?

Lately, there has been much angst, uncertainty and anxiety about my job, or my future with my job. The turmoil has dragged me down quite a bit over the past several months, yet, I plod on, afraid to leave because of the “future.” I am a worrier, and I somehow convinced myself that no alternatives will come along should the worst happen. I really need to get over that.

Today’s flower reminds me that one can find beauty among the thorns.

This “cute” little item was on the jokes page in the program for our local minor league. I think my husband and I laughed for about 20 minutes today at the game.  It’s just that darn funny to us.

Will someone tell me, please, that I am living in the 21st century?  Sometimes, I have to wonder.   For as much as people say gender doesn’t matter, more often than not, it really colors their viewpoints.

I have a few things on my mind, so bear with me as I try to work them out.

Back in the 1980’s, I went off to study Engineering; Computer Engineering to be exact.   People warned me that it would be difficult being a woman in a man’s field, and I was stunned.  Many people said things along the lines of “don’t be surprised or disappointed if you decide you don’t like it.”  Part of the reason I found this so strange and unexpected was that my parents had pretty much told me all that stuff was nonsense.  Be what you want to be.  Of course, even they were a bit mystified at my mathematical leanings because neither one of their talents lay in that direction.

My first splash of cold water into the reality of gender assumptions was when my Grandfather escorted me on a few campus tours.  You see, I had applied to colleges in New Orleans, Houston and Atlanta.  He loved to travel, he loved to take his grandkids on trips, and he always had business reasons to be in those particular cities.  He arranged for me to visit the campuses and speak with the recruiters.

When we arrived at Tulane, the person I was to meet with had no record of my application.   I was really upset.  She called everywhere trying to locate it.  It was February.  It was far too late for me to send in another one.  I was crushed, because I had already fallen in love with the school.  I was on the wait-list at my other choice.    After the panic subsided a bit, the school representative asked for which college I had applied.   I told her Engineering.  She looked at me; she looked at my Grandpa; and she laughed a little.  “This is Newcomb - the women’s A&S branch of Tulane.  We wouldn’t have your application here.”   She called over to the Engineering school; they did have it, and I had been accepted AND offered a scholarship.   My letter was already in the mail.

My grandfather had no idea that I could apply to a program in the “men’s” portion of the school.   It was a fairly honest mistake, especially for someone in his generation.   I didn’t think much of it.   Later I found out, that he really honestly did not believe women could do jobs that were traditionally male.  He told me once that I changed his mind.  It took him a while to get there, but he got there.

The next minor punch to the gut came at the end of my Freshman year.  I had made it through my first year of engineering - it was hairy my first semester; I did not do very well, but managed to pull out a good GPA by the end of the year.  Several women I knew were dropping out of the program.  That left about 30 to 40 of us in a class of about 200.   I was a little sad, knowing that even though we were still on the same campus, we would drift apart just due to the logistics of classes, labs and testing schedules.

I used to catch rides home with members of my Grandfather’s lawfirm.  They spentseveral years representing a major Shipyard in litigation with the U.S. Navy.  The trials were in NOLA.   One lawyer’s son was also attending A&S at Tulane.   As I was getting into the car, the father asked how my year had gone, and I told him it was hard at first but that I was doing alright now.  He turned and looked at me for a moment.  In all seriousness, he said to me, “I am really surprised. I didn’t think you could make it in Engineering.”   I so wanted to say something about his son barely passing because he was stoned all the time, but whatever.   His son flunked out the following year.

Many years later, I went to buy a car.   I had narrowed it down to two makes.   My final decision would be on price.  As I was talking to one dealership, the guy said that I should just pick their car because in the long run it would cost less.  I said, I wanted a deal now or I was leaving.  (I really hate car shopping.)   Then!  Then, he motioned me over to his desk and said, “I know you girls don’t understand numbers very well, so let me show you how to read this graph.”

The funniest thing about that moment was my brother. He was hanging out with me.  He was in a rolling chair.  He could see.   He just kicked his foot out, and rolled about 15 feet away, put his hands in his pockets, and wandered off whistling and chuckling to himself.    I stood there for a moment.  Then I asked the guy why on earth he would think I couldn’t read a graph because I was a “girl.”  Then the manager came over.  He could tell I was mad.  “So, do we have a deal, yet?”  I told him certainly not.  I did not buy automobiles from ignorant, chauvinistic PIGS.   I then turned back to the salesman and told him, ever so calmly, that I had a B.S.E in Computer Engineering and I could damn well read a graph, and moreover, I could sure as hell “understand those pesky confusing numbers.”  I believe I added Jackass to the end of my tirade as I was leaving.   My brother just followed behind chuckling.

My most recent experience was a few years ago. I had volunteered to help someone with some computer software.  I arrived at the meeting with the technical committee guy to find out what they needed, etc.   After I introduced myself, he turned to me and said, “We appreciate that you moms are willing to help, but this is Computer Software.”   “Yeah, and?” I replied.  “Well, what on earth makes YOU qualified to do this?”

“I suppose the fact that I’ve developed software for the last 15 years and now teach Computer Science at XYZ University doesn’t make the cut.”  And, then I left.  He called later to apologize.   But, see, the apology wouldn’t have been necessary if he had gotten to know me without first making an assumption due to my gender.

People who know me know that I NEVER say things like, “The man is keeping me down.” Or that I can’t thrive in my field because of male dominance or any other CRAPOLA like that.  I do my job. I do my job well. That converts most of them.   I also cannot stand Man-bashing.  As in, oh  you know, men are helpless when it comes to blah blah blah. No they aren’t. That is as sexist as saying women can’t do math.    Of course, I hope my husband isn’t rolling his eyes at me right now.  I have told him he was acting helpless before, but it wasn’t a general sweeping man-judgement!

What has gotten me on my tirade today?  I don’t know, but I think it was that story about the Softball Girl’s college team — the one where the opposing team members carried the girl around the bases so she could score her homerun after injuring herself badly.  Someone in the article said they wondered if the men’s team would do that?  Bullshit, I say.     That just perpetuates this gender crap.   Men may behave differently than women do “in some areas” but that doesn’t mean we aren’t all capable of doing the exact same job or making the exact same sacrifices as one another.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program of fluff, football, baseball and cookies.  I’m spent.

Because I turned in my grades last week, I am taking the bulk of this week off from working. Therefore, I don’t have a lot of crap on my desk.

Well. You know I am lying about that. But, when I look around, there really isn’t any more NEW crap. However, because I am going out to the ballgame today for lunch (yes, lunch!), I do not have to view the panorama of crap that is before me.

There are still some clay formations here from last week. Behold, the bunny grouping:

And, oh, the little bunny maker is going to be sooooooo mad when she figures out what I was doing for fun today while she was stuck in school. I’m having cotton candy, sunflower seeds, sunshine and beer. Well, she won’t care about the beer. But the rest of it, she’ll be sorry she missed.

… there was a beautiful princess with strong, slender limbs, a graceful stride and golden hair. Everyone knew she was brought to the peasant family by pixies because she did not favor the one who raised her.

There was no doubt the golden haired girl was different than the others. She was afraid to run and play with the other peasant children because it seemed as if she was always falling down and breaking a bone. She would never sit in the grass to have her portrait made because bugs are icky and scary.

The golden haired princess often would sit in her room trying on the lovely clothing the peasant woman procured for her. Most of the time, the girl would leave the beautiful garments strewn about her room for the woman to pick up later.

The evil peasant woman had had enough. She ordered the girl to clean up her room. The girl stamped her feet and crossed her arms. The woman told her that even though she might be a secret princess, she still lived in this house and had to do her part by not creating messes for other people to clean. The princess rolled her eyes, sighed heavily, and resigned herself to the horrible labor asked of her.

One day, the little princess was told to go outside and play. She realized that because the peasant woman was busy (not cooking or anything, just busy), it was her one good opportunity to escape and leave the horrid little cottage and perhaps find a castle full of royals to live among, as was her due.

I love my son’s baseball coach.  He gives me goosebumps.  He makes me laugh, too.  And, you can see where the boy inherited the athletic ability, because it sure did not come from me!

Shut up. It’s my blog. It’s been a beautiful sunny day.

No hits, no runs, no errors. Pitched 2 innings - 21 pitches, sat all 6 batters down with 4 Ks and two limp grounders. Look at the fierce:

He glanced up and saw me taking photographs. Then he melted my heart:

I love this game.

Way back, at the beginning of this academic school year, there was a plea for help in the kids’ newsletters.  Wanted: A parent with web experience to help the athletics club with a new website.

I tossed it because once upon a time another person I knew had tried to help them but they wanted too much.  The school did not have the space online and she didn’t have the time to manage it.   I also assumed that in our software-tech oriented town, there would be plenty of folks able to help them.

Over the next few months, the pleas continued.

“We need a parent to step up and help with the club website.”

“We still have not found a volunteer to help with the website.”

“Oh, come on now; we KNOW some of you can do websites.”

By late December, they sounded fairly desparate: “Please!  We know someone is out there.  Do it for your kids.  Do it for the school.  Do it because it counts toward your parishioner tuition-rate discount. P-L-E-A-S-E!”

Every now and then, when I would mention it, my husband would needle me: “Well, you DO teach a class called programming for the web.”  I did. But, I also did not really have time to do something intensive and time consuming.  Web sites tend to be that way.   I mean, I COULD do a set of static pages.  That is easy.  Just create them and let them be.  But, I don’t work that way.  You want board members to be able to login and add new information? Sure! You want coaches to be able to login and update game scores?  Sure!   What’s that?  Your wish list is for a forum, coaches blogs and on-line registration… Uh. Sure?

Suffice it to say that I did step up and start working on the system.  In a few weeks, at the beginning of this year, we had the basics operational — information for the parents; that sort of thing.   Now that I have a break from my teaching for a few weeks, I have begun working on an on-line registration system for the sports teams.   Sweet Mother of God.  What have I gotten myself into?

Now I have to learn some database programming.  Plus web forms. A bunch of crap I don’t know how to do!  I was a mathematician style problem solver. I have always worked on the back-ends of software projects.  I have NEVER had to figure out how to interface with users and make things purty.   I have always had to refrain from writing acerbic, condescending error messages like “How can you be so stupid?”

Lord, help me and those I volunteer to help.

At least it gets me out of Field Day duties.

It’s FRIDAY! Fuck, Yeah! I got yer floral right here. It was edited in Photoshop; I used a fresco filter.

I turned in my grades yesterday. Already, my mood is improving. I let this crop of students get me a little down. The irritating ones are irritating; the really great ones are graduating. In both cases, I feel little sad. But, when I sleep in tomorrow, I’ll get over it.

This particular flower reminds me to STAND UP and be proud of myself. All too often, I tend to be self-depricating. Just this week, a group of people gave me a gift certificate as a thank you for some volunteer website development I’ve been doing for their organization. I very much enjoy doing it, and I never expected payment of any sort. At first, I was taken aback, because I didn’t believe what I produced was all that wonderful or thrilling. But, they love it.

This coming week, I am going to quit viewing myself through dingy, drab, “I’m not good enough” filters and switch to the rose (or in this case, tulip) colored glasses.

Straight-up.

This week one of our team’s young men hit a grand slam home run. While it is demoralizing to the opposing pitcher, you cannot help but be smitten with a 12 year old’s ear-to-ear grin. Even the opposing coaches stood and applauded him.

Good sportsmanship should be encouraged from all and received in abundance. Sometimes, it seems the opposite is happening with all the scandals related to enhancement drugs and crimes committed by pro players.

If you are looking for an example of good sportsmanship, read these articles. Click on the images for the story.

Yeah. I’m a sissy girl who had tears in her eyes. Such a sucker for the emotional sports moment.