10-20-30

Over at Actual Unretouched Photo, they're playing a game: where were you ten, twenty, and thirty years ago? This originated over at Relevantblog. Wanna play? Leave me a comment!

October, 1997. I'm living in Grapevine and am the medical director of a large corporate animal hospital. Son is in first grade in public school, daughter is 15 months old and in day care. I am working full-time, trying to learn practice management, having to fly to meetings and such. Quite the corporate suit. Not really my bag; I'll leave that job a little over a year from now, when we start thinking about this thing called homeschooling. I've been married nine years, have a dog named Juba and a cat named Dempsey.

October, 1987. I'm living in an apartment in N. Dallas, an associate at an animal clinic. My first job! I've been out of school for 18 months and it's been quite the shakedown cruise. I'm beginning to think I'll go ahead with this career instead of tossing it out the window, which has occurred to me more than once. I've been dating a guy for over a year, but it's not going anywhere. We've been invited to a Halloween party at another church and I'm thinking of going with him, but with an eye out for any new guys. I'm ready to meet some new people! (And Iwill, at that party.) I have a dog named Juba, and a cat named Dempsey. (Yes, they were around awhile.)

October, 1977: I've just started my junior year of high school. I'm dating the drum major in the high school band, who has his own 50s band. I'm going to a concert of his soon; way cool! I just got my driver's license, finally, because it took awhile to get my birth certificate. My favorite movie of last summer, maybe of all time, is Star Wars. I'm thinking of majoring in biology and going to vet school. My family has two dogs, Sparky and Woofer.

And I'll go them one better:

October, 1967: I'm a first grader! This is the first time I get to go to school all five days of the week. My teacher is Mrs. Reid and she says I'm a good reader. She's going to give me two books to keep (and I will keep them... they're on my shelf today.) We had a dog named Scooter, but my parents gave him away because he had ringworm. Then we had Bootsie, but he tried to bite us and my parents took him to the pound. Someday I'll be a teacher and have a dog of my own.

Fourish

So what do you do when you wake up at four a.m.? The disciplined among us (we hate them, do we not?) might put in thirty minutes of yoga, with perhaps prayer or meditation, maybe read the Bible or another inspirational book that's just lying around. Then a wholesome breakfast and catch up on the news while the sun rises.

Ha.

I wake up at 4 and get up at 4:20 when it is obvious that Hypnos has fled for the time being. (Oh, he'll return, right after lunch, as usual.) I call the emergency clinic to see if Max, the reason I woke up, has gone in. No, he hasn't, so that's good news. I don't like the ones that get sick at the end of the day; I can't spend enough time with them and I sort of like to hover when they're like that.

Check email.

Cruise the news sites. On the heels of a debate over Tylenol in children on my homeschooling list I see that cold medicines for infants are being pulled off the market. Glad I don't have little kids anymore; it's too confusing out there. Head over to Slate magazine: looks like Rudy is doing well, according to some. I skip through a political blog there, catch a Doonesbury comic.

Move on to Salon. Oliver Sacks has a new book out. Browse some of the articles in the Life section. Reading about cereal makes me think that breakfast can't be too far away, so I heat up some tea and Poptarts. Time out to worry about everything causing cancer, wonder who'll be selected today for the Nobel Peace Prize, and a bit of relief that I'm not the only mom who never could think of anything clever for Barbie to say.

Read the comics, finish my tea, play one hand of Spider Solitaire, start the day.