In Which I Piss Off Everyone

1) I'm riding my bicycle to work. There is a wee bit of a detour where there are, I will admit, very big signs telling cyclists to dismount their bikes. Now, that's all well and good, but there were no pedestrians and I am, I have to admit, an entitled bicyclist. I did not dismount. I slowed down and crept along. (Note: Campus is empty this time of year. The whole time I was on this detour I saw NOT a single pedestrian. Not one.)

As I was two pedal strokes away from a sign telling me I could get back on my bike, a bike cop waves at me and tells me to dismount. I smile, wave, and don't dismount. He yells at me. I sass back.

Eventually I get off my bike, walk it TWO steps, turn around, flick off the cop, say "fabulous" in a snotty voice, and ride off.

Yes, I was breaking the rules. The rules were stupid. And people who use their authority to enforce dumb rules in a dumb manner are also stupid. So. That's that.

2) I don't get the Michael Jackson fuss. Frankly I can't see why his death made the media go nuts and forget about all the other things going on in the world. Ahmadinejad is the winner of this news cycle.

I feel like I can speak ill of the dead because I spoke ill of the man when he was still alive. A musician who has been largely unheard of in the last decade and a half is not someone who needs to be mourned to this extent. Moreover, a man who clearly abused children is not someone I want to spend a lot of time thinking about. All those children he molested must be watching this news coverage and wondering when their voices will ever be heard.

I do feel badly for his children. I hope they can rebound from their loss and be productive members of society. But I don't mourn the man. I really don't.

3) My sister- and brother-in-law asked BB and I to be godparents to their son, Baby O. (I find that I am extremely touched and honored by this and I could write an entire post about that, but I will spare you all my angsty I love my nephew and would do anything for him, even if that involves some church type event diatribe.) Anyway, after we enthusiastically said yes, my husband, being the charming fellow that he is, said, "Oh, and don't worry. If anything happens to you guys, we'll be sure to raise him to be a Democrat."

Hee. These people STRONGLY considered naming their children Ronald and Regan.

4) So we did spend some time in the NICU this weekend. Rather, I spent some time there, while the boy stayed out in the waiting room. He has a cold and couldn't pass the health screening. I thought this was hilarious. He FAILED the screening.

As we left, I found myself pondering the fate of some of those babies. At the end of life, often people have advanced health care directives, instructing their loved ones what measures should be taken regarding life prolongment.

Do parents get to make these same decisions for their premature newborns? As far as I could tell, my sister- and brother-in-law didn't get to make any such decision. The babies were taken from them, hooked up to oxygen, put on warming tables, and, in Baby O's case, given many a blood transfusion. No questions asked.

Maybe doctors have to take these measures? The Hippocratic oath and all?

I'm not sure I would think badly of a parent who made a decision to stop the proceedings and have a child survive (or not) on its own. While BB was in the waiting room, he heard a father on his cell phone, calling his family, telling them how his premature baby couldn't keep her own heart beating. She was a machine for that, a machine for breathing, and he just couldn't take it anymore.

I don't know the answer to these questions. I don't know what I would do if I had a child or children in that situation. But I ask them. I wonder about them. And I hope all the parents out there with babies and little kids in ICUs know that people out there hurt for them, feel for them, and think of them.