Blogging on the Powwow

Let me start this post by acknowledging that I'm lucky. I'm a person with access, opportunity, and mobility. I'm also lucky to be able to see so much of the world through my professional and personal travels. But, sometimes trips go well and sometimes they don't. I'm stuck in Newark for several hours right now, at 5:00am, so I'll take the opportunity to pen my story of woe. This work trip involved traveling to San Francisco to attend and present some of my research at a conference for academic social workers. I travel a lot for work. Strangely, I've never had a conference take me to San Francisco. The week before the trip was stressful at work and home, with our dog going to the emergency vet twice in 36 hours and needing unplanned minor surgery. The federal government is shut down and I have some concerns about traveling during this time. My theory is that air traffic control workers might not be at their best when they're trying to figure out how to ...

A capital time in the capitols in the capital cities... Unless I was describing Washington, D.C. Then it would be a capital time in the Capitol in the capital city. Lest my readers are confused, I direct them back to this explanation for the uses of capital vs. capitol vs. Capitol . Yes, I digress right up front in this blog post and I take delight in it. Years ago...literally years ago... I'm old enough to say that now... As in about two decades ago, when Neil and I were first married, we used to like to speak in e-prime , just for an intellectual exercise. This is when one excludes the use of "to be" in all written or spoken text. For example, instead of saying, "The speaker was good." One might say, "The audience liked the speaker." Once upon this was quite easy; this time it took me 10 minutes to come up with a simple example after rejecting 15 others that all used a form of "to be." But, I digress. How I digress. I've been visiti...

Tonight's blog post is written from Austin, Texas. Anyone who knows me knows that I love to run. With minor exceptions, I'm interested in running pretty much any day, any time, any place...well, any place where there's a sidewalk, because I'm a cautious runner! 😊 If you've known me for some time, then you also know that I have been plagued by running injuries - mainly in the form of stress fractures. I have blogged about this many times - such as  here  and here . In 2013, I was recovering from another stress fracture, when my physical therapist said, "You know, your old physical therapy, Leigh, who moved to Austin...she's started an online coaching business. Maybe you should give her a holler." Boy, am I ever glad that he made that suggestion. I started working with Leigh, an endurance athlete herself, though the auspices of her online training business, Athletes Treating Athletes , in summer 2013. Even in that brief lead-up to the 2013 fall ...

That's a good question. I'm in Washington, D.C. now and I keep asking myself, What am I doing here, anyway?!  I've been getting a lot of questions about why I'm in Washington, D.C. and what I'll be doing. Here's the Cliff Notes version. I have been appointed by the Society for Research on Child Development to serve as a Congressional fellow. What does a Congressional fellow do?  Another good question! Many professional societies/associations appoint Congressional fellows annually, where the goal is to bring highly skilled individuals (people with PhDs) to the policy arena and at the same time, to expose highly skilled individuals to the policy-making process. Here's what my sponsoring professional association says about Congressional fellowships. The SRCD Congressional Fellowship Program is designed to provide greater interaction between the developmental research community and Congress. Fellows spend one year with a placement that involves working for ...

I can really be a jerk, sometimes. I make assumptions and pass judgments on things that are important to a majority of people, when they are seemingly miserable and uninteresting to me. I don't do this all of the time; just some of the time. The best part of this is that I'm often wrong . Granted, this doesn't keep me from passing these judgments again in the future, but it does offer me opportunities for self reflection and surprise.  I'm attending a conference in Orlando - at a Disney resort. I haven't been to Disney since I was 13. There's a reason for that. I don't like crowds, lines, amusement or entertainment parks, manmade wonders, and I especially don't like paying three times the going rate for anything. I had these same feelings when I attended a conference in Las Vegas in 2012. As I have blogged about before, I was right ; Vegas and I are not a good match . If I never set foot in that city again, it will be too soon.  I was sure that I wou...

I met Trevor in fall of 1987, I believe, at Deering High School in Portland during a rehearsal for the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Portland Youth Wind Ensemble. These were, and still are, music ensembles for select young players in southern/central/midcoast Maine. Trevor played oboe, too, was two years ahead of me in high school and we became good friends. It helped that his high school music program in Camden and my high school music program in Topsham (SAD-75) were usually top-ranking in state competitions. So, in addition to seeing him weekly in Portland, I would occasionally see Trevor during other music events throughout the academic year and at All-State Music Festivals. Then our schools did an exchange and performed at each other’s schools. My family hosted Trevor and some of his friends during this exchange. Then I got my license and being the “willing to drive anywhere, anytime, any distance” person that I am – my friend, Kathy and I, made the occasional trip to...

I've been tossing around the idea of a blog post about Hawaii for a few days. Trouble is, I'm not entirely sure of what I want to say. It was Hawaii. It was amazingly beautiful and amazingly expensive. I was knocked off my feet a few times while we were in Hawaii. I also had a few things confirmed about my traveling preferences. New experiences: 1. We have been to the State of Hawaii before -- specifically to the islands of Oahu and Maui. On this trip we also went to Oahu for my conference presentation and then The Island of Hawaii, dubbed as "The Big Island." This was new. 2. I have seen lava fields before in Arizona, Idaho, and even on our previous trip to Hawaii. I had not, however, seen such vast and endless lava fields before, and certainly not lava fields that literally stretch out to the ocean. I had also never seen such recent lava fields before. We walked through lava flows from the 1970s. It was amazing. Neil in the lava fields at Hawaii ...

What an odd week - one that started with love, admiration, and glory in Idaho, and that ended with disdain, confusion, and despair in Las Vegas. The true purpose of my travels was to attend/present at the annual conference of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children , which was being held in Las Vegas this year. I took a brief detour and visited a childhood friend and neighbor, Heather , and her family, in Idaho. It has been my sincere pleasure to reconnect with Heather through the wonders of Facebook. It was such a delight to visit Heather and her family. I study child maltreatment and other forms of family violence, so it is very important to remind myself of all of the healthy parent-child relationships that exist in the world. There's no better place for me to start than with Heather and her family. Her children are happy, healthy, thriving, and are supported through life's challenges by their parents, larger family, and community. It's a beautiful thi...

I'm behind on my blogging. Tomorrow I leave for another trip and I'm only just now getting to last week's trip. It's true that I was in Philadelphia for a child abuse and neglect conference. It's also true that I presented on fatal maltreatment, heard some interesting discussions, and saw and spoke to one of the most influential members of the child welfare community, but who wants to hear about that, right? I stayed at Club Quarters, which was surprisingly rewarding. My room was a little small and difficult to use, but I loved the hotel. Outside of each elevator, there was a water filling station - complete with empty water bottles... for free!  I really liked this.  Water filling station. Those are not lights, but empty bottles for water. But, more than anything I loved the bottomless cup of M&Ms. I am an absolute chocolate nut, so it was a good thing that I only stayed for 2 nights, or I surely I would have gained 10 pounds while I was there. ...