The full-time program I am taking is called “Microbial Ecology.” The Ecology bit I understand. The Microbial stuff … I know the microbes are important, and the way they function is important, and I am enjoying bits and pieces of the learning, but I am handicapped in having no way to know which pieces of information are fundamental and which are, if not optional, at least side-notes to the basics. I would like a “skeleton” of sorts to hang the flesh of it all on.

And just as I think I have grasped something, a new piece of information comes along that confuses me about what I already know. Then, just as I start to get myself back on track, something else blindsides me. I don’t get any time to rest, or recover. Just one more BIG IDEA after another.

It is as if everything is very very important and if I don’t learn it all I won’t ever understand any of it. This is an unfamiliar feeling, and an uncomfortable one.

This will be a valuable lesson when I am a teacher in a classroom all my own. In the meantime, it is frustrating and I spend part of each day in tears and the rest either trying to catch up to an unknown, elusive goal or doing the other part of my life: being a mother.

All my life, my worst fear has been a house fire. When I was very little, somewhere between four and five, a family we knew lost everything in a fire. I have a few images in my memory from my mother going through our closets and taking things we could spare. Since that time, I have always feared fire more than anything.

Soon after we moved in to our current home, I was working in my office when I smelled smoke. I thought it was the neighbor’s burn pile (remember it’s a rural area, people still often burn yard waste) and our doors and windows were open, and didn’t think much of it. Then I realized it didn’t smell right. Finally tracked it down to a child’s bedroom. He had found matches (still don’t know how, they were UP and behind things) and had started a small fire in his bedroom. Right next to his dresser, and had caught the corner of a large cardboard box on fire as well. I put out the fire (vinyl floor tiles smell really bad when they burn), called the fire department and proceded to have a complete breakdown. NOTE: the fire alarms had NOT sounded, even though they were technically working.

In the last couple weeks, five children have died in fires in the local area, in two housefires. Both fires apparently accidental. Such tragedies for these families and communities!

This is my greatest fear — less so now that my children are older, but still… Fire is so dangerous. If you have a wood stove, please get the chimney cleaned regularly — creosote builds up inside and can catch on fire, making the pipe hot enough to start fires on flammable things it touches (wood, insulation, roofing); make sure the chimney isn’t blocked by debris from above, either. Keep flammable objects away from heat sources — papers, books, clothes and other fabric items, wood piles… toys. Don’t leave cloth items on or near a cookstove, either. Keep hotpads and towels away from the burners!

Make sure you have both smoke and heat detectors (if you can, otherwise, at least make sure the smoke detectors have fresh batteries regularly) in all the recommended places. If your fire detectors/alarms are wired in to your house, know they have a limited working life and replace them on schedule. And I suggest smoke alarms for every bedroom…

Stay safe, even as you stay warm this winter.

Well, they won’t all vote, but at least about 75% of the people in my state who are eligible are at least registered. Here’s a link to the news story about it.

Applause for the people who are registered… forgive me for not holding my breath to wait for you to actually exercise your right. I have my absentee ballot in front of me, and the voter’s pamphlet, and looking at the internet for more information on a couple ballot issues and races. It takes time, and effort, and it’s not a lot of fun. But it is actually a good exercise. AND, done right, voting is the cornerstone of a robust democratic system.

Maybe I will hold my breath… maybe it’s worth holding out the hope that all of us, working together, will return the United States to a robust democracy where citizens, not corporations, control the direction of our government. Maybe it’s worth dreaming of a day that politicians remember that they also come from the electorate, and start making decisions to benefit the nation as well as local communities.

Let’s make this election really count.