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She’s also managed to turn herself over, hurl herself out of a bouncy chair, and get her legs caught in the sides of her crib.  So pants-straps and bumpers have worked their way back into the rotation.  Lacking thorough documentation, I can’t tell if Alana is on pace with G in her physical development.   But it seems that this is where things suddenly started to evolve and G morphed from blob to personhood.  I feel like I have not invested as much time in Alana’s physicality as I did with G.  A constant worry is if we are preparing her for health and success as responsibly as we did with G, or if her physicality will be doomed by the curse of the youngest.   Every time I plan on increasing my efforts on her behalf, I get bored with her poditudality or distracted by G.

Beckie must have been reading my mind, since she set up the bouncer the same day I started writing this.  We have a vid of G from July 10, and she is well ahead of Alana.  But a lot can happen in 2 weeks.

Angry and scared with some new-found knowledge of AZ’s “Zero Tolerance Per Se” and “Impaired to the Slightest Degree” laws, I wrote this letter to Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Hello Dr. Nadelmann and Team,

I am sure you do not remember me, but I was an undergrad student of yours at Princeton in 1992.  Your class was one of the best I attended, and I have followed the DPA closely for almost 5 years.

I recently learned about a law in Arizona (where I’ve lived for almost 15 years) that merits re-evaluation.  If a person is found with any metabolite of marijuana in their system while driving, they can be convicted of DUI.  The drug could have been active weeks before.  The law is documented below in Arizona Revised Statute 28-1381:

http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/28/01381.htm

My nightmare scenario is this: I get rear-ended with my kids in the car.  The officer runs my record, sees I have a ticket for running a red-light (AZ also leads the nation in photo-enforcement cameras), profiles me as a problem driver and orders a blood test due to the accident.  It comes up positive due to pot smoked weeks prior, and now I face felony DUI for being under the influence with minors in the car.

I am opposed to driving under the influence.  But this law is practically carte blanche to turn usage into DUI.  AZ has the toughest DUI laws in the country and a very red\Mormon\family-values population that makes a jury trial a very scary proposition.

I have written my representatives about this law.  But the political climate in AZ is not friendly towards any easing of DUI or marijuana laws.  Unfortunately, most of us only find out about these laws after attending Traffic School due to photo enforcement, and by then we are labeled as criminals in denial.

I hope this unfair and punitive law gets the attention of your organization, and would appreciate any suggestions for raising awareness and opposition to it.

Keep up the good work!

I also wrote to State Senator Chuck Gray and Representatives Kirk Adams and Rich Crandall.

I’ve lived in District 19 for 9 years, and recently attended Traffic Survival School due to a photo-enforcement ticket for running a red light. I learned some great lessons about becoming a better driver and the tremendous harms DUI causes on our roads. I am now more firmly than ever opposed to DUI. But I disagree with ARS 28-1381, sections A-1 and A-3. These clauses make it a criminal DUI if one is impaired to the slightest degree, or one has any metabolite of a restricted substance in one’s system. Again, I am completely opposed to DUI, but these laws are too restrictive to personal freedom and turn sensible law-abiding people into criminals. The notion that a .01 BAC due to one beer during an hour-long dinner, or a vicodin weeks earlier from a dentist appointment could result in a DUI is very unsettling. Responsible consumption and responsible use of prescription drugs is legal and should not put a law-abiding person at risk for the tremendous penalties of DUI comparable to someone with a BAC of .14.

Please continue to support laws that vigorously deter and penalize DUI, but remain sensible about turning ordinary responsible people into criminals.

Fuck lotta good these letters will probably do when all 3 legislators are Mormon, very very overtly Mormon, and months later I have never gotten even a stock reply from any of them. When you read member profiles, how they often run unopposed since even the Dems think they own these seats,  see their campaign billboards showing off their large white families, read their voting records regarding issues that are very local to you, and look at how some of these laws overly penalize non-issues…its impossible not to think that they are using political offices to promote a morality. Makes me seriously think about moving to Colorado, or at least Scottsdale.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a response from Dr. Nadelmann, in which he described work DPA did opposing a similar law in Ohio.  He forwarded my information to members of the organization in Ohio and New Mexico, as well as representatives for NORML.  Unfortunately, a Senior Policy Analyst from NORML also replied, saying that AZ’s law was among the first and toughest in the nation, and there is little to believe there is a receptive legislative climate for change, citing our state’s regulartory history.  Yeah, I figured that out too.

Its a catch-22.  The Mormons strongly influence AZ (latest I’ve read say they are 3% of the populace and 13% of the legislators), and because of that, no national organizations feel its a good battle ground compared to California or Colorado or Minnesota.  Those of us in AZ are used to the climate, which is probably our first mistake.   I will not vote for a Mormon legislator again, period.  I haven’t in years based legitimately on different politics, but this is now my single-issue. Its hard to say that without sounding racist; I’m uncomfortable re-reading it. I hope no one is offended, but instead challenged to think about what it means to have just laws in a free society, where laws end and morality begins, and why one group has managed to be so over-represented in government? I respect anyone’s beliefs,  and I have many excellent Mormon friends and neighbors and co-workers and riding buds and guys I played Ultimate with – smart, friendly, educated and tolerant. Just like most of *my* friends.  And that pretty much explains it: there are good people and assholes in every group.  Some groups have more assholes, especially when they are empowered, and the facts speak for themselves about members of the LDS as governors.  For an historically oppressed group, the LDS likes to dictate morality when in power, and this is all about morality and not at all about impairment.   Meanwhile the best strategy is to absolutely not drive with any alcohol to allow probable cause, drive gently (something I have been training myself to do in AZ’s photo-radar wacky system), and if given a blood test give them no reason to look for pot.  And then hire a really convincing lawyer.

If you feel similarly, email your reps or donate to the  DPA, or raise awareness about these issues. Most people do not know about this law, and most people would not agree if they did.  Its not about drug use or drinking responsibly, its about government terror tactics.  This is not the act of a free country.

What an amazing weekend for G!  She rode, sorta, her bike without training wheels for the first time.  And swam, sorta, on her own.  Neither endeavor was very far, or very elegant, or free of scares.  But all the right motions are coming together, and she can taste the positive effects, which inspire her onward.  I remember my first time turning on a snowboard, getting a heel and a toe turn, and saying to myself if I can just get the third turn I’ll be snowboarding.  I felt the same thing my first steep-and-deep in the crater at Snowbowl…if I can make that 3rd turn, I’ve got it.

The pool has been building building for several weeks now.  She’s been scooping ice cream and picking apples, she’s been blowing bubbles, and putting it all together while I’ve been holding her horizontal.  We started going underwater together for 3 seconds at a time.  It was working, sorta, but the ultimate benefits were not really clear to her, while the fear and discomfort abundantly were.  The breakthrough came when Beckie got in the pool with us and we 3 all went under together, combined with jumping off my shoulders and have one waterwing fall off on landing.  She found a comfort zone just beyond her comfort zone, and next time I urged\pushed her across the pool to mommy, she mostly propelled herself and kept above water on her own.  We did this 3 times.  Not enough for muscle memory, barely enough to go 10 feet, but enough to realize that 3rd turn.

Losing the training wheels was much the same pattern.  Riding on the bumpy grass in the park with knee pads and helmet and an old pair of gloves I cut down hardly seemed the stately pleasure dome of training-wheel-free riding I promised.  She could go 5, maybe 10 seconds at a time.  Every time she would get off her center just a little, the training wheels were not there to catch her, and the result was either a sharp course correction or a fall.  Even with me catching her and putting her down gently, there are only so many falls a littleGirl can make in an evening.  The inevitable owies that come from overconfidence and blasting downhill to the park did nothing to contribute to a healthy hell-bent mindset either.  She is close, but as I challenged Beckie, in need of an alternative voice for her next step.  Just my luck, Beckie will probably be the one to get all the credit.

Next up, snowboarding!

a very happy girl celebrates with all her friends

One year after the adoption, I had a nice talk with Andrea.   Jo Jo (nee Jo) is doing well.  She is saying goodbye, goodnight, and apple.  Who knew that after 26 years she would improve her vocabulary?   Clear evidence she is in a better environment.  She eats well,  lots of fruit, and gets along well with the 6 other birds in Andrea’s flock.

I feel a little bit like a liar, a dysfunctional parent,  Ike Turner, acting like I care about Jo now.  I miss her a little, sometimes I recall the way she smelled, the heat of her feathers, the grip of her talons so much like Alana’s tinyHand.   Sometimes G misses her too, asks where she is and when we can see her again.  Time has dulled the bad memories of Jo for her, like it has for me.  I’ve forgotten the filth, the screaming, the tension she caused.  However bad it was, it would be far far worse now with Alana.  The stress would be unbearable, surely complicated by the fact that we have Alana’s crib and G’s bed in our bedroom.  Jo would have been relegated to the spare bedroom, which she would have filthified and destroyed while screaming and sulking non-stop, further fueling the downward spiral between us.

Life is better for us all now, and acceptance is easier, but its something with which I am still struggling.  Life is full of so much loss it is numbing, but how often do you lose someone with whom you shared 26 years? It makes no sense to still be sad when every measurable criteria shows we are all better off.  Guilt and regret are powerful forces, maybe more powerful than relief and joy.   But I am filled with those too, and in looking over some pictures of Jo I felt for the first time in months a lot of love and happiness more strongly than the sense of failure.  I want the last post I will likely make about Jo to be positive, but I can not without caveat say that this is.  The best I can say is that I saw this picture tonight and it made me smile.

Other posts about Jo:

• June 9, 2008: The Parrot Who Pwnd Me
• July 2, 2008: Screening
• July 2, 2008: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
• July3, 2008: Saying Goodbye to Jo
• July 18, 2008:  Missing Jo
• October 23, 2008:  Gone Baby Gone