life – Page 8 – The Thing With The Stuff

Privilege and transition

This article by trans person Courtney Demone called Do I have boobs now? has some great insights about “privileges lost in transition.”

I haven’t changed much, but society’s perception of me has changed immensely. I didn’t lose my ability to walk around at night feeling safe once I started identifying as a woman. It happened at some arbitrary point when men found me attractive enough at a distance to approach me. It’s my femininity, not my being transgender, that has brought about much of this privilege loss, and it’s misogyny that robs women of these privileges.

Rivers, salmon, and marshmallows

On our second day of camping at Milo McIver State Park, we visited the Clackamas River Fish Hatchery, did some light hiking, and generally had fun exploring the forest and river bank.

Amelia looks at the baby fish

Here’s the life cycle of salmon at the Clackamas Hatchery

Can you see the little salmon?

Adult salmon that have been trapped for egg collection and fertilization

These littles will be ready to release soon.

The hatchery at Milo McIver releases nearly a million fish a year into the Clackamas River, to help boost the salmon and trout populations in Oregon for sport fishing as well as general population support for imperiled salmon population. There’s a dam at Milo McIver, so I imagine the hatchery was constructed to offset the damage that dams do to the salmon population. It’s totally open to the public, and we had fun looking at the baby, “teen-aged,” and adult salmon.

Then we went down to play on the bank of the Clackamas River a bit before lunchtime. Amelia and Baxter took off their shoes and clambered on the rocks. Neither got into the river after dipping a finger in, though. 🙂 We saw some crawdad shells and spotted an eagles’ nest (but no eagle).

Amelia poses

Tom, Baxter, and Amelia

Baxter rocks

Do you see the eagle’s nest?

Too pretty to be true, right?

River calm and rapid

Wandering on the rocks

While Baxter and Tom took a nap, Amelia and I whittled a bit and then did a little biking and hiking together, which was super-fun. Then the whole family played at the river for a little while longer; we saw a sign that the Second Tallest Yew Tree in the Nation was to be found, but there was no plaque/sign anywhere so we never were sure if we found it.

We couldn’t find the yew. Is this is? Dunno.

A creek runs into the Clackamas

It clearly states there is a big yew around here somewhere.

Amelia whittles

Finally, we went back to camp for a tasty dinner of grilled chicken and baked potatoes (in the crockpot!). Oh, and we spotted a salamander on our way back from a trip to the bathroom. Then it was s’mores/marshmallows and bedtime.

Knitting by the fire

Roasting marshmallows

Salamander!

This morning, it was COLD!!! The kids were bummed that we (unwisely) burned all the firewood on the previous night. But a tasty breakfast of eggs, bacon, and fried potatoes helped us all warm up.

Cold kids and breakfast

The sun peeks through the trees

Anglers (who wish we’d take the loud kids away)

Mist and more mist

Despite the cold (and Tom’s accidentally breaking his new iPhone screen), we had a really great time! Can’t wait to come back to Milo McIver next summer.

Milo McIver camp site

This is probably the worst-planned camping trip we’ve ever taken. We forgot to bring cups, we forgot to bring garbage bags, we forgot to bring lots of things.

That said, the park is beautiful. The campsite are roomy and well-shaded. The canopy is lovely, we slept on a bed of pine needles last night (not literally), and the kids are having a great time exploring the forested area near the campsite. This is their “hideout.”

This morning we decided to drive into Estacada to get breakfast, and had a great meal at the Harvest Bakery. Donuts, bagels, fresh bread, and everything else was all delish, though slightly under-salted to my taste.

There’s a salmon hatchery here, which we’re looking forward to exploring, and I’m sure that soon the relentless cycling around the camping loop will begin. I was worried it would be too cold or rainy but it’s been really pleasant so far. It’s always risky to camp this late in the season in Oregon, but I think this time we won.

Tonight we’ll have baked potatoes (in the crockpot in the trailer! winning!) and grilled chicken and hopefully our neighbors will be quieter this evening. The only low point so far is that tom dropped his fairly-new iPhone and shattered the screen.

We biked to school today!

From the Working (-for-a-company) Mother files

From this article on Working Mothers Who Make It All Work in the Wall Street Journal, I learned that women who make 6 figures and have young kids are able to “have it all” (in which all = quality time with kids, spouse time, self-care time, work time) with a combination of live-in help, flexible hours, and breathless efficiency. I suppose it’s comforting to know that a) their kids aren’t suffering for Mommy’s career, and b) you can buy your way to a balanced life, if you have enough money.

Speaking of time, parenting, and the Wall Street Journal, this is an interesting article they published last year on Why Mom’s Time Is Different From Dad’s Time. This passage particularly resonated with me:

In 2011, the sociologists Shira Offer and Barbara Schneider found that mothers spend, on average, 10 extra hours a week multitasking than do fathers “and that these additional hours are mainly related to time spent on housework and child care.”

When fathers spend time at home, on the other hand, it reduces their odds of multitasking by over 30%. Which may explain why, a few years ago, researchers from UCLA found that a father in a room by himself was the “person-space configuration observed most frequently” in their close study of 32 families at home. It may also explain why many fathers manage to finish the Sunday paper while their wives do not—they’re not constantly getting up to refill bowls of Cheerios.

Being compelled to divide and subdivide your time doesn’t just compromise your productivity and lead to garden-variety discombobulation. It also creates a feeling of urgency—a sense that no matter how tranquil the moment, no matter how unpressured the circumstances, there’s always a pot somewhere that’s about to boil over.

Hat-tip to Velda for sharing the second article on Facebook recently. 🙂