Gideon Hayley Review

Top 10 tips for your e-commerce website - CreativematchTop 10 tips for your e-commerce websiteCreativematch, UK - May 30, 20071. Have a bank account specific to the e-commerce site and merchant account e commerce be certain you have the correct merchant account information from your bank. The bank account is …Source: news.google.comWorry-Free Online Transactions - CBS NewsWorry-Free Online TransactionsCBS News, NY - Jun 16, 2007Also, when receiving payments, the merchant will also need to set up an account on the same e-payment service. Which is best in terms of cost and merchant account e commerce fees? …Source: news.google.comPayPal Teams with mPoria - Red HerringPayPal Teams with mPoriaRed Herring, CA - Jun 18, 2007PayPal has more than 100 million accounts worldwide and merchant account e commerce is looking to continue to adapt its services for e-commerce merchants moving into the wireless space …Source: news.google.com

I recently went with my mom and sister to a week-long chamber music camp at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. What kind of people go to adult classical music summer camp? Out of about 45 people, 10% were normal musicians (a bit of an oxymoron), 40% gnomes and trolls, 20% men who were about to keel over and die, and 30% women who had never lived.

As we drove up to the University of the Pacific and I saw the tower of Saruman the White, I thought that my mom had tricked me into attending Lord of the Rings camp (best trick ever!)

My suspicions were further substantiated when I ate my first meal with all of the gnomes and trolls, but I was disappointed when I showed up to breakfast on Tuesday wearing my elf ears, only to find that everyone else had brought their instruments.

There was little time to focus on the other campers, considering the drama I had brought with me. My cello, Leighton, and I have been having problems ever since I cracked his base a few months ago. I’ve tried apologizing, but he doesn’t want to hear it. I thought that camp could be a fresh start for us; a chance to get away and rekindle our sweet music. Things went well the first day.

By day two it was back to the same old squeaking and complaining.

On day three, Leighton went water skiing without me, which was not only rude but also a complete lie.

It took a week, but we worked everything out.

I promised to keep an eye on the crack and get it fixed if it spreads and/or begins affecting the tone. Leighton promised to cut the attitude and starting working with me instead of against me. Classical music camp? More like relationship camp.

My father’s always been a classic car nut. Back when he was going to Michigan State, he actually put himself through school by buying old cars that were having problems, fixing them, and then reselling them. Of course, this was long ago, back when you could actually take a car apart with common tools and fix things, something which my father constantly complains about any time one of our minivans breaks down. Still, to this day whenever we pass a classic car out on the road, my father is able to identify the make, model, and year with such accuracy that it’s kind of astonishing. Not that I don’t have my own hobbies and obsessions and stuff where I can identify similar things that most people wouldn’t even think to notice, but somehow my father’s ability to identify classic cars never fails to amaze me.Being that we’ve never been a tremendously rich family, we’ve never really owned that many classic cars, and those that we’ve had we’ve usually sold later for other purposes. The only one we really held onto for any length of time was a 1947 V-8 Ford, which we’d had for as long as I can remember, probably before I was even born. It was coloured this weird ruddy peach — nearly flesh-tone, actually — and it had more than its fair share of problems (mainly no way to defog the inside without rolling the windows down, a huge pain in the winter), but back when I was a kid my father took me out on drives in it all the time, and even though I’ve never particularly been that interested in cars, it was still nice to go out driving in it.After my father started his own business, though, the Ford just sat in the garage collecting dust. It wasn’t that my father didn’t have time to go out driving in it, but he just seemed to lose interest. I also think he was kind of disappointed that neither of his kids wound up taking an interest in classic cars. After the house fire we actually had to keep the Ford in a garage ten minutes away, and even though no one said anything about it, we all kept wondering what father was going to do with the Ford. Well, this past week my father finally sold the Ford, and in what I hope is not an ominous foreshadowing, he sold it to the owner of the big local funeral home here in Toledo.Even though I probably haven’t even been inside the Ford in over fifteen years now, and I never even laid eyes on it after the fire, I still feel a strange sense of loss now that the Ford’s gone. I guess that if nothing else, it’s forcing me to think about me and my packrat mentality, and all of the strange things I hold on to. Some of them I can justify as investments — particularly my old video games — but I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to all of this stuff when I die. Even if I take a partner some day, I really don’t want kids, so I have to wonder what would happen to all of my stuff. Maybe it’s time for me to get serious about writing up a will here.

Easy question! The best diabetes diet is the diet that keeps your blood sugars within the normal range after every meal.

What foods you eat to achieve this goal will vary greatly since your own personal blood sugar response to food varies depending on a lot of factors. For almost all Type 2s it is the carbohydrate in their foods–both sugar and starches–that raises blood sugar. What varies is how high and how fast those blood sugars rise in response to carbohydrate in the meal.
Factors Affecting Your Tolerance for Carbohydrate
Your Weight. Many people don’t realize this, but the amount that a gram of carbohydrate will raise your blood sugar depends on your size. If you are 300 lbs, you’ll get 1/2 of the rise in blood sugar from that gram of carbohydrate as would a person who weighs 150 lbs. This is one reason why the “one size fits all” recommendations for how much carbohydrate you should eat are deeply flawed.

What Physiological Problem Causes Your Diabetes. There are many different physiological problems that cause Type 2 diabetes and different causes can give you a very different response to the carbohydrates in your meals.

That is why you have to test the different foods you eat to find out whether they fit on your own, personal, diabetes diet. What works for one person may fail miserably for others.

Most notoriously, the supposed “low glycemic” foods and “healthy whole grains” recommended so heartily by people who don’t have diabetes can raise your blood sugar very dramatically if you don’t have a strong phase 2 insulin response.

If this term isn’t one you are familiar with, you can learn about the phases of insulin response HERE.

If you do still have a strong second phase insulin response, which some Type 2s do, you will be able to eat these slower carbs. If not, they’ll cause blood sugar spikes every bit as damaging as those from supposedly “faster” carbs.

Your Meds. People have very different responses to every diabetes medication, again because the underlying cause for their abnormal blood sugars can vary so widely.

For me, without any meds, eating 60 grams of carbohydrate would reliably put my blood sugar at 250 mg/dl or more at one hour after eating. With Metformin alone, that would drop to maybe 200 mg/dl, with metformin and 3 units of insulin, it would drop to about 140, maybe less, but I’ll end up in the 80s at 2 to 3 hours later making it a bad idea for me to use any more insulin–or eat any more carbohydrate. With Januvia my blood sugar would rise to 129 mg/dl and then start dropping, though because of my concerns about the side effects, discussed elsewhere I avoid Januvia for now.

Thus you can see that my “diabetes diet” is going to be different depending on what meds I’m taking. Yours will be, too.

It is because people vary so much in what their own bodies can tolerate that you see the vicious online “diet wars” where people who can eat a lot of carbohydrate accuse those who can’t of being fanatics, and those who can’t accuse those who can of living in a dream world. Throw in dietitians and doctors who have never tested their own blood sugar in response to food intake and know only what they’ve read about nutrition in studies, often conducted among people who do not have diabetes and you can see why diet becomes an area fraught with myth and controversy.

That’s why the only way you can find out what your own diabetes diet should be is by using your meter and testing the foods you eat–starting out with the understanding, that there is going to be a limit on how much starch or sugar every person with Type 2 diabetes can handle. If you could eat all the sugar and starch you wanted and get normal blood sugar readings, you wouldn’t be diabetic, would you?
Straight Talk about Safe Blood Sugar Targets
There’s a huge difference between truly safe, normal, blood sugar levels and the blood sugar levels too many doctors and diabetes educators tell you are “okay for a diabetic.” This is because the ADA has, for years, told people with diabetes that they should settle for dangerously high blood sugars so as to avoid hypos.

Since Type 2s controlling their diabetes with diet alone are incapable of experiencing dangerous hypos, this is flawed advice. Type 2s taking all oral drugs except for Sulonylureas like Amaryl and Glipizide are also incapable of experiencing dangerous hypos.

When you are not taking insulin or a sulfonylurea drug, feeling a bit shaky as your blood sugar gets to a normal level–anything 70 mg/dl (3.8 mg/dl) or higher–is not an actual, damaging hypo, just a sign that your body isn’t used to normal blood sugars. That kind of “hypo” feeling will go away as your get used to normal blood sugars.

This means that there is NO reason for you to avoid shooting for truly normal numbers if you are a type 2 not sulfonylurea drugs. If you are on these drugs, you may have to talk to your doctor about reducing the dose as you bring your carb intake down to the level that gives you normal blood sugars.

Even Type 2s using insulin can shoot for these normal numbers, too, if they are taught how to adjust their doses correctly. A study presented at this past week’s ADA conference found that patients instructed properly can adjust insulin levels better than their doctors. Read about it HERE.

I shoot for normal numbers with mealtime insulin and and I know plenty of others who do, too. Type 2s on insulin usually do not have the same problems with dramatic swings in blood sugar that Type 1s have, but many doctors do not realize this. (We’ll discuss how to make sure your doctor is teaching you the most modern techniques of insulin dosing for type 2s in a future posting.)
What Blood Sugar Levels Should You Aim For?
I’d suggest aiming for blood sugar levels low enough not to damage your organs!

You can learn what science has found out about normal blood sugars HERE. You can read some of the better research that connects blood sugar levels with organ damage HERE

I’d suggest you start out by shooting for the following blood sugars after meals:
One hour after eating: Under 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L)
Two hours after eating: Under 120 mg/dl (6.7 mmol/L)

Lower is better, but these are a great level to start with.

Don’t obsess about whether you should count from when you start eating or afterwards. There’s a natural variation in when the peak will occur but fifteen minutes in either direction won’t make a significant difference in your health.

With some foods, like pasta or pizza that take a very long time to digest (or if your stomach for some reason doesn’t empty at a normal rate) you might want to look at your blood sugars a few hours after these suggested times as the blood sugar peaks may be postponed.

There are going to be plenty of times when you don’t hit these targets. Don’t panic, just by attempting to hit them, you are making huge improvements in your health. And if you can hit them more than you miss you’ll see a dramatic improvement in not only your A1c but in any early diabetic complications you might have picked up, most notably neuropathy.

NOTE: I’ve written a longer piece explaining some of the tips and tricks that can help you make a diabetes diet work over the longterm on this page:A Diabetes Diet is Different from a Weight Loss Diet

Getting the public’s attention on issues like global warming and the environment is not easy. In fact, agenda building can be an outright dangerous business. That’s what Greenpeace activists learned when they tried to outrun German police boats during the G8 summit Germany in order to deliver a petition to the leaders of the world’s richest nations, urging action on global warming.

Given the apparent lack of public attention to the negotiations in Heiligendamm, Greenpeace decided to go back to its roots and create some free media coverage by entering the restricted space around the summit with speedboats carrying “G8: Act Now!” banners. And the strategy worked.

In recent years, of course, Greenpeace had relied more and more on their extensive media contacts and fundraising machine rather than the often illegal and highly newsworthy run-ins with corporations and police that had established Greenpeae as one of the leading environmental organizations in the 1970s and 1980s.

But Greenpeace apparently decided that it would take more drastic measures again to get public attention away from TB travelers, incarcerated hotel heiresses, and the war in Iraq.

German police unfortunately refused to play along and arrested the protesters and confiscated their boats. But in the process they also produced spectacular and highly newsworthy crashes with two of the Greenpeace boats that ended up catapulting this issue into most of the evening news shows in Europe.

Here is Greenpeace’s own description of what happened:
The Greenpeace speedboat action finished at 12pm this afternoon 24 Greenpeace activists came in 11 boats to the waters around the G8 summit, with the message “G8: Act Now!”. In total 11 boats were involved, 5 inflatables, 2 inflatable catamarans and 2 six- metre long inflatables. 6 people were injured when they were knocked into the water by the police boat, they have bruises all over their bodies. One activist is being kept in hospital for further observation. …The activists tried to deliver a petition calling for clear commitments on climate change, which governments have so far failed to agree at this Summit.
____

All rights reserved
http://www.nanopublic.com

And so ends the week-long experiment where Jane got to be the car user, and I joined the massed ranks of the pedestrians.

(An as aside: isn’t pedestrian a strange word? It means simultaneously “a walking person” and “a bit slow and boring”. Which is a bit of an insult to pedestrians, if you ask me.

I have a great joke that makes use of this dual meaning. I’m waiting for someone to ask me “how do you like the new zebra crossing?”

So I can reply “quite frankly, I found it rather pedestrian.”

…

I have a feeling I might have to wait a long while.)

Anyhoo… back to my fascinating musings on being sans-automobile. I should start by saying that I’m not a car fanatic. I basically see motor vehicles as a means from getting from A to B without having to look at, listen to, or smell, C.

I can’t get excited about cars because I don’t have enough money to buy a car that’s exciting, and if I did have that much money I’d find a lot more exciting things to spend it on.

But it’s been an eye-opener this week just how much my quality of life relies on my four-wheeled friend. Take shopping, for example. I live in a nice-ish new housing estate on the edge of a much larger estate of mostly council houses. The old estate, built mainly for London Overspill (quite how they managed to get spilt this far isn’t really clear), was planned with an central convenience store, because it’s quite a way from the town centre. When they bolted on my housing development, even further out of town, the planners obviously thought we’d get in our cars and drive to proper supermarkets, supposedly because we’re wage earners and can afford cars, unlike those workshy council house types.

That means that the only shop within walking distance of me is the estate convenience store. That would be fair enough if it was anything like convenient. I went there on Wednesday, to do the kind of mid-week shop I’d normally hop in the car and do at the local Tescos that Steg practically lives in (go on, deny it!) ;-).

I’m trying not to sound snobbish about this, so I’ll avoid mentioning the 3 separate gangs of hoodies in the shop, or the man filling his basket to the brim with cans of lager. They’ve got just as much right to go shopping as I have.

What I do have a problem with is a shop marketing itself as a “grocery store” and not stocking the most basic forms of grocery.

I found myself in what appeared to be the “cook-in sauces” aisle. A fine selection of ready made cooking sauces greeted my eye. Great, I thought, I’ll have something in sauce!

I then spent a fruitless (and more importantly veg-less and meat-less) ten minutes trying to find the something. There was no fresh meat, no fresh fish, and the fresh vegetables consisted of a few sad potatoes. There was some frozen meat and fish, but it was the kind of stuff that comes in bags and has already been processed in some way. I have a fairly broad palate, but I draw the line at Chicken Nugget Tikka Masala.

So basically, the cook-in sauces were there to fill shelf space with things that don’t go off too quick. Everyone has the odd jar of Dolmio or something tucked away in their kitchen cupboards for emergencies; if the shop owners were truly trying to run a convenience store they’d have stocked the stuff to go with it. But no. Shit shop.

Anyway, all this has gone to show me just how much I realise I need a car in this neck of the sticks, unless I fancy catching a bus to do even a basic shop, and practically cutting myself off from my friends and relatives. Which I don’t, so sue me.

Bloomberg previously shed a bit of light on the “uber-informed” goings on with credit default swaps in the context of buy-outs and take-overs. See here. Now they turn their lights on similar goings on in the equity side of these things.

Insider-Trading Ring Bust May Fuel Hedge-Fund Concern (Update3) By David Scheer
Prosecutors in New York and Washington yesterday brought criminal charges against 13 people, claiming that an executive at UBS and a former compliance lawyer at Morgan Stanley tipped off hedge-fund traders and brokers to new analyst ratings and secret takeover talks. Bear Stearns was home to at least four professionals who traded on information leaked from inside the two firms, according to a complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hedge funds are private pools of capital that allow managers to participate substantially in gains on the money invested. That pay structure creates an incentive for employees to trade in non- public information.

The temptation to cheat extends to the securities firms, which collect $10 billion a year in fees for providing prime- brokerage services to hedge funds.

At least two studies show that stocks and derivatives regularly rise ahead of takeovers, and in the past week trading of options to buy shares of TXU Corp. and Hyperion Solutions Corp. surged in advance of announcements that they agreed to be acquired.

A study by Measuredmarkets Inc. in August showed that insiders may have traded illegally in advance of 41 percent of the largest U.S. acquisitions the previous year. Two months later, Credit Derivatives Research LLC found that credit-default swaps based on the bonds of 30 takeover targets, including four of the five biggest leveraged buyouts by that point in 2006, rose before deals were announced.

Earlier this year, the SEC asked at least 10 Wall Street firms to turn over stock-trading records for the last two weeks of September, seeking to determine whether they leaked details about big stock trades to favored clients.

The government said yesterday that it broke one of the biggest insider-trading cases since the 1980s. According to the SEC, which brought a civil suit against 14 defendants, the scheme stretched over five years, included hundreds of tips and produced more than $15 million in illegal profits.
“Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox are siding with Wall Street and Corporate America insiders in an aggressive push to kill section 404 disclosure provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).”

This was a bit of a controversial season finale here at CW Source Central. Some of us thought it was awesome, perfect, exactly what the doctor ordered. Others were disappointed — there was none of the jaw-dropping surprise that hit us last year, no semi-creaming-the-Metallicar moment. They wanted something more. What did you think?

One thing we all agreed on – good Lord, everyone involved in the show can act rings around most other people on TV. Dean’s monologue to Sam’s chalk-white corpse? Oof. That still stings. Bobby taking Dean outside and tearing him a new one for making a deal? Absolutely perfect. Sam’s steely resolve as he shot Jake, the look on his face as he pulled the trigger again and again? Chilling. And that last scene, the boys by the Metallicar, contemplating the demon mop-up they have to look forward to? We cheered. The Winchesters will be hitting the road, and taking down demons again. What’s not to love?

And oh, we were so glad to see the Yellow-Eyed Demon chomp his way through all the scenery he had access to. He’s such a snarky little schmuck, and so gleeful when he’s warping minds and corrupting souls. We were almost – almost – sorry to see him go. Will you miss him? But that moment when John clawed his way out of hell and grabbed the demon, giving Dean the opportunity to grab the Colt and take a shot? We cheered. Oh, boys… we’re so glad that particular chapter is over for you.

Plus, Ellen’s alive – hooray! She’s always been our favorite of the roadhouse crew, and we would have been seriously bummed if she’d perished in the flames. How fabulous was her turn at the bar with Bobby? Yes, we loved that Bobby made her slam a shot of holy water before he’d trust her, but we loved her request for whiskey even more. You just can’t keep a tough broad like Ellen down. Which is why we were seriously freaked when Jake made her turn the gun on herself – we’ve seen far too many of the characters we love die in the last couple of episodes.

And then there’s John. Ah, John, it was good to see you again – but what, did you have laryngitis? Could they not pay you enough to actually speak a few lines? Or did demons take out your tongue while you were roasting in hell? Most of us are happy you seemed to go to a better place after you were done helping the boys – although the die-hard John antagonists are still harrumphing a bit that he got off easy. Ah, well, you can’t please everyone.
Speaking of which — here’s where we start arguing: What do you think of Dean making a deal with the Crossroads Demon to bring Sam back? We all agree it was in character for Dean — he’d do absolutely anything for his brother, including things he’d condemned other people for doing. But some of us are disappointed that the writers let him go through with it. There was a moment, when the Crossroads Demon was walking away, that we thought she wasn’t actually gong to let Dean go through with it — that he’d try what he always did, sacrificing himself, giving up everything, and that now, finally, it wouldn’t work. Then he’d have to realize (1) maybe self-sacrifice wasn’t all he was good for, and (2) there are other ways to save people than to give up himself. Some of us think the writers missed an opportunity, that they took a predictable route. Others think that assessment was too harsh – what else could Dean do? Sam’s corpse was probably starting to get a little stinky, and Dean needed to do something right now. He did what it took, and he had to, because his family was his whole world. With Sam gone, he had nothing left.

But whichever side we came down on, we all have to admit we’re thrilled with the direction the show seems to be going in for season three. The boys will be hitting the road again, trying to round up the hundreds of demons who escaped from hell. Plus, Sam will be trying to figure out how to save Dean form his deal – and we’re not sure Dean is going to want to be saved. That should lead to some rather delicious tension between the boys.

So what did you think? Were you cheering every time Bobby opened his mouth – or even shot Dean a withering stare? Did you applaud the return of Ellen? Will you sort of miss the Yellow-Eyed Demon? Do you think Sam came back different, wrong… evil? Was his relish at killing Jake a sign of his descent into wrongness, or understandable, considering Jake killed him first? And what are you going to do all summer without new Supernatural episodes to look forward to every Thursday?

Actually, we can help a bit with that last one – we’ll be keeping up our Supernatural features until new episodes return. We’ll have fan art recommendations, quizzes, games, behind-the-scenes stories and all sorts of other goodness to get your through. Remember, share your fan art recommendations and anything else with us at cwsource@gmail.com, and keep coming back over the summer for more Supernatural joy!

Coquetry is the essential characteristic, and the prevalent humor of women; but they do not all practice it, because the coquetry of some is restrained by fear or by reason. ~François Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims

The coquets of both sexes are self-lovers, and that is a love no other whatever can dispossess. ~John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera.

The greatest miracle of love is the cure of coquetry. ~François Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims
Coquetry whets the appetite; flirtation depraves it. Coquetry is the thorn that guards the rose - easily trimmed off when once plucked. Flirtation is like the slime on water-plants, making them hard to handle, and when caught, only to be cherished in slimy waters. ~Ik Marvel
Coquette
1. a woman who flirts lightheartedly with men to win their admiration and affection; flirt. 2. a woman who makes teasing sexual or romantic overtures.
Main Entry:
flirtatious
Part of Speech:
adjective
Definition:
teasing
Synonyms:
amorous, arch, come-hither*, come-on*, coquettish, coy, dallying, enticing, flirty, libidinous, nymphomaniac, philandering, spoony*, sportive, wolfish
Main Entry:
kittenish
Part of Speech:
adjective
Definition:
frisky
Synonyms:
childish, coquettish, coy, elvish, flirtatious, frolicsome, fun-loving, impish, jaunty, mischievous, playful, roguish, sportive
Antonyms:
serious
Main Entry:
playful
Part of Speech:
adjective
Definition:
fun-loving
Synonyms:
antic, blithe, cheerful, coltish*, comical, elvish*, flirtatious, frisky, frolicsome, funny, gamesome, gay, go-go, good-natured, happy, hilarious, humorous, impish, jaunty, jesting, jocund, joking, joyous, kittenish, lighthearted, lively, merry, mirthful, mischievous, peppy, pixie, prankish, puckish, roguish, rollicking, snappy, spirited, sportive, sprightly, teasing, tongue-in-cheek*, vivacious, waggish, whimsical, zippy*
Main Entry:
seductive
Part of Speech:
adjective
Definition:
sexy
Synonyms:
alluring, attracting, attractive, beguiling, bewitching, captivating, charming, come-hither*, desirable, drawing, enchanting, enticing, fascinating, flirtatious, inviting, irresistible, magnetic, provocative, ravishing, siren, specious, tempting
Main Entry:
sexy
Part of Speech:
adjective
Definition:
attractive
Synonyms:
adult, arousing, bedroom, blue, come-hither*, cuddly, erotic, flirtatious, hot stuff, inviting, kissable, libidinous, mature, naughty, provocative, provoking, purple, racy, risqué, salty, seductive, sensual, sensuous, shady, slinky*, spicy*, steamy*, suggestive, titillating, voluptuous
*I often use a thesaurus while I am writing, so I can find fun and sexy words that will spice up my story.

“Is this normal?” - this is the question put to me every 5 seconds by the new parents whether it was the baby’s lower lip quivering while it cried, or as his face turned beet red when it cried, or whether it was the black poo on his diaper. Among other questions I had to field from them are…

“Why is he crying?”
“Why isn’t he crying?”

And my years and years of parenting experience comes in really handy at this time and I finally feel really appreciated by my daughter. For once I have done something right in her eyes.

Sunday morning I got a call from my son-in-law. It was a call I had been preparing for - for a couple of weeks now.

“We’re on the way to the hospital.”

“Wow! Great! So pick me up on your way there.” I’m a five minute walk from their house.

“We’re nearly at the hospital.” son-in-law explained.

I hung up the phone. “Damn” I complained to Hubby. “Why didn’t they stop by to pick me up?”

I figured they must have been rushing badly and this wasn’t a false alarm. Turns out the happy couple’s car had a flat tire on the way (that’s for NOT picking up the mother ) and had to ambulance it to the hospital. I got there an hour later and acted as her labor coach, who also wasn’t around at that early hour. Labor coaching wasn’t bad. In fact, I think I was a kick-ass labor coach. We figured out good positions for my daughter during her labor and helped her throughout her ordeal so she didn’t need an epidural, and she told me to “shut up” only twice. A couple of hours later, this adorable little baby boy was born into this world.

Relatives from overseas called up to give congratulations and my daughter hadn’t a clue who they all were.

Her hubby’s relatives all showed up that evening. I took all their flowers and put them in plastic canisters I saw on the countertop. The room began to stink of pee after a while, until we realized that those plastic canisters were not really for flowers after all. Oops.

My brother showed up the next day with his wife, sharing with us their birth and labor stories.

“This kid has it easy now. Too bad he’s gonna have to grow up in THIS country.” brother chuckled.

My daughter’s roommate was a Palestinian mother which we figured out as soon as we heard them speak Arabic. My kids laughed at me knowing I was going to make a special effort to introduce the two new mothers to each other. I think in many cases like this, the “roommates” pretend the other doesn’t exist and no effort is made to speak to one another. Sad. But of course, you know me. I offered her roomie chocolates, food, etc. and it turns out she is a nurse in another hospital. I pondered over the fact that these two little boys will be growing up so differently. And wished that perhaps one day, their lives will be more or less the same - for the better of course.