Video queen

The Higher Ups at the Washington Times are asking us all to produce video, video and more video so today I and another female staff writer premiered Take Two: A Woman's View on the faith/family side of the news. (She covers social issues and I of course do religion). It's on the front page of our site now - sigh - my hair was dangling in front of my face and I think I was slouching. There is lots of room to improve here.
Of course it would help if we had some training on how to do video/TV stuff but it's not in any budget I know of so here we are, talking before cameras about, well, whatever pops into our minds. I have been doing weekly videos about the religion beat that usually show up Sundays on our site - an example is here - but I must admit it's hard to talk non-stop for 3 minutes without a teleprompter and just spout off names and statistics and get them all correct. I still have to glance down at a notepad which is a no-no. There's always something that goes haywire: either my mini-microphone is creating static or I'm pursing my mouth in a weird way or - the list goes on. Often my mind just BLANKS out for a few seconds as I am trying to remember this Senate minority leader or that bishop. But I still jumped at the chance to do all these videos as the folks at the paper want them and I have lots of expertise on my beat so, well, pourquoi pas? Hopefully in a few months I'll be a lot better in front of the cameras.
As for Veeka, here's a photo of her posing in her school get-up. She loves her little back pack and her lunch box, etc. And she is only 3. At her age, I was pretty much hanging out at home all day but it's a new century and the age of the Single Mom and my little darling ends up at daycare which to be honest I think she really prefers because being with Mommy all day is a tad boring compared to all the kiddos she gets to play with at "school" as she now calls it.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am off to a friend's place in the Shenandoah Valley. So much has happened this year - mostly good - for me and I am thankful for that.

Susan Shaughnessy, RIP

The photo with this entry shows four people who attended Veeka's 2nd birthday party. The young woman on the far right, wearing a blue blouse, was Susan Shaughnessy, a lovely young woman who loved helping the poor and house sitting my kitties when I traveled. During the past 3 years when I was on longer and longer trips (India, Italy, Australia), Susan was the one who took up residence in my condo and kept everything going while I was gone. Good housesitters are hard to find and in time we became friends.
She also stayed at my place when I was gone nearly 7 weeks adopting Veeka and she was the only person to meet me at the airport when I flew in, waiting patiently for nearly 2 hours while I cleared customs with all of Veeka's paperwork. The last time she housesat my place was in July when I was in the Pacific Northwest. That's when I learned of Eduardo, her new sweetheart from Spain and a man she was seriously interested in marrying. She was so excited about him. In October she flew to Madrid to meet his family. Her future seemed bright. A year or so after her mother had pulled out of colon cancer and survived, finally things were going Susan's way.
Then in mid-October she began getting headaches and finally came down what seemed like the flu. But she felt more more exhaustion than one usually does with the flu. Concerned, she visited her doctor, but he just told her she had a weird strain of the flu and to go home and rest. His advice proved fatal. She rested the next day and then on Saturday Oct. 25, she went to bed early trying to sleep off whatever was wrong. She never woke up.
The next day her housemates found her in a coma and rushed her to the hospital. Turns out she had a virus that turned into a freak case of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, which is an auto-immune disease where the body attacks healthy brain cells. Basically she was brain-dead. A lot of us began praying and fasting for her. On Saturday, I got a phone call that if I wanted to visit her, to come that very day, as the family was going to disconnect the respirator the next day. When I arrived at the ER, with her broken-hearted family sitting there and the man who was about to become her fiance also sitting there, I just wanted to break down. It was awful. Susan was hooked up to all sorts of machines but her dad said the part of her brain (the cortex?) that regulates body temp and involuntary reactions was fried. They tried shining a flashlight into her eyes and her pupils didn't even contract. Someone at the Mayo Clinic who saw her MRI (or brain scan I forget which) said it was the worst case he'd ever seen. What would have happened had that doctor, instead of basically ignoring her, had taken a blood test then rushed her to Johns Hopkins?
They unhooked her respirator on Sunday morning and her breathing slowed to about 80 percent. Her vital signs continued to do well for a day or so and then everything must have collapsed because she died about 6 pm Monday. I went to her office today at Catholic University to talk with her boss and she had such a lovely view of the basilica and the quad and the sunsets. And so now her life has set. She was only 30. I'll be doing a column for Thursday's paper on how once again evil things happen to good people. I dug around in my photos and discovered I did have one of her, albeit a group shot.
Here was a friend who was cut down with a bizarre sickness that happens to a tiny percentage of the population. Still, she was cut down in the flower of life. Man - nor woman - knows not their time.
PS - Here is the column I wrote about her for the Nov. 20 Washington Times. It got *lots* of good reaction.

Applez everywhere

This is a typical Friday night here where, to amuse Veeka before bedtime, I made some pumpkin bread. (I had made some pumpkin custard a few days before and it was such a disaster, I had to figure out something to do with all those pudding molds, so I threw two of them into some bread dough). That is baking in the oven now. She is slowly learning how to knead bread. Hopefully by the age of four she'll be making her own lunches.
Then Veeka and I made applesauce. That is, I did all the work while she munched on apples and tossed a few pieces here and there. I am including a photo of Veeka in a local apple orchard. We've been to two this fall and she loves picking apples and taking one bite and then FLINGING them into the grass. The sheer waste really gets her going.
The painters were here today to do the spare bedroom in a coral pink. I really like it (all the rooms in my place are in bright colors) but I am sure my mother will be horrified as she's into beiges. Not moi. Let's see...other news - I am doing webcasts on religion for the Times web site. Sometimes I look good and other times - ugh. They appear like 3-minute TV spots where I am jabbering about some religious topic. I spent 2 days this week covering the Catholic bishops in Baltimore. It's raining out. Things are dull but at least I have a place to go for Thanksgiving.
It is also 10:30 p.m. and Veeka will NOT go to sleep. I think she's waiting for the bread to be done.

Our little Mother Teresa

When I took Veeka to an All Saints Day party, I had to figure out quick how to dress her. Idea: take an old shower curtain, sew some blue stripes on it and wrap it about her like a sari and voila, she's now Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, soon to be a saint. Our little one was SO cute all wrapped about in white and blue from head to toe and with a scarf about her head. Sitting through the church service was a tad difficult and when all the "saints" stood up in front of the church to be quizzed by the priest, Miss Veeka began to wail. She zoomed back to the pew and jumped into my lap.
The day before, she was Nemo the fish, walking gamely about the neighborhood on a clear, gorgeous evening, gathering a bag of candy. She thought that was pretty cool - just go to a house and people give you yummy things.
No big news here. I won't have any part in covering the election - thank God - other reporters get to stay up all night doing that. I am recording weekly webcasts on religion for the Washington Times, so click on their site, then look for "videos" and you'll see a "Duin on religion" headline. And moi underneath. I am still learning how to work the camera equipment.

Veeka dresses as Nemo

Yes, this year Miss Veeka has become Nemo-the-fish. She has a lovely orange little fish suit. Am including some photos from a Halloween party I took her to tonight. One photo shows her with tail and all and another is her trying to show me her little tail.
The other photo is me at a booksigning. Am not sure why the flash attachment did not work well. I have been having the worst time getting my books on the "new non-fiction" display shelves at Borders - have been in 3 of the stores that are close to me and "Quitting Church" is nowhere to be found. And have I heard stupid excuses. Like the buyer at the Borders at 14th and F Streets (about 2 blocks from the White House) downtown said most people there weren't interested in religion but in politics. I pointed to Victoria Osteen's book sitting prominently behind him and asked, "What is THAT then?" So if any of you are inside a Borders, complain like crazy that this book is not on display, especially since it's done relatively well as books go.
I've met enough people who saw my book in a store and simply picked it up to know how helpful it is to simply have a book sitting there waiting to be bought. My booksigning last week was pretty low key. I unloaded 12 books, which is kind of minimal. The bookstore owner, to my shock, had only ordered five of my books, as though she thought that is all I would sell and she was not going to invest any more of her money in it than she had to. I was furious. Fortunately I had some author's copies in the car which we sold, but those are for a bunch of purposes and not to be a back-up when the bookstore owner doesn't feel like ordering the minimum number. It was weird because the owner ordered in some lovely refreshments but...only five books?
Work was busy, busy this past week. I covered an Episcopal property trial, a Catholic pharmacy opening where the pharmacist won't stock birth control or any kind of contraception, pornographic magazines or cigarettes. It's one of a few in the country like that. And then I did something on humanist Sunday schools and Catholics holding vigil outside of abortion clinics around the country.
My bed is calling....

7,000 sold so far

No huge news yet but I just heard from my publisher that 7,000 copies of "Quitting Church" have sold - and that's only 6 weeks since the publication date! Plus it's mostly word of mouth plus some radio interviews as I have had NO major - or minor for that matter - TV exposure. If anyone has links to Fresh Air, CSPAN's book show, Dennis Wholley on PBS, Oprah and others, *any* others, please let me know! I have called a few of these folks and cannot even get my calls answered. A fellow staffer at the Times who has also just come out with a book on national security is having tough times getting through to folks as well. He told me it's really hard to market anything other than something on the election or the economy right now. So I guess I've done fairly well, considering everything.
I do have a publicist with the publisher helping me out but he has no ins here in Washington, unfortunately.
Still, I am working at keeping the buzz going, so will be having a booksigning this Saturday at the Book Nook, 5606 Baltimore Ave. in Hyattsville (20781) in, of course, Maryland, should anyone reading this want to drop by. The time is 3-5 pm. I finally landed one at the well-trafficked Barnes & Noble in Tysons Corner (remember B&N has my book in stock) but not until January :(
I have gotten a few notes from some folks in Seattle who have read the book, so if anyone wants to put together a signing for the week I am there (during Christmas), let me know. Maybe Bellevue Square?
BTW, if you click on the WTimes web site, and then click on the videos, you can see the new ones I post each week on religion topics. I just learned that ones I an among the top five persons whose videos are viewed.
Pictured here is Miss Veeka lazing on my bed.

Oma and Opa visit

Oma and Opa dropped in last week, starting with a late night arrival at BWI (airport) and ending up in my bed as I slept on the couch downstairs. Opa got put to work fixing various things around the house and putting up hooks and light fixtures. Oma helped me catch up on my sewing and rearranged Veeka's messy room. They pronounced themselves pleased with my new home. It's really good they were there as the following night, at exactly midnight, we were all awoken by a horrible barking sound which turned out to be the Little One herself with a case of croup. She'd just had a shot that day - a booster for DTP or DPT - anyway, she could barely breathe.
I was too upset to handle being on the phone with the nurse (who kept on asking inane questions while Veeka was lying there gasping for air), so Oma handled the medical end of things with her while Opa and I found hot steaming bowls of water, the vapors of which we forced Veeka to inhale until she began to breathe easier. She finally fell asleep in his arms. We were up til 2:30 a.m. and I ended up on the floor beside her bed. We all stayed home the next day and my parents gave up one day of their trip to Connecticut to make sure Veeka was going to stay well. The next day, we put them on the train at Union Station so all was well that ends well.
So, here are photos of Opa reading to Veeka about triangles from a book that tries to help kids understand geometric concepts and of Oma reading, I think, to the little one. She loved having them around because Oma taught her how to have tea with her dollies and Opa provided a lap she loved crawling onto. Of course Veeka will jump on the lap of any male present in the room - she wants a daddy more than a sister it seems - but unfortunately her mommy can't always conjure up such things.
So now we are back to just the two of us. I continue to do lots of radio interviews for "Quitting Church" and my first book signing will be at a local bookstore on the 18th. The weather is warm but unfortunately it's getting too dark in the evenings for our daily walks. Veeka loves going out after dinner to explore the neighborhood and seek out the local kitties.