Got a new toy this week. Well, kind of. It’s a new version of an old gadget.
Tandem gives you a four-year warranty on your insulin pump. Mine ran out in March of last year. It was still chugging along just fine though, so I didn’t see a need to replace it. The only drawback to it being out of warranty is that I didn’t get software updates. In fact, even though they’d announced an update about a week before I went out of warranty, I didn’t get the email until after my warranty expired, so no update for me.
/Shrug.
But I had an endocrinology checkup a couple of weeks ago (A1c of 6.1, thank you very much), and the PA asked me how the pump was running. I said fine for being out of warranty. We decided to go ahead and order a new one, since the VA seemed to be in a benevolent mood.
It came in early this week and I spent Wednesday afternoon setting it up. The process was painless. It picked up the existing CGM session without a hiccup.
I’ll wrap up the old pump and store it as a backup that I hope I’ll never need.
Honest Obituaries
Late in 2023, Gayle Heckman’s mother died.
Gayle wrote an obituary, as one does. She was, she felt, completely honest about things her mother did. Brutally honest, one might say. In fact, another paper called it “scathing” and “fiery.”
Then the newspaper pulled it from their website, calling it a “disgraceful mistake” to publish it, saying it was a “spiteful hate piece against a beloved member of our community.”
The Daily Mail has a photo of Gayle’s original obituary.
A few months later, Christina Wyman, a writer and teacher living in Michigan, wrote a terrific guest piece for Buzzfeed. She wondered if society has a duty to write honest obituaries invoking Anne Lamott. “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. Read This Woman’s Controversial Obituary For Her Mom Caused Outrage — But I Think We Need More Like It
Homeschooling
Diana and I homeschooled all of our kids.
I’ve often wondered if it was the right thing to do.
I love my kids, and I’m proud of all of them and the things they’ve accomplished.
But I’ve questioned for a long time whether our educational choices were the best choices we could have made.
The boys went to the local vo-tech school for their junior and senior years, and as far as I know, did pretty well. Three of them got selected for the National Technical Honor Society.
Two of the girls are in college and have made the Dean’s List.
They’re all doing well.
But homeschooling is not for everyone, and not everyone who does it does it well. Or safely.
Larissa Phillips homeschooled her two kids for most of their childhoods. She wrote a great piece for The Free Press about her homeschool journey and the questions she’s had since they completed it. If you’re considering homeschooling or maybe questioning your decision, take a few minutes to read Homeschooling Isn’t for Everyone. It’s behind an email registration wall that I couldn’t get around with Archive.today, but I think it’s worth your email address for this one. She wrote a similar piece for The Fordham Institute.
Phillips mentions two homeschooled kids who’ve written memoirs about their education. Tara Westover, raised in rural Idaho by survivalists, wrote Educated. Stefan Block, named at the beginning of Phillips’ piece, wrote Homeschooled. There’s a recent interview with Block here at Bookpage, another at Texas Standard (Block grew up in Plano), and local NY coverage here at Chronogram.
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