I know that I am far from alone when I say that Dr. Seuss shaped my life. Generation after generation will continue to utter that same phrase. At least I hope.

If you have followed my blog since I started it (which you probably haven’t) you will have heard this story before. It bears repeating though. 🙂

My quest for knowledge has always been there. When I was little, the birthday cut off for Kindergarten was December 1st- the day before mine. By the time I reached 3 1/2 my parents realized I was much different than they had anticipated and they thought I should be in school. Yes folks this was before 3K, 4K and all that other stuff. Back in my day there was only one Kindergarten. And you had to be 5 by the cut off date to attend. Feeling I was more than ready, mom called the school district and was told to bring me in, that they would test me. If I passed, I was in. Like the already lil nerd I was, I was SO excited to go in and test. I remember what I wore that day and I remember them handing me a sheet with a clown on it holding a bunch of balloons. While I don’t recall the tests, I do recall that each one I passed, they put a sticker on to fill in a balloon. All I needed was over half of them full. Proudly, I skipped out of there with all of them colored in. I was going to go to school!

Until the call came. The “If we make an exception for her, then someone comes in with Dec. 3rd & 4th, where do we draw the line?” call. I won’t lie, I totally cried my lil heart out.

Then, I woke up the next morning pissed and determined.

I grabbed all my lil Dr. Seuss books and sat down in front of Sesame Street and taught my geeky self how to read. On a mission, I had mastered all of the books within a couple of weeks and would read them over and over again.

If that alone was the only thing I got from him, that would mean the world. The independence he gave me to teach myself to read empowered me. It taught me that books were the key to knowledge. Not long later it taught me that they are also the key to survival when you need to escape from an unhealthy environment.

And what knowledge did my dear friend Seuss teach me a the ripe old age of 4? He taught me the foundations of who I am:

* Always be yourself:
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

*Being a geek is good:
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

“There’s no limit to how much you’ll know, depending how far beyond zebra you go.”

*Always stand up for what you believe:
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

“I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”

*Life is tough, but have faith:
“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

“You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left. “

*Keep an open mind:
“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

“If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”

“You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”

And so very, very much more.

He taught me to be creative. To make up words, characters, entire worlds. To be different. To not only use my imagination but to embrace it. That the world isn’t black and white, nor should it ever be. It should be colorful. It should be filled with amazing creatures all so different but living together peacefully. And if a Grinch pops up, show them some love.

So, happy, happy birthday Dr. Seuss. May your legacy forever live on.

“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

It started with a tweet from @shimmer418. A little thing called #BoobieWed. What is #BoobieWed? It’s a group of women that have made it a mission to raise breast cancer awareness across Twitter, Facebook and Myspace by reminding men and women to self examine. Every Wednesday a sea of supporters change their avatars to show their support. Having lost my aunt Carol, my first official partner in crime, to breast cancer, this hit home. Early detection may have saved her life.

That one tweet led to a cathartic post. A declaration “Yup, I’ve Got Boobies.” And ultimately, my polka dotted bra clad breasts went up on Twitter for my little group of followers to see. The reaction was mixed to say the least. But, as soon as that post went up, my awesome tribe of geek girls responded with an outpouring of love and support that went beyond just RT’s. That’s how we roll. One makes a stand, we stand behind her.

We come in all shapes and sizes, each one of them gorgeous in their own right. We cover every spectrum you could declare geeky and we do it proudly.

We are strong. We are geek. We have boobies. We use our powers for good.

And I am so proud to announce that we have banded together to create a project for the cause.

Announcing The #BoobieWed Epic Geek Girls Edition Calendar!

Complete With:
Over a year’s worth of awesome women proudly displaying their geek and their girlie.
Monthly reminders to self examine
Major (and not so major) Con dates printed right on it

Featuring:
Amy Ratcliffe
Carie Small
Chelsie Tinordi
Geek Girl Diva
Jennie Zells
Jessie Gurd
Kara Evans
Katie Doyle
Kristin Reilly– Geek Girls Network
Lisa Manglass
Maria Palafox
Natali Heuss– Uber Dork Cafe
Nicole Wakelin
Ruth LoveCraft

Why This Calendar is so Important and What Your Purchase Means:

There are more than 250,000 women living in this country that were diagnosed with breast cancer under that age of 40. That does not account for the thousands that did not detect it early enough and lost their battles with breast cancer as a result.

The strongest weapon in beating breast cancer is early detection. That is the fuel behind this project- driving home the importance of it and reminding women (and yes men) to check their breasts regularly and remind those in their life to do so as well.

A portion of the proceeds of all Calendar sales will go to the following organizations:

The Young Survival Coalition: YSC works with survivors, caregivers and the medical, research, advocacy and legislative communities to increase the quality and quantity of life for women diagnosed with breast cancer ages 40 and under.

Feel Your Boobies: FYB is a breast cancer non-profit organization whose mission is to create an annual reminder campaign that utilizes unexpected and unconventional methods to remind young women to “feel their boobies”.

Remember #BoobiesAreStrongerThanTheForce But they still need to be checked.

Ready to purchase your copies? Click here!

Give the Epic Gift That Keeps On Giving.

I am having one of those days.

Now, I’m willing to bet that your first thought was “oh yeah it’s Monday” or “awww that sucks.” But, I’m not talking about one of THOSE days.

Don’t get me wrong, the calendar says it’s Monday, the monkeys managed to bust out mad karate moves on each other this morning, fight over the Wii remote (she that controls the remote rules the Netflix streaming) and we barely got eldest to school on time. Laundry mountain is close to having snow covered peaks. The thousands of emails I have in my inbox (literally and I’m so not proud of that number) that I need to get to and handle scare me, my plate is beyond full and if I pause long enough, I’m sure the feeling of overwhelmedness will start to creep in. I’ve been giving my To Do the list the stink eye for a while now as I fight to catch up on being sick for 6+ weeks and all I really want to do today is drive around and huggle people that I have not seen or talked to enough in far too long. Standard crazy, somewhat stressful morning.

You know what though? It’s a freakin awesome day. Why? Because we have a roof over our heads, food in our fridge and the monkeys and I love the mess out of each other. I’m pursuing my dream and there are people in my life that remind me how much I mean to them. Those that are on my huggle hit list know that I love them and get what I have been through and that I would be all up on them in full on huggle more often if I could. I guess simply put, I have amazing people in my life that love me despite of (and sometimes because of) my many flaws.

N O T H I N G. E L S E. M A T T E RS .

And all of this means that I’m back. I am back to 110% Natali again. Still a bit run down but OMG it feels SO FREAKIN good.

Honey, I’m hoooooooome. 🙂

For this last week and a half or so I have been pretty sick. After finally getting antibiotics for it, I ended up breaking out in hives from head to toe from them. My hives had hives. Soooo not attractive. Soooo not comfortable. I had hit the brick wall of burnt out.

Until last night.

I’m still wiped and still dealing with health issues, but it’s time to pick up the #truthbat again. This time, surprisingly, for the cafe. For everyone that believes in it.

You see, I have a weekly conference call every Tuesday night for the UberDork Cafe. I look forward to them for many reasons. What I learned last night floored me. Saddened me. When the shock of it all wore off, it downright pissed me off.

I’ve always proudly embraced the titles geek, nerd, dork. One of the many amazing lessons that I have learned on this incredible journey of UberDork Cafe is that us gnorks still tend to hide who we are. Stay in our lil corners of the online world and don’t tend to venture beyond that. Part of the whole goal of the cafe has been to give us a place to go to. To branch out from those corners. To give our future gnorks a place to go to meet others and to actually be able to comfortably be themselves in a place within the community, the real life community. To teach them and us that we don’t need to hide who we are. There is no shame in being geeks, nerds, dorks.

Last night I realized I might be wrong.

It might not be a fluke that there is nothing really like the UberDork Cafe out there. The fact that we tend to hide may not really be our fault. It seems others are more comfortable when we are contained to online. We may come out if we must, but we shall not refer to ourselves as dorks, or geeks or nerds. It makes others uncomfortable it seems.

Last night I was informed that major corporate sponsors of the first auction completely backed out. Why? Well, during initial contact the full name UberDork Cafe was used. From that point on it was shortened to UDC or “the cafe.” Then they got the press kit yesterday. These major corporations then stated that I would need to change the name of the cafe for them to follow through with sponsoring. Yup. They don’t like “dork.” And yeah, don’t try to replace it with nerd or geek either. Those simply won’t do as well. One of these major corporations makes a great deal of money off of us gnorks as well.

My response? (Ok, well the edited version, I won’t lie, there was A LOT of cussing on my behalf initially.)

Dear Giant Corporate People,

Shame on you. Shame on you for so very many reasons. For thinking you could just buy a name. For thinking you have that sort of power over people still. For thinking that us dorks, us nerds, us geeks are that weak that we would hide who we are, change who we are to suit your comfort. For being more than willing to take our money as long as we remain safely tucked away from view and deny who we are. For thinking that you somehow own us. For thinking that in this day and age discrimination is ok, as long as it has a price tag on it. For thinking that I am the type of person that is going to just roll over, change my entire character and teach my children that it is acceptable to allow a company, or even a person, to force you to change your name, your character, or who you are for them.

Allow me to enlighten you. Dork, nerd, geek… in your feeble minds may be words that show weakness or less than desirable characteristics. I hate to break this to you, but the term “corporate” invokes far worse feelings amongst a vastly wider population of people. People that span all age levels, races, income brackets, you name it. Do you know why that is? Because of things like this. Because you still live under the antiquated notion that bigger is always better. That money will buy you anything, anyone. I hate to break it to you, but it really doesn’t. In fact, it won’t even buy you one lil ole dork.

I’m not for sale. My children’s dream is not for sale. My friends, my family, the people that support this dream, that support the UberDork Cafe are not for sale.

And we certainly aren’t going anywhere. If anything, you’ve just made us a bit louder. A bit more present.

Thanks so much for reinforcing the need for the UberDork Cafe. Your shameful behavior has made my mission that much stronger.

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,
Natali
Proudly known as UberDork Girlie

These last two weeks have been insanely busy, mostly in a really good way. As a result of juggling it all, I have been kind of missing in action online and for that I am truly sorry. I have really missed it too. So what the heck have I been up to??

Well… I found a place, though I’m still working on making it a signed, done deal. I’ve been doing some interviews with some amazing people that it still floors me would want to interview me and I’ve been working on the major announcement that will be made late Friday night. That announcement will include the next phase for UberDork Cafe. Oh! And I’ve been making and sending out my Woookiee Cookies now that they are available via the web site.

The Kickstarter page is now down to HOURS. They don’t even mark it in days at this point. With 51 hours to go (though it will most likely be 50 by the time I get this done, proof it neurotically a zillion times and post it) and 108 BEYOND AWESOME backers, the total sits at $6,480. I can’t begin to tell you how that number makes me feel. How all those numbers make me feel. To know that so many people support this, support me so much still gets me teary. My goal for the next 51(ish) hours is to get the word out as much as I can. The higher we get that number, the quicker this all goes. I’m not going to lie, I wish I was opening doors tomorrow. That I had the Wall of Love done and up and huggable. That I had each and everyone of you ready to walk in the door and share the big moment with me when it’s all 100% real.

This past weekend I made the trip down to Indy for Gen Con. I ended up leaving late Friday night and driving straight through. I was exhausted when I arrived, but giddy. The whole way down I had music people had suggested and one whole CD @dirty_saint made me. I LOVE Mixed Tapes! So, I didn’t feel even remotely alone on the trip. Then, I had @CapSteveRogers call to check on me right when I had to detour because some crazy lil Hwy 912 was closed. I was literally sitting on a dead end road by some railroad tracks wonderin where the heck I was when my phone rang. He navigated me back on a new route in no time. Our fearless @ThePowerGeeks host @DarthMolen also made me promise to call if I started getting sleepy and he’d talk to me the whole way there. Of course, by talking, he means picking on…but it’s the thought.

Saturday morning, I arrived and went to check in and get my press pass (THANK YOU @ThePowerGeeks!!). Before doing so, I started to fulfill my mission- I got to FINALLY actually huggle @NicoleWakelin! Into the press room we went! After hitting the press table for goodies, I turned around and @CapSteveRogers and @PeacockPub (who had ventured in with me) were sitting there with “O EM GEE” looks on their faces. Yup, sitting like two seats away was @FeliciaDay. Epicness already!! Right after that, I got to huggle the mess outta @KatieDoyle again and on to complete my mission. Whipping through the giant exhibit hall filled with so much awesomeness, I had but one goal.. to make it to the @G33kMade booth. When I did, I finally got to huggle my girls @GeekSoap and @KyleeLane. Whatever happened at that point during the weekend would be the proverbial icing on the cupcake. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love my sisters. Yeah, I called them sisters cuz it’s that deep.

Saturday morning was spent walking around with my peeps. Spending actual real life time with them and it was just as if we’d known each other forever. Exhausted, we made our way back to the G33k Made booth and I froze. Standing there before it was Wil Wheaton. With a ridonkilously huge grin on his face as well. I slipped on over and just started taking pictures. @wilw literally hung out there for quite a while. My favorite part of the whole entire weekend was listening to him talk to Lesley (the gorgeousness behind Geek Soap) and Kylee (the gorgeousness behind Luxury Lane Soaps). And then it happened. I swear Wil was gushing. He explained to Lesley and Kylee how amazing they were, how original and creative and refreshing Geek Made is. Then he told them how very proud he was of them. Wil, my dear, I have to say I agree with every single word that came out of your mouth. Lesley, Kylee and all the people they feature on G33kMade are what UberDork Cafe is about. SUPPORTING OUR GEEK COMMUNITY!! The things that can be accomplished when we team up! Well awesomesauce is just weak. We’re gonna have to invent a new word. I really need to state that Lucas, Lesley’s husband and Rory, Kylee’s husband freakin also rock in their own rights. Kick ass geek guys supporting the mess outta their gals is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Later that day, Katie and I made our way through the parade of Cos Players (huge props to all of them!!) and back to the press room to sit and charge phones. There was some chef guy doing an interview with someone from Gen Con. It took everything in me not to stand up and scream “WTF!?!??!” In the short 10 min interview I heard some insanely horrible stereotypes come out of his mouth. “Ya know, at least the board game people have to get out and be social, not like those video gamers that sit locked in their houses by themselves playing their games all day and night.” SERIOUSLY??? “Well, I’ve seen some actual females here so maybe this generation of girls will start to break into this whole gaming thing.” WHAT!?!?!?! Some????? Start??? As painful as it was to listen to, it was a much needed dose of reality.

It drives home how important G33k Made is. How important UberDork Cafe is. How important WE ALL ARE. We’re not some group of freaks to come gawk at. We are a ginormous ball of freakin’ amazingness that, well if they don’t get it, they can kiss my big ole lily white ghetto booty. We ALL have geek in us. We ALL have nerd in us. We ALL have dork in us. Whether we embrace it or not. Why mock those that do?

So, I say we show the chef dbag’s of the world a lil something. I say we show them our gnork. Show them our love for each other. Show them what we are capable of as a community. Show them that if they don’t support us, we are just fine. WE HAVE EACH OTHER TO SUPPORT US. We get it.

And UberDork Cafe will be our lil physical safe haven. Our place to hang, to game, to learn, to chillax. Our continual con. Open all year round and passes never sell out.

Yeah, I haz a BIG love for my family. My family of gorgeous geeks/nerds/dorks. And to pull out one of my lilest’s quotes from an older post of mine “Yo! I gots your love right here!!”

Show G33k Made some love HERE!

Show UberDork Cafe some love HERE!

Let’s keep this BIG love going!!

MWUAH!

P.S. Some more love ya can show…

The Power Geeks
Cap Steve Rogers- amazing freelance designer
Nicole Wakelin- just plain amazing
Action Flick Chick
Game Couch
Geek Girls Network
Geek With Curves
GeekBoy Presents
Geek Girl Diva
Geek Shui
Giant Fire Breathing Robot
Girls Are Geeks
Has Boobs Reads Comics
Naked Hobo
Pop Bunker
Reality Amuck
Rock The Lan
Shiny Lines (I NEED THE GEEKBREEDER MUG!!)
The Carnival of Random
Troll in the Corner

I’m sure I’m forgetting all kinds of love. I’m scatter brained right now pretty, pretty please forgive me!

If physical structures could be built on love alone, there would be a string of UberDork Cafes open all across this world by now. Open, bustling and radiating more #GeekLove. I don’t know that I will ever be able to find the exact words to describe all the emotions this journey has conjured up.

What has started as my crazy lil idea to create a place for my daughters and my community has turned into so much more. Part of me would like to print out the Kickstarter Project pages, the comments, the statistics, every tweet, every amazing blog post, every kind word of support and encouragement and show it to the world. I would say “Look! Look at what this community is capable of! Look at the love! Look at the support! Look at all of these amazing people! Look at what you’ve overlooked! What you have underestimated!!” It is not just the group of people that has been overlooked and underestimated, it’s the power of love, the power of community.

The very thing that UberDork Cafe will exist to nurture, to support and to encourage.

From Apple’s “Think Different” to Einstein’s “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. “ to Yoda’s “Do or do not, there is not try” – these things have shaped who I am in life. Who a lot of us are. They are concepts sadly often drowned out by media, by peers encouraging conformity while growing up, by adults that don’t get it staring down noses and speaking of “the right way” to do things.

This is my way of helping cease that. Media will still be media, peers will still be peers, adults will still be adults. But, we will all have a place to go, our future will have a place to go, that encourages us to simply be us. To embrace who we are, to let it hang out, to help our youth navigate through to be proud of who they are and confident in pursuing their true goals in life. The things that make us all happy.

There are just two weeks left now. Because of all of you I have made my goal. Which I am beyond grateful for. Part of me feels greedy to ask for more. But all of the voices that have come forth with “If only I had a place like this when I was growing up” and “I really need a place like this near me” make me want this open tomorrow. And those that have said “I have been scared to go for my dream for so long, but you have inspired me to go back to it and really pursue it” make me want it open yesterday. The simple fact is to make this happen as quickly as possible, I still need your help, your support. We are currently at $6130 with two more weeks to go. Just imagine what we can do in two more weeks!! Can we reach 200 backers?? $8,000?? Can we blow this completely out of the water?? I think we can!

I can not tell you how excited I will be the day I can stand up inside of the finished, open UberDork Cafe and say:

“Look what WE did!!”

If you’ve been following along, or know me at all, you know that the Wall of Love is going to be my absolute favorite part of this whole place. I will hug it every day and may the Force be with anyone who tries to deface it.

So, from a place for my daughters to go and a community to be nurtured and hope to be given, this has turned into the physical representation of what a community can do when they believe in something, when they believe in themselves.

To those that don’t believe, well my girls and I proudly stick our tongues out at you, wrinkle our noses and then smile and wave are lil geek/nerd/dork flags. And we are honored to have an entire community standing behind us doing the same.

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending. “ ~Jim
Henson

To join the lovers, the dreamers, the community, click here to visit the Kickstarter Project Page.

One of the best feelings in the world is that which you get when something just fits. That comfy old T- shirt you’ve had for 10 years, hearing the perfect song on the radio that says everything going through your head at the time, snuggling in on the couch with the person that just gets you. A moment in time that makes you feel at home. That lil sigh with a dash of giddiness one feels when things just fit right freakin’ rocks.

It was the search for a place for my monkeys and I that would give us that feeling when we walked in that has lead to UberDork Café. It’s a giant quirky chunk of me. I once had a very good friend tell me that I “suffer from poor marketing.” He further explained that I call myself a dork, I look like a dork, but I’m so much more than that. He’s right. I am a great many different things. But, I am still totally a dork. And as I am always true to form, Uberdork Café is so much more than just the café of an UberDork. Getting to know UberDork Café is like getting to know me. So allow me to introduce you to us.

In essence, UberDork Cafe is Art + Science= Geek in a family-friendly environment that supports local vendors and artists, the earth and gives back to the community not only by providing a safe place for youth to play and learn, but also in financially assisting future Art + Science= Geeks.
I can see the “huh?” bubble over some of your heads, don’t worry, Imma break it down more for you.

Café- Yuppers there will be coffee, geeky baked goodness and a simple but delish menu. Complete with grown up “happy meals.” Which I will of course have to change the name of so Mc Donald’s doesn’t try to sue my lil ole self. But, us grown ups deserve toys too! Oh and of course plenty of snacky “gaming food.”
Family-Friendly- Having a kid’s menu, some crayons and high chairs doesn’t necessarily mean kid-friendly. The goal is to have them, have families, feel welcomed. The plan is to have an actual kid’s section. Optional of course. But, an area where kids can sit and eat and play. With a menu that is more than just chicken fingers and fries.
Supporting Local Vendors and Artists- While my motivation may have been my monkeys, it’s all about my community as well. The goal is to use as many local vendors as possible. To showcase local artists and talent as well. Whether it’s someone guest-teaching a class, hosting a local knitting group, a comic artist lecture or meet and greet or allowing local artists to exhibit and sell their works, there will be much opportunity to support the great vendors and artists that my community (both in location and in spirit) has to offer.

The Earth- UberDork Café will strive to be the greenest business it can be in every sense of the environmental term.

Safe Place to Play and Learn- Besides the café section, the other two parts that make up UberDork Café are a game room and a classroom. Play is an important part of life that we adults tend to lose sight of as we grow. One of my goals is to not only nurture that play but bring it back to those that have forgotten it. No matter what your controller of choice looks like, no matter how many sides your favorite die has, no matter how your board is shaped, UberDork Café will embrace and try to offer it. Come roll how you want to roll. Play how you want to play. And for those of you who may have forgotten, there will be classes. Art and science classes that families can take together, adults and kids may take alone and all will be adaptable to those with special needs. (Yup, I was once a special ed art teacher. Which is something not many people know. It was also one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.) And if you’ve been eying up a 360 but have never owned a console before, well we’ll give ya an intro to it. Always wanted to tackle DnD but were scared to be a noob? We’ll cover ya too.

Financially Assisting Future Art + Science = Geeks- I’m a giver. It’s just part of who I am and one of my favorite parts of my goal with UberDork Café is to help foster our future. Each year, UberDork Café will offer three scholarships. They may not be huge at first, but hopefully they will grow. The basic criteria to qualify for these scholarships are simple. 1. The student has to be from the inner city. The reasoning behind this is I want to support those that are often under-supported. Those that often get lost in the shuffle. Those that could use someone to look them in the eye and say “I believe in you.” b. The student must be going on to pursue further schooling in: Video Game Design/Development, Science and lastly a Geek Girl.

So welcome to UberDork Café and welcome to me. ☺

Now just when will we be able to hang out at the awesomeness that is UberDork Café? (hee hee)

Believe it or not, a lot of that depends on YOU. Yup, YOU. If you read my last blog, you will know that UberDork Café was selected as a Kickstarter Project. One that launches oh…. TODAY!!!!

The fun of Kickstarter is this- I get to promote my project any nonspammy way I can. The more awareness I get it, the more chance I have of people seeing it and thinking “Jinkies that sounds swell, lemme back it with $1, $10… etc.” And when people back the project, they can get fun UberDork Café stuffs for doing so.

What does that mean? What can I do?

I thought you’d never ask. >;-)

Simple answer- as much or as lil as you’d like.

This means you can go big by visiting The UberDork Cafe Kickstarter Project Page and backing it.

You can go medium by helping me spread the word by passing on the link via any way you’d like (email, twitter, facebook, airplane flown over baseball stadium with banner, racing carrier pigeons, etc.) Here’s the link: Http://www.tinyurl.com/UberDorkCafe

You can go small by following @UberDorkCafe and/or it’s lil home on Facebook.

Or you could go wild by shaking it up and trying various combinations of all of them. #geeksdorksandnerdsgonewild

As I write this I am a total ball of excitement and a terrified mess. This is my dream. And it’s possibly one GIANT step closer to becoming a reality. None of this would be possible without the support I have already received from some REALLY great people. People that get my vision, that get what UberDork Café is all about and are wonderful enough to believe in me. There are far too many to list here but there are two that CAN NOT go unmentioned. @CapSteveRogers and @GeekWithSoul. When I was at my wits end with being too close to this to come up with a logo, they stepped in and completely kicked ass. Both have come up with a variation of the logo that I will be using. One for larger scaled projects, one for smaller things where the lil graphic element of me will be lost. And I completely LOVE them. The logos and the guys behind them are beyond awesomesauce. Thank you and the giant tally of *huggles*tm they have coming there way don’t even begin to cover it.

Thank you all for believing in a café that is more than just the café of an UberDork and a gal that is more than just a dork with a dream.

*MWUAH!*

It amazes me how alike and yet how different my monkeys are. They are both undeniably my daughters in so very many ways. Personality-wise, there is almost nothing of their father in them. Trust me, that’s not a bad thing.

Both are strong and feisty in their own right. Lilest is my rebel, bold and proud of who she is and will defend herself and her sister in less than a heartbeat. Eldest monkey is equally proud of who she is, will womp an army if they even look at her sister cross-eyed, but will not stand up for herself. Both willing to bend, to change, to break for no one. Yet one remains silent when faced with someone who feels it is okay to diminish her feelings or bully her. She will merely stand silent and take it. I used to think she had inherited the trait from me. I will take a lot of shit from people before I finally say I’ve had enough and snap. Mess with someone I love though and it’s on like Donkey Kong. And over before you know it.

Yesterday, I realized I was wrong.

Eldest came home from school Monday and told me one of her classmates (I’m gonna refer to him as Eddie, cuz I swear he’s the bastard son of Eddie Haskel) pushed her at recess. Huge step for her. I asked to her tell me what happened. Turns out Eddie kept telling her to kiss another male classmate (Eldest’s BFF actually) and she refused to. So the little shit pushed her. Each time she said no to giving BFF a smooch, Eddie would push her down. When I asked her what she did, she replied “I just kept getting up.” When I asked her why she didn’t go get one of the teachers at recess, she said she didn’t want to be a “tattle tale.” Grrr… the guidance counselor had talked to them last week about “tattle tales.” One of the guidelines to when you should tell was only if someone was getting hurt. In Eldest’s head, she wasn’t physically hurt from the push, therefore she shouldn’t tell. Good job guidance counselor.

So we had a chat. I explained right off the bat that NO ONE has the right to hurt or to push her. That just because the push wasn’t physically hurting her, it still hurt her feelings and her feelings were even more important than her body to some extent. A scraped knee heals quicker sometimes.

We formulated a plan.

First push- she points at him and in the biggest voice she has says “NO! Eddie that is NOT OKAY! You do NOT have the right to push me!” Even if he stops, she tells her teacher what happened.

Second push- she goes to get a teacher.

If he tries to push her or stop her in any way from getting a teacher, I told her to push his ass back. That’s right. This is a point I would end up fighting with her teacher on. My point, bottom line- my children will know that if ANYONE tries to physically restrain them from getting help, they have the RIGHT to physically defend themselves. Period. Cuz one day it may not be lil Eddie. It may be someone bigger and far more dangerous. So, yeah, kick his lil ass monkey.

Tuesday she comes home. And yup, Eddie pushed her again. She stuck her finger out and she stated her case. Then he pushed her again. Then she forgot what number two was. So, we went over it again. I also made it clear that while I wanted her to address this with her teacher and would giver her the opportunity to do so, that I as going to step in if it happened again. On the way to school Wednesday, we went through the steps again. This time at recess she forgot all of them. So, yesterday morning I stepped in.

And then it hit me. It wasn’t that Eldest had inherited this trait from me. She had LEARNED it from me. It was all my fault.

This week there has been a situation going on in my life that has echoed some things that have happened to me in the past. Wednesday night I had made the realization that I was allowing myself to react to them in a similar way as I had and it bothered me. I had made a plan to change that. While writing Eldest’s teacher, the realization beat me over the head that some of her earliest memories of me are what has caused her to be the way she is right now.

While Eldest monkey was only two and a half when I finally got the courage to end my marriage, she was a very smart two and a half. And she remembers it quite clearly. In fact, no one is allowed to use the word stupid around me because of that. You see I say my ex was an asshole of epic proportions. What I have yet to mention is that he was a huge bully and incredibly abusive. One of his favorite things to do was invent new ways to call me stupid. “What did you eat a big fucking bowl of stupid for breakfast?” Despite that fact that I worked full time and did literally everything around the house, “useless bitch” was one of his favorite pet names. He couldn’t even wake up for work on his own, I was his “alarm clock” and he was a mean man in the morning. If he was late, it was my fault. Everything was my fault. I will spare you all the gory details.

He was constantly yelling and screaming at me and in my defensive mode, I kept thinking “don’t fight back.” At the time, in my head, I didn’t want the girls to see us fighting. I thought if I just stood there and took it, it would end quicker. And it chipped away at me day by day. Little by little I began to lose who I was. Something I’d swore I’d never do. Then one day Eldest came into the kitchen and says “Mommy, what’s that noise?” I say “It’s daddy, he’s home and outside snowblowing the driveway.” She FREAKED. Eldest became hysterical and yelled “I DON’T WANT DADDY TO BE HOME!! I HATE IT WHEN HE’S HOME MOMMY!!” And that was it. It took a couple more weeks for me to formulate a safe “escape plan” and get him out of the house.
But in my attempt to shield them from giant, ugly and potentially very frightening , violent fights, I had taught Eldest that it was okay to take that. It was okay to allow someone to treat her that way. To bully her. To not stand up for herself.

And you have no idea how much it hurts to know I have done that.

So, I have a brand new plan. It is up to me to lead by example. To be the change. To end the cycle. To stand up for myself. To acknowledge when people are treating me in a way I do not deserve and to vocalize it and back it up with actions. To cut ties with those that feel it is okay to bully me. To diminish my feelings. Or use me as an ego boost when no one else is paying them attention. Those that are used to getting away with things because I allow them to.

One of our Monkey Family Rules is “If you’re having a bad day, you can still turn it around. You can take a deep breath, a step back and yell ‘FLIP IT!’ And start it over and do it right.”

I am using my “FLIP IT!”

They say in every career in health care you experience one major event. Something so messed up that it stretches way out of the norm. Of course, I like to throw off statistics. I have had a couple of them already. Each one, while Hell at the time, taught me so much. There is indeed a lesson in everything in life. The most recent of these taught me a couple of things. It cemented my belief that treating your staff with respect and nurturing a true team environment will allow you to accomplish anything. It reminded me that even when people make incredibly poor decisions (and are too dimwitted to hide the evidence of it), they can still rise above it and turn themselves around. It proved to me that there are people in this world that really do care about others more than they care about a paycheck. It showed me that the Milwaukee Police Department (specifically District 7) seriously leaves A LOT to be desired. And finally, you have not truly lived until you’ve had a one-legged schizophrenic over your shoulder at 3:30 in the morning.

I was running a 42 bed assisted living facility for those with chronic mental illness. Illness to the point where no one else would take them. When I first started I had a social worker I’d known for years be like “this place will take anyone.” At first I was offended. But, then I decided, damn right we will. EVERYONE deserves a home. We had 36 residents that made up quite the motley crew. But it worked. Damn well at that. The building was an old ass nursing home in a neighborhood most call a “ghetto.” The staff were just as diverse in personalities as the residents. When I began there, those that survived the lunatic bitch that ran the place before were emotionally beat. She was beyond hard on them and you could tell. Morale sucked, but they toughed it out because they loved the Hell outtta those residents. The owners hated the building, the residents and everything to do with it. We were the bastard stepchild. Like flaming red hair, missing digits, cross-eyed, had Tourrettes with a lisp kind of stepchild in their eyes. Not only were we the complete underdogs, but combine the owners’ refusal to put any kind of money in the place, the aforementioned crazy boss and yeah social workers, doctors and even State pretty much hated us when I got there. But, WE worked our asses to change all of that.

And one night we proved every naysayer wrong. There’s not much I love to do more than prove people like that wrong.

It was roughly 3:00am on February 12, 2007 when my work cell rang. Calls at that time of night weren’t all that rare, but this one was way different.

Third shifter: “Umm..I think we’ve got a pipe burst up in the smoke room.”
Me: ”You think?!?”
Them: ”Yeah, there’s some water leaking down into the 1st floor living room.”
Me: ”Hmm….some??”
Them: ”Yeah, that’s what I said. Some.”
Me: “Like how much some?”
Them: “Like dripping some.”
Me: “Ok. Well, keep the residents out of the smoke room and I’ll get a plumber out there right away.”
Them: “Ok”

So, I call around until I find a plumber that can go out in the middle of the night and send them on their merry way over there. I call the staff back to let them know help is on the way. “Cool. Thanks.”

Roughly two minutes later (3:12am) my phone rings again.

“Hi, this is JT from the Milwaukee Fire Department. We’re going to need to shut the power off and you’re going to need to start getting these people out of here miss.”
Me: “WHAAAAAAAA?????”
“Miss, this building is flooding.”
(insert stream of cussing that would rival the dad in The Christmas Story)

It took me approximately 14 minutes to get dressed and haul the 12.9 miles to get to the building.

On my way, I called my boss in Chicago who told me she would “rally” the other buildings’ Administrators and have them grab their facilities’ vans (my facility wasn’t good enough for one) to come help. I then spent the rest of the ride on the phone with my building talking them through what to do. It was all of 12 degrees out that night, snow everywhere, ice lurking. When I pulled up to my building, my heart swelled sooo much with pride. EVERY staff person I had showed up. Most in their pajamas.

I will never forget walking into that building, a place we all called our second home. Water was halfway to my knees and raining down from the ceiling. The only light came from flashing emergency lights. One of my staff described it later as what she pictured the stairwells of the twin towers to be like that fateful day. I’m not sure that I would describe it as such, but the images will never leave me.

We immediately divided the residents up by medical needs. The ones with the most would go to our facility that had a nurse on staff. All charts, medications, treatments and cigarettes (trust me, they lived for smoke time) were grabbed, bagged by resident and ready to go. We assigned residents to each staff per vehicles (who could get in a car vs. needed a van) and started loading.

All of this was done before a single Administrator from another facility showed up.

Through every step of this, all of the residents (you know the ones “too crazy” to “belong” anywhere else) remained perfectly calm. Well, except for Mr. M. when he started some drama over not riding with me. But, he was a bit of comic relief “ If I can’t ride with baby girl, y’all can just leave my ass here to die!” So, I loaded him in his assigned car and gave him a smooch on the cheek. Rumor has it he cussed the whole way to his evacuation spot when he figured out it wasn’t my car.

As I sat worked on loading residents and walkers and wheelchairs and charts (oh my!) I kept noticing police car after police car just drive right on by. The officers would look, but just keep going. I admit after I got my one legged friend in my van and saw the sixth squad car roll by, I was pissed. They ended up stopped at the light right by our facility. Yeah, I admit it was unprofessional, but I couldn’t help it. I yelled “What do you think we’re going on a fucking field trip?” No response from him.

By the time the sun started rising, every resident and all of their necessities were safely relocated to their temporary home. I made the rounds visiting them and my staff that went with them to care for them and it was the only disheartening part of the whole experience. The staff at our “sister” facilities were rude to our residents and our staff. They were completely put out by us invading their space. Which I can honestly understand in some aspects. But knowing what they have been through and knowing the staff that understood them best was there to meet their needs, wouldn’t you have some ounce of compassion?? Had the tables been turned, I know we would have welcomed the newcomers with open arms and made sure they knew they were welcomed.

The company felt no need to move the residents from their evacuation areas. “They can just double up with the residents there for a bit, they’ll be fine.” They were far from fine. They were miserable. Tossed in a new location was hard enough. Yanked from their regular routines was beyond hazardous to triggering behaviors they fought to control. Most importantly, they had bonded with each other and the staff in a manner where we really were a family. One that truly put the fun in dysfunctional. And, we were they only family most of them had. So, I pulled out the big guns. I went through the HFS 83 State codes we were governed by and pulled out every single potential violation we could be sited for. The company HATED me. I was proud. By the end of the day, our entire facility, med cart and all, was moved into our own floor of a hotel.

It took the restoration company an entire month to repair all the damage that had been done and bring the building back up to code. It proved to be one of the longest months of my life. I worked literally every single day. The smell of mold will forever bring back a nauseating feeling. I also know much more about abatement and dealing with contractors than I ever thought I would.

During this whole time, the initial conversation I had that night with third shift bugged me incessantly. Coupled with the fact that the two who were on duty that night were magically transformed into amazing employees, picking up shifts they never would have before and actually charting in a manner they never had and yeah, something stunk in Denmark. Yet, neither would spill. I had investigated to the point where I knew, without a doubt, that they could not have prevented what occurred in any way. There was no way I would tell them that though. But “some” water versus a veritable waterfall weighed on me.

Then one day I was cleaning at the facility, getting it ready for our family to come home, and I just happened to check the DVD player in the first floor living room. The very living room that lay directly under the smoke room. I could have smacked myself for not thinking to do so earlier. In it was a bootleg copy of Hustle and Flow. Oh the irony.