Germain Lawrence is, in their own words:

Germaine Lawrence provides the highest quality residential treatment services in New England for troubled adolescent girls.

We serve girls whose behaviors may include school failure, suicide attempts, cutting, sexually acting out, drug or alcohol abuse, running away, eating disorders, aggression, or firesetting.

Germaine Lawrence provides personalized treatment through comprehensive clinical services, a supportive special education program, and a highly structured therapeutic milieu. We offer a comprehensive continuum of services that helps girls reduce destructive behaviors, develop age-appropriate social skills, and make enough progress to enable them to live at home or in the community safely again.

Sounds like a pretty good deal doesn’t it? Beats seeing your daughter, or your friends daughter or that troubled goth chic at the Starbucks or the super silent preppy girl in class disappear into oblivion. I’ve seen that happen first hand and it makes me cry every time I think of it.

Programs like Germain Lawrence don’t exist on pixie dust though. What they do need is:

• Volunteers
• Donations of stuff
• Money

And you can also help them by doing your searching on GoodSearch. GoodSearch is a Yahoo powered search engine that donates to a charities based on the searches done in a given charities name. When you search using Good Search, and use the Stars in the Nights charity as the designated charity (just type that name into the designated charities box), you are getting the great search results from Yahoo and making a donation to Germain Lawrence through Stars In the Nights. Stars in the Nights charity, for the past two years made sure that all of the 150 girls at Germaine Lawrence received a very nice assortment of gifts (e.g., clothing, CD players, CDs, stationary) during the December holidays.

(photo used courtesy of Cherry Vega Photo, used under Creative Commons License)

This blog is for HR and Diversity professionals who are faced with issues of “transgender workplace diversity.” Here, every working day, I discuss resources, news, and issues of importance specifically for HR and Diversity professionals who need to know the latest on this fast-developing new category of employees.

Some of the new topics covered and well worth a read are:

• Kodak Corporation update trans health beneftis
• West Chester Pennsylvania Council moves gender identity ordinance forward
• Dear Abby weighs in on bathroom question, and what that means to us who are transgender
• Draft Agenda for Co-worker meeting regarding transitioning on the job and giving advice on what to do and how to do it
• Proposed Homeland Security Rules and what the effects could be for you should you transition

Dr. Weiss’s site is choc-a-bloc full of very valuable information on this critical topic for all us workin’ girls and boys – whether you are transitioning or not. Go grab a nice iced cappucino and have a read at the Transgender Workplace Diversity blog by clicking HERE, you’ll be glad you did.

(fish photo courtesy of Greenhem’s Photos, used under license from Creative Commons)

HPV is short for human papillomavirus. It’s present in both men and women. For men, the risks include anal and penile cancers and genital warts. For women, there is also the risk of genital warts as well as cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths among women. The American Cancer Society has determined that 38% of all diagnosed cervical cancer cases will end in death in 2006. A large and very sobering number.

So what to do? Well the most important thing to do is get a regular pap smear. As Merck points out at it’s excellent web site on this subject:

A: Most women learn they have HPV as a result of abnormal Pap tests. A Pap test (also known as a Pap smear) is part of a gynecological exam that can help detect abnormal cells in the lining of the cervix before they have the chance to become precancerous or cervical cancer. Many cases of cervical precancer are related to HPV and can be treated successfully if detected early. It’s also important to note that cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers. That’s why it’s really important to follow your doctor’s advice regarding how often you should have a Pap test.
Learn about Pap tests and other follow-up tests.

The keys to prevent or limiting your chance to getting HPV? Either abstain from sex or use condoms to protect both the guy and the girl. And guys, this is a SHARED responsibility – you own this too.

To learn more about the serious dangers on HPV and to get tools to tell others click to Merck’s excellent site on the topic at “Tell Someone“. You can also learn about this silent killer at the Centers for Disease Control site at this link HERE.

Current research says that men and women are equally happy when they age. The Pew Research Center, released in February 2006, the results of a study on happiness (you can read the report at the Pew site by clicking this link here. A number of areas were covered including gender and aging. In that report they noted that:

There is virtually no difference in happiness by gender and only a bit of variance in happiness by age. But the age data run counter to the prevailing ethos of the popular culture, which is forever extolling the blessings of youth.

I think there are things that seem to always decline with age that can seem to make us cranky. Take our hair for instance. Generally it thins, we lose it, or it changes to white! Ahh, the old gray mare. I much prefer the biblical admonition, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life” (Proverbs 16:31). Or how about our memories. “Where did those keys go that I swear I put down on this table”. Had any of those moments lately? But it’s how we deal with them that might best determine how cranky or happy we are as we age. While it appears that women (generally) will roll with such lapses, men (generally) seem to take the decline harder, as a personal affront almost. After years of being forced to fill a role of high performance and competence, men find, as they grow older, they are treated as if they are slipping. They may be perfectly fine and operating at the same levels as years before, but how they are treated makes the difference. The apparent loss of place and status may make them a bit cranky or maybe even make them feel aimless and somewhat hopeless. I wonder how the increasing number of older women executives will deal with this issue since in the work world they are under no less stress to perform.

So perhaps it is all about our attitude then – regardless of gender. A recent interview at the Boost website of Dr. Royda Crose, Ph.D., might help our understanding. Dr. Crose retired from Ball State University in Indiana, where she was director of the Center for Gerontology and associate director of the Fisher Institute for Wellness. She is also author of the book, “Why Women Live Longer than Men, and What Men Can Learn From Them”. In her interview at Boost, she had this to say about attitude and aging:

“Attitude is very important during any phase of life – but particularly as we grow old. For men and women alike, attitude can have a very great impact on health in either a positive or negative way,” she says. “The good news for all of us is that the ability to have a positive attitude is very much under our control. The big question is how you motivate someone to put that positive attitude into action.”

However, even Dr. Crose points out that women seem to have an aging advantage. It’s not related to physical ability, genetics, or mental agility. It seems to be related to experience in life and making lemonades when life hands you lemons. In her excellent review of Dr. Crose’s book, Dr. Joan Saks Berman, Ph.D., notes the following (Dr. Berman’s full and very informitive review can be found at her site here):

Women, on the other hand, have learned coping skills and ways to survive in a sexist society that serve them well in an ageist society. Until men join women as equal partners in all dimensions of life, they won’t succeed in closing the longevity gap. The longevity of a species seems to be based on ability to be open to and to contribute to the well-being of the whole system. Flexibility and resilience seem to be concepts that explain gender differences in longevity. This includes the ability to recover from misfortune and to creatively live life in spite of disease and stress. Flexibility in emotional health means working at finding joy, laughter, and humor in aging life experiences. Flexibility in spiritual or religious beliefs enables the older person to accept the inevitable losses and tolerate the increased diversity encountered in new living environments or in an ever-changing world.

So there really are cranky old men and happy old women and now you know a bit more about why and what to do about it. So whether male or female, there’s no reason to be cranky and unhappy as you age. Both genders can age gracefully and happily. It’s all about your attitude and giving to others in their well being, things all of us can do as we age.

(Photo courtesy of Welfl’s Photos, used under Creative Commons License)

5/15/2010 Update
Unfortunately, Dr. Berman’s excellent review of Dr. Crose’s book was removed from New Mexico’s Public Employee Retirement Association website.  However, you can find reviews of Dr. Crose’s book at Amazon here: “Why Women Live Longer then Men and What Men Can Learn From Them“

Visually it is stunning and warm and the writing and content are wonderful. It’s given me new inspiration to write, to be accessible in my writing, and to have Beck’s Cafe be a place you feel at home at when visiting (and re-visiting as well).

So now back to regular posting instead of programming – yay!

(photo of woman elated with Beck’s Cafe running again from Quasimime’s Photos, used under Creative Commons License)

I hope the construction is going to work, so far the links section is messed up and its frustrating tyring to get it fixed in 2.04 when in 2.02 it worked flawlessly.

The good news is I’m learning more about coding in WordPress, html and php. Thanks for your patience kind readers as we get the Cafe back in order.

(Women at Work constuction sign from aheaven’s photos, used via Creative Commons License)

If you’ve been clicking here at the Cafe to check out our fresh content and seemd to see the Cafe’s style change pretty often (especially late at night when we ought to be asleep) it’s due to some Summer renovation work we are doing I did some reading on accesibility and usability in blogs and felt the text area was a bit too wide for easy reading. So I’ve tried to narrow the reading area, keep the links column, make it readable in both Firefox and Internet Explorer and make some small code changes to increase the speed of the blog loading. It’s coming along ok I think, but if something seems amiss or horrible or you just want to drop me a comment on the changes, please do so

Right now I’m experimenting with the Chameleon Theme from Ainslie Johnson, and blog.txt theme from Scott Allan Wallick.

(picture of the two people doing some renovation work from Niklas’ Photos, used under license from Creative Commons)

First off I’m always “en femme” – I’m always Rebecca and genetically there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot I can do about it aside from a brain transplant. Even then who knows who’s brain I’d get? Teddy Roosevelt? Jeffrey Dallmer? Moe Fine? Groucho Marks? Best to stick with the cortex problems I have than get some other brain with it’s own baggage.

But I dont’ always present as a woman as I’m not “full time” yet, as we say in the community. But hey I prefer to present as “me” as we like to say in the community so when the chance came, I grabbed it thinking, “hey I’ll just change back in the parking garage, no biggie”. I would have been better off changing in a phone booth.

First of all, as most women know, changing clothes in a car is a challenge in itself. How do you get your jeans on when you have a skirt on? Well under the skirt silly then slip the skirt off. Ahhh of course! So here I am in my car, air conditioning on thank goodness, squiggling into my jeans under a perfectly fun skirt that I love that I am hoping desperately I don’t wrinkle, snag, or tear. Mission accomplished there. But the odd gyrations of my portly body in the car would have made a distant on looker wonder if the car I was in was on an earthquake fault: first one leg up against the steering wheel then YANK the jeans up then pull the skirt down then move a hip in the other direction to fit in a bit more. Imagine cramming a sausage full of the sausagy material that makes it so good but doing it by hand. You probably can imagine how I looked. Car swaying, my jeans getting caught over my backside, yanking them up. Good time had by all. Thank goodness there were no spectators – yet.

Removing my bra was no less an act in contorsionism. First unhook said bra then slither your arm out the arm hole then bring it back at an impossible angle so that the arm can actually fit out of the bra strap and then WHISK the bra deftly from your shirt. TA DA. Breasts freed from their imprisonment.

So far so good – piece o’ cake.

Then there’s the makeup. Ahhh the spackle. Some days it might just as well be that. A friend and I had talked earlier about this apparent obstacle, “makeup shmakeup; quick wipe down with a handy makeup removing wipe and be on your way”. On my way indeed! That’s when the spectators came by. As the first man walked past, I figured he wouldn’t notice as I was frantically scrubbing my face. I was right, he was oblivious. A second gentleman saw me from the corner of his eye, then looked away. No doubt he’d seen someone like me scrubbing their face in public before; nothing like a good face scrubbing in public to freshen one up, I’m sure he thought, and on his way he went, nothing unusual here. It was the third couple that got me.

Walking past my car, two women walked up to their oversized white SUV (the kind that could tow a small home) that happened to tower over my little car right next to theirs. As they got in I saw them out of the corner of my eye noticing that the person in the car next to them (that would be me) was doing a good impersonation of someone trying to scrub their face with steel wool. Curiosity got the best of them and they had to look for a bit! Fortunately they did not walk UP to the car and gawk at me through the window, faces pressed firmly to the glass to get every detail. Instead they just kept their distance, no doubt hoping that something worse wasn’t happneing in the car next to them, like my skin catching fire due to the friction I was creating from the scrub of the “gentle” cloth. They eventually left and so did I. Unscathed, save for a bit of embarrassment though clearly having provided the afternoons entainment.

My little life lesson from this? Just relax and be myself, there’s probably not a whole lot I can do about it anyway!

(Phone booth pic used from BenoitNewton’s Photos, under Creative Commons License)