Erin Miller

As labor day rapidly approaches signaling the very sad end of summer, I figured it was time for another update. My summer was full of weddings, vacations, and changes and as things have calmed down I have started working my regular 8:30-5, EVERYDAY, and unlike undergrad, when I am really tired and busy I cannot just skip the first lecture of the day and sleep in — this, I find, is sort of a bummer.
I have attended three weddings this summer, and fourth is coming up next weekend — crazy kids, has anyone ever heard of enjoying your youth? Just kidding. Being in my friend, Rachel’s, wedding was a true honor and it was some of the most fun I have ever had. John and Rachel are going strongly on two and half months as a married couple and seem to be continuing to have the time of their lives. I also accompanied Dan to his cousin’s wedding in San Fransisco where I had the pleasure of meeting Dan’s Mom and witnessing a hippy wedding. The weddng was complete with an Apache poem and the breaking of a glass, which I am convinced was done at least partially to give everyone in the audience a chance to yell “Mazeltov!” The official dress code for the wedding was “no tie, no option.” It was my first trip to San Francisco. I told my mom I would go to California and sit on a beach and swim in the ocean she said, “not in San Fransisco you won’t.” She was right, though I think that at least part of the reason for that was that I could not find a beach.
I also made a trip to Oklahoma to visit my mother’s side of the extended family. The trip was as pleasant as possible in hundred and twenty degree heat (maybe a slight exaggeration, but a very slight one.) I got to spend some time with my grandparents, uncle, and my aunt and her three beautiful kids who are growing up quickly and will soon enough have some trouble fitting into that “kids” category. I spent a lot of time reading novels in the lazy boy strategically placed both near air-conditioning vents and the thermostat. In this way, I was able to guard the thermostat so that if some hippy trying to save money or conserve resources or save the world or something tried to turn the air up to 83 I could discreetly lean over and move it back down to 78. It was all I could do to stop myself from joining the dogs on the floor over the air conditioning vents.
My family also made our annual pilgrimage up to Vail to allow ourselves some deep breaths and an opportunity to re-connect with nature. My boyfriend Dan accompanied our family on a 9 mile hike and a class 4 white-water rafting trip and determined that my family’s vacations were “hard core.” The second part of the week my family (minus Mom who wimped out) went on our first class 5 rafting trip. We were all, including our guide, scarred out of our minds. My sister, Kelly, actually turned a surprising shade of white. The rapids really were big, more like waves, as they splashed over the front of the raft. But we are relatively experienced rafters and were lucky and everything worked out well, giving me one of the best adrenaline rushes I have had in a while. We did spend some time just hanging out and I smoked my siblings in a game of scrabble, I am sure that they would mention that they toasted me at monopoly, but whatever.
I have moved out of Boulder, packing and cleaning were distinct acts that symbolized a much greater closing of a chapter in my life and a moving forward. I am now splitting my time between Dan’s apartment in Denver and my parents’ place in A-town. Spot comes along during my time at Dan’s apartment and has adjusted surprisingly well to life as a city dog. She enjoys watching people pass outside the window and barking at passing dogs, and her 4-5 walks a day. Her physical attractiveness and general ability to sit-stay while on a leash gets her invited into almost all stores — florists, office depot, and the liquor store — where I had to give her a warning about not knocking over expensive bottles with her tail.
I continue to enjoy my job at WIC. I still occasionally become very frustrated with our health care system, and also with immigration laws. I saw one young woman (15) who was pregnant, and had a very low hemoglobin, indicating a severe iron deficiency and putting her at risk for having a low birth weight baby. When I told her that she should really ask her doctor about it she informed me that she did not have a doctor because when she went to apply for medicaid she was turned away because she did not have a proof of citizenship. Under new Colorado laws, one must be a citizen to receive medicaid, though pregnant women, even those who are not citizens are allowed to be on medicaid in the name of creating healthier American babies. But apparently, with the new laws somebody somewhere got confused and turned away a 15 year-old pregnant girl because her Mom had lost her birth certificate in California. This is system that we need to fix. I am usually able to pause (through the more or less constant sound of babies crying) and appreciate kids from all over the world, who do not speak a common language, gathering around my toy box and sharing toys. My Spanish has improved dramatically and I am now able to get through entire appointments without calling a translator as long as my clients are willing to slow their speech, offer some alternative vocabulary for words I don’t understand, and use hand gestures to indicate taking, giving, saying, hearing, past, and future. It’s a good thing that most of our clients are so incredibly appreciative and patient. I have been promoted to a retail coordinator position meaning that I have to monitor the more than 3 retail stores in the Denver area that accept WIC checks, and I have to take and follow-through on complaints from both WIC clients and the stores. It is a surprisingly challenging and intriguing aspect of the job that is allowing me to have a greater understanding of the program as a whole.The position does occasionally involve calling Spanish-speaking clients, which is more difficult as neither of our hand-signals are nearly as helpful. Overall, the new position provides a fun and interesting challenge.