He Said, She Said (and the Bebe Said)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Him: You're my little ciabatta.
Me: What?
Him: I said you're my little ciabatta.
Me: I'm your bread?
Him: Well if you can call me Dagwood than I should be able to call you my little ciabatta.
Me:What you really mean is ciabutta.
Him: Fine, now I'm going to put my panini in your ciabutta?
Me: Too many carbs no thanks.
Me(speaking the militant feminist manifesto): A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Bebe, as babies do, is making connections and learning a slew of new words each day. She makes generalizations so the word 'draw' becomes the word for everything related to drawing, the paper, the pencils, the crayons and the completed pictures themselves. She has finally learned the names of all of the fruit rather than call everything round 'apple.' She still, however, connects everything with long blonde hair to me. So when she holds her sisters Hanna Montana alarm clock, she points at the sixteen year old blonde and says "Mama" matter of factly.
Same goes for Barbie, look "Mama" she says to her sister, pushing the Barbie in her sister's face. That's not Mom, her sister says like I'm the furthest thing from Barbie.(I know, I know, it's time for a touch up on the highlights, I'm doing the best I can). Is it a sign of my desire to conform to ideal beauty types that it makes me feel just a little bit good that my daughter think I can pass for a teen superstar and an unrealistic female archetype? Probably, but I will consider these comments like armor for the ones to come. Like when my now five year old said she hopes her butt is big like mine when she grows up. Or when she looked at my wedding pictures and said, Mom you are so skinny then. Sigh, have you been talking to your father?Speaking of fathers, the bebe also generalizes in the Daddy department. What does Daddy get compared to? The Blues Clues guy gets called Daddy, Kai-lan's grandpa and yes, even the chocolate-skinned, orange jump suited Yo-Gabba-Gabba guy.
Mauna Kea Kisses
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
My husband, the technosexual man, had Mauna Kea on his short list of must sees.
Okay, first a quick briefing for those of you unfamiliar with Mauna Kea(like I was).
Mauna Kea hosts the world's largest astronomical observatory, with telescopes operated by astronomers from over eleven countries.
Telescopes found at the summit of Mauna Kea are funded by government agencies of various nations.
- Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO): Caltech
- Canada France Hawai'i Telescope (CFHT): Canada, France, University of Hawai'i
- Gemini North Telescope: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, Australia, Argentina, Brazil
- Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF): NASA
- James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT): United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands
- Subaru Telescope: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
- Sub-Millimeter Array (SMA): Taiwan, United States
- United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT): United Kingdom
- University of Hawai'i 88-inch (2.2 m) telescope (UH88): University of Hawai'i
- University of Hawai'i 24-inch (610 mm) telescope (UH24): University of Hawaii at Hilo
- One receiver of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA): United States
- W. M. Keck Observatory: California Association for Research in Astronomy
Mauna Kea is unique as an astronomical observing site because the atmosphere above the mountain is extremely dry -- which is important in measuring infrared and submillimeter radiation from celestial sources - and cloud-free, so that the proportion of clear nights is among the highest in the world. The exceptional stability of the atmosphere above Mauna Kea permits more detailed studies than are possible elsewhere, while its distance from city lights and a strong island-wide lighting ordinance ensure an extremely dark sky, allowing observation of the faintest galaxies that lie at the very edge of the observable Universe. A tropical inversion cloud layer about 600 meters (2,000 ft) thick, well below the summit, isolates the upper atmosphere from the lower moist maritime air and ensures that the summit skies are pure, dry, and free from atmospheric pollutants.
Okay, enough of the sciency schmiency, it was the. coolest. thing. ever. It was odd to be wearing parkas in Hawaii but the freezing nose and fingers worth every minute. The view was the most spectacular thing I have seen, the stars so close it was as if you could pick them out of the sky. The sky was so dark, several moving satellites were visible and the constellations blazed so bright you could easily pick them out. The idea that so many countries work together and share their information and data is hopeful(quick note, Japan is the only country that sells their info rather than share, tsk tsk Japan!). In a word, the trip up Mauna Kea to an elevation of 14,000 feet was breathtaking, and yes in part because at that elevation it is actually difficult to breathe. This guy also took my breath away.
Greetings From Hawaii
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Okay, we don't really miss that, but we do miss this.
We'll see you in seven more days guys.
Things I Do When I Should Be Working
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Gene and I are getting ready to go on vacation Wednesday and I have been telling him to get a haircut, maybe pestering is more accurate. So I made a little movie to let him know that I realize I can be kind of bossy.
Well At Least There Were No Issues With Wire Hangers
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Milwaukee Public Museum was always my favorite with its dark and vaguely ominous Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit and the oddly static but roaring dinos that every city's museum seems to have. With a great downtown and Chicago at our doorstep we did schloads of field trips, the art museum, the Field Museum in Chicago, the symphony, the kids theatre, the kid's science museum. The field trips are some of my fondest school memories.
My mom was a single working parent, and more than a little fly by the seat of her pants. So while most of the kids got kickass paper sack lunches with Capri Suns and multi-layered sandwiches and bags of Doritos, and Little Debbie snack cakes, me? I usually got my mom's leftover t-bone from her client dinner the night before encased in tinfoil shaped like a swan . Really Mom, how is a seven year old supposed to eat steak on the bone in a museum cafeteria with no knife?
Thrown in for good measure was a hard boiled egg with a little plastic baggie filled with salt, and a Tab. Who gives their kids Tab? And salt? No wonder I'm only five foot tall. My kids school hasn't done much so far in the way of field trips and I've been far too lazy a parent to take them anywhere good. Sigh. But at least I make my children proper lunches.
are resposible with rearing me. Oh oh!
Though I was grateful when I finally was allowed to buy “hot lunch”, lunches were not the only thing that suffered as a result of having a harried career mom. My mother was only seventeen when she had me, so when I was seven, she was just twenty-four, not exactly the apex of responsibility. Still, she was a creative problem solver.
Many mornings she would sleep through her alarm clock. Rather than bark at me to hurry up she'd say, ok, it's a race, whoever gets dressed first wins! My mom knew only too well my competitive streak and I would yank my pants on in a flurry and string my clear plastic glitter belt through my belt loops missing most of them. No socks, socks took too long to get on, pebbly because they were from like three years ago and way too tight. Brushed teeth? Time waster. I think I may have even inadvertently gone to school with my shirt on inside out more than once. Yet, as a hungry seven year old, my stomach would not let me forget about breakfast. "Breakfast?" She'd say on the days we were minutes away from being both tardy and fired, "not everyone eats breakfast every morning." Seriously Mom, couldn't you have stocked a few lousy Poptarts?
I'm not saying that my mom neglected me, just that she neglected to pick me up from school a few times. There I'd sit on the steps at school, reading my book, waiting for my mom's red Pontiac to pull in the circle drive. Moments like these in part probably explain why I became such an avid reader. As it neared four o'clock, the teachers exited the building, most of them giving me the odd worried look but saying nothing. Occasionally, the young, fresh, helpful new ones would ask, where's your mom honey? "She's on her way," I'd say, knowing even at seven I was going to be able to milk this one awhile.
It wasn't always easy being the only child of a single mom trying to make the mortgage and compete in the workforce. As a radio salesperson, she worked long hours and weekends, but the job did have it's perks. Trade was something reps worked out with local businesses, free goods and services for free commercial time. The intent was Joe's restaurant got some commercials and the station reps could take clients to Joe's for lunches on the house. I didn't realize that not everyone's mom could just sign her name to the bill with her business card and leave. These lunches and dinners were meant for clients but especially in the early days of making ends meet, we had many “business” meals together my mother and I. Many of the restaurants were very nice, not exactly normal for a child. It was here that I first developed a taste for very good food. I was hardly sixteen when I was grilling our local butcher on which steaks he was giving me. Don't you have any that are better marbled I'd ask, are these dry aged? Prime?
When I have my finer moments of parenting and fear I've scarred my kids for good, I just look back to my own childhood. Were it not for the missteps, I would not have the sense of humor I do. Most of my favorite funny people have a wry and witty sense of humor breed as an elaborate self-defense mechanism--tragedy begets comedy. Were I to be the perfect mother, I would be denying my children stories to harangue me with later and that in itself is a form of child abuse, no? So in my epic fail moments I sit back and consider that my mistakes will someday be reflected upon by my own kids as they traverse the rocky waters of parenthood.
Oh Oh, She's Back on Her Soapbox Again
Friday, June 12, 2009
Yes, here it comes, a small but significant rant.
A woman saying she is not a feminist is like a human saying they are ambivalent about oxygen. When did feminism become the exclusive bastion of man-hating, "men and women are the same," sensible shoe-wearing, eschewers of deodorant?
Can you be a stay at home mom and a feminist?
Uh, are you at home because it works for your family or because you think a woman's place is in the home?
Can you load the dishwasher while your husband/wife/life partner fills your car with gas and still be a feminist?
Division of labor is a fact of life and if it so happens that the "man" likes to do the more traditionally "male" tasks and the "woman" wants to sit on the couch and eat bonbons whilst thumbing through her dog-eared Germaine Greer treatise well fair is fair.
Can you don pigtails, stilettos and layers of thick, pink lip gloss in the bedroom and still be a feminist?
I say, yes we can.
For those of you who say well I'm not a feminist, do you even know what a feminist is?
Feminism is the idea that women should have political, social, legal, sexual, intellectual and economic rights equal to those of men.(look it's in pink, see you can be girly and still be feminist.)
Pray tell, what part of this sounds like a bad idea?
Do you think people should be paid differently for doing the same job?
Do you think a woman should not be allowed to own property?
Do you think women shouldn't do certain jobs?
Do you think women should not have the same educational opportunities as men?
I will leave the reproductive freedom out of this because I think you can be against abortion on principle and still be a feminist in practice. For me, reproductive freedom is an integral part of the equation of equality but let's be frank, no one likes abortion. I respect people for whom this issue is a difficult one fraught with religious doctrine and social ambiguity. I am certainly not "pro-abortion' but I have always considered this the most personal of decisions and not one I would ever like someone to make for me or for me to make for another person. I have to ask, is this issue the major holdback?
And guess what guys, feminism, it's not just for women anymore.
FormerlyFun's Manifesto on Why Feminism is Good for Men
-Your educated woman makes a mighty fine partner in a neighborly game of Trivial Pursuit and a suitable rival in Balderdash.
-That whole reading/writing thing comes in handy when you need someone to program the GPS while you drive.
-Bound feet rather unattractive shoeless.
-More opportunities outside the home equals less neurasthenia.
-She can now work in the higher paying battery department at Johnson Controls.
-Women look hot when they are voting.
-She won't lose her job just because you knock her up.
-If women couldn't go to college we wouldn't have movies like Revenge of the Nerds or Animal House.
-Access to contraception is sexy.
-Repression is a downer.
-More women burning bras = more women braless.
Goodbye Thirty Five, Hello Thirty Six
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Goodbye luxurious silky mane. I won't cut you off anytime soon but gone are the days of regular trims and deep conditioning. The baby is finally past grabbing fistfuls of you and ripping you out so I'm hoping you fill in from time to time but until then, can you recommend a good volumizing shampoo?
Goodbye regular reading. We had it so good didn't we? Just you and I, we were inseparable. It seemed like all we ever did was go on long weekends together, exotic vacations or just hole up together and spend the whole weekend in bed. Now I treat you like the old, smelly family pet saying hi once in awhile but rarely getting down for a good snuggle.Goodbye going braless, you guys are still fighting the good fight but you've let me down a little. The weight of it all has pushed me to join a daily support group.
Goodbye smoking, I gave you up for good a long time ago but don't think that I don't still think of you nearly every day. You were good for a quick diet or after a fight with my mom or a reward/ break on Saturdays cleaning the house. You have been missed but I don't miss the way you made me feel. You treated me bad, come on, you know you did. I broke up with you but I took you back a few times. There were a few late night booty calls after a night out but no more, it hurts a little to say this but I'm really over you.
Goodbye size six and maybe even eight, I hope I see you again soon but this baby thing is really getting in the way. Yes, maybe I should be working out instead of blogging but I don't want to.
Goodbye extra cash, I'd like you to meet the new guy, Three Kids Who Want Bachelor Degree's At Minimum. Yes, I'm not sure I like the new guy either but he's here, handcuffed to my card sliding arm, reminding me every time I get into three digits at Target that I'm a bad mom who didn't really need that new stripey cardigan.
Any Given Saturday
Friday, May 29, 2009
This particular Saturday was much the same. After a grueling day at work up to my elbows in cha, I paid homage to my couch, face down, exhausted from the long day and late work night the day before. I was deep in sleep, a small strand of drool pooling on my pretty silk pillow when I heard my boyfriend's key in the door. We didn't live together but I had given him keys and all manner of personal stuff many moons ago.
I had probably looked fresh in the morning but now resembled more of a small, blond raccoon.
“Hi babe", I slurred, not really awake yet. I looked at him, smiled and turned to face into the couch and unceremoniously went back to sleep.
“Hey, wake up, I have something for you.” he said.
"Great, just put it on the table," I mumbled incoherently.
“No, come on, get up," he said as he tried to pull the pillow out from under my head.
"Noooo," I whined, "I'm sooo tired, just a half hour, pleeease?" I clamped a pillow over my head and grunted to send the message I was not entirely communicative yet.
"Come on, I made you something."
"That's nice honey, can I look at it later, really, very tired." I opened up my eyes a little further and noticed he looked weird, not weird like weird but unusual, something was different. I reluctantly sat up and eyed him skeptically, my eyes narrowing as I tried to put my finger on it. I huffed and pouted, the look on my face said fine, what, you wanted to show me something, okay already, on with it.
He sat beside me and produced one of those brown kraft envelopes from which he pulled a sheet of paper.
"I know how much you love crossword puzzles so I made you one," he offered as he proudly shoved the paper at me.
Oh, great I thought, he was bored at work and discovered one of those teacher programs that lets you make crossword puzzles. He really got me up for this, I thought annoyed. "This is nice honey," trying to hide the vexation in my voice, "I'll do it later," I said as I put it on the coffee table.
"No, come on, do it now."
"Oh, gawd honey," I whined, "I'm not even awake yet." I looked at the excitement on his face and realized he wasn't going to let me do it later.
"Fine," I said," give me a pencil".
So he did and I started doing the crossword puzzle. Hmmm, number one,
Awwww, it was stuff about us. I filled it in, Chris wears GREEN sweaters. I started to warm as I filled in the answers to sweet inside jokes only the two of us knew.
Oh, oh, _ _ _ _ _ _?
Hotdog! Oh, oh, hotdog!*
After a few more of these, I looked at him, something was different, I saw him look at the crossword and then at me expectantly, he was sitting on my coffee table shifting around looking as nervous as man in line at airport security with a bunch of heroin up his bum. And he hadn't taken off his coat. I looked down at the crossword and scanned the rest of the clues, they were pretty easy so I mentally filled it all in while pretending to try and solve one clue. My ears started to buzz and I could hear my blood pumping through my body and that familiar feeling, that swell that marks the beginning of tears. The clue for the long answer across the middle read
W I L L Y O U M A R R Y M E
And with that he got down on one knee, produced a box with the most beautiful diamond ring I had ever seen and nervously asked me to be his wife. Why he was nervous I don't know, we had talked about it wistfully, knew it was going to happen eventually. Still, it must be different for a man to actually ask the question, put his heart in your hands. That's what the wedding ring really is, it's a big shiny pretty object to entice you to be gentle with his heart. And anyway, I knew it was coming one of these days and I still cried.
He put the ring on my finger and held me tight. We had already made a million promises to each other but this one cemented all the others.
"Let's go celebrate," he said.
"I have to shower and change," I said thinking of my couch-raggled hair, rumpled clothes and raccoon eyes. I looked at my hands, two days of work had ravaged them and no self-respecting newly fianceed girl could go out with this piece of art on my hand with ragged nails and chipped polish. So, the boyfriend who was now the fiance made himself a peanut butter sandwich to tide himself over while I did my girly ministrations. We went and had dinner and I not so subtly admired the way my ring cast prisms all around it when it caught the light. We ate good food and lightweights that we are, got all silly on one Mojito each and we went on like before, but different.
Today is our anniversary, well, actually it's his. We have two. The first one is our Vegas wedding where it was just the two of us, holding hands waiting for our turn at the Little Chapel of the Flowers. The second, our family wedding in Wisconsin, has become my anniversary.
Happy Anniversary Gene. I love you babe. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You mellow out all my less than stellar qualities and you bring out the very best in me. You tell me I'm beautiful/hottie/rockin' milf/heinyrific/bootytastic/fp nearly every day and you tell me you love me at least twice each day.
You are supportive of every silly idea, notion or secret longing of mine. I waited so long to find you and finding you, my partner in crime, is the biggest reason why I believe in fate. You coming into my life was serendipitous, everyday magic.
I can walk into a room full of women and know without a doubt that there isn't one woman in there who is treated better than I am. You respect me, you protect me. You tease me, you let me have my way much more than is truly equitable.
You are my soft place to land and my favorite person to nerd out with. Me, the one who's usually pretty good with words can't even begin to capture how much you mean to me. I hope we make it, I know that sounds pessimistic but lots of good couples lose it, whatever the 'it' was that made it work. I never went into this marriage thing with the hubris that we were any better or more special or somehow smarter than all the other people who faced the precipice of matrimony and jumped off. I know we're not bullet proof, I only hope we will grow together, resting firmly on this foundation we've laid. I love you and I look forward to rolling over in bed and seeing your handsome wrinkled face when we're old and smell weird.
Hornicopia - Random Bits
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Every so often I get a food compulsion where I literally want to eat a certain food everyday for a couple of days or weeks and then I'm over it, rarely will I eat it again. My most recent compulsion is salt and vinegar potato chips. I don't even particularly like potato chips but apparently when you slather them in vinegar powder and citric acid they sing my siren song.
Normally, I would grab the individual snack size bag but I was at the grocery store and saw a larger bag and thought, this bag suits my salt and vinegar potato chip needs far better than the single serving size bag. I was eating my lunch(yes, the salt and vinegar potato chips)(yes, only the salt and vinegar potato chips, well and a diet coke) when I noticed on the package it said sharing size. Sharing size? Fuck that, I'm an only child and probably a dog in a past life, I don't share my food with anyone. So I ate the whole bag myself and half of my tongue dissolved and I feel kind of dehydrated like I drank a gallon of pickle juice but no one was getting near my chips. By the way, do you think they are healthier since they were thick cut? In my mind the thicker chips actually contain more potato thereby really qualifying as health food, no?
In other news, I have been all aflit planting-- determined we grow some of our own food. I got seeds and planted tomatoes, peppers, onions, basil, carrots, beets, broccolini and a few other things. I still have some seeds left in their packets and have neatly folded over the edges and stacked them all in one of the kids little plastic sand buckets. I was really proud of my little seedlings as they sprung forth from the proper ph soil and extended their planty goodness to the sun. I showed my husband our eventual bounty. Did you plant all of the seeds he asked me.
No I have the rest here in my seed bucket i said. His reply?
a. wow, I can't wait to try the tomatoes
b. thank you for providing food for our family
c. looks like we are going to be eating a lot of salad
or
d. you're my seed bucket. What a pig, he's lucky he's cute.
Picture This
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
My husband, in addition to his day job, operates a photo & slide scanning/photo restoration/photo to dvd movie business. So if you have any photo scanning needs of any kind, any, let me know. Sorry, husband said since I force him to read my blog all the time I have to at least pimp him a little.
A
nyhow, I help out, especially when there are large jobs since I have more extra time being that I only see clients at the spa on Fridays and Saturdays. I have become adept at things I never wanted to, like handling 35mm slides without my fingers ever touching the film. I can unjam the slide feeder with my eyes shut. I understand the technical meaning of DPI and I can 
tell you what is the best resolution for what you are intending to use your images for. I know how to apply corrections to eliminate scratches, dust and even correct overexposure and funky colors. I can even Photoshop your arm flab or pimples. I have seen nearly every size of film available from the standard to the more obscure large format film and I scanned film shipped to us all the way from Norway.
It's all rather boring I'm afraid. Well, that is except for one part--the pictures. I have seen more of some peoples families than they have. I have seen pictures from so far back that no one smiled and the photos were just a step or two above the 
daguerreotype. I have seen the ubiquitous seventies family with their shag carpeting and wood paneling and brightly colored crocheted afghans strewn over funky couches. I have seen fifties mom--her hair artfully curled with a precision I don't see in today's mom, thank heavens. I have peered at her sturdy heels, red lipstick and weary, hopeful expression.Here is the thi
ng that strikes me, that I have noticed after perusing thousands, tens of thousands 
of pictures. We are all the same. No one is special except to each other. There is no one that isn't loved by someone. No one will live forever. No matter how beautiful you are, one day you will become old and droopy and if you are lucky, gazing into the beautiful faces of your grandchildren.There are pictures everyone has. The baby asleep in the highchair, the war wedding, the picnic, the small kitchen overflowing with family
and food. There are young mothers, their faces smiling but the exhaustion still apparent. There are fathers holding their babies, exposing the tender side of even the most hardened, inaccessible men. There are the pictures of people in front of new homes small and grand. There are the family vacations both tense and fun. There are the kids at Halloween, whether it's the fifties hobos, cowboys 
and tramps or the more modern Ninja heroes and Disney princesses. There are the aging grandparents gingerly holding their great grandchildren, broad smiles washing over their faces making them look years younger if only for that moment.
We are all the same. It makes me feel so small and so big. Like I said, it means none of us matter in the end except to the people for whom we do. Rather than make me feel insignificant, I find this is really very good news. I need to keep this in mind when I worry too much what people think or spend too much time aspiring to greatness forgetting the micro in search of the macro. It is useful to remember when I worry too much about stuff or trivialities because it can keep things in perspective when one remembers that nothing is lasting, except maybe the photographic memory left behind.
Daddy Done Good
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I know it will probably take you a week or more to read this but you know that whole Mother's Day? Yeah you did really good. See I realize this in part because I orchestrate Father's Day and at least at this age, Mom and Dad generally have to pull the whole thing together.
I loved that you recognized how much satisfaction the garden is giving me and got me the solar lights so that at night after dinner when you are sprawled among the children watching an episode of Star Trek or the Your Baby Can Read videos(that I bought off of Ebay and think are pirated but the baby really likes them) I can go sit outside by myself and take in the smells of fresh dirt, gardenias, jasmine, freesia, orange blossom and cypress or sit on the swing filling my mom in on the kid's latest escapades.
I love my new trees. This Wisconsin girl never dreamed of a yard where I could pick a lemon off a tree for my diet coke or tell the kids if they want a snack to go outside and get an orange. I pined for the Cara Cara orange tree with it's sweet pink fruit, my variegated lemon tree the perfect compliment to the Meyer Lemon I already have and the tangerine. Unlike chocolates or even flowers, I will think of you every time I pick lemons off the tree to make lemonade or peel a tangerine while I walk barefoot through the grass with the bebe or bring a basket of extra fruit to a friend.
I adore my tomato trellises, I cherish my tongue depressor garden signs and crafted kid gifts and yes even though we tease about appliances doubling as gifts I love my new coffee maker. Breakfast was wonderful but of course you grace me with breakfast and coffee nearly every morning. Don't ever think that I don't know how spoiled I am.
You did good Daddy. Which is why I insisted you and the boy go see Star Trek yes on Mother's Day. Thanks for such a great Mother's Day and tell James T. Kirk I say hi.
Soapbox Part Deux
Monday, May 4, 2009
The question has been asked. What exactly is so wrong with things like Bratz dolls?
First, let me direct this at the parents who buy Bratz dolls or have kids that watch Hannah Montana and the like. I don't think any of these things are inherently evil or bad for our kids. Much in the same way I don't think Heavy Metal can cause some teen to commit suicide, I also don't think a Bratz doll is going to turn a girl into a passive pole-dancing, no-voting, abuse allowing woman.
Our girls look at the world around them to construct their idea of what they should and can be. It's not a conscious decision, it's choices made based on the choices we provide them.
Let me pose it to you another way, is it ok for our sons to be sexy and provocative. Should we dress them in uncomfortable tight pants and low necked shirts? Have you looked at the differences in the cut of girls and boys jeans lately? I remember a day when girls and boys jeans were nearly identical. Now, boys jeans are cut for comfort and movement, girls for silhouette. Even as moms we see images of cute girls and want our girls to be cute, we want them to be accepted, socially popular. My husband and I have a little rule of thumb with regard to the clothing we dress our girls in; if on me it would be sexy or fetishwear, it's not appropriate for our girls.
Like I said, I don't think letting your kid play with Bratz makes you an irresponsible parent but I do think we need to look at these things critically. None of our kids toys are just toys. Every toy we hand our children is a teaching tool. So we need to vigilantly ask ourselves, what is this particular thing or image teaching? I'll use an example of toy selection. I loved Barbies growing up and even though I am slightly conflicted about their impact on girls self-concept, I have allowed my girls to play with them. My five year old has Soccer Barbie, Barbie Space Camp, and Veterinarian Barbie. She doesn't have Barbie Totally Stylin Tattoos, Barbie Totally Nails, Barbie Wedding Day or Barbie Fantasy Groom. Can the girls aspire to be pretty, yes. Should they aspire to be pretty for pretty's sake? Are we making this too important to them by parading images of "beauty"? Are we making marriage and weddings a fantasy? Why not Barbie Totally PHD or Barbie Small Business Owner or Barbie Cures Cancer or Barbie EcoPatrol? You may say that your girls wouldn't want to play with these dolls but we don't even give them the chance. Instead we limit their options by telling them that the hair and the clothes and the accessories are the most important. I want to help define my daughters(and my sons for that matter) self-concept, not let Disney and Mattel do it.
Stay-Cation
Sometims I forget as I dream about distant tropical locals and old European cities that I have a pretty kickass backyard.
Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon(Enough)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of my mom's coral floral quilted makeup bag. It was filled with pink plastic refillable Mary Kay eyeshadows and waxy eyeliners, hot pink tubes of mascara and soft swirly brushes that I recall my mom sweeping across my cheeks some mornings, no doubt with nothing on them.
On rare occasions, my mom would let me take this bag out onto the front porch of our house and I'd play with it, removing the items from the bag carefully, setting them up on the rough concrete step. I would unscrew the tubes of lipstick and line them up so that I could see the shades of bricks, peonies, roses that I could choose from.
The tweezers got ignored in favor of more colorful pots of powder. I would carefully sweep the shadows across my eyes, using the liner to trace my eyes appraising my own face, layering the liner until I looked like a seven year old blonde straggly, bruised-knee Cleopatra. My lips pursed in a pout, I used my superior skills gleaned from coloring books to follow the lines.
I'd look into the big swirly blue plastic handheld mirror trying it all on for size, trying to hasten the day that I'd be able to wear this stuff all the time. Then I'd usually return to my room, put the Grease soundtrack on the white leatherlike box turntable. I'd put on the closest thing I had to the outfits and reenact nearly the entire movie in my bedroom. I was an only child, this is how I passed time.
I remember a night around this time, I must have been maybe nine or ten tops. It was a sticky Wisconsin summer evening and my mom and I had gone to see a late movie. We would frequently pay for one, stay for two. We drove home in her car with the windows rolled down, the swirling air drying the perspiration, cooling our skin. Bored, I fished through my mother's purse, handling the sundry of objects. The tan crumpled pack of Winston lights that I would frequently take out and pantomime my best Marlene Dietrich or Faye Dunaway, her smudgy sunglasses sliding down my nose, Chapstick covered with stray tobacco and purse lint, pens, lighters, a stray tampon flinging itself free from the thin paper wrapper rendering itself useless in all but the most dire of emergencies.
I found the tube of lipstick and put it on, using the streetlights to see by. I sat on my knees in the passenger seat, no doubt without a seatbelt, to appear taller, and I looked out at the passing cars waiting to be looked at. I saw a truck with two men in it and I tilted my head so that my blonde hair was caught by the wind coming in and whipped around. I didn't look at them but pursed my lips out, angled my head and felt at some point that I was being looked at. I looked briefly and could see that they were smiling at me and angling to move into the lane closest to ours. My mom finally noticed them, the driver almost hanging out of the car trying to get our attention, as they got closer I watched the drivers face change to disbelief as he must have finally realized I was just a girl.
So what's the point of this trip down memory lane you ask. I don't remember how much early conditioning I had in the girly arts but my mom was not overly fixated on her appearance and while my grandmother had fun things like hat pins and long bright pink fingered gloved and hard lucite purses and hats with veils and leopard spotted coats, day to day, she mostly wore polyester pants, cheap shoes and tank tops and garden gloves. I think I was one very girly girl from pretty early on. You could have presented me a case full of shiny new hotwheels or some ratty silver platforms, cats eye glasses and a balding feather boa and I would have picked the accessories every single time.
I am a feminist. I believe in equal opportunities. I strive to give my children a common experience. In our household, everyone cooks, everyone cleans, everyone soothes, everyone cares for children. I am strong, feminine, I wear skirts frequently more out comfort than convention. I typically wear makeup when I leave the house and when my husband and I go out, you'll usually find me in heels although I admit they are uncomfortable and crippling. In spite of having three children and a fuck lot to do, I cannot seem to part with my long hair though occasionally I will longingly imagine a cute bob that air drys in ten minutes.
So I am okay with my daughters wanting to play dress up and enjoying my application of makeup whiskers to their Halloween kitty costumes. I am not concerned by my five year old's near insistence that she wear pink because she can also explain the basics of photosynthesis.
What I am concerned about is the sexualization of girls. I am concerned about the images of girls and women portrayed in what are supposed to be children's shows. I am concerned when parents allow the imagery of Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears and others to take a strong enough hold that these created, manufactured images become what is aspired to. I am concerned that later, when these idolized girls do silly and not so silly things, parents allow these same girls who idolize these girls to watch programs where their mistakes or heedless actions are put on display, given attention to and of course, tacit approval. I am concerned that parents willingly purchase and allow into their home dolls and toys that encourage young girls to be provocative and precocious.
One of the things I remember that night the men in the truck mistook me for a woman was that beauty or the attention of men was it's own kind of power and powerlessness. It could be the thing a prospective employer looked at instead of your talent. It could be a message you got that how you look is more important than who you are. It could come in often unwanted jeers from strange men. It could erase thoughts of science and math and discovery and replace them with outfits and insecurities and attempts to be pleasing. For a woman it is an everyday double edge sword, for a girl, it is an albatross, a burden, an unfair responsibility, choppy waters that they are unprepared to navigate.
This is not what empowerment looks like.
Child Abuse
Thursday, April 23, 2009
I'm not sure but I think this might come up in therapy later.
Easter Phony
Saturday, April 11, 2009
So the boy was talking to the hubs Friday about the Easter bunny. He wanted to know why the stuff from the Easter bunny has UPC codes on it. Hubs said, “What, you think a bunny actually manufactures all the stuff?”
Disaster averted.
Until I brought home the Easter basket crap and hubs and I were in the kitchen assembling the baskets when the boy “just happened” to come in an hour after bedtime into the kitchen to get a drink(which he never does). Mind you, the big kids have their own cups in the bathroom where they normally get a drink so he was sniffing around for sure.
He comes in and sees all the loot on the table and his eyes get as big as my mother-in-law's ass.
"Get in bed," my husband shouted, and he smugly walked back to his bedroom.
"Little fucker," I say, "what a Snoopy McSnooperson."
"Geez," hubs said, "what do I tell him now? Easter is over as we know it. Christmas and the tooth fairy can't be far behind."
"I know," I pipe in, "tell him that the Easter bunny had to lay off some workers, you know, the recession and all and since he's short on people, he had to spread deliveries over three days instead of just Sunday and since there have been so many layoffs and cutbacks, he's understaffed and just dropping off the stuff this year and making all the parents actually assemble the baskets. "
"Fuck it, it's over." hubs relented.
"Look on the bright side," I offered," if he knows that all the loot comes from us, maybe he'll start sucking up a little, it would be nice to finally get a little credit for all of this fairytale stuff.
'Da Butts
She has been doing a lot of this lately and it cracks me up. I don't know what all 'da butts stuff is but I think she means buttons. The video is about three minutes long, too long for most of you but I think she says fuck at about minute 3:20. That's my girl.
Oh the Humanity
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
I looked not unlike a Weeble Wobble, sort of egg-shaped like one of those plastic toys that according to the manufacturer, “wobble but don't fall down.” I was nearing the end of my pregnancy and on my way home after a long day at work. My feet hurt, my legs were swollen, my ankles nonexistent. I was crabby, exhausted, resentful to still be working and not at all looking forward to coming home to two needy, exhaustively chatty kids and one husband who probably had not picked up the house, started homework or saved some dinner for me. My car had become the setting for a very large personal pity party and I was headed home with a boulder-size chip on my shoulder.
I slowed my car to a stop at the red light and that's when I saw him. He had amazingly clear blue eyes and as they met mine, his face broke out into the widest, most friendly smile I had seen for days. His hand went up and he waved wildly at me hunkering his head down a little in my direction so I knew it was for me. I couldn't help it, I forgot my building tirade and I smiled and waved back. It was one of those odd simple moments where I am reminded of my humanity.
He must have been in his late thirties or early forties but he looked closer to seventy. I don't know if the drink had done it, meth or the other cornucopia of drugs that can drag a person to the depths. Maybe it was mental illness or a combination of all of them. His skin was thick and leathery and tanned to the color of a saddle from his days outdoors. His pants were too long and too big, cinched around his thin waist with a belt. His long hair was greasy and pulled back in a ponytail. I saw his shopping cart parked next to a pair of defunct pay phones, well within his sight protecting what were no doubt his only possessions.
I started crying as the light changed to green and I continued home. Maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was the humanity. I don't mean to say that just because a person smiles, he or she is happy but in my mind I considered that if he could smile, why couldn't I. I contemplated that long ago, he was someone's baby boy with big clear blue eyes, small chubby fingers and a host of needs and wants. I remembered that nearly all of us start there, perfect, unsullied, a blank canvas. Then we are written on and sometimes scribbled and scratched and crumpled up and thrown away. It is just a matter of luck and circumstance that some of us can rebound while others of us spiral further and further down.
I considered my pretty house, healthy children, caring husband, my warm bed with clean soft sheets, my hot shower, my warm and satisfying meals, my children's hugs, my safety net. Yes it may seem like a pretty obvious a-ha moment or a little Lifetime but that day, that short, probably three minute light shifted my paradigm. Gratitude is a funny thing, it comes and goes, I am reminded at least weekly of the constant need to refocus, be grateful, be kind. These small reminders are gifts, small pokes and pinches to pull us back to the reality of how good most of us have it, how much better a hand fate has dealt us. I don't mean that personal responsibility doesn't have a hand in it but how many of us could be that person were it not for the resources of health care, mental health, recovery, family not willing to let us sink, kind friends and partners who perhaps filled the gaps and holes childhood left behind or a simple, clawing tenacity to not be left behind.
One of my most recent personal goals has been to do more of the things that I intend to. I think intent is a powerful thing but action even more so. A few months back, a neighbor of ours lost a seventeen year old son. My husband and I went back and forth trying to think of something we could do for them. We don't know them at all, we've never even introduced ourselves but we wanted to make a gesture, to do something that would perhaps ease even just a moment or show that they were in our thoughts. Should we bring dinner? I thought they really don't know us well enough where they would just eat something we brought over. Then we thought maybe some muffins and fruit and things that would be good to have on hand when people stop by. Death so frequently brings company. Then I thought, muffins? Fucking muffins? Why do I think that me bringing over a basket of muffins will do anything to make anything better for this family. What did we end up doing? Nothing. I couldn't think of something appropriate, something I was sure would be taken the right way and seen as a kindness and not an intrusion. I was ashamed that I had really intended to do something and I didn't, because it was just easier not to.
So I have been on a mission of making my actions match my intentions. Which brings me to my blue eyed fellow human. I literally see him in that same spot every time I leave work for home, I don't know how I never noticed him before. Ever since that day that he gave me that gift of gratitude, I have intended to pull in the parking lot near where he waves and panhandles. I've wanted to tell him that he made a bad day better, that he touched something in me, that he spared my family from my anger and hostility that day.
I used to be judgemental and self-righteous about giving people money I knew would be used to buy alcohol and drugs but now I think, who am I to tell this person what they need or don't need to get through the day. In addition to verbalizing my thanks, I wanted to give him some money. In part because I have attachments to money and in my fledgling study of Buddhism, one of the goals is to release your attachment to things. Mind you not get rid of all money, but loosen one's attachment to it.
I most certainly have attachments to money, which means I worry, mostly needlessly about having enough. It makes me stingy because I think, what if my children need this someday, what if I want something and I don't have enough money, what if my husband loses his job again or my shop goes down the tubes. Still none of this is real and my mantra, which I have to remind myself of frequently, is 'I have everything I need, I always have enough'. I had just worked and had cash in my pocket. I also wanted to make his day the way he made mine, maybe he could find a cheap room for the night, take a hot shower, sleep in a warm bed, sleep safely.
I have intended to do this for about twenty months, that's over six hundred and twenty days of intending to do something. This past Saturday, I finally did it.
She
Monday, April 6, 2009
Several months back, Chris, one of my favorite reads, asked me to guest post. He gave me a jumping off point-- 1995. 1995? Many of you might have taken the hop over to his place to see my post but here it is for those of you unfamiliar with using links. Yes Grandma, I mean you.
I look back to those days and hardly recognize myself. Those were probably some of the most difficult days for me, that tumultuous transition between childhood and adulthood. Not legal adulthood mind you, but adult in the sense that you truly take care of yourself and make your own decisions. I was terribly unsure of myself back then. I was still living under the roof of my very opinionated mother, running almost every decision past her because I didn't trust myself. I was, and continue to be, the extroverted introvert. Shy and slightly uncomfortable in social situations, being funny and gregarious is my defense mechanism to overcome that anxiety. I only appear socially adept.
I thought about how much of what I know now I wish I had known then. I imagine sitting down with my twenty-one year old self. What would I tell her if I had the chance? How could I better prepare her? I'm sure the things I'd say will continue to evolve, but at thirty-five, this is what I'd pass along.
1-You are not the only one who is insecure and unsure of yourself, in this regard, you are just like everyone else which should be comforting.
2-Don't be ashamed or embarrassed about being smart, later on you'll find the best men like the smart girls.
3-You need some breathing room away from your family to figure out who you are and what you want.
4-With regard to said family, just so you know, they're not always right.
5-Tennis? Volleyball? Ballet? So what if you're hopelessly uncoordinated? Especially since really, you're not, your just so self conscious that you get yourself all torqued up and forget to move your body. These are things you want to try, so what if you look silly, what do you care? Guess what? Most people are too self-absorbed to care what you're doing anyway.
6-Stop being so afraid of failing. You think half the people out there are misguided and misinformed anyway so why do you care what they think?
7-You think you're not pretty and you need to figure out why you think that because it's not true.
8-Go easy on the carbs and you'll lose that babyfat. Stop eating salads with ranch dressing and cheese, in spite of what you think, this is not going to help you lose weight and frankly, it tastes awful.
9-Your parents can only give you the tools they have so you are not going to be armed with everything you need. Some things you'll figure out the hard way, other tools you can get through some keen observation, the latter is far easier.
10-You got the short straw in the dad department. His behavior has absolutely nothing to do with you. You don't deserve it, you didn't do anything to cause it. You are not difficult to love and in time, you will figure out how to trust men again.
11-With regard to men, you seriously have to expect more.
12-That thing you do, you know the thing I'm talking about, you need to stop doing it on the first date.
13-Get yourself a good therapist(see #9 & #10)
14-Clean up those eyebrows already, bushy brows are so 1995.
15-One word, sunscreen.
16-Quit smoking today.
17-Trust your gut. Whether it's school, men, friends, you know more than you think you do.
*I never actually attended law school so that 7% is the sum of my bragging rights.
I See London, I See France
Saturday, April 4, 2009
My five year old is at the stage where she has and wants to wear jeans but has not figured out that girl trick of hoisting them all the way up. Likewise, she only snaps or buttons them about fifty percent of the time.
At the end of the day, I suppose I should be grateful that I see her giant "granny panties" hanging out of her jeans and not a thong.
What Do People Do During an Economic Depression?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
They eat and they, well, you know, do other things that don't cost money(well, at least not if you're married).
The husband started a new job a month back, a real job, for real pay. Not the 50% of his pay scale job he first accepted in a mad dash to be employed. I didn't want to mention it for fear of jinxing it but things have mellowed considerably here at the maison 'de formerlyfun. He is still in high gear as he proves his mettle at the new digs but the heavy cloud of what ifs has passed for now.
Still, we continue to be in belts tightened mode, if for nothing more than to replenish the savings we spent the first part of the year. We've looked to do things that are entertaining and cheap(each other) and we've eaten from home most of the time. My grandparents, who were Depression-era, took a great pleasure in food. I don't know if it is because they remember lean and hungry times or if food was a measure of wealth, simple pleasures or all of the above.
I've always been an adept cook but I've never been much for baking. When I was single I didn't attempt baking because I knew I'd be the one eating all of my experiments and this could make singleton status permanent. With the rigors of young family life, who had time to dish up some fruit and yogurt much less make a cake or a pie. But then came the economic downturn and time on my hands with little money to spare. Additionally, have you noticed how blech most of the things from the grocery bakery taste? Why does nothing have butter in it anymore? I don't want lard in my frosting dammit. Sugar and Crisco do not great flavours make, I don't care how much pink food coloring you put in it.
So with my husband's birthday around the corner, I decided to attempt a homemade birthday cake. Caveat, much like my grandmother's idea of homemade, I mean a box cake, not just dumped into a sheet pan, with homemade frosting and something thrown on top. So I decided to make a devil's food cake with Swiss buttercream(yes, real butter, about 8 sticks thank you very much)frosting and a chocolate drizzle, mmmmmm. My first attempt I used two round cake pans, a mix, a recipe for the frosting, with included doing a bain-marie(fancy french name for warming something in a water bath rather than directly on the burner) and some shaky decorating skills.
This is what I got:
This is what it looked like after photo retouching. Yes, even cakes can be airbrushed.
So it was two layers and yes, it tasted damn fine. There is nothing that compares to frosting with butter and sugar versus high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oil.
So this was the tester cake because I had really only ever made like two cakes before and didn't want to 'practice' for the hubs birthday. After this one turned out so delicious, I got a little cocky and decided to go three layers. I changed up the decor a little and ended up with this bad boy.
The cake was a little slice of 3000 calorie heaven on a plate. I wish I would have taken a picture of the inside but as soon as I cut into it, the whole family devoured it. It was a big hit and yes, you must now bow down to my baking acumen.
So the moral of the story? Economic downturn's are not all bad as long as you have the heady muse of chocolate to assuage your empty wallet.
Hot Catholic School Girls Tear into Lifesize Zac Efron Pinata
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I figured since this was basically a redirect post anyhow, I'd grab you with the title and amuse myself with the subsequent google searches.
In case you haven't had your fill of FormerlyFun, I am over at Rassles today guest posting, la di da. So while Rassles defiles the whole of New Orleans, you can peer inside my childhood. While you are there, I encourage you to take a look around. She is beyond funny, can write insanely great dialogue and has what I think is the most unique perspective on things ever.
An Ode to Thighs
Monday, March 23, 2009
These are thighs.
These are thighs.
These are thighs
These are thighs.
These are thighs.
These? These are not thighs.
For the One Man Who Likes My Thighs
There was the expensive cream from France
that promised the dimples would vanish
if applied nightly to the problem spots.
Then, when that didn't work, Kiko, the masseuse
at Profile Health Spa, dug her thumbs
deep into my flesh as she explained
in quasi-scientific terms that her rough hands
could break up the toughest globules of cellulite.
I screamed, then bruised over, but nothing
else happened. When they healed, my legs still looked
like tapioca pudding. There was the rolling pin method
I tried as far back as seventh grade,
kneading my lumpy legs as though I was making bread.
Cottage Cheese Knees, Thunder Thighs --
I heard it all -- under the guise of teasing,
under the leaky umbrella mistaken for affection.
I learned to choose long dresses
and dark woolen tights, clam diggers instead of short-shorts,
and, when I could get away with it, skirted bathing suits.
The nutritionist said that maybe Royal Jelly tablets
would break up the fat. I drank eight glasses
of water everyday for a month. I ate nothing
but steak for a week. I had to take everyone's advice,
fearing that if I didn't, my thighs
would truly be all my own fault. Liposuction
cost too much. The foil sweat-it-out
shorts advertised in the back of Redbook
didn't work. Swimming, walking in place, leg lifts.
It's embarrassing, especially being a feminist.
I wondered if Andrea Dworkin had stopped worrying,
and how. If Gloria Steinem does aerobics,
claiming it's just for her own enjoyment.
Then I read in a self-help book:
if you learn to appreciate your thighs, they'll appreciate
you back. Though it wasn't romance at first sight,
I did try to thank my legs for carrying me up nine flights
the day when the elevator at work was out;
for their quick sprint that propelled me
through the closing doors of the subway
so that I wouldn't be late for a movie;
for supporting my nieces who straddled, one
on each thigh, their heads burrowing deep into my lap.
I think, in fact, that it was at that moment
of being an aunt I forgot for an instant
about my thigh dilemma and began, more fully,
as they say, enjoying my life. So when it happened later
that I fell in love, and as a bonus,
the man said he liked my thighs, I shouldn't have been
so thoroughly surprised. At first I was sure I'd misheard --
that he liked my eyes, that he had heard someone else sigh,
or that maybe he was having a craving for french fries.
And it wasn't very easy to nonchalantly say oh, thanks
after I'd made him repeat. I kept asking
if he was sure, then waiting for a punch
line of some mean-spirited thigh-related joke.
I ran my fingers over his calf, brown and firm,
with beautiful muscles waving down the back.
It made no sense the way love makes no sense.
Then it made all the sense in the world.
Silly Pink Frou Frou Bebe
Friday, March 20, 2009
Alternately titled: My Bebe is Pinker than Your Bebe
Circus performer, ballerina, doctor, I don't care as long as she stays away from the pole and she's never the object of affection in a rap video, though she does have smoove mooves.
Postscript: By the way, this outfit was aquired via Grandma, I don't dress her like this everyday.
Ask Formerly Fun: Dude Looks Like a Lady
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
OK, Formerlyfun,
I recently stumbled across your blog. Don't ask me how, the web is weird like that. I read your article about your first "Manzillian" and I found it incredibly humorous. Now, let me tell you something about me that I have only told two other people on planet Earth: I am a crossdresser. I came out to my wife about a year & a half ago, and things went rather well, and things have been.... well... progressing ever since.
I remove a lot of body hair and the woman doesn't mind a bit. In fact she seems to like it. Long about November 08, I bought an Epilator. Because I was sick of shaving my legs every .00037 minutes. Apart from the massive crop of in-growns, I rather like the Epilator. It has solved the largest problems with shaving. The two biggest downsides to epilating being TIME (Oh, lord does it take time to do it right) & the PAIN!. Some areas are better than others, but overall, its devastatingly painful. This coming from a man who triathlon trained himself into doctor's orders not to even climb a single flight of stairs. It hurts worse than triathlon training ever did, yes. But I do it. I even do it on the "nether regions" and this is indescribably painful. It takes equal parts determination, motivation & stupidity. But it's worth it. Barely. Because I like smoothness.
Now you being married and knowing a man's body, and doing at least one Manzillian, are familiar with the seam that runs the vertical length of the nutbag? Yes!? This area is EXTREMELY painful and ultimately impossible to use an Epilator on. If anyone could do it, it's me. And I simply cannot. My wife buys the occasional home waxing kit and we attempted to use that. On the vertical seam & the rest of the nutbag, yes. It turns out that it works just fine. If you don't mind losing the skin there for 3 - 5 days. Would you believe that I tried it three times before giving up?Now today I have set up my first "Manzillian", which will take place one week from today. I have modified the basic program ever so slightly. I'm not interested in removing the "main swatch" of pubic hair, just north of the penis. I don't really need to. I just shave it down to 1/8", and it looks & feels fabulous. But everything else covered by the Manzillian must go. So... Is there anything I should know about this particular operation? This analogy might distract you. But imagine your husband, brother, nephew, etc. were about to have one. What would you tell him? How would you prep him? Would you tell him nothing, because there is no preparation to be had?I would truly appreciate any input that you could provide, as you are a professional in this area, and riotously fun to wit... Thanks!
Alandra
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Alandra,
First to the most pressing matter, your upcoming professional wax. The good news is that most estheticians will not do male genital waxing so if you found one who does, chances are she/he knows what they are doing. You've read my Manzilian story and that lays out the basic procedure though it may vary a little from esthetician to esthetician. I'm all about hard wax when it comes to the testicles and if I had them, I wouldn't let an Epilator or soft wax near them. The tissue, much like a female labia is very thin and prone to tearing and lifting. Hopefully your esthetician will use hard wax, if not you may tear but since you've mangled yourself you might as well give a pro a shot since if she does a good job, you can forgo DIY on this one.
The difference between hard wax and soft wax is with soft wax, the area is powdered, warm wax is applied in a thin coat and then muslin or pellon is smoothed over the wax and pulled off, often with skin attached to it, ouch! With hard wax, a thin coat of oil is applied to the skin first, then the warm hard wax is applied, this wax completely hardens and"shrink wraps" the hair but does not adhere to the skin, so when its pulled off the skin stays put, yipee!
As far as prep for your wax goes, cleanliness on your part is always appreciated. Whenever I've been faced with a client with funk, I do a hasty job figuring if you had the balls, no pun intended, to come grungy then a quickie is all you deserve, give me my money thank you see you again never. Take a Vicodin or an OTC pain reliever about and hour before your visit. Lay back and uh, enjoy the rest. If you do tear at all, slather the area where the skin lifted with Neosporin until it heals.
Now to the rest of your letter. First, congratulations! Now if your wife is really as understanding as you say, you owe it to her to go buy her something big and shiny(not a new makeup mirror because you stole hers), I mean something expensive. It can't be easy vying for bathroom time and honestly, if my husband ever got into my NARS Orgasm blush or my custom blended foundation, or my favorite YSL eyeshadow that I've had for almost 7 years because they don't make it anymore or even my MD Skincare $120 moisturizer, I would probably divorce him. I'm not even kidding.
An Epilator A Shark
See the resemblance?
Second, the Epilator? Really? Even the Bush administration refused to use Epilators on the Guantanamo Bay crowd because they felt it fell under "torture". The Epilator is so 1990 and it's no wonder you are getting ingrowns because it can break the hair just under the skin rather than pull the complete hair from the follicle like waxing thus causing it to continue growing under the skin. Get your legs, underarm, etc. waxed a few times by a pro, if you are worried that men don't wax, just tell them you swim a lot and are trying to improve your time. If you can afford to, let a pro continue to do it. If you can't, pay attention to how they do it so that you can replicate it at home. The kickass thing about 2009 is everything is online. Go to your local beauty supply store or go online and purchase the supplies and look here for a good how to. Waxing lasts much longer and it's far quicker. You can even find hard wax for your sac wax here. A little practice and you'll be on your way. Good luck with the short and curlies.
Your pal,
Finals Blew I Barely Knew My Graduation Speech
Monday, March 2, 2009
On any given muggy summer night somewhere around 1993, you could find my friend Stefani and I hanging out at my house killing time. Because we were punk, naughty, buck the system girls, we decided to get stoned. Stefani was lucky enough to have a friend that grew his own stuff and supplied it freely as long as you agreed not to ever sell it to anyone. So I could envelope myself in a hazy cloud of lightness without feeling like I was contributing to the 'war on drugs'.
Of course, hip girls that we were, I bet you're wondering what we did afterward. Perhaps we went to Summerfest, Wisconsin's giant world class music festival or maybe Lollapaloza or Lillith Fair. We went to all of those but most nights were spent doing ridiculously fabulous things like hours worth of jigsaw puzzles, creative writing games, painting(yes, we were arsty punky girls), putting on makeup and taking pictures of each other and the pièce de résistance, making up alternate lyrics to the Diarrhea Song.
Stefani could always be counted on to be silly and we must have spent at least two hours, high as kite stuck in a Redwood, trying to rhyme, laughing until the pain in our faces and bellies eclipsed the hilarity. This was only one of many silly, goofy, teenage girl things we did. One of the things I miss about those days is how silly I was. I haven't felt silly for a long time. Playful yes, thankfully my husband is replete with ribbing and innuendo to keep me laughing and on my toes(and sometimes over his knee).
Still, I long for those carefree days of girlhood where you were only charged with yourself, responsible for no one except maybe a cat or two. Don't get me wrong, life at this end is good too. Still, while I would never go back and do these years over again, I might just like to drop in on a few of the more memorable moments. I saved those silly lyrics we wrote, so now, for your pleasure, the Poopy Song's alternate verses:
When your brother's punched you hard and your pants are filled with lard...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your stomach's not at ease and your ass is gonna sneeze...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your tract is on a roll and you gotta let it flow...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When you're visiting a castle and a chamber pots a hassle...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your stomachs filled with pain, it's so loose you can't restrain...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your cheeks are really strained it's your cushions you will stain...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your bowels are feelin' loose and your ass is squeezing juice...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your stomachs feelin' knotty and you're runnin' for the potty...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your ass is filled with gas but it's sludge you're gonna pass.
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When your diets filled with prunes and your sphincters in the ruins...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
When you're filled up to the max and your rectum's feelin' lax...
diarrhea, diarrhea.
Good times, good times.
So you guys can just send that Pulitzer to my house.
Trifecta of Chris
Thursday, February 26, 2009
One of my favorite bloggers, Chris over at afreeman initiated another round of peer interviewing. I am usually the official unjoiner of anything like this but I know from reading and commenting on his site, he attracts a very thoughtful, intelligent crowd and my curiosity was piqued. I was interviewed by Christine/Flutter of Flutter Dark and Divine. I was acquainted with Flutter before having meandered over there after she got a favorable review here. I was instantly hooked on the honesty and clear voice that radiates throughout her writing. A lot of people blog to work through things and make progress toward figuring out their stuff and the steps toward being fully who they are. Flutter is a woman who lets you walk those steps with her and it is humbling to be allowed a window into her mind. She asked some really thoughtful questions and here are my answers. 
Flutter:
When you think of the reasons that you started to blog, what is the most important? What is the least?
Chris:
When I started blogging last year, my youngest daughter was nearly six months old and I was in the throes of postpartum depression. Months of sleep deprivation and being overwhelmed with three kids, a business and a hubs to take care of, left me feeling woefully inadequate and completely over my head. After a few weeks of frequent crying, self-loathing and general disinterest in well, anything, I went to my doctor.
In spite of my initial embarrassment over what I felt was a personal weakness, I knew walking around like a pod person, a shell of my formerly fun self(yes this is where my moniker stems from) wasn't good for anyone. I quietly went on an antidepressant telling no one except my husband. I had some fear that I might do something weird and needed at least one person to know I was on the crazy pills.
There's a stigma in my family about needing help, for not being able to do things on your own. I felt better on the meds immediately but I still felt like something was wrong with me that I needed medication to handle my life. I wasn't embarrassed enough to go off them because rather than feel like some supercharged happy schmappy supermom, I finally felt like myself again and I wasn't willing to give that up, no matter how weak I felt about needing it.
I hadn't been involved with the blogging community at all, wasn't even really aware of it. Still, I love the internet as a resource and when I went looking for information on depression after childbirth, I found all these women speaking honestly about the reality of being a mother in today's world. The delicate balancing of all of the things expected of us, the futility of the goal of womanhood to do all this stuff and then strive to make it look effortless. I was hooked immediately. I think that's why so many moms blog, the relative anonymity, the shield of the computer screen allows women to strip down the facade of perfection and share openly with a lot of support and minimal judgement.
Ok, so the the short answer to the question, the most important reason I started blogging? My sanity and relating to other women on a deeper level. The least important? I love writing and blogging allows me to keep that muscle flexed. I also get feedback on the writing which is nice. It feels really good to know that certain things you have written have moved people, inspired them to be more gentle on themselves, made them laugh. This is a great side benefit to blogging and it's motivated me to write more and set and work toward personal writing goals. So it's important but definitely secondary to having a forum and outlet that keeps me feeling good.
Flutter:
What writers inspire you?
Chris:
I write mostly humorous personal essays so writers who do this very well inspire me. My favorite is David Sedaris. In fact one of my most treasured gifts was when my husband took me to a David Sedaris reading for my Christmas present. We both laughed so hard that our bellies ached all night. He's just so good at what he does and though his family is unique in their own way, he captures the milieu of the American family like no one else. I like other writers in this category like Cynthia Heimel, Erma Bombeck, Robert Fulghum, Augusten Burroughs, even Dave Eggers . I am attracted to people who use humor to deal with the difficulties of life. I am inspired by writers who are able to turn sometimes painful things into funny stories. I think this comedy/tragedy speaks of the resilience of people. I am a voracious reader and love schloads of books and authors but these guys inspire me because it's what I aspire to.
Flutter:
If you were to teach a course in comparative religions, your faith being one point of view and one more religion being a counterpoint, how would that class look?
Chris:
This is a hard one. I am a spiritual but not religious agnostic. Agnosticism is defined as:
the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims —particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, ghosts, or even ultimate reality — is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove. It is often put forth as a middle ground between theism and atheism.My counterpoint would be atheism because I abhor people who claim to have a monopoly on truth. For an agnostic anyone who believes they hold the ultimate truth is questionable. I am not a huge fan of most organized religion in part because they tend to be exclusionary and the same applies to atheism. I am a follower of science and the provable, testable. And yet, I can't look at the beauty and organization around me and not think that there is something greater than me, some force of creation that is well beyond my capability to even imagine. That's why it slays me when people view god as this big mean father-figure in the heavens looking down on us judging what we do. I just don't think it works that way. I don't think we know or will ever know and that is perfectly ok with me.
So what would my class be like? I would endeavor to imbibe students with a sense of wonder, an awe of discovery and a comfort with the unknown. I would hope to create an atmosphere where we could question why our brains are hardwired for things like religion. Why we probably constructed religion the way we have, why we anthropomorphise god. I would explore how most of the tenets and parables of religion appear in all of the major religions. I wouldn't need to change student's minds but allow critical thinking and reason to be a part of the discussion.
Flutter:
It's a rainy day, you have the house to yourself and the entire day, what do you do?
Chris:
As a mom of three, this is one of my ultimate fantasies(besides all my kids saying yes mom for one day and my husband cleaning the house and attending to all of my, uh, needs.) I used to devour books, reading a few a week. Since having kids, I struggle to make time to both read and write. Writing takes precedence and it's easier to put aside and come back to for me. So for my day to myself, I'd pick one of the many unread books awaiting my rainy day and spend all day reading. I'd read in bed, read in a hot bath spiked with lavender and rosemary. I'd read on the chaise lounge out in my garden, I'd read over lunch and a cup of tea. I would, for the first time in a while, finish a book the same day I started it. I did that frequently BC(before children) and it's one of the few things I really miss.
Flutter:
Quick, what's the first word that comes to mind when I say "balls"?
Chris:
My mother. She has giant ones and though she drives me crazy sometimes and we are very different people philosophically, she has set a good example when it comes to standing up for yourself, requiring more from people, working hard and aspiring to more and never letting other people tell you what you're capable of. I have a slew of great stories relating to this but they are all worthy of their own post.
Flutter:
If we are to come away with one thing from reading your blog, what do you feel is the most important?
Chris:
I'm all over the board with my blog. Sometimes I'm funny, irreverent, even silly. Other times, I am contemplative, serious and downright morose. I know from reader's comments that different people appreciate and connect with different things. I think I just want people to take something. I've written quite a bit about body image and I hope women can read some of that and be kinder on themselves. I hope that struggling moms can read some of my travails of motherhood and know they are not alone in this difficult but loved job. I hope that people read my political and opinion posts not to agree with me but to allow for the dissemination and discussion of ideas. I think a lot of our political problems have come from people's assent and reticence to vocally dissent when they think their opinion might be unpopular. If people dropping by can take something away period, then that is fair and kind payment for the effort that goes into blogging.
One Year Later
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
My unbelievably loved and respected grandfather died on this day, one year ago. This first year is the only time I will mark this date, after this choosing to celebrate only the good days. My grandfather was immeasurably important to me, to all of my family. To say that he was a good man, a dedicated father, an adoring grandfather, great grandfather, a loyal friend -- none of it encompasses how he impacted the people around him. When I need a measuring stick in human kindness,compassion and morality that eclipses religion, it is him that I measure against. What follows is rather long, quite personal, it certainly isn't one of those 'general audience' pieces but it was important to me, at this year mark, to remember.
July 23, 2007 - Diary
Today my daughter poked her eye with the corner of a book and I found out my Grandpa has pancreatic cancer. I am profoundly sad. Surprisingly, I don’t feel sad for me, even though Grandpa has been more a father to me at times than my own father, even though he is the most stable and loving man I’ve ever known until I met my own husband, even though he is an important fixture in our families often shaky stability.
I am sad for my grandparents. Tonight I called and my cousin was there with her mom and she talked to me while she did dishes. My grandparents are scared and it scares me that they, they who have always been strong before us are anxious, unsure and visibly rocked by this news. Again, when my grandpa dies, whenever that is, my world will not change considerably. But my grandmother has shared a bed with this man for nearly sixty years, my whole chest contracts with the thought of losing my husband, I can’t even imagine how directionless and pained my grandmother would feel without hers.
I am scared and sad for the indignities my grandfather will have to endure, and that’s if things are good enough to warrant the indignities of the poisons of cancer treatment. I am scared for him, with him, of the pain, the physical pain and the pain of seeing your family sad and frightened. The fear and uncertainty of trusting doctors to know what you need and do their best and manage your pain and your expectations. I am sad that my grandparents will have to walk that line between optimism and realism. I am sad that he may have to find a way to say goodbye to all of us. I am just sad for them and the uncertain road ahead.
I’m sad for me too because I love this man so much and he is the only man I have ever looked up to and admired, respected, trusted and felt completely loved and accepted by. But I don’t need him anymore, want him yes, but Gene has filled the place in my life that my grandfather held open, waiting for the right person to come and occupy for the long haul.
I am sad for my mom and her siblings because to lose your father is different than your grandfather and to watch your grandmother sad and scared is not jarring in the way it is to see your mother contemplate what’s ahead. I wish for my grandfather whatever it is he needs to make any of this, whatever this turns out to be, as easy as possible. I love him, them and I only wish that knowing that we all care so much will make things easier not harder.
My aunt has found a site, the Caring Bridge that will help my grandparents keep their large family and bevy of friends updated on my grandpa's progress. We have all left messages which my cousin prints up for my grandfather to read. My Grandma told me that these messages mean a lot to him, something to keep his mind off things.FRIDAY, AUGUST 03, 2007 - Caring Bridge
Grandpa & Grandma,
I miss you both so much and would give you a big hug if I were there. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make everything fine, but I know I can’t. Nevertheless, you have all of my support and love in the difficult days ahead. I am so proud to be your granddaughter and the courage and commitment you have shown to each other, especially as of late, is yet another opportunity for me to learn from you both. You have always been a huge source of strength and stability for me, I’m certain for many of us. Now, you need to focus inward and take care of each other knowing we’re all ok and will do whatever it is you need us to. I love you both.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 03, 2007 - Caring BridgeHi Grandpa and Grandma,
Grandma, happy birthday. Wish I could have been at Mom's to celebrate with you. Even though it was your birthday, I bet you still made the cake. I would give anything for a piece of your poppyseed cake right now. Grandpa, Mom filled me in on your last treatment and I'm glad to know you're doing well. It's nice to get the detailed report from her since every time I call you guys, we're only on the phone five minutes or so before one of the other kids or grandkids or friends calls to talk to you too. As for me, I'm in the home stretch now as far as the pregnancy goes. Every time I think I'm as big as I'll get, I get a little bit bigger. Gene has been generous with nightly back and foot rubs, extra help around the house and with the kids and ice cream runs a couple of times a week. The doctors expect I'll deliver between the 25th of September and October 5th so we'll see, maybe the bebe will share your birthday :) With Mom, Dad's, yours and Gene's dads birthdays all around the same time, she has a pretty good chance of sharing somebody's birthday. Anyway, just wanted to drop you a note and let you know I miss you.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2007 - Caring Bridge
Grandpa & Grandma,
I miss you both so much I cannot even put it into words. I am so big, ungainly, and bored already(I worked my last day for the time being Saturday) that if I were in town, I think I'd be at your house every day eating good food, watching your big tv, chatting with you both and letting grandma overfeed me powder donuts, shrimp salad, pizelles, baked chicken and all the other things I miss. Wow, I guess this email has a food theme, I'm getting hungry just writing it.
Anyhow, I am in my 37th week of pregnancy and could officially "go" any day now. I'm hoping for sooner rather than later because I am so big, you wouldn't believe it. On my 5 foot frame, I look like an egg on legs. The big kids both have said they'll be glad when the baby comes and I have a lap they can sit on again. Gene is taking good care of me even though I am getting more and more anxious to get the show on the road. I'll keep you posted on my progress and keep me in your thoughts for an earlier rather than later birth, maybe sometime around Grandpa's birthday:) Love you both, miss you and wish I was there, albeit selfishly so you could love me up a little. Love, Christy
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2007 - Caring BridgeHappy Birthday Grandpa,
Wow, 87 years, I can hardly believe it.
You seem so much younger and not just because you’re handsome and still a fierce player on the golf course. You seem so much younger than 87 in part because of the adaptability you have shown through the multiple generations of growth in your family and how well you have handled everything we’ve thrown at you.
You have and continue to be, a model of unconditional love and you and grandma(I mention her because sometimes I see you as two halves of the same person) have served as the foundation and heart of our family. I have learned so many things from you and cherish every day we’ve spent together. Not only have you been a great role model but you are simply nice to be around. I’ve appreciated that without saying much, I always knew what you meant whether it was conveying love or letting me know I had to do something better. I remember occasionally getting into trouble and getting lectures over dinner at your kitchen table from Mom, Grandma and even Linda sometimes, but all you had to do was look up from your plate at me and I knew what you were thinking.
I recall with pride all of the times you’ve said to me, “Chrissy, you’re the one we never worry about, we know you’ll figure it out.” Believe me, there were many times I reminded myself of your words to reassure myself that I could handle all the stumbling blocks and obstacles of adulthood. Your confidence in me was a powerful armor out in the world. I loved that when I told you I had finally found “the one” when I met Gene, all you said was, “Chrissy, if you love him, I love him." And I have loved seeing your relationship with Grandma evolve over the many different stages of your lives. You have never stopped working to treat each other better and I have never met two people more committed and loyal to each other. Beyond the bonds of almost 60 years together it is also so apparent that you two are still in love, a giant accomplishment in any marriage.
I’ve also appreciated your impish sense of humor. You and Grandma definitely taught me that if you can laugh together, it’s awfully hard to stay angry very long and that a sense of humor and perspective can be a real comfort when things are hard or looking dim. Grandpa, I hope it is a really good birthday and know that I love you and you mean the world to me. I hope the next year brings you a wealth of health, happiness and all that you dream of.
Love,
Christy
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 -Caring BridgeHi Grandpa,
I wanted to write sooner but with the new baby I'm lucky if I have time for a shower! Thank you so much for giving up Grandma for a few days so she could come out to California with Mom to see the baby and help out. It was so nice to have my family here so soon after the baby's birth and I couldn't wait for Grandma and mom to meet my new girl. Gene and I were so tired after 2 weeks with Izzy up every few hours so Grandma and mom were nice enough to keep the baby with them two of the nights they visited so Gene and I could get a full nights sleep. What a treat that was. I felt positively human again rather than the walking zombie I was beginning to resemble.
Grandma played for hours with the kids and it made me think of all the times Grandma made up games for she and I to play or took the time to teach me how to do things from playing gin to making a pie. Mom and Grandma also picked up where I left off with my yard before I started getting too big to garden. They split up and thinned out a bunch of our plants, bought some colorful new ones and got the yard looking its best. With a little of our year-round California sunshine, it won't take long for it to all fill in again and look positively lush.
Only Grandma and Mom spend big $$ on plane tickets, get on a long plane ride just to sleep on our couch(they liked it better than the air mattress:), cuddle a crying baby in the middle of the night getting only a little sleep and do some heavy duty gardening. While recovering from a Cesarean and getting acclimated to a new baby and third child, it really helped me to have them here, even for a few days so thanks for parting with your favorite girl for a few days.
Oh Grandpa, I wish you'd been out to meet Isabella too but I'll bring her home to Milwaukee as soon as I can. She is such a treat, I can't imagine what we ever did without her. I love you and look forward to seeing you in person. Happy anniversary and have a good turkey day too
Love, Christy
I am sitting on Gene’s lap and crying for the third time today because it’s Christmas Eve and my grandfather has been admitted to the hospital because of complications from either the chemotherapy or the pancreatic cancer it’s supposed to be treating. I am so fucking sad I can’t stand it. Not only is he like a father to me but he is one of only a handful of people who I believe I absolutely know the person he is. Oh man that sentence is so off and I can’t even put words together that make sense and that is the thing I can always do.
It is late and I go out on the front porch of our house because the cool stone on my bare feet and the air on my face feels good. I look around at the lights of my neighbors and this Siamese that I have noticed around the last few weeks finally comes over and gives me the time of day. I crouch down and he walks right over and butts his heart shaped face against my hand. He lets me pick him up and he smells like wood smoke. This is the highlight of my day, a little affection from somebody else’s cat. I have not even paid much attention to my own cats today instead spending most of the day getting ready for company tomorrow. And normally, given my mood, I would be wishing a giant sinkhole would open in the road leading to our house so everyone would have to divert and I’d be rescued from a few hours of vacuous conversation but instead I am grateful for the distraction. I am going to open presents with my children tomorrow, and I am going to make small talk and be happy being around people who make me happy, even when I am not.
January 3, 2008 - Diary
I am really angry right now. Everybody in my family are such goddamn cheerleaders that no is telling me the truth about how bad my Grandfather is. It's as if admitting he is close to death will usher it in on the spot. I get it, I get that to acknowledge it feels like giving up but here I sit two-thousand miles away and I need someone to tell me if I need to come home and no one is telling me the truth. He's okay my mom says, they're being aggressive, the chemo is taking a toll on him. What part of how he's doing is the chemo and how much is the cancer I ask, needing to understand if this is a symptom of the poison running through him or his body shutting down. They don't know she says. Well, whats typical in these case, I ask though I already know, it is grim, I just want to here her say it, confirm what I've already read over and over again unable to fathom how deadly something could be that I've never heard of before. "He's a fighter Christy, you know that, he wants to live, he isn't done yet, we have to keep praying, anything could happen." Maybe this is what every family goes through when faced with losing someone so important. How we all handle this is also complicated by the fact that my grandmother survived stage four ovarian cancer, given only a few months, here she is nursing my ailing grandfather some twenty-five years later. How can you not put some hope in the miraculous when you saw it firsthand? Still, I trust statistics and the numbers on pancreatic are so fucking grim there isn't much room left for hope. My dad is a pessimist, my mom an optimist, I am a pragmatist. So I yell at just about every member of my family until I think I have gotten straight answers. I need to go see him. I want to introduce him to our new baby, I know it could cheer him up, but I am I am nervous about travelling with her. She is only a few weeks old and it doesn't seem right to put her on a plane during the worst of cold and flu season. I try and figure out how to finagle my husband coming with me but the sad truth that there will be a funeral this year hits home and I know I will need him there then and that we cannot afford to do both. So I plan a trip for just the baby and I. I stress over it, I sob in my husband's arms feeling like a ten year old girl in my capacity to safely and calmly get this child on a plane. I don't know if I have the emotional wherewithal to handle a baby on a plane by myself. Looking back I am already having some PPD though I didn't know it yet so I am doing all this in a place of extreme panic and fragility, I am not even a fraction of my normally competent collected self. The bebe was perfect, she cooed and slept and snuggled the whole flight, I got hosts of compliments from passengers about what a pleasure she was to fly with. I, on the other hand was a mess. I had a full blown anxiety attack on the gangway, not sure if I was going to pass out or throw up, I stood frozen while other passengers made their way onto the plane. Finally a Midwest Airlines flight attendant, who I cannot thank enough, saw how disconcerted I was as I struggled to keep it together. I'm not sure if I am going to be sick I told her, I am physically ok, I think I am having a panic attack, my grandfather is very ill I'm going to see him and I've been very nervous about flying on my own with the baby. I remember she looked like Kate from Charlie Angel's and she asked if she could help me with the baby and she told me she'd help me get seated and give me an airsick bag right away so I had it if I needed it. She got me a glass of water and told me everything was going to be ok and just somebody saying it I started to think believe it would be. I took many deep breaths trying to stave off the nausea that I couldn't shake. I tried not to think about my Grandpa too much. Brace yourself Christy, they had all told me, he looks, well,, sick. I hadn't seem him since July shortly before he'd been accidentally diagnosed. He looked healthy then, even robust and tan, having played golf only a few days before.
January 18, 2008 - Diary
Yesterday I said goodbye to my grandfather. He was at the hospital getting some fluids after he had taken a fall the night before, probably because of low blood pressure. I am certain he won’t last six months and I am uncertain if he will last six weeks. I was getting on a plane the next day to go home, and I might not return before his cancer finally takes his life. So, I had to say goodbye as if it was the last time I would ever see him alive because it might be. He cried and apologized for ruining my trip home. I told him, Grandpa, I came to see you so how could anything you do ruin my trip? I told him that I was so happy that he met my newest daughter. I told him I loved him and admired him and how important he was to me. I told him that I knew he knew these things, this was not the first time I had ever uttered the words. I told him that if he wanted to fight, (even though it was an uphill battle filled with pain and indignitites), he should, but if and when he was done fighting, that was okay too. I told him to do whatever he needed to, that it was okay to be selfish in this instance. I told him we would take good care of Grandma. I told him whatever happens, it will be ok that no matter what, he is and will always be a part of my life. I rubbed the scruff on his face and put my hand at his temples, I kissed him and pressed my face against his. I held his hand and said the words, this might be the last time we see each other and he said I know. We both cried. I think this is the most intimate and honest conversation I have ever had in my life and the most vulnerable I have ever seen a person. I said I hope I see you in March but if I don’t, it’s ok. I went and got the baby, his latest great grandchild and brought her in, the mood lightened a little. He was too sore from the fall to hold her but he held her hand and she smiled at him, he kissed her head and cried a little more. I looked him in the eyes and I said I love you and then I walked from the room. I didn't turn around I couldn’t. My aunt, cousin and Grandma were in a nearby hall alcove. They saw me and all started to cry, my aunt came over and gave me a hug and I cried harder and she held me. Grandma said he’s a good man isn’t he, he loves you all so much. My mom came back from having talked with one of the nurses and as usual, was a cheerleader, reminding everyone to hope for the best, removing herself from that moment. I just wanted to be in that moment, allow myself the weight of the sadness of saying goodbye. I think it changed things a little for everyone. They saw a preview of what they could be doing any day now. I did it today because I am two thousand miles away and I wanted to look him in the eye and be truthful about what might be.
Dear Family and Friends,
We are very sad to tell you that Sunday evening,
after a seven month battle with cancer,
the angels came and guided Hank home to heaven.
Hank's passing was very peaceful.
Please continue to keep all of us in your prayers.
Vintage Vag - Same as It Ever Was
Sunday, February 22, 2009
This is a vintage ad for Lysol brand douche. Seriously, I'm not even making this up, Lysol used to make douche. Yes, the same Lysol that you may or may not clean and disinfect your floors with. How dirty are your nether regions if you have to get the Lysol out? Or maybe, just maybe this is yet one more way to keep a bitch down. Ladies, take it from me because I know(remember I see a lotta cha in my biz), your 'ginas don't need Lysol.
Husbands, do you want your wives to be feminine? Ladies, do you want to try Demure so you can discover how completely feminine you can be? Do you want to freshen your lady business? Come on, they're promising it will make you feel very special 'down there'. Special? You know what will also make you feel special 'down there'?
And I quote, "Bidette is your assurance of all day daintiness."
"Keep Bidette handy and deal with a woman's problem like a woman."So what is the alternative? Deal with a woman's problem a man's way? Try to fix it yourself and then end up making it way worse and having to call in a professional to get it done right? Or ignoring it until your wife finely gets frustrated and does it herself?
This one's called Pristeen. Oh boy. This one says to me that if you don't get that vaginal odor under control, you are going to be sitting on some beach by yourself with a book. Yes please. I'll take my vag odor cause that beach is looking pretty awesome. "The real problem is trying to keep the most girl part of you free of any worry making odors."The most girl part of me?
I'm going to use this as my new euphemism for my vagina.
Husband, I would like you to touch the most girl part of me tonight.
Nurse, I'd like to make my annual appointment to have the most girl part of me checked out.
Seriously, I am going to try to work that into a sentence at least one a day.
Exhibit A
Female Total Odor Control
Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days.
Item #: FEM-D
Price: $17.95
Product Description
12 inches long Round and curvy, sleek Feminine odor control Now we have a pad designed just for you. Neutralizes odors with our exclusive activated charcoal cloth material. It will last several weeks - depending on usage Ultra-soft Washable and reusable Comfortable Highly absorbent Very Thin Details:1 Pad and 10 Double Sided Tape strips Instructions
A pantylineresque thing that "lasts for several weeks"? Something that requires double-sided tape near my girl bits? Pass.
Exhibit B
This one is tricky because it's marketed to be female friendly and hip. Look one's called Shower of Power. That's right girls, when your vag is squeaky clean you feel powerful. "This unique and modern advance in intimate care, coined our Shower of Power, consists of single dose packettes of intimate waters, Spot Clean! that blend with lukewarm 'H-2-oh'(water), and is carefully monitored by our temperature sensitive "smart" bidet bottle label that reads READY. SPOT. GO. when "temperature-sweet" for that extra care down there. The result is a skin-softening, cleansing, spot-refreshing 'portable bidet'"
citrus galbanum
Unless your husband/boyfriend/lover/girlfriend is a bee, I think making your cha cha smell like fruit and herbs is a bad idea. If anything, your guy would rather have it smell like pizza and beer than basil grapefruit.
Hurly Burly
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Well here I am, and I'm going to do the verboten, blog about blogging, well, blog about not blogging. It been a little tumultuous at the maison de formerlyfun. Most of you probably know my husband lost his job in December, along with a lot of other people. I've been in that weird purgatory place, feeling like it's not terrible yet but it's not great and we're not moving in any direction-just stuck. I've also felt like we were sitting squarely in a big vat of quicksand, one false move and we'd be sunk.
Then there was the adjusting to my husband home everyday and stressed and disappointed and having the small crises of confidence that come with not being able to find a job. He looked everyday. He took on job hunting as his job. He had four different recruiters looking for him, he had word out to a bevy of friends and past colleagues. He looked daily at Monster, and craigslist and every other place he could post a resume or search technical listings.
He was asked to take technically difficult tests before he was even granted an interview. He was asked by the recruiters to tweak his resume for each company, highlighting or making more prominent his experience or feigned experience in the area of development they were looking for. He researched and prepared and dressed for loads of interviews. Ah, the anxiety of the first date.
I fought the urge to tell him how to do stuff more times a day than I can count. I felt guilty that the economy was taking a toll on my own income already reduced from a year of part time work after our last child was born. Fifteen years of hard work, good solid income and now I felt powerless that I couldn't shoulder more of the burden. I felt like somehow I should be able to pull more of the load so there wasn't so much pressure on him to take care of us all.
He told me he felt stupid sometimes, like he didn't know the things he should, that he wasn't up on the technology he should be. Never mind the jobs being posted were the ones companies were having a hard time placing because only a very small set had the specific mix of technical experience they wanted. Never mind that employers had stacks of resumes for single positions and were in positions to do some extreme cherry picking. Never mind the industry is constantly evolving, learn something and it's obsolete--on to the next thing. Never mind that the hubs has ramped up quickly and succeeded every place he's ever worked. I told him he was great, reassured him that all of the people he had previously worked with and for thought he was great. That even if he took a job and failed, we, his family, the people who love him would always think he was great.
I would tell him offhand that I wished we could go out for dinner because we had preemptively tightened our belts not knowing how long it would take for him to find work. He'd apologize for us not being able to go out to dinner. I didn't mean it like that I'd say, I just wish we knew what was going to happen and I don't feel like making dinner. I would lament that I felt like I wasn't pulling my weight, that I was expecting him to shoulder the burden of taking care of all of us. Don't be silly he'd tell me, we made this decision as a couple, we both decided someone needed to be home with the baby the first two years-it was, it is important to us. You had the job that had more flexibility, an easier transition back to full time-- it made more sense for you to stay home.
We took turns falling apart. We took turns telling the other that everything would be ok. We've had parents, step-parents, grandparents, aunts sending us extra Christmas money, money for no reason at all, gas cards, gift cards to take the kids for dinner, well wishes, pep talks, prayers, and offers of help, reassurances that we have more family support, emotional and otherwise than we could ever need. I have to admit, this has been really hard. And yet, I think we have been doing great, rolling with the punches, staying positive--most days.
Hubs got a job last week. The salary is for half of what he was making. But as he so enthusiastically pointed out, 50% of what he was making is better than 0% of what he was making. There are a host of other jobs in the works, all of them in the normal range of what his job typically pays. He took the one job knowing he was going to have to keep looking. The job was an interim job to slow the bleed of our savings. It's a hard thing to take a job you know you are leaving. My husband is the most loyal and considerate person I know and even he agreed that in this economy, the niceties of not accepting a job you had no intention of keeping were a luxury.
So, most of my mental energy has been all hurly burly for a while. We're ok, but my energy and creativity has been drawn inward, taking care of us and figuring out what comes next. I am definately a glass half-full person but I am also a person who likes things settled, figured out. Until that happens, I am in a constant state of motion, trying to figure out where we'll end up, confronting my worst fears, trying to prepare for the worst, contemplating the worst so it can't sneak up on me--it's a terrible mental habit. So I'm here, and I hope that in acknowledging my 'dry spell', I jinx it and get my mojo back. Until then, and in between holding my breath, I'll pop my head up from time to time.
She Got It From Her Momma
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Not only can my bebe walk, she can walk in HEELS!
I'll Fly Away
Monday, February 9, 2009
I wish I would have paid more attention when we sat at that old round formica table as she pushed her pictures towards me with her thin, unbelievably soft hands. I remember her telling me they were a group of friends who got together to hike. Those pants, are those what are called jodhpurs I wonder now looking at them. Whose piano was that? Were they friends with some rowdy boys in a band. Had she been one of those girls, the ones that balked their old country parents and wore pants anyhow? Maybe she smoked and drank and flirted and got bawdy. I know my grandmother frequented the dance halls of the day, she must have too.
I wish I had paid more attention because this group of girls looks hardly different from my own group of girls. The funny one, the pretty one, the shy one...all sharing secrets. Where did all these girls go I would have asked her. What did they do and become? She is the one in the very middle. Yes, the one with the silly pointed hat.
Who took this picture I think whenever I look at it. Where were they going all dolled up? Was this outside of a church after services or in front of a train station waiting for someone's boyfriend?
This is my favorite picture. Look at the hair nets, the trouser pants. If they were wearing bras, they weren't the standard bulleted ones of the day. Maybe they took them off because they were far from the watchful eyes of men or mothers,I bet they still had clean underwear on. Those cameras in their hands, where did they get them? 
I wish I had asked more questions instead of scanning the pictures while I ate the cookies and deviled eggs she'd made for me. Don't get me wrong, I loved the pictures and it meant a great deal that she gave them to me, to keep some of her memories of her youth. I just wish now looking at them that I knew more about her. The her that was still at the beginning of her life.She died last week, my Aunt Fran. She was in her late nineties and it was time, maybe even beyond time so there weren't too many tears to go around. Still, she is loved. She was a very devout woman which is part of why I wonder so much about the young woman in the pictures. I always thought of Fran as my living guardian angel. She and my Uncle Tony had been unable to have children so my mom and her siblings and the rest of us kids were her surrogates.
Fran had this incredible knack for sending me a note with one of her saint prayer cards and a check at the precise times I needed it. No one told her, she just knew. My used car in the shop again just a few weeks after the last repair and there it would be, a card envelope with her Florida return address. She was generous and kind and I was always grateful for those small reprieves from the consequences of poor student life.
When I moved to California, she sent me prayer cards for those living alone,those living far from family. I am not Catholic but I'd read them knowing she was thinking and praying for me, always on my side. She even would call me laughing telling me she was praying for a husband for me. She was hoping I'd meet someone from Wisconsin so I would move back home. This coming from the woman who moved to Florida far from her own family. She always held one of my hands when I'd see her and talk to her. She had a glint in her eye just like my Grandpa, her brother, did. She'd hang on to every word of my stories, she'd laugh at my mildly off-color jokes.
I liked Fran as much as I loved her. There were more than fifty years separating us but I connected with her, felt like we had things in common I would only recognize later. I knew her well but I still wish I'd known her better.
The Magnificent Feats of Five
My daughter turned five this weekend. She got her favorite breakfast(donuts), her favorite dinner(Mac, Spagettios,pizza and lots of fruit). Then she ate about seventeen cupcakes. Then all my kids played dress-up with her for like three hours. I was able to convince the boy that the gold tiara looked "kingly". Haaaaahaaaaaaaa, I'm showing this to girlfriends later.
Standing Quietly Elsewhere
Sunday, February 8, 2009
I am not a person who is self-actualized, not even close. Some days I like to think I am, especially when I've done something I'm especially proud of or overcome a hurdle that's challenged me. Or when I have set aside my own agenda to do the right thing or taken a deep breath and allowed the reality of something to change my perspective.
I have a friend who fancies herself at the end of her process, this journey that is being human and trying to figure out what it all means and get it right. She frequently talks about how so and so doesn't get it, oh, she's a new soul, she'll say, she's got her own stuff to work out, usually with a lilt in her voice that says she's way past that. Comments like these make me want to tell her that only a new soul would call someone else a new soul. Only someone with limited perspective would think they could judge someone else's place on their path. Not that I ascribe to the new soul/old soul tenet anyway.
So I don't consider myself an expert in much besides a meticulous Brazilian wax, a perfectly shaped eyebrow or a homemade roasted tomato pasta sauce. Being in my line of work and probably my natural personality, I give advice quite a bit. I have sound judgement, especially when dealing with things I don't have a stake in, like my clients lives outside their time with me. I give advice not from a place of perfect wisdom but from experience, my own mistakes and insights that have put me squarely where I am today, which is a pretty good spot on most days and my near constant observation of others. I'm rarely emphatic about this advice and more often than not, I'm just an uninvolved person to listen to what someone can't or won't tell anyone else. I guess I'm a little like a blog that way.
I get the normal female conversation and then I get some real doosies(god that sounds like a word an old lady would use like, Madge that's a real doosie right there I tell you.) I'm one of the first people to know about a married woman's affair. Usually she hasn't told friends fearing judgement, so who can she tell but the woman primping her for her lover? I'm often told of fledgling pregnancies before even families know because it might be pertinent to treatment, in the same way a woman will tell another doctor or her dentist, just in case something is verboten. I'm also told sad things like one of my clients who was heavily scarred across her groin and abdomen. She no doubt realized that I would look at the deep slashes in her flesh and wonder what happened. She told me she didn't talk too much about it but that several years back she was a mental health nurse at a corrections facility when she was attacked. She also told me that she now runs training exercises a few times a year on how to avoid such attacks. I am forever amazed at the resilience of people.
Anyway, this is the long set up to talking about a person who has been on my mind lately. She is a client/friend I no longer see but hear about in passing from a few of her friends. She is a woman in her early thirties. She is beautiful, no stunning and talented and terribly, horribly broken.
Her parents were heavy drug abusers, they didn't make sure there was food in the house or electricity much less meet the emotional needs of their children. There is a long history of sexual abuse in her past, her own struggle with self-medicating with drugs and alcohol and a choppy adulthood filled with bad relationships that she to this day still clings to, rocky friendships and false starts with so many of the things that are important to her. At different times there was cutting and bulimia and other self-destructive things that I was surprised she told even me.
Given where she started, she has come tremendously far. Still, her past holds her back. I remember when she told me some of the worst of it after earning my trust with the more typical woes of childhood.
"Do you have a therapist," I asked her.
"Why, do you think I'm crazy," she asked me earnestly.
"Therapy isn't for crazy people", I told her, "it's for people who have come as far as they can on their own with their issues and want someone objective to help them get the rest of the way."
I told her that I had gone, hoping to reassure her that I thought it was a perfectly normal part of getting the tools to handle adult life.
"I've done a lot of research on my own, read books and stuff about abuse and how children process it, but I've never gone and talked to anyone. Do you think I should?"
"Well, I'm the wrong one to ask here because I think everyone should but I don't see how you could have all of the things happen to you that have and not need someone to help you sort it all out and work through it."
She'd come back and tell me about things being the same, the same mistakes the same bad choices the same rut of how she thought about things, herself. My therapist told me after a string of crappy boyfriends that the way I felt about myself was attracting men that validated those feelings. That even if a good one came along, I was so stuck on having been treated a certain way that I would see things through my distorted perception. Change how you feel about yourself, she'd say, and you will change who you are attracted to and how you view life's ups and downs. People are like one track on a record, the way you see yourself plays over and over again and then it's hard to move out of that groove. This friend was a good example of someone who had been so catastrophically victimized that she saw herself the victim of everything. People constantly wronged her, small slights were seen with a magnified intensity, hurts were experienced viscerally.
She connected with men who's history whispered, no screamed, that they would never be able to give her what she'd need and then she'd gasp in wonder months later when it proved to be true. She would try and move forward and carve out the life she wanted and then sabotage herself just as she was making progress. Each time she'd tell me her stories, I'd silently hope that she'd figure it out someday. Figure out how to be free of all the burdens her early life had given her. Free of the record that must play in her head.
She moved from the area and I lost touch with her. I miss her some days but the repetitive sadness and confusion and anger and all of it were so exhausting that truth be told, most days I'm okay with the fact that we've lost touch. And yet I wonder about her, hope that she is making her way towards figuring things out, making peace with her past and forging her own future free of all those wounds that weren't her making. She has a blog that I read now and then and I feel a little voyeuristic reading it and wonder that I still care. Somedays I wish I could talk to her, tell her how worthy she is of the work it takes to become whole again. Instead I sit on the sidelines, an invisible cheerleader. 
Why Moms Who Go Cold Turkey Off the PPD Meds Should Not Be Allowed to Make Important Decisions
Sunday, February 1, 2009
What do you think the average family with:
- three kids, one of whom is still in diapers
-two cats
-one mom with a slagging business
-one daddy out of work
needs?
If you guessed another mouth to feed you'd be right!
No, formerlyfun isn't preggers, we got a dog!I we had been wanting a dog for awhile, ever since I was like five and my mom never let me have one no matter how many times I said pleeeaase. I continually bugged my hubs about it and he was all like, "can we please not get one more thing that shits at will until the bebe's out of diapers or one of the cats kick it?"
Ok, I agreed and then went about plotting how I could get a dog ASAP. So I thought, I bet if I start out asking for another baby he'll let me get a dog. I figured if I promised him I'd take care of everything, maybe he'd let me get one. Then I figured if I softened him up with stories about how my childhood had been robbed of a loving family pet and that's why I'm not more empathetic maybe then he'd let me have a dog.
Turns out I just had to get a collar, leash and a little fluffy pink sweater(for me not the dog duh.)True to male form all it took was a little tail.
We talked about the maybedog over many family dinners bouncing names off each other.
"How about Chompers?" my son suggested.
"Kelly," my daughter shouted after meeting my friend Kelly now she wants to name our maybedog Kelly.(sorry Kelly, it's a compliment, really)
"How about sillypuppyfussypants," I said.
"What's in your pants?" my husband asked.
"You, if I get a dog." I teased.
The kind of maybedog we'd get wasn't up for discussion. My son wanted a Siberian husky but our small house with two cats paired with an exuberant working dog was not going to be a good fit. Plus I had already picked my breed when Uno made every dog his bitch at this past year's Westminister Dog Show.
Whenever we discussed our someday maybedog, it was understood that we were getting a Beagle. We'd window shop at the pet store.
"Look at the Shiba Inu," my son would say.
"No we're getting a beagle.
"Mom I was just saying she's cute."
"Beagle." I admonished him as if the word said it all.
"We could at least look..."
"Beagle."
In the quest to fill my sweet beagle longings while delaying getting an actual dog, we went to the local puppy mill for me to get a fix. We even went so far as to masquerade as an 'actual family looking for a dog' in order to score some face time with a beagle pup. All five of us humans crowded into a little room like dog jail visitation and managed to freak out this little pup with our toothy grins and wandering hands.
"Ahh puppy." we all cooed glazed eyed, a little retarded. We all lost the ability to form complete sentences as the puppy goodness took hold of our senses. All we could muster were single words and short phrases.
"Ohhh," said the bebe, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Soft," I murmured as I felt her velvety ears between my fingertips.
"Awww," cooed the big kids.
"Buddy," whispered hubs as he grabbed the dog's scruff and gave him an appreciative scratch.
When my husband(a staunch animal rights advocate and a vehement puppy store boycotter) asked how much the puppy was, I knew that the maybepuppy was going to be yeahwegotadog any day now.
"Thirteen hundred dollars," the puppy purveyor said and both my husband and I breathed a sigh of relief.
In the car my husband said, "had that dog been five-hundred bucks, you know he'd be sitting on your lap right now don't you?"
"You? You would have bought a dog from that place?"
"Puppies are like heroin Chris, no one can be just a casual user."
Realizing that hubs was actually going to just roll over and let me be pack leader on this one forced me into the position of actually having to make a decision. I wasn't used to someone telling me I could have what I wanted even though it was going to make things harder or more complicated or noisier.
"I can't believe you aren't going to say no," I told hubs a few nights later.
"I can only give you the information, you make your own decisions."
"No I don't, you're the boss of me." I told him with a completely straight face.
"When have I ever been the boss of you?" he retorted.
"Remember the other night with the collar?"
"Oh yeah." he said and I could see his mind wander off to his happy place.
"So have you decided? Are we getting a dog?" he asked.
"I'm not sure, you're confusing me by not telling me no."
"So when am I gonna get my Bagel?"(bagel what we have been calling Beagles)
"If you just said no, it would be easy", I told him," I'd just go get it and that would be the end of it ."
So I pondered. We really didn't need another expense right now but we sure could use a little levity. I didn't want to go the puppy mill route so I casually looked online fully expecting not to find anything. Much to my surprise I found a family with 2 unregistered but 100% Beagle puppies for sale. The price was nominal, probably just to keep the weirdos away and cover the basic costs of their dog getting knocked up. And they were just an hour from our house.
I talked hubs into going to look at the dog and we waited for my eight year old to get home from school.
"Mom, Dad," he came bursting in the door, "I got an A+ on my math test," he said his face a mixture of pride and disbelief.
"Hey hubs, since the boy did so good on his test, maybe we should get a dog," I threw out casually.
The boy's jaw dropped since he's been 200% on board with the whole dog idea.
"Sure, ok, let's go get one," hubs said and grabbed his keys.
Needless to say, eight year old boy thought we were the coolest parents ever and I got my dog.
Everyone, this is Lucy Bagels.
Lucy Bagels, this is Everyone.
Bad Girls
Thursday, January 29, 2009
I Had a Very Dramatizing Childhood
Friday, January 23, 2009
1. Got the computer herps, husband had to completely reformat very badly wonkified harddrive, so bad actual reformatting took two days.
2. Very busy listening to husband chastise me for broken computer. "Would you stop downloading music already." Uh, sorry it was porn.
3.Was busy thanking husband for said cleaned up computer in a myriad of ways and now am very tired(and a little sore).
4. We got a dog and now have four members of our family who shit at will.
5. Have new business project with husband so have been very busy telling him what to do and how he's doing it wrong.
Those mean girls dramatized me. -eight year old's best guy friend recounting when a girl classmate was bullying him. You mean traumatized honey. Well, they're girls so I guess you probably were dramatized.
Man, she did it again, you were supposed to be watching her. (new puppy, that I practically begged for that hubs wanted to delay a year, peed on the floor for like the 5th time)Me, with a completely straight face, honey, you were the one that wanted a dog.
Five Year old daughter: And it was a lobster, a real lobster, no really, it was really real, you know, lobster. Eight year old son, (said in complete seriousness) Well, I hope you didn't touch it, you could get rabies. Uh honey, lobsters don't get rabies. Son: Thank god.
Pigtail Bloodlust
Friday, January 16, 2009
Is it me, or is she just a little too excited about that sandwich?
One minute in photoshop and you could turn this into a zombie picture. Add some sallowness below her eyes, a little drip of blood off her toothy smile and replace the sandwich with human brains.
Bebe Nerdlette
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
My husband really shouldn't be around the kids too much, I think the bebe is becoming a full-blown trekkie.
My Little Von Trapps
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy --The Beatles- All You Need Is Love
Tonight, as is the case most nights, I took my 15 month bebe to my bed about a half an hour before all our kids go to bed. I do this as wind down time for her and well, frankly, it's kind of meditative time for me. Tonight we snuggled in and she did the litany of things she does most nights. She sang and garbled as I waited for her to use up the last bits of stored up frenetic bebe energy. Then we went through all of her words a few times, me saying them first and then her repeating them.
Then I sang her a few songs, tonight it was the Beatle's Blackbird and All You Need is Love and California by Joni Mitchell. We had spent a few hours at the beach and she still smelled like salt and sun. I kissed her sweaty little head while she looked at me holding both sides of my head she whispered hi, drawn out like a secret code only we knew. Then she kissed me, first almost ferociously, slamming her face into mine and clapping. Gentle, gentle I told her and then she laid the softest one on me, doing the mmmmmm, for emphasis, something she's only just started doing. I pulled her in closer, and told her it was time to go to sleep. She struggled out of my embrace to grab at the cat who laid near us a few times before she relented and curved into my body, her head resting in my neck, my chin on her head. She lay there, her hand fidgeting at the seam of my sweater until her breathing became heavy and even.
I held her thinking about how serendipitous my life is. How the things I worry about are minutiae, the big picture, the real stuff is this, a sweaty little baby with her wispy filaments of hair tickling my face, my four almost five year old who asked tonight in an excited hush if she could go play in the dark, so you know she could like see the stars and stuff, and my eight year old who tried out several times for advanced band with no pressure or even push from my husband and I(he just started band in October) and he made it today so that he can trudge his trombone with him one more day a week just because that boy loves band.
And my husband who took me to the beach today, and we made up a super secret cool ass handshake just between the two of us(I won't give it away but it includes a simulated explosion!), and we introduced the bebe to the ocean and hubs carried her when her wet diaper weighed about sixteen pounds and her legs and fingers were all gritty with sand and he fished the shells out of her mouth. And when he got some disappointing news on a job he was interested in, I sang him the lyrics of Chumbawumba's I Get Knocked Out, all hammy until he laughed and he told me what I could do to make him feel better(same thing he's always asking for).
All the Buddhist stuff I've read and butted my head against the wall trying to go with the flow and be in the moment, I am finally getting it and I don't purport that a setback won't make me sulk or pout or pull a woe is me or why can't something just be easy but right now I am in this moment and this moment is so much better than anything I could have dreamed for myself.
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