Blythe Spirit

Rudely Interrupted

2010-07-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

The stories of bad manners over at Jonniker's post are apt to curl your hair. Rudeness abounds, apparently, particularly among our families-in-law and surrounding special occasions. The combination of the two - weddings! - is a powder keg, especially because it involves gift-giving and catering and lots and lots of money. Soliciting gifts! Proffering laxatives to encourage weight loss! Holocaust references! Reading those comments should have made me feel superior, right? I write thank-you notes. I get along with my mother-in-law. I strive not to tell people they look like concentration camp survivors. But as I read, I began to cringe. Because some of those stories could have been written about me.

Confessions:
-Before I had a kid, breastfeeding kind if icked me out, and I expressed disdain for the idea of nursing past a certain age.
-I once called a bride and asked if I could bring a date to her wedding, even though the invitation was addressed only to me.
-I did not make an effort to greet all the guests at my own wedding reception.
-I've made comments to a friend, favorably comparing the size of my home with the size of her smaller home.
-I've straight-out asked people about their ethnic backgrounds.

RUDE, RUDE, RUDE. I'll admit it. I do strive toward good manners, but sometimes I fail. And all of the incidents above have context that might make them sound slightly less horrifying, but they probably really bothered someone who was around when they happened, maybe even the people involved, probably people who I love and would never want to offend. They all involve situations that make me uncomfortable. And so I avoid them (see: wedding reception) or over-compensate by trying to justify them (see: house conversation, breastfeeding conversation) or just plow ahead with the discussion, searching for a bright light and a point that everyone can agree upon. Never mind that I may have shocked everyone in the room.

I am not easily offended. I like to talk about what's really going on, what I'm really thinking. I want to hear what you're really thinking. Most of the time, unless it's way over the top or a repeated problem (a family friend who never fails to make a sexist remark to me each time I see him comes to mind), I see rudeness as either a manifestation of nerves, a colorful personality, or laughable idiocy. I try not to take it personally. But I've finally learned that most people don't really feel like that. (Well, except the Germans. And maybe the Dutch.) (See? Now I've offended some people. But probably not anyone who is really German or Dutch.)

And I find it all a bit exhausting. Hurt feelings are one thing - I do my best, and sometimes fail, not to be insensitive. But taking a circuitous route to asking a question or sharing an opinion just because culture dictates it annoys me. If a good friend who is known to be a bit spacey invites me to her wedding and doesn't put my fiance' on the invitation, I'm going to quietly ask if she would mind if he comes. (She said yes. She just forgot to put "and guest" on the envelope. Wouldn't it have been a bummer if I'd gotten angry and felt slighted because of her perceived rudeness in excluding my date? Then again, maybe she still can't believe I called and asked if he could come. I'll never know.) If I have questions about nursing and how it feels and wonder why someone would want to extend it into toddlerhood, I'm going to ask, hopefully of someone who will answer me honestly and confidently, but I don't know, sometimes I misjudge my audience. However, if living abroad taught me one thing, it's that behavior is judged on a continuum. There are few objective standards of right and wrong, rude and polite, cruel and kind.

I'm sure I've horrified some of you with my behavior. But I'll bet you have some confessions too. Here's your chance. Any rudeness you'd like to share?

Angels

2010-06-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

We spent last week in Los Angeles. Our vacation was well timed, taking into account the early summer doldrums of cloudy/rainy Oregon, the end of a busy work period, and the cabin fever that I begin to experience when my little nuclear family hasn't been out of town together in almost a year.

Three days of Disneyland took it out of us. We ate breakfast with Minnie, we rode the Dumbos, we squealed at and got splashed by the pirates. There were churros and mouse ears and light sabers and more rides on the Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters than the recommended daily allowance. After finally extricating ourselves from the Pixar Play Parade on the last day, we were undecided about what to with the rest of our time in the sunshine. San Diego with LegoLand and spectacular zoos almost won the day. But, in the ended we decided to stick around Los Angeles and see what we could see.

I love getting to know new cities. My ideal urban vacation begins with spending the first day traveling from one end of the city to another, absorbing the neighborhoods and snacking at the cool bakeries and eating street food and riding public transportation. I follow that up with a boutique and bookstore shopping day and a museum day punctuated with stops at restaurants I've read about in advance. I like to stay in a downtown hotel with a groovy bar in the lobby and a doorman.

Even pre-parenthood, my southern California experiences had been the opposite of that scenario. I'd either gone straight from airport to Disney to Knotts Berry Farm to airport, or I'd ridden around wearing a suit in the back of a rental car with a bunch of coworkers with a projector on my lap, traveling from conference hotel to conference hotel. I began to wonder if that image of LA as a wasteland of air conditioned malls and backed-up freeways were true. But in the end, I refused to believe it.

So our L.A. vacation landed somewhere in between a shoe-shopping, wine-swilling poolside retreat, and a traffic-bound dash from complimentary breakfast to theme park and back. We ate some great meals, including a magical Mexican dinner at Border Grill in Santa Monica. Jeff and I traded off sprawling on the sunny lawn watching Theo run barefoot across the grass and taking in the collection at the Getty Museum (a place I'd vaguely head of before, but one that is a must-see, especially if you like spectacular views and cool architecure or gardens). There was no bar in our hotel, but we had air conditioning and Froot Loops at the complimentary breakfast. We drove around Hollywood and Bel Air and Beverly Hills while Theo slept in his car seat. We went to the beach.

We had a great vacation. But it's good to be back.

The Winner!

2010-03-11T22:13:00.000-08:00

Our Oscar Pool winner is...

KENDRA with 17 correct picks out of 24. As she pointed out in comments, she came in near the bottom of the pack last year, so if you feel like you suck at this, never fear, a comeback could be nigh!

The final results:
Kendra - 17
Sandi - 15
Jeff - 13
Jennifer - 13
Gerry - 13
Daniela - 12
Kerri W - 12
Jennie - 12
Tom - 12
Monique - 11
Kristen - 10
Cody - 10
Britten - 10
Amy - 10
Dan - 9
Hollie - 9
Kathryn - 8
Anna - 8
Erin - 8
Emily - 8
Kerri Anne - 8
Kerri B - 7
Francie - 7
Erica - 6

Oscar Post V

2010-02-11T22:13:00.000-08:00

If there's anything that could bring me back from the blogging grave, it's the Oscars.

Enter the pool here!

Of course, there will be prizes.

Bless Us Every One

2009-12-29T22:12:00.000-08:00

Best of

2009-11-30T22:11:00.000-08:00

This month, I'm going to write about my best moments of 2009. It was quite a year.

Best Trip:

Our life was all about travel for so long, we'd become experts at hotel sleeping and bag packing and hellos and goodbyes. So when we moved back to Portland, we plunked down our suitcases, heaved a sigh of relief, and pledged to settle down for a while. We took a couple of weekend trips and a quick Vegas getaway, but there wasn't much glamor to speak of - nothing compared with Easter in Spain, or a villa in Tuscany, or an accidental trip to Hong Kong.

Whatever my twentieth high school class reunion lacked in glamor, however, it made up for in genuine fun and good will and laughter. It reminded me who I am and how I got here and made me proud of the people I started with, and who know me in a way that no one else does. (They also lived through the bad hair years with me. Never fear, you'll get to see more of that this month too.)

Growing Up

2009-11-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

The past few nights, Theo has taken a few toys to bed with him. Each night when he finally goes to sleep, we find the cars and plastic animals laying on their sides or their backs at the foot of his bed. Last night, he half-woke when Jeff tucked the blanket around him and noticed as Jeff absentmindedly turned one of the cars right side up.

"No, Daddy!" he said, suddenly awake. "They sleeping!"

------

He was in his room the other day, playing quietly, "reading" his books. I heard a sudden sob and peeked into the room. He was sitting on the floor with a book in his hands, weeping. "What's wrong, buddy?"
"I can't read it!" he said, obviously frustrated.
"What do you mean?" He'd been happily thumbing through books, saying he was reading them, for weeks.
"I don't know HOW!"
Well. Yes. That's true.

This is It

2009-11-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

I haven't had much positive to say about MJ over the past decade or so. He was so, well, strange, and whenever it seemed like he might finally fade into the background and raise his kids, he would do something creepy or bizarre that confirmed how troubled he was and that he was passing that trouble along to his children. And as much as I love to dance around my living room to Beat It, all the available evidence suggested that the plastic surgery and the financial and legal problems and the rumored drug use had combined to sap his health and his talent. I wasn't even that sad when he died because the part of him I loved, his magic, appeared to have evaporated years ago.

But I did love him once upon a time, and I'd heard "This is It" was worth seeing. So I saw it.

And it made me sad and happy. It was the closest I'll ever get to seeing a Michael Jackson concert. It reminded what a genius he was. It made me question the news reports about his health. It made me think of him as a man and a professional, not just an over-the-hill singer who had had way too much plastic surgery and dangled his baby over a balcony.

If Michael Jackson had allowed the world a glimpse of his life like the one I saw in "This is It," things might have been different for him. He seemed capable, physically healthy, in tune, and professional. I've read that he wished he could live his whole life onstage, and I can see why. He was skinny and his nose looked weird, but he knew exactly how to act up there, and exactly what he wanted, and he was humble but directive. He danced and sang like a gracefully aging pop star, not like the slightly crippled and over-dubbed skeleton he seemed in the press. It's true, he couldn't move like he did in 1983, but neither can I, and neither can Madonna.

Unfortunately it seems like he was incapable of living a happy or normal offstage life. He hated the press so he became a recluse, which only made him seem incapacitated and strange. He made his kids wear masks and he left the country and then held cryptic press conferences. He spent a lot of time with "spiritual advisors" who then sold their stories to the tabloids. His relationships with women were, well, inexplicable, and his relationships with young children were, at the very least, suspicious. His family and his upbringing were probably partially to blame.

But it seems to me that he had one main problem, which was also his gift: he was simply a vessel for his art, and outside that art, he absolutely couldn't figure out how to function. (Bear with me here for the artsy fartsy section. I just can't think of this in any other way.) Michael Jackson's body and his life offstage were seriously flawed, but his art was close to perfect. And when I say his art, I mean the whole package - the songwriting, the charisma, the singing, and of course the dancing. The film makes clear that it was all of a piece for him. He didn't write a song, then learn to sing it, then choreograph a dance. It all came to him at one time, and when he sang, it appeared that he had to move; he couldn't imagine music without song, without dance. And I can only imagine if he lived his whole life knowing the perfection of that feeling, he was flummoxed by the imperfection of every other aspect of his existence.

I wonder if that's why he was enamored with the innocence of children, and why he kept searching for spiritual fulfillment, and why he took drugs to help him sleep, and why he couldn't stop shaving off parts of his nose.

Lessons

2009-10-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

-It is difficult to maintain a blog when one's computer has finally succumbed to death throes.
-Computer shopping sounds like fun but it feels like throwing a lot of money at something I don't know enough about. A little like buying a car.
-When I don't feel confident about a purchase, I tend to come up with creative work-arounds for having to buy a new one.
-My creativity only goes so far.
-Posting to my blog via my phone is, apparently, the last straw.
-Macs sound really great but I'm not convinced they are worth the money.
-I'll believe the above statement until I actually get one, and then I'll go around evangelizing about them like I do my iPhone.
-If you're going to make your child a pawn in your quest for fame, don't let him talk directly to the media.

Coughing it Up

2009-10-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

Our little family of three does just fine with my new working mom gig as long as nothing disrupts the precarious timing balance we've so carefully constructed. As long as Jeff doesn't have an early meeting, as long as Theo doesn't wake up too early and disrupt my shower, as long as I don't have to stay late at the office. But then I went on a business trip last week.

I got home late Sunday evening after starting my trip with a canceled flight (and an exchange with an airline employee that was really just unrivaled in its rudenes. And the rudness was not mine, for once). But I was happy to have made it home and fell into bed, got up and went to work, and just about collapsed in a heap at 10am when I realized it was only MONDAY and OMG THERE ARE FOUR MORE DAYS OF THIS.

When I'm in my little routine, I spend Sunday evenings getting my clothes ready (I almost typed "ironing my clothes" but who am I fooling), figuring out lunches and dinners for the week, and going over the day care pick-up and drop-off schedule with Jeff. So without that structural safety net I found myself eating BBQ potato chips and Twizzlers I found in my desk drawer at lunchtime while sweating through an inappropriately-wintry turtleneck. But the turtleneck was clean at least, because I chose clean over seasonal.

All three of us have some version of a cough/runny nose/day care pestilence, so I've also been contending with fearful looks from bystanders as I hack up a lung. I feel like I should hand out anti-bacterial wipes everywhere I go. I'll admit, sometimes I cough right into my hand instead of into my elbow, and sometimes I don't wash my hands immediately after wiping my nose. It's hard when you're sitting in the middle seat on an airplane. But I am sick and tired of and, well, getting downright pissed off about, people's reactions to my condition. Let's be clear here: I do not have a fever. I do not have chills. I am not oinking. I just have a cold and a cough and when I get a cough it tends to last for a long time. And I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do about that besides politely stuff my face into my elbow when I feel a cough coming on. Stay in my house for the six weeks it takes for me to stop coughing? Wear a surgical mask?

I am too lazy to expand this little rant into a well-constructed argument about the media and "news" and how the public has been not-subtly convinced to fear illness over the years and now we're all judging one another for our germs. But you get my drift. On the other hand, I am sympathetic to health concerns, I have a freaking toddler for goodness' sake. I have allergy-induced asthma. I know we have to take a health threat like H1N1 seriously.

But let's just all calm down, please. Please. Deep breath.

I feel much better now.

And as long as I'm going on and on about whatever is on the top of my head, let me send you to a couple of things I've been enjoying lately:

Penelope Trunk is always interesting and I'm finding her latest series on Asperger's Syndrome in the workplace really fascinating. She also just angered a whole lot of people, using 140 characters or less, and in a way that is sparking all kinds of conversations. Check her out.

Have you read The Unlikely Disciple? Speaking of controversy, it's a book about religion and sex and Jerry Falwell and college. I'm only about 1/3 through and I can't put it down.

Was I Right?

2009-09-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

So, was I right?

Yes and No.

The Good:
Mya and Donny both did well. And Mark was all right. If he can get over the Kung Fu poses he'll do well.

The Bad:
Chuck Liddell was not good, but he has that sincerity of purpose that it's hard not to love. I practically had to turn off the TV when Tom DeLay came on, if only due to his practice wardrobe. And what can you say about Macy Gray? It almost feels mean to criticize her - she seems like she's living in some far-off wonderland.

The Surprising:
Kelly Osbourne was very good! And she'll get even better with practice. I guess Louis really is a genius teacher. She's also got the personality lacking in everyone else but the snowboarder hobbit. He's charming but I'm not sure he has anything in his bag of tricks besides those backflips.

Aaron Carter was even more annoying than I thought he'd be. Ick. I also had hope for Ashley Hamilton and there's no denying he's attractive but man, he hasn't an ounce of rhythm.

Joanna Krupa could be the next Brooke Burke. Unfortunately that means we'll also being seeing Derek again, week after week.

Who knew Kathy Ireland was so tall? And poor Tony, he really deserves to win, but this is not going to be his season.

I felt an overall lack of pizzazz. Even in the glare of the sequins. It's why Kelly Osbourne stood out so clearly and why Donny did well. Where is the sex appeal? Where is the passion? WHERE IS GILLES? (Excuse me, I've started channeling Bruno.)

Working for the Weekend

2009-09-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

I'd forgotten about the weekends.

For a long time, I've taken care of my to-do list on the weekdays. I grocery shopped, I made dentist appointments, I called the insurance company. I found a baby shower gift. I searched online for a recipe for that applesauce cake I was going to try to make. When weekends came, they were devoted to sleeping and eating waffles and having fun.

I anticipated the exhaustion I'd feel on weekday evenings after I started working, and it arrived right on schedule. By Thursday night last week my eyes were droopy at 6:30pm and Theo was singing his "Wake up, Mama!" song and reminding me that the sun wasn't down yet. But I remembered that feeling, and I kind of sunk right back into it, my throat scratchy from talking all day and my feet hurting from wearing stiff shoes. For me, it's a little of what accomplishment feels like. I like it.

But I'd forgotten about cramming the rest of my life into the weekends. Now we're trying to do the fun stuff on Saturdays and Sundays - seeing friends and playing with cousins and going to the library and eating out - and then doing laundry and buying diapers and packing lunches after the kid goes to bed. No more lazy weekends for us.

I'm tempted to become a weekend hermit, holing up with my little guy and my big guy and eating Cheerios and watching America's Funniest Home Videos for two days straight. In fact, I'm sure there will be weekends when that happens. However we'll run out of cereal eventually so there will be a trip to the store on the agenda at some point.

Party on.

Good Advice: Eek! A FB Friend Request from an Ex

2009-09-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

A thirty-something woman lounges on the couch with her laptop. She sips a diet Coke as she cruises through Zappos and checks her e-mail. Partner/live-in boyfriend sits further down the couch with either his laptop or a remote control in hand.

Close-up on her screen. She has opened a message from Facebook. It's a friend request.

Dun-dun-DUNNNNNN

From her ex-boyfriend. Her first love. Who broke her heart and to whom she hasn't spoken in fifteen years. She glances furtively over her computer at the guy on the couch, her mouse hovering between "accept" and "ignore."

END SCENE

I fully expect to see this on my television soon, either as an intro to a Dr. Phil segment or an ad for anti-anxiety meds. Because the drama du jour, besides who's really writing celebrity Twitter updates, is What To Do With The Ex on Facebook. Do we ignore and wonder and worry that the ex will think he's won? Do we accept and keep it a secret from our current flames? Do we accept for politeness's sake then de-friend when no one is looking? Do we accept, write "CHEATING ASSHOLE" on his wall, and then de-friend? Do we accept with the knowledge that there's still a little bit of feeling there, and what happens then?

What we do right now, if the people I know are any indication, is let it sit in the in-box and then dish with our girlfriends about it. We talk way too much about what "friend" really means, and motives, and what would I do if I knew my husband were Facebook friends with that hussy he dumped when he met me, ad nauseum. And then we go off and stew a little more.

A few weeks ago, a very wise friend of mine got just such a request. He was a significant person in her life for several years in her early twenties, but it ended in a difficult way. She had always wondered about him and where he'd ended up, but she moved on. She now has a happy family and a successful career and hadn't really thought about him in a while. But still, when she got the friend request, on her wedding anniversary no less, she sent an email to us, her faithful girlfriend sounding board, with Subject: OMG OMG OMG. As one does.

We, her bumbling band of advisors, hemmed and hawed and said wow, that's crazy timing, I wonder what he's doing now, that's so wild! And gave her no useful advice at all. So she took matters into her own hands. And she put on her grown-up shoes (mine are red patent peep-toe heels) and wrote this reply to her ex:

Hey there! I hope you and your family are doing well. Thank you for the
friend request. Unfortunately, I will have to decline. My husband and I
have a deal, no exes. Especially significant ones. I really hope you are
doing well and wish you all the best. Today is my 10yr wedding anniversary
and we have a beautiful 3yo daughter and 17mo old son. I would love a quick
note hearing about how you are doing. And I hope you understand and respect
the decision about the request.

And then, of course, she practically lost her mind as she wondered what he would write back.

Later in the day, she got a reply. It was extremely kind. It included the kind of apology that every person wants from an ex who has broken her heart. It gave her a nutshell description of his life since they were together. And it ended with sincere respect for her choice to honor a promise to her husband.

I'm not sure why I was so surprised at the happy ending here. My friend just did the responsible thing, the thing that most people would do outside Facebook. But for better or worse (better being the fact that I can officially count myself as a fan of Bacon and put up an avatar of Molly Ringwald in memoriam to John Hughes, worse being the "friend-ing" and "de-friending" drama), Facebook pulls some of us into junior high school mentality even though we all swore we would NEVER go back to junior high, given the choice.

So although I can't promise that you'll get as gracious a response as she did, my friend and I both give you permission to cut and paste her message into your Facebook reply box when the ex-boyfriend from 1998 who moved out of your apartment in the middle of the night and who you later saw sucking face with the receptionist from his office tries to friend you.

You're welcome for that memory.

Not Yet

2009-08-25T22:02:00.000-07:00

Theo is just starting to grasp the ideas of time and place. He understands Now and Later and When and Where. This means he comes up with questions like, "Where I going, Mama?" just before we walk out the door, and replying "Not yet. I playing," when I ask him if he's ready for lunch. Every night before he goes to bed he asks, "Tomorrow a play day?" meaning he's wondering if he'll get to sleep in (a "play day") or if I'll rouse him out of bed to take him to day care. His attention span is expanding and he has been known to settle in with some cars or a book for twenty minutes at a time. Last night he grabbed my hand and led me into his room, asking me to "Play a game with me, Mama." He also gets excited about taking his vitamins, and his latest favorite book is Olivia ("Read Livia to me, Daddy!"). I can't wait to see what goofy new thing he does to make me laugh as I lift him out of bed after his nap - lately when I stick out my hand, he says, "I'm DeeDee," to which I'm supposed to respond, "Nice to meet you, I'm DahDah." Don't ask me how that is supposed to make sense.

Every stage in his life is interesting to me, but now that the physical growth has slowed down a bit and his intellectual progress is faster, I am more fascinated by him than ever. He's started making jokes, and remembering directions ("We going left?"), and trying to figure out what day it is ("Today Tuesday?"). Of course he's also bossier than I ever imagined he could be, and he has a real problem remembering that everyone deserves a turn on the slide and that blocking it with his body and just hanging out at the top really isn't acceptable playground behavior.

So isn't it just my luck that, just when he's at his most charming, I've up and got myself a full-time job? It's true. I start next week. I'm excited about it. I've really missed the intellectual stimulation of working. I always liked my work and now that I've had a four year break, I know for sure that it really was the right field for me. So I'm going back.

Before I had a child I suspected I was not stay-at-home-mom material, and although I am beyond grateful that I could hang out with Theo for as long as I have, I still believe I'm happier when I'm working. I do not do well with unstructured days and hours alone with my toddler. I do not enjoy housework, and I just feel guilty that it's not getting done while I'm trying to re-assemble a broken dump truck. I am terrible at arts and crafts. My patience for whining is severely limited.

Of course this new plan is kind of breaking my heart too. I am savoring our sleepy mornings this week, eating breakfast in our PJs and wandering over to the library and the park. I don't like thinking about the post-nap cuddles I will miss, or the quiet weekday visits to the zoo.

But it still feels like the right thing. I'm happy with our child care situation. Jeff and I are both looking forward to caring for Theo in a more balanced partnership. And it's a financially responsible decision for all of us.

But I'm not looking forward to giving up our play days either.

Dreaming with the Stars

2009-08-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

I hate to follow up a post about a dance-themed reality TV show with another post about a dance-themed reality tv show, but...I don't really hate to do it. I love it.

Did you see the new cast of Dancing with the Stars has been announced? And, according to the headlines, its most exciting member is Tom DeLay. Wha? I can't wait to see what John Stewart has to say about this development (don't tell me, we don't get to watch him until a day later).

My predictions:
-Final three = Mya, Marc Dacascos, Donny Osmond.
Mya and Donny both have dance/performance backgrounds. She was in the move musical Chicago, he was in Joseph & The Amazingly White Teeth (or something). Somehow it doesn't seem fair to pit a professional dancer against, say a snowboarder or a rodeo cowboy but then again, Lil Kim didn't get voted off because she was a bad dancer. I'm most excited about Marc Dacascos who plays the Chairman on Iron Chef America. He is a martial artist and I really hope they pair him with someone besides Karina because she scares me.

-Possible spoiler = Aaron Carter
Also has a performance background. But, based on his bizarre family reality TV show, might be kind of a jerk. Which could hurt him. He's no Cody Linley in the wide-eyed ingenue department, is all I'm saying.

-First to go = Macy Gray or Chuck Liddell
Have you seen Macy Gray move? Yikes. And I just don't have much hope for the Ultimate Fighting Champion. I'd say DeLay might get kicked off early but the Republicans are fired up and like to get out the vote.

-Other possible nightmares: Joanna Krupa and Kathy Ireland
Models seem to have a hard time with rhythm and movement on this show. Except for Brooke Burke, of course. Because she was BORN TO BE A DANCER!!! according to the judges.

Now I'm on pins and needles, wondering which professional dancers will be cast with the celebs. Any predictions? Hopes? Dreams?

So You Think You Can Come Up With A Better Name For This Show

2009-08-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

I try not to be embarrassed about the number of hours I spend watching reality television, but sometimes it's hard. I have sworn that I will not get caught up in The Biggest Loser this fall, not because it's emotionally manipulative (even though it is) but because it consumes four full hours per week of my precious post-bedtime evenings. I'm just not that committed to America's weight loss trials and triumphs. I'd all but sworn off American Idol until Paula Abdul went down in a blaze of glory and now, well, I might have to watch. But NOT during the audition rounds. At least not all of them. I wish I could quit Dancing with the Stars but I'm not sure I can resist. I'm not proud of my weakness for the Paso Doble.

I am proud, however, to announce that I am a huge fan of So You Think You Can Dance. When I saw it for the first time I couldn't quite believe that real dance - not fake ballroom, not Michael Jackson video ripoffs, not the Nutcracker on PBS - was on network prime time. I loved it but I was sure it wouldn't last. Was the country that made The Swan a hit really going to support choreography starring electronica and a crash test dummy narrative? Would anyone tune in to a show with such a cumbersome title? Would we get it?

But, apparently, we do. The gorgeous host, Cat Deeley, manages to seem geniunely sweet and goofy and like the anti-Seacrest. The judges are nerdy and over-Botoxed but do seem to know what they're talking about and generally don't sound like they are on drugs. Well, except Lil C. The contestants are jaw-droppingly talented, and instead of being sold mainly on their back stories (The Widowed Church Guy! The Country Girl Whose Daddy Is In Prison!), they are featured for their talent. The prize, though nothing to sneeze at, matters less than the performances and the exposure the dancers receive. And, most thrillingly to me, the choreography is sometimes strange and inaccessible but always interesting.

Don't tell anyone, but I think we, as a television-viewing public, are appreciating Art. And it's on Fox. Please make every effort to keep this development from Rupert Murdoch, because this is a slippery slope. What's next? Opera?

P.S.
I wanted Janette to win. I think Kayla was thwarted by her own weak choreography in her solos, but she absolutely rocked the stage whenever someone else gave her something to do. I believe it's unfair that they split the competition along gender lines until the end, because at least three of the women should have made it to the final four. I loved the Butt Dance. Mia Michaels needs a new makeup artist. I've downloaded half the music from this season. I can't wait until the new season starts.

Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night

2009-08-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

I went to the dentist last week and smugly came home and announced that the hygienist told me I had pretty teeth, therefore validating my devoted flossing. And then I mentioned that I had to go back again to have a cavity filled and it didn't even occur to me that the whole thing sounded sort of stupid. I mean, a tooth with a big ugly hole in it isn't very pretty, is it? Especially to a dental hygienist. I think she was just trying to make conversation.

So today I had my cavity filled and the dentist had to dose me three times with the anesthesia and by the third try I just stopped reacting when the drill hit a nerve (sorry!) and dug my fingernails into my palms a bit further. Obviously I must have been somewhat medicated or I would have involuntarily shrieked at high volume but still. You're not supposed to feel the drill, are you?

Anyway, the medication kicked in about an hour later and suddenly my whole head felt numb and everything on my right side, including my eyebrow, was rendered immobile. So my plan to go to the mall and hit up the MAC counter for some new blush was foiled and I just went home instead and tried to eat ramen. You can imagine how that went, with my droopy lip and half-numb tongue. I'm going to have to do extra laundry tomorrow. And then I baked my favorite chocolate chip cookies. Mainly to celebrate the temperature finally remaining below ninety degrees after a ten-day heatwave. But not inside my house because when you turn the oven on, it heats up the house.

Not my best day. But hey! I have a new bionic tooth and chocolate chip cookies and this week is the season finale of So You Think You Can Dance and after six hours or so I can finally feel my face again. Life is good.

The Twenty

2009-07-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

Though I sometimes like to pretend high school was miserable for me, it wasn't. It was, in almost every area, a good time. I had close friends. I liked my teachers and they liked me. I went to a small school where I was involved in everything from drill team to drama to student government. I got good grades. I went to a nice college. I had a date for the prom. But high school memories live in the portion of my brain that still is in high school. It's the portion that can recite all the lyrics to "Right Here Waiting for You" by Richard Marx, and that is embarrassed that my best friends were always the ones with the boyfriends and I was always sitting in the back seat by myself on the way to the dance, and that flips the personality switch into Tracy Flick mode when I'm not looking. It's the part that spent too much time feeling awkward and a little ugly even when I probably wasn't.

So I can understand why people balk at attending their high school class reunions. When the invitation came for mine, I had a second of doubt. Did I really want to see people on whom the last impression I made was a yawn-inducing graduation speech about Following Your Own Personal Star? Or, worse yet, they might remember me as the girl who didn't even know where the senior kegger was held, probably because there was a suspicion that she might call the cops. It's hard not to focus on regretful behavior, but someone wise reminded me that it's a very self-centered thing to do; most of my classmates probably don't remember the idiotic things I did, or if they do, they've got their own litany of idiocy to worry about.

I didn't let my thoughts linger for too long at the failed pep rally in my head, although it wasn't because I made a difficult personal decision to overcome my fears and grow stronger in this difficult time. No, mostly I went to 20-year class reunion because I wanted to know the rest of the story. I wanted to see where people were living and how many kids they had and if they had become even more handsome than they were in the eighties (odds were good, considering the perms and Cosby Show sweaters everyone was sporting in our graduation photos). And maybe I wanted the opportunity to shock them all by drinking a beer in public.

Damn, I'm glad I went.

I saw my child racing gleefully through a sprinkler with the kids of one of my dearest friends. She and I were just a year or two older than they are now when we met. It made me a little tearful, until Theo threw a matchbox car at her son's head.

I hung out with the wives of my junior high school crushes and it reminded me that small town boys have good taste (and so did I).

I heard a story about wrestling a mountain lion, masterfully told by a guy I could never persuade to be the prince in my four-year-old princess pretend games.

I recognized people by their voices and their walks which hadn't changed in two decades, and I could tell whose kids belonged to whom because they looked exactly like their parents at age ten.

I was reminded once again that I married well as I watched my normally shy husband spend day after day conversing with strangers and politely laughing at reminiscences that made no sense to him.

I saw a lot less bad hair than when we were in high school, but that might just be because there was less hair in general.

I heard stories about children and partners and how great it was to be back in Montana, if only for just a little while. I heard no bragging about jobs or houses or status symbols.

I ate too many cheeseburgers. I drank a beer in public, but no one seemed too shocked.

If you have a reunion coming up, you should go. Ignore the part of your brain that's embarrassed because you made out with that guy who never talked to you again, or worse because you dated that guy for ages and he might actually be there. Ignore the reminder that you never made varsity. Forget the suspicion that everyone might be skinnier/taller/richer than you. Instead, remember laughing together at your ridiculous World History teacher. Think about the time your car ran out of gas and the intriguing girl you'd never even talked to from homeroom offered you a ride. Expect to hear about the good stuff, the families and friends, because those are the stories that will get told. Don't skip it because you "don't want to re-live high school." There's no way it's going to be the same as high school because twenty years have passed and everyone likes a happy ending.

Just go.

Full set of photos here.

Theo-isms

2009-07-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

Daddy, are you my friend?

To his dinner: Hello, food. I am going to eat you.

To me, when I tell him it's time to leave Nana's house: I need a second.

Let's watch Jeopardy! Or the dancing show! (The dancing show = So You Think You Can Dance)

Blame it on the juice! Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a! (Nice one, no? Taught to him by his father.)

All I Ever Wanted

2009-07-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving tomorrow on a trip to Montana, where I will eat some steak and Theo will run amok due to grandparental spoilage, and then we will hang out with a bunch of my high school classmates who I haven't seen in twenty years. I'm pretty sure none of us has changed a bit.

While I'm away, you should watch this trailer for the new Ricky Gervais film. He is a genius.

Olden Days

2009-07-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not much for nostalgia. You'd never guess it, based on my musical taste and my pop culture knowledge, which are both firmly planted in the late 1980's, but it's true. I rarely sit around wishing things were like they used to be, or wondering why we can't just slow down a little bit. I like to think about the future. I'm an early adopter. I like to see what's next. Yeah, it was great when we could ride our bikes around the neighborhood until dusk and our parents didn't have to worry about us, but I kind of like the idea of a helmet on my speeding child's head. Yeah, it was great when traveling by air was a big deal and people used to get dressed up to do it, but I kind of like that it's become part of everyday life and that we're all more mobile and aware of the world. Yeah, I used to enjoy writing letters, but I love e-mail. Yeah, Twitter is weird, but it's fun and really useful.

I've been a blog reader longer than I've been a blog writer. I've seen blogs morph from ugly journal pages that I swore weren't really meant to be read by the public (but I'm not above a bit of voyeurism and I was reading them anyway) to somewhat more organized and entertaining collections of daily musings, to well-designed and well-written collections of personal essays. I cheered their progress. I saw ads pop up on many sites and that didn't bother me at all, as long as they weren't singing or screwing up my browser. Eventually I even added some to my own blog (See Exhibit A ----> ). And when the corporate sponsorships and giveaways appeared I thought, hell yeah, finally companies are marketing to me and not just to my grandmother. And then some of my favorite bloggers started writing columns at magazine sites and actually earning a living with their talent and I thought, this is how it's supposed to be. Great writers earning a living with their writing.

These great writers have, of course, gained large enough readership that they've started to guard their privacy. I certainly can't blame them. Those who began writing about their screaming babies now have older kids who aren't as keen on having their poop stories broadcast to the world. More regular people, not just geeks, are reading blogs, which means that the risk of having one's blog discovered by the next door neighbor is increasing. And that means fewer stories about the crazy neighbor who yells at his lawn mower, or the cute daughter who innocently likes to dance to "Pass the Dutchie," or the book they absolutely hated because now the author is likely to find the blog and leave a cranky comment. And, well, I miss that stuff.

These successful bloggers are making an effort, I know. They try to make time to update their personal blogs, but it's hard when paid deadlines loom. They honor the readers who love them by weaving personal anecdotes into their magazine columns, or giving away treats and prizes that relate to the stories they've told. They're trying to balance the transition from hobbyist personal bloggers to career freelance writers. I get it and I applaud it and I understand that's what the future holds. And I read way too many blogs so I realize that there are still zillions of fantastic personal stories being posted each day. I'm grateful for that.

I'm not naming names here because, really, this isn't about individual writers. It's about a trend. It's an exciting trend that, at its core, financially supports art and quality. But like most changes, it means we're going to lose something to gain something. So before I get excited about what's ahead, please indulge my nostalgia for a moment. Do you feel it too?

Shuffle-Ball-Change

2009-06-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

I've been hanging out at the community center lately, near lunchtime when the local meals-on-wheels organization serves a meal to seniors in the dining room. They do food delivery too, but those clients who are able-bodied and socially inclined show up to eat and chat and pick up a sack of day-old bagels or a newspaper.

Before lunch, the center hosts exercise classes of the kind you imagine at senior centers - they sit on chairs and stretch their arms; they stand behind the chairs and stretch their legs; they bend from the waist to one side and then another. I like to watch them because they remind me of my grandparents, most of whom are gone. I lived within a half hour of all four of them when I was growing up, but when I moved away twenty years ago this summer, I saw them only a couple of times a year. I find myself imagining Grandma doing the slow-motion version of the hokey pokey at the senior center.

This week I was there a little earlier in the day, and instead of the swayers I was surprised by a whole different group. The ladies' tap dance class was taking place on the stage at one end of the dining room and I swear I could have watched those women all day long. They were dancing to Rockin' Robin (A Michael Jackson homage? Perhaps.) and man, could they tap. I took my share of tap-dance lessons and I never really mastered it; it's all about ankle and knee control and I was better suited to stiff-legged ballet. The class of seven was led by a woman who must have learned tap dancing during World War II. She was serious, stopping the group when someone was clearly out of step and making them all start over again, and they were all way better than I had ever been, even at age ten with my young joints and brand new shoes.

I wonder what kind of class I'll take at the senior center when I am seventy-five. Hip-hop? Maybe Macarena?

What's Going On

2009-06-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted about what's going on with me in a while. And that's mainly because, on a day-to-day basis, it seems like nothing much is going on. I eat Cheerios. I post boring things to Twitter. I take Theo to the park, where he spends most of his time begging to climb on the concrete skatepark and I spend most of my time pointing out that the kids with the low-rider pants and long hair would mow him down with their boards in 1.3 seconds if he toddled into their paths. I watch So You Think You Can Dance.

Aaaand I just killed a spider that was walking across the arm of my chair. Just then. I meant just to brush him off, onto the floor, but he was squashed in the melee. (This is real-time blogging, right here. Riveting, isn't it?)

Fortunately there are a few other places on the internet where things are a bit more exciting. How about these?

Let's Panic About Babies!
You might not want to click on that while you're drinking your coffee because you'll snort it out your nose. The 1-800-DINGOES ad did it for me.

Heavy Cross by The Gossip
Best band name I've heard in a while. They do a kickass Careless Whisper cover too. Also, from Portland!

John Cusack is on Twitter, another example of why it's sometimes more fun to worship celebrities from afar than to actually know what they're thinking. (Side note: It's unfortunate that the more boring and misspelled the twitter feed, the more convinced I become that the celebrity is actually writing it himself.)

It Don't Get Better Than This

2009-06-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

During the Tony awards, Bret Michaels wraps up a rollicking performance of "Nothing but a Good Time" with his Poison bandmates. Bret gets a little carried away taking his bow. The Tony show producers are hyper-aware of their schedule, considering this is the lowest-rated of the low-rated awards shows, and they need to get on with things to keep their advertisers happy. So they cue the scene change, assuming that Bret will notice there's a giant piece of scenery barreling down from the ceiling at him and get out of the way. Bret, suddenly realizing he's supposed to be exiting upstage along with his bandmates, turns around and makes a leap for the drum platform. C.C. DeVille tries to give him a hand. Bret almost makes it, but he's on a collision course, and the audience cringes as he is clotheslined by a huge mural of the Manhattan skyline. Stockard Channing, gripping a fur stole, belts out "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" stage left.

That whole scenario sounds like a SNL sketch from the 1980's, and I'm quite sure that until a couple of weeks ago neither Poison nor Stockard Channing could ever have imagined they'd be sharing a stage. But that's showbiz, right?

Following the mishap, Tonys host Neil Patrick Harris takes the stage, makes a joke, and says, "Oh, he's fine!" and gets on with the show. Because that's what you do in the theatre. If Bret had been knocked unconscious during a swordfight in Romeo and Juliet ("Starcrossed Lovers' Bus?"), they'd have dragged him offstage and his understudy would have appeared seconds later. He probably would have worn a little SuperGlue on his bruised nose during the next day's matinee. That's it.

Back in 1986, while promoting Look What the Cat Dragged In, Bret probably got beaned in the head by C.C.'s high kicks once or twice. Considering the way liquor hinders one's reaction time, it's inevitable. But I"m sure he just went right on singing "Talk Dirty to Me" while wiping the blood out of his eyes, no harm done.

But now that Bret's a reality TV star and a blogger, he posts pathetic photos of his injuries. He blogs about how it's not his fault, mentioning that Liza Minnelli rushed to his dressing room after the accident. He whines.

And though my fifteen-year-old self who thought hair bands were all badass would be sorely disappointed, I have to admit I'm not completely shocked by this turn of events. Just take a look at that album cover and tell me those guys weren't ultimately headed for musical theatre. Or, possibly, the circus.

Bret, it don't get better than this.

Things That Matter to Me, Apparently

2009-06-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

-Good Manners
I never pictured myself as one of those parents who says, "WHAT DO YOU SAY?" to her child after the checker at the grocery store hands him a sticker, but I have become the please-and-thank-you police.

-A Clean In-Box
Allowing e-mail sit in my in-box for more than a few days gives me hives. This affliction can lead to premature archiving.

-A flattering Facebook profile photo
Why, I'm not sure, considering that so many of my FB friends saw me in junior high, high school, and college, wearing an unspeakably frizzy permed mullet, braces, and/or stirrup pants. But I tried to put up a goofy one and I just couldn't stand it.

-Comfortable shoes
I love my red patent leather heels but I can barely bring myself to wear them. I wish I could banish the worn-out Born oxfords from my closet, but they make my feet happy.

-Lipstick
I'll wear it even if I'm not wearing any other makeup.

-Knowing all the words
I go out of my way to research the words to songs that I enjoy so that I can sing along correctly. Seriously. I've googled the lyrics to "Little Red Corvette."

It's the little things, isn't it? What matters to you?

Ruminations on the Tabloids at the Grocery Check-Out

2009-06-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

OBAMA'S GAY LOVER TELLS ALL: Apparently this is what happens when we get a president with some dress sense.

ASHLEY TISDALE GOES BRUNETTE: Who is Ashley Tisdale? And that looks like her natural color to me.

MELISSA JOAN HART SHOWS OFF HER BIKINI BODY: Isn't she a witch? Shouldn't she have magicked a bikini body long ago?

INSIDE JON AND KATE'S MILLION-DOLLAR DIVORCE: I'm waiting for their hairstylist to get her own reality show. Or to be sued for the bad publicity resulting from Kate's hairdo and Jon's plugs.

Current Playlist

2009-06-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm
This is a rad remake of a rad Michael Jackson song and who doesn't love a band called Alien Ant Farm?

Viva La Vida by Coldplay
Makes me want to jump around the room, flailing my arms. In a good way.

Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Market Irglova
I'd sort of forgotten about this until I saw it again on American Idol. It's lovely. I'm still trying to forget that the singers met when she was like nine and he was thirty-five and they're now a couple.

My Maria by Brooks & Dunn
Apparently all that country music in my past is seeping to the surface. (This is a ridiculous video but the audio is the best I could find.)

Chasing Pavements by Adele
She performed at the Grammys in her stocking feet which bugged me a little but after I heard her voice I didn't care.

Renegade by Styx
Did you ever see the Styx episode of Behind the Music where Tommy Shaw made fun of Dennis DeYoung and Dennis DeYoung got all miffed and Tommy just continued to mock him? It's right up there with the Leif Garrett one.

Fabulous

2009-05-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

I've admitted before that I have a conflicted impression of Gwyneth Paltrow. On one hand, she's elegant and interesting and has a hot husband and cute kids and you don't see her slouching down the red carpet with her nipple hanging out. (Indeed, these are our standards for decent celebrity behavior nowadays.) On the other hand, she has fashioned herself into a kind of lifestyle guru and speaks in public about how great her macrobiotic diet and personal trainer make her feel, and how everyone should give them a try.

So, depending on my mood, I react to these kinds of statements in one of two ways. When I'm in a pro-Gwynnie state of mind, I sort of appreciate her candor. She says she likes to drink wine and eat cheese and therefore must work out for two hours each day. She does not try to tell us she maintains her figure on a diet of French fries and milkshakes and tranquil walks on the beach. She talks about how she's chosen not to work as much as she used to because she doesn't like to leave home in the morning when her kids are asleep and come home after they've gone to bed. She doesn't pretend she's One of Us. She admits that she has two nannies.

But when I'm feeling cranky, I want her to dial it down. Is life really so difficult for someone who has two nannies and a cellar full of wine and a cupboard full of cheese and a Pilates studio in her back yard? Five days last year she had to work and didn't get to see her children at bedtime. How often does that happen to the average working parent? About once a week. Now I realize I'm sitting here in my comfy chair at 3:49 on a weekday afternoon, typing away on a nice laptop and wifi, which probably puts me closer to Gwyneth on the scale of most- to least-annoying complainers than to your average hard-working grocery store employee. But still! She's advising us to buy a jumpsuit? Seriously?

So, tell me, is it better for celebrities to be out of touch with the way most of us live but at least to admit it? Or do you prefer the Fabulous People who swear they still do their own grocery shopping?

Checking it Twice

2009-05-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

Is it only Wednesday? Because it seems like it should probably be Monday of next week by now. Remember that job I talked about a while back? I didn't discuss it in detail because, well, we all know you just don't blog about your job. And one of the details I didn't discuss was that it was a temporary job. It ended last week. And all the planets aligned so that Theo's daycare is closed for its one-week-per-year vacation this week. Which means that I went from dressing in grown-up clothes and eating quinoa salad and fresh-baked bread from the salad bar three days per week and creating spreadsheets and talking about action items in meetings, to spending all day every day attempting to convince an oompa-loompa-sized human that having a clean diaper is infinitely nicer for everyone in the household than walking around wearing a dirty diaper. And while our time as a mother-and-child unit has had its wonderful moments (staying in my pajamas past 7am, for example), I've felt the abrupt loss of a sense of accomplishment.

You know what I mean. Making lists and checking them off. Even adding stuff to the list after it's already done so you can cross it out. So I made a list to make me feel better.

Recent Accomplishments:
-Taught Theo to answer back ROCK YOU after I sing "We Will We Will" a la Queen.

-Spent $18 at that really nice Whole Foods that usually seems too far away just for a quick grocery stop.

-Took a bag of clothing to the resale store. Traded it in for an Old Navy bikini that I may never gather the courage to wear.

-Uploaded the Epicurious app to my iPhone and then failed to open it.

-Updated my resume to include "80s Rock Lyric Contest Winner."

-Jinxed the outcomes of two reality shows with my confidence that, of the three finalists, at least one of the two people I liked would win. (Helen?! And Shawn?!!) I am not even going to watch the AI final tonight lest I damage the careers of both Kris and Adam with my support.

-Found a Matchbox car inside Theo's diaper. I'm assuming this is the result of his recent fascination with dropping everything down his shirt, but one never knows.

What have you accomplished lately?

(Also, does anyone know how to fix my template code so the ads don't hang off over there on the right? That's causing me physical pain right now.)

Why I Am Going to Hell

2009-05-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

Last week, while surfing the CNN website for ways that I can make a difference in the lives of starving orphans and a detailed breakdown of the latest stock market fluctuations (by which I mean skimming the entertainment section for the previous night's American Idol results since I missed it and forgot to set the DVR), I saw this headline:
Another racy Prejean photo emerges; site promises more

And I was surprised that Sister Helen Prejean, the human rights activist brought to my attention (as are so many important humanitarian heroes) by Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, and a touching but probably somewhat overblown biopic, was posing for racy photos. So of course I clicked through and learned that Miss California has the same last name as Sister Helen (no relation). Miss California, incidentally, feels it's very important to provide scantily-clad photos of herself to the public in order to convert The Gays to heterosexuality before they try to get married. Or something like that. Like I said, I was just trying to make sure Adam hadn't been voted off.

Honest mistake, right? Same last name, read the story, got a little chuckle out of my misinterpretation. Well, that's not why I'm going to hell.

For the following day or two, I'd see the name in headlines, and every time I would first think of the nun, and then remind myself that it was the pageant contestant. And I chuckled and figured I couldn't be the only person making this connection, right? So I decided to share the laugh! Of course! So I told Jeff, and he said, "huh!? Oh yeah. Funny." Which was not particularly satisfying.

So of course I posted it to Twitter:
Shocked that Sister Helen Prejean (of Dead Man Walking fame) would take "racy photos." Also, wouldn't have pegged her as a pageant type.
Kind of funny, no? Not my very best tweet ever, but if anyone else had made the same mistake, maybe they'd laugh! I would have laughed if someone else had posted it. And even that probably wouldn't have sent me straight to hell.

But then, just a few hours later, I got this reply:
playproject@Blythe - where did you see this about Sr. Helen?
And I clicked through to the Twitter account, and then to the website.

And yes, indeed, it's an organization that works with Sister Helen to produce the play "Dead Man Walking" in schools and they thought I'd actually read somewhere that their heroine had been competing for a pageant title AND had released nudie photos to the media.

And I had to reply and tell them I'd been making a lame joke at a nun's expense. And they were nice and gracious in their reply and now they're following my updates. Either because they like my sense of humor or so they can monitor my tweets for more evidence that I'm defaming Sister Helen.

And that's why I'm going to hell.

My Son the Man

2009-05-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

This poem came my way today and I couldn't help but share it.

My Son the Man

by Sharon Olds

Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.

From Poetry Foundation

The Happiest Place on Earth

2009-05-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

I never thought I’d become a Vegas person. You know, the people who go every year and stay at Bally’s and get to know the concierge and can tell you where the highest-paying slots are and which buffet serves the juiciest prime rib. Normally these people are very tan and like to wear flip flops. They also know what “double down” means.

I am and know none of these things. I have ugly feet so avoid flip-flops, the last time I had a tan was 1987 (seriously) and I just don’t enjoy playing cards that much or even trying my hand at the slot machines. But I could happily spend a long weekend in Las Vegas annually. When I’m there, I feel like I am On Vacation. I order strawberry-flavored drinks poolside. I sleep in the sun. I shop for impractical clothing. I send Jeff off to the roulette tables with a wave and nestle in with a book. I sip fancy cocktails at bars on the 39th floor. I use an excessive number of white beach towels on my deck chair.

The Vegas people surround me while I’m there, of course. They talk about taking a taxi downtown, and where to get tickets to see Donny and Marie. They wear sparkly sunglasses. They smell like coconut oil. They possess cards that fit into the slot machines. And they provide the best people-watching on earth. When Jeff and I took a little getaway a few weeks ago, we lounged and gambled a bit but mainly we sat at restaurants and in bars, eating fantastic meals and delicious drinks and eavesdropping. We watched two families meeting for the first time, making small talk while they waited for their engaged children/siblings who were over an hour late for dinner (maybe on purpose?). We witnessed a man trying to coax his bronzed teenage daughter, who was wearing earbuds and lying face down in her bikini, to come inside already because WE HAVE TO CHECK OUT IN TWENTY MINUTES, CECILIA. CECILIA, CAN YOU HEAR ME? We overheard a tableful of Euro hipsters wearing pencil-leg plaid pants (men) and purple eye shadow (women), fighting over the check in their various accents. We must have seen twenty wedding parties, most of whom were on their way to or from taking photos in front of the “Eiffel Tower.” I loved every minute of it.

I’m already shopping for some rhinestone flip-flops and am thinking of signing up for a special affiliate card at Caesar’s. Because despite denying it, I guess I really am one of those people after all. Who needs Europe when we’ve got Vegas, baby?

Look! Over there!

2009-05-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

My blog has a brand new home.

Go to www.theblythespirit.com to read all about it and re-set your bookmarks.
Don't forget to update your feed reader.

See you there.

Vacancy

2009-04-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

So! Apparently I'm taking the month of April off from writing my blog. Sorry for the late notice.

Until I come back, you might want to try:

-Making The Pioneer Woman's Pasta Primavera. We had it for dinner last night and it felt so nice and healthy, especially when we didn't think about the heavy cream bathing all those veggies. Also, "Primavera" means "Spring."

-I bought one of this guy's posters for Theo's room and I love it. I'm thinking about buying another one. Which is your favorite?

-Every time I do one of these link posts I send you to Mimi Smartypants but can you blame me? Her daughter says stuff like this:
"Quick! I will hide in my secret lair! My secret lair is really this area in front of my closet, but what are you gonna do."

Oscar Pool 2009 P.S.

2009-03-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

As requested, here's a post-script to the Oscar pool results.

People who guessed all eight of the "major" award winners correctly:
Melanie
B.

(By major awards, I mean Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay.)

Others who did a bang-up job:
Sandi-7
Kari-6
Hollie-6

14 people got five right
10 people got four right
5 people got three right
2 people got two right
1 person got one right

Most people were tripped up on Best Actor, which was widely predicted to go to Mickey Rourke, but we were all spared his chihuahua speech thanks (ostensibly) to Prop 8 protest votes and great acting by Sean Penn. (Personally, after seeing Frost/Nixon, I think Frank Langella should have gone home with the Oscar.) Best Director was apparently a tough prediction as well, although that might have been skewed by a Portland-heavy pool of entrants who have been rooting for Gus VanSant for all these years. Meryl Streep was the spoiler in Best Actress voting, especially from people who had low scores overall - I'm guessing that those of you who didn't see many of the movies hedged your bets and (wisely, based on the odds) voted for her because she is, well, The Best Actor Ever. Best Supporting Actress was a tough call for many of you as well, probably because there was no real front-runner.

Thanks again for playing!

Ruminations on Shoe Shopping

2009-03-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

-DSW apparently believes large-footed women do not deserve cute shoes.
-Proof of Jessica Simpson's height-impairedness: heel height of her shoe designs
-Is there something wrong with me if I buy a pair of Dr. Scholls shoes? Like, medically wrong?
-Salesperson, please do not take a shopper's query about shoe comfort as the opportunity to create a one-woman show about your European vacation for all the store to hear. Those Europeans, they walk EVERYWHERE. We get it.
-What's ickier: Carrying my own sweaty trouser sock around in my purse for unexpected shoe shopping emergencies, or using those disposable nude nylon footies that inevitably pop off while I'm in mid-stride on the way to the mirror?
-New shoes are the gateway drug to new jeans (need the right length for heel height), followed by Anthropologie sweaters (on sale!), followed by trench coats (must look pulled-together now that pretty shoes and jeans have been acquired).

Sleep Numbers

2009-03-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

We used to tiptoe into Theo's room after he fell asleep so we could watch him. Slumbering children are so beautiful and sweet that it was worth risking that his batlike sense of hearing would detect the turn of the doorknob as we stole into the room. If he stirred, Jeff would crouch below crib level and I hid behind the door before he saw us. If we were lucky, he would snorfle and turn his head away and close his eyes and we would scurry silently out of the room.

If he saw us, however, he immediately began to squeak and howl, begging to be picked up and cuddled and rocked. He pushed up onto his arms and bleated pathetically, and we would scurry from the room, listening for a few seconds until (hopefully) he forgot about us and fell back to sleep. Or else we had to go back in and pat his back and say soothing things and stroke his cheek with his stuffed giraffe and beg him to put his head back down. Which worked most of the time. But he obviously wasn't happy that we were awake and available and watching American Idol and he was missing out on the fun.

But times are changing. When we go in his room now to listen to him breathe and see his peaceful face, he still wakes up sometimes. But he just squints at us and rolls over, as if to say, "Um, did you need something? Because I'm trying to get some sleep over here."

It's just another milestone that makes my brain scurry forward ten years to the day my pre-teenage son just wants to be LEFT ALONE with his iPod (or with the computer chip that has been injected into his inner ear that picks up radio signals or whatever we will be using to listen to music in 2019). I'm pretty sure he's going to be the sort of person who sleeps until noon on Saturday mornings. But I like to think he might keep his special stuffed giraffe under his pillow even then.

Oscar Pool 2009: The Results Show

2009-03-10T15:46:00.001-07:00

You know that feeling when you've promised someone a favor? It's someone you really like, and the favor is something you enjoy doing, but you just never seem to get time among all your other responsibilities to get it done. And you find yourself avoiding the person because when you talk with them you spend all your time apologizing about the favor, when they've probably either forgotten all about it or else just did it themselves because holy cow it wasn't a big deal and it was taking you forever.

Yeah, I've kind of been avoiding blogging because the Oscar pool results were hanging over my head. You'd think I was being asked to do my own taxes or something. (My accountants and the German and American tax authorities are all thankful that's not the case.)

So about the Oscars. I had a great time watching the big show with Katie. (Well, besides the part where I tried to demonstrate the wonders of modern technology and somehow used our DVR to skip over about 20 minutes of the telecast.) It was Slumdog Millionaire's night, as you know, and while I am not convinced it will stand the test of time as the Best Picture, I couldn't help but be touched and thrilled by the fresh-faced enthusiasm of the cast and crew as they accepted award after award. Highlights for me included Penelope Cruz winning Best Supporting Actress, the Milk screenwriter's speech, and Kate Winslet receiving long-deserved recognition. I'm glad I didn't have to see Mickey Rourke talk about his chihuahua and I like Sean Penn just fine but I wish Frank Langella had won. Also, I made some killer guacamole, which was delicious.

And now, the pool results. My sincere apologies for taking a year and a day (well, just a couple of weeks, actually) to get the results tabulated. Thanks to all 37 entrants. Repeat players will note that our big winner, Melanie, has been in either the first or second spot all four years we've played this game. If she doesn't watch out we might have to name the award after her. Notably, she picked only three of the 24 awards incorrectly. Next year, let's all take her to Vegas. Second place goes to my blog pal B. who has had kind of a rough year so far and deserves some good news. Neat prizes will be headed their way soon.

Oscar Pool 2009 Results, by name and number of correct predictions:

Melanie: 21
B.: 19
Anna B.: 15
Sandi: 15
Tom: 15
Courtenay: 14
Scott: 14
Aubrey: 13
Kari: 13
Kylee: 13
Chad: 12
Charles: 12
Erica: 12
Katie: 12
Kristen: 12
Hollie: 11
Martha: 11
Britten: 10
Christina: 10
Daniela: 10
Dina: 10
Kerri W: 10
Yvonne: 10
Belgian Waffle: 9
Darren: 9
Gerry: 9
Ingrida: 9
Jennifer: 9
Kerri B: 9
Emily: 8
Janice: 8
Kassie: 8
Amy: 7
Julia: 7
Julia D: 7
Kendra: 7
Mike: 7

(Special shout-out to those of you who voted for Hellboy II in the Best Makeup Category. Because that made me smile.)

The Jerk

2009-02-27T14:16:00.000-08:00

Last week, I was feeling like I spent most of my time in negotiations. I thought far in advance about how I could convince my son to wear socks each day. I talked up the thrills and delights of his tractor plate at dinnertime. I offered to race him upstairs when the bathtub beckoned. But, most of the time, he was having none of it. He whined and flailed and threw his cars. I despaired, wondering where my easygoing kid had disappeared to. I thought (hoped) it was his molars. I didn't want to resign myself to the idea that he was just kind of a jerk, but the thought crossed my mind. He'd just turned two. This is how they act for a couple of years, I thought. Maybe I should hire a live-in massage therapist to reduce my stress, I thought.

I was ramping up to a business trip, and I was hosting my book group. I had a lot to do and plan and think about. And the more I had to do, the crankier Theo became. He spent the weekend alternating between angelic glee and freaked-out screeching. He'd even stopped sleeping well. He demanded attention at 3am, and then wanted books read and balls tossed and games played. All three of us were delightful to behold when it was time to get up.

Tuesday night, he woke up crying (again) and screaming. OUCHY OUCHY OUCHY he said. EAR he cried.

"That's a pretty clear signal," the doctor snorted when I told her the story the next morning. We gathered up our Amoxycillin and went on our merry way. He's not a jerk, you see, he just has an ear infection.

All this made me feel a little bad that he'd obviously felt miserable for a while but I'm not embarrassed to tell you I was relieved. Because he's gone through cranky periods before and I hoped and thought it was teething or illness and in the end he was just cranky. So this time, when the doctor handed me the prescription, it was good to have a solution that didn't involve trying to have patience, trying to listen and talk and convince a toddler that screaming should be confined to emergency situations and the playground (and possibly those evenings when his mother just can't take it any more).

(To those of you anticipating the Oscar pool results, I apologize for the delay. I promise to post the big news later this week. Thanks for your patience.)

Today was better.

2009-02-19T21:30:00.001-08:00

I had one of those low-point parenting days yesterday. It wasn’t even an entirely bad day, it was just a really horrible thirty minutes, when I was trying to feed him dinner and he wanted to eat dinner but then he didn’t, and he was shrieking and I was shrieking and one of us swore at the other one and finally I just angrily unloaded the dishwasher while he wailed in the next room. And when I finally went in to make sure he was still as mad at me as I was at him, he was standing sadly in the dark dining room next to the wall, trying to wipe his nose with the Kleenex I’d stuffed in his jeans pocket earlier in the day. So of course that made me feel like someone should probably just take him away from me because who does that? Yells back at their toddler, and even swears in his general direction? But before I was declared an unfit mother I snuggled him in the rocking chair for a while, and whispered apologies into his hair, and then we read some library books.

There’s more to the story than that, of course. There’s me making an entirely-from-scratch chicken pot pie. There’s him spending the whole of his life up to now eating absolutely everything placed in front of him and then asking for more. There’s both of us hungry and just wanting to eat our freaking food. There’s him trying to tell me he wants MORE CHICKEN but then throwing the chicken across the room when I put it on the table. There’s me wondering when Jeff is going to come home, why can’t he come home sooner, the dinner will be burnt or cold and if I hadn’t tried to wait dinner for him then no one would be shrieking. And there’s me, wondering when I became a 1950’s housewife making dinner from scratch and then resenting everyone to whom I’m serving it.

I realize this is just the beginning of the toddler control freak era. I realize that he woke up yesterday morning and thought, whoa, let’s go to Burger King where I can have it MY WAY. I realize that I’m not the first person who ever lost her temper with her two-year-old. But even though it’s normal and I’m not the only one, it was a bad thirty minutes in a not-so-great day. Today was better.

Public Service Announcement

2009-02-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

The Oscar pool deadline is fast approaching. Don't forget to enter.

Also: if you're Julia who submitted the very first ballot (gold star for promptness - seriously, I love it), please submit another one as there was a glitch with your entry.

Mixed Up

2009-02-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

I unearthed a batch of mix tapes over the weekend. I hung onto them through the CD years when it was all but impossible to create mixes myself, during a time when I didn't even own a tape player. Listening to old music is such a time machine experience, and I feel like I spent my Saturday afternoon as an early twentysomething, just graduated from college and flailing blindly through my life. Thank heaven my friends introduced me to some good music. Here are my mixtape favorites, that I downloaded and compiled into a playlist I named the Cassette Mix.

Heal The Pain by George Michael
This is so much better than "Faith," why don't I ever hear it on the radio?
Come Back Down by Toad the Wet Sprocket
I still don't understand this band name.
Dela by Johnny Clegg & Savuka
I'm a little horrified that this was part of the "George of the Jungle" soundtrack but I swear I was listening to it back in 1992. I'm not sure why that's better than hearing it for the first time over the credits of a Brendan Fraser movie but somehow it seems like it should be.
Occasionally by Melissa Etheridge
I almost always prefer the acoustic version of any song. Ergo, I really miss that MTV "Unplugged" series now that MTV only broadcasts Real World spinoffs.
Longview by Green Day
Theo loves this. I can't wait until he starts shouting the swear words from his car seat.
Let the Day Begin by The Call
Apparently this has become a popular choice as a campaign theme song. However I learned about it via my roommate and she first heard it on from the guys down the hall who played it to start their campus radio show that no one ever listened to. Maybe that's how Al Gore first heard it too?
Waiting for Somebody by Paul Westerberg
Remember "Singles?" Man, Matt Dillon sure looks a lot better without the hair and the soul patch.
Alison by Elvis Costello
I only figured out who Elvis Costello was in my twenties, but it feels like I've always known about this song, and I never get sick of it.
Kayleigh by Marillion
This is one of those awesome eighties videos featuring children in military costumes and a mournful yet indecipherable message.
Hymn to Her by The Pretenders
This is a beautiful song. I can't believe no one (Jessica Simpson? Mandy Moore?) has released an inferior cover version.
All That You Have is Your Soul by Tracy Chapman

Two Years

2009-02-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

Last year I worried that a five-minute video of Theo's first year was too long. But this year I don't care, and I made it over eight minutes long. Mostly because I suck at video editing and the software I was using made me want to cry. But also because my child is eight minutes' worth of fascinating. I thought about ending it with a shot of myself pulling out my hair and hurling my laptop into a ravine in frustration, but then I remembered it's not ALL about me.

Happy birthday, Buddy.

Thanks to B. and Jonna for musical inspiration.

Universe to Blythe

2009-02-04T13:10:00.000-08:00

You know those days when it seems like the universe is speaking straight to you? Well, that happened to me recently except it was just my Google Reader, not the whole universe. Which is less intimidating anyway.

Jeff and I watched Iron Man over the weekend, and fifteen minutes in he said, "If I'd known what this movie was actually about, I would have wanted to see it a long time ago. But the previews made it look like it was just a big comic book superhero film." And then I read this on kottke.org, an excerpt from a depressing article about movie marketing. No wonder previews barely resemble the movies they're pitching.

And then I was trying to figure out if I should send out some Valentines, but it would be more fun to make them, but I'm kind of lazy. And this list of free downloadable Valentine cards appeared in my life.

I started subscribing to Penelope Trunk's blog recently and her latest post, Don't Try to Dodge the Recession with Grad School could have been a missive straight to the me of 1993, except I wasn't dodging a recession, I was dodging, well, real life. It's really smart advice.

My Crock Pot has been beckoning. So tonight I'm cooking these shredded beef sandwiches.

Don't even ask me how I found this, but I totally love it, it's an article by Guy Kawasaki about all the stuff that online companies do to drive away business. It's like he read my mind and made a laundry list of the stuff I HATE when I'm trying to get stuff done on the web.

And this list of People Who Are On Twitter just made me laugh. Especially since I am also on Twitter and I recently started following Shaquille O'Neal. (By the way, if you haven't joined Twitter, you totally should. It's like having a blog without really having a blog.)

Exchanges

2009-01-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

I was an exchange student in high school. I spent my junior year in Europe, drinking beer in bars and eking out passing grades and hanging around with all the other exchange students on weekends. It won't surprise you to learn that it was a life-changing, personality-defining experience for me. I had grown up surrounded by wonderful friends and family in my small town, but I'd never felt like I belonged there, and I had the sneaking suspicion that I was going to live my life as a bit of an outsider. So among the many, many lessons I learned that year was the revelation that not everywhere is like the place I came from. (I also learned just how long I could remain clothed without doing laundry, and the difference between apple cider and hard cider.) And as elementary as that might seem, it's a realization that happens to almost everyone when they leave home for the first time. I'd read about foreign lands in the newspaper and books (I practically morphed into an English schoolgirl during my obsession with Noel Streatfield's novels), but until I saw these new places or just met someone from somewhere else, the whole idea wasn't real at all. But, of course, after that year abroad surrounded by other exchange students from Croatia and Portugal and New Zealand and Liberia, I stopped thinking of those countries as spots in my eighth grade geography book and started associating them with real live human beings.

So you can imagine that last weekend's shooting in downtown Portland, where a group of Rotary exchange students waiting to get into an all-ages dance club was hit by multiple rounds of random gunfire, and where two of those students, an American preparing for her time abroad and a Peruvian student spending the year in the US were both killed, affected me deeply. And my sadness was compounded by what I remembered hearing from my European friends about their fears of American cities, about crazy people with access to firearms. I could just imagine what people in those exchange students' home countries were saying, that their frightened parents were already planning to fly straight to Portland and collect them all and take them home to safe places outside our dangerous country.

So when I heard a radio interview with the father of one of the survivors, an Italian girl who was shot approximately nine times and who is still unconscious, I almost wept right there in my car:
"We'd like that she continue the (exchange) experience," her father said. Cultural exchanges open minds and improve the world, and violence and tragedy can "happen anyplace."
He's right, and though I'm not sure I could have the same kind of faith and optimism if I were in his position, I'm so glad he said it, and I hope it's still true.

Oscar Pool: Part Vier

2009-01-27T13:26:00.000-08:00

I haven't seen a single nominated movie this year. I saw Gran Torino but apparently Clint and the Hmong are on the outs with the Academy this year. Maybe I'll make progress in the next three weeks.

Anyway, it's time for my fourth annual Oscar pool!

Just fill out this form:
Blythe's Oscar Pool
and submit it by midnight wherever you are on Thursday, February 19, 2009.

Yes, indeed, there will be prizes.

Last year's results
Results from 2007
And the results from 2006
A great Oscar info site

It's Theo Friday!

2009-01-23T13:23:00.000-08:00

Because I'm a day late for Theo Thursday. Here's what he is doing right now:
-Saying THEO HOLD IT when he wants to touch something, particularly garbage trucks on television commercials and expensive, fragile household items. Then becoming very angry when we explain why he can't HOLD IT.
-Yelling DADDY SLOW DONKEY when Jeff walks in the door, which apparently means that he wants a piggyback ride. But it sounds like something more insulting to me.
-Crying when we wake him up and make him get dressed in the morning an hour earlier than he used to get up and eat breakfast in his pajamas.
-Spending the entire Christmas season saying GOAT whenever he saw a reindeer. And now that Christmas is over he's started saying REINDEER when we read farm animal books with goats in them.
-Protesting as we walk up the steps to day care but then running into the kitchen and saying BYE MAMA as soon as he sees breakfast.

Work It

2009-01-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of a leeeeetle wardrobe crisis (maybe that problem I had with the dress was a sign of impending clothing difficulties). I did a massive closet purge when we moved to Germany, getting rid of, among other enviable items, the plaid wool pants I bought the week after I landed my first real job in 1993. Then I did another one when we left, hauling away the clothes I'd worn to work for ten years before we left the USA without noticing that the trouser legs were frayed beyond repair or that they had started to look, well, ten years old. So I'm proud to say I no longer own a bunch of clothing I never wear. I have a nice array of sweaters and t-shirts that go with a good selection of jeans. Theo, my main fashion audience, approves wholeheartedly.

However. Today was the first day at my NEW JOB. Eep! This development is cause for anxiety on a multitude of fronts, but I've decided to focus on clothing, because I'd rather worry about that than about getting my son to day care in time to get to work, or whether I'm going to be capable of adult conversation on a regular basis, or if I'm just better at being a kept woman than someone with an income.

Fortunately this new gig is only three days a week, so I figure I should line up six outfits. I can't remember what anyone I know wore two weeks ago, can you? And I'm not going to shoot for the stars. I don't want to be known for my fashion sense, or be a trend-setter. Mainly, I'd just like to look vaguely professional and periodically hear "That's a great sweater" every now and then. And because I know how easily I can become the person who puts on a grey turtleneck and a pair of black pants and some comfortable black shoes and wears that same outfit every day, I will attempt to wear a few colorful items here and there. So I'm going to start posting photos at The Working Closet Flickr pool to remind myself to actually take a look in the mirror every morning. I know you'll enjoy those snaps as they march past in the Flickr widget to your right.

As for the job, I'm excited about it although getting out of bed this morning just about KILLED me. But then there was a Danish in the break room and I was reminded that being gainfully employed has its positive aspects.

Lurker No More

2009-01-12T12:37:00.000-08:00

Today's the day to comment. Why?
Because it makes me feel popular and neat, and after that last post you know I need all the help I can get in the self-esteem department.

Also, because there's a prize!

Comment below with your latest favorite song (add a link to your fave version on YouTube if you'd like). It doesn't have to be new music, just something you're enjoying right now. I'll pick one random commenter and send him/her a $10 iTunes or Amazon gift card (your choice). Because I need some new musical inspiration and I need to feel loved.

AMENDED
I would also appreciate suggestions for sappy background music to be used in Theo's Year Two video, if and when I ever take the time to fight with the moviemaking software. You might remember last year's video, which was only a month late. Two months late for year two? That's a good goal. Anyway, this amendment was inspired by Jonniker's comment below. I am a shameless music/inspiration thief.

P.S.
Speaking of prizes, we're giving away a really cool booster chair over at Mamas Worldwide. The deadline for entry is tomorrow at midnight.

Why I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been, Cool

2009-01-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

I spent most of today on my own, shopping for odds and ends and visiting some cool fabric stores (when did I become someone who enjoys visiting multiple fabric stores in one day?), roasting potatoes and leeks for homemade soup, and just basking in the aloneness. Theo spent the day with a sitter and I cannot express just how much I needed that time today. The past three weeks were fun and the family togetherness was great and the fact that Jeff was around all day for most of the time made it fantastic. It might sound goofy but we're all happiest when our family is together, just hanging out and doing our thing.

On the other hand, togetherness has its limits, and between our weather-related quarantine and plenty of time spent on tiny regional airplanes with three people in two seats, I was ready (shall we say DYING) for some new scenery. So on my day off, I decided to head to one of the hip and happening neighborhoods in my fair city. I wore my groovy new necklace (made from a Scrabble tile!) and cute boots and anticipated eating an tuna-and-caper tosti for lunch and fitting right in with the hipsters. After exiting a fabric store where I bought nothing but coveted everything, I spotted a vintage clothing and furniture store across the street. Perfect! I would browse for stylish bargains! I would find a sixties-era chair to re-cover with modern fabric! I would buy vinyl record albums!

So I entered and checked out the wares and appreciated the enticing descriptions on the safety-pinned paper price tags ("You NEED this retro floral couch! $85"). I picked out a sweet summer dress that was clearly stitched by some sixties housewife. Its pleats were perfect. It would be just the thing for summer. Would it fit? As if by magic, the sales attendant materialized and pointed me toward the dressing room. I smiled and said thanks, wandering off as I appreciated my city, where a fifty-five-year-old man in a hot-rollered wig, a rhinestone sweater, and lip gloss works in retail sales. Here I am with the hipsters, I thought.

So I tried on the dress and it fit like it was tailored for me. The fabric was thin, I'd need some kind of foundation garment, but that's OK. For ten bucks, it could be mine. And I reached back to unzip it and realized the zipper wasn't going anywhere. And neither was the dress. And I stood there in my argyle knee-highs and see-through yellow day dress and figured, what the hell, I don't really have a choice. So I exited the dressing room and found the attendant and asked for help with my zipper. "Up or down?" was the reply. "Down, please," I said.

And that's how I ended up practically exposing myself in the aisle of a resale shop, being undressed by a transvestite (who, incidentally, had to break the zipper to get me out of the dress, so I didn't end up buying it). It's really too bad Theo wasn't around to see it. Maybe I'll try to re-enact the whole thing for him when he's thirteen and has had too much family time.

It's a New Day

2008-12-31T22:33:00.000-08:00

I'm a little exhausted by all the end-of-year wrap-ups that surround me. Magazines, TV shows, blogs, twitter, everyone resolving and reflecting and I just can't seem to catch a quiet moment to think about this stuff for myself. I love Linda's questionnaire and it's sort of been hanging over my head all week, and I've just realized that I'm not going to get it done. Why can't I find time to reflect on 2008?

Maybe because this year has been a less-than-great one for so many of my friends and acquaintances - lost jobs and difficult relationships and even the little stuff like bad weather over the holiday season that put a damper on Christmas this year. And I want so much for 2009 to be better for all of us. I want to feel calmer and in better control of just about everything in my life. But as much as I'd like to put 2008 behind me, I don't feel ready for this bright new year of possibilities. My house isn't clean, we haven't even opened half of our Christmas gifts yet, and even my to-do list is unfinished. But the calendar page is going to turn whether I like it or not. Whether I'm ready or not. So here I come.

Let it Schnee

2008-12-21T14:31:00.000-08:00

Last week Theo and I barely left the house, mainly just to walk across the street and check the empty mailbox. It started out feeling cozy and ended up feeling a bit like we had been stranded in a snow cave somewhere -- well, a snow cave with a furnace and a lot of Christmas cookies. We left Portland Friday morning and after almost being stranded in Seattle and then getting on a plane we were told would probably have to divert to Spokane, we eventually landed in Montana. The temperature here is in the single digits but it feels so much less claustrophobic, with people zipping along the streets, many of them without so much as a set of snow tires, and grocery shopping and fa la la la la.

Apparently we made it out just in time, as our street was featured as one of the most treacherous in the city and everyone we know is huddled near a fireplace as ARCTIC BLAST 2008 dumps more snow everywhere. Even the mall is closed, which is a pretty big deal on the weekend before Christmas.

I still haven't unlocked the precise reason a snowstorm in the Pacific NW is so different than one in Montana. I know it's got a lot to do with frequency (duh) and snowplows-per-square-mile, and wet snow versus dry snow and all that. But there's got to be a psychological component too. All the psychic energy of those schoolkids, willing another day of sledding instead of another day of school, can't all be for naught.

I'll be away from the blog for a few days. Have a wonderful Christmas and a great start to 2009. Thanks so much for reading.

Current Playlist

2008-12-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what's up with my musical taste right now, but I'm all about the ladies.

Straight To...Number One by Touch and Go.
Video of Lance and Lacey's DWTS mambo, because that's what turned me on to the song.

Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) by Beyonce
You might be sick of it, but I'm not. And this choreographer deserves an award.

Keeps Gettin' Better by Christina Aguilera
I still maintain that this is really a Britney song, but who cares.

Untouched by The Veronicas
The day I downloaded this I put it on repeat and drove around listening to it for half an hour until I could sing along exactly to the chorus.

So What by P!nk
When this comes on the radio, Theo yells ROCKSTAR! ROCK MOVES! from the back seat.

That's Not My Name by The Ting Tings
I have no idea where I came up with this one. But still. Love it.

Cobrastyle by Robyn
I think I've linked to this before. I'm still listening to it.

Fidelity by Regina Spektor
This video looks like Tori Amos landed in the middle of that weird Tom Petty/Alice in Wonderland video that I love so much.

When Will I Be Loved? by Linda Ronstadt
Everyone needs a little Linda in her life.

Snow Patrol

2008-12-14T21:15:00.001-08:00

We had a bunch of plans for today, but instead we did this:

It's been snowing for more than twelve hours and it looks like the drifts will be here for a while. My Montanan friends are not impressed, but I think I've officially become a wintertime wimp. And I live in a place where I've never actually seen a snowplow in real life, and where we make any possible excuse to stay inside and eat chocolate cake. It works for us. We also live on a big hill, so the cars are staying parked for now. We'd planned a big family birthday party for Jeff this afternoon but no one wanted to risk life and limb to get here, so we were forced to eat his raspberry fudge birthday cake ourselves. There are lots of leftovers, so I have the feeling the cake going to be the center of our culinary plan for the next few days. I know you feel sorry for us.

Here you go.

2008-12-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

-I threw a little holiday shindig last night, mostly just as an excuse to make The Pioneer Woman's Holiday Bacon Appetizers. It's the recipe you've been waiting for. I also whipped up some Guac with Pears and Pomegranate Seeds (via MightyGirl). Food for meat-eaters and veggies alike, that's my party mantra.

-We've got a bunch of plans for the weekend, all of which involve being out and about, so if this storm the forecasters are promising actually arrives, I won't be impressed. But I recall from the last winter I spent here that the weather drama is normally confined to local newsrooms and one or two poor newscasters shivering in the rain on freeway overpasses, waiting for snowflakes.

-I hadn't entered a Nordstrom store in ages, so yesterday when I finally got there I didn't want to go home. They have nice bathrooms, clothing and shoes, and a nearby cafe. Why should I ever leave?

-The best thing about owning a DVR is that I can watch the Charlie Brown Christmas specials anytime I want.

How Flossing Changed My Life

2008-12-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

I strive to be truthful. But I used to lie to my dental hygienist twice a year, without fail, when she would ask me if I flossed. "MmmHmm," I nodded as I tried to make sure and answer while her fingers were in my mouth, hopefully obscuring my guilty face. And then she would remark on my bleeding gums and I would say, "Well, not every day," which meant, "Well, only once in a while when I get a popcorn kernel stuck in my molar." And she would smile politely and then get serious and tell me I really should be flossing blah blah blah.

I finally realized that this little untruth, though practically a national pastime, was the worst part of my dental appointments. It pained me even more than the dragging of those pointy spiral instruments past my aching gums. So I finally just decided to tell her the truth, that I did not floss. I thought maybe that would garner some sympathy, that I'd get points for being the one and only person in the chair that day who admitted her shortcomings. But instead I didn't even get a sympathetic smile this time, just a stern talking-to about gum disease.

And then I moved to Germany and met the kindest, friendliest hygienist I've ever known, who cheerfully gave me two teeth-cleanings straight from a Stephen King novel. I swear I saw my own blood spattered on the ceiling as I rose from the chair. And I went home and broke out the dental floss.

I have too many teeth that are too big for my mouth. This meant braces and appliances and rubber bands and elementary school photos wherein I look like a K-9 or a descendant of Nosferatu. Now that the cosmetics are straightened out, my teeth are crammed so tightly together that anything I try to slide between them becomes caught. Floss shreds. Toothpicks splinter. And I have a permanently-installed retainer that traps food particles like a Venus Flytrap grabs insects (yum). So that's always been my excuse for poor dental hygiene. But I was determined to avoid needing cauterization the next time I hit the dentist's chair.

And so, for the past twelve months, I've been a flossing machine. I floss every single night before bed, even when I'm tired, even when I'm on vacation, and even when I found out we were moving back to the USA and I knew I'd never see that friendly, devilish hygienist again. In fact, if you can believe this, I made a dentist appointment for the week before we moved just so I could display my sparkling gums to her. Of course in fine German style, when I announced I'd been flossing she said, "Oh this is fine, but your retainer is still a difficulty." Whatever.

Now the point to this story wasn't to give you a far-too-detailed account of what's inside my mouth (but aren't you lucky? you got one anyway). It's to tell you that old dogs can learn new tricks! Really we can! Because I am still flossing, and I realized last week that I've started LOOKING FORWARD to how my teeth feel after I've flossed, in the same way I used to look forward to brushing them. Now, that minty freshness just isn't complete until I've yanked a piece of Teflon-coated string between my teeth. Just think of what this means. I might one day learn to make my bed every morning! I could start washing the car once a week! I could get up an hour earlier and do yoga!

But since none of that is likely to happen, I'm just looking forward to my next dentist appointment where there will be no lies or evasion or, if I'm lucky, blood on the ceiling.

It's Jolly Holiday

2008-11-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

We sort of accidentally put up the Christmas tree on Friday. We were having a bunch of people over for dinner, and I'd announced that Friday was Clean Up The House day. And then I crankily sat in bed with the computer all morning, doing some work I had to get done while Jeff entertained Theo. And I dawdled around, knowing that once I got downstairs I was going to have to vacuum or dust.

When I finally descended from my lair, our fake tree was standing in the living room and Theo was dancing around it yelling THEO HELP DADDY TEE! THEO HELP! So the tree was up and the garland was hung around the banister with care and I'll be darned if it didn't cheer me right up. So we strung up the lights and wiped off the nativity set and here we are in a Christmas wonderland.

We'd considered going undecorated this year since we'll celebrate the big day elsewhere, but it's amazing how much nicer it is to walk downstairs in the morning to see twinkling lights instead of an empty expanse of carpet and a sad little footstool occupying our living room. Maybe we'll just leave it up year round.

Second to Last Day of This and Aren't You Glad?

2008-11-29T22:48:00.000-08:00

We just had thirty-plus people in our house for dinner. I baked a delicious dessert that I forgot to take a picture of and we all had a nice time and nothing got broken. (As far as I know. Sometimes these things show up days later.)

And that is all I have to tell you.

Photo Shoot

2008-11-28T18:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I sat at the loooooong dinner table (23, yes twenty-three adults at dinner) after eating turkey and brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans with fried onions on top and a roll. (Well, actually I did what I always do with the roll, which is take one and not eat it, so there it sat on my empty plate.) I was half-listening to a conversation across the room about wineries, and slightly tuned in to someone else talking about potty training, but was snapped out of my post-turkey snooze by a voice calling everyone together for a family photo.

Fortunately, I didn't actually have to be in the photo. It was just going to be a picture of the kids. There are nine of them right now, all under the age of seven. The youngest is not quite a year old, the oldest is a first grader, and the rest are like squirming stair-steps between them. And speaking of stair-steps and squirming, here is one of the shots.

Believe it or not, that's the best of the lot. After I took it, one of them started crying and one of them dropped the baby he was supposed to be holding and someone else decided to play dead and slide down the stairs in a heap, out of camera range. Someone walked up midway through the photo shoot and said, "This is a disaster!" And she was right. But what a fantastic disaster it was. I'm just impressed that no one fell down the stairs and broke a limb or split a lip.

Turkey Lurkey

2008-11-27T11:51:00.000-08:00

My friend Erin and her friends are showing a live video stream of their turkey's journey to the table, via a smoker, today.

Go see!

I hope you're having a great Thanksgiving. I'm off to eat some brussels sprouts with bacon. The turkey is OK but it's the bacon that makes the holiday. Don't tell anyone.

Thankful

2008-11-26T20:20:00.000-08:00

The past three years we've spent Thanksgiving away from our families. Our first year in Deutschland, we ate mashed potatoes and broccoli and went to bed early because we hadn't purchased light fixtures yet and our apartment was pitch black after the sun went down. We talked to our families on the phone in the dark and got a little depressed. Two years ago, I was pregnant and hosted Thanksgiving lunch for my international book group. I made a big turkey in my tiny oven and practically collapsed from exhaustion at about 4pm. Last year, we left Theo with a babysitter and went to a nearby spa and sat around in our towels eating pretzels.

Tomorrow, we'll be surrounded by more than thrity family members (and that's just on Jeff's side), and we'll be just one time zone away from my side of the family, so we can all celebrate and talk to each other during daylight hours. It's going to be different and overwhelming, but that's why we moved back.

That, and because we wanted Theo to learn to say GOBBLE GOBBLE in proper context.

Grandma's Chili

2008-11-25T21:03:00.001-08:00

Today was cold and rainy, just the kind of day when I drag out my recipe binder and dig through to find my grandmother's chili recipe. It's written in her handwriting on a recipe card from her kitchen. Although it doesn't require any exotic ingredients or unexpected flavors, it's what I crave when I want some chili. Haul out your Crock-Pot and enjoy when you're sick of leftover turkey:

Grandma Liz's Chili
2lb hamburger
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
2 (15oz) cans chili or kidney beans
2 (16oz) cans crushed tomatoes
1 (6oz) can tomato sauce or paste
1 clove crushed garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chili powder

Brown hamburger, then add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for one hour to 1 1/2 hours.

(Special note from Grandma at the bottom: "I cook mine in Crock-Pot overnite on low, Grandpa always had a bowl full for breakfast.")

It Was All Purple

2008-11-24T22:13:00.000-08:00

I was inspired earlier today by Jonniker's post to seek out video from the 2004 Grammy Awards, of Beyonce and Prince tearing it up to Purple Rain. And I was totally going to embed the video here and call it a post, since if you haven't seen it, you really must, the two of them together practically set my TV set on fire, and that was on two-day tape delay thousands of miles away.

But Prince and his infinite control issues have apparently scoured the internet and removed all traces of the video. That's part of his charm, I guess. So you'll just have to trust me on this one.

And since I just got home from my book group where we did actually discuss the book, (we re-read a book we'd read a decade ago (how great is it that my book group has been together for something like 15 years?) and discovered we still liked it a lot the second time around) I'm going to have to blame Prince for the severe lame-ness of this post.

I advise you to break out your Purple Rain soundtrack (What?! You don't own one?! Download that baby, stat.) and thank me later.

Sunday Night Questions

2008-11-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

-When did I start liking Christina Aguilera? She used to drive me up the wall but I kind of love her now.

-Is there anything better than moving into a house with pre-strung Christmas lights? Well, maybe a house with a built-in housekeeper/gardener, like that robot on the Jetsons. But I'll take what I can get.

-Have you noticed I'm totally ignoring the lack of comments on that post where I asked you to comment? I'm trying to be cool and not feel sort of embarrassed about it.

-Have you read anything by Anne Lamott lately? You totally should.

-

Pounding it Out

2008-11-22T21:17:00.000-08:00

We had that day today, the one I knew was coming. It was the day we remembered we had become homeowners and we had to actually do some stuff around the house. Jeff spent most of the afternoon raking up soggy leaves, the same leaves he'd looked up at when they were still living on the tree and we were looking around the place with our realtor. He pointed out that soon they would be wet and lying on the driveway. Call him Nostradamus.

I started my afternoon by putting a bunch of holes in the walls. The people who lived here before us must have owned a whole bunch of very heavy artwork, because they left monster-sized picture hangers behind in every room. We're talking about the kind with plastic casings and fat screws hung side-by-side - multiple hangers for each picture, it seems. And they were kind of bugging me, but until I pulled them out of the walls I didn't even realize how much. They were a glaring reminder that we hadn't yet made ourselves at home, that we didn't have enough substantial stuff to fill up our walls, and neener neener neener, the people before us were better decorators than we are.

So when I had a satisfying pile of sheetrock-dusted screws and hangers in my hand, I spackled the holes and sanded them down and even painted over them with paint I found in the garage (fortunately the right colors - probably should have checked that out before I began ripping stuff off the walls and smearing white spackle everywhere, but apparently it was my lucky day). And, wow, it made a difference. I don't find myself gazing at the walls, wondering what once hung there and trying to figure out if we having something to hang there so I don't have to pound in another nail. Now that they're gone, I can pound my own nails and hang my own pictures, and start feeling like I live here for real.

Telling Stories

2008-11-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

The Story Lady at my childhood library was white-haired and gentle. She looked like Mrs. Claus and gathered the kids around her at storytime each week. We all sat quietly in a semi-circle at her feet and looked adoringly upon her for a full thirty minutes, hanging on every word and picture in her many storybooks.

Actually, we probably ran around for fifteen minutes, screaming and hitting each other on the heads with the board books and knocking down the paperback book racks, but that's not how I remember it.

Storytime at our local library is led by a young and energetic librarian who knows a million kids' songs and finger games and walks around the room while she reads that week's book. The kids run around and dance and learn how to jump and play under a parachute and drag out the plastic toy bucket at the end. There are name stickers and hand-stamps and bubbles.

Theo loves it and displays his adoration by applauding and, today, lying down on the floor with his feet crossed while the librarian led the songs. As though he thought it was a personal concert, just for him. I think I love it just as much as he does, because it makes me think of the Story Lady but also (and this is key) because I get my very own nametag sticker every week.

Wherein I Get Out of the House and Do Something Intellectual

2008-11-20T22:14:00.000-08:00

I just got back from hearing Annie Leibovitz speak. She showed slides of some of her photos and read a bit from her new book and answered questions from the audience. She was obviously uncomfortable, especially when the questions were about her own celebrity or the well-known figures she's photographed. She laughed at herself when she couldn't form a complete sentence and clearly preferred reading from her prepared notes, though she even stumbled there.

But when she was asked a couple of questions about her craft - about digital vs. film, or how her photography has changed over the years - she became articulate and went on at length. She said her advice to young photographers was not to wait around to be assigned a subject, or get a job at a magazine, or for someone to tell you what to do. Choose a subject you love, and follow it, and learn all about it. Take photos of your loved ones, of things you know.

Thanks for your comments on my post about the disappearance of my European lifestyle. I thought of them tonight, when Annie said to focus on the things you know. And I thought about something that Courtenay said:
"...no matter where you live, you are all of the past as well as the present."

It's hard to trust our own experiences, to feel that the things we love are also worthy of our focused time and attention, and to remember that we don't have to try so hard to be who we are. There's probably a lesson in here about living in the moment and simply trusting that our experiences will inform our values and our choices without trying so hard.

But it's getting late and I'm a little to tired to make that point, so I'll just say thanks. To you and to Annie.

Whither Thou Goest

2008-11-19T20:57:00.000-08:00

When I'm tapped out for interesting things to write about, I like to send you to other blogs that I love. And while there are many blogs that I love, I've already sent you to most of them before (see that blogroll to the right). I haven't discovered anyone new in a long time - not because there aren't bunches of great blogs popping up every day, but because I haven't had the chance to cruise around the interwebs as much as I used to.

If I send you to see a couple of my friends, will you find some new ones for me?

You'll love Mego, and not just because she's from Montana. But that part doesn't hurt.

Abby just wrote a beautiful post about friendship and love and freedom. Go see her too.

Evany is delightful and takes photos of her clever outfits.

In case you're not already reading Linda, you should. She writes with wit and bravery about parenthood. And being a person. And she has a rockin' bod.

OK, I've shown you mine. Now you show me yours.

I am my own worst nightmare.

2008-11-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

When we left Germany, I swore I would bring the European lifestyle along with me. Not all of it - not the sausage and gravy at every meal, or the horrible customer service. But I'd bring along the simplicity, the habits of taking a walk every day, of shopping only when I really needed something, of using only as much as I really require. I figured we'd live in a small house within walking distance of a grocery store and a park. We'd try to get by with just one car. I would grow lettuce.

But either I'm an easily swayed consumer (probably) or I'm a living example of why the American lifestyle is the way it is (also probable). Yes, I could have had all those things I wanted. But they would require sacrifice and I'm weak willed and, believe it or not, those things can be really expensive. Living near a grocery store AND a park AND in a neighborhood where we felt OK about the local elementary school meant we'd all have to share one bedroom. And, well, if I wanted that lifestyle I would be living in New York City. At least we wouldn't need a car there, but it would be tough to find a place for my lettuce.

So here we are, not quite in the suburbs but almost. We have two cars, one of them an SUV and neither of them a hybrid (because we don't live on a bus line, and buying one hybrid would have cost more than both our cars combined). Theo spends more time in his car seat now than in his stroller. I have yet to fully explore our neighborhood on foot.

On the other hand, I met a really nice mom at the playground yesterday and we could actually, you know, communicate in a common language. And I'm ten minutes from Trader Joe's, where they sell delicious food and the checkers are unfailingly courteous. And I do plan to plant some lettuce in the back yard.

What Theo is Doing Right Now

2008-11-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

Well, right this very moment, he's asleep. But besides sleeping, here's what else he does:

-Says Mo Peez Mo Peez Mo Peez (More, please) over and over in a screechy whiny voice when he wants something. I'm trying to focus on the good manners but the delivery leaves much to be desired.

-Points to my leg and says Mama pants! and points to his leg and says Theo pants!

-Asks me to sing Wheels on the Bus when he is trying to delay naptime.

-Has a crush on Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street.

-Steals the rolling pin out of the kitchen cupboard, takes it into the living room, and lays down on his belly on top of it and rolls back and forth.

-Always wants broccoli for lunch.

-Whimpers No Loud? No Loud? every time I go near the KitchenAid mixer.

Home for the Aged

2008-11-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

Do you watch 60 Minutes? I kind of love it. I'd forgotten about it until tonight, when I tuned in and saw Steve Kroft joking with Barack Obama about his mother-in-law. There's something comforting about the fact that it's still on the air, and that Steve Kroft's hair is still terrible, and that Andy Rooney just gets crankier and crankier. And, especially, that I still have the attention span to watch it.

Because now that I've sort of figured out my DVR, I watch a lot of Oprah, and I swear there's never more than ten minutes without a commercial on that show. Especially in the last fifteen minutes. It's the true hidden cause of the explosion of ADD in America. My fast-forward button is getting a workout. When I remember that I'm not watching live, that is, which is almost never.

All this is to remind you that really do belong in that retirement village down south. Me, Andy Rooney, black cherry vodka, and a TV with a manual dial that forces me to get up and cross the room to change the channel. It's a winning combination.

TGIF

2008-11-15T20:14:00.001-08:00

I've never been so breathlessly anxious for the weekends as I am since I quit working in a real live office. Even back before I had a 26-pound wind-up toy running around the house, I loved Friday nights and Saturday mornings. Existing on my own all week long can get boring and lonely, and feels like just as much of a grind as when I had to put on real shoes at 7am and worry about parking the car close enough to my office that I didn't have to slog through too many puddles in my nice clothes.

Our weekends aren't exciting around here, but they're just so weekend-y; hanging out in bed, wearing sweatpants, eating waffles, going out for ice cream. But since we bought this house I've sort of ruined most of them by rampaging around the kitchen on Saturday mornings, enumerating all the stuff that needs to get done or we're all going to DIIIIIIEEEE. There are pictures to hang and bookshelves to fill and clothes to wash and leaves to rake, and OMG the weekend is going to be over! It will end in 48 hours and then whatever will we do when the pictures are still lying on the living room carpet instead of hanging on the walls?

It's a wonder Jeff doesn't slip some Valium in the maple syrup on my waffle.

But today we got a few things done and took time out to go to the park and ate Thai food for dinner. And the laundry is still dirty but so far we're not reduced to wearing those outfits that lurk in the back of the closet for those times when everything else is in the hamper. And none of has self-destructed because the to-do list isn't complete. So maybe I should remember this weekend the next time I think I've got to do everything in a two-day period.

Either that, or start drinking mimosas for breakfast.

Animalize

2008-11-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

Our local Humane Society is running an ad campaign touting its mission to provide a pet for "every man, woman, and child." Every time I see it, I shudder, because it makes me momentarily concerned that someone is going to force me to adopt a puppy.

I am not interested in having a pet. I realize they're great companions and they love you, and they teach children to be comfortable around animals and take care of them. But, really, no. To me, most pets are hairy and smelly and loud and ruin the furniture and are just one more thing to think about when you are trying to plan a trip out of town. Yes, I'm sorry, even yours.

That's not to say I don't appreciate certain animals. I do like cats (cue the dog people in the audience removing me from their feed readers). But they have sharp claws and all that damn hair. I can appreciate a nicely trained dog, as long as I don't have to sleep near it or, heaven forbid, WITH it, and it doesn't leave saliva anywhere on me. There's a turtle in our extended family that I've admired, mainly because it once crawled into someone's raincoat pocket and showed up unscathed several months later.

I grew up on and near a cattle ranch, where animals were outside and people were inside, and only when the temperature dropped further than 20 degrees below zero was that barrier crossed. Yes, even the bunnies stayed out of the living room. I've got a unique (warped?) view of animals, especially pets. I realize that.

So does the Human Society really think that every man, woman and child should own a pet? Clearly they've never met me.

Things I'm Not Loving Right Now

2008-11-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

-Why is my recycling bin blue, and my garbage bin green? I intuitively think recycling = green and throw everything in the wrong bin every time.

-I signed up for Gwyneth's GOOP newsletter and it bugs me. I unsubscribed today after she recommended four Little Black Dresses, all of which were cut mid-thigh and would flatter only those with stick legs. I've always liked her but I'm starting to wonder if the haters who say she's condescending and boring might have a point.

-Two-year molars. They're kicking our butts around here. Fortunately Elmo Hypnotism is almost as good as a nap.

-My sad housekeeping skills. After spending four days in someone else's clean, nicely decorated home, I've realized that getting my act together would really improve my mood. Too bad I'm sitting here blogging instead of, say, doing laundry or mopping the floor.

Home Again

2008-11-12T21:48:00.000-08:00

It's nice to come back to a place that, while it doesn't exactly feel like home, houses my bed and my clothes and where I know how to work the TV. We're right back in our routine, driving cars through the pouring rain and sitting side by side on the couch with our dueling laptops.

I'm still working on making this house feel like we really live here, but I suppose since I didn't feel at home in Deutschland even after three years, and I've been here only half as much time as we lived in the hotel, I shouldn't rush it.

Remind me again

2008-11-11T18:31:00.000-08:00

why I signed up for this Blopping thing?

I'm going home tomorrow and perhaps you'll get a different kind of post at that time. Until then, I'm still in retirement mode. We ate dinner tonight at 5:15pm and had chocolate sundaes for dessert, at home afterward.

The radio station we listened to all day played nonstop Christmas music. I'm not ready.

Little Boxes

2008-11-10T15:43:00.000-08:00

We've spent the past few days visiting my dad and his wife at their retirement community in the great American Southwest. It's been eighty degrees every day and we can take a golf cart anywhere we need to go, which apparently includes a swimming pool, pharmacy, stock brokerage, and hair salon. Who needs Starbucks when you've got CVS? The houses all look exactly like and even the garbage cans are underground. It's kind of like Disneyland for over-55's. And people like me who enjoy order and silence and golf carts. I've even started imbibing an afternoon cocktail (I've discovered black cherry vodka and its tasty marriage with caffeine free Coke).

This place represents all the American stuff I said I wouldn't miss when I left - strip malls, wide highways, big cars, and cookie-cutter houses. And while I'm not quite ready to retire (or maybe I've already retired?), I do feel soothed by it all.

It's time for my afternoon toddy, I guess I'll be on my way.

HELP ME

2008-11-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

I'm making a Life List. Go on, call me woo woo, an Oprah-lover, what a total girlyblogger thing to do. Creative visualization and all that.

I'm having a hard time getting it going, though. Maybe because I'm still trying to decide whether I should put on makeup today or not. And it's currently 1:52pm.

Can you help me? What's something you would recommend doing before I die?

BOO

2008-11-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

I had no idea that Halloween is the best parenting day of the year. I'll bet it even beats Christmas morning.

Last year Theo was old enough to wear a cute pumpkin get-up and visit Daddy in the office cafeteria, and that was about it for our celebration. Outside America, Halloween is gaining in popularity, but it's more about teenagers and twenty-somethings wearing a bunch of black eyeliner and fangs and drinking a lot of blood-themed beverages in dark bars. That happens here too, but here it's still mostly about the kids. Though I'd been led to believe that trick-or-treating had been moved to the malls or eschewed for backyard parties, and that in the big cities and evens small towns like my hometown, the pint-sized ghouls no longer haunted sidewalks on October 31st.

Boy, did I get some bad information. Maybe it was because of the gorgeous fall weather or because it was my first time out in about 25 years, but trick-or-treating was even better than I remembered it. The houses were decorated with pumpkin lights and chattering skulls, and kids from Theo's age to teenagers were decked out as Harry Potter characters and baked goods (the three pre-teen girls dressed as cupcakes got my vote for best costume). And they were all so delighted to be there. The residents of the neighborhood were fantastic and kind, and we only encountered one cranky old guy who snapped, "I WILL DOLE OUT THE CANDY MYSELF, DON'T GRAB." He probably saw some toilet paper in his yard the next morning.

Theo, dressed as a little green turtle, clutched his plastic pumpkin and toddled behind a gaggle of cousins from house to house in Nana and Grandpa's neighborhood. He teetered up steep driveways and pressed doorbells and stood next to Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones and the Snow Princess as they shouted TRICK OR TREAT (he never quite got the hang of that, but it didn't matter). Then, when the bigger kids had each taken a piece of candy, he reached into the bowl, smiled up at the generous soul who had answered the door, brightly said "Thank you!" and scooped as much loot into his bucket as he could. One of his parents then leapt to his side, returned all but his share, and scooted him off the steps as he waved bye-bye.

Best of all was his wonder and thrill at every stage of the process. He loved his turtle shoes, he loved his pumpkin (in fact he keeps asking to sleep with it) and he LOVED the candy. No matter that he hasn't really eaten any of it. CANDY CANDY CANDY he said as he peered into his plastic pumpkin. RUNNING RUNNING RUNNING he said as his short legs churned along the sidewalk behind his cousins. And HAPPY, he sighed, as Jeff picked him and carried him home from the last house on the street.

Must Post

2008-11-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

My screen is blinking on and off and the last time I shut down the computer, it wouldn't power up again until I had UNplugged it from its power source. I fear this is the death knell for our beloved laptop. Please light a candle for us.

Must go back up everything so that our family photos and address book aren't lost in the ether.

This is what it's like when you get to hear from me every day for a month. You're loving it, I know.

Corrected

2008-11-06T11:30:00.000-08:00

A few of you guessed at which book I evicted from my shelves. It's significant to me not because it was SO TERRIBLE but because it was the first time I remembered giving myself permission to just quit in the middle and start spending my time elsewhere. I used to pride myself on finishing every book I started, no matter how much I disliked it. I still have a few books I've been "reading" for, oh, a decade or more just because I can't quite admit defeat. Most of them are titles I chose because I thought they might make me feel smart (if you've read any Lawrence Durrell, you know what I mean). Still not smart enough, I guess. Or maybe I'm getting smarter as long as I'm still reading them? Anyway, there they sit, with bookmarks slid hopefully between their pages.

Anyway, the offending book was The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Many bright and interesting people love this book and it has won a bunch of awards. But I feel about it like I felt about A Confederacy of Dunces: Why read a book without a character I can, if not like, at least sympathize with? Why voluntarily spend my time in a place with a bunch of people who make my skin crawl?

The answer is, of course, because it might teach me something or because the writing is beautiful, or because there's a payoff at the end. And most of the time I'm on board with this argument. I loved Lolita, whose hero is a child-molester, for goodness' sake. But that's the genius of Nabokov, that he could make a pathetic excuse for a man also a funny and interesting hero of fiction, using language in a way no one before him ever had.

Someone told me that my family must be too happy for me to enjoy The Corrections. Maybe that's true. One more thing to be thankful for, I guess. And, incidentally, Oprah liked The Corrections but disinvited the author from her show because he dissed her. Say what you will about Oprah, but I would probably have done the same thing. Who wants to spend time with someone who doesn't want to be there?

I'm sure The Corrections is as grateful to be out of my presence as I am to have it gone.

Turn it On

2008-11-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

Back in the days when I had a "work wardrobe" and a "weekend wardrobe;" when I didn't wonder whether I should just wipe the drool and chewed-up graham cracker off my shoulder instead of adding another shirt it to the laundry basket; when I didn't know the topic of every Oprah episode for the past three months; I had an entire evening television lineup in my head. I followed several dramas and a couple of reality shows and looked forward to prime time comedy every night of the week.

I'm not sure exactly what happened while I was away, but TV is different. Yes, my life is different (I was not trying to split my attention between complex plotlines on "Lost" and blog writing on my laptop, for example), but I swear it's not just me. When did the cool series start showing up on channels I've never watched? ("Project Runway," I'm looking at you. Bravo used to be for Inside the Actors' Studio on Saturday afternoons.) And when did the season extend into the summer and across the holidays, and how come I'm hearing about season finales in November (Um, "America's Next Top Model," anyone?) And who talked Lisa Bonet back into series television?

There's DVR and HD and BluRay and Alec Baldwin in primetime. And the only show I can seem to watch consistently, the only TV appointment on my calendar these days is, wait for it...

Dancing with the Stars.

I've officialy become a new demographic. The OLD LADY demographic.

I don't understand my TV and I'm currently watching Lionel Richie performing "Dancing on the Ceiling."

Somebody come and confiscate my remote. I can't figure out how to use it anyway.

Our Projection

2008-11-04T20:02:00.000-08:00

Theo's Election 08 from Blythe on Vimeo.

Vote

2008-11-03T19:54:00.001-08:00

I remember going to vote with my mom at the courthouse or the lobby of my elementary school, and standing behind the curtain with her while she filled in her ballot. It seemed like a big deal. I've only once ever voted at the polls, getting up in the dark, driving to the polling place in my work clothes, then dropping off my car at the Park-N-Ride before boarding the bus downtown to my first job. After that, my state encouraged absentee ballots and eventually went to vote-by-mail. I think we're the only state in the country that won't have a single in-person polling place.

There's something a bit sad about that, but I'm all about progress. I miss the grey-haired ladies checking off the signatures and handing out the ballots, but this is the way of the future. And I still get the satisfaction of a paper ballot and a pencil, but I get to use them next to my laptop and my voters' pamphlet at my kitchen table (well, actually, at Panera Bread, while eating a bacon spinach souffle).

Now if someone would just give me an "I Voted" sticker, everything would be perfect.

Go out and vote tomorrow. And eat some bacon for me too.

Bookish

2008-11-02T20:07:00.001-08:00

We finally bought bookshelves yesterday, after living for almost a month with all of our books in a big pile on the floor. It looked like an art installation; I thought of it as my life, there in a huge mound on the carpet.

Because I, like many readers, see my books as my life story. I saunter over to other people's bookshelves and stand there imagining where and when those books were chosen and read, and why they are still hanging around the house. I used to keep each and every book I'd ever purchased, whether I'd finished it or not, whether I'd loved it or hated it, even the textbook from my 8am Anthropology class freshman year. I liked the story they told, I liked it when people would strike up conversations after seeing certain books in my house, I liked loaning them out.

But soon the bookshelves started to take over our home, and when I married Jeff he brought about a half-box of books along with him and I felt a little self-conscious about my book hoarding habit. And then, for the first time I started and did not finish a very popular book that everyone raved about. In fact I hated it so much that I stopped halfway through and decided it need to be gone from my house. So I gave it to Goodwill. And that was the first step. I gave away my old textbooks and sold some other books I never liked anyway.

I still hold on to more books for longer than I need to (just ask Jeff how many I brought to Germany and back with me - he'll tell you, ALL OF THEM). But I've gotten rid of a bunch as we've moved around the world, so I've winnowed down my collection to the ones that matter to me, the ones I either loved or that I know I'd like to loan to friends.

Our new shelves don't hold all the books we own, so I had to choose which ones to stack there, and where to put them. And it took me almost all day to figure it out, to decide what face I would show to my visitors, and in what order. In the end, more of them fit that I'd anticipated, so there are a few out there that I'm not exactly sure I want in public (Robbie Williams's biography, anyone?), but then again, I'm still hanging on to them, so that must mean they're part of me.

What do you do with your books? And any guesses about the book I couldn't stand to keep in my house? (Hint: Oprah chose it too.)

Keep on Blopping in the Free World

2008-11-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

Due to overwhelming demand (well, OK, just one fellow blogger who is looking for company in her misery), I've decided to participate in NaBloPoMo again this year. Remember last time? When you learned about Theo's breakfast soundtrack, and my shoes? I believe there might even have been some swimsuit video.

I can't wait to see what flies out of my keyboard this year. Let me know in the comments if you have any requests.

Go Away

2008-10-28T14:34:00.002-07:00

I'm waffling about whether or not to do NaBloPoMo this year. There are so many excuses not to, but then again, what the hell.

As I mull over this dilemma, feel free to read what I've written elsewhere. If you're into that sort of thing:

-Win a pair of cool kids' shoes over at Mamas Worldwide.
-Check out all the great kids' activities in Portland, OR at Alpha Mom.
-Learn how to keep your teenager happy (or, well, keep the eye-rolling to a minimum) at Alpha Mom's Guide to Everything.

Away We Go

2008-10-16T21:18:00.005-07:00

I used to be more bothered than I am now about how The World views our country. I still think it's important, but if there's one thing I've discovered (obviously, if you've been reading long) it's that no place is perfect, and it's almost impossible to translate the subtleties of one culture to another. I can talk about the crazy Italian government all I want, but why should anyone care what I think? I'm never really going to understand it. I'm not Italian.

So when I read articles like this, written by a British CNN journalist, I just roll my eyes and try to remember that they are writing about our country because it's still, against all odds, powerful and influential. I loved that Barack Obama spoke to cheering masses in Berlin, but I could also see the point made by McCain supporters who reminded us that most of the crowd didn't qualify to vote in our election.

But the following paragraph, reacting to the notion that Sarah Palin seems disinterested in the world outside the USA, stuck with me. The writer, Robin Oakley, posits that Europeans "...are not much impressed by explanations that her parents did not have the money to send her on a fact-finding tour of the world as a student. Anybody with the money to own an SUV, hunt moose and drive a snowmobile has the money to travel."

Europeans tend to have a hard time grasping the physical scale of the United States and how far everything is from everything else here, especially if you live in Alaska. Most of them can't drive two hours without crossing an international border. But I think this journalist is absolutely correct anyway.

S/he may or may not understand that SUVs and moose tags and guns and snowmobiles are justifiable expenses when you have to stock up on game to feed the family and when your driveway is a snowdrift eight months of the year, and that hunting in many of these places isn't primarily sport for the wealthy. But people spend money and time one what they value, and Sarah Palin shouldn't be using money as an excuse for staying home. If she really wanted to travel, she could have. (Russia is JUST SO CLOSE, remember? And, if I am reading the map correctly, Canada is right next door.) But she chose not to, possibly for good and justifiable reasons, but likely not financial ones.

So can we, as Americans, give the financial excuse a rest in this case? Yes, right now, we should all be staying home and putting our cash under our mattresses. But before our economy went in the toilet, and after it comes out, shouldn't seeing the world be valued just as highly as owning a Bitchin' Camaro or having our teeth professionally whitened? And I'm not just talking about Ms. Palin - I'm talking about all of us. When did travel become something Americans save for retirement? Probably about the same time people started thinking that going to Hawaii was visiting a foreign country.

This article by Patrick Smith also spoke to me today, particularly this portion:
"I am of the mind that every American student, in exchange for financial aid, ought to be conscripted into a semester (or more) of overseas service. And why not a tax credit for certain international travel, similar to that provided with the purchase of a hybrid car."

Let's all write to our congresspeople about that one. Then, when it passes, let's all meet in Bali for my blog readers' convention and send the receipts to our accountants. Who's with me?

Fleet

2008-10-15T22:36:00.006-07:00

I'm sure you are shocked to learn that Theo has a multitude of small toy cars, the Matchbox and Hot Wheels types that he clutches in each hand as I strap him into his car seat. They're all different, of course - the orange loader, the yellow fire truck, the silver VW Bug convertible - and he has his favorites. I think we've actually purchased just two or three of them (the double-decker London bus, the bright green SMART car) and the rest he has received from visiting grandmas or kind neighbors. Remarkably, we did a good job of keeping track of all of them. I kept the blue hatchback in my purse and the orange construction vehicle in the diaper bag. Even with all the traveling we did, we never, to my knowledge, left a school bus or a tractor in a hotel room or an airport. Until recently.

The moment we arrived on American soil, those cars sprouted free will (Christine!) and drove off on their own, disappearing one by one only to be replaced by even more, or reappearing a few days later in a different part of town. I still have cars in my purse and in the diaper bag and all over the floor, but I don't know which one is where anymore. We leave Nana's house with extra cars and abandon different ones on the next visit. I try to pay attention, to make sure we're not taking away what isn't ours or orphaning our toys, but it's a losing battle. Fortunately Theo just grabs whichever vehicle he stumbles across or is handed to him and plays happily, appreciating the bounty, playing no favorites. I've all but given up the fight.

I realized today that I feel like that about my whole life these days. Things in Germany, while not perfect, at least felt under control. Our little family had forged a self-contained routine. We went to the grocery store on Saturdays, we watched soccer on Sundays, we walked to the park when the weather was nice and stayed inside for days when it snowed. We webcammed with the grandparents on weekend evenings and checked in with the rest of our friends and family on email. Sometimes Theo and I went to a little playgroup, and that was a big outing. I didn't even keep a calendar.

But here, we're just overwhelmed with the possibilities. We could be unpacking boxes or calling the furnace company or going to the children's museum or going to Target like I dreamed for three years straight. People are inviting us places! I have a date book with things written in it! It's thrilling and sort of crazy, like having a whole new wardrobe and wanting to wear it all at once. But when we have a week like we've just survived - all three of us sick in bed for at least one day each - it makes me feel buried, like I can't breathe, like I will never see all the people or open all the boxes or watch all the shows that my new DVR is suddenly recording on its own because I don't have time to figure out how to program it.

Theo has a little playroom here in our splendid new home, a place for all his toys and balls and books and cars cars cars. Lately, when I suggest that he go in there and check out the new train table we got on Craigslist or stack up some blocks or drive one of those piles of tiny cars around the carpet, he gets teary and says "No toys! No toys!" And even though it seems ridiculous for either one of us to complain about all this good stuff, I understand just how he feels.

Electric Avenue

2008-10-13T14:04:00.002-07:00

We are drowning in a sea of instruction manuals around here. The former owners of our house helpfully saved every last piece of paper associated with every item in it, including all of the documents pertaining to its construction. I'm sure I will one day be glad I can find out who installed my furnace, but today I'd just like to know how to make the heat go up from 62 degrees to 72 degrees. Like, right now, not after I've spent fifteen minutes pressing all the buttons on the digital thermostat.

After I gave up on that project, I decided I would try to turn on our gas fireplace. Because that should help me get warm, right? But I've never had one of these things, and even after calling the fireplace company (at a number found in that giant stack of papers, of course) and pressing all the knobs and wishing I owned a pair of protective goggles just in case, I still can't figure out how to ignite the pilot light.

I have yet to really decode the TV instructions and keep turning off the cable box but not the television, or vice versa, so none of it works at the same time.

On the positive side, I found my winter clothes buried deep in one of our moving boxes, so at least I can put on a sweater. And our electric and gas bills should stay really low.

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-12T13:17:00.001-07:00

We are in our new house. It is full of boxes and I can't find any soap or a notepad, but I've been reunited with my KitchenAid mixer and the Christmas decorations.

Theo stayed with a babysitter the day we moved and came home suddenly knowing how to say "sorry." Which says to me that there was a reason he had to learn to apologize. Maybe he'll figure out he should have said "sorry" after he head-butted me this afternoon and nearly gave me a black eye. Thank goodness my German spectacles are made of Titanium.

It only took me two months to realize how great it is not to live in a swing state. I don't think I've seen a single presidential campaign ad on television.

I can't seem to find time to sit down and write a coherent post. So you're getting this weird list instead. Next time maybe I'll just inventory one of the boxes I'm unpacking and you can live the excitement right along with me.

Strange Days

2008-10-01T20:59:00.004-07:00

My life these days can only be described as strange. The whole world is living with a background soundtrack of financial panic; the sounds of the stock market crashing, doomsday predictions and what-ifs about candidates in the upcoming election, dire warnings to squirrel away some money in a coffee can or the heel of your shoe. And here we are, spending literally hundreds of thousands of dollars (most of it belonging to our mortgage lender, eek) in a head-spinningly short period of time. We've bought two cars and a house (well, probably) in just the past six weeks and we're poised to shop for several major appliances in the space of a few days. The outflow of checks with one or the other of our names signed at the bottom is shocking and yet we just keep churning along. It was all planned and budgeted and it would make sense if I were to explain it to you, but still. It feels a little like we're heading over a waterfall, just sure that our raft will carry us safely to the bottom, while everyone shrieks around us.

Besides the financial oddities, we're residing in a strange temporary/permanent world. On one hand, everything is temporary - first we were in a hotel and now we're crashing in a family guest room, we get our mail at a PO box that is our only permanent address - but we're planning for the long term like we've never done before. We kept telling our realtor we wanted a house we love so we don't have to move for a long time. We wanted a car that would last. I went out and bought a zoo membership because of course we'll be around to use it all year. After three years of knowing for sure that we were making relatively short-term choices, I feel like I'm playing psychic.

But I've found that the one thing that keeps everything else feeling slightly normal is Theo. No matter where we're staying, he expects fruit and yogurt and cereal for breakfast. And he doesn't care if we want to test drive some bargain car we found on Craigslist, when it's naptime he needs to go to bed. When my head is spinning from one too many life decisions (cable? internet? cable internet? AAAAAGGGH!) I'm almost always interrupted by a small voice saying "Helicopter! Helicopter! Heavy?" just before my skull explodes.

This morning I completed a particularly surreal twenty-four hours that was capped off by triggering my own car alarm six times in a row (Hi, neighbors of my in-laws, aren't you glad we found somewhere else to live?). I was wearily driving us home after stops at two different car repair shops (don't ask) and pitying myself while my son shouted OUT OUT OUT from his car seat. We were passing a park and I decided, what the hell, let's get out of this car and act like we live here. So we spent an hour or so sliding down the slide and yelling Wheeee! on the swings. And one of us almost expired from delight when a passing fire truck appeared and the firemen waved and then found us in the parking lot as we got in our car and sent us home with a plastic fireman's hat.

It felt really normal, like that's what moms and little boys do on warm Wednesday afternoons in October. So maybe we'll do it again tomorrow, but without the car alarm.

Books - August 2008

2008-09-30T15:13:00.002-07:00

Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy)
edited by Heather B. Armstrong
A great read for a first-time parent. I laughed out loud at the opening essay and enjoyed almost all the rest, all for different reasons. Especially fun if you're already familiar with the authors' blogs.

The One Hundred
by Nina Garcia
Basic and beautiful fashion and shopping tips with lovely illustrations. If you're a Project Runway fan, you'll love it even more.

I Love a Parade

2008-09-23T12:56:00.002-07:00

Theo and I eat breakfast every day in the lobby of our hotel where there’s a big buffet. Each morning he sprints for the elevator yelling, “brekky brekky! go go go!” We learned early in our stay to steer him far away from the tempting buttons (including the lowest, most prominent ALARM button) to the back corner of the lift. He usually elbows his way past the other passengers when we land, to careen out the door, toward the food. His excitement about the possibility of sausage for breakfast (“hot dog hot dog!”) is eclipsed only by his enthusiasm for greeting every single person in the room. It’s like a little parade as he toddles past in his footie pajamas, waving to the left, waving to the right, stopping to catch the attention of some businessman who isn’t waving back and who is probably thinking he should have stayed somewhere that doesn’t allow kids or dogs or breakfast buffet parades.

He has befriended the hotel employees too, of course, and they all stop by our table to say hello. It’s lucky for us that he’s so friendly because on crowded weekend mornings when the elevator takes forever, we’ve found ourselves mysteriously ushered toward empty tables when the whole place seems packed, and there is always a high chair reserved for us. All that just because of a daily greeting. Though his little bald head and dinosaur-print jammies probably don’t hurt. We are still trying to figure out where he gets his outgoing streak since Jeff would really prefer not to talk to anyone, ever, and I describe myself as an introvert in extrovert’s clothing, meaning I know how to interact with people but it’s more my nature to lock myself in the bathroom until everyone leaves the party.

The past two days we’ve been approached during the Cheerios course by a grandmotherly woman who stops to commend me on Theo’s good behavior and outgoing demeanor. She must be hard-of-hearing because he spent thirty minutes this morning screeching “CHOO CHOO! CHOO CHOO!” every time the light rail train went past and flinging his yogurt spoon at the window. I just said thanks, even though my initial impulse was to tell her I’d like to take credit but I spend most of my time trying to get him to stop waving hello and goodbye and just get back in the damn elevator already.

Elsewhere, again.

2008-09-17T21:17:00.001-07:00

Well, that was a big success. Apparently you all dislike America. Or else everyone has stopped reading since I stopped posting. It's funny how that works.

Since you probably want to move to another country, why not go over and read my guest post at Katie's blog. And don't forget to scroll through her archives because it will make you happy that you don't need a chest x-ray in order to legally enter your workplace.

Why I Love America

2008-09-15T21:37:00.003-07:00

Elections don’t always bring out my warmest feelings toward our country. Frankly, they make me think it’s broken. I feel pummeled by voices enumerating all the ways people running for office are going to fail and take America down with them. I worry that we’re headed for bad things. Right now, especially, when nothing seems to be going right (the economy is bad, we’re still at war, people are driving to Mexico to get their teeth fixed, and the fabulous shoes I bought online make my feet hurt), it’s easy to think there are better places to live.

Before I moved to Germany, I thought I might be more comfortable living somewhere else. I didn’t feel patriotic. I was frequently critical of my country and it seemed like my views didn’t fit with most of the opinions I heard were from “typical middle America.” I looked forward to escaping the advertising that seemed to hit me over the head everywhere I went. I thought the health insurance system had to be better outside my country’s borders. And I was ready to live in a place where religion wasn’t starting to encroach on the government. I knew I would miss my native language and all of my friends and family, but I was ready to take a break from American culture, including bad reality television, shopping as recreation, and the idea that our leaders must sound and act less intelligent than they are in order to get elected.

After three years away, I still think our health care system is broken, in fact it’s even worse than I remember. I wish my son’s diapers didn’t have Blue’s Clues plastered across them. And I am doing my best never to watch an episode of The Hills. But I’m so grateful to be here anyway.

America is the land of choice. At the grocery store, we get to choose from twelve different flavors of pickles, sliced five different ways. We can listen to talk radio where people argue about gas prices or we can switch the dial and hear heavy metal from the 1970’s. We can wear our clothing backwards and though people might stare, they’re not going to stop us in the street and tell us to turn those pants around, Daddy Mac.

Americans mean well. They want to be liked and so they begin and end conversations by being nice. They ask questions. They really want to know about you. They actually care (or they know it’s their job to care) whether or not you’re finding the organic whole milk you’re looking for. And they think your kids are cute.

Americans need to know why there are rules, and are careful about making new ones. They ask a lot of questions, and they expect answers. They want it like they want it. They don’t care if no one else eats peanut butter on the pancakes, they’d like some please and they’d like it on the side. And, usually, they get it, without argument.

Before I left, I thought America was without a singular culture. We don’t have a special hat or ethnic dance or anything except McDonald’s (which, incidentally, has moved waaaay past symbolizing America and now just means fried potatoes in your language of choice) and bad TV to distinguish us to the world. But we do have a culture, and it includes pride, openness, and high expectations. Like any culture, some members take the defining qualities too far. But at a basic level, they are good traits.

America feels like home to me. Before I left, I thought another place might feel more comfortable, but I was wrong. I realized that, no matter where I go (and I hope I visit many more places, because there are some fantastic ones I haven’t seen yet), I’ll always be a visitor anywhere but my own country. It’s a terribly imperfect place, but it’s the only one I know where I can drive thru and order fake cheese nachos at any hour of the day or night.

Cecily over at Uppercase Woman invited her readers to write about why they love America. I invite you to join me in my response. Tell me in the comments why you love our country. Or, if you have a blog, write a post and link to it here.

Everything in my brain right now.

2008-09-07T21:22:00.003-07:00

I'm writing this post before the pathetic snotty little squeaks begin from Theo's bed. He's had a cold all week and the fever is gone now but he's at that stage where the pflegm is unstoppable. I watch him writhing around attempting to sleep earlier and I knew exactly how he felt because I had the same cold last week and passed it along to him. Thanks a lot, Mama.

I watched the VMAs tonight and was bummed that I either missed the Britney performance or she didn't perform at all, in fact sent an android instead to say "Thank God Thank Beautiful Family Thank Fans" every time a microphone was put in front of her. But Christina Aguilera did perform what appeared to be a Britney song with Britney's back-up dancers in a Britney wig, so maybe that counts?

I've had a bunch of different reactions to the Sarah Palin nomination. I've felt alternately a little unexpectedly thrilled (Wow, someone like me (from a small town, has girl parts and brown hair) standing on the stage, receiving the nomination), insulted (Just because I got a little thrill from seeing her onstage, I'm not smart enough to pay attention to her politics?), fearful (Let's make sure John McCain has an entire medical team next to his office (you know, in the one Leo McGarry used to occupy?) if he's elected), saddened (Bristol deserves to go stay at Shania Twain's Swiss retreat for a few years), embarrassed (I can't believe I'm judging someone else's parenting like this, I swore I wouldn't do that, but who hangs her family out for the paparazzi like that?), and slightly hopeful that this will swing things the direction I'd like them to go. But we'll see.

Housing Crunch

2008-08-27T10:09:00.002-07:00

I began this house hunt swearing I would not settle for a place where I had to live with orange shag carpet or harvest gold kitchen counter tops. I didn't want to look forward to a future of DIY weekends spent removing disgusting grout from aging bathroom tile or renting a wallpaper steamer. I wanted to keep the part of my European lifestyle that involved walking to the grocery story and five-minute jaunts with the stroller to the park. "It's a buyers' market!" they said to me. "You'll find a great bargain for pennies."

It's never that easy, is it? I'm picky, I want space and a fence and I prefer wood floors. I refuse to pay top dollar when it's supposedly time to low-ball. And I've unexpectedly found it hard to choose a house because I spend too much time gazing into that metaphorical (or, in some of these houses literal, if you count the light fixtures) crystal ball, imagining my lifestyle of the next ten or twenty years, and I'm paralyzed.

Where do I want to grocery shop when I turn forty? Which school has the best set of miniature trucks in its kindergarten toy bins? Is the yoga studio down the street one of those overheated ones, or is it more my style? Will my friends drive up and think, oh, they got a good deal or will they say oh, surprising they couldn't find anything better in this market? In fifteen years will the neighbor's tree be so tall that it will overshadow the skylight? Is there a place for my quilting supplies, when I finally learn how to quilt?

The other, more practical part of my brain, is reminding me about last time we tried to find a place to live. It was torturous, there were tears and compromises and it was not a good way to begin a big life change. I'm a little bit afraid we're off to a bad start again. We've already hesitated and lost at least two places, and we learned this morning that our latest candidate, which had been on the market for 17 months, was likely sold at auction(!) the same day we viewed it.

But I'm working hard to look at the bright side, which today includes waffles at the breakfast buffet and Theo reaching out to some weeping guy on a TV talk show and yelling HUUUUUUUUGGG.

Booked Out

2008-08-20T15:20:00.003-07:00

I have a friend who just gave up reading one day. He still reads stuff for work and newspapers and the occasional magazine, but he altogether stopped reading books. This is a person who majored in English in college, and who I used to regularly swap books with and discuss how long it took to get through that latest Krakauer book, two days or three.

He vaguely mentioned a few years ago that he'd kicked the habit but I didn't really believe him, in the same way that I suspect most smokers usually bum a cigarette every now and then at a bar when they're drinking cheap lite beer. Not long before our conversation, I'd given him Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, winner of the Booker of Bookers (best of the best). He told me he'd never finished it. I figured he just didn't like it that much but eventually he would come up with some other author he loved and away he'd go. But it was not to be.

Astute readers have noticed that last month was devoid of a "books" entry. That's because I did not read any books. I blamed it on the move and the hot weather and the kid learning to walk. But we're over halfway through August and I haven't picked up a single book, and since I'm staying in a hotel and my most strenuous daily activity consists of playing defense against Theo as he tries to dodge past me in the elevator and hit the alarm button (Incidentally, why are those buttons always at the bottom of the stack, exactly toddler-high?), you'd think I might make time to at least thumb through something by Maeve Binchy. But I just can't get motivated. I haven't even finished all the articles in the September issue of Vanity Fair and it's almost September!

This morning I was riffling through the stack of junk stuffed in the drawer of my bedside table. Underneath the free copies of USA Today, I found my copy of Midnight's Children. I'd forgotten I started reading it at the beginning of July. And never picked it up again, not even when Theo was asleep on the plane or at night before bed during Olympic weight-lifting prelims.

So I'm writing this to warn you never to read that particular book, unless you aspire to give up reading books forever. And if you see me wandering around, a half-finished National Enquirer tucked under one arm, blame Salman Rushdie.