Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Facebook-Starbucks quandry

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Some of my facebook friends are part of a group getting all in a dither about going to Starbucks on December 1, 2008 and ordering one of the company’s RED coffee drinks so that 5 cents goes to AIDS research, relief, and humanitarian aid.

Fine, good, and lovely. But am I the only one who thinks it’s a better idea to vow off expensive coffee for, say, a week, and send the proceeds, whole cloth, to AIDS research, relief, and humanitarian aid? Say, if I went out of my way to get overpriced coffee on December 1, 2008, and spent $4 on a chocolately espresso thing, they’d give 5 cents. Nice. If I sent that $4 to one of the charities at charitywatch.org, maybe most of that $4 would help. Five cents is a lot. Four dollars is eighty times more.

I think I’ll stay out of Starbucks on Monday. Not because I have taken to heart Ilene’s rejection of their business model (though I’ve always respected her view, and my frustration of their early assertion that the company was named after the firstmate in Moby Dick, whose alleged love of coffee is not supported by the text).

I’m not making a political statement here. I’m making a mathematical decision. And I’m sending at least $4 to AIDS relief on Monday, when I will be making coffee at home.

New games

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What follows are the announcements preceding this week’s new games. Explanations follow, so you can benefit from our experience the past week. Took a while to understand, and now we know all rules.

Peanut: We has we’s name on we’s back!!

(translation: “let’s play catch with a soccer ball pillow.” Not sure where he came up with the name on jersey back thing, since we don’t watch or play organized sports. But apparently he’s seen enough in passing to know that we has we’s name on we’s back when we play.

Peanut: School time!

(translation: “Get in the big cardboard box ‘cuz we’re gonna draw until I say we’re done.”)

Peanut: Knock knock ya need some?

(translation: “let’s play Halloween, but I’ll come, dressed in costume, bearing treats. I’ll give you as many as I see fit, run in circles in the living room, then come back for the booty in a minute.” Often includes the following exchange…
P: Knock knock
Me: Who is it?
P: Who is it?
Me: You say trick or treat.
P: Trick or treat. What are you?
Me: What are you?
P: [chooses a random noun; sometimes Fill-in-the-Adjective Boy]
Me: Oh! You’re a beautiful [noun or Fill-in-the-Adjective Boy]
P: Thank you. You want some? [hands me broken crayons from a bucket]
Me: Thank you.
P: That ’nuff?
Me: mmmm. Little more, please.
P: Here ya go. And extra.
Me: Thank you. Happy Halloween.
P: Happy Halloween! [runs circles in the living room and comes back] Ya need to put some ‘way?
Me: Yes, thank you.
P: Okay bye bye. Peanut goin’ on trip.
Me: Bye. Have a good trip.
P: Bye bye mommy I loves you.)

Voice-activated Hell

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Today, even though I felt like death warmed over, TMobile called, and the whore they (don’t) pay to harass me wanted to rumble.

Okay, so I understand why companies are shelving all their workers and turning to computers. Sure, it saves a few bucks. Sure, it helps the American economy by putting money into the pockets of robots, who seem to be taking the high price of oil especially hard. But seriously, communications companies, stop with the voice-activated customer service.

Here’s how computer customer service and I usually get along: the computer asks me what I want to do. I say, “customer service.” My son, who has now noticed I’m on the phone and sets his taser to stun, parrots, “customer service.” I shake off the distraction (is that what we call a small person who needs you and depends on you for everything he’s not able to do himself? a distraction? a Napoleonic dictator? my best little helper in the world? love of my life? Pain in my ass? as alittlepregnant says, “unstoppable arch-nemesis, perhaps.”) Anyway, I try to hold off the deluge of those Kodak moments in which he is possessed by the “hey, mom’s on the phone, which only happens once a week, and all bets are off!” mood of the minute, and wait for the computer to recognize my request.

DCSR (disembodied customer service rep): I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Let’s try again.

Okay, lady, or disembodied lady who spent a fortune in voiceover lessons to get this one gig and get no residuals from every fucking time the computer doesn’t understand me.

“Cus-to-mer ser-vice,” I enunciate.

DCSR: Okay. you want to establish new service, right?

“No,” I say, patience running thin. My son has glimpsed his opportunity to head to the bathroom to relieve the toilet paper roll of its pricey tree pulp. My cats have decided his absence from the room is their window to the one moment of my attention a day. My head is swimming, trying to decide who gets the focus.

DCSR: Please say yes or no.
Me: [small boy is trying to decide which button on the butane lighter will heat the pinking shears to a temperature sufficient to burn cat hair but cool enough to leave their skin unsinged] What was the question?

DCSR: Okay. Let’s start again.

“No, let’s not,” I think. Is it my imagination, or have they hired Sarah Palin for this job? The voice is just folksy enough, just approachable enough to make me forget for a moment that she is a tool of the Dark Side. Then she says something so classically bitchy that I am recalled from the trance in which I want smaller government, even though both Wasilla’s and Alaska’s grew under her reign as prom queen, and lower taxes, dropped just low enough that we force race victims to pay for their own rape kit.

“Customer serrrvice,” I trill, thinking that getting all happy and Southern will get me better service. I can play Palin with the best of them. Except Tina Fey. That woman is freaking genius. Maybe, maybe minus the letting her kid watch Psycho bit, but still.

“Okay,” the Sarah Palin robot computer disembodied nemesis trills back. “You said, ‘customer service,’ right?”

“Yes.” I’m shaking my head, no, at the toddler who is trying to put nail polish on the cats’ toes. Cats are resisting. Silly mortals. Toddler is undeterred. That’s it, boy. Way to pursue your artistic dreams. I believe in you!   Except, please don’t do that. Find something I can support would you, instead of going all “find the netherworld in which unconditional finds a few conditions.”

DCSR: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please say yes or no.
Me: I did say ‘yes or no.’ I said ‘yes.’ Please listen to me, since it’s just me and an almost-three year old and enough people aren’t listening to me today that I just might lose it.

DCSR: Let’s try again.
Me: [whining] No! Let’s not try again!

DCSR: [insistent, implying that I’m a failure for not even knowing how to talk] Please say, account balance, check minutes, send money to relatives in Peru, new credit card, deplete my savings account, or wait endlessly on hold.

Me: None of those. Customer service. Honey, please put that down. That’s a no-touch. Please put it down and we can play with this, instead.

DCSR: You said, ‘deplete my savings account, right?’

Me: [resenting this new turn Sarah Palin’s career has taken, even if it pays a bit better than 365 on per diem at home while your husband attends to government business for you, and almost wishing she was pardoning and butchering turkeys as VP instead of as disembodied customer service bitch] [as clearly as I can manage] No.

SP as DCSR: Please say yes or no.

Me: No. No no no no no no.

At this point, the kid is screaming at the top of his lungs because I’m saying ‘no’, the cats are hiding because they sense that formaldehyde is not on their list of “well, at least this is better than the shelter” activities, my savings account is gone, and the computer cops a ‘tude with me.

SP as DCSR: I’m sorry we’re having trouble. Let’s try again another time.

Click.

Okay, you fucknecks. I don’t have time to explain to your computer what I need. I don’t have time to Minnesota/Alaska/Georgia my accent to make myself intelligible. I want the good ol days where the motherfucking computer made me “press one” for self-immolation and “press two” for Kvorkian assisted conflagration.

Today’s was even worse. I’m sick, I’m on crutches, and Spouse is waiting on me hand and foot because every other time in our almost ten year relationship that I’ve been sick he’s been out of town. So he owes me some major tea and honey, some major shared childcare, and some major motherfugging midday naps.

And this TMobile bitch wants to rumble. (Don’t get me wrong. TMobile has been okay, I guess, even though I had no service at my old house and even though they lock me out of the website everytime I try to log on to pay my freaking bill. They did give me the cell phone MP3 player that might be the solution to outsidevoice‘s kindergardener with an iPod problem. But still. They’re fucking with the wrong nasally bitch today.)

T: Please say your account number now.
Me: 5-1-0-achoo
T: I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that. Please try again now.
Me: [thinking, of course you didn’t. I didn’t finish.  a person would know that, you robot a–hole; then trying again] 5-1-0 [mommy mommy I need poop!]
T: We seem to be having some trouble.
Me: You said it, Lady. [“Daddy!” (yes, I’ve developed the nasty habit of calling Spouse “Daddy.” Vowed I never would. And every mom does something she vowed she never would, so as long as heroin and twenty-seven hours of tv-babysitter are still off the list, I’m good. “We’ve got a pooper in here!” To which he pleasantly replies, “Do I have a few minutes?” Where do I start?]
T: You said, pay the bills of all my friends and family, right?
Me: No.
T: Please say yes or no.
Me: No. [Achoo]
T: Dice Espanol?
Me: [in Spanish] No.
T: [composed, if robotic] Your bill is wicked overdue. Would you please pay, you deadbeat fucker, or we’ll cut off your only contact with the world.
Me: Look, I just moved, I didn’t know the bill was due, and I can never log onto the web site because my kid sucks my memory dry both of password and of, well, memory.
T: You said, add text messaging, right?
Me. No. [cough cough cough]
T: I’m trying to be patient with you, but it seems you pal around with terrorists.
Me: Oh, please. I met him once. He taught math, I went to office hours. That’s not pal-ing.
T: You said please enflame me, right?
Me: No.
T: You’re taken care of in that department?
Me: Yes, thank you very much.
T: You said please disconnect your service, right?
Me: No.
T: Please say yes or no.
Me: What was the question? [sniffle]
T: Thank you. Consider your service terminated. Now, can we schedule your personal visit with Sarah Palin?

Oh, sweet Mary, mother of my cousins, just shoot me now. I just want to press one for self-immolation.

Thanksgiving for Santa.

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Peanut has been in an intense no-sharing mood for almost a year. So he’s intrigued lately with the concept of giving presents. You give someone stuff, but you’re not sharing. It’s not yours; it’s theirs. You don’t get it back. There is no control after the giving. But there is control in the choosing.

He likes this.

He’s picked out birthday presents for friends, telling me exactly what his friends get and what they don’t. He usually picks out something for himself, too, though he’s perfectly willing to have it put away until birthday, Hanukkah, Christmas, Nana’s birthday (which is a great holiday at our house–Nana’s birthday is a couple days before Christmas, after the all important Solstice. Nana’s birthday is a holiday nobody else gets (except, well, Nana). We love Nana’s birthday. We get presents for no other reason than because we’re lucky enough to have her in our family.)

So we’ve been talking about Santa in our house for two years, because I knew it would come up, and, like making spiders and owls and wolves friendly, and fairy tales completely non-scary, I wanted to manage how this once-benevolent and now out-of-control commercialist holiday is portrayed in our house. I want him to believe in magic and hope and love, but not in getting stuff because you’re good. So I researched Santa Claus and found that the original dude, on whom the St. Nick character is based, was intensely into charity. He gave to the needy. That, Spouse and I discussed, is something we can be down with.

We taught Peanut that Santa, when he was around, gave to people who need. Santa’s not around anymore, but remembering him makes people want to give. True. Not as true as I’d like it to be, but still. (And yes, I did just teach my kid that Santa’s dead. So? He’s a myth. He’s fun to talk about and believe, and being honest now makes it less upsetting to find out later that Santa’s a myth.)

So each year, as often as we can, we give to people who need. After we moved, a truck came to take all the gently used things that we don’t need anymore, but another family might. He was totally fine giving stuff to the truck, because we said it was like Santa’s truck. When we read books about Christmas and Santa has a bag of toys, we tell him that it’s like the fire station and the library having Toys for Tots barrels. Santa has a bag of toys because the family left them out for Santa to take to people who need. Santa’s not bringing to the people in the stories. He’s taking, so he can redistribute. (That’s called being nice, you pre-election hatemongers.)

So I asked Peanut what he wanted to do for Christmas to help like Santa. Last year he wanted to bring toys to the dogs and cats at the local shelter. He loved every minute of giving, in part because he got to choose which dog got which ball, and which cat got which feather. This year he wants to bring apricots to the Food Bank. Because he says they don’t need raisins, but “if they need apricots, I give them apricots.”

Then he said, and I won’t let him forget this ever, that maybe some people just need someone to cuddle them. Maybe, like the babies Grandma cuddles at the hospital, maybe some people just need friends. He would like to find them, he said, and listen to them and cuddle them and make them feel better.

So that’s what we’re doing for Thanksgiving. We’re going to try the local retirement community, and see how he reacts to cuddling seniors. He tends to be wary of older people, so that might not work. Then we’ll bring apricots to the Food Bank.

And we will head to the animal shelter again this year. At least once a month. Because those dang critters love them some attention. And though it’s hard for me not to bring them all home, it makes Peanut feel very important to cuddle small creatures who don’t have families yet. He needs to feel important. And lots and lots of people and pets this year need love. So Spouse and I are going to try to meet as many of those needs as we can, and teach Peanut in the process that the best thing you can do is give.

Santa didn’t come to our house last year, and won’t be coming to our house this year. We don’t need anything. But we’ll make sure that we help whomever we can.

So let us know if you need a cuddle. ‘Cuz we’re ready for ya.

What are we supposed to do?

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This is about more than just us.

Governments all over the world refuse to acknowledge that women are humans, citizens, people. In China they’re forcing abortions, in other countries they restricting and denying abortions (and punish women who manage to survive their illegal abortions). Women are systematically raped and tortured in the Congo. Human beings and animals are starving to death. Entire species of animals are disappearing, forever, at an alarming rate. A child starves to death every five seconds.  Anything edible or non-edible from China you put in your mouth might kill you. the world is in a massive financial crisis. Soldiers and civilians are dying from combat, and even more soldiers kill themselves, unable to wrestle with the complicated mental anguish that results from their service. We’re running out of water. We’re running out of food. We’re living on a planet increasingly rife with radioactive nuclear waste. Intense poverty is killing millions and millions of people struggling to survive in a world where a few have more than they need.

Name a disease. It’s a problem. Name a basic right you cherish. Other people don’t have it. Name something that makes you happy. Most people don’t get that. Name a basic need you had no problem meeting today. Most people don’t even have that.

So what are we supposed to do? That’s not rhetorical. That’s not me pointing you to a website that will solve all this. I’m paralyzed with the breadth and depth of the trouble around me and have no idea where to start.

And I became mired in this paralysis because my friend is on her way to the Democratic Republic of Congo to research the bonobo population there. [You know, the endangered chimpanzee species that is as close to human as any other species (uh-oh I just lost the ignorant “we ain’t no monkeys ‘cuz the world was built in 80 days” crowd…oh well).] And some people are giving her flak, saying that the human suffering on the planet is significant enough that she is wasting her impressive mind and indefatigible desire to help by working with “just” apes.

And my question is, is that what we’re going to bicker about? Not how best to help or how to start, but which cause to choose? Are you kidding me? Choose something, and go freaking make an effort to fix it.

Can’t stop laughing

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I’m really not okay with linking to another blog as my post, but I can’t help it. My abs hurt from laughing so hard, and the only mascara I’ve worn in two months is dripping onto my “hey, you’ve taken out your contacts, shouldn’t you be in bed” glasses.

http://thebloggess.com/

Have at it. Twisted, hilarious FREAK, she is.

Love it.

And on her other site:

whose god is nicer

I think that says it all.

Well, now, that explains a lot.

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Existential crises call for desperate measures. So do two major moves in two months. At naptime today, therefore, I pulled out the Feng Shui book (yay for reclaiming my books and yay for Ohmega Salvage’s awesome collection of recycled craftsman built-in bookcases and yay for sixteen boxes of books unpacked and out of my freaking way) to see if it could fix my life.

Now, I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to Feng Shui. Can’t even pronounce it, though I try hard. And I don’t know if it works. But I know it feels, in a desperate “clinging to guns and religion” way, like I have control of the uncontrollable if I have tall rectangles in the east and round metal accents in the west. It’s one of those “can’t hurt, might help, just don’t tell anyone you know or they’ll laugh at you then have you taken off their ‘call when in need of rational and logical help with personal dilemmas’ list” kind of things.

So today’s discoveries put into perspective a few, um, issues in my life. First, we keep finding houses where our money and romance are figuratively in the toilet. This is the third residence in which our bathroom sits squarely in the west, the tiny corner of our universe in which our income and lovin’ ought flow. Instead, there’s a steady stream of waste, dirt, crayons, and nonsense flowing down the drain. Explains mucho about the continued ease with which we lose what little money we have.  [Thanks financial sector a–holes. Like being a stay-at-home mom wasn’t detrimental enough to my future retirement. In 2054 I’m finally gonna have to break our Wal-Mart boycott so I can get a job as a greeter and support myself in the squalor to which I’ve become accustomed.

So my money and my marriage are in the crapper. (Sorry, Spouse. But you saw it coming in the wedding ring fungus, didn’t you? It was nice while it lasted. But the feng shui book says our love’s being flushed down the drain, dude. And you know that if I read it in a book, it’s the law. So plan on having dwindling affection and interest soon…oh, the ring around my finger under the ring around my finger already did that? You’re creeped out by a little rash on my third finger? Well, It’s you’re fault it’s there. Yes it is. Yes, it is. Yes. It is. Are you hearing me? Yes it is. Don’t pull out your logic with me, Mister. Fine, it’s your fault our money and marriage sector is in the bathroom. No I didn’t. No, I didn’t. No. I didn’t. True, but that’s because…I’m done with this. No, the garage isn’t in our marriage sector. Oh, ha ha. Yeah, maybe if you’re in there things WILL get better. Bah.)

Just after that eight direction, nine ki number pronouncement that we’re poor and nasty to each other because of the sewer placement, I found this lovely tidbit:

“Maybe, for example, you find that you are edgy, irritable, and tense quite a lot of the time….It would be wise to avoid spending a great deal of time in [the north-east and south] of your home. If possible, position your bedroom in the west where chi energy is more settled and contented.”

Hmmm. So I should stay out of the living room, dining room, and bedroom, and sleep in the shower? Makes perfect sense. My irritability doesn’t stem from 32 months of interrupted sleep and full daylight hours focus on a wild, strange, and often irrational creature. I’m not cranky because I’m having trouble adjusting to a reality where my life is not my own, my time is not my own, and six of my greatest hopes and dreams are on hold for the honor of raising a loving and caring human being. Nope. It’s ‘cuz I live in a house where the dining room makes me “feel on edge”  and “impatient,” the entryway makes me “tired from lack of rest,” and the bedroom leads to “slow progress in career.”  So I need a house without a north-east, east, south-east, south-west, and west. I’ll bet I can get a good rate on renting a piece of paper, because it’s the only two-dimensional structure I know that will eliminate those issues.

The bigger problem? The placement of my son’s room apparently makes me “overly controlling of others.” Oh, yeah, that‘s the problem. ‘Cuz I’ve existed on that plane since, well, since…oh, yeah. 1972. I don’t think there’s a crystal or mirror remedy for that one, feng shui friends. It would seem that I exist in a vortex where there is only northwest. Mmm. Maybe it’s good we didn’t pick Portland. I might have exploded from the vortex created between my need to control and my relative powerlessness. Or I would have had 17 cats. ‘Cuz they listen, right?

Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna embrace my inner incomplete task, my perpetual on edge, my tiredness from lack of rest (I’m sorry, how is that not a cause and effect clause all unto itself? Do you really need a room in the wrong quadrant of the compass to be tired from lack of rest? Is there anyone who is revived from lack of rest? If so, will they take over nights at our house, with nightmare-y kid and attachment parenting central, and cats who yowl for people to come to them instead of seeking heat and food themselves? And, while you’re at it and up at 3am anyway, for all the other perfectly normal children in the world who don’t sleep well until they are three or four? ‘Cuz there are a bunch of them, and that one bastard who’s thriving on lack of rest really owes the rest of us.)

So call me, rested person. We need to put you in my bedroom while I sleep off my marital fungus and controlling irritability in the bathroom.

In the midst of flipping through the book to find cheap solutions to increase tree energy and decrease me energy throughout the house, I found a lovely little gem: the chart of prevailing influences for the year and position of my nine ki number. And with a little math I realized that this year’s existential crisis is not due to an inbalance in my needs, nor an extended, yet normal transition mothers experience in which they new and different priorities smash violently into old happiness and self-actualization. No, no. I’m having a tumultuous year because it’s part of a universal cycle. Like the Fourth Turning, only on a personal level. So this is like another Strauss and Howe Crisis season and ancient Chinese centre year. Yeah. See, for people born Feb 5ish through the following Feb 4ish of 1918, 1927, 1936, 1945, 1954, 1963, 1972, 1981, 1990, and 1999, this is a uncomfortablly flux-y year. Like your chi has gas. One of those “put off decisions ‘cuz you’re in for a whirlwind of changes and nothing will be the same next year” kind of years. Oooooh. Yes. I see.

Next year is a year to plan and organize. No point in that now. 2010 is for romance (fungus gone, maybe?). 2011 is for ambition. 2012 is for passion. 2013 is for studying. 2014 is for progress. 2015 is for starting something new. 2016 is for more progress. See? in eight years I’ll be making some progress. Gee. That’s all I needed. To be reassured that it’ll only take a decade. Ah. All better.

Except that I’ll have a teenager in my house. Not sure that bodes well for progress, but we’ll see.

Thanks feng shui. For the new sleeping place and the new outlook. I’ll have several books published, a PhD, a new job, and some sex by 2016. All I needed was a plan mass-produced with absolutely no knowledge of my life other than my birthday. How wonderful to know that, like, 10% of us are having a crappy-ass year but have nine years to go before it happens again. Yay. Feng shui, you’re the best. Remind me to get a crystal to hang over my calendar. ‘Cuz we have another couple of months of Indecision 2008.

File under: first really embarrassing public moment

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Nope, it wasn’t nudity, but good guess. That happened several times in early potty learning, and I didn’t care when he stripped in public. Not my parts, don’t care who sees ’em. And lordy, did that boy drop trou inappropriately. Nope, not tonight. Nor was tonight’s “Holy crap, who said that? Couldn’t be my kid. Maybe this kid is a replacement, sent by aliens who are studying how to make their humanoids more thoughtful and polite like my kid” moment wasn’t pointing out some socially unsavory characteristic about a stranger. He doesn’t even know the really damning words (I leave that to relatives, who, this week alone, have added four words we’ve intentionally NEVER uttered in front of him, to his vocabulary. Sure, we’ve spelled them. Because some people really ARE s-t-u-p-i-d. But he didn’t know them until someone used them in conversation with him. And twit. And bad. Whatever. I give up.) No, this mortification falls under the “Kids Say the Most Inappropriate, If True, but Not Really True, Let Me Explain” category for Bill Cosby. Only he wouldn’t touch this one with a ten foot pole.

Peanut and I are riding on BART, facing the wheelchair-accessible seats. So we have lots of graphics to talk about, mostly evacuation procedures. I’m watching people, discussing with him east and west as concepts. And he is silent for almost a minute, looking at the emergency exit stuff.

He then announces, in full Broadway Belt voice, on a rush hour BART train headed from SF into Oakland:

“White people go on white train; black people go on black train!”

Squelching the impulse to shout, “No! Who taught you that?!” I look where he’s looking. He’s right. Holy, crap, BART people, your evacuation procedures pictures have white people leaving a white train and black people leaving a black train. So his segregationist proclamation is correct, but that’s not the intention of the visual image. I hope. Oh, double crap, how to handle this one?! Where was Mr. Rogers when you needed him? Where is Nebraska’s child abandonment program when you need it? (Okay, not funny. But kinda funny. ‘Cuz some of these here states have some really s-t-u-p-i-d legislatures, no?)

Peanut was very proud of himself for noticing a pattern on a drawing and pointing it out. We say “yay” when he finds patterns in books. Find opposites, find similarities, find something out of place–all of those get a yay. Notice a graphic design nightmare on San Francisco’s trains and you get your mommy into some serious social hot water, little person.

He noticed that, on the aerial structures evacuation procedure, the background is black and the train and people were white. It’s a simple graphic. But right next to it, in the subterranean, transbay tube, and subway graphic, the background is black, the tunnel was white, and, to provide graphic difference, the people and train were all black. Geezus, people, can’t we atleast be consistent with the colors? Can’t all the backgrounds be black or white, and all the trains and people be the same? No, not in the Blueberry-Eating-Smurfiest of all Blue States. No, we need to give equal time to black stick figures and white stick figures. Do they always have to board a train of the same freaking color? Thanks a lot, freaking BART people. Freaking graphic designer from the land of high contrast, low sensitivities. Whatever. I can’t control you a–holes, I can only control my reactions to you a–holes. But let the record show you’re making me look bad here, and making my kid very confused. Or, my reaction will make him confused in three, two, one…

So I tried to acknowledge his discovery AND maintain the huge civil rights gains of the past 150 years.

“Well, honey, that’s just the way they drew the picture. In real trains, ALL people go, and they are lots of different colors. And BART trains aren’t black or white. They’re silver. See? The tracks that are up are in the nighttime, so it’s black in the sky. We couldn’t see the people in the drawing unless they were white. So the picture shows the people white even though people come in lots of colors. And, see, the tracks in the tunnel, show that the tunnel is bright, and we wouldn’t see the people unless they were drawn black. So the picture shows the people black even though people come in lots of colors. See? It’s just a drawing. BART is silver, and we’re pink, not white or black.” [Pathetic. Liberal p.c. oversensitive bullshit pathetic bad parenting yuck. And yet, yay for not overreacting or denying the reality of the freaking white people getting on the white train and the black people getting on the black train. Have I cursed you BART graphics a–holes enough yet? No.]

“Mommy, we no pink. We plain. With little red, right there.” He points to a lovely zit on my chin and moves on to ask for pretzels.

He’s done. I’m not. I’m surrounded by a variety of people, none of whom care (and why not? he’s cute and he’s finally intelligible, so you could at least listen and smirk a little at his huge social gaffe) but to whom I’d like to give a moving speech about how we don’t teach him that people are different, that we teach him all people deserve respect, that people come in all colors, that public places are for everybody (the last one just because he demands that other people leave any place he really likes, especially when there are fire-juggling unicyclists, but that’s another BART story for tomorrow).

I just want everyone around me to know that this boy who seemed to pronounce belief in a new era of separate but equal is really just noticing what some total loser jerk graphic designer with no foresight neglected to read the “socially significant” part of her creative brief. And who approved those black and white graphics? Is it so much more expensive to have purple people and green people? They’re web-safe and could serve as the emergency procedures online, too. Please. Throw me a freaking parenting bone here, people! I just want to tell all the people in the seats around us, most of whom are asleep, and none of whom listens to strange toddler/preschoolers anyway, that this was not a commentary on race relations. My son likes Barack Obama whether he’s photographically brownish or cartoon redish and bluish, as in the yard signs still dominating our neighborhood. In fact, he really likes the red and blue Obama. I do, too. But I don’t draw pictures in which he only gets on a blue and red train, while all the grey people get on a grey train, for feck’s sake.

Your love is like a fungus

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Is it a sign from the relationship gods that I have a fungus growing under my wedding ring? Well, correction: my engagement ring. I never wear my wedding ring. The engagement ring is too sweet by itself. But now it’s a little less sweet since it’s giving me an itchy, red, peeling rash. I took it off a few weeks ago to let the thing heal. It took more than a week. I left it off for another week. I thought maybe it was contact dermatitis and that washing the band would take care of it. Nope. Two days on and it’s red, peeling, and itchy again.

So, aside from dunking the ring in jockitch cream, what do I do? Is the platinum making the point that Spouse is a louse? Is it conspiring to suggest that now, after the move back home, I should ditch the ring as either symbol or reality? Is my finger trying to get out of this marriage? Don’t you think someone in a bar, where I spend all my copious free time, would notice the red and scaly patch where a ring used to be? Forget tan lines: athlete’s foot is the mark of a really well worn band.

Am I allergic to my Spouse? Or just symbols of his (metaphorically) perpetually cloying love? Is a foul fungus growing in my marriage? Do I need some lessons in hygeine? Will Tiffany’s delouse a jewelry collection, when I come in for its antifungal treament? Is that included in the purchase price?

How lame to go to a doctor to ask for assistance in clearing up a ring around my finger. Um, lady, red and flaky is the new platinum. Go with it.

1.) Gross!  2.) What the?  3.) How the? 4.) Why the? 5.) Go the f— away! 6.) Gross!

Please, no auto bailout.

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Yes, I’m telling my lawmakers the same thing–no automaker bailout. Why? Because bankruptcy is a time to reorganize and get your act together, and maybe forge ahead. So we shouldn’t be as afraid of automaker bankruptcy as Congress seems to be. Bankruptcy doesn’t mean closed doors and going out of business. It may eventually mean that, but so could a bailout. But bailouts reward companies who have been stuck thinking, producing, and structuring the way they always have, without planning for the future.

I know that lots of families, from the autoworkers to the restaurants to the retailers in Michigan depend on the money American car companies bring to the area. But you know what? I’d rather see the government hand money directly to the people who work at these firms than give corporate welfare. The workers shouldn’t have to pay for the (formerly) Big Three mistakes. But they should get work in another industry. And there aren’t any jobs right now.

So why not make Michigan the heart of America’s big wind-farm industry? Oh, yeah, we don’t have one. Well, let’s use the federal money for that, instead. Factory-build parts for wind farms need these skilled workers, and the former carworkers can have a job, new skillset, and important role in the next century, rather than being stuck in the nineteenth century industrial revolution.

Or, why not make Michigan the heart of America’s big infrastructure regeneration? Oh, yeah, we don’t have one. We’ll, let’s use the federal money for that, instead.

Or, why not make autoworkers, white-collar and blue-collar, part of America’s next big wave of domestic jobs and revenue. Oh, yeah. We don’t have that, either.

Maybe we have bigger problems than the financial well being of three outdated, outmoded, out-of-touch companies who couldn’t see the writing on the wall, as Japanese automakers did.

I don’t know. It’s going to hurt a lot of people if those automakers go into bankruptcy and renegotiate all their contracts. But it’s going to hurt more people  if we bail them out, and they come back for more money in a few months, then come back again, then go out of business anyway.

I’m tired of corporate handouts. Why do corporations get welfare, when the fiscal conservatives who backed their unfettered growth believed nobody should share the profits? When people who work hard come upon tough times, I say help them. When companies come upon hard times, I just feel the help should go to starting something new. Use the bailout money for building infrastructure and eco-friendly energy. That creates jobs and uses taxpayer money for growth not bandages on bullet wounds.

New Facebook Phobia

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So I’ve always been leery of Facebook, what with the full-disclosure, “work life cross referenced with personal life,” “naked pictures of your kid online for all the pedophiles to find” kind of stuff.

Now I have a new reason to be afraid. (Not very, very afraid. Let’s be real, here. It’s just a Web 2.0 social networking deal-io. It’s not actually Orwellian. But I love me some melodrama. And I try hard to keep myself awake at night worrying about something, so it may as well be this.)

Tonight after Peanut finally crashed, I created my little Facebook world, happy to see friendly faces. Then I made the mistake of searching for old friends, classmates, colleagues. Ugh, what a terrible blow to the old (very, very old) self-esteem staying at home to raise world citizens can be.

The friends I used to admire, but with whom I held my own have impressive resumes and lists of degrees. But they have kids and PhDs. Or kids and careers. Or careers the likes of which I might have achieved if I had stuck with anything. But I’m a gypsy geographically, emotionally, artistically, and academically. I don’t stick with much, and the resulting resume looks impressive but feels thin. You know? And all the other hardcore, drive, self-defined brainiacs have their shit together. Even those who have kids.

So I could blame my lack of personal, professional, and intellectual development on the break I’m taking to raise a fully realized human. Or I can admit that I’m a lazy git who can’t stick with anything long enough to get impressive at it.

Me no likey Facebook. It puts the “what do you do?” shame of parties with full-time adults into my living room, where I strive to keep self-doubt at bay.

Didn’t I, just this week, blog twice about vowing to get productive, to unpack and finish two novels and get more freelance work and get back into shape and publish academic articles and get to work on applications for more grad school? Didn’t I?

Well, I organized my browser bookmark file. Does that count? Hmmmm? Does it, valedictorians and MDs and JDs and well-groomed, perfect people with whom I can’t bear to be Facebook friends because you intimidate me now, even though I only barely admired you considered myself a peer way back when?

Six-Minute Chocolate and Blackberry Cake

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I premeasured during nap time, and Peanut made the following. Lovely, if a bit gooey.

(Original source: Moosewood Cooks at Home, from my dear godmother. Called the Six-Minute Chocolate Cake, it’s quick to mix, doesn’t use lots of bowls, and transforms well into cupcakes.)

Cake:
1.5C unbleached all-purpose flour
.33 C sweetened cocoa (we prefer Scharffen Berger because it’s local, I prefer the 40s-style graffics, and Peanut likes the girl on the label)
1t baking soda
.5t salt
1C evaporated, granulated cane juice, MINUS 2T
1 stick organic unsalted butter, melted but not hot
.25C organic Gravenstein cinnamon apple sauce
1C cold decaf, preferably French press (for the silt)
2t pure vanilla extract
2T vinegar
2 scoops vanilla whey protein powder (optional. if you skip this, add the 2T of sugar back into the recipe)
1.25C frozen organic unsweetened blackberries (optional)

Glaze:
1 small jar organic raspberry preserves
.25C sweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 375F
Sift together flour, cocoa, soda, salt, sugar, and protein into cast-iron dutch oven. In a 2-cup measuring cup, measure and mix together the butter, applesauce, coffee, and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients and blackberries into the dutch oven and mix with fork. When the batter is smooth, add the vinegar and stir quickly just until the whitish swirls of acid+base is evenly distributed. Bake for approx. 30 minutes. Set the cake aside to cool.

We are anti-frosting. There, I said it. I don’t like the cloying, pastiness of frosting. Sorry. I know that makes me anathema to most bakers. But we LOVE us some jam. And I wanted chocolate. So for the glaze:
Put jar of preserves into small saucepan. Do not turn on burner, but put saucepan on top of baking stove. Add cocoa and mash together. Let the ambient heat smooth it out and stir again after cake comes out of oven. Put the glaze on a large platter, and upend the cake onto it. Makes a raspbery, blackberry, cocoa upside down chocolate cake for those with no time to make icing look good.

Oh my heavens, it’s the best birthday EVER.

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I wish I were a twitter gal, because we just found, in a desperate attempt to avoid buying Charlie and Lola (whom we all adore because who doesn’t like sassy British kids left to parent themselves?) videos for poor tv-deprived Peanut, that hulu has Silver Spoons! The pilot, and 22 episodes. I could twitter every commercial break, all atwitter.

I was going to tell you about the cake Peanut made for me. (We altered Moosewood’s pilfered Six Minute Chocolate Cake recipe to include blackberries. He’s been reading Bread and Jam for Frances twice a day for a week, so he wanted to compromise when I said no frosting. His suggestion? Jam. So we added a cocoa-raspberry glaze.) But I can’t, CAN’T be writing to you about cake when a ‘tweeny Ricker is on my computer.

Sigh.

Dreamy.

Sigh. I’m so. so. so. old.

Well who woulda thunk it?

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Turns out I have very little class but plenty of wit and flair.

My result for The Classic Dames Test …

Katharine Hepburn

You scored 17% grit, 38% wit, 52% flair, and 7% class!

Katharine Hepburn

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women

Want to test yourself? http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-classic-dames-test