In which I go all Yosemite Sam

Frickafracka galldarned fanglewrangle pifflepoffle…

[UPDATED 8/21]
Searching for a child-sized non-toxic backpack for Peanut is some serious bullsh*t. Almost all the backpacks out there have PVC and lead, and I’m furious that I have to work so hard to find that most companies are a bunch of corner-cutting liars, thieves, and jackweeds. Not shocked, mind you. Mad.

Phthalates were banned from children’s toys in 2008 (but not other children’s products). PVC (vinyl) and small amounts of lead are allowed in the manufacture of children’s toys and in other products. Despite the hazards of PVC, shocking number of school supplies are still made of this toxic plastic, including binders, backpacks, sheet protectors, paper clips, and rain gear. And offensive as that is, since none of the parents I know are willing to buy products that invite their kids into the worlds of asthma, reproductive problems, cancer, obesity, ADHD, and learning disabilities; lunchboxes and backpacks with PVC have lead, too. That’s because PVC is made with heavy metals. Bonus, special for you today: (at least) two toxins for the price of one! (and don’t get me started on cadmium)

Sorry, what? They’re making stuff for kids to carry around and touch and eat from that are not free of lead or PVC? What the frickafracka glippidygloppedy…

Here’s what I’ve found (in my copious free time for such nonsense):

DwellSmart’s backpack is bigger than a toddler pack and smaller than a big kid pack. PVC-free and non-toxic. Cotton and whatnot. Thank heavens. Also? No chance my kid will want it. I would. But he likes bold and designs. And glitter and sequins and stickers and neon lights on everything. [sigh]

Dwell Studio offers some nice retro-esque prints and an ideal size.

Cute packs for big kids and for little kids by Beatrix are just the right size and fit our non-toxic requirements.

Ah, hemp. Can’t go wrong with natural fabrics, right? Rawganique has a whole selection, including a mini backpack just the right size. As with DwellSmart, small problem with the lack of kid-friendly prints or design. Perhaps they could add just a sweet cotton applique or stitched design? My kid would choose either if they had a stitched robot on the pocket.

Fluf Organics has my personal favorite kindergarten nontoxic PVC-free, lead-free, phthalate-free, BPA-free backpack.

Not Quite:
Wildkin pack-n-snacks are PVC-free, phthalate-free, and BPA-free but don’t specify lead-free. They say they comply with legal standards. That pretty much screams “probably has lead but don’t sue us because we didn’t promise it didn’t” to me. There’s a big difference between lead-free and lead-compliant. Lead compliant means within the legal limit for lead. Federal standards for lead is less than 100 ppm (if they actually found that level feasible, having proposed lowering it from 300 ppm. So complying with federal law means less than 0.03% to 0.01% lead. Lead free, however, means no lead. Given how much energy I’m investing in these kids, I prefer lead free.

Crocodile Creek has some backpacks that are PVC-free, phthalate-free, and BPA-free. Again, they say they comply with legal standards. Less than 100 ppm lead.

Hanna Andersson has a line of PVC-free backpacks, too. They will only say they comply with lead and phthalate regulations, which does not set my mind at ease. Plus, they don’t have any without pink and purple right now, though, and my long-haired, nail-painting, pink-loving son has enough hurdles entering kindergarten that I’m not showing him these.

High Sierra has PVC-free backpacks (and tents, which we found as we searched for a four-person tent [shout out to Butter, y’all!] But I can’t find one for kids and their pack-finding tool at the High Sierra website is broken, so I’m mad at them.

SafeMama, the guru of hunting down companies until they weep and admit their eco-toxic ways has a cheat sheet for us. Naturally.

But everything else out there is too big for my kid or too toxic for anyone.

[aside: if you have someone larger than a kindergartener, you might be interested in this link from Be Safe Net. That, plus SafeMama’s cheat sheet, might lead you to High Sierra and Jansport and Patagonia and Timbuk2 and Ecogear. Maybe not. If you have a smaller dude on their way somewhere important, like school or day care or from one room to another, you’ll check out Mimi the Sardine and Skip Hop zoo backpacks. And CBHstudio, which has the most adorable backpacks I’ve seen, PVC-free, BPA-free, phthalate-free, lead free. Maybe you’ll make your own backpack. Maybe you can send me one and I will be grateful.]

Frickafracka…we’ll see which of the five options I found that work for us, DwellSmart, DwellStudio, Rawganique, Fluf Organics, or Beatrix.

Why can’t we just go to local stores and buy things that are safe?

Best spam ever.

“Just have actually present your blog post reverse thus i carry without a doubt felt enjoying consider this method around a typical. Along at the base have access to a numerous ideas the following well, i savour watch for until this planet wide working experience necessary. Take all the outstanding career!”

Nicely said, spammer.

Unsubscribe

To: unsubscribe@Internet.earth
From: naptimewriting@grouchy.com

Subject: Unsubscribe

Go away. Leave me alone. I don’t care about your sale or your pending legislation or your opinion about things or your new address or your recent newsletter. I don’t want prophesies or doomsday or light reading or forwarded jokes. I do not want your daily deal.

I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

If you send me another announcement about a sale or a bill or an opinion or an address change or a newsletter or anything else that stares at me from my inbox and tells me I’m missing out or uninformed or need to be doing something, I will glare my magical stink eye and I will crash your server. Forever and ever until the Interwebs are dark, amen.

You may send me good thoughts and joyous greetings that do not hit my inbox. You may smile or nod or wave. In person. You may always comment on my unnecessarily verbose blog. But you may never email me again.

That is all.

Oh, wait…

UNSUBSCRIBE!

Go away. Leave me alone. Stop talking to me electronically.

(Not you, readers. The auto-e-blast-sender-bots.)

—-This message originally sent by naptimewriting June 29, 2011. Unsubscribe.—-

Shirking duties

To the two dads at the library this weekend: you are a couple of jackasses. I’m guessing your partners asked you to “please take the kids somewhere so I can have one freaking hour to myself.” When you agreed, layered under the gratitude and the giddiness there was an unspoken understanding—unspoken because your partner should absolutely not have to say this—that you would actually be with your kids. Whether you chose the library or not, you should have known that being with your kids means parenting your kids. Not taking them somewhere and ignoring them.

Jackass #1, I don’t want your goddamned daughter following me, hovering over my shoulder, leaning on my kid to see what I’m reading or showing him on the computer, and asking me to read to her. I don’t like her. It’s not her fault; it’s yours. You left her alone with a big wad of gum in her mouth and a need to talk to someone, anyone, who would listen. She’s five, dude. Spend some time with her. And take that goddamned gum out of her mouth. When she asks you to read to her, as she did when you finally showed up an hour later, don’t tell her “not now, maybe at home.” Fracking dillweed. You’re at the library. You have to read to your kid. It’s the law. (By the way, why would you bring home that crappy book she chose all by herself while you had totally abandoned her to do whatever it was you desperately needed to do alone while your kid wandered aimlessly and alone? Why not read that piece of junk now and take home something good? Something that, say, you pick out with her based on her interests? Oh, right. Because you’re a jackass.)

Jackass #2: Thanks for making Jackass #1 look good. He, at least, told his daughter not to leave the library. Your four-year-old is in the freaking parking lot answering questions from strangers about where her daddy is. She doesn’t know your name, by the way, you anal pore, because you don’t spend enough time with her for her to think of you as human. In her defense, we don’t think you’re human, either. And she doesn’t know where you last were because you’re so self absorbed that you don’t know four-year-old time runs in a parallel universe where fifteen minutes of something they like is “one minute” and one minute alone equals fifteen minutes of destruction. Or fear. You’re a useless sack of subhuman compost. And a useless father. When the strangers who are helping your daughter find you I hope they read you the riot act. And that they then call your partner who will now pay for that one hour of trusting your sorry, pathetic lack of common sense with the knowledge that that one hour a week, that one glimmer of hope at a sense of self should become a whole weekend twice a month (if you got joint custody, which no judge would grant). You’re as useless and horrible as a spicy linguine speculum. Jackass.

To all you other fathers out there, I hold out hope that you actually spend time with, think of, and care for your daughters. Leaving them alone at the library is, as you well know, not acceptable until they are old enough to head for the Judy Blume section. Once that happens, it is your job to hang out near the librarian’s desk so you can answer questions, listen in, and escort her out when she’s ready to be with you again. Until she’s reading Forever, though, please actually parent her. And after she reads it—for the sake of all that is awesome about fathers and daughters—keep parenting her.

It’s your mothereffing job.

(So is kicking the crap out of the Jackasses who don’t do their mothereffing jobs. Help the rest of the parents out, would ya? We can’t do this alone.)

You don’t know anything.

Took Peanut and Butter to a padded room last week, mostly because I wanted to put them in a padded room. But also because they play nicely together there, climbing and sliding and laughing and bouncing. The gym (my recent compromise on having no child care or breaks from the kids) has a climbing wall and bounce house and huge toxic foam climbing structures for our use, free (now that I’m paying for a gym membership), whenever we want.

When it’s time to go I give a five minute warning, and a “last chance to do something that’s important to you” warning. Then we go.

But last week Peanut would not leave. As is his wont, he ignored, ignored, ignored, then yelled, “No!”

I was calm, I was respectful, I was nicer than I should be. I wanted to throw him against a padded wall but went with:

Me: Yes. It’s time to go. We need to get home for dinner.”
P: No. Come on, Butter, let’s go over here.
M: Butterbean, come get your shoes! [He does, thankfully.] Peanut, we’re getting out shoes on and then we’re leaving.
P: I’m not going.
M: Oh. Well it’ll be hard to have dinner in a bounce house, but I wish you the best of luck.
P: I’m not coming.
M: I heard you. And I’m not compromising.
P: WHY?!?!?!!
M: Peanut, please use an inside voice. I’m not compromising because we came here for you to have fun and to bounce and climb. And you did have fun, bounce, and climb. So now it’s time to go home.
P: I did NOT have fun.
M: Mmmmmmkay. That’s a shame. Maybe next time, then. Come on.
P: No.
M: Okay.

He comes over to the child-keeping door and climbs the half wall instead of going through.

Me: Sweetie, that’s not safe. Please get down and come through the door.
Peanut: This is the only way I can find to get to you.
M: Honey, try the door.
P: No.
M: Peanut, get down. This is not a climbing wall. Come through the door.
P: No.
M: Yes.
P: I can’t.
M: Little boy, this is not working for me. Get down. Now. Because what you’re doing could hurt you.
P: But the door has a forcefield and I can’t go there.
M: I see. Here. I turned it off. Now come through.
P: NOOOOOOO! It’s invisible and you can’t see it.
M: And you can’t see my angries, inside me, but they are circling their wagons right now and getting ready to come out all over you if you don’t get down.
P: You don’t know anything.
[just a look. a really long, blinking, calmly enraged look.]
P: I’ll climb when I want and where I want.
M. [deep breath] You will take a deep breath right now and consider how you’re talking to me. And you will consider that coming here is optional and climbing is optional and bouncing is optional, but talking nicely to your mother is. not. optional.
P: FINE.
M: Peanut Full Name Naptime, that is not talking nicely. I will not ask you again. You will talk nicely or we will think of a consequence together.

At this point a deep breath didn’t help. A snake breath I read about in a Mothering Magazine article on Mama Rage did. Especially when Butter mimicked it and I started laughing.

I still snubbed Peanut for a while, even after the situation was defused. Because I’m petty and nasty and immature. And because I could *totally* see that forcefield. What does he think I am…old? Powerless? Unfun?

(I am so old and powerless and decidedly unfun lately. But how dare he notice? He doesn’t know anything.)

Eeyore by necessity

Sleep deprivation makes you cranky, fat, and dangerous.

It also makes you gloomy.

Take a look at this finding, reported in a New York Magazine feature that is, as far as I can tell, the same as the third chapter in Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman:

“Perhaps most fascinating, the emotional context of a memory affects where it gets processed. Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories get processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine.” (p. 3 in the NYM article linked and p. 35 in the book)

Great. Fat, grumpy, and incapable of retaining joy.

I can’t wait to hang out with me, ‘cuz that’s a winning combination.

(On a related note, how do I not have a category titled “Holy Guacamole, I Need Sleep!”? My first didn’t sleep through the night until he was over Three. The second is not exactly on the fast track to quiet nights, with or without ear infections, teething, and gobs of physical exertion. So I filed this under everything except Yoga. I’m too tired for yoga.)

(Also? Go read Nurture Shock. There are chapters on praise, sleep, race, lying, gifted programs, siblings, teenagers, self-control, social skills, and language; all compelling, well written, clear, thoroughly researched and revelatory.) I’ll leave the superlatives to the cover matter, but suffice it to say I will finish it before I finish The Pale King. That’s huge, given how little reading time I have and how much I want to read DFW’s final novel. Go get it. Library, local bookstore, friend…I don’t care. Read. This. Book.)

Leeches

Small children, adorable, clever, hilarious, cuddly little humans suck the life out of you if you’re with them 14 hours a day without cease. And when it’s seven days a week, and they’ve sucked the life out of you by Monday afternoon, it’s a long, long, long long long week.

In related news, the debut two-hour stint of our first babysitter is six days away. In other related news, the submission of my novel to the next round of agents will be about eight babysitting sessions from now.

In unrelated news, kale chips are nice. Even better was last night’s Thai sweet potato lentil foil packets. Baked for now, but next time will be grilled. By someone else. From packets I’ve prepped the night before. It took almost three hours to prep a meal that takes someone without small children (who cling, scream, and hit more during meal prep than any other time in the day) about 15 minutes.

And finally, in this abbreviated version of our news hour: people suck. Twice in two days someone turning left almost hit me and my small wards as we were walking in the crosswalk. At an intersection with a green light and a walk sign. No late afternoon glare, no echoing sirens, no tsunami, no excuses. Bad drivers almost killing perfectly decent bloggers and future bloggers.

People suck.
You heard it here first.

Molehill, meet the mountain makers

Ah, yes, well. J. Crew toenail story. Blah blah blah…marketing photo with Mom and young boy, whose toenails are pink. Both seem to be having fun. Blah blah blah…media makes it out to be erosion of society as we know it, popularization of gender dysphoria, and license to marginalization of pretty much every human on Earth.

What the hell, America? Seriously? This is the cataclysm about which you’re gonna get your panties in a twist?

[Just reading the implication that you wear panties made you question your masculinity? Time for purchase of a life, my ignorant and intolerant non-friend.]

Regular readers know my 5 year old paints his nails with his Dad every weekend. They vary color, they vary number of nails painted. But generally, Peanut paints all twenty digits and Spouse paints twelve (all toes plus thumbs). You also know I think this is a delightful bit of bonding that teaches both of them to do what they enjoy rather than what they’re supposed to do. Because there are enough supposed tos in life, it’s never too young to learn to ignore the lame rules.

And most rules are lame.

Or at least as arbitrary as gender clothing rules.

So now an allegedly large number of Americans are allegedly all frothy and twitching because painting nails gives one a severe case of gender dysphoria? Nails are somehow directly linked to your soul, and said soul can flipflop identity based on social expectation? What if that little boy’s soul happens to know that 60 years ago, boys were dressed in pink and girls were in blue because pink was deemed too strong a color for the allegedly weaker gender?

I don’t know. Seems as though The Daily Show has it covered. If not, I’m guessing Panderbear does.

But I still wonder: couldn’t we pay this much attention to banks and oil companies and food growers and food manufacturers and air traffic controllers instead? (Okay, maybe not the air traffic people. I’m a sleepy human and refuse to judge those who are forced to fight biorhythms for their jobs. Cuz I feel their pain, yo.)

I think therefore I blog?

Hey. This is curious: here’s a list of nine interesting blogs plus mine.

Thanks, Naomi and She Knows for naming us one of the Top Ten Blogs that Make You Think.

That’s awfully nice of you. To put that kind of pressure on me to be thought-provoking. When I’m feeling uninspired, beaten down, and uninteresting. But if you say so, I’ll do it. Buck up and find something compelling to say… starting on the next post.

Where in tarnation…

In case you ever wonder why I go so long between posts…

This was screamed by Peanut from his bed at the end of an hour long bedtime battle royale from hell (screamed at his father):

“I want to go tell Mommy that I’m sorry I kicked you and hit you! [long beat] PLEASE! It’s important to me!”

Help me, Obi Won Ben or Jerry. You’re my only hope.

Come on Barbie, let’s go party!

We at Naptime are doing our best to raise two feminists. Our boys know that grownups do dishes, laundry, sewing, construction, parenting, policing, fire fighting, paying, cooking, driving, and fixing. Both know men with ponytails, boys who wear pink, girls who like mud and bugs…any gender stereotype our society fosters, we fight. Hard.

And one pervasive social pressure I’ve been working to eliminate since I was pregnant with Peanut (honestly, because I thought he was a girl and didn’t want her buying into “should”s) is the oppressive body image issues that American women, especially, are saddled with. I don’t talk about body size or dissatisfaction.

Peanut pointed to my belly about a month ago and proclaimed that I was probably going to have another baby because my uterus was making my tummy pretty big. I shuttered slightly, then smiled and explained casually that after a baby sometimes it takes a while for tummies to get small again, and that sometimes they never do.

He also came home from year two of preschool and asked what “fat” meant because they heard a story at school where fat didn’t seem to mean part of the fat/protein/carbohydrate triad.

I think it’s important that my boys grow up to be men who see people for who they are and what they do, not what they look like or how they can be labeled.

Well, my chickens came home to roost on a run today. I was pushing ButterBaby in a jogging stroller, and Spouse was behind me, pushing Peanut. Halfway up a moderate hill I hear, “Mommy, it looks like two monsters bonking each other. But it’s just your bottom.”

I laughed. Hard. For about half a mile. He seemed pleased.

Look, I have at least double the rear end I did before gestating two kids. But I don’t know what it looks like from behind. Running. And my self worth is not wrapped up in how my almost-five-year-old describes my ass. Maybe it does look like monsters. I asked him later how the monsters were bonking each other. On the head? Side to side? “Of course not,” he answered. “They were bonking each other on the mouth.”

Honestly, that baffled me a bit. But I went with it. It’s his story, not mine.

Because what I realized pretty quickly, is: this is not about me. This is about Peanut’s storytelling skills. He often spins interesting yarns and interrupts himself halfway through to say, “This is only in my imagination.” He gets the distinction between fiction and non-fiction. And is his version, my bottom is two monsters. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say when he gives them voices.

Really? You’re gonna thank them?

I’d like to thank the ants who came charging into the house today. Thank you for finding whatever it was you found in the silverware drawer. I’ve been meaning to take everything out and soak it in hot, soapy, vinegar water. You’ve given me a reason to do it today and for that I am thankful.

I’m also appreciative of the people who stop in parking lots and wait, desperately, for anyone walking by to identify one of the parked cars as theirs. Thank you for holding up the dozens of people behind you. Without you we might have been able to proceed with our days. But because you made parking take almost 30 minutes, I got to hear the wonderful tricks my 4 year old used to keep my screaming infant from blowing an artery. It’s a good thing you didn’t just drive normally until you found a parking space farther away. Then I wouldn’t know how resourceful my son is. I surely am grateful to you.

Thank you, terrible parent in front of me in line at the store today. Because you bought for your child every piece of crap he whined for, my son is starting to doubt our family’s system. Thank you for encouraging his critical thinking skills. Here I had him unquestioningly following the policy that we don’t buy things unless it’s already on our list; and that special purchases like toys have to be on a holiday list from which loved ones may choose to buy or not to buy. Thanks to you, Parent Making Interesting Choices, my son is interrogating our system and querying into our family’s stance on democracy. Lessons on thinking for himself and governing systems in one day. What a thanksgiving blessing. Thank you.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank the cat for waking me up almost every hour last night. If it weren’t for you, Cat One, I might have missed the beginning of the baby’s crying. All five times that he woke and raged about something or other. Of course, had you not been thumping around and yowling, the baby might not have woken. But then I wouldn’t be able to practice my catatonic calculations about which soothing technique to use on him. Thanks, kitty, for keeping me sharp. Except for the part where waking me every hour dulls my ability to function or think. That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, Cat One. That’s why you’ll be sleeping in the garage tonight. And for that I am thankful.

Naptime Writing Ticker

…acrobat classes predictable failure. Asked why he didn’t want to do any of the activities or return the next week, Peanut replied, “I don’t want to go to a class where they tell you what to do.”…

…Butter’s third ear infection in ten weeks, all of them ragingly infected, was diagnosed by his mom and a borrowed otoscope. Subsequent visit to pediatrician included the marveling MD’s “I can’t believe this thing hasn’t ruptured, and I can’t believe he’s smiling!” Hours later, it ruptured. And Butter continued smiling….

…progress through the house made increasingly difficult by four year old blocking routes of egress with arms akimbo and the petulant demand, “say the magic word.” Process has become tougher after the first magic word, “Damnit” lost its effectiveness. Passersby now asked to name the magic fruit, which I’m convinced he has not chosen in advance. He just listens to us list fruits until he hears one he likes. Arms drop, and passage is granted….

…pudding day this week featured homemade butterscotch pudding. Huge hit. Repeat performance requested…

…a week of sleeping at least part of the night next to a sick, wakeful baby has left my contorted neck (heaven forbid I have a pillow anywhere near a baby or rest in any way other than sniffing his sweet breath) so stiff I can barely move. Wondering now if his ear infection has somehow given me meningitis. Trying to find the funds to get us both some chiropractic adjustments because, hey, why the hell not at this point.

In which I whimper “Uncle”

Despite an almost four year track record of ink only on paper or skin, in compliance with my simple request—oft repeated and carefully monitored—there’s blue marker on my favorite couch pillow. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There’s blue marker on my favorite silk headband. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There’s blue marker on the carpet. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There are long artistic streaks of blue marker on the backside of the curtains. A lot. It’ll come out. If it doesn’t, they’re cheap and replaceable. And it’s hidden.

The bigger problem is thathis was all before 7am. And then there was a relatively quick oil change at a creepy oil change chain with a tiny, depressing waiting room…jiffy, even—for an adult. But for a four-year-old it was enough time to go through all the toys, books, and snacks I brought then use coffee stirrer after coffee stirrer to spit at Mama and torment strangers and climb on the checkwriting counter and invent new songs and sing them loudly, then quietly when asked, then loudly, then quietly when asked, then loudly, then quietly when hissed at, then loudly until they called our name.

And then there was the supermarket where there was pushing the cart too hard and pulling the cart too fast and running off and responding to gentle and to polite and to clenched teeth and to threats all the same. Begrudgingly, nastily, saucily. And temporarily.

When told he would fall if he climbed on the side of the cart, he got off. When told again, and given a brief reminder about balance and gravity, he got off. When told again, he got off. And when I turned my back to load items onto the conveyor belt of “almost-done-thank-you-lord”-ishness, he tipped the cart, and I caught it with one arm just before it crushed him, righting the cart and wrenching my back all with baby strapped into the wrap on my chest. And I almost cried.

I told you. I told you. I ask everything politely and gently the first time. Second time. Third time. A million times a day you disregard and refuse and ignore and refute and sass. I still don’t know why you don’t listen. I mean…you do, then you don’t. It seems to go beyond the developmentally appropriate hear only what you like. And you totally deserve for that thing to fall on you. I hurt myself helping you. I daily hurt myself trying to help you.

And it doesn’t seem to matter. Whatever you want you do. Whatever I say you don’t want to do and you don’t do. You hit me no fewer than twenty times today just trying to leave school at the same time we always leave school.

I’m so sick of this. I’m done.

Except I can’t be.

This is the only job on the planet you can’t quit.

Seriously, Google?

On a whim, I searched “find the right academic journal for your article.” I didn’t expect much. It was the result of a frustrated, bored, midnight rage about my unfinished projects.

The answer to which journals one should submit to is, of course, trade secret. Academics don’t give away their target journals, and often give advice like “find journals with similar articles and submit to them” or “talk with journal editors attending conferences where you present and ask if your piece would be considered.”

Um, thanks. That’s helpful. I already know that the articles I cite in my own article were published in journals that might like articles on the same topic. And I know that conferences ca be a decent place to talk with publishers. But these can’t be the only two tricks. Surely just researching within my field in two dozen or so journals doesn’t give the whole picture, right?

Of course not. So I asked Google.

The first non-sponsored link was “find the right sandals for your outdoor needs.”
The second was “find the right rawhide chew for your dog.”

I give up.

The industry assumption has been that Google technology is so amazing it knows everything. In this case: that there was no point in seeking out academic journals, but also that since my legs are too big for shorts right now I should focus on my feet.

Also that either I should replace my dead cat with a dog or that I might, in some misogynistic circles of drunk frat house denizens, be unflatteringly compared with a dog.

Shame on you Google. I thought you knew better.

Because it’s too cold for sandals lately.