Elevated Umbrella

Mo-oo-ooom, I Think I Killed My Blog

2008-07-28T08:14:00.005-05:00

I hate blogging about blogging, or blogging about why I'm not blogging. But I think the dearth of content around here finally deserves a little attention.

This used to be a very therapeutic space and writing a real catharsis. Now, it feels like an authority figure that I have to answer to, an obligation. Everytime I open up the Blogger dashboard to begin a new post, my mind swims with all the weighty stuff of the past six or nine months - real honest-to-god infertility, weight gain from emotional overeating, the fact that I stopped running, medical tests that range from annoying to painful and the thyroid problems. Writing about those things doesn't make me feel good.

I know that I could just as easily keep the subject matter light, focusing on the happy points of my life (of which there are, and have been, many) in the same time frame. But the truth is that there is an unhappiness that is the silent current flowing under my days, and it comes to the surface whenever I stare down the blank white box in which to write. And I don't feel like writing about it. Or I write the kind of crap that I've been writing lately, which is not cathartic and also makes me feel bad about my abilities.

This blog has been an important part of my life for nearly four years, and though it never achieved popularity, I liked the cozy little corner of readership I had created. I like the people that blogging has enabled me to meet, grow close to or reconnect with, but it feels like it has outlived its usefulness for this part of my life.

I've been throwing myself in fantasy, literally, rereading the entire Harry Potter series, chewing my way through the Lord of the Rings books, eyeing Basil's Dune books with a lustful eye and seriously considering how to get my hands on the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series on DVD. Call it escapism, call it evasion, it is what it is. Lately I have been feeling a small pull to write fiction. Which I have never really tried before, but somehow it seems appealing.

I am fine with reinventing myself a little now and then. I don't mind the idea of turning to a new phase in my life. I dream about the time when I can become a world traveler or give up my day job to run my own personal chef business. But for now, I think I have to settle for letting my blog fester and rot. I think it's run its course and outlived its usefulness.

Maybe I'll come back to this space later in life, maybe it will be too painful or it won't be a good fit. Maybe I will start a new blog, maybe I will write a great book. But for now...

I regret to announce that this is the End. I am going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell. Goodbye.

Radioactive Medicine Tastes Weird

2008-07-15T08:46:00.000-05:00

Never before have I been given an orange and blue pill that comes in a plastic tube inside a vial made of lead and been told I should not touch the medicine with my hands. I don't know whether I'm supposed to feel anything or whether it's psychosomatic, but I swear my throat feels oddly constricted. Of course it might be because I haven't been allowed to eat anything since last night and can't for another hour. At least now in the interim I can have liquids. Never before has a Horizon Organic vanilla milk pouch tasted so delicious.

Hyper and Toxic

2008-06-26T14:49:00.005-05:00

I've always been a fan of answers. Part of the torturousness of this fertility journey has been the fogginess of it all. It was hard to hear what happened to the baby we lost nearly two years ago, but the answers were helpful.

But for the past eighteen months, it's been all about questions. First (and here is where I come clean with my secrets), about the second miscarriage I had a year ago. I was only 5 or 6 weeks along, but it was still hard. Especially because it happened on Father's Day. I was not able to recover the fetal tissue that I passed at home (and even if I had there is no guarantee that it would have led to answers), so there was no pathology testing. Second, about why I've been unable to get pregnant since then. So many questions.

Well, now we are getting somewhere. And it's been feeling like progress - finding potential problems and, mostly, having doctors pay to attention to me and tell me that I wasn't crazy. I was diagnosed a month or so ago with hyperthyroidism (or thyrotoxicosis) after my initial round of bloodwork.

Yesterday, I met with an endocrinologist who ordered more thyroid tests and said that we would regroup in a couple of weeks to talk about my treatment options. He said that it would take at least 2-3 months to fix the problem, possibly longer depending on what treatment option we choose. And my OB/GYN has told me, and the endocrinologist confirmed today, that it would be best if I didn't get pregnant until this was under control. I'm not even sure I could get pregnant if I wanted to at this point, but I suppose we will not try because of the elevated risk of miscarriage and the other potential problems I could have.

Now it feels like the glimmering light I was starting to see (our reproductive endocrinologist is still doing tests to check for other problems, but his initial recommendation based on our history was that IVF with PGD would be our best bet) feels like it has slipped beyond the horizon again. IVF would mean lots of drugs (including self-injections, and have I mentioned how terrified I am of needles?) and invasive procedures, as well as shelling out tens of thousands of dollars, but with the PGD, our risk of miscarriage would drop to about 5%. Not bad, eh?

But who knows when we will even be able to start an IVF cycle. It sounds like October would be the best-best-case scenario, but it will probably be December or later before my thyroid problem is fixed and I'm given the greenlight to start the actual IVF process. By the time we have another baby (assuming we stick to this plan and all goes well), Petunia will probably be six years old and in kindergarten.

As I plod my way through reading The Lord of the Rings series (while also rewatching all three movies in the evenings), I'm starting to identify with the Ringbearer. Not that I carry a great power, but sometimes it feels like my body is carrying unknown evil that is slowly taking me. Maybe if I start calling my endocrinologist (whom I did not care for) Gollum and my RE (whom I did) Samwise Gamee, it will at least make the whole stupid infertility bullshit more fun.

The Serious Questions

2008-06-20T10:57:00.005-05:00

Verbose from the time her little mouth could form intelligible words, Petunia spends her days asking questions. If Basil and I had a nickel for every expectant 'Mama?', 'Daddy?' or 'Why?' that we had heard in the three-plus years she's been talking, I'd be writing from our summer home right now.

The other night, Petunia caught us off guard by prefacing her question with, 'Daddy, this is a serious question.' As Basil was driving, he and I held our breaths and stole a glance at each other. Petunia continued, 'How did the earth start?' She got a twenty minute discourse from Basil about the big bang theory and evolution and cells and volcanoes and dinosaurs.

And then last night, I was reading her a few select pages from The Train of States and was giving her a little background about South Carolina, as we'll be heading there over Independence Day weekend. She got a thoughtful look on her face and asked if this was the same place that people were fighting at in the movie she saw at the Hall of Presidents in Disney World. I explained that it was and then had to answer a few more questions about the Civil War. Though she never questioned me about what slavery was when I told her that people were fighting about slavery, she did decide that the people who had killed President Lincoln were bad.

Science, history, morals - I didn't think we'd get into this stuff until much later in Petunia's life. She is indeed asking 'the serious questions' now, and it's amazing and sort of overwhelming. I think she's also trying to process death, as our friend from church died last week, a woman that Petunia knew primarily as someone's mom I think the idea of a kid's mom dying is planting some scary ideas in her head, because she has become sort of weepy and clingy whenever I drop her off at school. Last night, I tried to talk to her about my leaving her at school and how it was okay because I always come back, and she got teary-eyed and said, 'But I just love you so much, and I don't want you to go.'

This morning, she seemed a bit worried because I didn't eat breakfast with the family as I usually do. I had to fast this morning before getting fourteen vials of blood drawn (by an incompetent phlebotomist, I might add, who left me with three band-aids on two arms) as part of further fertility testing recommended by our new reproductive endocrinologist. I told Petunia that I had to get some blood drawn as part of a blood test and that I couldn't eat before the test. In doing so, I worried that as Basil and I go through more tests and doctors appointments, Petunia may start to think I am sick. Given the speed at which her brain seems to be churning these days, I may need to proactively sit her down and try to answer the questions that haven't quite formed themselves in her mind.

I should have known that this consciousness was on its way. During our fabulous trip to Disney World, Petunia behaved mostly with the innocence you'd expect from a four-and-a-half year old. She hugged characters, she screamed 'Dreams come true' when Mickey Mouse asked the audience for their help and she got a little frightened at the scariest attractions. But after we were walking away from Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, she said, 'Why they didn't talk to me?' And I shuffled my feet and made up something about how superheroes have to save their voices for crime fighting, and Petunia bought it.

The next time we go to Disney World, the veil will have fallen away a little bit, as it's obvious that the veil is falling away from much of the world for Petunia. Or maybe the world is just coming into view more clearly. I'm certainly proud of the way her mind is growing, and I'm happy to have a little person to really talk with. But it is bittersweet to see her becoming a big kid and starting to lose some of that preschool wonder at everything.

(PS-If I ever start a band, I'm going to name it Incompetent Phlebotomist.)

Mothers Day Snapshots

2008-05-09T10:11:00.006-05:00

It's the Friday before Mother's Day, which means that the Social Security Administration will release its report on the most popular baby names of last year.

Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar announced to the world that they're expecting their eighteenth baby. Discovery Health already has a poll up where people can vote with J name the Duggars should use for the newest member of their family. I voted for Juliette and Joel, not because I like those names but because I think they fit the hillbilly, fundamentalist vibe the family puts off.

Yesterday, I had my blood drawn to measure my hormone levels, the first step in infertility testing/diagnosis. Maybe the blood test will highlight a problem, maybe everything will be fine, maybe I'll need more tests, maybe I'll get pregnant this month. Maybe, maybe, baby maybe.

Petunia's school had a little breakfast for mothers, and Petunia gave me the flower card she made and a heart-shaped pin painted purple and covered in sparkly confetti. The picture she drew in the card is of her birthday, and Petunia is standing at a table with a cake and I am off to the side. There are balloons and fireworks in the sky above, and Petunia wrote "I love u" inside.

On Wednesday, I mailed off fifteen Mothers Day cards - to our mothers, my (not really) stepmother, my grandmother, Basil's aunts (one is a nun, two are married and childless, one has children but is Basil's godmother) and my sister (a new mom as of April 26!). It gets hard to find that many cards each year without repeating them, especially for the aunts.

My department's assistant, some 37 weeks pregnant, reported cheerily that her doctor did not expect she'd have the baby tomorrow but who knows about next week. This is her first baby, so I told her to plan for three days after her due date and get excited if it's earlier.

A woman at our church has cancer that came back late last year, and in the past month it has gotten much worse. She has three children - one each in high school, middle school and elementary school. I keep thinking about what will happen to her kids if she doesn't get better, and I can't stop crying about it.

Growing up, my church would give roses to all the mothers present in church on Mother's Day. Then, during the announcement part of the service, they would give additional flowers to the mother who had the most children, the mother who had the most children at church that day, the oldest mother, the newest mother, etc.

Mothers Day usually makes for some great sermons in church. I love the weaving of a Billy Collins poem into this sermon, and I love the retelling of the story of Anna Jarvis in this one. I hope that I am not disappointed this year.

Whenever Basil asks what I want for Mother's Day, I usually say the same thing - fresh cut peonies and brunch with my family. I am not into jewelry or even really into gifts very much, but a moment or two of loveliness is enough to make me happy.

My mind wanders to a girlfriend of mine. Her very, very premature baby died in early December, just two days after he was born. My friend had very severe pre-eclampsia (she told me that just before delivery, she couldn't breathe and was sure she would die on the operating table), and she probably would have died if they had waited much longer to deliver the baby. If she had been able to carry the baby to term, she would have a two-month-old right now.

Growing up, I guess I always thought Mothers Day was roses at church. Now I know that it is also gaping holes of grief for lost children, fear of losing a mother, bruised arms from fertility tests and dreams of children that never came true, as well as gratefulness - so much gratefulness - for children and grandchildren, comfort in the security of family, joy at the promise or arrival of new life and hope for the future.

Seven

2008-04-28T09:06:00.006-05:00

Last Monday was our seventh anniversary. I had piano lessons and taught class; Basil had a vestry meeting at church. Petunia stayed home with a babysitter. It was not terribly romantic.

We celebrated our anniversary on Saturday night instead. At Farrah Olivia by Morou (he of Iron Chef America fame and formerly of Signatures, the Jack Abramoff restaurant downtown), we decided to mark seven years with seven courses of a chef's tasting menu and the accompanying wine pairings. It was spectacular. Here's a quick rundown:

1. smoked escolar with red wine powder, wasabi sauce, soy "caviar" and honey ginger; chenin blanc
2. painted carrot ginger soup with leek cream and chayote; viognier
3. salmon with fermented couscous; chardonnay
4. quail with cinnamon and figs - the tiny quail leg was actually baked in a fig; pinot noir
5. duck breast with cranberry sauce and Brussels sprouts with dates; merlot
6. filet of beef with black truffle corn, raisin sauce and espresso power; cabernet sauvignon
7. apply pastry with spice ice cream and cherry compote; sweet white dessert wine that I can't remember
* after-dinner drinks (at our expense); plate of tiny biscotti, chocolate cookies and to-die-for truffles with "Happy Anniversary" written in chocolate script

The escolar, duck and filet were just out of this world. All of it was good and so interesting and unexpected, and it was beautiful in that minimalist, deconstructed sort of way. The wine pairings were out of this world - everything matched up like a song - and the extra sweets at the end were a very nice touch. The truffles were so soft I don't know how they held their shape.

Basil and I used the seven courses to reminisce on our seven years together. It got a little blurry, both the details of some of the dates and through all the alcohol, but we remembered things we hadn't thought about for years...the neighbor whose license plate said "NDORPHN" and who played Norah Jones at full tilt every night, the bathroom of our old apartment collapsing in water damage while we were gone one weekend, me going postal on a growth of bamboo while six months pregnant, bringing Petunia home from the hospital with Basil white-knuckling the steering wheel over the Memorial Bridge and down the GW Parkway, figuring out a way to install a baby gate at the odd-shaped landing of our old stairs, taking Petunia to the emergency room when she was dehydrated from a virus, the way Petunia hated being at home when we were packing up the old house and all the rooms were filling with boxes, our trip to Vancouver - which helped get us in the habit of date nights and time alone as a couple. It was fun trying to remember what each year had brought us.

As our anniversary approaches and then fades, I find myself listening to two songs a lot. One was "our song" that we danced to at our reception. And the other was the runner up. Looking back on it, we should have just made people wait while we danced through both - they're sort of his and hers. See if you can guess (or remember) which one was which.

First can be heard here. Second can be heard here.

I think for the big party that we throw ourselves for our tenth or twentieth anniversary, we'll dance to both.

Car Seat Neurosis

2008-04-14T14:10:00.003-05:00

Almost five years ago, I was pregnant with Petunia, and Basil and I had to begin understanding the world of baby gear. For the uninitiated, Planet Baby is quite a place. Vast warehouses full of plastic, wood and fabric (but mostly plastic) in varying shades of pastels and the occasional primary color, all with claims of necessity for a baby's health, happiness, ability to sleep, intelligence or edge in life. It is not hard for a young couple expecting their first child to end up drowning in baby stuff, much of it totally unnecessary.

But there were some things that were musts. Unlike Sacajawea, we would be driving our baby home from the hospital, which meant that we needed a car seat. Seems simple, right? Wrong. Everything in Planet Baby is overwhelming, including the one thing you're required by law to have (if you plan to drive anywhere). There were different kinds of car seats, not to mention all the different brands and after-market accessories. Even the government doesn't recommend one kind or one brand - just making sure that any car seat you buy fits your car and is used correctly.

Our first choice was the kind of car seat - infant only or infant-toddler convertible. We assumed we'd go with the infant only seat, as it seemed de rigeur that babies only moved from place to place in those plastic buckets with the handles and sun shades. The books all said those would last the first year. But then on a trip to Great Beginnings to check out furniture on day, we saw a young couple there with their baby. They were looking at convertible car seats and explaining to the sales person, 'She's only five months old and she's already outgrown the infant seat!'

Basil and I exchanged shocked looks. Babies could outgrow the bucket seats before their first birthday!?! But those bucket seats were anywhere from $100 to $250! While their portability was attractive, their ability to damage my back and have a short-lived use was not. So we started exploring the idea of just using a convertible seat from the very beginning. After talking with a friend who had twins and had put them in convertible seats from the start, we became convinced that it was a possibility.

Basil and I set out to find the convertible seat with the highest height and weight limit out there. We wanted this thing to last for as long as possible, so we'd really get our money's worth (or someone else's money, if it were a gift) out of it. After testing some seats in our Saturn SL2, we settled on a Britax Marathon. Facing forward, it could safely handle kids up to 48 inches tall or 65 pounds. Petunia could conceivably ride in it until her fifth birthday.

Fast forward nearly five years, and Petunia is still in her Marathon. It's the only car seat we've ever owned, though we have washed it thoroughly a couple of times and moved the straps up as Petunia has grown. She is technically old enough (four and a half years tomorrow) and big enough (40 pounds, even) to move into a booster seat, but I am in no hurry.

Petunia is still small enough to fit into her Marathon, and she isn't complaining about riding in it. Basil and I don't have his and hers cars - we have two cars for the family, and we take turns driving them on different days. Whoever is driving Petunia gets the Ford Freestyle, where her car seat is installed, and whoever is not driving Petunia gets the Saturn. There's no moving the car seat back and forth. Also, unlike many families, we don't have a baby waiting for his/her turn in the convertible seat after outgrowing the infant seat.

I was thinking that we would move Petunia up to a booster seat early next month because we are flying to Chicago as a family, and I thought we would want something that would work on the plane and in the rental car. But the American Academy of Pediatrics doesn't recommend using boosters on planes, and it's easier just to rent a car seat from Avis with our car. For our trip to Orlando in June, we're taking the AutoTrain down and driving back. We know our Marathon fits fine in the Saturn, so we'll just use it on the way back.

Basil tells me that the time is soon coming for her to move into a booster, but I can't get super excited about it. I know that booster seats are safe for older, bigger kids, but it doesn't feel like graduation - it feels like a demotion (see page 2 of that link). I can't explain why I feel such a panic at the idea of moving Petunia into a booster. I'm not an especially hovery parent (at least, I don't think I am), letting my kid get some bumps and bruises along the road of life so long as there's no serious danger.

But for some reason, the car seat thing just freaks me out. Maybe it's that I remember the accidents I've been in throughout my life - getting broadsided on the passenger side by someone running a red light when I was about eighteen...being rear-ended while waiting to make a left-hand turn when I was about six...spinning my car around and riding the passenger-side wheels of my car down a retaining wall backwards (facing oncoming traffic) on I-71/75 when I was sixteen. Maybe it's because growing up I had a stepfather who was a police officer, and he would come home with these grisly stories of the accidents he had worked during his shift - severed limbs, a decapitation, gross manglings and deaths. Maybe it's because I have an alcoholic father who has been arrested for drinking and driving more than once, and I'm always amazed that he hasn't killed someone on the road.

If I could put Petunia in a big strong bubble to ride in the car for the rest of her life, I swear I'd do it, as long as she could hear the radio and see out the window. But I know that's not an option, and I know that her sturdy Marathon - always installed so it doesn't move so much as half an inch in any direction - will be retired to the garage sometime in the near future, as her shoulders will likely reach the top of the straps before the end of this year. (She has a long torso and is likely to outgrow the straps before she reaches 48 inches.) When the time comes, we'll get her a snazzy booster seat that can last several more years, but I'm not hoping that day comes anytime soon.

Breaking Up is Not So Hard To Do

2008-04-08T13:45:00.004-05:00

I just saw my therapist for the last time, at least for the foreseeable future. I'd been mulling the decision for a month or so and in the last couple of weeks, I decided that I was done with therapy for now. But then I had to tell her that it was over.

Other than a month or so of seeing a counselor through the Senate's Employee Assistance Program, I'd never done therapy before. And I didn't know how to end it or what to expect. But I just knew it was time.

My therapist, referred to me by a friend and blog reader, helped me with a great many things. In the fourteen months I have been seeing her, my relationships with my family have changed so much. I feel very in control of the way I interact with my mom and my dad, and I even feel more at peace with parenting Petunia. I really liked the way that she helped me with my food/weight/body issues.

But this fertility journey of mine? Not her strength.

I can't tell you how many times this past winter and early spring she has mentioned how so many people adopt babies and then get pregnant themselves. One time, I finally responded, 'I don't actually think that happens to many people' and she looked sort of stunned. A few sessions later she told me about a new client who couldn't have a baby with his wife, adopted a baby and then his wife got pregnant. She concluded the story with 'See? It does happen all the time.' I didn't really feel like arguing that a handful of lucky anecdotes does not a statistic make, but I did file that comment away.

I have not been diagnosed with any sort of fertility problem (though I plan to start discussing possibilities with my doctor this summer), so the assvice doesn't sting me quite as much as it might sting others. But it did strike me as ill-informed and inexperienced. And since my quest to get pregnant is really the thing that is weighing on me most these days, I decided that my therapist was not the person to help me emotionally on this journey.

Prior to today's appointment, I had made up my mind that I was done. I wasn't really sure how much to explain and when in the session to do it. During the first half of our session, I mentally waffled for a bit, wondering if I should go through with my decision. But then the conversation came around to my fertility journey and she asked me - with a straight face - if I laid still for awhile after 'being intimate' with Basil, or if I ever propped my hips up with a pillow. Right then, I knew that she couldn't help me anymore right now.

So I waited until the end and told her that I thought I was doing very well these days and was ready to take a break for awhile. She took it very well and said that I was the best judge of how I was doing. I didn't tell her that I might get another therapist - one who specializes in infertility counseling or at least has a lot of experience with it - if I end up doing a lot of tests, drugs or procedures. It just didn't seem important to explain, and I think things ended better that way. If I ever have non-fertility-related issues, I may well go back to her.

I feel really good, that I've made the right decision both in stopping therapy for now and in not getting into too much detail about why. I still don't know where this fertility journey is taking me and whether or not I have a problem. But at 23 months into trying to have another kid, I identify with the infertility community and have a lot of the same feelings. And if I need another therapist on this journey, I plan to find one who has good infertility etiquette.

Next Stop, the Commune

2008-04-03T10:28:00.004-05:00

Last year, Basil and I tried out a CSA. We liked the food we got, but to be honest, it wasn't much for the money. It was about $35 a week. There were a few weeks of bounty when we got piles of corn and tomatoes, but usually our share could fit comfortably in one canvas grocery bag.

The fall share was particularly disappointing and reminded me more of our experience in the spring. We got small amounts of everything, and what am I supposed to do with two Thai eggplants for a family of three? We generally had to supplement from the grocery store for our produce needs.

What really turned the tide in not re-upping with the CSA are the trips Petunia and I paid to the Kingstowne Farmers Market on Friday afternoons. We didn't go every week, but we went at least six or eight times in August, September and October. I took $35 each week - the same weekly cost of our CSA share. And the difference was staggering.

I have pictures at home (will try to post them later) that I took on Friday evenings, comparing what we got from the CSA on Thursday afternoon and what we bought at the farmers market on Friday afternoon. For $35 at the farmers market - where everything is grown with 125 miles of the market - I came home with bags of broccoli, lettuces, beets, peaches, apples, potatoes, squash and other produce. I also bought something indulgent each week, like a homemade jam, a specialty bread, locally made yogurt or kettle corn made right in front of eyes. My $35 also bought Petunia a cup of fresh-made ice cream to keep her happy while walking around, and it bought me a big cup of fresh lemonade for the drive home. Like I said, the difference in quantity was staggering.

Basil and I also appreciated that we could support local agriculture (and felt good about the fact that the farmers market works with WIC so it was never just a bunch of rich white people walking around) while retaining some power as a consumer. Our CSA gave us a lot of different kinds of greens each week, and often that was the bulk of our share. We love kale, collards and other leafy things that we would eat raw, saute or throw into a frittata. But it got a little old and monotonous and, quite frankly, hard to believe each week when the farmers market was still full of so much variety. At the farmers market, I could choose what I wanted, buy enough for us as a family (or for a dinner party) and still get three to five kinds of vegetables and some fruit.

Now we've taken our local eating to a new level. I just ordered us a quarter cow from Chicama Run, approximately 100 pounds of beef from a cow raised solely on grass just a couple hours away in Loudon County. We will get our share in November. It will be about $450 for those 100 pounds, which might be high for ground beef and stew meat but is incredibly low for steaks. And besides, comparing it to grocery store meat is a little bit apples to oranges because this is grass-fed AND -finished beef, which is generally regarded as healthier as it is lower in saturated fats and higher in unsaturated fats. I'm excited to try it out, and I think fall will be a perfect time to stick a bunch of beef in the freezer for winter.

In the mean time, I've got my eyes and ears peeled for someplace to buy pasture-raised chicken and free range eggs. Oh, and I made my own granola over the weekend. It's a maple granola with walnuts and dried cranberries, and it is delicious. I've been eating it for breakfast every morning this week, and this morning Petunia had some (minus the cranberries, picky girl) and loved it. I feel like breakfast is the one meal where we are still beholden to the center aisles of the grocery store, and I've been trying to figure out how to change that. I may end up making a batch of granola each weekend, which would help reduce the amount of processed grains we eat in the morning and probably save us money, as I'm sure that the unit cost of homemade granola is dramatically lower than a box of Cracklin Oat Bran.

I am officially becoming a hippie, and I totally don't care. It won't be long until Basil and I are making cheese in the kitchen like Barbara Kingsolver.

Music to Run By

2008-03-12T12:13:00.000-05:00

I am picking up running again as a habit. Last January in my "if I can't be pregnant I'll be skinny" mood, I went to a running store and got a real pair of running shoes. I'd been hobbling through some attempts at running in a pair of cross-trainers (bad idea), and Basil had just gotten me an iPod Shuffle for Christmas. I was ready to be more serious about this.

I started trying to run three times a week, using Saturdays to push myself farther or faster. By spring or summer, I was running ten miles a week - three miles twice a week and four miles on Saturdays - and was inspired to run the Washington Race for the Cure the first weekend in June with Kim. It just about killed me because it was so hot and I was barely able to do a 5K running the whole time. Kim was much faster than me but graciously ran with me until the last half a mile when I finally said, "Go ahead without me. I'll see you at the end." I didn't bring my iPod with me that day because I wasn't sure of race protocol and did I regret it.

I didn't go very fast that day but I was inspired. I kept running all summer and then in early September, Emma asked me to run a 5K with her in Georgetown. It was to be Emma's first race and I was ready for another one. This time I brought my Shuffle. I'm sure that the bigger difference was that I was in better shape and it was not so hot that morning, but the music definitely helped. I ran just under 31 minutes that day, which was a great speed for me and much better than the 36 minutes it had taken me to run Race for the Cure.

As Buzz recently discussed over at Florileguim Suburbanum (forgive the lack of hyperlinks; I am writing by Blackberry from a northbound Acela), the right music is really important. For me, in my regular running, it's especially important to have something to push me up a good hill (Janneys Lane from Taylor Run to MacArthur Elementary for the locals) towards the end of my run. Most of last year that song was the Black-Eyed Peas "Let's Get it Started" though Regina Spektor, Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani also had the honor for awhile. Right now, it is
Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" which I bought off iTunes.
I don't know how long Kanye will hang on to that spot, as I know snappy new summer tunes are not too far away. But I'm always amazed at how the right music can literally push me up a hill. Maybe this year I'll find something that will push me through a 10K.

The Disney People

2008-02-29T11:00:00.008-05:00

Hey, I made it through February! And I promise that my blogging absence has not been because I spent the whole month lying around in a haze of Prozac and tears. Really, I've just been low energy and - to be perfectly honest - a bit bored with my own blog. But the extra sunshine makes it feel as spring is not so far off, which is such a mood lifter.

Plus, I took a trip to Orlando for a baby shower in honor of my lil sissy. I'm going to be an aunt! In just two short months, or thereabout. I'll soon have a little nephew to spoil and focus all my baby energy on. I am so excited.

Basil, Petunia and I will be heading back down to Orlando the first week of June to meet the newest member of our extended family and while we are there, we are doing Disney World.

We've actually taken Petunia to Disney World twice on other visits to Orlando, once when she was one and once when she was two. Both visits were just one-day visits to the theme parks, our entry comp'ed in by my sister, who used to be a part-time Mary Poppins at the various character breakfasts around the World. (She *really* looked like Mary Poppins and apparently had the accent and mannerisms down pat, but she won't ever do her Mary for me!)

But one day, especially if it's spread among two parks, is not a lot of time to see Disney World. And that's been fine for a toddler. But when we will be there in June, Petunia will be four and a half going on five. I think she's going to get a lot more out of the experience this time, and so we are staying in Orlando long enough to spend four days at the four theme parks. My sister, a former "cast member," has been telling me for nearly a year that Petunia is getting to be the "perfect age" for Disney World and has been urging us to do a real Disney vacation.

So we are doing it. Luckily, we will be staying with my sister, which takes the cost of the vacation down a significant notch. And even more luckily, we have a family friend (someone I grew up with) who now lives in Orlando and still works part time for Disney. I saw her at Shel's shower and she graciously offered that she and/or her fiance, who also works for Disney part time, could get us into the parks for free most, if not all, of the days we plan to visit.

Cast member "main gates" are one-day park hoppers, which means that you can visit as many parks in one day as you'd like. Disney charges a small fortune for admission and the park hopper addition costs even more, so this family friend will be saving us anywhere from $600-$750. We plan on buying this family friend the nicest wedding gift on her registry.

Being the obsessive planner that I am and happy to have a part of my life that I can actually plan and control, I have been throwing myself into planning our Disney vacation. Holy cow. Did you know how much of a Disney "community" there is out there? I knew there were Disney nuts - and heck, maybe some of you are them - that go every year or a couple of times a year and know the parks like the backs of their hands. I had no idea how big the community was or how much information they have made available - some for free, some for a price.

I bought a copy of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World with Kids and have been combing through sites like AllEars.Net and MousePlanet. It's cool how much info is there, but it's also a bit overwhelming. Like, are we screwed if we don't use a Touring Plan? Who knew you had to make reservations to dine in Cinderella's castle six months in advance?!?

(I called last month immediately upon reading that and secured a lunch spot...at 2:25 pm one day during our visit. There were lunches for the first week of June that were completely sold out by mid-January. Yikes. Also, when you book a meal in the castle, you PRE-PAY the entire amount including tax and tip. I have already spent $130 on lunch for three that will not even happen for three more months and does not include any alcohol.)

I suppose that if we were spending $3,000-$5,000 on this vacation, as it would be easy to do if we were spending money on park admissions and a hotel, I would be more worked up about what we were going to do every minute of the day. As it is, I'm coming up with a plan for which parks we'll visit on which days, making dining reservations for character meals (when I called last month to book the castle, the reservations agent asked I wanted to make other reservations and when I said, 'Gosh, no, I mean they don't book up this early, do they?', responded 'Well, just don't call three weeks before you're coming and think that you will get anything') at the various parks, making a list of the things we want to see and roughing out a plan for each day, keeping in mind that things are likely to change based on our moods, the weather, what we feel like, etc.

My sister, of course, has a lot of tips and opinions about things, though she's never spent a vacation at Disney World with a small child, so her suggestions might not be relevant. My goal for the trip is to see lots of characters (I think Petunia is just at the right age to get excited about meeting Mr. Incredible, Ariel, Chip and Dale, Captain Hook and all the other folks in her favorite movies/shows) and ride some rides when we can. I'm trying really hard to balance my penchant for advance planning with the spontaneity that comes from (a) going on vacation and (b) having a small child. If we end up experiencing The Magic in a good way, maybe I'll end up a member of the Disney cul--er, community.

Up and Down

2008-02-11T15:22:00.000-05:00

When January ended, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had gotten through the most depressing day of the year feeling pretty good. Maybe my seasonal sadness was all in my head and I had outsmarted it this year with therapy and self-awareness.

But here's what I realized: early February is my most depressing time of the year. For whatever reason - maybe the relaxation after having made it through January - I've been having some crappy days. Some people write when they're down; I hole up inside myself/my house/my office and shut down communication. I also eat way too much junk food, feel bad about myself, do very little at work and take everything very personally.

I've been seeing my therapist every other week for the past several months. I was in a pretty good place for most of this fall and winter. But two or three weeks ago, a big gray cloud just started following me around, getting a little bit closer each day.

I wanted to blame it on being stretched too thin, teaching at GWU on Monday evenings and going to church choir on Thursday evenings. But I'm taking weeks off singing, and teaching has holidays built into the spring schedule. So I'm only going to have both my Monday and my Thursday spoken five or six times between mid-January and late April. Pretty manageable really, especially considering that I get paid to teach at GWU.

The cloud is just there, not really the fault of anyone or anything. It's been ebbing and flowing a bit, and I've been trying to notice my moods, per my therapist, whom I'm seeing weekly for the time being. Wednesday, bad. Thursday, okay. Friday, up and down. Saturday, good. Sunday, mostly good. Today, not so great.

Amazingly, through my ups and downs, I've been very comforted by Petunia. Last night, when Basil was at his wits end with her, which hardly ever happens - I am usually the one with the short Petunia fuse - I was perfectly happy helping her play a new computer game and making pipe cleaner people with her.

The chocolate addiction has gotten way out of hand and has been joined by a general habit of eating too much and lots of junk food. Just ridiculous. I've put on about two to four pounds in the past couple of weeks, which is a big red flag, but I just can't be bothered to do too much about it. I know that eating through my emotions is not healthy, but I just do not have the strength or discipline to be all healthy and restrained right now. I'm focusing the health that I've got on my family and relationships. The diet and body will just have to take the brunt of the assault of the gray rain cloud for now.

I don't really have a point in writing this, other than the fact that I wanted to make sure people knew I was still alive and functioning. I wish I were functioning better, but - hey - March is only a few weeks away. (I guess it's good that my bad month is the shortest one in the whole year.)

Public Service Announcement

2008-01-27T22:26:00.001-05:00

I know there are plenty of food blogs out there. Heck, I know two people that write food blogs, and I'm a pretty avid Slashfood reader. So there is a lot of content out there when it comes to recipes and reviews.

But I gotta share this recipe with you. We made it for dinner on Saturday for our friend JR, who had graciously agreed to babysit for free the rest of the evening so Basil and I could go to a cocktail party. We pulled out some stops (appetizers, filet mignon, etc) and wanted a fancy, delicious dessert to cap it off. This did not disappoint.

It dirties some dishes to be sure, but the only vaguely special equipment you need is a pastry brush and a mesh strainer. Other than a vanilla bean, crème fraîche and fleur de sel, all the ingredients are simple, cheap and easy to obtain. I'm sure vanilla extract and sour cream (and possibly kosher salt) could be substituted in a pinch.

Here is the recipe, posted from Bon Appetit/Epicurious (I tore it out of last September's issue) with my notes in italics. Basil and I decided that this is going to become our default dinner party dessert because most of it can be made a day in advance in addition to it being one of the richest, most indulgent desserts we've ever had.

Enjoy.

Butterscotch Budino with Whipped Crème Fraîche

Budino:
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 large egg
3 large egg yolks
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum (I used a smidge more cause I like my dessert a bit boozy)

Toppings:
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream, divided
1 1-inch piece vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
3/4 cup crème fraîche or sour cream
Fleur de sel

For budino:
Mix cream and milk in large bowl. Whisk egg, egg yolks, and cornstarch in medium bowl. Stir sugar, 1/2 cup water, and salt in heavy large pot over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium-high and boil without stirring until mixture turns thick, syrupy, and dark amber (don't let it burn!), occasionally swirling pot and brushing down sides with wet pastry brush, about 7 minutes. Immediately whisk in cream mixture (mixture will bubble vigorously). Stir to dissolve caramel bits. (I ended up with a big chunk of quasi-hard candy in a sea of vaguely tan milk, but I kept stirring and trying to break up the chunk. It all dissolved in the end. Be patient and don't give up.) Bring mixture to boil, watching closely to prevent mixture from bubbling over, then reduce heat to medium. Gradually whisk half of hot caramel mixture into egg mixture. Return mixture to pot, whisking to blend. Whisk over medium heat until custard boils and is very thick, about 2 minutes (don't worry about it getting it too thick; you need to be able to push it through a strainer. It will set up more in the fridge). Remove from heat. Add butter and rum; stir until melted and smooth. Strain. Divide custard among ten 6-ounce glasses or cups. Chill uncovered until cold, about 4 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.

For toppings:
Place 1/2 cup cream in small saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Bring to simmer over medium heat. Add butter (swirl or stir until butter melts) and set aside. Stir sugar, corn syrup, and 2 tablespoons water in heavy large saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium-high and boil without stirring until mixture turns medium amber color, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides with wet pastry brush, about 6 minutes (again, not too dark). Immediately whisk in cream mixture (mixture will bubble vigorously). Stir to dissolve caramel bits (see above about the possibility of big chunks). Set pan in large bowl of ice water to cool. Discard vanilla bean. DO AHEAD: Caramel sauce can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.

Using electric mixer, beat remaining 1/4 cup cream in medium bowl until peaks form (I added 1-2 teaspoons of sugar to help the peaks). Add crème fraîche and beat until soft peaks form. Place 1 budino on each of 10 plates. Reheat caramel sauce just until warm. Spoon 1 tablespoon caramel sauce over each budino. Spoon dollop of whipped crème fraîche over and sprinkle with fleur de sel.

Southern Charm

2008-01-23T22:53:00.000-05:00

Bad weather can sap the joy out of many a vacation. Too cold, too hot, too humid, too wet, too foggy...it can really make you unpack your adjectives when talking about a trip.

Basil and I spent just over two days together in the city of Savannah, Georgia, and the weather was horrible. Well, the first afternoon was kind of nice, but the second day was rainy all day and the last day was cold and a bit windy. Apparently, it's the way that Georgia treats us.

When we were dating, we took an incredibly inauspicious trip to Atlanta - one where just about everything went wrong. I think if we had less fortitude, we could have been coaxed into seeing an ominous sign and bagged the relationship.

The trip to Atlanta started with the prospect of a long weekend (President's Day 1999) that happened to coincide with Valentine's Day and the first anniversary of our first date, a David Spade show with drinks at TGIFriday's beforehand. Again, it's a good thing that we weren't looking for ominous signs early in our relationship.

After hoofing it out to Dulles, which is my least favorite and least convenient of all the DC airports, we were greeted by a massive delay on our flight. After standing in that forlorn Delta terminal for hours on end, I took a few walks to distract myself. Upon returning from one of those walks, I saw Basil talking to a woman that I didn't know. Something about their body language made my heart skip a little, and when I approached, he said, 'Uh, Mer, this is Pam. Pam, this is Mer.' And then there was an uncomfortable silence, and she excused herself. I said, 'Was that Pam HONG, the Kinky* Queen? The last person you were dating before we started dating?' And Basil turned eight shades of uncomfortable pink and said, 'Yes.'

(*There is a specific Kinky here, but I'm trying to keep this blog PG-13 or a light R. Let's just say it's something Pam did frequently, and I wouldn't do. To this day, I still refer to her by her full name and title - Pam Hong the Kinky Queen - when talking about her, which is once in a blue moon, thankfully.)

So after meeting Basil's Kinky Queen ex-flame, we finally got on our flight to Hartsfield Airport at a very late hour. Upon arriving at our hotel, we were told that our room had been given away. The only thing left was a stinky handicapped-accessible room on the lobby level. One thin hallway separated our oddly proportioned room from the lobby and free breakfast area, and we constantly felt like we were sneaking into the staff closet when entering our room.

The weekend that we spent in Atlanta was one of the coldest and windiest on record. Literally, you could hardly walk around without leaning into the wind to keep from getting blown over. Our plans for lounging around Olympic Park and strolling around Buckhead were dashed, though we did end up having dinner and taking slightly awkward swing lessons in Buckhead.

We stayed indoors as much as possible that weekend - touring CNN and the Coke museum - but soon ran out of options. Lucky for us, we followed the signs to the Supershow, the trade show for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, which happened to be taking place at the convention center that weekend. Of course, we weren't allowed onto the trade floor because we hadn't paid to be there (and weren't really, uh, in the sporting goods manufacturing business), but we found an unattended escalator and slipped into a strange new world.

Race cars, fishing gear, mountain climbing walls, clothes, tennis shoes...every conceivable piece of sports equipment lined two giant halls in the convention center - literally miles and miles of a souped-up Sports Authority-meets-REI environment. We snuck into the Skechers tent and scored some free T-shirts in cans and pick up other assorted swag along the way too. We did our best to take surreptitious pictures by the really obnoxious stuff and never got thrown out. In the end, it was the Supershow that saved our weekend in Atlanta from being a total failure.

Last weekend, it didn't take illicit access to pre-market fishing rods and pictures in front of an NBA exhibit booth to make our trip a success. We knew there weren't a lot of tourist attractions in Savannah, but that's not why we were going. We wanted to relax, sleep in, recharge our batteries and reconnect. Petunia (and Lilah!) stayed home with my stepmother, so we spent our precious days doing a whole lot of nothing.

Savannah is truly charming. All its squares make the city feel very relaxed and provide small respites of green, memorials and monuments and elaborate fountains to enjoy while walking around the historic district. I picked up a copy of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (as so many people recommended I do) from the local library before my trip, which gave me some sense of where notorious things have happened in Savannah over the years. We walked past the Mercer Williams House, the focus of the book (and movie), but declined the $12.50 admission price to gawk at the inside.

And despite the wind and rain, we had a great time. We took pictures and stayed out late having drinks and we ate great chocolate and drank quite a bit of Maker's Mark at Churchill's.

I was in Savannah for business during the week, before Basil flew down to join me. During my meetings, one of the locals told me that there's some weird statistic that for people who spend more than three days in Savannah, 75 percent of them end up living in the city at some point. It's not on our radar right now, but I can see a day where our child(ren, God willing) is(are) grown, and we remember fondly Savannah and think about returning, maybe to live on one of those charming squares. Hopefully with good weather.

Addiction

2008-01-15T13:26:00.000-05:00

This is the part where I fess up about something ugly. An addiction.

To dark chocolate. My old friend chocolate has turned into smack, pills, meth...whatever. I practically mainline it. I'm not kidding.

I eat mass quantities of chocolate. Not brownies, cookies, cake or cream pie. At work, I take ungodly amounts of dark chocolate Kisses and Miniatures from the candy jar at the front desk. At home, I buy Ghirardelli baking bars and chips (in bittersweet or semisweet) and eat chunks or handfuls of the stuff on and off from the time I get home from work until the time I go to bed. I can polish off a baking bar in two days...or one. I can eat a bag of good chocolate chips in a matter of a couple of days.

The good news is that I'm not pulling a Jenna Maroney after a summer of Mystic Pizza: The Musical, as my weight has stayed the same in the past three months. And really, that's about all the good news.

The bad news is that I eat so much chocolate that I give myself headaches and the shakes. I cut out caffeine two years ago as a part of getting rid of my migraines, and I don't drink coffee, caffeinated soda or regular tea. The only caffeine I consume comes from the trace amounts in decaf coffee and from chocolate, so I am pretty sensitive to caffeine.

The other bad news is that at the end of the day, I start to get itchy about getting home and breaking off a piece of that baking bar. During the day, if the office runs out of candy, I consider going - and sometimes actually go - to a nearby grocery store for a candy fix, either a bar for myself or a refill bag of treats for the office. When Basil and I are making dinner, I sneak pieces of baking bar or handfuls of chocolate chips while Petunia is in the other room playing, sometimes forcing myself to hide the food in my hand or in my mouth when she runs in unexpectedly. Basil has warned me that someday Petunia will catch my in my hypocrisy - we don't let her snack before dinner - and my credibility will be forever ruined.

But still, I just can't stop. I can't have just an ounce or two of dark chocolate to satisfy a craving, like all the magazines and diet experts say. If I start eating dark chocolate, which I usually do at least once a day, I can't stop. It literally takes me getting to the point where I feel like my heart is trying to hug my brain before I say, Hey, maybe I really should quit eating this dark chocolate. And even then, it takes a LOT of willpower to put down the bag of chocolate chips or walk away from the baking bar.

It's a little ridiculous, right? Laying awake until midnight because I've eaten so much chocolate that I'm hopped up for hours? Hiding my chocolate eating from kid? Dreaming and strategizing about when I'm going to get my next fix?

I don't think I've ever been addicted to anything before. Even when I smoked like a chimney in college, it was never about the nicotine. It was about being social, about being bored, about being drunk, about having something to do with my hands. I really think I'm addicted to chocolate.

Last year, I gave up chocolate for Lent. It was so hard, but I've never felt better. I think that probably I should just never eat chocolate again, the way alcoholics can't even have one glass of champagne at a wedding. But I feel like I have so few vices that I'm not sure whether I want to give up this one. I mean, after all, it's not like I have to visit a shady part of town or even sign my name onto the records at the pharmacy for a hit. I just go to any grocery store, and there it is - my drug of choice.

Speaking of...the candy jar in the office is empty, so now I have to figure out how to get through the afternoon.

It's Almost Epiphany, aka Resolution-Making Time

2008-01-04T09:58:00.000-05:00

Last year, I resolved to end the year with no credit card debt, do more fun things with Petunia, get some new music and get my stepmother and siblings together. I'd declare victory on two or three of those things.

The biggest success was getting my stepmother and sibs together. We rented a lakeside house near Lake Norman and had a great time. There was some drama with the rental, but that really deserves its own separate post another time.

I did get some new music - songs here and there off iTunes for my Shuffle - but I don't know that we purchased a whole new album. I still feel like I broadened my musical horizons this year, though.

We did get out and about more with Petunia this year, but I also realized that I don't have the temperament for go-go-go anymore. I need downtime at home, with my family, doing a lot of nothing to balance the rest of my life.

The outright failure was the financial goal. Last year, Basil got a really big bonus from work, and I think we were a little drunk on money. Even though I had resolved to end the year with no debt, we were pretty spend-happy in the first quarter of 2007. Like, oh, we'll catch up to it sooner or later. But we didn't.

Finally, in April, Basil and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting (okay, fine, the spending was mostly me) and agreed to hold the line against future increases in our credit card balance. We did pretty well from there on out and paid for our various trips, our Christmas expenses, a new deep freezer, upgrades to the kitchen, wills and trusts and powers of attorney for both of us (yes, we were way behind on getting those done) and much-needed maintenance work on the outside of our house - all with cash. We even chiseled away about $500 of the debt we racked up in the first part of the year. But we still ended the year with $2033 on our credit card. Not great. I'm not happy. The good news is that debt should be paid off in two or three months, so we're not terribly behind.

And now, for this year's goals:

1. Stop biting my nails.

I know, it's so small potatoes, right? But it's gross. And I'm tired of looking like a rat nibbles at my fingers while I sleep. Just before Basil's holiday Christmas party, I treated my somewhat-grown out nails to a $10 manicure at the Korean nail shop by our grocery store. My hands looked so nice for the holidays! I think I'm going to try to spring for one or two cheapo manicures a month to give me motivation to quit chewing.

2. Get in better shape.

I'm actually fairly happy with my weight right now (no weight gain over the holidays and I'm within 2-3 pounds of my pre-Petunia weight!), but I feel like an old womurn sometimes. My lower back bothers me off and on, and I'm fairly sure it's as simple as tight muscles. I am not strong anymore. For most of this year, I was running about 10 miles a week, and that kept me in decent shape. But I stopped running around October/November (combination of laziness and weather), and I haven't done any serious weight- or resistance-training in years. My body is WEAK. Embarrassingly so. The problem is, I don't have the time or money to join a gym or take a yoga class. I need something I can do at home that doesn't take up a lot of space, and then I need - here's the tricky part - the will and resolve to carve out time for exercise that will strengthen my body. It wouldn't hurt to increase my flexibility either.

3. Reach some peace about having - or not having - another biological child.

It's been a long road, people. Basil and I started trying for our second kid in May 2006. We're in month 21 of trying to make good on that dream. It's been more well over a year since my miscarriage. There are some parts of my fertility journey that I haven't written about here, but let me provide this update: My doctor is not worried about where I am, and she does not recommend any testing or my seeing an RE at this point. I agree with her. I am just frustrated and exhausted. The outcome here is very much in limbo. I don't think I can live with the limbo for another whole year. I don't necessarily need control - Lord knows, I gave that up a long time ago - but I need to feel some peace about our direction as a family.

4. Be gentle with myself.

I see my world through to-do list-colored glasses. I see the mess in the house, the things I'm not doing at my job, the books I haven't read piled up on my nightstand...all the things that I should have done or should be doing. This is the year that I embrace some level of mess and dirt. This is the year that I admit I'm not a very motivated reader. This is the year I quit giving myself guilt trips because of all the things that I'm not.

And that's it. I don't have very dramatic goals this year. I like the way I look. Basil and I are happy. We have a great kid. We like our house, and we're in pretty good financial shape. I like my job. My life doesn't need major overhauling. In the words of Ms. Mary J. Blige (hey, new music), 'I just wanna be myself.' With prettier nails, a stronger back and a little more peace in my heart.

January

2008-01-02T13:20:00.000-05:00

What is it about being a teenager (or young twentysomething) that draws one to writing poetry? Angst-ridden metaphors, romanticized suicidal thoughts, certain broken hearts...it all flows like water in teen poetry.

Judging by the success of Sarah Brown's Cringe, it seems that many of us went through a stage of keeping journals or writing poetry. I certainly did. Even when Basil and I were dating (I was 21-23), I was still writing poetry. I think some of it was decent, and one night I even read a few poems at a poetry slam that one of Basil's friends organized at the bookstore where she worked.

I remember reading one particular poem, which I cleverly titled 'No Deeper Meaning,' about a single aspirin left behind in a bottle, forever doomed to expire in the medicine cabinet because who needs just one aspirin? Afterwards, some kid with dyed black hair and dark lipstick and told me that the aspirin poem was really symbolic. I just smiled and said thanks.

After college or so, I wrote poetry when I saw something or read something that seemed to cry out for a poem - something beyond the invented drama of my adolescent mind. Sometimes I would catch a turn of phrase that would strike me as a good first line of a poem.

There is one poem that I wrote during my twenties that I am actually proud of. I committed it to memory, and I think of it about this time each year. The first line was one of those inspirations, when I glanced past a book in a bookstore and misread the title, 'I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You.' Enjoy.

I feel a little January about you
A little cold, a little dreary, a little gray
Wind-whipped on a sunless day
Holding my head down, making my way
Through the storm.
Waiting for August, dreaming of June
Making love under a July moon
Blinded by sunlight, wet with the sea
Forever at noon with you.
Even September would do
When the chill is still new
And novel and cause for a fire
A great roaring occasion,
Ended with chocolates and marshmallow goo.
Yes, anything but January
With its cold, wet socks and birdless skies
When everything around me dies
And April seems a year away.
My dear, I cannot tell you lies
I wish that it were May.

"I Want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"

2007-12-28T14:04:00.000-05:00

Last year, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Petunia thumbed through some of the promotional circulars in the newspaper and set her sights on a Little Mermaid Talking Salon. It was a wee bit hideous, but Santa found it on sale at the local grocery store for $40! (All the other elves were paying $80 or $100 or $150 at Target, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart.) Santa had an easy time, and he was happy.

This year, little Petunia tapped into that annoying part of her brain called her 'imagination.' Choosing a toy from a catalog would not do this year, apparently. She had the audacity to dream up the thing she wanted most and then, a la Ralphie in A Christmas Story, repeat it every time someone asked her what she wanted from Santa and when she met the big man himself twice at holiday parties: 'a water table with boats and a lighthouse and card games and board games and books.'

I was in touch with Santa this year, and he nodded confidently at the 'card games and board games and books.' The 'water table,' not hard for the elves to churn out either (though they tell me it was hard to find one for an older preschooler and not a toddler). 'Boats' were a little tougher but not impossible. 'A lighthouse?' Santa asked me where my kid got that idea.

I couldn't figure it out either, but in my attempts to help Santa, I found out there aren't a lot of toy lighthouses out there. Santa eventually decided on this one, but he left out the sea serpent, tiny gun and tiny crossbow, as well as the box all the pieces came in so that Petunia would never be the wiser about what was missing. Oh, darn. Too bad. Mom and Dad scored an old candle holder lighthouse and a handmade wooden boat, too, so now Petunia is awash in boats and lighthouses.

When Petunia came downstairs on Christmas morning, she was so excited. She would later tell everyone who asked that 'I got exactly what I wanted.'

Hope you got what you wanted, too.

If I Might Put Words Into Basil's Mouth...

2007-12-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

Presents wrapped in the past 48 hours: 28

Boxes packed for shipping: 7

States shipped to: 4

Trips into the post office with the borrowed office dolly: 2

Wheeled postal bins filled with packages: 1.5

Dollars spent on shipping: 77

Having your wife take care of all the wrapping, packing and shipping gifts to out-of-state relatives while you're in Mississippi on a business trip: priceless

Holiday Hoo-ha

2007-12-05T10:12:00.000-05:00

Despite Yum's insistence on making sure her Christmas card arrives in my mailbox the day after Thanksgiving, I don't really believe the holiday season starts until the Scottish Christmas Walk Weekend is over. Santa rode by on the Kensington fire truck four days ago, which gave me the green light to start listening to my favorite Christmas song on endless loop.

Christmas shopping is my nightmare every year, because we give gifts to about 30 family members. A good number of them are kids, and we try to roll siblings into one gift when we can, which keeps things a little simpler and cheaper. Maybe they don't love sharing the snowman kit, but I'm happy to scratch off three names with a mere $14 and one box.

This year's shopping is 80 percent done, and I plan to knock out a few gifts today at lunchtime. In the past I've agonized about getting gifts that are what people really want, which is damn near impossible when it comes to Basil's aunts and uncles. (Yes, we buy presents for his five aunts and uncles because none of them have any children and Basil is pretty important to them.) This year, I'm a little more blase about the shopping. It's hard to buy for people who don't travel, don't cook, don't have hobbies, aren't athletic or outdoorsy, don't care much for fashion or home decorating and have never once seemed enthused or excited about any gift we've ever given them. I'm over trying to get a big, excited, happy reaction. If I see something that I vaguely think would work, I buy it. Cross their name off. Move on.

I've also softened my stance on gift cards. Basil doesn't understand why we don't just give everyone gift cards because people like the freedom that comes with choosing your own present. I feel like I'm wrapping up a note that says, 'Hey, you are really hard to shop for and I had no idea what to buy you!' This year, we're giving gift cards to my siblings, though each one of them is also getting something I bought for them (a game, some albums, etc) that says, 'I pay attention to you and know what you like.'

This year, I swear on my life that I'm going to get my presents and boxes together to take advantage of shipping Parcel Post. That means everything needs to be shipped off to northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Orlando by next Friday. The shipping factor also means that I'm buying small, light gifts. The cost of shipping gift cards also made me warm up to them.

Speaking of warming up, I did a lot of baking and freezing on Thanksgiving weekend, for a total of about 300 cookies and bars so far this year. I still have five more types of cookies I want to make, so I'm guessing we'll end up with about 450 goodies made for the holidays. I'm trying hard not to eat too many, mostly giving them away in tins or putting them out for our visitors last weekend. Katya asked me what's on my list this year, so here it is:

* Cream cheese-walnut cookies - This is basically a cream cheese shortbread with toasted walnuts. I've made these for several years in a row now, and they're always a hit. I use 2 cups of finely chopped nuts to roll the dough logs in. That way, the cookies get plenty of coating around the edges (the recipe call for 1 cup of finely chopped nuts, but Martha is always wrong).

* Chocolate peppermint cookies - Basil hates these because he hates peppermint, but I love them and they always get compliments. They never turn out as puffy as Martha's picture, but - again - I think we all know that her recipes are imperfect.

* Black bottom coconut bars - Yum made these last year and said they were great, so I added them to my mix this year. SO good. Wish I had doubled it.

* Pumpkin-chocolate chip squares - These are a repeat from last year's inaugural run, and they are very decadent. The cake can be a little sticky, but it is worth the gooey mess. The ones that I set out for this weekend disappeared quickly (mostly by me, I think).

* Molasses-spice cookies - So easy and always a nice addition to the variety. Similar to a gingerbread but without the ginger. These always bake up perfectly round like the picture, which is a satisfying feeling.

* Almond fruit bars - This is a new recipe for me and brings a different flavor to my goody tray. Basil made the dough for these and said it was so stiff it was nearly impossible to spread it thinly in layers with the jam. Some of the jam squeaked through to the sides of the pan and the top of the bars, but it didn't matter. We used seedless raspberry jam, and they are very good.

* Chocolate espresso snowcaps - Another new recipe for me. I doubled the recipe but realized too late I only had enough instant espresso powder for one batch. So they are less espresso-y than chocolate-y, but the flavor is fine. Petunia loves these. They are really rich.

* Black forest cookies - I haven't made this year's batch yet because last year I didn't think they froze and thawed very well, but these are one of my favorites. It's a very adult chocolate cookie, thanks to the dried cherries.

* Cherry pecan meringues - After abandoning the evil peppermint meringues of Martha Stewart Living, I discovered these easy meringues from its good witch cousin Everyday Food. It's nice to have a light option on the tray, yet these still have some complexity.

* Pizzelles - Basil makes these Italian waffle cookies every year with the pizzelle iron his mom got us a couple of years ago. Basil's grandmother was very heavy-handed with the anise, but we keep it light and cut the anise with vanilla. We haven't made this year's batch, but they're always so pretty and people love them. Pizzelles seem to inspire some nostalgia for people of Italian heritage.

* Black walnut cookies - These are another old Italian recipe, handed down by Basil's grandmother. They are also Basil's favorite cookie of all time. I can't find a recipe online that approximates these. The dough is very sticky with lots of cocoa, black walnut extract and chopped black walnuts (do not confuse these with regular walnuts), and there is a powdered sugar glaze made with black walnut extract. The cookies bake up with a crumbly, almost cake-like quality, and their puffy round domes look like nothing else on the cookie tray. I watched Basil's mother make them this year (cut shortening into dry ingredients, use a little milk to stick it all together, roll the dough into balls) so I can carry on the family tradition.

* Sugar cookies - I use the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook recipe, and it never fails. I also use my mother-in-law's trick of shaking a dash of cinnamon into the dough just before it finishes, which gives it a nice flavor. I'm going to try royal icing this year instead of the 'decorator's frosting' recipe that I've used in the past.

* Bourbon pecan truffles - I haven't made these yet, but they sound pretty simple, if maybe a little time intensive. I wanted to try something other than Martha's bourbon pecan chews, which I like but are always a mess to bake and cool because the recipe is imperfect and the dough/batter spreads out really thin.

You'll notice that there are bars on there this year and that I don't call them 'bar cookies.' That is the peace I have come to make with bars. If they don't try to pretend they're cookies (which they're not, I've decided), then I can welcome them onto my goody tray with open arms. So it's cookies and bars as far as I'm concerned.

While I got out my little Christmas tchotchkes (ceramics made my grandmother, nutcrackers from Target, candles, stockings) on Thanksgiving weekend, Basil and I waited until last night to put lights up. We have this tree in front of our house, and we wrapped the trunk and two of the big limbs with either red, green or white lights. It looks pretty cool in the end, though it would look cooler if we wrapped all the big limbs in lights. As it is, with one white, one red and one green section, it looks a little like an homage to Basil's Italian heritage. Buon Natale!

The last big thing on our to-do list is to trek out to Odd Mix country and cut down our Christmas tree this weekend, probably from Milltown Creek Tree Farms again. Basil felled a Scotch pine (I think) last year in the midst of wind and a little rain. Since we went on a Friday, they weren't even doing hot chocolate or other fun stuff at the farm. It was just us running around a field arguing about whether or not an eight-foot tree could fit in our living room. (It did and looked beautiful.) Even with all the Griswold-ish antics, the tree was worth the trip. That tree cost a fraction of the overpriced ones on the lots around here, and it held onto its needles for about three weeks.

And after we cut down, haul back and decorate the tree, it will pretty much just be time for us to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas! a lot and watch all the stop-motion Christmas specials of yesteryear. Oh, and I'll get to keep plowing through the Charlie Brown Christmas piano solo book I have. I've been working with my piano teacher on Christmas Time is Here, Skating, O Tannenbaum, Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Linus and Lucy. I dare say that I am getting pretty good.

I might make it through the holidays this year with my sanity. How's your season?

Crowded

2007-11-25T22:28:00.000-05:00

Last year, we Valentines had a string of five straight weekends of visitors, bookended by visits to see our families, for a total of seven straight weekends of being in the company of other people. This year, it won't be quite as bad (only four straight weekends of visiting/being visited), but we are in the midst of some pretty heavy use of the guest room.

I'm feeling a little burned out by having guests or being someone's guest, and we are only halfway through my mother-in-law's stay. Next weekend, a couple of Basil's friends are coming to town for the Scottish Christmas Walk Weekend and staying with us. On Friday night, after the Taste of Scotland when out-of-town guests and local friends have been sipping scotch for three hours, I will insist that no one drive, which means we'll have about five people sleeping over.

Since my MIL is staying so long (nine days), I am not attempting to spend every minute doing family things as a group. I need to have some time, space, privacy and routine so I skipped Saturday's shopping outing and will be relishing my piano lesson tomorrow.

Usually, though, visitors (and visits) are only weekend things, which makes it hard to say, 'Hey, I'm going to do my own thing for awhile; have fun.' A weekend of being on group time is sort of fun, but a bunch of weekends strung together is like running a B&B. I know someone who runs a B&B. It's exhausting, grueling, unending work.

Our visitors are almost always family, usually my mom or Basil's mom. My sister and brother-in-law visit about once a year, and my dad shows up every twelve or eighteen months. My (technically ex-)stepmother usually comes every year or so, and then there are friends that come visit, too. We love seeing all those people, but when they all want to be here in the same six- or eight-week span, it makes me resent my mostly functional relationships.

Do we get so many visitors because we live so far away from so many people? Or would we get more visitors if we lived, say, two or three hours away from our parents? If we lived closer, would our visitors stay for longer or shorter visits?

I hate walking around feeling like my nerves are grated, but that's what happens when there's too many people in our house for too long. I'm starting to feel a little grated these days, though it's not any person or any visit's fault. I'm really glad that December is going to be largely houseguest-free, because I want to spend a lot of time watching movies on my couch in sweatpants. And I don't want to have to worry about whether or not someone wants to do touristy stuff around Washington, needs to know 'what are we doing' at any given time, has a burning desire to sit and chat for great lengths of time or crams noticeable quantities of food or drink that we don't like in the fridge or pantry.

Damn, I sound like a grouch, don't I? I suppose I am a bit grouchy right now. I've been going to bed way too late, haven't been running lately and am at the point in my quest to get pregnant where I have to bite my nails for two weeks. And did I mention eating total crap for five days straight? Plus, I'm staring down a really busy week at work, and that always puts me in a bad mood.

I can see the light of the tunnel for our current string of visitors, and it's next Sunday night (or maybe next Monday morning?). I know that come December 1 or 2, I'm doing to be able to do what I want when I want, and that knowledge - that I could do something even if I didn't plan to - will be very comforting for my grumbly brain. We'll do things as a family of three, and I'll begin to look forward to my mom coming for Christmas. Here's hoping I can get through the next seven or eight days without any scars.

The Magnificent Seven

2007-11-21T12:29:00.000-05:00

Well, we made it to Kentucky, but just barely. I highly recommend NOT trying to drive down an interstate that is closed for a four-mile stretch because a tanker rolled on its side and is blocking all three lanes and both shoulders. You only go three miles in an hour and a half!

Anyway, we are back and Paige tagged me for a meme. I did this particular meme earlier this year, though I only told you six weird things about myself. Since seven more weird things seems excessive and since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I'll tell you seven things I'm going to do this weekend to kick off the holiday season.

Make an effing derby pie with real Kentucky bourbon to appease Prurient. It's just a pecan pie with chocolate chips and bourbon, but the masses seem to love it. Did I mention it has crack in it? Okay, it is really good. I was going to make a different kind of nut dessert for Thanksgiving, but I like to be popular. So derby pie it is.
Watch the National Dog Show! Basil hates my dog show obsession, and in his defense, it does seem to be a fairly recent development. I started wanting to see who won the sporting category around the time we got Lilah, and I was very fixated on different breeds of dogs. If only Fred Willard would be a commentator.
Play beer pong. After a very civilized Thanksgiving dinner with my MIL and Mozo, we're heading over to J.Pro's house for Drinksgiving, where desserts and excessive amounts of alcohol will be consumed. I hope I don't puke. And I hope my MIL isn't offended.
See a grownup movie with my husband in a theater. My MIL in town for the next week = free babysitting. Basil wants to see The Mist. I might want to stare at Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. But either way, this will be our third or fourth movie in a theater all year, so it's very exciting. I hope I don't puke. And I hope my MIL isn't offended.
Bake some Christmas cookies. I went through my recipes last night and pulled out everything that I was interested in. There were more than fifteen different types of cookies. Not this year, people. No mountain of cookies for the kids to climb and stake. We're not doing any holiday entertaining so the cookies will only be for gifts and munching. I think we'll be able to get by with fewer than 750 cookies this year, but I do want to start baking.
Beat the WannaBEagles in fantasy football. It's going to be a deathmatch, sure, as we're the two top scoring teams in our league, me with Tom Brady, Randy Moss and Willis McGahee, him with Adrian Peterson, Terrell Owens and LaDanian Tomlinson. But I made an ace move yesterday. I picked up the Seattle defense. So far this season, they've had 31 sacks and nine interceptions, and they're playing the Rams on Sunday. Marc Bulger has been sacked 17 times in the past four games. He's thrown more interceptions than touchdowns this season. And the Seahawks want to make sure they stay in 1st place in the NFC West, so they're going to be loaded for bear. Seattle beat St. Louis 33-6 a few weeks ago. They should score me solid double digits in a week when I need it badly.
Write a cohesive, thoughtful, well-edited blog post. I feel guilty for cheating and just barfing up a bunch of random stuff for Elevated Umbrella. It flies in the face of this space being a place for me to improve my writing. No more lists, bullets or asterisks in the next post!

I hope you all have a fantabulous Turkey Day. Pinot Noir or hard cider is a good bet.

My Life Flashing Before My Eyes

2007-11-15T22:12:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow morning I am driving Petunia and Lilah to northern Kentucky. By myself. Which is crazy, but Basil had a business trip to Wisconsin come up. So he is meeting us there tomorrow afternoon. I think it will be an interesting trip to say the least. An interesting, nine-hour trip.

***

I watched Babel over the past two nights. It is good and incredibly depressing, on par with Leaving Las Vegas for me. I am glad that I watched it, but it made me feel almost sick to my stomach with sadness and terror sometimes. I don't think I need to watch it again. I felt a little weird that the white people ended up with the happy ending.

***

I had every intention of posting something interesting this week. Instead, my house is incredibly clean, Thanksgiving is shopped for, my office at work is clean, my to-do list is scratched off, my hair is done, my piano playing skills have improved and my daughter and I are in a great place right now.

***

It is really, truly cold out now. I can't sit in my basement without an afghan on, and yet my dog still wants to prowl around out back every night looking for possums to chew. It must be nice to have incredibly thick, double-coated fur.

***

I think that it's more important to get a solid seven hours of sleep tonight than to check in on blogs. I hope my fantasy team will forgive me.

Finding a Golden Ticket

2007-11-05T15:24:00.000-05:00

Part herding cats, part playing the sideshow barker, putting Petunia to bed wears me out mentally. She gets giggly and overexcited and goes tearing through the upstairs in various stages of nakedness, 'hiding' under piles of pillows until she is found again and then streaks away in a fit of laughter. This goes on for several minutes before I can actually get her into the bathtub.

Then there is the actual bathing, which shouldn't be too hard since she is physically contained in small space. But trying to pour enough water on Petunia's head to remove the shampoo I've lathered up is like playing whack-a-mole as she continually bobs and weaves amidst a flotilla of toys.

After wrestling her into pajamas, we have to go through the tedious process of choosing a book, during which I try to negotiate for something that doesn't make my brain slowly leak out of my ears. And there are often negotiations and protestations about whether or not I will make up a Superfriends story for Petunia.

But lately, it has been better. Bath time is going faster and more smoothly, and there is no gnashing of teeth or beating of breast over story- or book-selection. A magical reward is looming over Petunia from the time we come upstairs: reading a little more of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

This is my third attempt to get Petunia to follow a chapter book, and it's the first success. Charlotte's Web piqued her interest in theory but not in practice, and A Little Princess was not exciting enough from the beginning. (Too bad; this is one of my favorite books of all time.) But Charlie Bucket has done the trick.

Petunia is fascinated by the concept of Willy Wonka's candy factory and the hiding of the golden tickets in candy bars. She has been intensely interested in the four other ticket finders and of the fates that befall the naughty children. (So far, we have read through the demises of Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde and Veruca Salt.) She doesn't have any idea what to expect at the end, but she always wants to know what happens next.

I haven't re-read any Roald Dahl since I was a kid, and I'd forgotten how truly masterful he is at storytelling. He arcs the plot in such a way that each chapter ends on the verge of something new and exciting happening, making you want to read just one more chapter. Sort of like The Da Vinci Code for kids.

Petunia is so excited about reading this book that it's the first thing she tells the other parent (the one who didn't do the previous night's reading) in the morning. And today, as I was getting dressed for work, she came into my room from hers, where she was playing, and said, 'I know what happens in the Television Chocolate Room! I looked at the pitsher and there's this flashlight pointed at a big chocolate bar!' She was so excited to hear what happens next that she went trolling through the upcoming pages for a hint in an illustration.

This is a significant milestone for us. It means we can check out The BFG, James and the Giant Peach and Matilda from the library. Maybe Petunia will go for Stuart Little. Am I dreaming to think of Beverly Cleary books? Heck, Gus is reading Carl the first Harry Potter book (though Carl is a little genius) so Ramona Quimby and Ralph S. Mouse shouldn't be that far off for Petunia. Hopefully we'll work our way up to little Sarah Crewe in no time.

Time for a New Fantasy Team

2007-11-01T13:25:00.000-05:00

This is my second year playing fantasy football, and I am getting royally screwed. I have the most number of points of any of the eight teams in our league, and I am in SIXTH place with a record of 3-5. Four of my five losses have been by nine points or less. The game I lost last week was three points and it's only because Brett Favre threw that 82-yard pass in overtime on Monday night. If the Broncos had won the coin toss and scored first, I would have won. If Favre had thrown a TD pass for 24 yards or less, I would have won. If Favre had thrown a pass for 49 yards or less, I would have tied.

But, I lost on Monday. I am bitter. And I am pissed at my luck in fantasy football this year.

Thankfully, it's time to choose my fantasy team for NaBloPoMo. I did this last year, in response to all the hoo-ha surrounding National Blog Posting Month. Eden Kennedy of Fussy founded NaBloPoMo as a blogging-world compliment to NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month project. I knew that I didn't have the stamina to post every day, and really, I wasn't sure that the Internet needed one more screaming voice. I decided I could contribute best by reading and rooting, that is, cheering on the people who stuck their necks out and said they would come up with something to say everyday for a month.

Jody and Heather tipped me off to NaBloPoMo last year, and I decided to put together a fantasy team of five new blogs to follow for the month. I chose the cheeseblog, Her Able Hands, Less of Paige, Peach and Pearl and Vindauga for my fantasy team. I liked them all so much that I kept them in my Bloglines and still read them regularly. In the year since I got to know all of them, some good things have happened and some bad things have happened. I'm glad I've been there for all of it.

So, since NaBloPoMo is doing an encore, so am I. For the next month, I'll be reading and rooting (aka, leaving comments) for five blogs that I've never read before and know nothing about. I clicked through a bunch of links on the NaBloPoMo blogroll and settled on five that attracted me in some way. Here they are, in alpha order:

Berlin's Whimsy - Berlin Smith is a newly separated mom who maintains a list of cookbooks from which she's 'now cooking,' providing plenty of recipes along the way. There's also beautiful photography and photos of sewing and quilting projects that remind me of my grandmother's work.

More Kisses Please - Jill is a great writer and photographer, and she lives IN Vancouver, one of the greatest places on earth! I can't say enough about Jill's beautiful photos, including those of her boyfriend who does NOT live a long distance away. (edited, see comments. whoops)

Tenth Muse - It's Joelle! From Put Down the Donut! I used to love Put Down the Donut. Really, what a pleasant surprise to stumble across her personal blog. She sings and loves karaoke and has written a book. I'm in awe of all she's accomplished.

You are the music while the music lasts - Jyllian M got married on Halloween, which is so cool. She has a daughter (maybe close to Petunia's age?), and she had a miscarriage at the beginning of this year. Needless to say, that part of her experience really speaks to me.

Now What? - I can't do the upside-down question mark at the beginning of this title, which is too bad because I think it's important to the blog. Now What? has one son who is adopted from Guatemala and is working on adding another member to her family, though things are not going well for anyone trying to adopt from Guatemala right now.

So that's my team. I'm going to be reading and rooting for all five of them to make it through NaBloPoMo.

If you're not participating in NaBloPoMo, get off your arse and put together a fantasy team already! Just browse through the list of participants, check out the blogs whose names or mouseovers appeal to you and add four or five URLs to your feedreader or bookmarks folder. Then check in with those blogs and leave comments. It's like standing on the side of the road and cheering for people who run marathons. It's good karma, and you just might be inspired by what you see.

Good luck, NaBloPoMo'ers!

If You Cram a Hershey's Miniature Up Your Ass, Does It Become a Diamond?

2007-10-25T11:38:00.000-05:00

A week from yesterday is my favorite holiday of the whole year. Costumes, spooky decorations and oodles of candy everywhere. It will be hard to top Petunia's Mary Poppins costume of last year, but I'm not worried about that.

What I'm worried about are the prissy types around these parts that are planning to ruin Halloween. Seriously, if I see one more post on my local moms listserv about 'alternatives to candy' or hear one more mention of 'The Candy Fairy,' I am going to dress up like Willy Wonka and turn my house into a chocolate factory for kids to tour on Wednesday night.

I really do not understand the hate for Halloween candy. I fully understand hating large quantities of candy on a regular basis - letting kids chow down on Snickers bars every day would contribute to obesity, cavities, etc. Bad idea.

But letting kids enjoy their Halloween candy over the course of a week or two? I just do not get the big deal. If a child has a well-rounded diet and lifestyle, what is the harm in letting her enjoy the thrill of a big pile of chocolate once a year?

I truly feel sorry for the kids whose parents insist on no excess, no indulgence. My cousins grew up a little bit this way. My uncle was a Baptist minister at the time, and he took a hard line on many issues for his family. My cousins were never allowed to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. They didn't participate in Halloween because it was a 'pagan holiday.' I don't remember my uncle being particularly strict about what they ate, but I remember my older cousin wasn't allowed to wear a stitch of makeup until eleventh grade. There was never any drinking in the house, and I'm pretty sure there wasn't any rock-n-roll either. I remember how rebellious my cousin felt when she learned the words to Pour Some Sugar on Me. In, like, tenth grade.

I always felt sorry for my cousins because they seemed so dour and bored all the time. Their eyes never twinkled. My uncle stamped out the spark of childhood in their lives before they were ever able to let it burn.

I happen to like a little bad fun - a little vice here and there. Like the time Prurient and I went shopping two months ago and ate Long John Silvers for lunch. I hadn't had a big, greasy pile of golden-fried, battered-dipped foods in a long time (and haven't had one since). If I ate that way often, I'd be on The Biggest Loser. If I eat that way a handful of times each year, it's titillating and rebellious and satisfying.

Our friend Mozo always says 'Everything in moderation, including moderation,' and I think that's the right policy when it comes to kids. You make a big deal out of something (eating, going to bed, not watching TV), and it becomes a power struggle and a magnet for rebellion in teenage years. You let things sort of ride and flow, and your kids learn that there's a time for everything - even eating ungodly amounts of candy.

He's Ba-a-a-a-ack

2007-10-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, I got this call at about 4:50 pm:

'Mer? Hi. ... I'm in your next door neighbor's - what? Ellen? - Ellen's kitchen. My cell phone died and I came to your house and your neighbor had a charger I could borrow. ... I'm thinking of taking her to dinner. ... Oh, uh, okay. ... See you then.'

Any guesses who it was? It's someone I knew was coming but was planning to pick up from the Metro. Instead, Basil came home to find him laying on our steps, looking vaguely like a homeless person, aside from the crisp button-down and khakis.

Did you guess My Dad? If so, you were right! You win the big prize!

Yes, he showed up at our house, straight from his flight, train ride and Metro trip, utterly and completely hammered. At 4:50 pm on a Wednesday. He spent most of the night fading in and out of sleep on our couch because he was 'so tired' and had such 'sinus problems.'

I took half of yesterday off to babysi-er, take Dad and Petunia shopping for belated birthday presents. I had originally planned to let Petunia stay home in the morning with Dad, but changed my mind after the inauspicious phone call. She went to school while Dad puttered around the house. Never again will I trust my Dad for any length of time with my daughter. I have a therapist now. I know all about clear boundaries.

We killed the afternoon at the Olive Garden, Toys R Us, a comic book shop and an ice cream parlor. I was so happy that Dad hadn't gotten drunk while I was at work, that my eyes didn't even bleed when he bought Petunia a giant plastic Disney Princess castle for her Barbies.

Basil is doing the babysitting today, and I think they are going to the Udvar-Hazy Center because of the rain. Tonight, it will be pizza and movie night, and tomorrow morning, swim lessons. Then lunch and - oh, look at the time! - time to drive to BWI.

This is only Dad's third visit in two and a half years, so it is hard to complain too much. But I really am not sure how many more of these I can take. Is it wrong to always have a reason why he can't come visit in the future, effectively barring him from seeing his granddaughter except for when we visit Kentucky?

One gem of news Dad shared was that he was back with Patty, his former girlfriend from 2005. According to my brothers, she is an alcoholic too and they did a lot of drinking together and fighting together during their relationship. While I think the last thing that my dad needs is a drinking buddy, I'm actually sort of happy - for purely selfish reasons - that he has something to focus on that doesn't include me or my siblings. It makes my life a whole lot easier if he isn't clamoring to come visit because he's got so much going on with Patty.

On Wednesday, I was so on edge in the afternoon/evening that I thought I might pop a vein or have a nervous breakdown. I wished hard that I was a 1950s housewife with a stash of Valium pills to take when I was just too anxious. We're past the halfway point of the visit and I am ever-so-happy to be at work today (while feeling pangs of guilt and sorrow for Basil having to do all the work), and I am practically counting hours until Saturday afternoon.

I'm thinking that it shouldn't be this bad to have one parent come and visit for less than three days.

Really Good at Catching Fish

2007-10-16T12:52:00.000-05:00

Two news girls arrived in the world last week - Lucille Marian and Eleanor Meredith. Welcome to both of them and congrats to their moms. Good luck on parenting girls, Xiobhan and Megan!

I remember going to bed as a kid and noticing that I couldn't stand the feeling of my legs pressed together. I'd lie on my side and put a sheet between my legs, or a pillow or a stuffed animal. I couldn't go to sleep unless my legs were the way I wanted them.

Petunia has a night time ritual too. She 'squirms' herself to sleep. (That's her word.) She puts a small throw pillow on top of her regular pillow, gets Crispy Bear - her worn-down brown stuffed bear, named for our friend Chris who gave it to Petunia - and climbs on top of him. Petunia is very particular about this part - Crispy Bear must be on his back facing the foot of the bed. His hind legs end up under Petunia's little belly and his front legs and head stick out from under her butt. Then Petunia pulls the sheet and comforter up just enough to cover her feet and lays her head down on the pillows.

Then she proceeds to squirm. Or, as I like to tell it, she humps poor Crispy Bear to sleep.

Over the past few months, Petunia has at different times mentioned how her girl parts feel good when she squirms or - my favorite - how the peepee comes out of her girl parts but stays inside her girl parts.

Basil and I don't discourage the squirming, as Petunia has never done it in public. Squirming seems to be associated almost solely with beds, napping and sleeping for Petunia.

One time when I was buckling her into her car seat, she started throwing a fit because the buckle wasn't in a good place for her to squirm. I drew the line there and told her that because squirming involves her private girl parts, it is something for her to do in private - in her room by herself - and not anywhere else.

But it is sort of funny to see my kid figuring out her junk. I don't think it will be long before Petunia's private girl parts get their own names, and it won't bother me in the least when she starts asking. I want her to feel comfortable naming and exploring her own body as she grows up.

Several years ago at Thanksgiving, my then 80-year-old grandmother was at the table when we were talking about Seinfeld and the episode where he can't remember the name of the woman he's dating, only that her name rhymes with a female body part. Of course, my grandmother has never seen Seinfeld and has no idea what we're talking about when we discuss the name.

My grandmother says, 'Well, what was it?' Finally, someone says, 'Her name was Dolores, Grandma.' And my grandma sits there quiet for a few seconds and then says, 'What does that rhyme with?' Eventually, my aunt goes over to whisper the answer in her ear. Grandma sits quietly for a few more seconds and then says, 'What is that?' And I said, 'Oh, Grandma, if you don't know by now, it is too late.'

Poor Grandma. Either she never figured out that it feels good to hump a stuffed animal to sleep or she had parents who made her stop doing it. I don't want my daughter to be 80 years old and not know what her own clitoris is or - more importantly - what it's for.

A Tale of Two Sports

2007-10-09T19:30:00.001-05:00

Hooray for the month of October. Even though it still feels like August or early September outside (today it was 93!), it is officially fall. Which means football. And baseball playoffs.

Now, most of you know that I'm a die-hard football fan. Even when the Bengals suck, which is too much these days, I watch. When they have a bye week, I watch anyone. Another team from the AFC North or a good matchup. But I always watch.

Normally, I'm not a big baseball fan. I'm sure my grandfather is rolling over in his grave, regretting all the times he took me to Cincinnati Reds games as a child and painstakingly teaching me how to keep score on a scorecard. But Basil is a huge Indians fan, with a photo of The Jake on opening day hanging in his office. And in case you missed it, the Tribe upstaged the Yankees the other night and are headed to Boston for the American League championship series.

So, we've been watching a lot of sports in the Valentine house. And I've realized that televised sports are not created equal. You'd think that sports would be something you could watch as a family without any worries. Uh-uh.

Baseball seems to be fine, mostly because it's on TBS. What is TBS advertising these days? The Office, some show called Frank TV and more baseball. Also, the American flag and apple pie.

Football, on the other hand, if it's on CBS, advertises TV shows with lots of blood oozing from wounds and guns being pointed. Also, dead bodies, dead bodies, dead bodies. Fox has a little bit of that, too, but not nearly as much.

When the Valentine family watches baseball, we can sit and relax during commercial breaks. Unless, of course, there's a trailer for We Own the Night. Yikes, with the police sticking guns in people's faces and the fighting. And especially the shot of Joaquin Phoenix with the pillowcase over his face and the shotgun in his hand.

But with football, it's constant vigilance. We bring the guide up on the DVR to minimize the screen, and we mute the sound. And then we watch out of the corners of our eyes to make sure that we haven't missed the game.

I get the fact that networks want to advertise their shows and production houses want to get their new movies in front of captive adults, but it is ridiculous when you can't watch football on a Sunday afternoon without exposing your preschooler to countless numbers of guns, fights, bloody wounds and dead bodies.

Strapless sequined bustier =

2007-10-05T00:18:00.001-05:00

Instant hotness with the old white guys who are my members and the CEO who danced with me tonight and said, 'Girl, you got some moves!'

It Only Takes Three Cigarettes

2007-10-04T16:03:00.001-05:00

to make me remember why I quit smoking. Ugh. I sound like a TB patient.

I Was Smart Enough

2007-10-01T20:47:00.001-05:00

to pick up Sammy Morris this week but not smart enough to play him.

Brevity Week

2007-09-30T14:57:00.001-05:00

Since I'm on location in beautiful Norfolk for the next five days for work, Elevated Umbrella will feature short posts a la Florilegium Suburbanum. Enjoy.

Six Degrees of XXX

2007-09-24T15:11:00.000-05:00

When I was talking to my mom yesterday, she said she had some news for me. Some big news, and I better be sitting down. She said, 'Guess what Laine Williams is up to these days?' And in my mind, I thought, What-is she a porn star, Mom? But I just said, 'I don't know. What's she up to?' and my mom said, 'She's a PORN STAR!'

My mom said that Laine, whose real name is not Laine Williams, had become Cherokee. (The front page of that site is NSFW, though it's not technically X-rated.) One of the kids who goes to the school where Mom taught for eighteen years, the school I attended for thirteen years (it's K-12) and graduated from, the school where Laine attended with me for eight or nine of those years, brought in one of her video covers and showed it to some of the teachers, who recognized her beneath all the makeup and fake boobs and airbrushing.

'You should see the names of all these movies she's made,' my mom continued. 'They have the most awful names. And there are so many of them, like there have to be hundreds of them.' My mom told me to find her on the Internet and I would see.

And boy, have I. Wow. It's not like I've never seen porn before, but it is weird to see the face of someone I used to know amidst all the shaved and oiled body parts. In some of the pictures, Laine doesn't look like herself, and I think, Maybe mom and all the other people back in Kentucky are crazy and that's not really her. But the picture on the cover of this movie (again, with the NSFW but not technically X-rated) is just unmistakable. It is so her.

Let me tell you what I remember about Laine Williams. She was sick. She had a really terrible eating disorder. I remember when she was on the junior high cheerleading squad and wore a size zero uniform that the coach had to fold over and safety pin to keep it on her because it was so big. She was all bones and skin and no self esteem.

I think her parents were divorced, and she had a younger sister named Mya who was sort of mousy. I don't remember anything exceptional about her family life. I remember her mom wore a lot of dark eye makeup and lipstick and was a little overweight.

She had boyfriends and was always sort of chasing guys, in the way that most of us were in seventh and eighth grade, but she didn't have a reputation for sleeping around. Of course, that was junior high, and she switched schools for high school. I can't remember if the rumors were that she went hog-crazy with the sex in high school.

There was one guy who played football that I think she dated for little while. I'll always have this image of her in paisley-patterned leggings and a long maroon sweater leaning against this bank of lockers near the gym. I can picture all four feet, ten inches of her talking to her football player boyfriend (or just love interest?) there with her spiral perm.

When my mom told me Laine had become Cherokee (because she was part Cherokee, on her mom's side, I think), I just felt sad inside. Because I remember how messed up she was as a young teenager and how I felt sorry for her and sort of helpless. We were friendly, if not great friends (it was a small school where everyone knew everyone), and I know that Laine was never healthy and well.

I don't know that I ever looked at porn stars and thought they were models of mental health anyway, but now I will forever look through their makeup and silicone implants and try to imagine them as starved thirteen-year-olds with spiral perms trying to get the football players to like them.

Life Down the Rabbit Hole

2007-09-20T14:40:00.001-05:00

One year ago today, I was excited because my morning sickness had abated a little in the past week. I was eleven weeks and six days (11w6d to the pros) pregnant, debating whether or not I should slip into 'transitional' maternity clothes and getting excited about my nuchal translucency test scheduled for the next morning. It would be our first chance to see this baby in person, to see him or her flipping around and waving at us. Our first chance to try and glean his or her personality and glimpse what the rest of our lives would be like for welcoming this little person into our family.

But of course, my life spun into a parallel universe the next day. The ultrasound revealed a fetus with no heartbeat that had stopped growing. Basil and I went home in tears, with a prescription for misoprostol, and the feeling that the ground had dropped away from us and we were falling, falling without any idea where we were going to land. After a morning of tears and horrible phone calls and more tears, we went to two different pharmacies to get the prescription filled. After getting the bottle home and reading about the drug itself, I decided that I just couldn't do it. I called my doctor's office back and scheduled a D&C for the next morning. We had Petunia stay with friends that night and prepared to be at the hospital at 7:00 am.

That was all four days after my 30th birthday. I had been so looking forward to my thirties, as a decade when we'd finally move into a comfortable financial position and I'd really get a grip on who I was going to be as an adult. We'd have young, fun kids and no surly teenagers yet. I did not count on them starting so inauspiciously.

This past Monday was my 31st birthday, and I spent the night by myself in Corpus Christi on business travel. I treated myself to a bottle of wine, mushrooms cooked in cheese and garlic and a slice of cheesecake. And then I got maudlin and started emailing Basil.

It has been a year, and I am still so sad about the baby that I lost, even though it was doomed from the start, we later found out. I am torn between feeling like I wanted to hold the baby and let him or her know my love, even for a few moments, and feeling relieved that the baby didn't have to grow to a state of being conscious about the pain caused by so many birth defects.

The book A Silent Sorrow talks a lot about early miscarriages and how the first year after them is so hard. First there is the would-have-been due date and then there is the anniversary of the miscarriage itself.

All week, I have been grouchy, moody, cranky, sullen, sad, angry and despondent. Oh, and I have my period. Just like on my due date. There is something oddly symmetrical and maybe even a little amusing about that.

But now I feel I can finally get on with The Rest of My Life. The first year is over. There are no more milestones. Life officially feels like a giant blank slate, which is a little bit exciting and a little more suffocating.

I've always had a plan for the future. Where I'll be, what I'll be doing, where my finances will be, what my family will look like. I've tossed everything out the window at this point, which is really hard for a Virgo to do. To just try really hard to take each day as it comes and not worry about the things I can't control. It sounds easy, sure, but it's hard for me. It feels like grabbing smoke. While wearing a blindfold.

The one thing that makes me happy about tomorrow is knowing that I will have Petunia around. It was so hard having her gone last year, even though she needed to be. Even though it was for the best. I hated it so much that I couldn't even look in on her, that I couldn't be close to the child I did have.

So tomorrow, it will be pizza and movie night at our house, a standing Friday night tradition. And I can think of no place I'd rather be than crammed into a loveseat with my daughter and my husband, grateful to have them within my heart's reach. When there is so little to hold onto right now, it's nice to know that I can wrap one arm around each of them and cling with all my strength.

Super Petunia!

2007-09-13T14:52:00.000-05:00

The past year or so of Petunia's life has been The Princess Phase. I think every little girl goes through it, much to the glee of the Disney executives behind that faux sorority-sisters Disney Princesses line. Life has been all about twirly dresses, pretend makeup, tiaras and Prince Charming. Thankfully, Petunia didn't try to act as dumb as Snow White or Sleeping Beauty (both of them warned against an evil witch trying to hurt them, and they eat the apple and touch the spinning wheel anyway).

Earlier this year, the pink armor started to crack a little when Petunia watched The Incredibles at our friends' house. She liked it, and we liked it too, so we bought the movie soon. I love that there are good positive female characters, and it doesn't hurt that the dialogue and plot are clever, too. Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Frozone, Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack weren't quite enough to get Petunia to abandon her need for faux elbow gloves, but they did pique her interest in crime fighting.

A few months ago when Spiderman 3 was in the theatres, Petunia started noticing the masked hero showing up everywhere. Part of it was the ubiquitousness of Peter Parker's alter ego and part of it was the devotion of a little boy at school, Winston. Petunia has a serious preschool crush on Winston. She insisted on giving him TWO valentines in February and once told Basil that he looked 'cool today, like Winston.' When Winston started talking Spiderman nonstop, Petunia drank the kool-aid.

Because the Tobey Maguire movies are not really three-year-old friendly, Basil found some YouTube clips of the old 1960s cartoon for Petunia to watch. Petunia loved seeing Spiderman defeat villains like Dr. Magneto, and she memorized the whole theme song.

From there, she wanted to know about other superheroes. When we were at Dave & Busters with friends this summer, Petunia used her pile of tickets to buy a plush Batman doll. There were plenty of princess things, as well as Dora the Explorer, generic types of jewelry and other girlie things, but Petunia insisted on Batman. He now sleeps in her bed at night and protects Petunia while she sleeps.

Basil paid another visit to YouTube to scrounge up some Superfriends cartoons for Petunia, and she has been asking for them nonstop for the past month. Recently, Basil discovered that Boomerang is actually re-airing Superfriends regularly, and so our TiVo has been filling up with half-hour installments of the tales of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, Aquaman, El Dorado, Apache Chief, Hawkman and the Wonder Twins. I sort of cringe when El Dorado drops a very distinct 'hola' or 'amigos,' but on the whole, the shows are not bad. I wish there were more chicks, but that could be said of much children's media.

Petunia's fourth birthday is next month and she has asked for a superheroes birthday party. We ordered some awesome generic superhero invitations (no, that's not Petunia on the sample, but it could be!) and are planning to go red, blue, yellow and black for the party. There will be costumes to make, games involving the kids' nascent superpowers and lots of opportunities to fight crime. I plan on getting some graphic novels, per Gus's good recommendations. But Basil is in the process of making Petunia a Hall of Justice out of a cardboard box, which I'm sure will be her favorite birthday present.

Much like mimi smartypants' daughter Nora, Petunia loves to envelope herself in a world where the 'action is exciting without being scary, good always wins, no one ever gets seriously injured or killed, and there is very little weaponry and no "dark" themes like revenge or collateral damage to citizens.' I think when Petunia finally sees the Michael Keaton Batman movie or the Tobey Maguire Spiderman series, it is going to be eye-opening for her. She doesn't have any clue about the noir elements of Bruce Wayne's or Peter Parker's stories right now. As long as the bad guys go to jail and their plots to steal silver ingots are foiled, she is pleased as punch.

I've been encouraging the superhero kick like a coked-up stage mom. Basil and I grant her wishes to make up stories about the Superfriends (I've dreamed up a food-stealing, bayou-living villain named Potater Gater). I'm happy for anything to bump out the princess phase, and I'm especially happy at the idea of Petunia growing up to be an ass-kicking, name-taking force for justice.

The Biggest Winners

2007-09-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

Last night was the return of one of my favorites televisions shows: The Biggest Loser. Have you watched it? No? Well, it's not what you think. It might seem like an opportunity to gawk at the morbidly obese, but it's not. Most of the people who are contestants on Biggest Loser change their lives. They go from having type II diabetes and heart problems to becoming runners and athletes.

At the end of each season, the contestants are almost too thin. They are going for weight loss, after all (that's how they win the money - losing the highest percentage of their starting weight) and that's the only thing that matters. In a 'Where are they now?' show that aired two weeks ago, it seemed like most of the people from the show had put back on a little weight. But they were still active and much better off for being sixty, eighty or a hundred pounds lighter.

Watching last night made me realize that my own struggles with my weight are pretty much about vanity at this point. I am 5'7" and there was a point in my life - about six years ago - where I weighed 191 pounds. I'd say that was a problem. Especially if I had allowed that to continue to creep up, as I had been doing for the previous year. If I hadn't taken charge of my body in 2002, before I got pregnant with Petunia in early 2003, I could easily be a candidate for The Biggest Loser right now. I could probably be Hollie. She's 5'7" and weighs 255 lbs. It's like seeing a glimpse of an alternate present for myself.

These days, my weight hovers in the low- to mid-160s. I'd really like to get it down into the low- to mid-150s, but it's not the end of the world if I don't. Because I know that I'm healthy.

I run three times a week, for a total of ten miles, most weeks. I've started adding in a circuit training workout two mornings a week so tone up my body, improve my bone health and add some strength. I've also started doing a yoga video one morning a week to improve the shape of my body and my flexibility.

And it's hard work. I sweat like a pig doing that yoga video, and my arms ache for days after circuit training. And my body mass index is 25.5. I can't imagine how hard it is for someone who is 300 pounds or whose BMI is around 40. Or higher.

And yet...and yet...the people on the show last night hung in there for workout after workout. One guy dropped 31 pounds in a week. How hard did he work for that?

During one of the interviews last night, one of the contestants said that he tried to never think about how big he was, and I bet that's true of most morbidly obese people. I have some relatives who could easily be on Biggest Loser, and I don't think it ever pops into their minds. Weighing so much and being so big is a scary, sad reality to face and the path of change is really hard.

I have so much admiration for the people on this show, especially the ones who believe that they have it in them to change. I can't wait to see how they do.

To Manhattan (not the drink)

2007-09-05T16:23:00.000-05:00

You and I have only met three times. Once, for a few hours when I met my mom as she chaperoned a field trip. But we spent the night in Newark, so I feel like we didn't even get a chance to introduce ourselves.

A second time, when I stayed two nights to attend a conference for work in Midtown. That time, I rode an elevator with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and walked around the Upper East Side for an hour or two. I think we had a nice time together then, and I liked getting a tiny taste of Central Park.

And then today, when I arrived at Penn Station at 9:45 am and headed straight to Lower Manhattan for a meeting. And now, at 4:30, I am already almost in Pennsylvania on the way home.

I think we would have been great friends if we met each other when I was younger. I could have even seen myself living with you for a spell, throwing myself into your seamy, teeming mass of humanity with abandon.

But now, you sort of overwhelm me and I can't imagine raising a family with you, even though I know people do it all the time just fine. Today, I saw people with young children around town, and I marveled at the unflappable way they negotiated those small bodies around the crowded streets.

I'm amazed at how fast everyone walks when they're with you. People in fancy, almost certainly uncomfortable shoes, were practically sprinting past me today. And I was not moseying!

I also heard the F-bomb dropped about 150 times while walking around or riding in a cab. Some people would be offended, but I found it sort of charming. Like, oh look, it's just like the movies!

Speaking of 'like the movies,' the cab drivers are everything I hoped for. My driver today, Kyekyekama, rocketed through Tribeca and Greenwich Village like Grand Theft Auto. My favorite move was accelerating into an S-weave around a biker pulling a passenger cart and a giant delivery truck. It felt like riding a roller coaster. I would have asked him to take me to Harlem and back for the sheer almost-crap-my-pants terror/joy if I had either the money or the time.

Boy, Manhattan, you treat the Mayor like a King. Seriously, I walked past City Hall today and felt embarassed for some of the nation's governors. What's the mayoral residence like?

What I loved best, though, was that everything and anything is alright by you. I cannot even begin to describe the myriad types of outfits I saw today, and not a one of them looked out of place. I saw women and men so old they looked like they could hardly walk, and they seemed just as at home as the young folk. I like the fact that you have room for everyone.

And best of all, I like how close you are. And how quaint and vaguely European it feels to take the train someplace.

I promise to come back. Some year I'll make it to the Westminster Kennel Club show, and I feel like I just need to spend a little time getting to know some of your neighborhoods. Can I still take Petunia to The Plaza for an Eloise weekend?

Thanks for the hospitality today. And for the challah grilled cheese and black and white cookie.

Hope to see you again soon,
merseydotes

Infidelity, Weakness and Anonymous Bathroom Sex

2007-08-30T08:12:00.000-05:00

This Larry Craig thing is vaguely amusing, when it's not pitiful and pathetic. The irony of one of the Senate's most conservative members telling the world that he has a 'wide stance' when using the bathroom and declaring to the media that he has 'never been gay' is not lost on me, even after a decade of living in the nation's capital and having worked on Capitol Hill.

While I will probably laugh when some industrious kid with a YouTube account figures out how to cut Senator Craig's face or name into the SNL skit where Rainn Wilson talks about having anonymous sex in the Bennigan's at the Newark airport, I feel mostly sad about this situation. Because infidelity makes me sad.

I have mentioned before that my parents are divorced. I don't think I have said much about how or why they got divorced.

My parents split up when they were both about the age that I am now. They'd been married eight years (me, only six and change) and had two children, ages four and two (me, only Petunia). My dad had his own law practice, and my mom had taken a few years off teaching high school to stay home with her kids while they were young.

I think my dad had probably cheated on my mom before Missy came along. Missy started working as an assistant in my dad's office while she was a senior in high school. And my dad starting sleeping with Missy while she was a senior in high school. And he was thirty. And married with two kids. And the sole income in his family.

My dad told my mom that he wanted a divorce, but he didn't mention Missy. It wasn't until my sister and I came home from a visit with him early in the split that I mentioned that Missy had been with us. Being whipsmart, my mom figured it out instantly. My dad went to Missy's senior prom, my mom tells me, and wore her class ring on a necklace for awhile.

My earliest conscious memory is of my mom sitting at the dining room table sobbing to herself.

Putting the untreated bipolar disorder and alcoholism aside, my father is an incredibly weak person. I once wrote a paper in college describing him as a cross between Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men and John Belushi in Animal House - a mix of temper, swagger and party animal. What I didn't bother to explain to my freshman composition professor is that my dad is really someone who doesn't have the strength to admit his faults, seek help when he needs it or do the right thing.

And that really seems to be the theme with infidelity - weakness. Someone who just can't control himself (or herself...Lord knows it ain't just the men who are cheaters) and just can't live until he has that piece of ass - literally or figuratively. Someone who doesn't think through the long-term consequences of her actions and weigh them against the short-term joy that seems to be strutting its stuff like an Amsterdam prostitute in a window.

Here's a newsflash for all the cheaters out there: All of us think about it; you're the only ones that do it.

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with fantasy. (See: Celebrity Hump Island) Heck, even Jimmy Carter admitted to having 'impure thoughts' about women other than his wife. (Sidenote: I think fantasy about violence or children is another story and is a sign that you should hie to a therapist pronto.) But to act on those impulses is just...weak.

A good friend of mine had an affair with a married man for several years. I did not approve at all and encouraged her several times to end it. Alice really believed in her heart that what she was doing wasn't so bad because her lover was 'trapped in an unhappy, loveless marriage.' My response was that her lover was a pathetic piece of crap who had finagled the situation so he had the best of both worlds. If he was truly unhappy, then he would leave his wife and then think about who he wanted to be with. In that order.

Sometimes affairs are heat-of-the-moment things, and sometimes they are slow burns. They always end up hurting people and sometimes they destroy families.

Over the years, I've known plenty of people who have cheated. There was the youth minister at my church, having an affair with the married mother of one of the guys who was in the youth group with me. There was the the couple I used to babysit for - the husband came home to catch his wife in bed with another woman. There was my friend from college whose husband walked in one day and said, 'I don't love you - I never loved you,' as he prepared to leave to be with the girl he'd me in graduate school. There was my dad. There was my friend Alice's skeevy lover.

Then there are people who had affairs or were victims of affairs before I knew them. Some of them seem to be genuinely changed for the better from their experiences; some of them, I would bet, still sleep around on their partners. It is hard for me to respect the persistent cheaters, even if their spouses are not particularly sympathetic or kind people.

Divorce is something that I also know a lot about, and while it is sad to see a marriage or relationship - even a bad one - end, it is not about weakness. You can't get a divorce in a moment of passion, though a moment of passion can certainly lead to a divorce. The ending of a marriage can be bitter, nasty and horrible, but it can also be amicable, mutual and swift. Sometimes it can be the righting of a relationship that was wrong from the beginning.

An affair only gets served up one way. It can never be right; it can never be good.

Made of Ticky-Tacky

2007-08-24T12:33:00.000-05:00

In case you don't have Showtime, the third season of Weeds started up last week. So what I have been walking around the house singing? Little Boxes, of course.

Oh, the irony. Me, making dinner in my cookie-cutter suburban townhouse or driving home from my desk job, singing a song that pokes fun at my lifestyle! But it sure is a catchy song. Especially when so many people perform it so many different ways.

The latest person to perform it would be Petunia. She loves it and asks me to sing it all the time. The other night, I pulled a Dutch and spent twenty minutes on YouTube with Petunia, watching a bunch of egomaniacs doing their best versions of Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds.

This guy was far and away the best, though Petunia seemed to like Mr. Eyebrows quite a bit, too. I personally liked Eduoardo's version and his funky accent. The lead singer of some band named Captain Pablo (Emma and others in the High Church of Indie Rock Orthodoxy, am I supposed to know them?) gave the accompaniment a little twist during a live show.

Petunia was really bothered by this woman's a capella (my mom always used to jokingly call it Acapulco) version and kept saying that 'she did it wrong.' Petunia and I both liked Regina Spektor's version, though I didn't bother to fill Petunia in on the fact that she was watching the opening credits to a TV show, nor the fact that the shadow growing at the end wasn't from any old plant.

I don't think that Petunia understands that Little Boxes is a social commentary (or maybe just a wry observation?), and she hasn't yet asked about some of the words in the song, like 'ticky-tacky' or 'martini.' (Not that either word is hard or troublesome to explain.) I think it's a funny song and some of it is true. I wouldn't go so far as to call the song the 'most sanctimonious ever written,' but I also think that living in a planned housing development does not make one a robot.

When we bought our house two years ago, I never envisioned us in a neighborhood where the floor plans have names. But it was the top of the market and this is DC, where buying real estate feels as expensive as purchasing a small company, so we were opening our veins just to get something we liked. We had a list of 'musts' (third bedroom, bigger kitchen, good schools, some sort of parking), and our would-be house had them all. Plus it had some 'nice-to-haves' like an eat-in kitchen, a location close to work, a nice patio and deck, two full bathrooms, a garage as well as a small driveway and a lot near the end of a dead-end street. I guess it never occurred to me that I was supposed to reject the house because it's 'made of ticky-tacky' and looks just the same as the others on either side of it.

I also think it's laughable that Basil and I would ever spend a lot of time on the golf course or drink martinis (now Manhattans are another story entirely). Will our kids go to summer camp? Um, yeah, they will. Basil and I both work full time, and so far, neither employer seems keen on the idea of us taking three months off to provide child care in the summer. Will our kids go to 'the university'? I hope so. I think college is a good experience, and it seems necessary to most career tracks these days. But I don't think that going to college in and of itself means Petunia will be doomed to a life of boring conformity, even if I do dress her like a Gymboree catalog half the time.

The other night, we were driving in the car, grooving to Dan Zanes, when All I Want (I Don't Want Your Millions Mister) came on. I quickly realized that would be the next perfect song to teach my daughter now that she had mastered Little Boxes.

Once she gets that one down, we'll probably move on to 'Another Brick in the Wall,' 'Imagine' and 'Fight the Power.' If Petunia has to spend her life made of ticky-tacky, I at least want to make sure that she's got a little social conscience in there somewhere.

And a good ear for music.

The Thing That Makes Me Lie to My Daughter

2007-08-17T13:56:00.001-05:00

For most of this week, I was in Canada. Hamilton, Ontario, is a bit like Baltimore - if you took out the Inner Harbor. Gritty, somewhat rundown, a bit bleak. Not a real hot travel spot. So why was I there? Work, of course.

I walked into my house last night about 5:45 pm, and Basil walked out about 9:00 pm. No, we weren't fighting. He had to drive to Newport News for a meeting this morning. And we lied to Petunia and told her that Daddy had an early meeting at the office today and would leave before she got up. Yep, we lied and made her think that we'd all be sleeping under one roof. We knew that if we told her that Basil had a trip for work that almost overlapped with my business trip, she'd lose it.

Petunia has a reasonable threshold for her parents' traveling. On the first day, she's fine. On the second day, she's mostly fine. On the third day, she loses it. She wakes up screeching like an alley cat, and she whirls around the house destroying things like a tornado all morning. Petunia rarely says, 'I miss Mommy' or 'I miss Daddy,' but the other parent knows it's the absence causing the problems.

When I took this job straight from maternity leave three and a half years ago, I was told the travel would be three or four trips per year. A year later, I was given a promotion, a different job title and a partially new set of responsibilities. In the past two years, the travel has grown to about seven or eight trips per year. This year, I've been to Ft. Lauderdale, Seattle and Hamilton. In the next two months, I'll be going to New York, Corpus Christi and Norfolk. Later this fall, it's back to Long Beach. Next year, I've already got Savannah, Panama (the country), Portland and Anchorage on the horizon.

Most of my trips are at least two nights. Many of them are three nights, and there is at least one trip each year that is a full six or seven nights.

It has to stop. Basil travels for work, too, and he gets little to no advance warning from his clients about business travel. He also has zero flexibility in saying no, unless the trip would conflict with something else he has booked for work. Even then, it's just a matter of moving things around, not taking a pass entirely.

At least I have a lot of flexibility in setting my travel schedule. Almost all of my trips are tied to day- or day-and-a-half-long meetings of committee/work groups for which I act as the liaison. Because of that, I have some control over the dates of the meetings. However, I also have to be 'on' during the whole trip and cannot duck out of parts of the meeting to chill out. During this trip to Hamilton, I was doing work-related stuff from 7:45 am until 11:15 pm one day.

And I absolutely hate stressing out Petunia. While working almost never makes me feel guilty, I usually feel terrible about the travel. I buy her presents and spend lots of extra time cuddling with her when I put her to bed the first night of my return. I'm also more likely to spoil her and indulge her more when I get home, letting her have chocolate ice cream for dessert even if she didn't eat a great dinner, reading her an extra book or two before bed.

Being gone for travel also makes life really hard for Basil. On a day-to-day basis, his work is more demanding and time-intensive than mine, so he ends up taking Petunia into preschool earlier than I usually do. He also ends up staying up later after he's put her to bed to catch up on work.

I don't know that I can get out of work travel, but I'm hoping that I can negotiate some shorter durations for the trips I do have to take. Any tips would be appreciated.

And in the meantime, if you see Petunia, don't tell her the truth: Daddy really didn't come in and kiss her goodbye early this morning; he left before she was even asleep last night.

If Only I Had a Crystal Ball...

2007-08-08T19:16:00.001-05:00

I was caught a little off guard today when Petunia's preschool director asked me about moving Petunia up to the next age group/classroom this fall. It was about this time last year that the director and I had a similar conversation, so I shouldn't be surprised that I'm being overwhelmed by many of the same feelings...worrying about how Petunia fits in at school and what is best for her.

The mid-October birthday is rearing its head, as I'm reminded that Petunia has two years to go before she can start kindergarten at public school in Virginia. Private school would be an option, of course, but aside from the expense, I'd balk at Petunia being the youngest in her class.

But I guess there's no ideal situation here. She's either going to be the oldest or the youngest - her birthday allows for no middle ground. I just don't like it.

I'm wary of moving Petunia up to the 4s/5s class for three reasons: (1) I hate the idea of her being in the same class at preschool for almost two full years, (2) I'm not in love with some of the 'older' girls in the class and (3) Petunia went through a sort of violent/acting out/biting phase soon after she moved classes last time.

The preschool director does not seem too worried about Petunia being in the class for two full years. She thinks that keeping her back too long (Petunia's school is year-round, and kids move up throughout the year, not just in the fall) in the class with younger kids would lead to her feeling bored and frustrated at having been left behind while many of her friends have moved on.

I'm not sure I agree. How will Petunia feel next fall when the vast majority of her class 'graduates' and moves on to kindergarten and she is still hanging around for another year? Will she feel like she's being held back a grade? The preschool director says that many children with October/November birthdays end up being 'the leaders' in the Pre-K class during their second year in there. I think she may be feeding me a line so that I will do what she wants.

The other thing that I am worried about in moving Petunia is the makeup of this particular class. There are three girls who turned four in the spring and moved into the Pre-K class over the course of the past few months. Since they've been gone, Petunia seems to be happier at school.

These girls, Tracy, Carla and Hattie, can be really catty. Tracy and Hattie are BFF's and they make no bones about letting the other girls know it, especially Hattie. Hattie has really figured out the power of relationships and wields it over the other kids with joy. Carla seems to have a little mean streak as well. She also was really attached to Petunia for awhile. She only wanted to play with Petunia and she didn't want Petunia to play with any one else. If Petunia wanted to be by herself of play with another kid, Carla would cry and throw a fit. In the first half of this year, we heard a lot about who was friends with who and who played with who during Petunia's evening recounts of her days at school. Since Tracy, Carla and Hattie moved into the Pre-K class, preschool sounds a lot less like a scene from Heathers.

I know that I can't control Petunia's friends forever, and she will end up overlapping with the Big Three for a significant portion of the school year. But I would love it if Petunia could get a stronger sense of who she is and make other friends before she is thrown back into the drama with the older girls.

This part of the conundrum really gives me heartburn because it makes me think about middle school and high school and the hard questions surrounding girls' friends. How can I encourage Petunia to be friends with the kids who are nice to other people, as opposed to the popularity queens who think friendship is about power? Am I even allowed to meddle in her relationships?

Another reason that I sort of wince at Petunia being back in the thick of things with Tracy, Carla and Hattie is that I don't hit it off particularly well with their mothers. I'd much rather Petunia be friends with Virginia, whose mom is really nice and cool and easy to talk to. I don't want to have painful sessions of coffee with Carla's mom. We ended up sitting together at the school's multicultural dinner this spring (because Carla and Petunia just *had* to sit together), and it was soooo awkward. We had almost nothing to talk about.

Then there's the specter of the biting, which was just the worst part of Petunia's rough transition from the 2s/3s to the 3s/4s. When she moved classrooms late last fall, Petunia was the only one who switched rooms at that time. I don't know whether it was the fact of simply making that transition or being the youngest one in her class that made it rough. But it was, for several months. I got really sick of constantly having Petunia's teacher pull me aside at the end of the school day to tell me how angry and upset Petunia was that day, or how she'd gotten a timeout for pushing or hitting a kid. The biting was definitely the worst, but that whole phase lasted awhile.

Lately, Petunia has been pretty violence-free. I don't know whether it's because she's adjusted to her environment a little better or because she's more comfortable being the boss among the younger kids. I know I end up being the boss a lot because it makes me feel in control, which makes me feel comfortable.

So I just don't know what I'm going to do about school. Petunia is the only one in her whole class with an October birthday. There are only two November birthdays. The preschool director told me that the parents of those two children were just fine with the idea of moving their kids up. If that's true, then Petunia would really be the oldest in her class. And I think she really would feel left behind.

I wish there was some sort of answer booklet or formula. This is the part of parenting I dislike the most, having to make decisions where I don't have any good gut feeling about what would be best for my kid.

Celebrity Hump Island

2007-07-27T09:19:00.000-05:00

My friends and I have a bunch of dirty games we play when we're sitting around drinking. One of them, which is not so much a game but a running conversation, is Celebrity Hump Island. Many people I know have a Celebrity Husband or Celebrity Wife - they've struck deals with their real husbands/wives that if Celebrity X ever shows up on the doorstep for them, then they'll say, 'Honey, it's been a good run. Take care of the kids. See you later.'

But leave it to Prurient Interest to raise the bar a bit. Her creation - Celebrity Hump Island - is a little more fun. And a lot more bawdy. It's your running list of five celebrities with whom you'd like to be stranded indefinitely on a desert island. And you, uh, don't choose the celebrities for your island because you think they'd be great cooks or sparkling conversationalists.

There can be only five people on your Celebrity Hump Island at any time, so if you want to add someone new, then you've got to kick someone else off. There are three men that have been on my Island for awhile:

Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies - I love scruffy. I love it. The stubbly beard, blue eyes, longish hair...I'm done. Cooked. I love it. There's that scene in The Two Towers where Aragorn comes charging into King Theoden's court. When Aragorn throws open those doors and staggers in, it makes my heart skip.

Johnny Depp - Okay, so maybe Willy Wonka and Edward Scissorhands weren't the most attractive roles he's ever had, but in just about everything else - especially in the Pirates of Caribbean movies as Capt. Jack Sparrow - Depp is smokin' hot. And in real life? He is one of the hottest dads and family men around.

Brad Pitt - Has there ever been a more perfect looking male specimen who lived? The blue eyes, the jaw, the smile, the hair, the style. And again, he possesses copious amounts of the hotness that comes from being a down-to-earth, super-involved, great dad. I hope he and Angelina keep having kids so I can keep watching him play with them and take them to school.

A few months ago, I decided that I needed to boot someone off (sorry, Lenny Kravitz) to make room for

Justin Timberlake - He brought sexy back for sure. I love the fact that he's clearly very talented but doesn't take himself too seriously. That, in and of itself, is pretty attractive. The fact that he's hot doesn't hurt either. The fact that he makes pop music that reminds me of the best stuff Michael Jackson ever cranked out just ices the cake. I love that he's so happy all the time and loves his mom. It's cute.

And in the past couple of days, I've had to shake my list up again. While it gives me some level of pain to dump Jon Stewart, this week was the right time, as two very important things happened this week.

Daniel Radcliffe turned 18 on Monday, and I saw the new Harry Potter movie on Wednesday. The first makes him legal, and the second made me notice that the actor playing Harry has become a man. On screen, he's got a jaw. And arm muscles. And those pictures promoting Equus? Molly might have been freaked out, but I had to fan myself a bit. (Maybe it was the scruffy beard.) There's no denying that Dan has lost his boyishness. Also, he's apparently got a great sense of humor, which is always attractive.

So there you have it. Yes, I'm robbing the cradle a bit with Daniel Radcliffe, but I don't care.

Who's on your Celebrity Hump Island?

Revisiting the CSA/Summer Eating

2007-07-24T14:41:00.000-05:00

A couple of months ago, I wrote about our experience so far with belonging to a community supported agriculture (CSA). Basil and I were a little iffy on the amount of produce we were getting for the cost, though everything was tasty.

Well, the tide has turned. It is summer bounty time for farmers everywhere, and we patient CSA members are reaping the rewards of some hard-working folks on the Northern Neck.

For the past few weeks, we've gotten berries, zucchini and yellow squash. In early summer, we got cucumbers and whole heads of bok choy, as well as swiss chard, peas and garlic scapes. For two weeks straight, we got whole heads of cabbage. Lately, we've been getting generous amounts of corn, tomatoes and garlic, as well as a whole watermelon for each of the past two weeks. This week, we got green peppers and eggplant for the first time.

And I'm not talking one of each item. We've gotten either four or six ears of corn and two big beefsteak tomatoes each week, plus little bags of the sweetest cherry tomatoes I've ever eaten. Zucchini and squash always come in pairs, like little vegetables boarding Noah's Ark in a Saxton Freymann/Joost Elffers book, as did the cucumbers when they were in season. Petunia and I have been filling our arms each week, struggling under the weight of a small watermelon, a bag of heavy vegetables and a pint of berries.

It's amazing. I marvel that we're getting this food for about $35 a week - a bargain, given that it's all local and fresh and most of it's organic. Our misgivings about the CSA have been wiped away, and we've signed up for a fall share, salivating at the thought of apples, pears, squash, potatoes, pumpkins and arugula.

I have a feeling that we'll stick with this even through the winter and for the long haul, knowing the bounty that can come.

And speaking of bounty, it's everywhere right now. We haven't had to supplement our CSA much, but it's hard to pass up things like fresh cherries. I've been baking with cherries lately, and I owe a debt to the OXO cherry pitter, which makes unbelievably quick, neat work of pitting cherries.

A couple of weekends ago, I tried my hand at Bon Appetit's Lattice-Topped Triple-Cherry Pie, and ooooohhhmygod was it good. It's true that you can only get the preserved Morello cherries at Trader Joe's (Whole Foods didn't even have them), but they were worth the special trip. I always use the basic pie crust recipe from the Joy of Cooking, using half butter and half shortening, and that works great.

Last night, in anticipation of some friends coming for dinner tonight, I took advantage of the bag of cherries sitting in the fridge and made a Fresh Cherry Tart from Everyday Food, my absolute favorite, never-fail cooking magazine. We haven't eaten that yet, but my mother-in-law (who is staying with us for the week) and I tried the leftovers on the spoon and in the bowl and both agreed that um, YEAH, that'll do.

I also made Chocolate-Mint Puddings from Cooking Light, because hey, if one dessert is good, then two is great, right? The mint was from the grocery store, but we have gotten plenty from the CSA this year, so I know it's in season. Again, my MIL and I only licked leftovers, but WOW. Highly recommend that one. I poured the pudding into individual ramekin dishes because I thought it would be prettier than scooping it out of a big bowl. It's got just a hint of mint without being overpowering. Even Basil liked what he tasted, and he doesn't often go for chocolate-mint, even when I make these awesome cookies at Christmas time.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is...Get thee to a farmers market or a grocery store with a good produce section. This is the time of year to buy the good stuff!

I leave you with an Epicurious recipe for Bok Choy Gratin that has become a favorite in our household and will be on my buffet at Thanksgiving this year. If you've got anything good and seasonal for summer, please hit me back with some recipe love.

Exit Extro, Enter Intro

2007-07-13T08:39:00.000-05:00

Growing up, I always had a reputation for being an extrovert, a joiner. I always had these big slumber parties for my birthday (shared with my sister, whose birthday was a week before mine), where I'd invite 5 or 6 of my closest friends. I rode bikes and roller skated around the neighborhood, and I became a bit of a tomboy because I lived in a neighborhood with all boys. I figured out that if I had a set of Constructicons and knew the rules of touch football, I'd be allowed to play.

In junior high, I made it as an extra in the school musical and made the J.V. volleyball team. By high school, I was adding extracurriculars left and right. I was junior class president and yearbook co-editor. I was president of the speech and drama team. I was a member of nine different clubs or teams during my senior year.

In college, I was a party girl. I went out three or four nights a week. I went to bars and parties all the time. I stayed up late. I hung out at the campus coffee house and on College Green all the time. I worked for the student newspaper and served on Student Senate. I took a non-credit bartending class, and my friend Greg and I gave each other piano lessons and put on a concert for our friends. I was not home very much.

When Basil and I started dating, there was some tension. The weekend would roll around and he'd be figuring out what movie we'd watch and what we'd cook for dinner, and I'd be plotting and planning with friends about what bar we'd go to. We had, uh, different ideas about how to spend our free time, to say the least.

I'll never forget the New Year's Eve that we agreed to spend in Columbus at one of Basil's friends' house. She was having a party, and so I agreed. Well...there were about ten people there. All of Basil's usual crew of friends. No one else. My visions of squeezing through a crowd of people to get to the keg were dashed. This would be a night of milkshakes and movies.

I got really, really, really drunk that night.

Eventually, though, Basil and I reached a happy medium of staying in-time and going out-time. I grew to appreciate quiet nights at home, and he came to see that going out to a bar with friends would be fun, too.

Now that we have Petunia, in-time and out-time mean different things. There's sitting around the house - reading, coloring, playing on the computer, watching TV, cooking together, playing dress up or dollhouse, gardening, playing the piano, etc. And there's going out - to a museum, to a restaurant, to a party, to a festival, etc.

And I've realized that I'm more of an introvert than I ever thought. I think that I was always on the go when I was younger because I was unhappy. I had a shitty home life, and I was running. In college, I was rebelling against my upbringing and acting on my low self-esteem.

But now, I have a happy home life. I love my family desperately. I like to sit around the house and do nothing on the weekends and week nights. I could spend a whole weekend playing the piano, cooking, doing a jigsaw puzzle and reading and be perfectly happy. If Basil and I had one complaint about our beach trip, it's that we didn't plan enough time for us to sit around and do nothing.

I still like people, and I (almost) always have fun at parties, festival, dinners and cookouts. But I no longer feel the need to always fill my life up with things to do or places to go. Now there are times when I'm the one who wants to stay home, and Basil wants to go out. Ah, the irony.

And the appreciation for solitude and stillness is something that we're teaching Petunia, too. She is very good at playing by herself. When we all come home at the end of a work/school day, she will go in the family room or up to her room to hang out by herself until dinner is ready. She falls into her world of imagination and paper, or else she plays with her dolls. Or builds a nest out of her blankets. Or 'reads' books. Or dresses herself up as a princess.

Sure, there are times when she wants someone to play with her. She's a kid. She loves her parents, and she likes attention. But Petunia has a need for alone time to keep her batteries charged, and I never thought she'd get that from me.

This weekend promises to be a quiet one - mostly. We're having some friends for a happy dinner tonight (congrats, Nathan!) and dinner with family on Sunday. But I'm looking forward to some serious sitting-around-the-house time where I can try to finish a book or work on the fingering for those pesky runs in Clair de Lune.

Last night, Basil and I made cookies together, and there is nothing I love more than just hanging out in the kitchen with my man. Unless, of course, Petunia is in there baking with us. And then it's pretty much perfection.

On the Water

2007-07-10T13:36:00.000-05:00

Hooray, hooray, hooray for the beach. Boy, did we need that.

We had a great time with FS and Yum and their offspring, as well as our friend J.Pro and her daughter (even sans their patriarch, who had to hang around DC and work). We ate a lot and drank a lot and watched some fireworks. We took the kids to see Ratatouille (very cute, recommend it) and saw a lifesaving competition. We made sand castles, and Basil and I swam in the ocean. We hiked sand dunes and flew a kite.

But I think the most fun for us Valentines was kayaking on the Currituck Sound.

We left the vaguely trashy, commercial stretches of the central beaches to head up to Corolla (pronounced cah-RAHL-uh) one morning, which turned into a mini-day trip, much to the consternation of FS's Son1, who missed Petunia dearly. Basil and I had decided on the way up that we'd try kayaking as a family.

Basil is an Eagle Scout and former Boy Scout camp counselor who taught rowing and did lifeguarding. He has spent plenty of time on the water. Me? Not so much. Well, I take that back. I spent a lot of time on the water as a kid - on houseboats, cabin cruisers, Seadoos, etc. My dad had a boat for awhile, and he had friends with boats. So we would drive down to Lake Cumberland a couple of times each summer and hang out on the water. But until five years ago, I had never been in a kayak, canoe or rowboat.

During our beach trip in 2002, when all of us were childless and had disposable income, we decided to fill our days with things other than body shots and blender drinks. Some of us went kayaking. I can't remember the company we used or at what milepost we shoved in. But it wasn't a very scenic trip.

First of all, Basil and I were in a double kayak, aka the 'divorce kayak.' I'm a control freak, but Basil actually has experience on the water. Both of us were trying to power and steer our craft at the same time, which was...uh...frustrating.

Second, we kayaked through some yucky swamp of a place. I know it was on the soundside of the Banks, and they called it 'marsh,' but it was definitely shallow water with lots of tall grasses and lizards and stuff. No stretch of open water in sight.

The good news is that our kayaking tour guide was one of the creators of the Myachi. He and his stoner friend came over to 'party' with us one night, though it really ended up being a bunch of us just sitting around drinking. As usual. Except we had two guys who had created and marketed a 'hand sack' drinking with us. (We saw Myachis for sale this year at Kitty Hawk Kites, so apparently, the last laugh is on us for making fun of them.)

For our kayaking adventure this year, we didn't make any reservations in advance. We just grabbed some free advertising rags before we left, and I read ads while Basil drove north on Highway 12. We thought we'd start with the Corolla Kayak Company. The guy in the shop/tour guide was super nice, no pressure and seemed genuinely interested in helping us find a way to get out on the water to enjoy ourselves. We settled on a single for me and double for Basil and Petunia, and we declined a 2- or 3-hour tour so we could just 'self-guide' for an hour. Not knowing how Petunia would react, we didn't want to commit to anything for very long.

It was awesome. The Currituck Sound is beautiful. Wide and peaceful, it was nothing like the swampy marsh we had paddled in Nags Head five years earlier.

We took a leisurely paddle up to the Whalehead Club, and then paddled out in the open water a bit. We saw giant grasses swaying in the water, rooted in the bottom of the sound that was deeper than the length of a kayak paddle. The sun was shining, the temperature was incredibly mild and the sound was not crowded at all.

Petunia loved it. She never freaked out. She never wanted to get out. She never wanted to take her PFD off. She never wanted to move around. She just sat quietly, watching the world go by. I loved watching her be so still and soak in the world.

Next year, we'll definitely go out for a longer tour and maybe even combine a kayak tour with a trip to the four-wheel drive area. One year, probably when Petunia gets older, we'll definitely do some sea kayaking.

In the meantime, I think we want to find somewhere to kayak locally. Heck, maybe we just need to buy a kayak or two and get out on the water ourselves. It's so nice to find something that all three of us genuinely love doing that we've got to find a way to do it more.

Surprisingly...Amazing Accurate

2007-07-04T18:37:00.000-05:00

Ummm....yeah. Pretty much what Buzz said.

More blogging after I sober up from our beach vacation.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody.

Beauty and Pain

2007-06-27T08:58:00.000-05:00

I am walking a little gingerly today, the victim of a waxing accident. Well, it wasn't an accident - it was more like waxing gone wrong. It's something that I've done a hundred million times, cleaning up my bikini line with rub-together wax strips.

But last night, I don't know what went awry. There was blood. A lot of blood. At first I thought, Wow - I really got some of those hairs out. Because sometimes that happens, yknow. You get little pinpricks of blood where the root has been completely torn out. It's actually a good sign that the waxing worked and will last a long time.

But then it became clear that I had actually torn a small piece of skin off the crease of my leg - something that's never happened before.

And as I lay trying to get to sleep last night, with a Bandaid in a very awkward and painful place, I hoped that the wound would heal by the time we went to the beach on Saturday, which led to my musing on the things that I do to look good, or at least in the hopes of looking good. I

wax my bikini line
shave my legs
shave my underarms
color my hair
pluck my eyebrows (or, at least, I used to; a year or so I realized I'd been overzealous and I've mostly been letting them grow in)
pumice any callouses and rough skin on my feet
paint my toenails
wear makeup (foundation, concealer, eyebrow pencil, eyeshadow, mascara, blush and lip gloss or lipstick)
dry/style my hair with a round brush and blow dryer
use hair styling products (like volumizer, shine serum or hairspray)
use 'natural glow' moisturizer (though somewhat sporadically)
buy about 5 new items of clothes per season
wear jewelry (mostly earrings and bracelets)

And, really, that's not a crazy list. I mean, I don't get Botox or collagen injections. I've never had plastic surgery or microdermabrasion. I don't buy myself a new wardrobe every season.

Of course, I know women who do way less than me. Some of them have a lot of confidence and look great without a lot of fuss.

But there are women who don't seem to care what they look like. Maybe they think being comfortable is paramount (that seems to be the consistent defense of every person who's ever been on What Not to Wear), but - to be perfectly honest - I think they look like they're phoning it in.

Basil and I went to a party this spring, and this hostess looked like she had just rolled out of bed and put glasses on. Greasy hair back in a ponytail, rumpled clothes - I would have been worried that we had arrived early if there hadn't been a couple dozen people there.

I just don't get it. Sure, it takes some time (and occasionally a little discomfort or bleeding) to look like I'm putting my best foot forward, but that's the point. I think it's a way to show that I consider myself, Basil, my friends, my coworkers, my family, etc., worth the time and effort. While some people say real beauty is on the inside, I know 'that's just something ugly people say.'

There's something very basically biological about preening. You need only read the captivating last chapter of Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, to see it in action. In the early spring, when Kingsolver is desperately trying to figure out how to get her Bourbon Red turkeys to mate naturally, as most turkeys in this country are bred through artificial insemination, she is puzzled as to why one of her females suddenly begins drooping its feathers and swaggering around the pen. Only later does Kingsolver realize that the female is trying to entice a male into helping her propagate her genes.

I'm not enough of a simpleton to believer that all modern-day preening is about hard-wired desires to perpetuate our own biology; I know that a lot of it is living up to a societal expectation, heightened by the unattainable images shown in mass media outlets. But there is a level of satisfaction in receiving a compliment - especially for something that has taken effort. There's nothing shallow about appreciation or flattery for a job well done, a meal deliciously made, a gift thoughtfully put together or a room artfully decorated.

So when a coworker tells me she loves my outfit, Basil tells me that I look hot, I get flirted with, someone at church tells me I look really nice today or I catch myself in a mirror and think 'Dayyyyyymn!', I am proud. I feel like the effort I've made has paid off.

When I was on maternity leave with Petunia, I had three goals everyday: to take a shower, get dressed in non-pajama clothes and put on makeup. I said that once to a friend, and she looked horrified. I explained, somewhat exasperatedly, that it wasn't about makeup - it was about what made me feel put together, on my A-game, ready to face the world.

So I will keep on waxing my bikini line, despite what happened last night. And I will take a few minutes to put on makeup every day. Hell, even at the beach, I'm sure I'll use a little concealer and eyebrow pencil everyday. And I will color my hair and buy new clothes and shave my legs. I'm sure I will have days where things slide a little, but I just can't let myself become rumpled, bed-head mess.

No, Really - Please Stop Believing

2007-06-20T08:42:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but I've heard that Journey song at least four times in the past week. Oh, you know what I'm talking about. The Sopranos finale song. The one that was playing when Tony and his family were waiting to have dinner while his daughter did a crappy job parallel-parking her car. The one that cut off suddenly when the screen faded to black and everyone started hitting their TV sets and looking for the customer service number for their cable or satellite provider.

Apparently, David Chase made the song en vogue again. I've heard it on commercial radio three times (on different stations) and once on the Hits 1 channel (yes, I like pop music - get over it) on Sirius, which exists to play new, fresh, 'it' music. When Sirius played it, the display indicated the artist and song as 'Journey/Don't Stop Believing/Hey Tony....Bada Bing!' Last night on iTunes, 'Don't Stop Believing' was the number 25 download on the Top 100 list.

Basil and I have never really watched the Sopranos. Just like Lost, we missed the boat when it left and it felt too weird to try and get in on it halfway through its trip. I'm sure we'll buy or borrow the DVDs someday.

But we did feel compelled to tune in to the last few minutes of the series last Sunday. Mostly for cultural literacy, just so we could see how it ended. We had no idea that we'd be watching something so controversial that would be analyzed and written about by mainstream and fringe media for days and weeks to come. Or that we'd be watching a wave of rebirth in Journey's career and the basis for the introduction of Hillary's official campaign song.

'Faithfully' was the theme of my junior/senior prom the year that I was junior class president and in charge of the prom. I didn't choose it; all the juniors voted, and 'Faithfully' won. I still remember those gold tickets with purple script letters on them. Also, the song 'Oh Sherrie' instantly transports me back to lying in the sun of the deck of the Beechwood Swim Club, trying to get a tan and not look fat all at the same time.

But really, I don't think that Journey is anything worth resurrecting (or breathing new life into since, technically, they're still around), anymore than much of the 80s crap that is in fashion these days. Legwarmers, fingerless gloves, high-waisted pants, etc. I get a kick out of VH1's I Love the 80s, and I do think back fondly on my roller skates and my Saturday mornings camped in front of four hours of the Smurfs. But for the most part, I don't have any desire to relive that decade.

It is pretty amusing to think of teenagers and young twentysomethings enthusiastically downloading 'Don't Stop Believing' from iTunes, enjoying its 'retro' quality.

As for me, I'll keep rolling my eyes.

vay-KAY-shun

2007-06-11T12:27:00.000-05:00

One of my Epiphany resolutions this year was to get my stepmother (okay, technically, she's just my dad's ex-wife at this point, but she'll always be my stepmother as far as I'm concerned) and siblings together for a vacation.

Mission accomplished.

Last night, we got back from Lake Norman, North Carolina, after a week of alternately relaxing and cavorting around the greater Charlotte area. We went swimming a lot. We made a lot of margaritas. My stepmom and I scored some finds at the upscale consignment shop in town, and she bought all three of her granddaughters adorable dresses from one of the cutest children's boutiques I've seen anywhere. One day, the whole gaggle of us - thirteen people in all - went to Carowinds theme park, where we rode rollercoasters and water slides for nearly eight hours. We taught my stepbrother, his wife and their fifteen year old how to play bullshit. Basil and I took turns playing Guess Who, Battleship and Scrabble with their eight year old. I played a deviant version of Guess Who with the elder of my younger brothers, in which we asked each other questions like, 'Does your person look like he or she just let a very loud, very surprising fart?' or 'Does your person look like an Irish truck driver?' or 'Is your person dressed in drag?' We had fresh waffles for breakfast one morning and omelettes to order another. We introduced Lilah to her dog cousin Samson the Rottweiler.

It was an exhausting, exciting week. We had so much fun.

We are already talking about where we will go next year and what we will do. Everyone had fun on the trip, even the surly teenager. Despite the fact that we all live very different lives, we all got along and found common ground in ways to relax and have fun. Everybody pitched in around the house, and no one got stuck doing all the cooking or cleaning. We hung together for certain activities and split up for others. No one had to do something they didn't want to do, and we didn't get sick of each other like we were at summer camp.

Basil, Petunia and I are pretty wiped out from several late nights and plenty of time in the car. But we are fat (literally, after grazing on Little Debbie snacks, potato chips, chocolate miniatures and alcohol all week) and happy. And my stepmother is pleased as punch.

Hopefully this will become an annual trip.

And now, FS and Yum, we are ready for the beach!

Paper Days

2007-05-31T19:46:00.000-05:00

When I look back on this time in our lives, when Petunia was three and a half and we were living in this particular house and Lilah was just starting to get out of puppyhood, I will remember the paper. Everywhere in our house, strewn like so many dustbunnies on the floor. A Hansel-and-Gretel trail of white papyrus, showing where our little right brain-driven preschooler had been.

Really, in a house full of toys, you'd think that Petunia would play with some of them. The play food and cookware, the pint-sized plastic tools, the magnetic paper dolls, the MegaBlocks, the miniature vanity, the dolls and stuffed animals. But it is paper that finds its way to her little hands time and again.

Basil and I both took business trips recently. I indulged my traveling mom guilt in a hand-knit backpack. Basil brought back the free pad of paper that came with his hotel room. Of course, the Marriott (or Sheraton? or Renaissance?) logo stamped paper has been what Petunia has played with. It has been completely destroyed and used up.

The paper that litters our house is mostly white - note paper, envelopes, drawing paper. But there is colored construction paper, too, and there are note cards and brochures and ticket stubs. Almost all of it has been altered. Most of it has been cut with the safety scissors that the Easter Bunny brought - turned into hard, irregular scraps with rough edges. Other pieces have been folded over themselves several times, like amateur attempts at origami. The majority have been marked in some way, with crayons or markers or stamps or paint or pen or pencil. Usually indecipherable scribbles that mimic cursive handwriting, but sometimes crude pictures.

I go crazy about the paper. When I try to clean it up, it multiplies in front of my eyes. The carpet and hardwood floors seem to push it up as an early summer crop. There is no getting rid of The Paper. Even when I think that it is all gone, there are tiny scraps that rustle at the edges of the Oriental rug, hiding in the fringe. I see paper in my dreams, swirling like one of those grab-all-the-dollars-you-can boxes inside the tacky tourist towns of my past. My hands open and close frantically, but they can never make all the paper go away.

It is hard to be too harsh on Petunia, though. Each piece of paper has its own story in her world. There are lots of 'constructions,' i.e., the things that tell her what to do. And there are notes to her parents, doctor's prescriptions, cards for her classmates and shopping lists. Paper does not fall to the ground like snow in Petunia's world. It is as if a briefcase of important personal and professional effects was cracked open like a walnut, its contents dispersed by the wind amidst the rooms of our home.

The paper is Petunia's mind at work. It is the tangible manifestation of the workings of her incredible imagination. Each scrap is a souvenir of some idea, some character, some thought, some feeling, some storyline. The little wisps of cuttings are proof of Petunia's genius.

I think about the parents whose children do not dream or think. The children who are in occupational therapy to learn to utilize their fine motor skills in working scissors or folding construction paper between their hands. The children who don't walk or explore or interact. I think how clean those homes must be, how those parents probably long for a child who just this once makes an unexpected mess, a show of progress.

When I look back on this time in our lives, I will remember how Petunia's spirit came shining through her self-directed play like a flashlight on a dark road. How, all of a sudden, it became crystal clear that this child would spend her life creating things, making the world see and feel what was happening inside her mind.

I will remember how the byproducts of creativity and inspiration appeared around our house like tiny weeds, growing quickly, showing up in unexpected places, unable to be quashed or eradicated by even the most heartfelt of adult exasperation.

Run for Your Life

2007-05-23T13:19:00.000-05:00

In about ten days, I'm going to do something I've never done before. I'm going to run in a race. Race for the Cure, specifically. Because if I'm going to lose my race virginity (as in, a running race - not as in, sleeping with someone with different skin color than me), then I might as well do it for a good cause, right?

I never, ever dreamed that I would run for fun. That it would be enjoyable in any way.

Back in the days of high school varsity volleyball, when we were doing our summer conditioning sessions, I hated running. HATED IT. We had to go for runs in a line where the back person would have to sprint up to the front. And then the new back person would sprint up to the front of the line. And so on and so forth until we finished our allotted mileage.

I have distinct memories of the early Sunday morning that I had to drive to school to meet my volleyball coach Gretchen and teammate Sarah to pay a penance for breaking one of the team's rules of training: Someone saw us sip a Mountain Dew before a game, and there were no soft drinks allowed on game days. Sarah and I had to run line touches, affectionately dubbed 'suicides,' for about a half an hour. I was only a month or two recovered from ankle surgery and my coach gave me the out to sit and watch Sarah, but I couldn't sit on the sidelines while Sarah killed herself running. So I ran, too. And I had to drive home that morning with my left foot because my right ankle was so swollen and immovable.

Also, running - well exercising in general - brings up my mommy issues with weight and food and body appearance. Because my mom has always rewarded me with new clothes and other goodies when I exercise and lose weight, my default position has been to not give in to her by doing what she wants me to do. Only recently, with the help of my therapist, have I been able to see that I just don't need to let her reward me for doing what she wants. I turn down the offers of shopping trips, and - VOILA! - she doesn't have any power over me any more. And then what I'm doing becomes about making myself happy and not about letting my mom control me. (Yes, I know that discovery isn't exactly going to win me the Nobel prize, but it was a big milestone for me, given the decades of doing something else.)

But for the past several months, I dare say that I have become a runner. Consciously, actively running. For my health, for Lilah's health and for my own enjoyment.

I have a regular route mapped out in the neighborhood that I can easily vary between 2.3, 2.6, 3.0 or 3.6 miles. I've been doing two shorter runs during the week and one longer run on the weekend. I've been working up to almost nine miles a week.

And I like it. And I feel good. And I'm proud of myself. And this week, I really pushed myself. I did the tiniest bit of trail running. Really, it was not even half a mile. And Lilah was way more interested in sniffing the flora than running, so I kept having to tug on her leash while bounding over tree roots and rocks. But I did it. And last week in Seattle, I used the free map my hotel room to plot out a three mile course, and I explored downtown near Seattle Center on foot in the wee hours. I'm already thinking about the kinds of routes I'll get to run this summer while at Lake Norman and the Outer Banks.

Part of my success is my iPod Shuffle. I love that little square of metal. It's loaded up with peppy tunes, and you'd be amazed at how the Black Eyed Peas or Eminem can help me make it up a hill.

A lot of it is how good I feel when I'm done running. I look forward to my running mornings because I have so much energy to get through the day.

It also gives me something to focus on other than my weight. I may not like what the scale says any given morning, but it doesn't seem so important when I can tell myself that I ran 3.3 miles in 40 minutes (including stops for Lilah to do her bidness). Running gives me other numbers to focus on. Ones that make me feel like I'm making big accomplishments, ones that make me feel like an athlete even if I don't look the part.

So in less than two weeks, I'm taking it to a new level. If it goes well, I think I'm going to challenge myself to do a longer race this summer. Yay me.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2007-05-16T20:38:00.000-05:00

I started my morning this morning at 5:15 am Seattle time, rushing about my hotel room getting ready. I made the decision to forgo styling my hair to get to the busy Sea-Tac Airport in enough time to clear security and have breakfast. I figured that Basil and Petunia wouldn't care about my hair when they picked me up at 6:30.

But it is now 8:30 and I am sitting in the crowded refugee camp that has become the A terminal of Newark Liberty Airport, sweaty from running through the massive C terminal, prisoner of Mother Nature's decision to pound the Northeast with brutal thunderstorms all afternoon and evening. With any luck, I'll be in my bed in the wee hours of tomorrow.

Of course, the most logical way to fly to Seattle from Washington DC is through Newark, which is why I'm here. Or, it was supposed to be.

I was scheduled to have a scant 70 minute layover and be home in time to give Petunia a bath and read her some books before bedtime. All without having to leave Seattle before 7:00 am!

This was what I considered the best option, given my choices. There is only one airline that flies nonstop from DCA to SEA, and it was about $400 more than flights from National (I refuse to call it Reagan-National) with one connection. While my association generally is pretty accomodating about expenses, I thought a $1,000 airfare might raise some eyebrows.

So I weighed my choices: Take a flight that would necessitate me getting up at. 3:3O or 4:00 am, get home after Petunia's bedtime or fly a tight (but not unreasonable) connection through Newark. I went with the EWR layover, thinking that I had beaten the system as much as I could. I'd be able to get a decent night's sleep the night before my trip, and I'd have some quality time with Petunia before bedtime.

On Monday morning, I saw that the Washington Post predicted thunderstorms for Wednesday, and I briefly considered whether my travel would be impacted. But when are the local weather predictions ever right more then 24 hours in advance? And what would I do anyway? Take a redeye on the off chance that the weather might impact my flights?

When I got to my gate this morning, the staff announced a delay for our flight. Bad storms in the Newark area, they said, and we'd be taking off an hour and a half late. So much for my tight connection.

But then the staff revised their prediction: We'd only be leaving an hour late, they said, and we'd make up some time because of a big tailwind. They thought that I'd still make my connection but maybe my luggage wouldn't. Hey, fine, I thought. I just want to see my baby before bedtime.

Then I considered my seat assignment: 24F, nearly the back of the plane. Having a seat in the front could save me ten or fifteen minutes getting off the plane and potentially make the difference in my making the next leg. Unfortunately, the only seats up front were middle seats. On a 5+ hour flight. I gulped and moved to seat 6E. The gate agent also booked me a seat on the next flight from Newark to DCA, leaving at 7:00. Just in case.

The flight got off on its revised time and we were estimated to land in Newark at 4:30-ish. Perfect, I thought. I'd run like hell and make it work.

But then, about an hour or so before we were supposed to begin our descent, the pilot came on the PA. Really bad storms in Newark still. Holding patterns of an hour. We were to hold over Pennsylvania for a bit.

Well, about a half an hour later, he came back on. We needed to refuel and would be landing in Cleveland, details TBA.

So down we went. It was to be a quick stop, though, just a refuel and go. No getting off the plane. I did at least get to call Basil and say, 'Guess where I am!' 'No, not Newark. Somewhere on the Great Lakes.' I also got to call Continental and ask what my options were if I missed the 7:00. There was a 9:30, the agent said, but it was full. Did I want to book a hotel? My seatmates urged me to take Amtrak if no flights were available, and I thought they were right and took my chances in not getting a room in scenic New Jersey.

We got back up in the air and started toward Newark with an ETA around 7:00. Once we landed, I beelined off the aircraft to check a monitor. The 7:00 flight was delayed to 7:30. It hadn't left yet! It was 7:12. I had to ride a shuttle bus to change terminals. Could I make it?

I ran. Like a crazy person. Like I was out for a run, but wearing wedge slides. Carrying a purse and tote bag. In jeans. I was weaving around people in the airport, trying to find the shuttle pickup. When I got there, I had to wait a couple minutes for a bus to arrive, panting and sweating. And praying.

As we boarded the shuttle bus, I called Continental again. They said I had a seat on the 7:00 and that the flight was boarding. 'I'm on the shuttle bus to Terminal A right now. I'll be there in less than five minutes. Can you make sure they don't leave me?' The agent could offer no assurances.

When I got off the bus and bolted up the metal stairs, ducking through the rain to get to the covered staircase, I hustled to the gate. The plane was there, the jetway was against the plane and there were people everywhere in the terminal. But no agent at the gate. I stood at the desk, waiting for someone to show up. An airline employee ran up, tried the jetway door, found it locked and started knocking and yelling. His attempts unanswered, he started stamping and cursing. 'Sir, has this flight already boarded?' I said. 'This flight is closed,' he said. 'But, sir, I have a confirmed seat on this flight. I'm supposed to be on that plane!'. 'This flight is closed, ma'am.'

And then I stood at the window and watched as the jetway pulled back from the plane. I had probably missed it by five minutes.

I threw my bag on the ground and cursed. Tears welled in my eyes. What the hell were my options now? This airport was crawling with people, everyone trying to get out. I called Continental.

I don't expect much when I call the help desks of airlines, but man did I luck out. This woman named Debbie got me a seat on the 9:30 flight to DCA, helped me locate the ticketing counter in this terminal and encouraged me to get something to eat, as I hadn't had a bite in almost eight hours. I got off the phone with Debbie and went to the gate where my flight was scheduled to leave. In a snap, the agent printed my boarding pass with a confirmed seat assignment. I sent mental tongue kisses to Debbie, wherever she was.

And now, I wait, as the 9:30 isn't going to actually leave until about 11:15. It seems like I will get home after all, albeit 17 hours after I woke up and almost seven hours after I was supposed to be home. With an unscheduled fueling stop in Cleveland.

I'd like to think that my luggage will make it by midnight, too, but given the way this day has been, I'll be happy just to have the clothes on my back. And my Blackberry to blog with.

Cursed

2007-05-10T15:18:00.000-05:00

When I was pregnant, I worried a bit. I think all women do. I worried about whether or not our daughter would have a hellish time in middle school, whether I'd pass on all the body image/food issues of my mother and grandmother, whether I'd be able to cope with the lack of sleep that comes from being a new parent.

But my biggest worry was that I'd teach Petunia to be a total pottymouth.

I have kind of a foul mouth. Or at least I used to. When Petunia was just learning to walk and talk, Basil really started riding me about my language. He said he did not want our daughter's first word to be 'shitfucker.' (Thanks, McGee, for that gem!)

So I pretty much cleaned up my act. When Petunia is around, she gets a lot of letters. Yknow, 'Get the F out of my way, A-hole!' when I'm driving. Or, 'That woman acted like a total B and stirred the S big time.' Hey, she needed to learn the alphabet, right? I made sure Petunia would know her letters for sure. At least, A, B, D, F, H and S.

I also adopted some of my mother's family's goofy non-curse words: 'Shoot fire, save matches!' 'Cheese and crackers and John R. Coppin!' (Google that name to figure out where my grandfather was from.) 'Oh, fudge.' 'Cheesal Pete!' 'Good gravy Marie!' And so on.

But I still sometimes take the Lord's name in vain. Not as bad as in seventh grade when I shouted 'Jesus fucking Christ!' in the gym locker room, and the gym teacher walking by the door heard me. He shouted in that he was going to stand in the hallway until someone came out and owned up to that language. These days, it's more like 'God blast it!' or 'God darn it!'

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we didn't take Petunia to church every week and weren't trying to raise her as a good, God-fearing Episcopalian. I guess it would probably embarrass the hell out of us if she said 'God blast it!' to one of the priests some week, as she started yelling in the car the other day in imitation of me.

But I'm struggling. I'm struggling with something to say when I accidentally step on the dog, who has managed to get under my feet while I'm cooking. I'm struggling with what to yell when someone cuts me off when I'm driving. I'm struggling with how not to curse.

What the #($*&@ do you people say in front of your kids when you're mad or hurt or scared? Do I have to totally give up my grown-up language?

Living the Local Food Experience

2007-05-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, the 'organic versus local' debate finally made it to the cover of Time magazine, and Yum wrote about it. I was reminded of thoughts I had when Elizabeth mused on the issue almost a year ago. And then, this morning, while I was reading MC Milker's take on 'the organic dilemma,' the issue came burbling back to the surface of my thoughts.

I can't remember the first time I heard about organic vs. local, but I remember reading about ways to get local food. There are farmers' markets, of course, but not all of them are limited to growers. (There are some shady scuzzbuckets who stop at the wholesalers on the way to town, making you believe that you're buying food that came straight from the fields.) And many grocery stores now indicate where food comes from or, at the very least, which food is local. One of the options I hadn't heard of until a couple of years ago was the CSA (community supported agriculture) - basically a food co-op where people buy shares in advance of local farmers' goods, either for a season or for a year.

When the Time article started making its way around the Internet, its link popping up in my Bloglines on more than one occasion, I revisited the idea of a CSA. I spent a little time on Local Harvest and found some CSA's that had Alexandria pickup locations. We joined Olin-Fox Farms for their spring and summer shares.

For the past five weeks, we have been driving to someone's house, just a few miles from our own, and taking our portion of what the farms (most of them in the Northern Neck, I believe) have harvested that week. We've gotten fingerling sweet potatoes, purple-top and hakuri turnips, bitter salad greens, microgreens with pea shoots, herbs (cilantro, oregano, sage, mint, rosemary), shiitake mushrooms, collard greens, kale, eggs, spring onions, asparagus, radishes and flowers.

Now, everything we've received has been of exceptional quality. I can't emphasize that enough. The collards and kale are TO DIE FOR and even the turnips are good. It's been nice having small amounts of fresh herbs, and we've enjoyed the flowers brightening up the kitchen. We got asparagus for the first time this week, and it's amazing.

But the portions aren't overly generous. I know that a share is for a maximum of two non-vegetarians, but that's stretching it a bit. Salad greens have generally arrived in a sandwich-size plastic bag. Our whole share each week can usually fit in a plastic grocery bag.

Two notable exceptions have been the eggs and the collards and kale. We've received several dozen farm fresh eggs and large bags of collards and kale. Sometimes we even have eggs or greens lingering around by the time we pick up our next share. And did I mention they're delicious?

It works out to a little more than $35 a week, which is the cost of the spring share, the summer share, a fruit share (available during the summer only) and the new member fee added up and divided into six flat monthly payments. During those months (mid-March to mid-August), we're only getting twenty weeks of food, due to weeks off here and there for planting and season transition. Though I should add that the nice folks at Olin Fox Farms were nice enough to let me spread the payments out over six months.

But $125 a month is a significant portion (more than 10 percent) of our grocery budget. And for the last payment, we're not going to get ANY food that month. Again, it's because I asked Olin Fox Farms to let me pay that way, but I'm just glad that we'll be taking some trips in August and won't need to buy as many groceries for home.

At this point, the shares have been a little thin to justify $35 a week, though yesterday's haul (the last week of the spring share) was really nice. I understand the weather has been giving farmers fits this year, and things are not growing as well as they could or should be. When I compare the things we've received this season to the produce list on Olin Fox Farms' website, I realize that it must have been a very bad year for farmers. I'm hoping that with the fruit addition in the summer and all the lovely things that will be coming into season, we'll make up a bit in terms of quantity.

If we lived closer to Reedville (which we've visited, by the way, and is absolutely charming), then the costs would be a little lower. We're at the farthest distribution point, and thus our costs are a little higher because of the transportation.

It's hard to compare this experience to shopping at the local Giant or even the relatively new Whole Foods. We're getting small amounts of expensive food that is incredibly fresh and delicious and has a smaller impact on the environment than any of our other food options. It's hard to say whether or not our CSA membership is 'worth' the money. Because...quantity? No. Quality? Yes. Variety? Maybe/no. Feel-good factor? Yes. How do you put a price on those things?

One thing we've learned is how incredibly lucky we are to live in a world with the kind of global transportation structure and technology that enables us to have just about any kind of produce that we want at any time. It takes the suspense out of the seasons. But now, I find myself rooting for the weather, praying for whatever the farmers need to get some new things out of the ground because I'm sick of turnips (albeit sweet, tender ones) already. I wish that we lived in a climate that could sustain citrus crops, and I imagine how exotic and decadent it must have been for the first northerners buying Florida grapefruit from their local grocery store.

If nothing else, I think I have a greater appreciation of the foods that I have access to and the struggles that local farmers encounter trying to make a go of it in this very global marketplace. Those are good lessons to learn even if we don't remain CSA members forever.

Greenish Thumb

2007-04-25T15:36:00.000-05:00

Almost two years ago, I mentioned that I was going to try and make something out of the postage stamp of a flower bed on our back patio. Well, I did it. I think anyway.

In fall of 2005, I dug up all the overgrown mint and put in some perennials. A Lenten Rose, some daisies, a couple irises, a black-eyed Susan, some asters (that died without ever blooming) and a little something that never grew very big (and eventually died). I filled the rest of the space with annuals last spring, mostly marigolds and petunias. But when the summer was over and the weather cooled down, I planted bulbs for the first time in my life. (I also dug up the remains of the asters and the random little something in the corner.)

I am a sucker for spring flowers, especially tulips and daffodils. My April wedding six years ago featured lots of each of those timely flowers, and we have wedding pictures of me standing in front of a bed of orange and yellow tulips at City Hall.

So I bought a variety of tulip and daffodil bulbs and planted them last fall, along with a bunch of crocuses. I mistakenly threw some paperwhites in the mix, and they bloomed at Christmas time, thanks to the unseasonably warm winter. But everything else waited until at least March to show its face.

There are still new things coming up, which was sort of the plan. I wanted to have flowers blooming continually from early spring through the end of summer.

Lilah seems to like them. (Sorry for the bad white balance in this one!)

But even more than the flowers, she just likes to be outside on a perfect spring day.

Behind the bulbs, I put in a peony and an echinacea that seem to be taking off. And the daisies and black-eyed Susans are ready for another summer. Maybe I'll do some more pictures in June or July when everything is full in the flower bed.

I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a gardener just yet, but I think that what I've done out back is a definite improvement!

The Sand is Always Greener...

2007-04-24T16:47:00.000-05:00

At the end of last week, the sun came out. And the temperatures came up. And on Friday morning, Jimmy Buffet was playing on the radio.

And for the past five days, I have wanted only to be on a beach, in a swimsuit and sarong, with a blender drink in my hand. I have been daydreaming about falling in and out of sleep while the waves crash nearby. I have been fantasizing about feeling warm sun all over my skin. I've been deluding myself with thoughts of chucking the whole gig here in DC to relocate the Valentines to the islands.

Mind you, I've never been to the Caribbean. Basil and I are not really beach people. I burn easily, and I hate sand in my crotch. When we go to Nags Head each year with friends, we spend as much time in the pool and around town as we do at the beach.

But I have mentally been in Margaritaville and am wondering what it would be like to leave the rat race of DC for something more laid back.

A few weeks ago, Dabysan had the single most compelling picture of island life that I've seen to date. But then a discussion ensued (and turned into a slugfest about whether or not Liz Phair is any good) about how visiting a beach is different than living at a beach.

Lately, I'm thinking that I could do it. I'm thinking that we could supplement the profits from our house and our retirement savings with low-key jobs. I'd be a wicked bartender, and Basil could teach tourists how to sea kayak. Little Petunia could learn invaluable life lessons like what the numbers on sunblock mean and why it's important to invest in quality tequila.

Sure, there would be hurricanes now and then, but we'd figure something out. I mean, there has to be more than one way out of the Florida Keys, right? No? Hmmm...

But really, I have to imagine that life isn't so stressful down in the sand and sun. Do beach dwellers worry about propelling their careers? Do they fret about the state of their public schools? Do they own business suits? Do they worry about whether their dogs are properly socialized?

I think we could downsize...just a tiny two or three bedroom cottage on the beach would be perfect. Nothing fancy, no need to worry about spaces to entertain. We'd only eat what we could grill, and we'd only drink what requires an ID to purchase.

You might think that I've just got spring fever, that I don't mean it. Then riddle me this, smartypants: Listen to some music with steel drums while staring at the sunshine outside your window for about ten minutes. Then go back to your office and stare at your phone and your computer. Am I kidding?

See you at the beach. First round's on me.

Back to the Future

2007-04-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, Basil and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. It's the first time in our lives that our anniversary has fallen on the same day of the week that we were married. It felt somehow more true, playing the 'What were we doing at this time X years ago?' game.

It wouldn't have seemed unlikely to visit Generous George's at lunchtime and see a guy with his friends relaxing and eating before suiting up, having his picture made and getting hitched, which was - of course - was Basil did in 2001. It wouldn't have surprised us at all if we had ventured to Market Square and seen a couple taking pictures with their wedding party, the way we did six years ago.

But we celebrated the way we do most of the time, with a nice, childfree dinner out.

We drove into the city, back to the neighborhood where I lived when Basil and I were dating. It had been years since we drove up 18th Street, passing the crowds at Lauriol Plaza and remembering how the lot it now occupies was vacant and scruffy when my friend Anj and I moved into the apartment down the street. It had probably been six or seven years since we were in Adams Morgan, but The Little Fountain Cafe was still there.

We discovered Little Fountain when I lived within walking distance of its tiny underground dining room. When Basil would come into the city on Friday nights, we'd go out to dinner somewhere in Dupont or Adams Morgan, discovering both gems and holes in the wall along the way.

Little Fountain was definitely a gem. I remember we went once, and it felt like a special occasion. I don't know that we were celebrating anything, other than each other, but it was a different kind of dining experience than we usually had together. It was dim and romantic inside the tiny dining room, and we sat next to the aforementioned fountain. I remember the food being delicious, the wine being wonderful and the bill being something that made my heart skip a bit at its three-figure-ness.

When we entered the restaurant this time, with nearly a decade of life's experiences between visits, I was surprised at how ordinary it looked. Maybe it was the late daylight still streaming in or maybe it was because the dining room was so empty. We opted for the table by the fountain, happy to have that part of our memory relived so easily.

Though the wine disappointed a bit, the food was everything we remembered. We had oysters (reminiscent of our first anniversary together at Kinkead's) to start and fish for dinner, which stood up to the wine very well. Dessert was the best part of the meal, as Basil opted for 'honey fritters' and I had frozen chocolate mousse with pistachio-toffee tuilles and a glass of ruby port.

What was most fun, though, was watching the other patrons who came in. There were a few older or middle-aged couples, but most of the clientele was younger than we are. Few of them had wedding rings on, and most of them seemed excited to be there, as if this Saturday night were a special occasion. I wanted to go up to each table and say, 'In seven years, you could have a daughter together, with a dog and a house and the whole nine yards. We used to be you!'

Rich, White, Desk-Job Guilt

2007-04-18T15:03:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, it was cold and windy. We had wind that woke me up a couple times during the night. Wind that made me wish for a scarf when I was pumping gas. And I spent my days inside a cushy office, watching the trees bend outside my window, while a guy named Carlos pressure-washed my deck, patio and fence.

Carlos showed up Monday morning with Oscar, arriving earlier than they said they would. When I came home an hour later to give them their first payment, Oscar had already made visible progress on the rotted wood in front. Carlos was out back running the pressure washer, his jacket covered in little bits of wood and paint and dirt that had been sprayed off our deck, patio and siding. When I gave him the envelope of money, he unzipped his wet jacket and tucked the envelope into one of the buttoned pockets of his flannel shirt.

And then I got in my SUV, turned on my satellite radio and drove back to my office.

I felt bad paying someone to work outside in this weather. Of course, it was Carlos and Oscar who called on Sunday and said they could start this week. I half expected them to call back Monday morning and say they couldn't work in the wind and intermittent rain. But they showed up, ready to go.

I feel guilty about people who have to work outside in crummy weather, and I feel even worse about people that can't afford to take time off now and then. A distinct flush creeps on me when I encounter someone who doesn't make much money at a job that requires them to be on their feet working hard all day in imperfect conditions.

The privileges of my life - a well-paying job, free health care, a house with plenty of space, a car to drive whenever I need it, generous amounts of vacation and sick leave, the ability to save for retirement and college...not to mention granite counter tops, a piano, DirecTV, regular salon trips and the occasional $500 dinner - make me self-conscious around people who work hard and don't have as much as me. Or who I assume don't have as much as me. I will be the first to admit that I make assumptions based on anecdotal experiences.

The discomfort becomes even more pronounced when the people doing the work are a different race or ethnicity than me. It makes me feel racist somehow, part of a caste system based on skin color.

Of course, if you go back two generations from me and Basil, three of our four grandfathers (all white guys) were doing hard manual labor for not much money. My dad's dad was a railroader, Basil's maternal grandfather worked in a factory and Basil's paternal grandfather worked in a coal mine, dying eventually from black lung. They all had it hard. Their kids had it easier, and their grandkids have it the easiest so far.

Maybe Carlos and Oscar have to work hard in bad weather and take work when they can get it, but their grandkids will be have stable, well-paying, white-collar jobs with great benefits.

But their worn work boots, pilled flannel shirts, calloused hands and halting English bring me squarely back to the present, where I feel rich, white and soft.

Maybe I'm just inflating the ease of our life in my own mind. After all, Oscar drives an SUV. Maybe he and Carlos are making bundles. Maybe they love to work outdoors and have clients lined up through the spring.

But I'd be willing to be that they don't. I'd guess that they came to work on Monday because they couldn't afford to sit on their duffs for a day when a paying job was waiting to be done. I was reminded of a recent discussion on my local working moms listserv, when one poster was expressing skepticism at her nanny, who was pregnant and only planned on taking three weeks off. It clearly never crossed the poster's mind that maybe her nanny didn't consider herself Superwoman but just couldn't afford more than a couple of weeks of unpaid leave.

Also, since saraht raised it (though I swear I was writing this post before you left your comment!), this is part of the reason that I haven't hired a cleaning lady. My family had a middle-aged white woman clean the house every other week, but I knew we weren't rich - years of never eating in restaurants and shopping the clearance racks had taught me that. Now, I live in a neighborhood with Range Rovers, weekend beach houses and saltwater fish aquariums as hobbies, and ninety-five percent of my neighbors are white. The lifestyle gap between the people who live in the houses and the people who clean or work on the houses feels much wider than it did during my childhood, and here in northern Virginia, a cleaning lady is more likely to be a Central American immigrant who struggles with English than a middle-aged white woman. I'm self-conscious about the differences.

But I need to have work done on my house, and I don't know anything about carpentry or pressure-washing. And while I do know plenty about vacuuming, dusting and mopping, maybe soon I'll admit that I have more house than I can take care of happily.

I know that I will always pay people fairly and treat them with respect (I believe strongly in learning the names of people who are doing work for me, whether they're caring for my child in a daycare center or replacing rotted wood trim on my house), but I'm not sure whether I'll ever stop flogging myself for being in a position to pay them in the first place.

The Sleep Question

2007-04-11T15:10:00.000-05:00

In the past eight months, I've managed to drop about 18 pounds. I'm within a hair's breadth of my pre-Petunia weight - just two pounds to go. I'm flirting with wearing a size 10, which is the smallest size I've ever been as an adult. My BMI is down to 25.1.

But I feel like crap because I'm so tired all the time.

Most of the weight loss has come from changes to my diet. I'm eating a lot less than I was last summer, when my BMI had ballooned up to 27.8. Motivated partly by Nathan's success at running a massive calorie deficit every day (but not to the point where I felt like I had the flu, like he did!), I keep reminding myself that controlling my eating is the most important thing I can do everyday.

I have been exercising, too, just not as consistently as I'd like. Earlier this year, I started running a little bit. And when I say a little bit, I mean doing 2.5 miles three times a week. And not at the fastest time. It felt good, though, and I liked it ever so much more because of the iPod Shuffle that Basil got me for Christmas. But then it got cold outside and I hurt my back for awhile, and I fell out of the habit.

Also around the same time, I started staying up much later. It was a slow creep, as bedtime at 10:30 turned into 11:00, then 11:30, then midnight. I had a hard time getting up before 7:15 or 7:30 so I lost my time to exercise in the mornings.

This week, I've tried to change the wakeup time. My alarm is set for 6:30 so I can squeeze in a run or a walk with Lilah before breakfast. But my bedtime routine hasn't caught up.

I'm getting myself in bed by 11:00 or 11:30 and I fall asleep pretty quickly, but that still only leaves me with seven hours of sleep or so each night. And by 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon, I am dragging like a bag of wet leaves.

I don't know how much sleep I really need. Will an extra hour of sleep make a big difference? And I'm struggling with how to have some 'me time' in the evenings after Petunia goes to bed around 8:30, which usually involves watching a little TV and reading, and getting a little housework done before 10:00 rolls around and, theoretically, it would be time to get ready for bed.

Do I need to quit watching TV? I have TiVo'ed everything I watch (American Idol, 24, Heroes - when it's frigging on, Desperate Housewives, House, The Office, Entourage, Grey's Anatomy) so I can catch up whenever I want. But I still like to watch one or two shows in the evenings, especially now that Basil and I have gotten sucked into the magical magicness (thanks, Gus) of Planet Earth.

Do I need to give up magazines? I have six subscriptions (Real Simple, Everyday Food, Health, Cooking Light, Cooks Illustrated and an anonymous person is now sending me Bon Appetit) and I always have a stack on my nightstand to catch up on.

I don't think I can keep this pace up, but I want to stick with the morning exercise. How much sleep do you people get? How the heck do you make it all work?

Where I Didn't Expect To Be

2007-04-04T12:05:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is my due date, or at least it would have been, if the baby that Basil and I conceived last summer hadn't had a complete extra set of chromosomes.

Last fall, when I envisioned this day coming, I saw myself pregnant. Maybe I would have a tiny baby bump that would justify the maternity clothes that have been sitting in boxes in my bedroom for the past six months, or maybe I would just have a big secret to keep while waiting to exhale.

But instead, I have my period.

My due date is tomorrow, I am not pregnant and I don't know when or if I'm going to get pregnant again. I'm not going to have a baby this year.

Of course, Basil and I have only been trying for five months. Even though each arrival of Mr. Murphy (we prefer that name to 'Aunt Flo') is bitterly disappointing, my experience is nothing that would make a doctor bat an eyelash. It's not even enough to make me a stirrup queen. I have friends that have suffered long battles with infertility. Some are going through hard times right now. I know my own experience, while difficult for me, is a cakewalk compared to what some people go through to have children.

I'm learning good lessons for life. I already know that I will never take pregnancy, children or parenting for granted. I'm learning that I can't be in control of my whole life, no matter how disciplined or careful I am. I'm coming to terms with the fact that experiencing good things is not necessarily tied to being a good person.

Life, it turns out, is not fair.

Tomorrow, my hopes and dreams for the day will officially collapse into the hellmouth, and I don't know what will happen after that. But I know that I'll be here and I'll be alive.

I debated whether or not to even write this, because my therapist says that I don't have to give anyone updates about not being pregnant. 'You don't need to give people an excuse to feel sorry for you to your face,' she said. 'They're already feeling sorry for you even if they don't say it. Hearing them say it just makes you feel even more sorry for yourself.'

And that's true. But I needed a place for my own sadness. I needed a way to mark this day.

The church calendar may help me in that, as tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. Our church holds a traditional eucharist service, with the stripping of the altar at the end. This is really powerful. As one of the clergy reads the twenty-second Psalm, which is what Jesus was quoting when he cried out 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?', the rest of the clergy remove everything from the altar - the chalice, the plate, the tablecloth, the candles, any plants or flowers, the cloths decorating the pulpits and the vestments of the clergy down to the alb. At the end of the service, all that is left is a bare table and a cross draped in black. There is no blessing to conclude the service, and the congregation leaves in silence without greeting the clergy.

I always leave the service feeling a bit empty, yearning to be comforted but knowing that helpless and lonely are what Christians are supposed to feel going into Good Friday. This year, I will feel stripped bare in a new way.

Someday, all this disappointment will become joy. Like Easter that arrives with lilies and trumpets and bounty and light, another child will come into my life. But like the women who did not expect to find Christ's tomb empty, I do not know when my joy will come.

Color My Kitchen

2007-03-30T15:30:00.000-05:00

For the past couple of weeks, I have been napping on my kitchen counters, resting my cheek on the cool new stone that was recently installed (Baltic Brown, if you're curious). Basil and I debated granite samples for a few days before settling on our choice, but we couldn't imagine what the room would look like with the stone. I was totally smitten from the minute the workers told me that the plumber would be by soon to connect the sink and don't touch the seams for at least 24 hours. I loved my kitchen even when it had white laminate countertops, but now I'm head over heels.

Call me a size queen. The kitchen in our old house was an 8' x 10' galley, with a teeny refrigerator and hardly any work space. Our current kitchen is 10' x 19' and includes a breakfast area. It's basically divided in half, with one end being a U-shaped configuration of cabinets, appliances and a sink and the other end a space for a table and chairs. There may not be a fancy island or peninsula, but there is a classic kitchen triangle. This means that prepping and cooking is easy, and guests can hang out in the breakfast area while Basil and I work.

When we moved in almost two years ago, we were ecstatic at the space. We came from a house where almost half our kitchen stuff was stored in the basement laundry room. The insides of the kitchen cabinets at the old place were configured like a Tetris puzzle, stacks of bowls practically interlocked with pilsner glasses and measuring cups. You couldn't get anything out without getting out two or three other things, too.

So the idea of a pantry practically made us wet our pants. We just about died at the thought of being able to stack salad bowls separate from cereal bowls and having every kitchen tool we own within arms reach.

And the space has been wonderful. But we've mostly been living with the 'builder basics' that were put in the house when it was built sixteen years ago: white laminate countertops, oak cabinets without hardware, crappy stove and even crappier microwave. The previous owners did add a terrific bottom-freezer refrigerator and a very quiet dishwasher, but the sink and faucet they added were terrible. I hated that white ceramic sink with every fiber of my being. It never looked clean, even when it was.

But now? Now my sink and counter never look dirty, even when they are.

We went with a Silgranit sink in anthracite, with a nine-inch basin on one side and 20-inch basin on the other. Because it's an undermount sink that's already almost ten inches deep, we've got about eleven or twelve inches of clearance from top of counter to bottom of sink. You can stack a whole meal's worth of dishes in there and not see it from the doorway of the kitchen.

And the Blanco faucet? It has a spray that is powerful enough to pressure wash our back deck. Too bad the hose isn't longer. We were nervous about going with the black faucet, but it just blends into the counters and you don't even notice it.

We were nervous about how the changes would look with our cabinets, which are raised panel oak. Nothing fancy and certainly not trendy, but in very good shape and not worth $10,000 to replace just for looks. So we tried to decorate around them. The granite ties in the black appliances to the oak cabinets. And the new light fixture I installed in the fall (in old brass finish) matches the hinges that are exposed on the cabinets.

Continuing to ride the momentum that has built up, we finally found some hardware to install on the cabinets that will match the hinges and light fixture and not look like they're whatever the builder could find cheapest at Home Depot.

And now I am jonzing to paint. People who know me well or have read this blog for awhile know that I love to tape up paint chips. We want to replace the red and ashy white (there's one accent wall that's red, but the soffits above the cabinets are red, too. Everything is this yucky white that doesn't match the warm tones in the room at all.

I'd like to do the kitchen in cozy, food-related shades, and I'm thinking brown. I'm thinking a nice, almond for the space between the cabinets and counters and the inside of the entrance to the kichen, and I'm seriously considering a nice, medium brown everywhere else. Something caramel-y, that looks like coffee with a few splashes of cream in it. The color of pecans. Soothing, comforting foods.

I have the almond picked out and we settled on a brown (Maryville Brown, from Benjamin Moore), but now I'm getting cold feet. Is this the craziest idea ever? Our kitchen gets pretty good light from a sliding glass door in the breakfast area and a double window above the sink, and the ceilings are nine feet.

Will we have to repaint in a few years if I turn my kitchen into the inside of a teacup? Tell me if I'm wacky here!

Parenting Bites

2007-03-27T08:53:00.000-05:00

One of the things that I have been learning through therapy is that I don't trust myself very much. I may come off with a bit of swagger and bravado, but deep down, I don't have a lot of confidence in myself.

In the past 24 hours, I have really been questioning my ability to parent well.

Yesterday, around 4:15, I got a Phone Call. As a parent, my heart just sinks when I hear the crisp German accent of Petunia's preschool director. I've either got a sick kid or a kid who's in big trouble. Yesterday, it was big trouble.

'Merseydotes, I'm afraid I'm going to need you to come to school and pick Petunia up right away. She has bitten another child, this time hard enough to break the skin. When I told her that what she did hurt the other child very much, Petunia responded that it would be okay if she said she was sorry and made the child a card. So, she needs to see the severity of this situation.'

I had been praying not to receive this phone call for two months. In January, just after my trip to Ft. Lauderdale for business and a little bit of pleasure, Petunia went through a rough spell at school, which the school social worker thinks was caused by the shakeup in routine. (Awesome. My business travel causes Petunia to act out at school. Mommy of the Year right here, folks!) Her teachers told us that she was very aggressive and agitated all week, and the bad karma culminated in Petunia biting one of her little friends on the thigh. She did not break the skin but she left a teeth mark-shaped bruise. We tried to do the 'pay attention to the victim' thing by forcing Petunia to make an I'm Sorry card, which she gave to the little victim/friend the next morning.

But apparently that message got convoluted into Petunia thinking that biting someone is no big whoop as long as you make a card afterward.

So yesterday when the 3s/4s class was out at the playground and this little quiet girl - who has these enormous sad puppy dog eyes - was standing on the ladder where Petunia wanted to be and wouldn't give her spot up when Petunia said she wanted it, Petunia attacked. She bit little MK right through her jacket. I saw the mark.

When Basil and I arrived at the school to pick Petunia up, MK was waiting in the office too. And she looked so scared and hurt. She's only been at this school a month or so, and here she is being attacked. By my child. Last night when I was driving home from teaching class, MK's big sad eyes kept flashing in front of my face, and I nearly cried.

All night and all morning, I have been wondering, Are we too hard on her? Are we too easy? Do I inadvertently model bad behavior? Is a big preschool bad for her? If I stayed home, would we be having this problem?

And then Gus throws me some highlights from a New York Times story about how being in day care makes kids misbehave up until sixth grade. (Sidebar: I am sick of the New York Times. Yellow journalism at its finest, especially when it comes to women and mothers. They are the most pot-of-shit stirring media outlet out there, even more so than Meredith Viera.)

So I am feeling pretty crummy lately, wondering if I'm raising a monster or if I'm just a bad parent. Or maybe I have a normal kid and I'm a good mom and we're just going through a bad spell.

I talked to our pediatrician on the phone this morning (if you live in northern VA and don't have a pediatrician who will get on the phone with you for ten or fifteen minutes when you have pressing questions, then I highly recommend Children's Medical Associates), and she was not especially bothered by the whole thing. She thinks we ought to be on the offensive, telling the school that they had better watch our daughter carefully to help catch her before she bites anyone. She thinks that our daughter is just having a tough time handling big emotions, and that's perfectly normal for a 3 1/2 year old. And that is somewhat comforting.

But it is so hard being the parent of a biter. Everyone wants to beat your ass, and you feel alternately like fighting back and putting your tail between your legs in shame. I was half-expecting that the director would tell us this morning that MK's parents had insisted Petunia leave the school. If Petunia had never been a perpetrator and only a victim, I might have felt that way. I didn't see MK when we came into school, and I wonder if she will be there today. The poor thing looked so traumatized. By our daughter.

The pediatrician did not think that Petunia needed to see the child development specialist on staff, which is comforting because my mind has been swimming with the thought of child psychiatrists, play therapy and the hassle of getting Petunia into another full time preschool. Maybe I just need to learn to trust that I'm doing a good job and - as Cesar Milan would say - send calm assertive parenting vibes.

Scold Petunia Once, Shame on You...Scold Petunia Twice, You're a...

2007-03-24T22:14:00.000-05:00

What is it with me? What kind of vibe do I send out that says, Come discipline my kid for me! Apparently, we should never go to parties because parties are where the trouble is. In college, it was always good, fun trouble, but as the mother of a preschooler, it's apparently all bad trouble all the time.

This morning started off so well. Petunia had her first ever ballet class. It went so well. The teacher was very good, and Petunia was absolutely rapt. She paid attention to every move the teacher made, and she mostly followed the instructions. See how cute she is? (Ahem, Xiobhan.)

After ballet class, Petunia TOOK. A. NAP. Seriously, I don't think I can remember the last time Petunia napped on the weekend. She has been a spotty napper since her second birthday, and on Saturdays and Sundays we usually just have 'quiet time,' in which Petunia lays in bed and sings to herself for an hour and a half while I clean the house and drink in peace.

So the karma was incredible today. Everything was going swimmingly. The birthday party Petunia was invited to was a tea party, and the honoree's mother explicitly asked the guests to come in dresses, jewelry, hats, gloves and tiaras. She might as well have asked the Huns to rape and pillage, so palpable was the glee. (That sentence was my dooce impression for the day.)

Petunia got dolled up in a very fancy, ruffled, flowered dress, and I put on a dress, too. When we arrived at the party, Petunia joined the other girls at the table to have tea sandwiches, cookies and tea. Then the sugar high kicked in and the kids shot through the house like Mentos mixed with Diet Coke.

There was one little boy at the party, apparently the brother of one of the guests, probably about six or seven years old. He was wearing black pants, a white button-down and a black vest, and the hostess had him play waiter at the beginning of the party, passing out treats to the girls in their 'gowns.' As he was serving the girls, he also was making funny faces and comments. Petunia, always one to fawn over the big kids, totally latched onto him and lit up with laughter every time he came into the room.

'Here's that funny guy! Look, he's so funny!'

Pretty much, that's Petunia's highest compliment. If preschoolers could flirt, that's how Petunia would do it. Except that the boy and his mother didn't see it that way.

After about the third time of Petunia laughing and smiling at the faux-waiter, the kids broke up to go do other things and the mother turned to me.

'I told her to stop laughing at him, just so you know. He really was getting offended and so when she was laughing just now, I did this [wags finger back and forth and empahtically whispers the word 'NO!']. Just wanted to let you know.'

I just kind of mumbled, 'Oh, okay. Ummm....huh. Okay. Sorry, I don't think she meant to offend him.'

But for the rest of the party, I deliberately avoided this woman and made sure Petunia steered clear of the thin-skinned elementary school boy. As the afternoon passed, my temper rose. I really think that the mother overreacted. I mean, she agreed to let her son serve as a waiter for a bunch of preschool and young-elementary-aged girls at a birthday party.

Also, what kind of mother doesn't recognize that a three and a half year old doesn't have the mastery of nuance and verbal communication that a six year old has? Couldn't she have tried to broker some peace, telling her son that this little girl thought he was really funny? Or said in a nice voice to Petunia, 'Honey, he thinks that you're being mean to him. Could you not call him "funny guy" anymore?'

But instead, I got the know-it-all bitchiness that comes with the finger wag directed at my kid.

I really don't get it. In the past few months, I have had the opportunity to correct other people's kids, and I've done it. At preschool one day, I heard a little friend of Petunia saying, 'Let's go play, Petunia. We don't way to play with HER.' And I got down on the little girl's level and said, 'That's not a very nice thing to say, Susie. If you and Petunia want to play by yourselves right now, that's okay, but you shouldn't make other people feel bad.'

That wouldn't have given me heartburn, if this mother had gotten down on Petunia's level and tried to gently correct her. But standing over her, wagging her finger...it just makes my skin crawl the more I think about it.

Of course, I am writing this after about three Baileys (wait, wasn't St. Patty's Day last weekend?), so maybe I've blown it all out of proportion in my mind. But I can't keep from replaying in my mind what I would have done differently.

Happy Daze, Part II

2007-03-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

The life has been sucked out of me for the past few days because of a work conference here in town. I might as well have been traveling, though, for all the time spent away from home. Last weekend was busy, too, and I can't believe it's been more than a week since I've posted something. In the vein of my last attempt at being positive, here are the things that have been keeping me going lately:

Organic almond butter - I've only ever seen this mentioned in health magazines and weight loss websites, as in 'Have a small apple with 2 tablespoons of almond butter smeared on the slices.' And I always thought almond butter must be some sort of grody, paste-tasting crap to get the endorsement of both the weight loss and fitness communities. But I bought a jar during one of my I'm Totally Going to Get Healthy moments a few weeks ago. And WOW! My thighs quiver when I eat this stuff! It is definitely better than peanut butter, and because it's natural it stays just a little goopy. It's excellent on gala apples and on bananas. I lick my fingers afterward like an addict.

Therapy - I've been seeing a therapist once a week for the past six weeks, and it feels like a giant heavy weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I think that talking through all my issues has been helpful because I found a good therapist from the get-go. She keeps me on my toes, and her office is painted a very comforting golden khaki. It also has very flattering lighting and smells pleasant. I feel like she's starting to remember me and my issues really well, and I don't have to remind her of everything I've already said. Spending so much time during the first session just spelling out all my family issues was cathartic. She was scribbling furiously and I periodically interjected, 'Really, I've got DAYS of material here,' and I realized that I'd never laid it all out for anyone before. I definitely feel better going to see her each week and will keep doing it for awhile.

Tanqueray - The temperatures have been a little warmer here, and work conferences mean receptions with open bars. Gin and tonic time! I never really liked gin and tonics before I started dating Basil. I was more of a bourbon and vodka girl. But then Basil showed me that there is nothing quite so refreshing on a hot day as a cool gin and tonic. At our wedding, we served G&Ts with kumquats instead of limes and named our signature drink The Fortunella, which is actually just the genus name for the kumquat plant. So I love it when gin and tonic season rolls around each year. Also, I've been listening to Amy Winehouse lately, and every time she mentions Tanqueray, it's like I'm some sort of stupid Pavlovian dog and I start looking around for the nearest bar.

People who compliment my hair - I've gone a little darker and a little shorter, and I think that my stylist really did a great job. I got gobs of compliments at the Saint Patty's Day party we went to over the weekend, and a lot of people gave me big smiles and compliments at my work conference. One woman felt the need to tell me in her thick Israeli accent, 'Change it back. It's too harsh. It's two shades too dark.' And I did not appreciate that. But everyone else's eyes seemed to light up at the way that I looked, which is a very good feeling.

New bras - If you've ever met me in person, you know that I am well endowed. When I left Capitol Hill, the Senate office where I was working feted me with a little party, at which someone read a fake letter of reference from the Senator praising my 'two tremendous assets.' It is not easy to find something that keeps the girls where they are supposed to be, and I'm probably not helped by the fact that I've never gotten fitted for a good bra. I remember reading about Oprah's bra intervention a couple of years ago, and in the past several months, it has been painfully obvious that I needed a lift. I couldn't bear the idea of spending $50 or $60 per over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder, so I scoured the racks at TJ Maxx one afternoon. I'm still not sure whether I have the size right, but my girls are pert and supported like they haven't been in years. When I tried on one of the new bras with a shirt, Basil said, 'Oh my God, is that what they're supposed to look like?' And the best part? It feels better. My back hasn't been bothering me in the past week, and I walk around thinking that I look better. The next time you see me, be sure to compliment my rack.

It's kind of nice to enumerate all the things that have been making me happy lately. It reminds me that my mood is not totally tied to the level of clutter on my dresser or whether or not I've gone for a run in the past week. Maybe I should do this more often.

Junk in My Trunk

2007-03-13T08:29:00.000-05:00

This winter, I was exposed a part of society that I knew existed but had never seen up close and in person. It sort of freaked me out. Was it pony play? (Not safe for work if you scroll very far.) Was it a Dr. Who convention? (It's a joke, Basil's friends!) Was it vaginal rejuvenation surgery?

No, it was the trunk show.

The concept of the trunk show is that a woman hosts a sales consultant (or is the sales consultant) in her home for an afternoon or two and displays samples of a line of clothing or beauty products. Or Tupperware. People come to the host's home, peruse the samples and order. Products arrive in a few weeks or months, and the host gets perks for bringing people in to buy, usually free items or discounts.

A couple of years ago, I got an invitation to a trunk show for women's clothes, to be held at the home of a friend of mine from church. I couldn't go, and I remember feeling relieved. Did I want to have to custom order clothes in front of a bunch of women that I hardly knew? How much would I have to spend to fit in? What if I didn't like anything? What if nothing came in my size?

Then in late January, I got an invitation for a trunk show for kids clothing, Just Ducky, to be held by another friend from church. Even though the prices in the catalog made my eyes bug out, I decided that it would be a friendly, keep-the-peace type of thing to go and order a couple things for Petunia.

The fabrics were really nice, and the company allows you to choose any fabric for any style of clothing. So you can say, 'I like the floral print that's shown on this shirt but I want it on that ruffled dress.' And - POOF! - with the flick of a pen, your clothing item is ordered exactly the way you want it.

The 'show' itself was pretty low-stress. There was no one else there when I went to browse and order, and the woman who hosted it also acted as the sales rep and was pretty low-key. She figured out quickly that I wasn't into the uber-preppy stripes, plaids or gingham. When I told her I was mostly interested in church dresses, she didn't try to push me into shirts or capris. (I will choke down spending $50 or $60 on one or two quality church dresses each season, but I won't pay $45 for a shirt or a pair of capri pants that will get ruined the first time Petunia decides to dig for worms on the playground at school.)

Not long after I had given my credit card information to the people at Just Ducky, I got an invitation for another trunk show, hosted by yet another woman from my church with a sales consultant who also goes to my church. (Apparently, I go to St. Trunk Show.) This show was for Pasty Aiken kids clothes. I didn't love the options as much this time around, as you couldn't mix fabrics with clothing styles, and I just didn't think the fabrics were as cute. But again, being polite and friendly, I decided to go.

I felt a little more pressure to buy big this time. The show host and the sales consultant sort of played off each other and would end up sticking two or three things in my face whenever I casually picked something up and said, 'I sort of like this.' There was another woman there while I was shopping, and it got to be a little much, everyone oohing and aahing over the clothes and holding up coordinating pieces. After choosing a swimsuit and a skirt outfit, I ordered her this slightly ridiculous hair bow in the end just because I just thought it would end the parade of accessories.

Having attended two trunk shows so close to one another, I realized there were some interesting similarities.

There is some sort of unspoken conventional wisdom among the trunk show hosts about what types of clothing and fabrics are appropriate for certain ages. When I said I was thinking about a two-piece bathing suit, the Patsy Aiken sales consultant widened her eyes and said, 'I kept my daughter in a one-piece as long as I could. Look how darling these swim dresses are!' I almost ordered a two-piece just to spite her, but then I really did like the smocking on the swimsuit I picked out. The Just Ducky host/consultant thought this fabric was 'too old' for Petunia. I wouldn't put a three-year-old in a bubble jumper, and I wouldn't put a baby in an A-line skirt, but I'm a little stumped as to why a modern circle print is 'too old' for a three-year-old. I think there was a little concern that I went with this outfit, modeled on a six-year-old girl, instead of this more 'age-appropriate' one, modeled by a four-year-old girl, but when the clothes finally arrive, I'll post pictures (Xiobhan!) and you can decide for yourselves.

Both of the women who hosted the trunk shows had oil portraits of themselves as children hanging in their homes. I'm sure the paintings used to hang in the homes of their parents, but who has oil portraits of their kids made? Other than Edward Darley Boit? Apparently, there is a level of old-money Virginia out there that I didn't know about.

The host of the Patsy Aiken party at one point said, 'I hate for Anne to ever wear blue jeans, but I did find these adorable ones with ruffles of grosgrain ribbon that I can stomach!' And I didn't know that there were mothers in the world who abhorred the idea of their daughters wearing denim. I mean, I'm guessing that if Laura Bennett had a little girl, she might ban dungarees from the house, but in the real world, who hates jeans? And who calls them 'blue jeans' like some eighty-year-old plantation heiress?

I can't believe that there are parents out there who outfit their children with these trunk-show brands year-round, though the money dripping from oil portraits may prove me wrong. Heck, even if I had the money to spend on clothes like that for Petunia, I don't think I'd do it. Aside from the fact that many of them are too fussy for my taste, I wouldn't want to send the message that I'm the kind of woman who thinks that preschoolers should never wear two-pieces swimsuits and that I hate for my daughter to wear blue jeans.

The Saddest Friday Night

2007-03-12T09:25:00.000-05:00

Basil and I have always talked about the idea of adopting a child or becoming foster parents. We're a little overwhelmed by the options, especially those associated with adoption. International or domestic? Toddler or older child? White kids only or children of another race or culture? And I don't think we're in a position to adopt or foster anytime soon for lots of reasons, many of them financial.

But, boy, were we tempted on Friday night.

We were in Baltimore for the night, enjoying Basil's Christmas present from The Most Awesome Wife in the World: tickets to Spamalot. Because I could only get tickets for a Friday evening show, we decided to stay over in Baltimore. Petunia went to JP's house for the night; Lilah to Mozo's.

The traffic was horrendous getting up to Bal'more, and we made it to the theatre just fifteen minutes before the show was scheduled to start. With no time for dinner, I made do with a gin and tonic and a cookie, Basil with a Jack and Coke. When the performance was over, we checked into our hotel and decided to walk down to the Inner Harbor for something to eat and maybe a few more drinks.

Turns out there are not a lot of places serving dinner at 11:25 pm on Friday nights. We ended up at the Pizzeria Uno in Harborplace, which was pretty empty but was still serving a limited menu at the bar. We ordered drinks and bar food and sat and chatted while we waited for our extremely late dinner.

Sometime around 11:45, we noticed a little girl running around the restaurant. She couldn't have been more than two or two and a half. We winced inside a little at people who would have a preschooler out that late, but we just assumed that her family must be finishing up a very late dinner or maybe her mom was a waitress.

But then her dad came over and sat down right next to me at the bar. He didn't need to sit right next to me. The place was pretty much empty, and the bartenders were starting to close things down for the night. He staggered over with a snifter of something (is it a bad stereotype to assume it was Hennessy?) and plopped down next to me and started watching basketball before he lit a cigarette.

When the little girl, who did not show signs of being tired or cranky - though I have to believe she was running on a second wind and could have crashed at any moment - came over and started calling him Daddy, we knew that this was no exception of a night. The little girl's mother was walking around the restaurant with a drink, too. I'd say both parents were no more than twenty-two or twenty-three.

Basil and I nearly carted her off when her dad picked her up and put her on the barstool next to him, blowing smoke from his cigarette all around her. As he started talking to her, she started yelling, 'Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!' And Daddy just sort of smiled and yelled back, 'No, you shut up!' And it was more than obvious that this is the way that this family talked to each other.

The bartender made him get the little girl off the barstool, telling him that the police 'would write me up in a second for having someone under 18 sitting at the bar.' So the little girl went back to running around, Dad back to his snifter and cigarette, Mom doing God-knows-what.

Basil and I couldn't even speak. We couldn't even continue our conversation because our hearts were breaking for that little girl. We ate and paid our bill quickly and started back to our hotel.

'I just wanted to say to her, "Come with us, just come with us" ' Basil said on the way back to our room. 'I just wanted to scoop her up and take her home with us and move her into our guest room and give her a chance.'

Because, really, that little girl has no chance. It's not going to be her fault when she ends up pregnant as a teenager, racking up a criminal record, dropping out of school, falling in with a guy who abuses her, doing drugs or smoking at age twelve. Who will motivate this girl to learn to read? Who will teach her to have self-esteem? Who will help this little girl find healthy ways to deal with anger, stress or sadness?

I don't know why some parents treat their children the way that this little girl was being treated. Maybe she wasn't being abused, but I would argue she was definitely being neglected. It's not a race thing, it's not a class thing, it's not an age thing. What makes a parent absolve themselves from the responsibility of raising a child? What makes them think it's okay to keep her out until after midnight at a smoky restaurant bar? What makes parents think it's okay to teach their two-year-old to yell 'Shut up!' at anyone?

Maybe this girl does have some sort of a support network...an extended family or neighbors or the social services system looking out for her. Maybe Friday night was a really, really bad night for her parents.

But maybe it wasn't. Maybe this is a little girl who will end up in foster care someday. Could I be a parent, or a foster parent, to her?

Paige had a great post last November about what it takes to be a foster parent. And I know that many of the kids in foster care are sort-of worst case scenarios...those who have suffered the worst kinds of abuse or neglect. Would I have the patience to reverse years of someone else's bad parenting, to teach a child to respect adults and herself and go to bed at a reasonable hour?

There was really nothing to be done on Friday, except eat in silence and say a lot of prayers for that little girl in the blue jeans and the red turtleneck. I hope that she gets a chance someday.

Pulling Back the Curtain

2007-03-07T22:15:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, I got to spend some time with two incredible bloggers over brunch. While the kids wreaked havoc and tried to keep the dog from eating their Goldfish, we chatted, drank mimosas and ate sausage casserole and pumpkin bread. We talked about kids and food and rugs and, of course, blogging.

In talking about a lot of different bloggers that we've ever met, known or read, we touched on a few sites that get quite a bit of traffic. Like Sarah and Xiobhan, most of the writers we talked about post pictures of their kids. And I said, 'I just can't imagine what it's like to have some weird people that you don't even know fawning all over your kid, saying things like "My daughter sees the pictures of little Gizmo and just loves them so if you're ever coming down to Anywheresville, just let us know because I'm sure the kids would play so great together!!!" '

And I didn't even think of it at the time, that maybe it sounded like I was looking down my nose at bloggers who DO post pictures of their kids. Literally, it just dawned on me this week that what I said might have been interpreted as a little holier-than-thou. Because that's not at all what I meant.

Really, I think it's weird the way some people sort of get all fanboy about bloggers' kids. Don't get me wrong, there are a LOT of very adorable children on the Internet. And I love to see pictures of them. I like to browse through Flickr pages and smile. I post comments about pictures every now and then (what the kid is wearing at the time or something funny in the background), but I mostly comment about what people write on their blogs.

Basically, I realize there is a line. People who write blogs are not movie stars. They don't have bodyguards, publicists or managers. Even people who write sites that get a LOT of traffic still live in normal houses in regular neighborhoods and go out to dinner as a family. And though their kids may be as cute and you may see their picture as much (or more!) as Suri and Shiloh, bloggers' kids are not celebrities. Not even Trixie MacNeill, not even Leta Armstrong.

Sometimes when I read other people's sites or look through their Flickr pages, it feels like commenters are crowding a velvet rope trying to get noticed and singled out for a smile, an autograph, an acknowledgement, a handshake. They're trying to be the most loyal reader, the happiest person commenting, the one who feels most strongly about how cute the blogger's child is. I think it's creepy.

What I don't think is weird is putting pictures of your kid on your blog. It's a great way to share your family with friends who live far away, and it can be a great way to illustrate what you're writing about. It's also a good chance to show off your awesome photography skills. I haven't posted Petunia photos to date (though I have been considering it) because Basil and I hadn't decided how we feel about strangers seeing our daughter and - the bigger issue - how we feel about the ability of people that we know in the real world to confirm who we are online. More than the photos, we decided that what we write could potentially be problematic, given that neither one of us wants to get dooced anytime soon.

But we talked about it at length and decided that we don't have a problem with showing Petunia's shining visage to the world. I'm not sure we'll set up a Flickr account just yet, because we plan to keep our own stunning mugs to ourselves.

Without further ado, here she is. Prepare to be blinded by beauty.

Oh, that was a horrible tease, wasn't it? We got all dressed up the other night for a 'fancy party' in Petunia's room. That is three-year-old codespeak for putting on every item of dress up clothes that you own and adding some of Mama's old scarves to boot.

Okay, just kidding. Here is a real picture of Petunia, taken on an uncharacteristically warm winter day.

She IS cute, isn't she? Even with the Ugg boots on?

I can't promise lots of photos, but I will make an effort to take more so I at least have some options to choose from.

Now, nobody get all psycho on me.

The Naked Truth About Art for Kids

2007-03-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

Following through on my Epiphany resolution to 'do more fun things with Petunia,' the whole Valentine family went to the American Art Museum and Portrait Gallery yesterday. Two museums occupying one building in Gallery Place/Penn Quarter, they were closed to the public for six years while the space underwent a massive renovation.

The new space is phenomenal. It opened to the public last summer to rave reviews. The two galleries are joined on every level, and visitors can wander back and forth between black and white photos of famous figures in American pop culture and history and the riveting Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii.

Petunia really loved the permanent exhibit America's Presidents and delighted passersby with her loud shouting of 'It's our first President, George Washington!' or 'Look, Mama, it's Theodore Roosevelt!' Of course, we shrugged our shoulders at her genius like, What can we do?

Throughout the building there were pictures and paintings involving various levels of nudity. Naked cherubs, The Falling Gladiator, paintings with breasts hanging out, etc. I think it's hard to take a kid to an art museum and not see a nipple. No big whoop.

But when we came upon the Josephine Baker exhibit, Basil quietly steered us away. I was a little puzzled at first - 'Honey, she's seen nipples and penises all afternoon' - but then Basil articulated his concerns more clearly. It's not that he was concerned about nudity, he said, but about the likelihood of lewd, suggestive nudity associated with 1920s Paris.

I guess Josephine Baker made her living being sexy and provocative, though certainly not pornographic. And I doubt any of the pictures would have been mimicking any sort of sex act. But there is something eye-catching - as well as entertaining and enchanting - about a woman wearing nothing more than a banana skirt and a lot of jewelry.

Honestly, Petunia was more struck by what was happening in Helen Brought to Paris, which is arguably more fraught with adult themes, than by the overtly exposed breast of the poet Sappho, so I'm not sure that the Josephine Baker exhibit would have made a big impression. But we skipped it nonetheless.

I'm not sure where I draw the line. When we were walking through the Lincoln Gallery (modern and contemporary art), I prayed that there wouldn't be anything disturbing to a young child. I mean, if they had something like Piss Christ hanging around, they'd have to let people know, right? I really hoped that I wouldn't have to explain anything unsettling that would stick with Petunia in a bad way. There was one video exhibit that had a sign warning that some of the images may be disturbing to young children. Those images will remain a mystery to me because we didn't venture in to see what was on the screen.

Would I take my kid to a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit? No, for the same reasons I wouldn't let her thumb through a Dolce & Gabbana ad campaign. There is just no way to explain what those people are doing in a way that would make sense to Petunia. We haven't had the birds and the bees talk yet because she hasn't asked where babies come from. She doesn't have any compunction about nakedness. How could I explain sex to her, much less eroticism or S&M?

I'm not sure we made the right call yesterday. I think she probably could have handled it. Although, as Melissa Summers will be the first to tell you, if you take your kids to a museum that ends up being a little overwhelming for them, there's just no way of taking it back.

Maybe we made the right call after all.

Book Burning (My Eyelids Off)

2007-02-28T16:14:00.000-05:00

Parents of young children are inevitably surrounded by media. Some of us go the route of TV, some of us...not so much. Some of us change our minds on TV. Most parents I know show their kids movies. And I'd stake my new stove on the fact that just about every parent has a fair collection of books and music for the enjoyment of their kid.

And like just about anything in life, kids' movies, music and books can be pleasant, entertaining, sweet, funny, thought-provoking and inspiring. And they can make you want to rip your eyeballs from their sockets and stick knitting needles in your ears. It's a real mixed bag out there.

We're having some issues with the books lately. Mostly because family and friends sometimes buy Petunia books based on the cover and the title. I would argue against this method. It's how we've ended up with the most inane stack of reading materials in the English language. Here are some sample grabs of writing:

'Baby Bunny twitched her nose, hopped right out and picked a rose. "Papa Bunny, Mama Bunny? Baby Bunny loves you, too." ' - Love & Kisses, Bunny

'If all the lights in her son's house were out, she opened his bedroom window, crawled across the floor and looked up over the side of his bed.' - Love You Forever
'For the best little sister in the world, a heart of gold. Her face lights up. It's a joy to behold.' - Give a Little Love

When I read those books to Petunia, my brain slowly starts to leak out my ears.

Some of the most unreadable books out there are built on the franchise of characters:

'When the colors come together, it's quite a sight to see, for they create a rainbow of perfect harmony!' - Disney Princess Colors

'Lonely and defeated, the Beast returned to his bedroom. There he found a Christmas gift from Belle, a book she had written just for him. It began: Once upon a time there was an enchanted castle. This castle's master seemed as cold as winter. But deep inside his heart... The Beast realized that Belle had seen through his misery to the goodness he kept hidden inside!' - Disney's Christmas Storybook, 'The Enchanted Christmas'

And then there are those authors who would take a simple song in the public domain and turn it into a crappy, multiverse book:

'Little child, your wish came true, Here I am right next to you. I'll take you on a magic ride, so come with me - I'll be your guide. There's so much that you'll see and do on this adventure made for you.' - Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

I'm not sure why someone decided to destroy a beautiful ode to a celestial body (the phrase 'like a diamond in the sky' is terrific) and turn it into an acid trip vision of a kid flying through time and space looking down on the world.

Basil and I buy Petunia lots of books. We try to get her a few nice hardbacks each year for her birthday and for Christmas, and we'll buy her paperbacks here and there throughout the year. Now that Petunia has more of an attention span, it's fun to get books that have more than two or three lines of text on each page.

Petunia also has been given lots of wonderful books. Our friend HugNKiss gave me a stack of books as a baby shower present, and we're just now getting into the most advanced of them.

It's not like there's any kind of formula to a good kids book. Sometimes it's a clever turn of phrase or an unexpected word:

'For the next several days, Mrs. Primm thought it best to keep Lyle close at her side. Together they fussed about the kitchen, preparing good things for the family to eat.' - Lyle, Lyle Crocodile

' "I can't stand the trombone, with its blaat and its blare! That racket is more than my eardrums can bear! So return it or throw it away. I don't care. I despise it, just like all the rest." ' - The Remarkable Farkle McBride

Sometimes it's a beautiful rhythm:

'In November's gusty gale, I will flop my flippy tail and spout hot soup. I'll be a whale!' - Chicken Soup with Rice

'The STRINGS all soar, the REEDS implore, the BRASSES roar with notes galore. It's music that we all adore. It's what we go to concerts for.' - Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin

'Wet dog stepped in the splash and the suds til the cool flowed down his fur. Then he shook and he shook with a happy-dog smile, wagging his happy dog tail...' - Wet Dog

Sometimes it's just a simple, effective description of a concept or a situation that would otherwise be over a young child's head:

'It was such a perfect place to be that Puddle never wanted to go anywhere else. Toot, on the other hand, loved to take trips.' - Toot & Puddle

'She took one good look and backed away. (She was old enough to be shy of people, even a very small person like Little Sal.)' - Blueberries for Sal
'The league managers heard the talk, and their stomaches started to twitch. They knew their girls were ready to play ball, but maybe the country wasn't quite ready for their girls.' - Players in Pigtails
' "I get it," said Michael. "Maybe good luck and bad luck are all mixed up. You never know what will happen next." ' - Zen Shorts

Petunia has been eschewing all those good reads lately for this very mediocre version of Disney's The Jungle Book. I tried to pinpoint why I hated reading it so much, and it's not like the writing is unbearable. It's just so straightforward and long. It reads like a police report or something. Mowgli went here...Bagheera did this...Baloo said that...

In an attempt to get Petunia off the adventures of Mowgli, I went to the library today on my lunch hour (Sarah and I apparently were on the same page). I checked out five books in the end. Most of them are pretty good, but there is one gem in there.

'The men wear undershorts or briefs. Some of the men wear T-shirt undershirts with sleeves. Some wear undershirts without sleeves, and a few of the ninety-two do not wear undershirts at all. But night and the temperature are falling, and one thin man buttons up a suit of long-sleeved, long-legged underwear.' - The Philharmonic Gets Dressed

I think we're going to have to buy that one.

At some point, I hope that Petunia starts to appreciate the books that are written by actual authors and illustrators. I can't wait for the day that she realizes that the literary equivalent of Cindrella III is not worth her time when The Lorax and Olivia are sitting on her shelf.

Of course, maybe it's just me. Maybe I am just dying for my kid to 'develop an aesthetic' when it comes to books. I am the snotty bitch who inwardly rolled her eyes at and made a mental note to hide from plain sight the Patricia Cornwell book that her aunt gave her as half of a funny bridal shower gift. (The other half was a borderline slutty nightgown. In the book, she wrote, 'Maybe read this later?')

Perhaps the crummy books should just slowly disappear into the Goodwill pile as Petunia tires of them, thereby removing the possibility that she'll see them on the shelf some random day months later and decide to rediscover the heartwarming story of the little girl who gives heart-shaped balloons to her family members.

Or maybe I just need to get over it.

Of Movies and Men

2007-02-26T15:36:00.000-05:00

Where did the week go? Man, it was crazy at work last week. I'm talking, leaving late, getting to the preschool five minutes before it closed. Throw in a couple of religious events, another session at Let's Dish, the delivery of our new stove and microwave, a surprise snowstorm, brunch with girlfriends, and a brief bout of some sort of apparently contagious fever by Petunia...and all of a sudden it's Monday.

One of the other ways we killed time for the past six days was watching movies and the Oscars. Ever since we dropped our Netflix subscription (because we weren't using it and the movies would sit collecting dust for three weeks), we have been pitiful at seeing movies. I suppose we could go to Blockbuster, but there's not one nearby and it seems like a hassle. Movies in the theaters are few and far between, because by the time you add up the cost of tickets, snacks and a babysitter, it's a $50-$60 outing. Without dinner. Which I don't mind paying if it's something we really want to see. But if we got stuck sitting through a lemon? I'd be FUMING.

Enter redbox. This contraption showed up in our grocery store a few months ago, and I remember thinking, 'One dollar DVD rentals? It has to be stuff like Pretty in Pink and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.'

But then one day I checked it out. They actually had new releases in that funny looking box! Maybe not every new release, but there were some recognizable movies in there. I was tempted to get Snakes on a Plane, but I was still sure there must be some catch.

Then one day, Basil got up the guts to give redbox a whirl. He swiped a credit card, picked out a movie and entered his email address. The machine started making some noise inside, and quickly enough out popped a jewel case with a copy of Talladega Nights.

Seriously. And for real.

So this weekend, I decided to peruse the redbox after picking up my prescriptions. They had The Departed! In stock! The weekend of the Oscars! So I got it, along with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. (I think the aforementioned dead man kicked it while watching this long, drawn-out snoozer of a pirate flick.)

But The Departed...WOW. I totally would have done the $60 babysitter thing for that movie. It absolutely deserved the Best Picture win. And Scorcese certainly deserved his win, too.

I love a good mafia movie. Basil and I quote the first two Godfather movies to each other all the time. ('Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.' Or, in the voice of Fredo, 'I'm smaht! Naht like everybody says, like dumb. I'm smaht!') Goodfellas is top-notch. Pulp Fiction is fucked up but very, very good. Basil and I really liked A History of Violence, especially the part with William Hurt.

In general, I'm a fan of ensemble movies. But mafia movies are especially great. Partly because they're almost all guys. I'd pick Reservoir Dogs over Steel Magnolias anyday. But mafia movies don't just have a bunch of guys...they have a bunch of bad boys.

I've always had a thing for bad boys. My therapist was not surprised, once I told her about my mentally unhealthy, alcoholic father. I've told you about him, right? The one who ended his marriage to my mother so he could be with his nineteen-year-old secretary? He who missed lots of important events over the years of growing up or showed up to them drunk? He who yells and screams and berates people when they disagree with him? My dad once stopped talking to me for several months because I told him that by being an aggressive, accusatory parent under the auspices of helping my younger brother, who has a mild learning disability, was not actually helping my brother to learn anything, that it was only creating a situation where all the teachers passed my brother in order to get out of dealing with my dad.

Yeah, apparently, it's pretty classic psycotherapy for people to be attracted to the kind of opposite-sex role model they had growing up because it's what they know. So me? I always went for bad boys. Guys who didn't care that I was much more emotionally invested in them than they were in me. Guys who were happy to have me around when I was there but filled up their time with other people when I wasn't. Guys who drank and smoke like crazy, who screwed around and partied nonstop. Guys who would never, ever commit to anything serious or public with me. Guys who were greedy and shallow and manipulative. As far as I know, none of them were gangsters, but some of them could have been.

Even though I came to my senses and married Basil ('Wait, not all guys treat you like shit?'), to this day, there is something about the calm, cool guy that just gets me going. The one with the 'I don't give a shit' attitude. You know that line in 'The Real Slim Shady' where Eminem says, 'Feminist women love Eminem, "Slim Shady, I'm sick of him, look at him, walking around grabbin his you-know-what, flipping the you-know-who" "Yeah, but he's so cute though!" '

That's me. Give me a jerk, and I think he's hot. Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed was HOT. Marky Mark was HOT.

And the only good thing about the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie? Johnny Depp is a first class asshole to everyone around him. Which makes him smokin'.

Sloshing Through the Meme Cherry Juice

2007-02-20T15:02:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm still excited about doing a meme. Yes, I'm going to finish it.

Just to recap:

1. I do math in my head while driving.
2. My hair is mostly gray underneath all the dye.
3. I once got rug burns on my knees from a strip club.

(ahem) Moving on...

4. The first time I ever got high, I smoked the resin. As you might guess, the chicks that I was smoking with were not first-timers. No, they were so battle-hardened that they scraped out one of their empty pipes that was lying around and made a bong out of an empty Diet Coke bottle and another small pipe. They went to Amherst College. Nuff said, right?

The best part is the way I knew them. I met Mary at Baptist church camp when we were both in junior high. We remained penpals and friends all the way through college. I went up to Lafayette, Indiana, to visit her once or twice, and she came down to Kentucky once or twice. Even after we both realized we weren't Baptists and Mary realized she was a lesbian, we were still friends.

The summer that I was doing my Capitol Hill internship before my senior year of college, I let Mary know where to reach me. One night, she called to say hi and asked what I was up to. A few minutes later, she knocked on my door! I hadn't seen her in years, and here she was with her then-girlfriend, standing in front of my GWU dorm room. She was doing some sort of internship here, too.

We headed off to her and her girlfriend's apartment, and they asked if I wanted to get high. I said, 'Sure, I guess. I've never done it before, mostly because no one's ever asked me.' When they realized they didn't have any actual pot laying around, they scraped a bowl and got together a ball of resin. After fashioning the MacGuyver bong, we smoked up. I did well - all those years of smoking cigarettes paid off - and got promptly stoned out of my mind. I remember sitting on the couch watching a movie with them and thinking about how much my nose itched, all the while staring at my right arm and trying to will it to my face. It didn't happen. The resin was intense. (Mary McAllister, if you're out there, drop me a line! I still have pictures of us from that night. I will cut Alexis out of them.)

5. I once performed the part of The Other Guy in a dramatic interpretation of Green Eggs and Ham. My friend Miller was Sam-I-Am. Among other things, I was a speech and drama nerd in high school. Such a nerd, in fact, that I was the president of the school forensics team my senior year. Over three years in the speech and drama program at my high school, I did Prose Interpretation (from Bastard Out of Carolina), Poetry Interpretation (something Maya Angelou, I think), Dramatic Interpretaton (scene from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Impromptu Speaking (state silver medalist, baby!), Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory (speech about hate crimes) and Duo Interpretation (Green Eggs and Ham).

Yes, my friend Miller had one black folder and I had another, and we stood in front of countless judges 'acting out' (you were only allowed to move from the waist up) the dialogue of Dr. Seuss. 'I will not, will not with a goat!' It was some fine acting. Although, I have to say that we often had people in stitches. Miller was pretty goofy as Sam-I-Am, and I was pretty fired up as The Other Guy. I'm sure to a bunch of high schoolers who were trying to be all high-brow doing Toni Morrison and Henrik Ibsen, it was kind of amusing. Whenever I read Green Eggs and Ham to Petunia, I have to fight the urge to really put all my facial expressions and vocal range into the words of The Other Guy.

6. Almost every night, I go into Petunia's room and plant soft kisses all over her face and inhale her smell. I know I'm only a step or two away from becoming the creepy old lady in Love You Forever, but I can't help myself. It's the best smell in the world, and during the day, she is too active to let me really drink it in. I don't know if I could describe it to you...it's not necessarily sweet, but it's wonderful.

I never understood when people hung on to the clothes of loved ones who had died or gone missing, going into the closet to breathe in the scent of their absent husband or child. But now I get it. If I suddenly became blind and deaf, I would know it was Petunia before she even touched me. It's the most soothing thing in the world to me...more than music, more than fresh air, more than a touch from Basil, more than the sound of my grandmother's voice. That smell makes my world stop. And when she's sleeping, I go in at night and gently lay my face on hers, trying not to get too heady on the smell of perfection and wonder and miracle right underneath my nose.

So, there you have it. Now you're a bit wiser about me. Regularly scheduled programming will resume soon. And if anyone wants to be tagged for this, just let me know.