A Mommy with an Attitude

Just for Laughs

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:37:00 +0000

Yes We Can (laugh) courtesy of The Onion:

"Obama Revises Campaign Promise Of 'Change' To
'Relatively Minor Readjustments In Certain Favorable Policy
Areas' "

Read the whole (short) piece here.

z

In Retrospect, I Should Have Been a Buddhist Nun

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:16:00 +0000

My latest go-to stress-relieving fantasy is that I’m a Buddhist nun. Living quietly with everything I need. But then I remember that for a variety of reasons I wouldn’t make a very good Buddhist - or any flavor of nun for that matter. Like being a Buddhist and being a pacifist sort of goes hand-in-hand and I’m not a pacifist. You’re probably surprised to hear that the way I criticize war, but I’m only opposed to the aggressor in imperialistic wars (the most common aggressor in my lifetime having been my government). Still, as much as I feel peaceful just looking at the Dalai Lama, I can’t help wondering that if he hadn’t been such a pussy, maybe the Tibetans wouldn’t have entirely lost their homes to the Chinese army. On the other hand, there’s a chance they’d all be dead instead of just exiled, but peace without justice is no peace at all and from where I sit, there’s not a whole lot of justice happening on this planet. So I’m a warrior, therefore not a very good Buddhist nun.

However, the real reason I’ve been obsessed with becoming a nun is a more personal and complicated story and not the kind of thing I generally share on this blog, but I’ve run out of topics so here goes:

A couple of years ago, I remembered that I had forgotten to go to graduate school, right about the time I had the temporarily devastating realization that my life is half over and so if I have things I mean to do “someday,” someday has arrived. So I applied to a Master’s Program and was rejected. I felt entirely destroyed, like there was nothing else I ever possibly wanted to do but that. Then after a while I got over it (I’m good at that, if nothing else) and applied to two more programs last fall. (I also opened a coffee shop, which is really fun but isn’t making any money yet.) When I applied I thought that I probably wouldn’t get accepted to either one, since I’m obviously such a loser I couldn’t get into the first one I applied to, right? But my thinking was, I will have tried -- and then being a good religious girl (or bad religious girl, whichever) I would accept that God has spoken and it’s just not meant to be in this lifetime.

So now, after living frugally and simply for all of my adulthood, just like the vast majority of regular people who are now being blamed for the financial crisis we’re in as a nation, I’m routinely calculating how long we might get to keep living here if I stopped paying the mortgage, weighing if I’d benefit more from not paying my credit cards (used to open the coffee shop) or from maintaining perfect credit at any cost -- basically living an eighth of a nickel away from debtors prison and working as hard as I can to make money fast enough.

Then what happens? I’ve been accepted to both graduate programs. And I really want to do them both. Because if not now, then when?

What I need is a miracle – and as luck would have it, I believe in miracles. So I’m waiting – breathing in the fear, breathing out relaxation – comforted by my relentless faith in the abundance of the universe and that all things, good and bad, come to an end. Maybe I could have pulled off being a nun after all.

Making Marriage Work and Timeless Blog Wisdom

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Mon, 25 May 2009 00:16:00 +0000

Sometimes I feel sorry for celebrities who grow up famous, because I think about how awful it must be to be judged at 40 by the dumb things you did when you were 20. Blogging can be that way too – there is what you wrote, three years ago, on display for everyone to see, even though it may not in any way reflect the larger part of who you are – it is only a reflection of something you were processing at a specific moment in time. Like writing a letter on Sunday stating that you have the stomach flu, sending it thousands of miles away, only to be perfectly fine by the time the recipient reads it. I don’t have that experience very often, but last fall when I was thinking to myself, in light of this absurd debate about who can marry, why can’t we just get rid of marriage as a legal institution altogether, I started receiving a lot of blog traffic from people googling, “abolish marriage.”

So here is my blogging tip for the day – do not ever (EVER!) make an offhand remark about the mating habits of lions in a blog post, because you will get comment after comment from people telling you that not only do you hate gay people but you don’t think black people should be allowed to marry either.

Seriously.

Semi-related, my review of the book, Making Marriage Work, is up at Feminist Review. I really enjoyed reading it and it is inadvertently funny in some places – in ways I couldn’t put in the actual review, because I was pretending to be a smart, analytical reviewer, as opposed to my actual juvenile self. For instance, when outlining the historically perceived social importance for women to marry (not so important for men, of course) the author describes a case study of a woman who took a “Marriage Readiness Course” to address all of the issues that made her (sadly) unfit to marry and ends with this: “By the time that Marcia met and was courted by good, solid Dick, it was clear that she had invested sufficient time and energy in her program to become a successfully married woman.”

Or maybe I’m the only one who giggles at such a sentence. Ahem.

So about abolishing marriage for real – judging from my stats, comments and e-mails, if you’re reading this blog, odds are you’re probably married and a feminist (or you’re obsessed with Jim Bob Duggar and droopy tits, but I’m just going to ignore you people). So obviously pairing up with the opposite sex and making babies hasn’t gone out of style, but I like to think that marriage as a political institution has evolved. Still, it remains the safest way for a woman to keep herself and her children out of poverty, it’s discriminatory and just otherwise socially problematic on several levels. And when I ponder possible solutions to those problems, I just keep coming back to wondering why we need the state to define our families, alliances, romances, etcetera for us anyway.

Parenting, Politics & Oh Yeah, Happy Mother's Day!

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:38:00 +0000

I don't know what kind of sad-excuse-for-a-mommy-blogger forgets to post on Mother's Day, so I hope fun was had by all. As for me, I received the best gifts ever -- all homemade, including my new favorite poem:

Mama,

Sunny, funny

Reading, Fixing, Working

She is a cat person.

I love you,

I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a haiku or what ever gave him the idea that I like cats, but it is my favorite poem forever, nonetheless - as a fellow writer, I particularly appreciate the experimental point-of-view. Not to mention, it's not every day (or any day for that matter) that someone calls me "sunny."

Just because he and his brother are my favorite kids doesn't mean I'm not going to subject them to this video -- and I highly recommend that all adults watch, even if you're not a fellow lunatic-who-relentlessly-harasses-her-spoiled-children-about-the-evils-of-consumerism. Don't feel sorry for them though, I'll make popcorn to eat while we watch.

Finally, a great piece about Madmen and what's wrong with Barack Obama. (Hint: It's not personal, it's just that he's a well-connected, establishment politician -- who knew!!!!)

And finally once more, a link to one of my favorite organizations for whom every day is Mother's Day around the world.

Pax

The Fountain of Youth

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:05:00 +0000

On my birthday when I was gloomily contemplating my frumpy, old haggedness, a delivery came for my husband while he was at work. I said to the delivery guy, “Can you just put it on the porch out of the rain and then he can put it where he wants when he comes home?"

The guy said, “Umm, it weighs like two-hundred pounds, I don’t think I can get it up on the porch by myself." Then he eye-balled me for a second and said, “Well, you could probably help me, you look pretty strong.”

Later I told my husband so he could beat the guy up or something, but he doubled over with laughter, “Why didn’t you beat him up yourself, you’re pretty strong…”

(I am rather hefty, but really, you can keep your observations about that to yourself if you don’t mind.)

Then I then went upstairs and overheard J and Little One saying, “I love you better than poop.” “Well I love you better than chickens.” “I love you better than underwear on your head.” And just as I began to fantasize about flying to Madagascar. All by myself. Forever. Little One said wistfully, “Well – I love Mama the best of everything.”

So with Madagascar out of the running I thought maybe I’d just get a new hairdo. I said to my hair stylist, “Maybe I’ll go with strawberry highlights once instead of golden. Do you think I’d be a cute redhead?”

He kind of nodded and grunted.

Or how about one of those short in back, longer in front bobs ala Victoria Beckham - did he think I could pull that off.

Sort of a nod and shrug.

Then I said I really love pixies and every time I see a girl with a pixie I think oh my god is she the cutest thing ever, I wish I had hair like that. “But,” I said, “I think only girls who are skinny can wear that look well.”

He chuckled, “You’re skinny.”

“So you think I would look cute with a pixie?” I perked up.

Long uncomfortable silence.

In the end I just took a tip from my young baristas and bought a pair of Reeboks – I was skeptical… until I got carded buying a bottle of wine. Now I believe! So to my fellow mid-lifers, who are dedicated, in principle, to growing old gracefully, but simply aren’t “feeling it” – there is hope. Step away from the bovine toxin. Resist the urge to run away from home. Try some hip, comfortable shoes.

Appalling Anonymous Commentors

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Lately I feel like a pinball -- I work on whatever it is I'm working on until I get a letter, an e-mail or a heart palpitation telling me I'd better hurry up and work on something else. In other words, I've got way more to worry about lately than I can deal with (but this nice bottle of Italian Red, block of Gruyere and box of Rosemary crackers are helping quite a bit - at least for now).

First Cynthia Samuels clued me in that CNN is asking for input about the state of our kids' schools -- I understand the hope is that the Obama administration is going to fix education (like all the administrations before him). Oh stop, I sound crabby - it's been a long day. Seriously, if I had time and knew how to make videos, I would love to be part of this important conversation, so check it out and participate if you can!

Then I was not-so-gently reminded that I'd forgotten to blog and as I wondered what exactly I was going to write about (I don't suppose you're interested in city sign permit fees or how many sinks a coffee shop needs in order to be allowed to slice a lemon) -- like manna from heaven, I got this anonymous comment in my inbox:

I think it is appalling you give your child coffee.

Now, as many of you know, often blogging is about sharing the parts of ourselves that are most vulnerable -- putting our parenting insecurities out there for all to scrutinize and so on. And when you do that and you get a bitchy anonymous comment it can really hurt, because the comment is close to home and digs at something you do (or don't) that you already feel uneasy about. I suppose Anonymous was trying to do that to me (for God knows what reason random people enjoy making strangers feel badly about themselves, but anyway) -- but I just had to laugh because I thought -- APPALLING? Half a teaspoon of espresso in a glass of milk is an APPALLING drink for a kid - really?

And then I just wanted to ask Anonymous -- what adjective would you use if I'd given him bleach to drink? Toilet water? Dog piss? I mean, get a grip.

I was reminded of a girl I once knew who told me her biggest nightmare was the thought of having a spider land on her head. I'm not judging her -- lucky her, she was young and she'd had a very very nice life thus far. But really, some of us have (and have already lived) much bigger nightmares than that. So I guess I could be a compassionate Buddhist and be glad to know that Anonymous has had such a perfect life that it can't imagine anything worse than a pampered middle class American boy having a sip of espresso in his mother's coffee shop. The horror!

And then I wondered if Anonymous thinks it's appalling when children routinely drink soda pop-- which my kids hardly even know exists (while we're on the subject, most of my family members are kind of appalled that I don't ever let my kids drink soda pop). How about caffeine-laden Easter chocolate -- should I confess that my kids had Easter candy too or will that necessitate a call to CPS?

Some day my childen will be adults and they will tell me all the appalling things I did to them as their loving, devoted and imperfect mother -- and I promise to listen and to take it like a womyn. In the meantime, a word to those who try to be hurtful, but don't have the balls to even say who they are -- it will work better if you find a parenting issue about which I lack confidence, my kids' ultra healthy abundant diet just isn't one of them. But on behalf of mothers who do waste time fretting about that, find a less appalling passtime.

Last but not least, did you know that I almost share a birthday with Gloria Steinem? I do! One day off - do you think that makes me special? Probably not -- maybe I'll criticize my mother for giving birth to me a day too late. Here's to Gloria and to all who commit outrageous acts!

A (More or Less) Mommy Wars Reading List

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:44:00 +0000

Just for fun, I want to make sure no one misses Katha Pollitt’s recent piece on Michelle Obama. I have to admit I’ve developed quite a crush on the first lady, partly due to David Brooks’ fear that she could bench press him (likely one-handed even), but frankly she had me at telling a young girl, who aspired to be a first lady one day, “it doesn’t pay very well.” Pollitt highlights even so much more to love.

Then I’m sure everyone has read the Atlantic breast-isn’t-really-best-fest, which was well done even though I had mixed feelings about it, followed up by Debra Dickerson’s inane right-on (right on the heels of dismissing the youngest generation of feminists as poll dancing drunkards – what has gotten into her lately?). I didn’t write about it because I didn't have much to add except my own story and a snoring rendition of humans are mammals and their milk is designed perfectly to nourish their young – it’s a good thing – still, the vast majority of reasonably intelligent, healthy Americans alive today managed to grow on evaporated milk and corn syrup – wah wah wah wah.

So I decided I’d rather just let it be until I read this great take by Judith Warner - sensible, thoughtful, perchance inspiring, definitely worth reading. With that I’ll return to my regularly scheduled programming of worrying about my own boobs and leaving the sisterhood alone to worry about their own, free from my judgment, (no doubt) wisdom and helpful hints.

Last but not least I would like to vent… no! Talk. I would like to talk about this most vile internet phenomenon which I will call the children-haters. Before I get myself into trouble, let me say that I know many people in real life who are child free by choice or by circumstance and none of them are repugnant children-haters. I don’t know where the internet finds these people. But you might have read in the comments from my last post that someone is horrified to see that I basically told a Mother Jones columnist to “off herself.” Which I kinda did, along with about a hundred other people – but don’t feel sorry for her! She’s smart enough to know that the surest way to inspire people to suggest you go fuck yourself is to refer to their children as nothing more important than carbon-emitting “monsters.” Certainly she was inflammatory on purpose. I gave her just what she was hoping for – an angry reaction and a link.

The post drew a lot of crazy parents who claim their children will cure cancer and end global warming, and a lot of crazy non-parents who feel the goal of civilization should be to end civilization, but there was one sane comment that’s worth repeating (trust me you won’t want to read through all of the nonsense to find it). The suggestion is that the U.S. might adopt a policy whereby tax breaks are only given for up to two children. The theory being an acknowledgement that people need public support to do a good job of raising their kids; yet everyone having more than two children, particularly in a wealthy (or really I should say, grossly wasteful) country like the U.S., is not sustainable and should be discouraged (or at least not publicly subsidized). It’s an interesting idea, but when I envision it in practice it seems it could be elitist – inadvertently punishing poor people for having the audacity to reproduce, which we already do enough in this country.

On the other hand, it's mind boggling the degree to which people feel disgruntled about the child "tax write off" factor. I mean all year long I educate, feed, house, clothe my kids, not to mention I purchase a boatload of useless junk for them to play with and destroy. At tax time, apparently I'm supposed to feel like I'm really cashing in on these guys -- you'd think it would make me want to have another, all the money I'm making. Well I don't know about you, but my reaction is more along the lines of whoop-de-doo. If we actually had policies in the U.S. that helped mothers, financially speaking, well then I suppose someone could complain, but trust me, for the most part, we're on our own out here. Some even complain about having to pay taxes for public schools. If you can't comprehend why educating children benefits the entire population, then you're a good example of how our under-funded schools fail.

So wait, I promised we were just going to talk and I accidentally vented there at the end. Sorry about that, but really I wanted to explain to anyone who might read that previous comment that I'm not in the habit of telling people to just die already and get it over with - I was only trying to help her embrace the mantra "let change begin with me." I meant well -- mostly.

My 7-Year-Old Coffee Snob

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:19:00 +0000

The other day my kids were at work with me and J asked if I would make him an espresso. An Americano (espresso and water) had just been made by accident, and I was drinking it even though it's not my favorite drink. (WHY does it feel less wasteful to eat something you dont want than to just throw it away?) So I took a tiny bit of the Americano, poured a bunch of milk into it and gave it to J.

It will be another thing he'll be using to impress the other adults in his life. One of his teachers told me that J is very sophisticated because he eats sushi and Thai food and frog legs and escargot... and anything really. Actually he's never had escargot, but that's his mother's fault. He really wants to, but French food is expensive and eating snails grosses me out, so I haven't exactly been all over helping him out with that.

As for the adults who tell me how cultured he is --I always have to just nod and smile, because what I'm really thinking is, at home he doesn't talk about any of that even half as much as he talks about butts and farting and assorted bodily fluids/functions -- he doesn't generally seem all that mature or fancypants around here. I'm hoping maybe with time...

Also, unfortunately his "sophisticated" palate doesn't extend to health food. He's currently being screened for a suspected food allergy, so he said, "You know I just thought of something I eat a lot of that's probably making me sick -- salad and vegetables."

Nice try, we told him. A for effort, C for creativity, F minus for subtlety.

(The current suspect is pineapple by the way, and I really hope that's the ticket, given the ease with which one can avoid it.)

After J discovered the Americano my husband was home with him for the day and when I got home he said, "I offered J a hot chocolate this morning, but he told me that all he drinks now is an Americano - where the hell did that come from?"

Hey, I told him, when you're hip you're hip, who can help it.

On a more serious note, if I had the energy to go on and on or analyze or even just think for a minute - I would write about this, but I don't - so I'll just leave you with a link to this thought-provoking piece from NYT. Additionally, the author of said piece has done a lot of fascinating work collected here.

Because I Don't Know What Else to Say...

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:17:00 +0000

I'm a little behind on blogging thanks to the opening of my new coffee shop! Oh and not only that, but both of my kids got the stomach flu opening week (hello guilt), I was accepted to a graduate school program and I received two books in the mail that I'd kinda sorta forgotten I'd agreed to review. Hence the bags under my eyes and the abundance of leftover takeout in the fridge. But my little one and the dog are cute, right? And soon you will be able to read my review of two fascinating books - Making Marriage Work: A History of Marriage and Divorce in the Twentieth-Century United States and Natural Great Perfection (a book on Buddhism, the wisdom of which is the only thing that is helping me stay reasonably sane).

[

So wish me luck and if you're in the Portland area please come have a cup of coffee with me.

Can Barack Obama Save the World?

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:30:00 +0000

I had to giggle the other day when I read this article about JFK/Obama. Not because I think Obama is a liar, but it just reminded me of something for which I've always enjoyed making fun of my parents and their generation -- and what's not to love about making fun of one's parents?

(If you're a baby boomer, please know I wish you no offense.)

What is amusing to me is that if you ask a baby boomer who was the best president ever, they will invariably say JFK. If you ask why, they generally answer with one of three reasons:

a) He was young. b) He had a wife who dressed cute. Or c) I know where I was the day he was shot.

Now I'm not suggesting JFK was an awful president - he did sign the Civil Rights Act and he invented the Peace Corps (which was of dubious benefit to the developing world according to most historians, but can be filed under "heart was in the right place" so I won't hold it against him). But he also vastly escalated the Vietnam War and created the first U.S. budget deficit. To say nothing of waving his you-know-what at Cuba - if you're going to be a bully, you should at least win the battle for heaven sake.

But enough about JFK, it's Obama that I really wanted to talk about. Now that everyone's love affair with Obama has come to an end (all the radical lefty people I read are just stunned because he didn't CHANGE anything in Washington, golly gee who knew) I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him because basically his whole presidency is a crap shoot. Economies are cyclical, if ours happens to come around in the next few years, he'll go down as the greatest president ever, whether he deserves that distinction or not. On the other hand, if it takes 5 or 8 years, he'll have been the lamest most ineffective president ever -- whether he deserves that distinction or not.

I wish I could say I have high hopes. Don't get me wrong, I am rooting for him -- I'm starting a new business in this tanking economy and I own a house that isn't worth what I paid for it just like everyone else does. But here's why I worry. There has been a lot of comparison to FDR booming about. And FDR was a pretty good dude, but the fact is, his New Deal did not rescue America from the Great Depression. It did provide hurting people with some relief and I'm not saying it was a bad thing. But it was U.S. involvement in World War 2 that turned our economy around. Governments spending more money than they have to help people out might save the day, but I'm not very optimistic. What's worse is we've already been bombing everybody and their sister for the past eight years, so we don't even have "go to war" in our economy rescue toolkit.

So I didn't mean for this post to be such a big downer... I just wanted to raz the JFK zombies. I am hopeful. A little bit. But I will tell you that more than 600 people applied for a minimum wage job at my new coffee shop -- some of them unemployed engineers, executive assistants and even an attorney. On the other hand there was the person who wrote in her cover letter: "I have great work history and many different work ethics also. In my past employment I have won some top employee awards with most of my employment history. I'm a quick learner also catch on quick."

Times are hard - here's hoping I'm just a crabby old cynic who doesn't know what she's talking about.

Chinese New Year – J’s Most Sacred Holiday

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:42:00 +0000

I’m not exaggerating when I say my 7-year-old son is obsessed with China. I’ve never done anything to encourage or discourage, it just seemed to happen as a result of a handful of his best friends being Chinese. I’ve taught him Spanish since birth, but once he discovered that people speak Chinese he began disrupting my Spanish lessons – asking me how to say everything in Chinese instead. So I bought a Chinese Dictionary, but when we looked things up, I would always end up saying, “well you either say this, or you say that, or you say this something else, or maybe this other thing – depending on how you pronounce all these letters in Chinese I guess.”

So that hasn’t been a big help. Last week he asked, “Mama, did we miss Chinese New Year?”

“No,” I told him, “I'll take you to the festival this weekend.”

“OK!” he boomed as he fetched red construction paper and scissors, “Now! Who in our family is Asian?”

I had no response except to look away and laugh. I do appreciate his post-modern definition of family, and not wanting to ruin it, started thinking, what is wrong with all my relatives – for Confucius’ sake, is there no one who could have married an Asian?

He suggested his godparents might be Asian, and I had to explain that, no, they just live in Taiwan. But thankfully I remembered that I do have a very close Asian friend, I just don’t think about her Asian-ness all that often - unless she’s telling me a hilarious story, imitating her English-challenged mother. “Aunt C is Japanese,” I said.

“Oh good!” he said, proceeding to make a Chinese lantern.

Because I know he’s at a sensitive age for learning languages I have half-heartedly tried to help him learn Chinese. Last weekend we took a trial class, and when I asked him how he liked it, he answered, “Why did you sign me up for Mandarin lessons, I wanted to learn Cantonese!”

I didn’t even know he knew the difference, but evidently the few phrases his godmother taught him in Mandarin are not understood by his Cantonese-speaking friends. There's no end to my bad parental decision making.

After school we passed a store that had a bunch of international flags, and J begged for one.

I half ignored him, “What for… you don’t need one of those… of all the dumb things… wah wah wah wah…”

“I want this one!” he shouted, showing me the Korean flag, “it’s the only Asian one I can find.”

Then he looked some more and waving the Chinese flag said, “Ah! Here it is, can I get it?”

“WHY do you need a Chinese flag?” I huffed.

He gushed back, “Because I love China and I want to live there!”

He’s cute and all, but if he gets any more demanding I might just put him on the next flight out.

Build a Coffeehouse: Just One Million Agonizing Steps

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:38:00 +0000

When I say I’m opening a coffee shop a lot of people respond with that’s their dream endeavor - or maybe not quite that, but just how cool or great they think that would be. It was never my dream to own a coffee shop. When I was in college (in Tucson) I had this quirky History professor who wore jeans and Birkenstocks and who knew more than anyone would ever want to know about the Mexican Revolution. It has always been my dream to be him – living in a warm climate, wearing comfortable shoes, discussing at length all manner of obscure, irrelevant (in any urgent, practical sense) facts and conjecture – and drinking lots of coffee, I do love my coffee. But achieving that dream requires several more years of schooling and several thousands of dollars and I’ve got mouths to feed, so this is the story of how I decided to open a coffee shop. (I still may one day pursue my original dream, but as they say, to everything there is a season blah blah blah.)

So last March I was reading an article in the NYT about Starbucks and how they affect independent coffee shops (positively) and how they’ve helped the specialty coffee market in general. This prompted me to look into the coffeehouse business model, as well as the political and trade issues specific to the industry. I e-mailed some info to my husband and wrote: “When we retire, this is what I want to do for fun.”

He read about it and wrote back to me, “It’s a great idea, just do it now – you would be awesome at running a coffee shop.”

(You’re probably thinking, isn’t he nice and doesn’t he think highly of her, but what he was really saying is: “Wouldn’t it be fun for me and the kids if you had somewhere ELSE besides home to be an anal retentive task master.”)

I was working though, and going to school and raising my kids and playing solitaire, so I collected some information, did a little research here and there, but nothing too taxing. Then last August I was laid off from my Marketing job, and after the shock and the feeling that my life was over faded, I told my husband, “I pretty sure God just told me to open a coffee shop.”

My husband understands construction and he’s already self-employed, so he was a huge help to me getting organized and such. Plus, he said, “building a coffee shop is so simple…”

And he has been a tremendous help in building it, don’t get me wrong, but I have to be the General Contractor and the architect (which means I’m in charge of coordinating everything and telling everybody what they’re supposed to do, because my husband has to also keep a roof over our heads while I’m unemployed). The only problem is, I don’t know what everybody is supposed to do… so there’s that. I’m pretty sure when we decided to do this I said that I can make coffee and discuss French poetry and keep fingerprints off the pastry glass. I’m pretty sure I did NOT say I can build a cabinet, stain concrete or even instruct anyone else on how these things should be done.

In other words, the building phase has not been fun. Luckily for me when I saw that the countertops had been built too high and I started having heart palpitations and my head started spinning around and around like the Exorcist girl, my husband was there to calmly shrug and say, “Yeah, they screwed up, they’ll have to fix it – not a big deal.” He’s good that way.

But it hasn’t all been bad! I have sampled the most glorious coffees and teas and chocolates, some with incredible stories about co-ops and communities and farmers and saving birds. I intend to blog about all of that and more on the coffeehouse website once I get it up and running (which was also supposed to have been fun and has really NOT been because I used Wordpress only to learn that I can’t edit anything with HTML… so I haven’t had time to write anything as I’ve been too busy trying to figure out just how to make it look correct).

Basically I was hoping we’d be open a month ago, but I’m still working on it. I should add that for only a 10% markup, someone else could have been the General Contractor. Had I just gone that route, instead of desperately trying all manner of meditation techniques every night, praying my stomach will un-knot enough to let me fall asleep before the alarm goes off, I would be brushing up on my Rimbaud and writing stories about coffee production and decor shopping. But why pay someone else to do something that surely I’ll be a better person some day for having learned the hard way, right?

Return of the Itinerant Blogger

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:09:00 +0000

I know I disappeared for two months with nary a goodbye (thank you to those who e-mailed me to ask if I'm ok). I didn't say goodbye because I wanted the freedom to indulge my indecisiveness for as long as possible. And then BlogHer wrote me to say they were going to break my kneecaps if I didn’t resume posting. Ok. I kid. They just said I can’t be part of their blog network unless I, you know, blog – but breaking kneecaps sounds better don’t you think?

So for my return post, knowing that only about a third of the people who used to visit have continued showing up regularly, I tried to decide what would make the best subject matter:

1. How I was laid off from my job last fall and have been preparing to open a coffee shop next month
2. What I think of Sarah Palin, as a feminist, now that the truth has been told
3. If and how much I’ve grown to love (or not) the Almighty Barack Obama, what it means that he appointed Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State and if I thought the inaugural benediction was racist
4. How I am struggling because I have a coffee blog (to complement my new business) that looks like hell despite my teaching myself CSS, and therefore bought a website that doesn’t exist because I don’t know what FTP means
5. How I spontaneously became a tea fanatic and I’m sure I’m going to live forever now
6. How I’ve struggled to determine what parts of my children’s psyches I should be writing about as they get older and whether I should continue to blog when I can’t find the time to read other blogs, even my all-time favorites
7. What happened when J caught me off guard saying, “Mama do you use drugs?”

And then I thought, no, you’d probably most like to hear a humorous story about my ineptness as a mother and see a picture of my puppy. Am I right? But do come back for all of the above and more. In light of my current infatuation with Vajrayana Buddhism, I thought I would tell you a story about why, in spite of my inherent religiosity, I can never be BFF with religious people. It’s not them, I must admit, it’s me.

We have these nice neighbors who have kids the same age as our’s. They invited our kids to their birthday parties and first the mother told me about a missionary trip she took to Africa and how wonderful it was because all of these children came to greet her and were just “praising God.” Which is fine, I totally appreciate that, but generally I take statements like that as a cue that I’d better watch what comes out of my mouth. Not just the way I frequently punctuate statements with impolite words, but also my “anything goes so long as no one is being hurt or exploited” moral compass (or lack thereof).

The first party was for 5 year olds and at one point everything went silent at just the moment my Little One said at the top of his voice, “Mama, did someone say the C word?”

Now let me clarify, when I say my kids hear plenty of “bad words” I’m talking about your basic everyday, “what the hell happened here” sort of swearing. They have certainly never heard the C word from me, so immediately I started composing my lecture to my husband in my head, thinking I can’t believe he would talk like that in front of the kids!!! But then after the party I asked Little One (long after it was too late to salvage my embarrassment), “What is the C word anyway and where did you hear it?”

And he said, “Crap.”

For some reason they still invited J to the 7 year old birthday party, where the kids had an impromptu conversation about who believes in Jesus. They all did, and my J told them that he believes in Jesus too, adding a small clarifier, “But we don’t actually have any way of knowing if Jesus was in real life or not – it’s just a myth.”

Thanks J. I don’t know why I teach them anything. I tried briefly at home to explain that some people are rather sensitive about that sort of thing and there are people with whom we can discuss those issues and others with whom it’s best we just keep that to ourselves. But it may not matter anyway – I mean what are the odds we’ll be invited a third time?

And now the puppy – who was supposed to be a lap dog, but as it turns out is medium-sized. I’ll elaborate another time, but for now, I’ll just say, I don’t know how we ever lived without a dog.

Google Searches That Make Ya Go Hmmmm...

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:20:00 +0000

There is no end to the wisdom and insight people seek on this blog. As always, I'm honored to be of help. Well, except for some of these people - you know who you are.

How many people use toilet paper to whip their buts? My guess is not many – can’t be all that effective.

Mommy Pelvic Floor Blog -- Taking niche blogging to the next level.

Why do hermit crabs croak – Umm… so they can get to hermit crab heaven?

Is it normal for an eight month old baby to be wearing three month old shoes – It’s not normal for any baby to be wearing any shoes - either that or I’m an even worse mother than I thought.

Scrapbooking 7 Deadly Sins – If this is the most interesting thing you have to scrapbook, you might want to find a new hobby.

You know god damn well who burned the house down – Excuse me, I don’t think I like your tone.

Did you just have to google the seven deadly sins to see what they were? – Well… pretty much. You could also just watch that old Brad Pitt movie.

I can’t help it I think ur adorable -- Aww, thanks, I think you’re pretty special too.

Waiting for Extreme Makeover to call – I know I could use some help, but I was thinking something like an Oprah makeover would be sufficient, am I really THAT bad?

I married a ninja - Oh my gosh, does he do parties? My sons would be so impressed!

Obama the lord - I guess it kind of works in that Christmas hymn, “Oh come let us adore hi-i-im, O –baaaaaa---- maaaaaa the loooord!”

Cloth diapers are gross fanatics – I know it! And how about those plastic covers? Repulsive lunatics!

Immigrants and peanut butter – I hate to be controversial, but seriously folks, what if those people eat ALL the peanut butter, then what are we going to do?!

Little people in porn – Lord help us.

Can mom move in - Yes, please! Send her over, we’re in desperate need of a mom here.

What would my Mexican husband like for Valentines Day? – I didn’t know Valentine’s Day was ethno-specific, but I’ll take a stab and say that if he’s like most husbands he’d most like to skip Valentine’s Day.

Public breastfeed grope - All of this effort we’ve made to normalize breastfeeding as nature’s method of nourishing babies just doesn’t seem to be working does it.

love is never being saying I love you -- Well… I think you’re remembering Jenny from Love Story who said, “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.” But FYI, she was full of shit - if you’re married surely you know love means always having to say you’re sorry.

How can I be a feminist and a Catholic – Well, it’s slightly easier than being a Libertarian and a Catholic. You just need the intestinal fortitude to piss the feminists off half the time and the Catholics the other half. Oh- and the courage to go to hell too - naturally. No biggie – it can be done.

Husband wants to be babied diapered plastic pants -- Uh… babied, sure, who doesn’t? Plastic pants? I suppose you could try to keep an open mind if he’s an otherwise good dude. But diapered? I’d be looking for an attorney.

Women shouldn’t cook – This is an interesting variation on the “women shouldn’t work” that I have made fun of in the past, but now this got me thinking… If we can’t work and can’t cook, all we need to do is start a “women shouldn’t clean” movement and we’re set! Think of the time we’ll have to blog and watch TV and read The New Yorker!

Hid the head – I can’t decide if this is amusing or terrifying.

My dad is married to a nut - How embarrassing, but aren’t those kids of mine precocious.

Tater tot nipples – You think that surely I make this shit up, but I’m telling you, I am not that funny, certainly not that bizarre.

Duggar Family Kit – You too can make your own Duggars in the privacy of your own home!

Big breast is best – Not when you’re the one who has to haul it around, thankyouverymuch.

Ectomorph college -- I suppose that's one way of narrowing down your post-secondary education options.

Agnostic parents + we stiking up for our kids if their being told about God when your not around -- I wholeheartedly support your right to tell your kids anything about God you wish, but please, for the love of Friedrich Nietzsche let someone else tell them about spelling and grammar.

z

An Open Letter to Barack Obama (and a Writing Lesson)

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:56:00 +0000

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations, I’m glad you won, and please accept my apologies for having beaten you up over the past several months. But somebody had to do it - truly.

If I can digress from politics for just a second, I will tell you why – the reason, absurdly, lies in the art of memoir (writing about one’s own experience). The first rule of writing memoir is the writer must acknowledge his/her role and responsibility in any bad situations endured (or in writing class if you want to sound like you know what you’re doing, the magic word is “self-implication”), and also to remember not to excessively villainize the person who harmed the writer, without somehow also humanizing the rotten jerk. Because if the writer does either of these, human nature leads the reader to try to find the good in the villain (creating sympathy for the wrong character) and to look for the ways in which the writer was less a victim and more pathetic, ridiculous or just plain annoying.

So all that to say, Mr. Obama, with the media singing your praises left and right and the people with whom I work on a local political issue here in Oregon, literally looking at me like stunned salmon and beginning to weep at the mere mention of your name – well, please just understand that I had no choice but to try to be the voice of reason. I had no choice but to point out that “hope” is just a useless poetry-store word, nee you get an F minus minus if you use it in an actual poem in writing school. I had no choice but to explain that you’re one human person. A human person who will be an infinitely better president than W (but then who wouldn’t be?), but a human person nonetheless, and you have a long road ahead of you.

It won’t be long now before you’ve pissed a bunch of people off, and all those excited young people become disillusioned, and then finally (finally!) I promise I will be here to tell them, you’re not so bad, you’re just doing your job. And a very tough job it is, indeed.

All the best,

Staci Schoff

Finally - the big day!

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:07:00 +0000

Don't forget to vote!

No matter who steals, I mean wins the election this year, I will just be happy that the Obamarama Lovefest 08 will finally come to a close. Thanks be to Jehovah -- or whomever, I don't really care - just please, someone in the universe (anyone!) make it stop already!

So that once again, I can read the newspaper without screaming out loud. At least from time to time - I suppose I get kind of cranky even when it isn't an election year.

On behalf of all the journalists I've hated for the past several months, I just want to acknowledge that I understand no one thought it possible for GW to be elected to a second term, so by God, no one wanted to take a chance that a republican get into office again by, say, reporting the facts, simply the facts, this time around. But still, that we live in a country with a media that is willing to act as a mouthpiece for the government, as it did when it spouted all of the propaganda for beginning the Iraq war, and again as it has now to campaign for Obama - is far more frightening to me than the prospect of John McCain as president.

Did I just say that?

I did. And I mean it. (For laughs, Kristol tells us why we needn't fear McCain.)

But tomorrow it will all be over and everyone can either weep for Obama or realize that he's just a politician like all the rest and not likely to deliver the salvation everyone seems to be seeking. And the media can finally utter a critical word and everybody can complain about what a bad job he's doing -- I just can't wait! Well, sort of. With any luck he might be able to keep us from financial collapse and a 100 year war, and just maybe he'll sign some equal pay legislation and perhaps a small bit of health care reform (assuming he knows how to squeeze blood from a proverbial turnip) - but whatever happens it probably won't look all that spectacular, and I will relish the eradication of the Collective Obama Infatuation Syndrome.

Although, someone was obviously after my heart when they wrote this story about Obama -- had I known he is superstitious early on, I might have been in love with him all these months too!

Am I doom and gloom or what? I should start a church! But seriously, vote. Not that our beloved Obama needs your help -- he's so perfect surely he'll win regardless, but really I mean it - vote. It's your right and your civic duty.

Happy Halloween!

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:15:00 +0000

From my little Tiger Ranger and Dynasty Ninja with their lavender bags -- what is the matter with those kids' mother?!

If You're Raising Girls...

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:25:00 +0000

God help you.

NO! I'm kidding, just kidding. Boys are just as bad. I mean, no! I'm kidding again. Sort of.

Anyway, ahem, I don't have any girls to share this fantastic website and periodical with, so I thought I'd share it with you. From their website:

"New Moon Girl Media is the leader in products that help girls reach their full potential. Maker of girl-created, advertising-free communities where girls learn to recognize and resist gender stereotypes, New Moon Girl Media serves girls ages 8 to 15 and brings their voices to the world."

To the fourth wave.

Emma Goldman Book Review

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:00:00 +0000

My review of this fascinating book, Emma Goldman, Vol. 1: A Documentary History of the American Years, Volume 1: Made for America, 1890-1901, is now posted on Feminist Review.

Thank you to all of you who continue to check back here even during my ridiculously long absence!

A Back to School Laugh

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:29:00 +0000

Well -- we'll at least look back and laugh about it SOME day, right?

I mean, I don't know which is more stressful - figuring out what to do with them all summer or sending them to school every day. And my kids go to public school -- I'm sure now I never would have survived if my husband had given in and let me send them to Catholic school! This week, NYT printed a fantastic piece of comic-relief - read it and try not to weep for the insanity that has ensued around the simple task of teaching children how to subtract.

For the Love of Gloria Steinem, Give Sarah Palin a Break

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:18:00 +0000

I’m thinking of writing a book called “Everything I Need to Know about Politics I learned from Rage Against the Machine.” However, for now I’d simply like to ask, for the sake of women’s political progress, can we try a little harder to support successful, high achieving women even when they’re republicans? Can we refrain from reducing a hard working, remarkable woman to a breast pump joke? It seems nearly a hundred years after women won the long-term battle for the right to vote in this country, no we can’t.

It's no secret that I'm no fan of Obama. If I didn't know a lot of great people, who I respect, both read this blog and love Obama I would phrase it differently. Something like, it's lonely out here with all of the working class, uneducated, racist losers like me who don't have our collective heads up Obama's ass -- but I won't say it that way, because you know I love you all even if you love Obama – I’m easy to get along with that way.

It’s not that I think Obama is any worse than anybody else, I just don’t think he’s any better and I’m sick of hearing that he is. I believe in God, I believe in miracles, I even believe in magic for goodness sake, but I do not believe in politicians. I’m sorry if that makes me a bad person.

It’s also no secret that I’m a disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporter. I wouldn’t say I “believed in” Hillary either, but I believed in her ability to affect policy in Washington in a manner that most closely reflects my values – I don’t have the same confidence in Obama. During the primaries a woman wrote that she hated Hillary Clinton, because she said, when we finally get a woman in the white house she doesn’t want one like Hillary who had to lie to get there. And I wondered, how does she suppose all the men in the white house have gotten there? Clinton is a politician, appeasing the greatest number of people is what politicians do. What are women to do, stay at home baking cookies and leave all that icky lying and stuff to the men folk?

Sarah Palin is to suffer the same fate as Hillary Clinton. She is not a pit bull with lipstick. She is a hard working successful woman with unapologetic conviction and a gift for public speaking. Her convictions are certainly not mine, but do we need to resort to sexist slurs to criticize her on that point?

Speaking of double standards, are all of the people who are making fun of her because she hunts 100% members-in-good-standing of PETA? Let’s be careful here when we question whether she's capable of doing her job given that she's a mom, she rocks stilettos, and she can kill a moose. I mean for Christ sake, Dick Cheney hunts, did everyone make a big hoopla about it? (aside from the time he shot some guy) And wasn’t it John Kerry who had to pretend to hunt real quick right before the 2004 election so as to not be entirely emasculated by W? Or was it to pander to some of those backwards gun-owners at the last minute? I can’t really remember – my brain protests when I try to go back to 04.

Oh the double standards abound – it is further insulting the way that Palin is portrayed as some kind of bimbo. She is at least as qualified to be president as Obama - - he has NO executive experience whatsoever. She has been a Mayor of a town and a governor of a state - - the next logical step is leader of the country. It was good enough experience for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and it's good enough for her, even if she’s pretty and even if she’s a right wing nut. Don't get me wrong, I would not like to see her in the white house, but that doesn't mean she's incapable of running the white house – an important distinction indeed.

As Kim Gandy said in a column recently, (paraphrasing) the question is not whether Sarah Palin is a woman of noteworthy accomplishment in her own right. The question is, what is Palin going to do for other women? Is she going to support policies that help the rest of us achieve pay equity? Policies that help us provide quality nutrition, education and health care for our children? Policies that help us protect the environment for our current quality of life and that of our children’s children? Policies that reflect a strong commitment to the recognition and protection of inherent human dignity?

She comes up short for me in all of those regards, and it is my hope that people will join with me in vowing to judge her on those issues alone and refraining from resorting to sexism just because she’s a woman with whom we don’t agree.

The New Baby is Here!

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:09:00 +0000

And he is much loved!

When Life is Overwhelmingly Busy - Get a Puppy!

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:36:00 +0000

I had good intentions at the beginning of the week and I thought I would leave you while I’m at BlogHer with one of those Google search posts that so many seem to like. Or, I thought, maybe I’ll tell you this story about swimming and mother-worry and how I learned that babies just grow up even without their mothers stressing about it every second – you know, just in case I’m not the only one who suffers from “if he can’t deliver the Gettysburg Address by the time he’s two, will he EVER learn how to converse at a cocktail party” syndrome.

But instead I’m going to tell you all about my life of late (I apologize in advance to those who wish I would shut up and tell a funny story already). Be warned, my life is very glamorous, you might be really jealous after reading about it. Okay, maybe “busy” is a better word than “glamorous” but I like the sound of glamorous better. Mostly, I want you to know I haven’t been neglecting my blog reading (or story writing) just because I’m a jerk.

I’m taking a fun class this summer about film and politics, in which half of each class is spent watching a movie. Sounds easy, yes? Yes. And interesting, except for this book I have to read that is a “Marxist-Semiotic approach to film analysis.” Yes – it is just as riveting as it sounds, maybe slightly less – and dear God I can’t wait to finish it.

Then, since kids and work and school just isn’t enough (and because Ralph Nader guilted me into it), I’ve been working on a project to allow Instant Runoff Voting in Oregon. If any of you are in the Portland area and want to help out we have a great and enthusiastic group, so please e-mail me for information.

And now, last but not least, on Sunday I had a realization that I’d hardly see my kids for this whole week, and in a moment of temporary guilt-ridden insanity we got a puppy. He’s still a baby and has to stay with his mama for another two weeks, but – well, we got a puppy! Shortly after it was a done deal I panicked and through wheezing, on the brink of collapse, said to my husband, “Oh no, I don’t think that was a good idea at all, why didn’t you stop me!”

He insisted that we’ll be happy when the puppy arrives, “Honey, they’re not like kids who take you for granted and don’t appreciate anything you do. That’s why people love their dogs so much. We won’t regret it.”

Then I was talking to a friend at work and she shook her head, very emotionally, and said, “Yeah we had a dog once – never again!”

I thought oh my god what have I gotten myself into. And then she got choked up and said the dog had died when her kids were little after they’d had him for 13 years and it was so devastating that she would never get another dog again – this was like twenty-five years ago and she’s not over it.

Evidently there’s just something about dogs, and I’m about to find out what it is. So, stay tuned for dog pictures/stories. He’s very cute now, but of course he doesn’t quite live here yet and I suppose we’ll see how cute he is after the third time he’s peed on the carpet. And he’ll be here just in time to go with us on our beach trip and our camping trip and I enrolled us in puppy preschool so I can be just as neurotic as a dog owner as I am as a parent.

Plus after we thought about it, we realized that we’ve been planning to remodel the entire house in the next year or so, including replacing all of the flooring, so it’s a great time for us to train a puppy. Right? Please somebody say it’s a good time. Anybody.

Okay, that’s my so-called life in a nutshell – if you’re going to BlogHer I look forward to seeing you!

The Birthday Saga Continues

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:04:00 +0000

In just seven short years this:

Becomes this:

I know there’s somebody wanting to call CPS on us, but the other day I had a realization about the extreme degree to which I tend to be over-protective. I was looking at Survival International’s website and they have a video showing three kids, J’s age and younger, paddling a canoe on the Amazon – no adult in sight. Now I’m not going to send my kids out to the river alone, but it just drove home how pampered-beyond-necessity kids are in our culture (especially my kids). So when my husband let J take over the task of firework lighting this year, I held my tongue. But stood very close by - probably too close, but that letting go thing is harder than it sounds.

J turned seven on July 4th. For those making a mental note of how good or bad I am, of course, I can’t invite his friends over on a holiday – so I let him choose if he wanted to have cake and ice cream with us or with his friends – and he chose us. Here's the "army" cake he decorated all by his self:

I’m thinking that instead of sending him to second grade in September I might just pimp him out as a cake decorator. Still, in the hopes of not being the worst mother in the world, in a week three of his friends are coming over for a play date and all-natural, organic, politically correct cupcakes. I can hardly wait.

So J knew we were celebrating his birthday and the 4th together (as we do every year), and he picked hamburgers to grill and games to play and I thought life was good until the night before, after dinner, he asked, “Am I going to get to open my presents tomorrow too?”

My husband and I exchanged the universal glance that wordlessly says, “Shit.”

“I guess I’m going shopping,” I said.

He nodded, “I guess I’m cleaning up dinner.’

Later that night as we wrapped presents he said, “We’re so lame – J’s probably the only kid in the world who has to remind his parents to buy him a birthday present.”

On our behalf let me say, we are minimalists in theory and our kids are the only grandchildren on both sides of our family, so they have too much stuff even without our help. Instead of doing the buying-for-them, we’re usually doing the scour-the-house-to-see-what-we-can-get-rid-of routine. For the first several years of a kid’s life that works, but evidently about age 7 they start paying attention to such matters. Plus, my husband and I are not big on fussing over or being fussed over -- so we sometimes forget that 7 year olds really like to be fussed over. But we recovered:

Unfortunately for my housekeeping aspirations, this doesn’t include all the crap his Grandma has promised to buy him when she arrives in two weeks…

Oh well – all’s well that ends well, as they say, and at the end of the day J said he had a fun birthday. But I’m sure it wasn’t as fun as it has been for me to watch him grow from a crabby, demanding baby to a sensitive, articulate boy. Pretty damn cool how that works. And bittersweet.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Commit Bad Parenting

sls27@aol.com (Staci) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:43:00 +0000

I’ve mentioned here that my kids really want a pet and I don’t and my husband doesn’t either (though not as badly as I don’t), yet we feel guilty and like bad parents for this reason. Lately we’ve been seriously considering getting one again and my girlfriend called me, “Do NOT let them guilt you into getting a pet,” she said, “You’re not a bad mom for not having one. My cat that we’ve had forever pooped on the floor today – you don’t want a pet, seriously.”

I thought, God I love her. While we’re on the subject of letting me off the hook I tried, “Oh and J wants me to have a birthday party and invite his friends.”

“You have to do that. Get busy his birthday’s in a week,” she said.

“You’re not going to give me a break and tell me I’m a good mom even if I don’t like to have parties?” I begged.

“You heard me, order a cake and just get it done.”

Why do kids have to have birthday parties? Actually I don’t mind the concept, I’m just not much of a party organizer/thrower. My mother is – I never should have moved so far away from her.

So in a feeble attempt to kinda sorta get organized, I asked J what kind of cake he wanted and he said he wanted an “army” cake. At first I thought, an army cake? What will his friends’ parents think of me? And then I remembered it was their damn kids who introduced him to the concept of “army guys” in the first place, which is the reason I have a million soldiers (some of them wounded and such – really gross – whose idea was it to make that crap anyway?). On the other hand they do seem to learn some life lessons from playing with them. Little One had several guys all lined up and told me the story of what was happening. I said, “But Honey, why are the good guys the ones who are captured and the bad guys winning?”

He shrugged, “Well, that’s just the way it goes in army sometimes Mama.”

So it does.

J’s friends seem to know quite a bit about World War II, and I didn’t think much of it until one day he said that Germans are bad people. Wait a second, I said, the Germans are just people – it was the German army during a specific time that was bad. And then I got to explain that yes the Americans were “good guys” – that is, unless you happened to live in Nagasaki, in which case I imagine you wouldn’t think they were so good…

It’s rather quite complicated for a kids’ game.

Before my girlfriend hung up the phone she said, “You know, maybe you should get a dog. People really love their dogs and then they don’t mind how much work they are to take care of.”

“I dunno,” I said, “I love my kids so much I would chop off my own legs for them, but I begrudge all the work I have to do to take care of them like six times a day – minimum.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, “I forgot. Don’t get a dog.”

Just as I thought, how wonderful to have a friend who doesn’t hold your weaknesses against you, she said, “But I mean it, Blondie, have a birthday party.”