Do other people's kids talk like this?

The Peanut has developed a very distinctive speech pattern where she puts a lot of emphasis on certain words. I keep trying to figure out where this comes from, and I now suspect she is imitating us when we speak to her and, without meaning to, emphasize certain words she's having trouble pronouncing or whatever. This weird emphasis thing, combined with the usual 3-year-old tendency to jump very quickly from topic to topic, is a scream when she goes off on a monologue, as she often does when we're in the car. Also she says "Mama?" after practically every sentence to make sure I'm still listening. So she sounds like this:

I wish we could just FLY to school because then we'd get there faster. I wish the car had WINGS. But we'd have to be careful not to make too many turns or I'll BARF again. I hate it when I BARF in the car. Mama? Did you know people can SHRINK? Yesterday Owen said when he and his cousin went in the ocean when they were on vacation, they went all the way to the bottom and they SHRINKED! For REAL, Mama! And then when they came out of the water they UNSHRINKED! I wonder how they did that? Mama?

I don't like pink anymore. Now my favorite colors are purple and teal and KUR-QUOISE. Kur-twoise? Quor-quoise? That's a hard word to say. Maybe we can find me a superhero Halloween costume with ALL my favorite colors in it, even QUOR-TOO-QUOISE. Maybe we can get a little superhero costume for Mainey (the Peanut's teddy bear--full name: Main Teddy. It's a long story). She can have a little cape and we can FIGHT BAD GUYS! Mama? Can you make Mainey a little tiny superhero cape? That would be SO CUTE!

Mama? At my birthday party I get the PRESENTS, right Mama? And everybody else gets the GOODIES? Do we have goodie bags for the party yet, Mama? Is it October yet? It's my birthday SOON, right? Mama?

This is why I love the English...

...They have such a highly-developed sense of the ridiculous. They're having some kind of street theater festival in Liverpool, during which a 50-foot mechanical spider which is currently perched on the side of a building, will be let loose to roam the streets as part of the festivities. Good times. I can just imagine walking around the city with the Peanut, checking out the art exhibits, maybe getting a snack, enjoying the overall vibe as we did in London a few weeks ago, and then we turn a corner and come upon a spider the size of a house.

Likely Peanut reaction: AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! MOMMY -- MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!!!! AAAAAAAIIIIIIGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Also, best comment from the above Huffington Post story:

To see that thing crash the Republic National Convention with an Obama sticker on it would have been cool. Nothing suits me better than a bunch of terrified racists.

All over but the shouting

So, what a crazy couple of weeks. I’ve had about 65 moments of witnessing some Republican atrocity on TV and spluttering with rage while simultaneously realizing what a great blog post it would make, yet I’ve been way too busy to post. I’m really glad this train wreck of a convention is over now so I can finally collect my thoughts on it. I’ve been going back and forth on the significance of Sarah Palin and the overall meaning of the hard-right tack taken by the McCain campaign, but today, after the old man’s acceptance speech last night, I’m actually feeling pretty confident. What do the Republicans have to offer middle-class America? A big fat pile of nothing. With a generous side order of hypocrisy.

Good Christ on a bike (as a friend of mine used to say) it simply cannot be possible that the country will be taken in by this pile of crapola AGAIN. Right? Please tell me that’s not possible. I mean, really…Obama bases his entire campaign on the theme of “change.” The last eight years have sucked for everyone but the uber-wealthy. This is beyond dispute. So what does McCain come back with? What’s his response to Obama’s message of reform? Two messages: “Vote for us and we’ll put ultra-right-wing theocrats in charge of everything,” coupled with “We’re going to clean up this mess around here.” And there you sit in your living room, listening to this clamor for “reform” from the political equivalent of the Gambino crime family, wondering whether you’ve slipped down some wormhole in the space-time continuum where GEORGE BUSH AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DIDN’T CONTROL THE WHITE HOUSE, THE CONGRESS AND THE COURTS FOR THE LAST EIGHT YEARS. Does nobody see the problem with this? The Republicans’ whole bid for four more years of executive power is that they’re going to fix the mess made over the last eight years by, well, pretty much all the same Republicans, enacting pretty much the same policies they are currently promoting. OK then. No cognitive dissonance there.

Meanwhile the Republican party has suddenly discovered feminism, which is highly amusing on a number of levels. They made Hilary Clinton out to have horns and cloven hooves, and excoriated her mercilessly when she cried sexism (rightly or wrongly) during her presidential bid. Yet their new standard bearer, AK-47 Moose-Murdering Barbie, no one may dare criticize, lest the entire Republican establishment simultaneously explode with righteous rage. How dare the press try to ask her questions about her professional and political background, just because she aspires to be the second most powerful person in the world? How dare they print stories about her pregnant 17-year-old daughter, after the McCain campaign itself announced the girl was pregnant? For the record I agree the whole teen pregnancy thing should be out of bounds in the media coverage of the campaign. It has no relevance either to Palin’s experience or to her qualifications. That said—they put out a freeeeking press release about it. They didn’t expect anyone to run a story? Are these people living on Mars?

It’s also quite fun to see how the Republicans are suddenly leaping to the defense of working mothers. All these years they’ve been demonizing ordinary women who have babies and then go back to work out of economic necessity, yet when Sarah Palin launches a vice presidential bid four months after giving birth to a special needs infant, all they have is praise for her. Imagine, just imagine, if Michelle Obama was the one who had recently had the Down syndrome baby. All we’d hear 24/7 is how scandalous it is that she left the side of the newborn baby to go off campaigning. Also, needless to say, just imagine the shitstorm if it was the Obamas who had the pregnant teenage daughter, by the way. The script they would follow writes itself: “Don’t these blacks know how to raise their kids right?”

And am I the only one who thinks McCain just looks tired? He looks like he wants to go home. I don’t think his heart is in this anymore. I’m actually starting to feel sorry for him. He had his moment, eight years ago, but it’s slipping out of his grasp and I think he knows it. He looks defeated. He has had a hard life, and he deserves to sit on the porch with a drink in his hand, watching his grandkids (does he have any grandkids yet? Presumably he will soon enough) playing. He should go on a long vacation and spend some more of Cindy’s money. Maybe take a nice cruise.

Because after that ginormous clusterf*!k of a convention—they are so clueless, they couldn’t even keep the protestors out of the building! They’re so inept, they Google-searched for a photo of Walter Reed Medical Center and came up with some elementary school with Walter Reed in the name, and nobody caught the mistake!—it’s all over but the celebrations on the day we inaugurate President Barack Obama.

UPDATE: I almost forgot: how hilarious was it when, at the end of McCain's speech, they put up a video of fireworks on that giant screen behind the stage? Take that, Obama campaign. You guys had real fireworks but we had, uh, really nice pictures of fireworks!

If that doesn't sum up this whole presidential race I don't know what does.

Un-patient

The Peanut, first thing this morning when I went in her room to wake her up: "Is it Oct. 1st yet?"

Me: "No, sweetie, not yet."

Peanut: "I want my birthday to come. I'm un-patient."

Politics and race: Why the Boston Globe sucks, part nine million and seventy-three

So this morning in the hack-tastic Boston Globe we read this:

One convention priority, according to strategists, will be to recast Obama's life story to serve as a rejoinder to rumors about his patriotism and religion that have preyed on his exotic origins. Those worldly immigrant roots figured prominently in his 2004 speech, but many Democrats say that this year he should put greater emphasis on biographical elements that highlight elements of middle-class, all-Americanness.

Which just proves my point about how much the Globe (and the corporate media in general) sucks. What I want to know is, when will people finally wise up to the immense stupidity of the right-wing canard that anyone with "worldly immigrant roots" isn't really an American? I hate to break it to the Globe, but pretty much everyone in the entire country came from immigrant roots. Maybe your parents and your grandparents and your great-grandparents were born on U.S. soil, but chances are your great-great-grandparents were born somewhere else. Interesting too how those of northern European descent get a pass on this criticism. If your forebears came to the U.S. from Germany or some similarly lily-white place, all of a sudden you're not so exotic.

My ancestors, in the relatively recent past, spent all day working in the broiling Sicilian sun and probably had darker skin than Barack Obama. Am I, as an Italian-American whose American-born roots only stretch back as far as my own parents (my grandparents were born on Italian soil) "exotic" too? What is my daughter, with her mix of Asian and European genes? Mighty "exotic," I'd wager, at least according to the nearsighted fools who pass for professional journalists these days.

At the end of the day, isn't this simply racism? "Exotic origins" my ass--Obama was born in Hawaii, which, the last time I checked, was part of the United States. But, you know, a bunch of swarthy-looking types live there, or so the "low-information voter" types the Globe is evidently written for seem to believe, so Hawaii is somehow suspect. Not only that, but half Obama's background is lily-whitey-white, which interestingly never seems to come up in absurd news stories like this one. His mother's maiden name was "Dunham." Doesn't get much whiter than that. But the Kenyan father cancels out the WASP portion of Obama's backround in the nearly fact-free corporate media narrative about his life.

Which also brings up another point, which is how absurd it is to parse these racial details to such an extent. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you go far enough back in your own history, you'll find all kinds of colors, races and religions. Anyone who thinks "Well, we're Irish Catholic today, we were in my grandparents' time, and we always have been" chances are is speaking in blissful ignorance of some long-ago dalliance between a forebear and some dark-skinned slave girl.

If this country is ever going to move forward, we're going to have to get over our juvenile obsession with race (which I know sounds like an enormous cliche, but it's still true). When I was home on maternity leave with the Peanut, I stumbled across a snippet of an old movie on TV that was amazingly eye-opening. Here I was having recently given birth to a baby with a perfect mix of Asian and European features, and across my TV screen flashed a scene of pandemonium in a hospital maternity ward. The dialogue-free scene showed three new mothers--white, black and Asian--each being handed a baby wrapped tightly in blankets. One after the other they unwrapped the bundles to find a baby of a different race! The white mother held an Asian baby, the Asian mother held a black baby, the black mother held a white baby. Against a backdrop of music appropriate for a light comedy, they rang their bedside alarm bells and gesticulated wildly, calling for help.

The movie appeared to date from about the early 1960s, but as we can see from the kind of bullshit being spewed in our "mainstream" press these days, this attitude of rigid racial divisions still prevails. I had to laugh as I sat in my living room, clothing covered in spit-up, breast-pump at my side, piles of unfolded laundry everywhere, and thought about my own situation and that of my new multiracial baby. In a movie produced not even a decade before I was born, the idea of a multiracial couple was preposterous, obscene. But it was my life in 2004. I'm far from the only one. There's a kid we see on our local playground from time to time whose hair is light brown and her perfectly Asian-shaped eyes are grayish blue. "Exotic" in some ways perhaps, but thankfully ordinary enough, at least in our neck of the woods.

How silly our corporate media is going to look when America looks beyond the media's tired old stereotypes to elect its first multiracial president. It's a moment I hope the Peanut will look back on fondly as she grows up.

Random Friday thoughts

In no particular order:

-- In a little over five weeks the Peanut will turn 4. Hour by hour she is shedding the babyish aspects of her personality and becoming more fully a kid. She speaks more articulately than George W. Bush (not that that sets the bar too high) and she is suddenly full of attitude. Which scares me just a teeny bit. There are moments lately when a latent 13-year-old jumps out of the three-and-three-quarters-year-old, and it's hard to know how to respond to that. Luckily these little eruptions of teenager-like attitude are interspersed with her more usual sweetness and overwhelming overall cuteitude.

-- The Peanut has announced that she wants to be a "purple superhero" for Halloween. I have no idea what this means, except I suspect it will involve me heading to a craft store and searching for cheap purple fabric to make into a cape. (NOTE: I am not in any sense crafty. This is going to be one crappy-looking Halloween costume...)

-- Of all the aspects of the whole "John McCain is so rich he can't remember how many houses he owns" controversy, the one that amuses me the most is the thing about the 9-car Starbucks run. Nothing says you're a man of the people like heading out for your morning cup-o-joe in a platoon of armored limousines. I realize the guy has to have a security detail and everything, but sending nine cars to get him one cup of coffee? Really? So environmentally-sensitive of him. As I've said before, you almost have to wonder whether there's an Obama mole inside the McCain campaign. The mistakes they're making are taking on epic proportions now.

-- I am incredibly psyched for the Olympic closing ceremonies. You wonder how they'll top the opening events.

-- And I'm incredibly annoyed about the delay in release of the Harry Potter "Half-Blood Prince" movie. The idea that the studio will make more money by holding onto it until next summer, instead of releasing it this November as originally planned, is preposterous. If the release date was a Wednesday in February, the Potter fans would be there with bells on. With this franchise it doesn't matter at all when they release it. Very aggravating development, although I guess this will give the Potter fan blogs something to talk about for the next several months.

Random photos of the Peanut

Old ones and a new one on top...just because.

More on "Miss Buffalo Chip"

Seriously, is there an Obama mole within the McCain campaign who arranged for him to appear at this thing? Get a load of this description of the event from a commenter on Talking Points Memo:

I grew up in Western South Dakota, and can tell you that "topless, and occasionally bottomless" barely scratches the surface on Miss Buffalo Chip. There were always rumors about underage contestants and on-stage sex--that was simply what Buffalo Chip stood for in the collective unconscious of teenage boys in the Rapid City area. This amounts to John McCain volunteering his wife for a Girls Gone Wild video. Quite a lady's man, that McCain...

McCain speaks at wacko topless biker rally

I heard about this on Air America the other day and I assumed it was part of a comedy skit. "They couldn't possibly be that stupid, could they?" I asked Mr. Fraulein about McCain's campaign managers.

Turns out they are that stupid. Family values party indeed.

Indeed, McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.

Princess Chunk update

The 44-pound cat is actually a boy, and his real name is "Powder." He is a victim of the Bush economy. His owner let him loose because her house was foreclosed. (Presumably he ate them out of house and home -- literally!)

44-pound cat found in New Jersey

I'm glad this giant beastie wasn't found wandering in north Jersey, because if it was, my mother, the cat lady, would have found a way to take it in.

I have to say, though, this is a bit hard to believe. A 44-pound housecat? Really? If the story is true, this animal weighs more than the Peanut.

Uppity

When the hacks who have a stranglehold on our broken, oh so broken media call Obama "presumptuous," what they mean is "uppity." As in, "uppity negro." And don't think they're above doctoring quotes for their own purposes, as the consistently-sharp Bob Cesca shows here. The Washington Post is happy to use half-quotes from Barack Obama to make him sound arrogant. That's just standard operating procedure.

But meanwhile, does anyone care to place bets on whether the Post will find time to report on the salt-of-the-earth, very non-elitist John McCain's choice of footwear (as they would do in about three seconds if Obama went around wearing $500+ shoes)? I suspect not. They need to devote those column inches to making sure black politicians know their proper place.

Not dead, just insanely busy

This poor blog has been shamefully neglected lately...I actually have a whole running list of things I want to write about if I ever manage to find the time. I'm a list maker. Always have been. The problem is that most of the time instead of getting accomplished, the items on my list languish there for months as it (the list) sits crumpled at the bottom of my purse. How sad is that?

Meanwhile there is the Peanut's lively social schedule, which Mr. Fraulein and I spend much of our weekends attending to. I've lost count of how many children's birthday parties we've gone to so far this summer. If you need information about any kids' party venue and/or birthday cake baker in the greater Boston area, I'm your girl, as I am now intimately acquainted with all of them. It's by turns touching and hilarious how excited a 3- or 4-year-old kid can get about another kid's birthday. (It would be nice if this sense of empathy could stay with them when they grow up. ) Today for example one of the kids at the Peanut's preschool is having an after-school birthday party at his house, complete with backyard water slide, pizza and cake. The teachers are driving the kids to these people's house in the school mini-bus. This will be the first time the Peanut has ever ridden in a school-bus type vehicle. She's been talking about it for days.

"I'm going to sit next to C. on the bus and we can talk on the ride," she said this morning, her voice quivering with excitement. I had an immediate vision of the Peanut at age 17, decked out in a floor-length gown, waiting for C. (her best buddy) to arrive to take her to the prom. She seemed so much like a teenager in love at that moment, I had to grip the bathroom sink for support. (She is, mind you, 3 years old.)

And even aside from the parties, just the sheer number of activities this kid packs into a single weekend, continues to astound me. The tricycle riding with the neighbors' kids in front of the house! The multiple trips to the playground! The production of highly elaborate marker and crayon drawings on her easel, often signed in her preschool hand, with the E's in our last name carefully marked with about five little horizontal lines. The doll and teddy bear tea parties in the living room. Etc. There are very few moments of simply vegging in front of the TV, even when the TV is on, which we feel is a good sign. She often uses the TV as background noise for whatever make-believe she is cooking up on the living room rug. And the things that come out of her mouth are still hilarious.

"I love you and Daddy more than chocolate milk," she said this weekend. That's a lot!

Rising from the ashes

Remember that woman whose car I saw go up in flames in front of the Brookline Gap store? The one who I and everyone else on the scene of that horrible car accident thought for sure was dead? According to our local weekly paper, in spite of the car being destroyed, only 17 percent of her body was burned.

“Had they not doused the woman with all those fire extinguishers … she would have perished,” said Gropman. “It was the only part of the car that wasn’t absolutely charred.”

The two guys who turned the fire extinguishers on the burning car (one of whom was definitely just some random shopper in that Gap store, not a store owner, as this article says --I saw the whole thing) have never been identified in any of the news stories I've read on the accident. I hope they have seen the stories and realize that they are responsible for saving a life. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and they're heroes of mine even though I suspect I will never know their names.

Random observation Thursday

Things have been so insanely busy since we came back from the first two of our three planned vacations this summer (and how did THAT happen, by the way? This is the first time we've ever taken this many trips in so short a time frame) that I still have had no time to write about several things:

-- London, and how immensely cool it was to be back in the U.K. again and to finally meet the two children of a great friend

-- Our visit to Knole House for an awesome Virginia Woolf-related historical tour

-- Our sixth wedding anniversary, which we celebrated in London

-- The Peanut's accelerating precociousness and looming 4th birthday.

So in lieu of an actual substantive post I thought I would provide a list of random observations. To wit:

-- When you go off Weight Watchers to save the $39 a month, figuring you know the system well enough and will be capable of staying "On Plan" (as the WW people say) on your own, you pretty much immediately start gaining weight again.

-- Arrested Development is my new favorite TV show even though it no longer exists. (Thank you, Netflix!) I can't decide whether my favorite character is GOB or Tobias, though. Will Arnett's voice alone is so unbelievably hilarious. Although I have to say, I'm also loving the bits where Buster goes off to "Army."

-- Having weird foot bone structure that has caused bunions is a drag, in that it causes me to have sudden attacks of stabbing foot pain (and in that I had to spend over $400 -- not covered by insurance -- on orthotic shoe inserts) but the upside is that I have been forced to shop for new shoes.

-- I cannot wait to see WALL-E!

What politics is really about

MONEY. Whether the rich end up with all of it, or whether the rest of us can have a piece of the pie. This is why politics matters:

An objective outsider who laid fresh eyes on America's economic scene, a twenty-first century Tocqueville, would probably think that the federal government would be eager to use tax policy to offset these widening disparities.But the tax cuts that President Bush and Congress enacted since 2000 have in many ways aggravated the disparities, according to statistics from the Tax Policy Center, a respected, nonpartisan research group. Those tax cuts gave $20 on average to the bottom 20 percent of American households, $744 on average to the middle fifth, and $118,477 to those with income or more than $1 million annually.

One can see the economic divide widen in another way. The average income for the top 1 percent of households was ten times that for the middle fifth in 1979. By 2005, those in the top 1 percent earned 21 times as much as those in the middle. Income for the top 1 percent of households averaged 70 times that of households in the bottom fifth, the greatest gap on record, up from 23 times as much in 1979.

At the pinnacle of the inequality pyramid are the nation's CEOs. American corporations may be tightfisted about raises for most workers, but they paid their chief executives $10.5 million on average in 2005, including salary, bonuses and stock options. That was quadruple their pay a dozen years earlier. This means the typical CEO earns 369 times as much as the average worker, up from 131 times in 1993 and 36 times in 1976.

Things to read

In case it's not clear that few in the "mommy blogging" business do this thing better than Antique Mommy, check out these posts about what happens when a Pull-up ends up in the dryer, a beloved old toy car, and seeing yourself in your kid's face. Just amazing stuff.

London calling

I've been out of blogging mode lately because I've been out of the country--we are just back from a family trip to London. Work, etc., are conspiring to keep me from doing much blogging at the moment but a trip update is coming soon! In the meantime here's a bit of what we saw in my beautiful England (the London Eye, Wimbledon park, and Knole House in Kent.)

Star of the day

They've started a new thing at the Peanut's pre-school: each day one of the kids takes a turn being "Star of the Day." This means they get to bring in a special show-and-tell item and they get to be "line leader" when they line up to go outside. Today the Peanut is Star of the Day and she is very excited about it. Especially the "line leader" part for some reason.

She seems to like to be in charge. We keep on saying she obviously has a future in project management. Either that or dictatorship.

And now for something less depressing

Been meaning to post these for a while -- pictures from our Father's Day brunch! Since I don't often cook, this was something of an occasion. The apple and cheddar fritatta recipe is here, and the ruby fruit salad recipe is here. I love Everyday Food!

Life and death

On Thursdays I work at home. I usually try to get online early in the morning, as soon as Mr. Fraulein leaves the house to take the Peanut to day care, so I can wrap up early enough to take a walk in the afternoon when the weather is nice, like it was today.

So as I usually do on sunny Thursday late-afternoons, I headed out for a walk through my lovely neighborhood. Rush hour was just starting, and as always, tons of people were milling around my town's little commercial district. I ducked into the Gap store that I drive past on every other day of the week when I'm commuting home from my office, usually with the Peanut in the car. I went to check out the sale items in the back of the store. I was deep into bargain hunting when I heard the crash. I turned around, looked out the front windows of the store, and saw flames shooting 15 feet into the air. A car parked in front of the store, not 30 feet from where I stood, was engulfed in flames. I froze, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. All around me, shoppers and store employees started screaming.

Oh my God, call 911!

Does anyone have a fire extinguisher? Get a fire extinguisher out here NOW!

There's a woman in that car!

I can see her! I can see her face!

A tall man barrelled past, carrying a fire extinguisher he had gotten from the Gap employees. He and another man who had come running into the street from a nearby restaurant, and who also had a fire extinguisher, attempted to put out the fire in the car--risking serious injury to do so. It went out briefly, but then re-ignited.

GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS! The fire department says everyone should move back in case another car catches fire!

The people inside the store moved back a few feet. A woman ran past, shouting something about her children, who were apparently inside another parked car that had been involved in the accident. A few minutes later I saw the kids, who looked to be around 8 or 10 years old, taken away on stretchers, but they looked OK. (I later heard on the TV news that the children were not badly hurt.)

Slowly people made their way outside the store, but continued to linger in the street to watch the increasing chaos of ambulances, "jaws of life" equipment and fire trucks. Everyone had been moved back far enough that it wasn't clear what happened to the woman in the car, the one I heard people in the Gap store saying they saw clearly as the flames rose higher and higher. When I heard people exclaiming about this, I deliberately turned away, desperately wanting NOT to see a fellow human being burning to death. (If the story I've linked to here is correct, somehow they managed to get her out of the car, alive.)

Now it is very late and I should go to bed, but I can't get the image of this burning car out of my mind. What kind of shape is this woman in now? And why did the elderly man who died, the driver of the original car, end up speeding so unbelievably fast down a quiet suburban street? Presumably he had a heart attack or something at the wheel, but I wonder if it will ever be known for sure?

And what if I, or someone I love, had been crossing the street at that moment?

When I came back home, I took a quick survey of my condo complex neighbors, many of whom have young children and most of whom walk through this very commercial area all the time. I knew my husband and the Peanut, on the other side of town, coming back from her day care, were safe, but I wondered about those I know to commute through this area. Luckily everyone was accounted for. Later in the evening, over dinner at one such neighbor's house, watching the Peanut giggling with their two daughters, I thanked God that none of us had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But I couldn't help remembering that the families of those killed and injured in this horrible accident can't take comfort in that thought tonight.

UPDATE: More on the accident here.

UPDATE II: The woman in the car has been upgraded to "serious" condition, according to today's news (Saturday). It's clear that the heroic actions of the people I saw with the fire extinguishers probably saved this woman's life.

Drink coffee; live forever

Well, not quite. But still, this is good news for me:

In fact, coffee might even help the heart, especially for women, the researchers found.

"Our results suggest that long-term, regular coffee consumption does not increase the risk of death and probably has several beneficial effects on health," said lead researcher Dr. Esther Lopez-Garcia, assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Autonoma University in Madrid, Spain...

The researchers found that women who drank two or three cups of caffeinated coffee daily had a 25 percent lower risk of death from heart disease during the follow-up (from 1980 to 2004) than non-drinkers. Women also had an 18 percent lower death risk from a cause other than cancer or heart disease compared with non-coffee drinkers.

This child brought to you by an interracial marriage

The Peanut (seen here at age 1) wishes you a happy Loving Day!

Very busy at the moment

With travel, work, etc., so not much time to blog. However, I am enjoying how aggressively Obama is taking the fight to McCain, and hoping that before too long we'll get to take our country back. Here is just one example of how the Republicans are still screwing us after all these years (if you drive and are sick of $4/gallon gas, this should resonate):

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked a proposal Tuesday to tax the windfall profits of the largest oil companies, despite pleas by Democratic leaders to use the measure to address America's anger over $4 a gallon gasoline.

One more McCain description

Courtesy of TRex:

"Freeze-dried death."

"Submediocre Rich Boy 2.0"

If the Republicans don't steal the election again (a big if) their sterling choice of a presidential candidate is going to lose BIG TIME. We're talking Mondale all over again. Could this guy win even one state in an honest election? With gas creeping up towards $5 a gallon? I seriously doubt it.

Compare Obama's and McCain's speeches yesterday. As through the rest of the campaign, there was a striking contrast between McCain's faltering delivery and muddled messaging and Obama's self-assured manner and strong proposals for change. Which is clearly what people want. I think it's telling that even in the comments posted on YouTube, for example, where it should be evenly mixed between supporters of both candidates, the vast majority are skewering McCain, who of course still looks like he's 108 years old. People are describing him as "doddering" and his speaking ability (or lack thereof) as "bordering on the grotesque." I've been trying to keep track of new nicknames for him that people have coined in comments around the blogosphere. So far I've seen:

McBush

McCan’t

McSame

McGramps

McLame

McCorpse

McCadaver

McFrail

McBoring

McCombover

McSanctimonious

Uncle Creepy

...and, my current favorite: "Submediocre-Rich-Boy 2.0."

Meanwhile Bob Cesca, with this description of McCain's off-kilter delivery, once again proves why he is "goddamn awesome" indeed: "Seriously -- he sounds creepy and sinister. Like a second-rate surrogate delivering an introductory speech for a candidate running for sheriff in Toothlessburg."

I cannot wait for the first Obama/McCain debate. How embarrassing is that going to be? Pass the popcorn...

I'm back

So we are officially back from the first of our Fraulein family 2008 summer outings. Our journey to the Los Angeles area to visit Mr. Fraulein's family went really well. We were a bit nervous about how the Peanut would do on the plane, but fortunately for all concerned she handled it like a champ. The fact that she seems to have really gotten the hang of using the potty now was a huge help. In fact she handled the flight better than we did.

You've gotta love how the airline industry has reinvented itself of late. Seems like every time you fly, in coach at least, you somehow have less room. (I'm trying not to consider the possibility that I'm just getting fatter.) One thing I know for sure is at the ripe age of 39 I am not getting taller, and yet somehow my knees seem to get closer to the seat in front of me with each airplane trip. To say I'm not a tall person is an understatement. I'm 5'3. If you are much above 5'9 or so, and, God forbid, weigh more than about 150 pounds, you are in for a world of hurt on a coach flight these days. I think the people who run the airlines have a running competition to see just how little space they can cram the coach passengers in to. "I know--let's make it so you have to be only 5 feet tall and weigh less than 95 pounds to fit in our seats! Let's see how the passengers like THAT! Hahahahaha!!"

Also, the fact that you are traveling from one coast to the other does not entitle you to more than two servings of drinks. Or even to the opportunity to purchase an overpriced, stale sandwich at any point during the flight. Two tiny cups of water and no lunch or snack service, even if you are willing to pay for it. That was it. Good times. If you want to eat on the plane these days, you have to buy something ahead and take it with you, which always makes me feel vaguely like an immigrant clutching a sack of potatoes, heading for Ellis Island. And they wonder why nobody wants to fly anymore...

But aside from all that it was lovely to be in southern California and to enjoy the mystifyingly good weather. Normally at this time of year it starts to get broiling hot, but we arrived in Burbank to partly cloudy skies and 65 degree temperatures. Felt just like home. After a couple of days the sun came out but it never got much above 80, so we were able to get outside a lot with the Peanut, who thoroughly enjoyed the local playgrounds and the L.A. Zoo, where we got close-up views of koala bears and giraffes. We watched, fascinated, as a large male giraffe extended his huge neck high into the trees and curled his long black tongue around the leaves, pulling them into his mouth.

And the Peanut got to spend a lot of quality time with the Chinese side of the family, getting to know her only cousins. When she was born it made a matched set of three granddaughters and three grandsons for Mr. Fraulein's parents, but the age spread is considerable: the next youngest cousin is 11. We had a couple of big, raucous family get-togethers where she got to play hide and seek and red light, green light with the cousins, even the biggest ones, who are in college, so that was great fun for her. And of course California Nana and Pop-Pop, as they are known, were thrilled to have another "baby" to fuss over after all these years.

But by far the best part was getting to spend long, lazy days together, all three of us, with no agenda aside from soaking up every moment of the Peanut's three-and-a-half-ness. She's getting over the whiny stage she entered when she turned 3 and becoming more independent. She makes little jokes. She has strong opinions about her outfits and hairstyles. ("No, today I want LOW ponytails, Mommy!") She's largely outgrown her stroller but on long walks she travels by Daddy. (Time for a piggy-back ride!)

One night when we put her to sleep on her grandparents' guest room day-bed, after going through our usual routine of stories and songs, she sat up and looked at me. "I have a question," she said. It was a question she'd asked before.

"Why do you have to go to work?" she said.

It's always like dying a little death, hearing that question, because of course if we were independently wealthy and could devote every day to trips to the playground with her, we'd do it. But obviously there are bills to pay. So I gave her my standard answer, about how mommy and daddy love her more than anything in the world, but we have to go to work to earn money to pay for our house and our food and our clothes and our toys. And anyway, this way she gets to go to school and learn her letters and numbers and hang out with her cute little friends. She nods solemnly, considering this.

And as I look at her in the waning sunlight filtering through the blinds, I realize that I would give almost anything to capture this moment in amber, to keep her this tiny for as long as I possibly could.

I know her growing up will be amazing. It certainly has been so far. But how lovely, how like a shimmering, dazzling work of art, lit from within, she is at this moment.

McCain's crazy pastor buddy

I'm sure we'll hear as much outrage in the corporate media about this guy as we did about Jeremiah Wright. Right? Anyone? Hello....?

John Hagee, the controversial evangelical leader and endorser of Sen. John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a "hunter," sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God's will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.

Anyone care to place bets...

...on how long it will take one of those vicious right-wing commentators--Ann Coulter, perhaps?--to say how glad they are that Ted Kennedy apparently has brain cancer? I give it until the end of the day, tops.

It's interesting that the HuffPost has disabled comments on that story--obviously they know what to expect.

UPDATE: Minor-league right-wing talker Michael Savage is the winner, coming in with a tasteless comment the very same day, as I predicted. I'm disappointed in Coulter -- she's off her game this week!

Lots going on at the moment

Traveling, visiting relatives, going back to a place that I have dearly loved for nearly half my life now. Finally getting to meet the two children of a dear old friend. Imagining the fantastic photo opportunities offered when my Peanut, with her mahogany hair, golden skin and dark, dark eyes, gets together with my friend's gorgeously white-blonde, blue-eyed 3-year-old, born exactly two weeks after the Peanut. Trying to imagine the insane levels of cuteness involved here -- a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old with English accents! Just too cute for words!

Photos to come...

Peanut baffled by my musical taste

Since Air America (with the exception of Rachel Maddow, who is still great) has turned into an infotainment clownfest similar to the traditional media, I no longer listen to it in the car on our XM Radio. Lately I have gotten into XM's 80's station, which allows me to re-live my musical youth.

The other day Journey's "Hopelessly in Love" came on as the Peanut and I were driving home. I hadn't heard this song in years and I enjoyed it to an almost indecent extent. Bopping my head along to the music, I flipped down the rear-view mirror to glance at the Peanut. "Isn't this song the best? This is from when Mommy was a kid!" I said. "Don't you love it?"

"No," she responded. "I don't like it when they yell."

Evidently she doesn't appreciate the vocal stylings of Steve Perry. I can't imagine why not...


UPDATE: Here's a link to a YouTube video of Journey performing this song. Man oh man Steve Perry is an ugly dude. Enjoy the craptacular early-80s outfits and hairstyles! (I take comfort in the fact that since I was 11 years old in 1980, I can't be held responsible for whatever I wore then.) Still a great song though!

On my reading list today

To find out how we can (just maybe) pull our ailing planet back from the brink, visit here and here.

To learn about some of the many things younger than John McCain (velcro! the Golden Gate Bridge! DICK CHENEY!) go here.

And still more

My lovely Peanut.

More fun with the new digital camera

Mr. Fraulein and the Peanut and me, and Boston's Commonwealth Ave. in bloom.

Mother's Day 2008

Me and the Peanut, checking out the 100th annual Lilac Sunday at the Arnold Arboretum, and enjoying breakfast at Johnny's Luncheonette.

Two years ago tomorrow

On May 9, 2006, we said goodbye to our beloved cat, Marcus, as he lost his brave fight against cancer. He was a big, longish-haired black kitty with the sweetest disposition you can imagine. One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, once described one of her dogs as "Jesus in a little fur suit," and that's kind of how I think of Marcus. So meek and loving and kind. We used to call him the Mighty Panther and the King of the Jungle. I truly hope he is living it up in Kitty Heaven at this very moment. Here's my post from not long after he died.

Rest in peace, my little buddy!

Constant company

One thing anyone with small kids will tell you is that it's hard to get any alone time, even in the "potty." Our mornings are generally somewhat chaotic with trying to get ourselves and the Peanut fed, take showers, pack lunches, etc., with the goal of getting out the door sometime before, say, noon. So inevitably when I try to get in the shower, this happens:

Peanut: Hi mommy! Are you taking a shower?

Me: Yeah, I just turned the water on, so why don't you go help Daddy with your lunch and...

Peanut, slapping me on the behind as I lean over next to the bathtub: Can I play the drums on your butt? (Slapslapslapslap. Gigglegigglegigglegiggle. Slapslapslapslap.)

Me: OK, that's enough of that, I have to get into the shower now...

Peanut: Do you want a toy? I'll bring you a duckie.

Me: Sure, I'll take a duckie.

Peanut: Do you want ALL the bath toys?

Me: No, one is enough, thanks, don't throw all that stuff in here...

Peanut, with an armful of squeezy bath animals, opening the shower doors and leaning into the water spray: Here you go! Whee!

No filter

(You'll have to forgive the vagueness of this rant, but it's something I'd like to get off my chest without disclosing too many details...)

Did you ever know somebody with no filter? Someone who will just say anything--particularly if it's boastful and self-aggrandizing--regardless of the inappropriateness of the setting in which he or she is shooting off his or her mouth?

I have to spend a good chunk of my life in close contact with a person like this. As an added bonus, it is hard to have a relatively normal conversation of any kind with my No Filter person, which, for reasons I can't go into here, I need to at least TRY to do several times each week. He/she occasionally exhibits all the social skills of a small child suffering from autism--except this ain't a kid. And he/she doesn't have any kind of mental disability as far I'm aware.

So I end up sitting mutely through this person's commentary to third parties standing three feet away from me about, for example, his/her ex-flame which his/her spouse is still SO jealous of (as if I give a shit). And this person's odd criticisms of his/her own children. And his/her really unfunny jokes about current events (that situation in Austria where the father imprisoned his own daughter in the basement and forced her to bear 7 of his children--THAT was a real knee-slapper...)

They ought to give classes in social skills for adults. Except the people who need them the most, like this person, probably wouldn't go.

May Day 1990

Eighteen years ago today I was in Oxford for my college junior term abroad. Every May 1 there is a huge celebration in Oxford for May Day. The night before we said, we are definitely getting up at daybreak tomorrow to head into town for this. We have to see the bridge jumpers! Hear the singing! Have a beer at 6 a.m.!

The next morning, we didn't get up. And every May 1 since, and probably every May 1 for the rest of my life, I'm going to regret that I didn't get to see it when I had the chance.

(Photo credit MSNBC)

"Testicular fortitude"

This makes me kind of sick: the whole idea that in 2008 we are still equating "toughness" exclusively with being male. The nitwit in this video thinks he's giving Hillary Clinton the ULTIMATE compliment by saying she's so tough, she's almost like a man! Give me a break. Show me one man on this planet who wouldn't break down into hysterics if he had to go through pregnancy (especially a rough one) and childbirth (particularly unmedicated, the way most of the women in the world have done for centuries).

However you feel about Hillary--and I'm not liking her much at the moment--you have to admit that you need a special brand of boldness to put yourself out there in the public sphere the way she's done, especially post-Monica Lewinsky. Hillary has been very popular as a U.S. senator. Whether she ought to be running for the Presidency is debatable, but she's obviously tough.

She's got ovarian fortitude, if you will.

A cavalcade of cool mom stories

Antique Mommy has a giveaway going, and the comments thread is fascinating as well as hilarious. She's asked people to share factoids about their moms in honor of Mother's Day coming up. Go take a look! You'll be glad you did.

Peanut and Daddy

Out in our friends' back yard a couple of weeks ago.

Do some good

I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (at a young age and with two young kids, no less). I met her and her now-husband at Trinity Church in Boston many years ago, before I met Mr. Fraulein. Later we discovered that her aunt is married to Mr. Fraulein's uncle! Which was more than bizarre, and which made us realize that technically we are related. Through marriage at any rate.

Now this friend is soliciting donations for her local MS Walk event in Pennsylvania. You can donate to her team here, and help the National MS Society fund research into a cure for this devastating disease. My friend and her husband and little boys thank you!

Meanwhile another friend and former co-worker is now training for the New York City Triathlon, which will raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which funds research into cures for blood cancers. As he points out, getting his 43-year-old self in shape for this event will be no small feat. But I have to give him props for trying to get into shape, which is certainly more than I'm doing. I applaud your efforts from my seat on the couch, Uncle Squid! You can donate to his team here.

If you're wondering why in God's name his nickname appears to be "Uncle Squid," let me enlighten you. Technically his nickname is "The Squid." Because when you are an Italian guy from New Jersey with a name like Tony Borelli (our degenerate group of reporter friends decided back in the day) you obviously need a mob name. Something with a nice ring to it, such as "Tony 'The Squid' Borelli."

The birds and the bees

Lately the Peanut has been wondering about babies, since every third person we know seems to either be pregnant or to have just given birth. "How do the babies get into the belly?" she wants to know.

I haven't been able to figure out much of a response beyond saying, "God puts the babies in there."

So last night, as she was settling down to sleep, we had, I swear to Jesus, the following conversation (which I should preface by adding that she has absorbed enough political commentary around here to know that the names "George Bush" and "Dick Cheney" are associated with all things bad and wrong):

Peanut: Will I have a baby?

Me: Someday you might, sure.

Peanut: What is God again?

Me: Well, it's kind of hard to explain, but God is everything that's good in the whole world.

Peanut: Don't George Bush and Dick Cheney know about God?

The Red Sox are killing me, Part XXVIIIX

Last night there was a 7:05 p.m. game at Fenway. In the past I've found that the best strategy for avoiding Red Sox Nation-Related Traffic Hell has been to leave work insanely early, so I get home before it (RSNRTH, that is) breaks out in earnest. However, sometimes I can't do it.

So yesterday, I had the delusion that maybe if I didn't leave the suburban hinterlands where my office is until 6 p.m., maybe everybody would be at the game by the time the Peanut and I arrived in the vicinity of Storrow Drive, which is where the prime traffic lunacy usually erupts.

Well, it turns out that everybody is decidedly NOT already at Fenway by 6:45 p.m. on 7:05 p.m. game nights. No, at that point they are still engaged in cutting one another off and driving up on the sidwalks and speeding dangerously through tight openings between the double-parked cars, as per usual.

"Are we going to have to stay here FOREVER?" the Peanut moaned from the back seat. No, I responded. It only feels like forever.

Thanks a bunch, Red Sox Nation!

The Peanut joins the band

So on Friday night we went out for sandwiches at Panera Bread, which we haven't done in a while. The Peanut loves their grilled cheese kids' sandwiches. Afterwards we stopped at our local Best Cellars wine place so Mr. Fraulein and I could enjoy the nightly tasting. As they sometimes do, they had a small band playing live music during the wine tasting--just two guys, a vocalist/guitarist and a percussionist. The Peanut is always mesmerized by any live music, so she stood for a while watching them play. Then the percussion guy offered her a little egg-shaker maraca-type thing. She was a bit shy about it at first, but then agreed to try it, and even sat in with the band for a song, playing her shaky-maraca thing along with the beat.

Once she had enough of that she came back to where we were standing. As the little band continued to play, the Peanut started dancing, jumping up and down with glee. She closed her eyes and shook her head, making her hair fly in front of her eyes, which made her look like a 3-year-old version of the people in those iPod ads.

This is why I don't watch TV news anymore

Because during the last Democratic primary debate, the ABC right-wing circus clown moderators apparently spent an hour shouting questions about flag lapel pins and '60s radicals before they got around to, you know, any mention of Iraq.

As the awesome Bob Cesca put it:

It confounds logic that, on one hand, Senator Obama is repeatedly asked to explain why rural America is bitter, while, on the other hand, his qualifications for the presidency are being evaluated based on his goddamn bowling skills. Seriously, what the hell is going on here? The Bush Republicans are responsible for perhaps the worst economic crisis since World War II. They're responsible for a $3 trillion occupation and decades of future blowback. They're responsible for selling our sovereignty to foreign governments. They're responsible for trampling our liberty and national character. And there was Senator McCain on Hardball the other night talking about war in Iran, while pledging to make permanent the Bush tax cuts for the super rich. Both of which would make matters far, far worse.

Seriously--I can't do it. Can't watch it. Reading about it on the Web after the fact is painful enough. I have accepted the fact that if I watch these atrocities directly as they unfold, I will suffer a fatal aneurysm, and my husband will have to explain to the police how I came to expire at the age of 39, falling in our living room with an expression of rage on my face and both middle fingers still extended in the direction of our flat-screen TV.

This will give you the chills

Best anti-Iraq-war, anti-fear-and manipulation song ever:

Then we needed a leader and you’re all we had
So we told ourselves you were not that bad
You took the opportunity to have your way
While our wounds still bled we were led astray
All the the fears that came descending on us then
Falling just the same
Falling like the towers in a cloud that hung
So it blocked our view and it hid the sun
When our eyes were down, in all that pain
With your slight of hand, you cast the blame

The artist is named David Wilcox, and he is phenomenal. I had never heard of him before a couple of days ago and now I have his new CD on constant rotation. Every song is amazing. See if you can listen to this without crying (I can't so far!) It's the perfect wedding song. Clearly I have to renew my vows so I can get to use it, since it wasn't around when I got married in 2002.

(Photo credit www.davidwilcox.com)

Why, I didn't have time to prepare an acceptance speech...

Many thanks to Misty at Rainy Day in May for this. Who doesn't love getting an award? I'm all choked up over here...

Speaking of awards, am I the only one out there who has spent an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about what would constitute the perfect dress to wear to the Oscars? Like, as if I was ever going to be nominated for an Oscar. Which I won't. Not being in the entertainment business or anything. But if in some alternative universe I ever get to go to the Oscars ceremony, I have a pretty good idea what I would wear. Something that evokes classic Hollywood, while flattering my skin tone, making me look 15 years younger, and disguising the size of my ass. (I told you this was an alternative universe.)

The Peanut's not-evil twin

This is not my kid. The eyes are slightly wider-set, and more obviously Asian, than the Peanut's. Also she is a couple of years older. But other than that, she's the Peanut's double. I found her modeling hand-made hats in a store on Etsy.

Things I will never get tired of watching

This weekend Mr. Fraulein and I were talking about movies and old TV shows that hold up well on repeated viewings. Some movies you see in the theater and think, well, that was OK but I don't need to ever see it again. Others, you know you just have to have for your own collection. There's something so comforting about relaxing in front of a movie or show you already know will make you howl with laughter, think about Important Issues, or both!

So here is my list of movies and a TV episode I can happily watch a million times:

1. Office Space. Have you ever had a job that, as somebody in a Dilbert cartoon once said, made you "long for the sweet release of death"? The kind of job where, if you were offered the choice between working for those people again or being waterboarded by Dick Cheney, you'd take your chances with the waterboarding? If so, like me, you will never get tired of this movie.

2. Galaxy Quest. If there is anything funnier than Alan Rickman's pained facial expression pretty much every moment he's on screen, I'd like to see it. An absolute classic.

3. Monsters Inc. When Sully thinks he'll never see Boo again, it makes me cry every time. Cute, funny, and creative.

4. His Girl Friday. I first saw this movie in Journalism 101 my freshman year at Boston University, and thus a newspaper career was born. The scene where Hildy chases down her interview subject (across a couple of lanes of traffic) and then tackles him (while wearing 1940s-era heels) still gives me the chills. Just awesome.

5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. If you were in high school in the 80s, you have to love this one. It perfectly captures the joy of skipping out of school.

6. Stranger than Fiction. Turns out Will Ferrell can act. I completely adore the idea behind the plot of this one: a guy hearing a disembodied voice narrating his every move. This movie is underappreciated and sheer genius.

7. Orlando. My favorite Virginia Woolf novel can't have been a picnic to adapt for the big screen. With this one they did what I assumed was impossible: bringing the humor and humanity of one of literature's most fascinating characters vividly to life on screen. Tilda Swinton comes close to my exact vision of this character, with the exception of her red hair (Orlando is very explicitly a brunette in the novel).

8. Ratatouille. We rented this for the Peanut without realizing it's really a Big People Movie, although little people can appreciate it too. Not just one of my favorite animated movies -- one of my favorite movies period. Hilarious and moving at the same time.

9. Cars. How do the animators get the cars to look like they have emotions? Just brilliant.

10. The Office, Season Two: the "Office Olympics"episode: Can't find a link to this particular one. It's the episode where Michael buys his condo and while he and Dwight are out at the closing, Jim and Pam organize the Dunder Mifflin Olympics, featuring such events as races around the building with full cups of coffee. Oh, and "Flonkerton." I have seen this over and over on DVD and it still makes me laugh almost to the point of losing bladder control. Rainn Wilson outdoes himself in this one, which is saying something since he's always hilarious.

Nicknames, and the second cutest kid on earth

We don't just call the Peanut "the Peanut" on this blog. It's actually a nickname Mr. Fraulein and I use with her quite a bit, because it suits her so well. Yesterday as I dropped her off at preschool, her best buddy C. was hanging around as I helped her get her coat off and put her lunch in the fridge. "Why do you call her Peanut?" C. asked. This kid is referred to around our house as The Second Cutest Kid in the World, and if you could see him, you'd know why. He SO belongs in a Baby Gap ad or something. He's just a week older than the Peanut, but much larger -- taller, with bigger hands and feet. He has a smile that outshines the sun. And, God love him, I suspect his mommy has to buy him "husky" sized clothing.

So when I responded, well, we call her that because it's her nickname, his face lit up with his usual incandescent smile. "I have a nickname too!" he said. "Really, what is it?" I asked.

"MEATBALL!" C. shouted.

And that made me giggle for the rest of the day.

Springtime

I am looking forward to spring finally coming to New England (as is the Peanut). This morning I had to scrape frost off my car windows. The Peanut really wants to start getting outside more. It's dawned on me that this year we are going to need a bigger tricycle, because she long ago got too big for this one.

I'm it

I feel honored to have been tagged by the awesome and not-at-all-antique-looking Antique Mommy to do a "meme" post about Six Unimportant Things About Me. It's tough to narrow it down to just six! But here they are:

1. I cannot (and never could) ice skate.

2. Someone once told me I would make a more-than-adequate race car driver.

3. I love to bake but hate to cook.

4. I haven't gone downhill skiing since high school, but I still remember how exhilarating it was to feel the wind on my face and the satisfaction of hitting a mogul and not falling down.

5. I started going gray at 27. I've been dyeing my hair for so long I can't even remember my real hair color now.

6. I look terrible in navy blue.

Conversations on a Sunday morning

Me: Good morning, Peanut, how did you sleep?

Peanut: Fine. I want to still wear my pink pajamas. And I want to wear my pink shoes. And I want two pink underpants.

Me: Why two pairs of underpants?

Peanut: Because one pair is for my butt and one is to wear on my head.

Me: OK. Right. On your head.

Peanut: Right -- the dark pink ones with the roses on them.

Me: Well, I think those are in the hamper because you wore them yesterday.

Peanut: I still want them! (Goes to bathroom to get dirty underpants out of hamper.)

Me: You know what, you really don't want to wear dirty underwear on your head.

Peanut: Yes I do! WAAAHHHH!!!

Me: Oh God. I didn't even have coffee yet. How about this -- let's get your pink tutu from your Halloween costume and you can wear that instead of dirty underpants on your head. OK?

Peanut (tearfully): OK.

Putting myself out there

Up until recently I haven't done much to promote this blog, but I feel like that needs to change.

I'm in the mood for more conversation. It's good to feel connected, don't you think? So thanks to my old friends and new friends for pitching in and commenting. I appreciate it more than you know.

Red Sox finding new and innovative ways to ruin my commute

This is all I need:

Fenway Ready for Home Opener

Apr 3rd, 2008 BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox are getting Fenway Park ready for next week's home opener, when almost 1,000 more fans will be able to squeeze through the gates of baseball's oldest and smallest park.

The defending World Series champions play their first home game of the season Tuesday against the Detroit Tigers.

The seventh year of renovations are almost complete. New this year is a section of upper deck seats in left field, a kitchen for the Red Sox clubhouse and a stairway down the third base line to help fans get in and out of the park.

Red Sox president Larry Lucchino says with the new Yankees Stadium set to open in 2009, Boston needs to work even harder to keep up with "the bullet train in the Bronx."

A thousand more seats. This will mean hundreds more cars driven by clueless suburbanites in endless circles around the greater Fenway area, searching fruitlessly for parking, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF RUSH HOUR. When those of us who are unfortunate enough to have to drive through this area to get home, are trying to commute back from work. Fun times.

Why is this clown still on the teevee...?

Every time I read anything this asshat says, it makes me want to stab myself in the eye with an ice pick to distract from the pain of the realization that he has, and has had for ages and will likely continue to have, an elevated television perch from which to ask questions like this, which he asked about Barack Obama:

"Let me ask you about how he -- how's he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?"

The Peanut is 3 and a half today

I don't know where that time went. I cannot believe that 3 years, six months, and one day ago, I had never met her. She was still just an abstract concept to me before she was born. I never had that sense of "Even in the womb, I knew you..." that a lot of mothers say they have.

I literally had no idea at that point how my life would change. Which is of course a giant cliche, but one that is true of every parent I know. Luckily for most people it's a change for the better. I can't imagine how much smaller and poorer my life would be without the incredible gift of getting to watch her experience the world.

Happy half birthday Peanut!

Thoughts on my grandparents

My parents came to visit us this weekend for Easter, and as he often does, my dad got to telling stories about his family. It's a long, convoluted history, with many twists and turns, just like any good story of immigrants making good in America. My father is 75 years old, and he was the next to the last of 11 children born to his parents, who came to New York City from the dusty privations of their former lives in Sicily around the turn of the century. My grandmother, Theresa, had met my grandfather, Philip, in Sicily but they got married in America. She was a teenager then, trying to adjust to the change from farming life (she carried water jugs on her head in Sicily!) to the tenement jungle of New York. My grandfather toiled with untold numbers of other Italian immigrants to lay bricks and mix cement, building Manhattan from the ground up. My grandmother? Well, she gave birth.

And she had miscarriages, too -- nobody knows how many. But she bore 11 live babies, 10 of whom made it to adulthood. (See them all in my parents' wedding picture above!) In the photos of her as a young woman, what is most striking is the look of determination on her face. It's as if she's thinking: I dare you to throw something at me that I can't handle.

My dad tells the story of the local midwife, a German woman who attended Theresa through her 11 births. My grandmother was apparently legendary for her ability to give birth effortlessly. I like to picture her throwing her elegant, black, wavy hair (for which she was also famous) out of her eyes, clambering up onto the kitchen table, and settling down calmly to the task of pushing out another baby. No epidurals for her! When I delivered the Peanut I pictured her spirit hovering over one of my shoulders and that of my mother's mother (who gave birth eight times) over the other. Those imperturbable, hard-as-nails Italian women, whose lives were studies in hardships and misery, yet they kept going forward. Always forward.

Someday I want to tell the Peanut their stories. How her Italian ancestors helped build New York, and how the Chinese immigrants, ancestors of her daddy's family, who worked their way from China all the way to Ohio and then back to California, built the train tracks that expanded across the whole country. How, without the rest of the world, there wouldn't be an America.

"Conservatarded whackadoodle"

I am totally stealing this phrase from the very talented TRex. Practically spit coffee on my screen laughing when I read that.

Also, I wish more people were aware of this very obvious hole in the "pro-life" argument:

The other thing that’s just appalling to me about people who call themselves “pro-life” is the fact that they support the Republican party’s Endless War agenda without any thought whatsoever. How can you be against the “slaughter of babies” here in America and yet joyously advocate the slaughter of real-live, already-born babies and children on the other side of the world? That’s what I don’t get. You would think that anyone with even a modicum of thinking skills would see the inherent contradiction there.

Not-so-happy feet

We recently got the DVD of "Happy Feet" from Netflix. I've learned by now that we need to check these movies out before we show them to the Peanut, and this one proves why.

Memo to filmmakers: if you're going to promote a movie by showing lots of pictures of cute dancing animals, it is maybe not the best idea to devote a good chunk of the actual movie to depictions of menacing monster animals trying to eat the main, fuzzy characters. Was the scene with the yellow-toothed seal thing necessary? Or the one with the carnivorous birds? The one with the scary whales? How about the delightful part when the main character, poor Mumble, goes insane from being in a zoo? If I wanted to be depressed I'd rent a Michael Moore documentary, not a fuzzy-animated-animal movie, goddamn it!

So we had to do our usual trick of watching the movie with remote in hand, zipping past the scary parts so the Peanut could see the singing baby penguins, which she just adored. (She is also obsessed with Mort from Madagascar, and keeps asking for a stuffed-animal Mort.)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Insert your own Fox News joke here.

Ouch

The Peanut's occasional potty training setbacks have nothing on this. This type of thing is one reason why, even if I had the strength to carry her on my shoulders, I wouldn't go there.

Various items

It's been a weird couple of weeks -- stressful and aggravating but cathartic. I wasn't feeling like I had much to say but I suppose I should jump back into the saddle again ...which I will do with some random observations/rants:

• If I hear one more word in the media, mainstream or otherwise (I'm looking at you, Air America Radio) about Eliot Freaking Spitzer I am going to stick my head out the window and start hollering like Howard Beale. Did the guy pay for his "seven diamond prostitute" with tax dollars supplied by the citizens of New York? No? Then Shut. The. Hell. Up. about it already! Why should anyone who is not married to, or otherwise related to, this guy care whether he frequents even, say, a "two diamond prostitute"? Yeah, he's a hypocrite. So are, unfortunately, many Democrats, and pretty much every Republican elected official, in one way or another. Until "Diaper Dave" Vitter and Larry "Wide Stance" Craig resign, I don't want to hear another goddamn thing about Spitzer.

• By all means, the Democratic candidates for president should have another debate. If they want us all to shoot ourselves in the head, that is.

• Speaking of which: Hilary, you need to go away now. It's all over but the screaming and crying about how it was Your Turn and you've been unfairly cheated out of your rightful legacy, or some damn thing. Just step aside and let Obama have his day. I wasn't sure at first if he'd earned it but now it seems he's got the chops. It's time for the country to unite behind Obama so we can start the hard work of taking our country back from the clowns who have done this to it. And to us.

• My husband, who has a Chinese last name equivalent to "Smith," and a not-so-common Chinese first name, was delayed in getting on a plane this week because there's apparently someone on the "No Fly List" with the same name. Once they verified his age, he was declared Not A Terrorist and allowed to go on his way. We'll see if we're as lucky the next time we try to fly somewhere...

• The Peanut seems to be slowly coming out of the spiral of really bad behavior we've been seeing, on and off, ever since she turned 3. What's interesting is she intersperses her nightmare tantrums with periods of incredible sweetness--she'll tell us she loves us 10 times a day. Mr. Fraulein and I keep thinking that it just must be really hard, sometimes, to be 3. "My hips hurt, Mommy," she'll say, as the growing pains come and go. She still has this unfortunate tendency towards car sickness, so we (and by "we" I mean my husband) are hauling the 9,000-pound car seat up to our third-floor condo way more often than we'd like. Luckily all the covers come off for easy washing. So we're trying to be understanding of the craziness that must be going on in that little head of hers as she tries to make sense of the world.

• It's been fascinating to watch the Peanut developing a sense of her own beauty. (On a side note, this whole topic has many complicated implications for me, since I spent much of my life being so convinced of my own ugliness.) But it turns out I must have some good genes in there somewhere, because in many ways she looks like me. Her cheeks and mouth are much like mine. But then she has those unimaginably lovely, sort of Asian eyes. When strangers see her, they sometimes do a double-take, and I imagine they're trying to figure out what her background is. In any event, though I hope it doesn't sound too obnoxious of me as the mom to say so, she is quite striking. And she's heard people say it enough times that she's starting to realize it for herself. Last night we played "fashion show," which is my ruse for making her try on things to see if they fit. I had been hoping to re-use last year's summer dresses, but at the rate she's growing, they're going to fall at her hips by this summer! She paraded in front of the mirror in outfit after outfit, a smile broadening on her face. It does my heart good to see her reveling in her own loveliness.