Sugar and spice

Scene: the Peanut's room, the other morning, as I tried to brush her teeth (an activity roughly equivalent to wrestling an eel):

Me: Will you stop wriggling and let me brush your teeth already! We do this every day -- why do you keep fighting me?

The Peanut, just before fighting me off and sprinting out of the room: I'm getting out of here, you old lady!

I bet the teenage years are going to be awesome.

This is a family blog

So I am NOT going to insinuate that Chris Matthews is a #$&!-sucking right-wing whore who richly deserves to spend eternity roasting on a spit in his own personal hell, which I imagine would feature lots and lots of women with powerful, high-paying jobs.

Happy birthday wishes

Couldn't let today go by without a happy birthday shout-out to Hausfrau, my very non-matronly matron of honor!

Here you'll see George Clooney popping by to do a special birthday post on the Hausfrau blog. If I had to pick a former ER star to do mine, I think I'd go with the guy who played Dr. Kovac.

"I've seen Parsippany..."

First, Fountains of Wayne, now this: seems like my old northern New Jersey stomping grounds have been immortalized in song once again. I had just pulled into the parking lot of the Trader Joe's before when this song by a guy named Steve Forbert came on the radio, and I had to sit there, astonished, and listen to the whole thing. It's called "Strange Names (North Jersey's Got 'Em)."

I am from Piscataway
I'm going that-a-way
West on the Jersey map
Out towards the water gap
I've seen Parsippany
Northwest of Whippany
Mahwah to Hackensack
I've made the trip and back

Kudos to Steve for working in Piscataway, Parsippany, Netcong, Rockaway, Whippany, and Hackensack. Oh, and the Water Gap.

Overheard on Father's Day

"Why is Mommy cooking?"

(Dad usually handles meals, but I thought it would be nice to make dinner for Mr. Fraulein on Father's Day.)

Nothing phallic about this. Nope. Not at all.

Jesus, these Republicans have issues. This guy needs to get some help, like, yesterday.

Romney Says He Wants 'Big Stick'

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By AMY LORENTZEN Associated Press Writer

June 16,2007 DUBUQUE, Iowa --

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Saturday that if he's elected, he wants "to carry the big stick" by increasing the size of the nation's military.

The former Massachusetts governor said his plans include boosting the size of the military by at least 100,000 troops and increasing the military budget.

Expecto Patronum

I'm working my way through the Potter books again, as I've mentioned. I'm up to "Prisoner of Azkaban" now. Just finished the bit where Lupin teaches Harry the Patronus charm to ward off the Dementors.

And once again I'm amazed by how expertly Rowling has captured what I believe many of us will think back on as the particular fear-laden spirit of the post-9-11 age. We're living in our little bubble of prosperity, while all around us things fall apart and we face challenges that, realistically, may be all but impossible to overcome.

Even as you try to keep these huge horrors at the periphery of your mind, smaller but equally devastating ones work their way in. Yesterday I got an e-mail from an old friend with a picture of her nephew, who's almost a year old and who wasn't supposed to live more than a few days because something is wrong with his heart. It's the same heart problem that killed this same friend's niece many years ago. That girl, who shared the Peanut's first name, would have been 15 this year.

I look into the eyes of this almost-one-year-old, whose very existence is apparently a miracle, and I think: Expecto Patronum. Because it occurs to me that at this moment, all we've got to go on is hope.

UPDATE: I've decided I should explain what 'Expecto Patronum' is for any of my 1.3 readers who have not read the Harry Potter novels. It's a spell that conjures a Patronus, which is a sort of guardian that protects the witches and wizards of the Potter world against creatures called Dementors who suck all the happiness out of people, leaving them nothing but empty shells. Conjuring the Patronus is extremely difficult to do, and Harry does it at several points in "Prisoner of Azkaban" when it seems that all hope is truly lost.

Things the Peanut wonders about

"Can dogs talk?"

"Can grown-ups touch the ceiling?"

(In reference to every pedestrian we see when we're out in the car): "Where is that lady going? What's her name? Is she a mommy? What is that man's name?"

(In reference to every kid we see at the playground): "Does that girl have big-girl underwear? Can she pump (her legs) on the swing?"

(When told that maybe there will be a kiddie pool at grandma and grandpa's house): "Will it have sharks in it?"

This has happened more than once

...but it still makes me stop and catch my breath. Every so often I'll be walking down the street in my neighborhood and I'll see a tall, confident, bubbly young woman who is the very image of my late friend Bevin. When I saw this woman yesterday, she was walking her dog--a big, shaggy, slobbery dog.

And she was smiling.

Cenk Uygur speaks for me

Most forceful progressive voice on Air America at the moment. He also posts on Huffington Post. His latest piece is characteristically on target.

No good and evil, only power

I've been re-reading the first Harry Potter book, "Sorcerer's Stone," and I was struck anew by how well Quirrell's standout line at the end (about what he learned from Voldemort) reflects what's happened to the Republican party under Bush.

"There is no good and evil, only power, and those too weak to seek it."

That sums these people up in a nutshell. Vote suppression? Disappearing people? But of course!

Good to know

So last night I had an appointment with a podiatrist. I'm trying to figure out why I keep having stabbing pains in my feet. (Yes, I am officially 150 years old.) They took some X-rays of my feet and determined that I just have a weird bone structure that can sometimes lead to joint pain in the feet. I explained that my primary care doctor referred me there to rule out any condition that would need surgery, or any other similarly drastic thing.

"Well, family doctors hear about foot pain, and they usually think it's gout," the podiatrist said. "You definitely don't have gout."

Well Jesus, that's good to know. I don't want to have any disease that Dick Cheney has.

More toddler friendship

So as I've mentioned, the Peanut has a best buddy at day care (which I guess I now need to call "pre-school"!) This little boy has completely stolen my heart. I can't get enough of this kid.

And he can't get enough of the Peanut. When I dropped her off at pre-school yesterday after the long Memorial Day weekend, one of the teachers picked the Peanut up to give her a hug. The boy, C., came over and started tugging on the Peanut's leg as the teacher held her.

"I missed you!" he shouted up at her.

I imagine that one day in 2024, C. will be hanging around his college dorm room musing on the fact that he always falls for vivacious brunettes with dark, dark eyes. He's going to wonder how this came about. Why never the blondes? Always the brown-eyed ones with cute giggles and mischievous streaks.

Enigma

Once in April I walked with someone I could speak to without words through an endless field of daffodils carpeting the grass under the English sky. The first line of my favorite poem read: "Had we but world enough, and time..." The sunlight had a quality like water, glowing on the trees and the emerald grass. The skyline of Oxford encircled us like an embrace.

Death notices

My first newspaper job was writing obituaries. This was about as ghoulish and weird an undertaking (no pun intended) as you might expect. What always struck me was how odd, and unfair, it seemed to try and encapsulate someone's entire life in a couple of paragraphs.

Death notices, which are even shorter versions of obits provided for people scanning the newspaper to find out when and where a funeral will be held, are even more stark. How much information lies behind these tiny fragments of a person's life.

Through the wonders of the Intertubes, even the very elderly who never touched a computer in their lives, such as my late Aunt Angie, can be immortalized online forever through their death notices in local papers.

DiMARZO, Angelina "Angie" (nee Seminerio) age 84, of Clifton died Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at St. Mary's Hospital, Passaic. Born in Paterson, she lived there before moving to Clifton forty-five years ago.

What this doesn't tell you is how she looked in the photos from her youth, posing in a leopard-print bikini next to her weight-lifter husband. How, with her broad smile and her cascading curls, she was a dead ringer for Rita Hayworth. How she loved her only child, her son. How she was often so frightened, pursued by fears, real and imaginary.

I hope you've found peace where you are now, Angie.

Best friends

Sometimes the Peanut has a hard time when we drop her off at day care in the morning. Often it's because she is cranky about getting up in the morning, but sometimes it's because she's feeling car sick from the ride in, as she was this morning. Luckily she can always count on her best buddy, a stupendously adorable boy named C., to come to the rescue when she needs a little understanding.

Even as a 1-year-old, C. was a particularly charismatic kid. He is auburn-haired and has a bright smile, and more often than not, he's laughing. And, especially noteworthy for a 2-year-old, he is extremely empathetic. He's always ready with a smile and a hug for any kid in the Two's Room who is feeling down.

This morning as I kneeled by the Peanut's side, wiping her tears and trying to get her in a decent mood before Mr. Fraulein and I said goodbye, C. bounded over to greet her as usual. I explained that the Peanut was feeling sad. He laid a hand on her shoulder and watched her as she cried. He thought for a moment, and then looked at me and said:

"I love her."

And then he gave her a hug.

Life's big questions

Yesterday the Peanut and I were getting ready to go out for a late-afternoon trip to the park. Once I wrap up work on my work-at-home day and the babysitter goes home, I love getting the chance to enjoy some mommy and Peanut time.

She watched me as I transferred my wallet and cell phone from the big honking tote bag that I carry to work into a smaller purse more suitable for a quick playground jaunt. "Why you need another purse, Mommy?" she asked.

I had to laugh. "One day you'll learn that you can never have enough purses and shoes, honey," I responded.

2nd Amendment rights for the Iraqis!

I don't always agree with everything John Aravosis says on Americablog, but he is completely on the money with his (admittedly snarky) analysis here. And he's going to get crucified for it, because THIS is the third rail of American politics: making even the most sensible call for some kind of gun control.

Guns don't kill people, evil-doers kill people. That's the theory a lot of Republicans are now promoting about the violence at Virginia Tech. If only those now-dead students had all been armed, the story goes, they'd have been able to start a mass circle of gunfire in the middle of their classroom and kill the shooter (and sure, they'd kill everyone else in the classroom too, but they'd be dead AND exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, so it'd be okay). Anyway, I say the Republicans put their money where their mouths are and establish a 2nd Amendment Marshall Plan (we can call it the LaPierre plan), and ship as many guns and other weapons as possible into the hands of every single Iraqi in order to help them defend themselves...

Race, and progress

Finally, some good news on the racial front here in America. In the same week that grizzled clown Don Imus was booted from his job for being a racist asshole (I remember him being on the radio when I was a little kid in the 70s--who knew he was even still alive, let alone still broadcasting his delightful program, in 2007?) we have this headline from the AP:

Interracial Marriages Surge Across U.S.

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer

April 13,2007 NEW YORK -- The charisma king of the 2008 presidential field. The world's best golfer. The captain of the New York Yankees. Besides superstardom, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter have another common bond: Each is the child of an interracial marriage. For most of U.S. history, in most communities, such unions were taboo.

It was only 40 years ago -- on June 12, 1967 -- that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying nonwhites. The decision also overturned similar bans in 15 other states.

Since that landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling, the number of interracial marriages has soared; for example, black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005, according to Census Bureau figures. Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America's 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970.

Coupled with a steady flow of immigrants from all parts of the world, the surge of interracial marriages and multiracial children is producing a 21st century America more diverse than ever, with the potential to become less stratified by race.

The Peanut says that is a good thing.

The Crank Monster cometh

So the Peanut is now 2 and a half, and she's developed multiple personalities. One minute she is a darling cherubic angel, sitting "criss-cross-applesauce" and flipping through her books, or stacking her blocks.

And then something sets her off (often we can't tell what) and the Crank Monster shows up, destroying everything in her path.

Maybe it's because she's got molars coming in? We (Mr. Fraulein and I) just wish we knew for sure what is causing these tantrums--aside from the fact that she's two years old--but even if we did, we might not be able to do much about it.

So we try to ride out the storm, not giving in to the increasingly-hysterical mid-tantrum demands. ("Get me my sippy cup" when it's 10 inches away from her, etc.) But man oh man, does it ever make you want to drink a giant glass of tequila.

And I don't even like tequila.