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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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IT WOULD BE CALLED "NEWS" IF ONLY IT WERE NEWSWORTHY 1. Continuing in my quest to be behind the times by reading all the "controversial" work/family tomes that got people blogging their fingers off years ago, I just finished Linda Hirshman's itty-bitty book. It had its "hell yeah" moments as well as its "now wait a minute" moments (particularly when Linda tells me I should have majored in economics, or pretends that the only two choices in life are "work a gazillion hours and make a gazillion dollars" vs. "wipe up baby spit until your brain implodes"). On one hand, it is kind of nice to read someone with actual opinions instead of the wimpy "whatever is right for your family" standard disclaimer. On the other, mothers don't have to have Fortune 500-level power-suit change-the-world awesome careers to be good role models. I have a medium-important job in a semi-girly profession and (if you take away the bad habits and the blah blah on the internet) I think my daughter could do worse than see me go to work every day and like it. (Thus I spake.) (The best thing about reading The Odyssey in Greek is the use of this phrase after every piece of dialogue. What I Learned As A Classics Major, Part LXIII: Life before quotation marks was very tedious.) 2. Nora had a "playdate" at a school friend's house recently. This caused my hamster-brain to run around its cage in an anxious rodent way. Would it go smoothly? Would Nora insist on being the alpha dog, as we have sometimes seen? Would the other girl make the heinous mistake of owning princess gear or American Girl dolls, thus earning Nora's impolitic outspoken scorn? Thankfully everything was fine, and now the two girls are allies and from all reports are currently ruling the playground with their brazen Asian skinniness. (School Friend is Indian and, like Nora, pretty much a bundle of arms and legs with a head on top.) In fact, the most frightening part of the whole playdate was setting it up---Other Mom works full-time too, so we had cross-nanny communication regarding pickup and dropoff, and after I hung up the phone and realized what had just transpired I was like OH MY FUCKING GOD WHO AM I. So I got hammered on cheap nasty beer and ran around town spraypainting anarchy symbols on everything. Well, the first part at least. 3. Speaking of Nora, she recently informed me that a pipe cleaner was a vertebrate and a piece of yarn would be an invertebrate. And then I swooned from her wonderfulness. 4. Speaking of getting hammered, LT and I went to the fundraising auction for Nora's school, with open bar approximately every ten feet, where I was quickly outbid for Bears tickets (the only time I ever raised my paddle), and where I quietly and sometimes not-so-quietly snarked on all the rich people. During the dinner speeches, the board president got up to exhort people to donate and said, "I can't think of any worthier cause than our children's education" and I said, "Well, let's not get carried away." Whoops! Wine! Mouth! Brain! I don't think anyone heard me, thank goodness. We took a cab home and had rather operatic* sex, to take advantage of the fact that Nora was spending the weekend having her every whim indulged at my parents' house. (*In the "loud, dramatic" sense, not the "everyone dies at the end" sense.) 5. Said sex was had only in the bedroom with the door closed, however, because of the need to avoid feline participation. What? Yes! Although I am still sad about Banana, I could not stand an animal-free household any longer. So I poured an inch of 8-Ball onto the ground for my homegirl and headed to the shelter. Whereupon Nora and LT instantly fell in love with Rocko and Lola---oh shit, what's that conjunction doing in there? Conjunction junction, what is your function? Hooking up cats. We now have cats, plural. Rocko and Lola are brother and sister tuxedo cats, black with the classic white splotches and white feets. They came as a pair. Major lifestyle change alert! We used to be serial monogamists when it came to cat ownership, but dude, I am totally poly now. Two cats are so much fun. They nap together (awwww so cute OMG SO CUTE), goof off together, swarm my lap when I sit down. Lola is a petite attention whore, while Rocko is a bit more beefy, introverted, and dignified. They happily share a litterbox and food bowl, so the logistics are not all that bad. I am a shitty photographer so pictures will have to wait until I can nag LT or bribe my sister to take them. Yay two cats! EXCUSE ME BUT IT'S AWESOME TIME Joyful Joe! Faithful Fred! And my favorite, Self-Controlled Sam! That Sam, so self-controlled. Until the day he snapped, of course. Trampled seven Christians, yes indeed, very tragic but what can you do. The best part about these hideous Bible-toting stuffed animals is that they come with these little recording devices, and that you don't need to necessarily "surprise your child with different Bible verses," but presumably could also "surprise" your child with a smokin' guitar solo or William S. Burroughs spoken word as bedtime story. (Smash the control machines. Burn the books. Kill the priests. Sweet dreams, baby.) Yesterday as I walked to the bus stop, at 6:30 in the morning, a guy sprinted past me in the other direction carrying a gallon jug of vodka. Early morning vodka emergency. I think we've all been there. I was impressed with how he was carrying it straight out in front of him like a fishbowl---that takes serious forearm muscles. Maybe he was a superhero. Super EnablerMan, to the liquor store and back, faster than a speeding blender! Stronger than pangs of hangover regret! Able to leap tall beer kegs in a single bound! ---mimi smartypants: O'Doul's is her kryptonite. |
