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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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THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB I was walking down the gangway between buildings in our sad urban "back yard," when I saw a small gray roundish rock. When I instinctively lifted my foot to kick it along (for I am the free-spirit street-urchin type, guv'nor), I saw that it was in fact a dead mouse. Eeeeeek. Gaaaaak. Yuuuuuck. Or maybe Oooooh Ahhhhh Coooool if you are Nora. We had to crouch for several long minutes and examine (visual inspection only, at my insistence) the dead mouse while I tried not to think about hantavirus. Then we had to discuss whether she could take it inside and "get the skeleton out." [Okay, I officially feel ridiculous. Do I really have to come up with valid, parental-sounding reasons why I do not want my four-year-old to gut and skin and de-flesh-ify a dead rodent? Yes, I do.] Me: Well, we really shouldn't handle dead animals. And, uh, I don't know how to get the fur and stuff off. ["Stuff." Ha. Good one, Smartypants, nice and delicate and Victorian. The inside of the body is filled with "stuff." Oh H-E-double-hockey-sticks, I do believe I need to visit the powder room.] TIME OUT FOR SOME DATA Article about who has kids in Manhattan. It is no real surprise that it is rich white people who have kids in Manhattan. However, the median-income statistic did make me say "holy crap." Out loud. More family data for you family data types, in Portable Document Format. TIME OUT FOR SOME FRESHNESS I really thought that the revolting phenomenon of specific soaps for washing your hoo-ha had long since died out. No. It hasn't. Wash those vaginas, ladies. Preferably with a specially-formulated, focus-group-tested, market-researched product. Because We Said So. GOOD CITIZENS OF THE NORTH SIDE 1. The guy who zooms around in a electric wheelchair with his tuba bungee-corded to the back. He does not seem homeless, he is just out and about and he brought his tuba. Never know when you're going to need a tuba. Hold on, just let me get my tuba and I will be ready to go. 2. Later I was riding on the Traveling Carnival Of Bad Parenting and one of the young moms was talking to an even younger mom about birthday parties. YM: When does your son turn two? Ah yes, that vast unlabeled gutter between days. At this point I had to practically clap both hands over my mouth so as not to make little screamy whimper-noises. The friends continued to converse, about how EYM had her not-quite-two-year-old (but WHEN'S HIS BIRTHDAY? WHEN?) in the shopping cart, and he was misbehaving so she "popped him," and then this "Old White Man" told her not to raise her hand to her child, and she said fuck you I will beat my son's ass and then I will beat your ass. And then apparently OWM told her that he was going to call the cops, and she said good when they come here I will beat their asses too. Now who knows if this was youthful braggadocio or an actual plan, but it is somewhat impressive either way. A stranger calls you on your parenting techniques, BEAT HIS ASS! Then FIGHT THE POLICE! Then GO TO JAIL AWWWW YEAH MOTHERFUCKER THAT'S HOW YOU ROLL! Kind of puts the lame and tedious mommyblogwars and manufactured Today Show brouhahas in perspective, don't you think? For the record, I am steadfastly against hitting children. And as a pragmatic sort, I really don't think getting into a violent standoff with police is an appropriate response to grocery-store busybodies. (Let's leave aside, for now, the question of whether OWM was right to intervene.) However, flash-forward to later that evening. Nora is being very, very special. Specifically, she is fussing and screeching about god knows what while I am talking to a teledrone about some complicated medical/insurance crap. LT is not home yet. I keep trying to walk away with the cordless, but Nora follows me with her loud and whiny bullshit. I do the finger-to-the-lips, I excuse myself several times to explain ever-so-patiently that I am on the phone, she needs to wait a minute, etc. By now Nora is crying, since after the third time my ever-so-patient has turned into somewhat-less-than-sweet, and I have used The Voice and The Physical Removal and now the whole thing is ramping up into a big crazy drama scene. When I get back on the line, the phone woman is saying "I'm busy. I'm busy. I'm busy." Me: Pardon? Jesus, I was pissed. In a typical pampered white mommy way, of course---meaning I just cried a tiny bit, finished making dinner, and later blathered ad nauseum to the internet. (Hi!) Because I have money, power, confidence, and a day-to-day where relatively few people tell me that I am Doing It Wrong. If I did not have those things, maybe I would be fantasizing out loud about beating the telephone woman's ass. Maybe I should do that anyway. Maybe it would make me feel better faster than all this self-doubt and introspection. Anyway, that's the story of how my judging bone got broken, fixed, and re-broken all in one day. I came up with this entry "in between" yesterday and today, though, when I couldn't sleep, so it's kind of hard to put a date-stamp on this thing. ---mimi smartypants has yet to shovel up the dead mouse. |
