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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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BORING WEEKEND CORNER This weekend I was unable to write an update because I think the National Dairy Council practiced secret mind control techniques on me and forced me to eat practically a whole cow's worth of cheese. Otherwise I have no explanation for why I became gaga for lactose for three or four days. LT and I had Stilton and bread for dinner one night, I indulged in a WHOLE DAMN BOX of Annie's Mac and Cheese on another, and I sucked down an espresso milkshake at Jinx on Sunday afternoon. I think I am over the dairy binge now, save for the lingering effects of allergy intensification (constantly sniffing and snurfling) and the desire to eat nothing but spinach and drink nothing but carrot juice for a day or so. Just to straighten myself out. I go on these food jags once in a while. Last week was all about the salted pistachios for "lunch" and "dinner," including an entire bag consumed while drinking with my comrade at the silly Rainbo Club. The door guy/barback kept coming around to empty the ashtray of pistachio shells, and the second time he gave me this cranky look. Hey buddy, nasty cigarette ash or pleasant pistachio shells, your choice. Other than cheese overdose, my weekend went pretty well. Apparently the Cubs did something good because when LT and I ventured out to meet friends at a tapas restaurant in the Lakeview area the streets were a swirling maelstrom of WOOOOOO CUBS WIN and high-fives. We very nearly bailed, but ended up trudging on and had a wonderful meal. The streets were oddly deserted by the time we left dinner. Maybe all the baseball fans had passed out by then. WEBLOGGY CORNER
Those people who told their child she had cancer when she did not, in order to defraud various charities and good-hearted neighbors, got prison time. This makes me very happy, because making your child believe that she is terminally ill goes so far beyond the definition of "psychological abuse" that a new category needs to be invented, and if Hell exists the people who run Hell will have to build a special room for these parents, right next to the special room they had to build for the whole Kennedy family. Hopefully this little girl will grow up okay and do something constructive and fun with her inevitable Lifelong Rage. Like maybe starting a cancer-themed punk band, called something like "Shaved-Head Julie And The Leukemiacs." They could wear hospital gowns and put dark makeup under their eyes and have the microphone on an IV stand. I read this New Yorker article about the dirty vernacular in the Russian language, but instead of summarizing it myself I give you a place that did a better job than I would: languagehat. I am all behind on New Yorkers so that is why everybody and her brother has already linked or discussed. Web page as personal external memory device, yet again. I also recommend Cat Town, because it is completely retarded and thus contains a nugget of genius. This is a very complex and sophisticated line of reasoning, it's okay if you are not there yet. Oh dear. Don't do drugs. Or rather, do certain carefully selected drugs, and don't go dicking around with whatever is in the garden. Ha! Wow. Findsounds.com does just what it claims. Now when you have a hankering for the sound of bacon frying, you don't need to dirty a pan. ADOPTION CORNER
We received updated pictures of Nora (aka Small Fry, the Eggroll, Peanut, and various other affectionate diminutives. I am going to have to make a special effort to help this kid learn her name). She's not such a peanut anymore---at sixteen pounds she finally outweighs my cat. She looks very stern in her new photos. My theory is that the photographer is making a total ass out of him/herself, trying to get the baby to smile, and her attitude is pretty much, "Dude. Whatever." The night after seeing her new pictures I had a strange dream that the "alternative" to traveling to China was to peel her image off of the photo paper and put it in a dish of water for a few days, where it would grow into a real baby. Since I am pretty sure that is not an option we are frantically pricing out flights and reading everything we can get our hands on about China, about babies in general, about adoption issues, and so forth. And it might be sooner than later. We have received travel approval, the charmingly-named "Notice Of Travel Of Coming To China." Our agency is trying to secure us consulate appointments sometimes in the week of October 20, and we should soon hear if they were successful or not. If yes, that would mean a mid-October departure date. Oh my god. In learning more about Nora's hometown I found this pickled vegetable concern. Is it just me or is "full-shape pickle" a very sexy phrase?
There is another adoption seminar this coming Saturday, but frankly I have decided to blow this one off. We have already met all our education requirements, and this session is on "lifebooks" (adoption jargon for baby books, photos and milestones and descriptions of how your kid came to be adopted). I think LT and I can figure that one out on our own, or maybe with the help of the gazillion publications on the subject. Plus, the adoption seminars have been known to try our patience in a few minor ways. Some sessions have been good and informative, while others have been extremely tiresome and obvious, like the one that included a twenty-minute discussion about how your internationally-adopted kid probably will not look like you, and let's share our feelings about that. I felt like standing up and yelling, "WAIT! You mean the daughter I am adopting from China is going to be CHINESE?!?? Oh my god forget the whole thing, come on honey let's go." These seminars begin at nine in the morning on Saturdays, which also makes them rather tempting to skip (at the most recent one, after we had had a quiet Friday evening of television and snuggling, LT remarked how weird it was not to be hungover for adoption class, and I agreed, and then we both just kind of stared at each other in horror. OH HOW THINGS ARE ABOUT TO CHANGE.) It is probably safe to say that no one else in our particular adoption classes has a habit of being slightly hungover for them. LT and I are the youngest people there by far and, except for the gay guys who are adopting from Guatemala, are the only people who live in the city. And there is no way to say this without sounding like a total snob, but many of the parents-to-be in our classes are what LT calls "Cat-Sweatshirt People." You get the impression that their kitchens contain lots of stenciled hearts and geese. You get the impression that many of them may be interested in things Chicken Soup and Dr. Phil and forwarded angel-related e-mails. Go ahead and flame me until I am no longer pink in the center, but it had to be said. Actually, the divergent-lifestyle thing does not bother me nearly as much as some of the attitudes and opinions I have heard expressed in adoption classes, such as the people who were chatting amongst themselves about cross-cultural issues. I was sort of eavesdropping (I think I may be hard-wired to do so, and I refuse to apologize for it anymore), and one of the women asserted, "Well, to me my daughter will just be American." I sort of understand the non-exoticizing sentiment behind that statement, but: No. Let's not deny this poor kid her entire fascinating heritage. If your whole family had giant Afros, and you adopted a kid with super-straight hair, would you continually tell him, "As far as we're concerned you have a giant Afro?" (Whoa. Now I am all obsessed with the idea of a whole family with giant Afros. What great reunion photos there would be.) WAIT, THAT'S ONLY THREE CORNERS Dress Barn. Pottery Barn. Radio Shack. Pizza Hut. Waffle House. Cheesecake Factory. Circuit City. ---mimi smartypants wants to know where you've been all her life. back/forward |
