Warts and All

You know that thing? That thing that if it's on Cindy Crawford is called a beauty spot

but if it's on a Wicked Witch with a poison apple is called a wart (check out her nose!)

and if it's on me is called...

well, since I can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear, I'll just say it: it's called a mole.

I don't like it. It's not quite elegant, though it's (thankfully) not big and warty. It's just a tidge darker in tone than my skin, so you would probably never notice it, even though it's just under my lip. Yes, just under my lip in the place where a beauty mark ought to be. Except. And this is no small exception. Except: Mine has three small hairs growing out of it. They used to be tiny, fine, completely unnoticable hairs of the nearly translucent variety.

And then, last night as I was brushing my teeth, I realized that one of those innocuous hairs had suddenly grown longer, darker, and completely mutant in its ability to stick straight out. Of course, I plucked the hair instantly.

But that doesn't mean I don't have the heebie jeebies about it. I feel as though I have come quite suddenly up against the turning point of my youth. It's all down hill from here, into the abyss of rogue eyebrow hairs that grow so long they threaten to jump right off one's face and who knows what other atrocities.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating. A little.

But still? Ewwwwww.

*end of self-indulgence (though I would appreciate it if someone out there could say I'm not the only one under 40 with such horrors sprouting on her it-wasn't-that-long-ago-that-I-was-still-getting-carded face)*

In other news, I noticed a big increase in hits when I offered up free circus tickets, but strangely only one person actually entered to win them. I'm not interested in turning this into a review blog with constant plugs for products, but I have been approached recently by marketers offering me interesting swag for giveaways. I have turned some down, as they weren't products I loved. But there are at least two that I adore, and that I thought people would love to know about and win for their very own, no strings attached.

Of course, I thought that about circus tickets too. Who wouldn't want to go to the circus for free? I thought. What fun!

So now I want to know: do you consider the occasional chance to win carefully-selected cool stuff a perk on blogs you read? Or do you see a post with a giveaway or contest and immediately think, "ack! run away! and get back to writing about the books you read, your kids, and your warts, you blogger-I-used-to-respect!"

Please weigh in. On warts. Of the literal or figurative variety. I would much appreciate it.

P.S. DVD and circus tickets winners to be announced later today.

Send in the Clowns (and win free circus tickets!)

A little over a week ago, just before Husband's birthday, Son sat down with paints to create a birthday present. His paper was so large, and our scanner so small, that I've not been able to capture all of the artwork here -- but this is a "Circus Tent," and it is complete with a flag flying at the top of its peaked roof and a long blue line in the background at the top of the page which Son declared was the "circus train." He even added a wispy trail of smoke at the front end of the train. He says that the opening you see below is so that the animals can get into the tent.

Here is the circus train, which he painted on a second sheet. I had to use two scans to get both engine and car, and sadly lost the lovely smoke trail coming from the front of the engine, but you get the idea.


What fascinates me most about these paintings is that we have never been to the circus, and to my knowledge he has never seen the circus on television -- so his imaginings of what a circus must involve come from story books and, well, I have no idea. But I love the bright colors and the detail.

For a chance to win FREE tickets for your family to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus when it comes to a town near you, ask your child(ren) what they think of when they think of the circus, and put up a post about their response. Painting, drawing, story, it doesn't matter. Come back here and add your post to the Mr. Linky below. Random drawing will happen sometime on Tuesday, Sept 30, with winners announced that day. (To check that the circus is making a stop near you, click here for tour stops and dates.)

Please be sure to leave me your email address in the comments section. I'll email everyone who doesn't win the tickets a 20% off coupon for buying circus tickets online.

And leave a comment on this post from last week if you also want to enter to win a circus DVD.

Edited to add: for some reason, the list of people with linked posts will only show up AFTER you click the Mr. Linky symbol below, so although it says "you're first," you can see all the other posts by clicking.

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Meet Our Newest Pet

This is the easiest pet on the planet. We found it clinging to the back of the curtains in the kitchen. In a matter of five minutes, it had a new home: an old vase, filled with a few choice sticks, three succulent green leaves from a bush outside the back door, and a small "pond" of water thanks to an eye dropper.

We watched in fascination as the caterpillar found a stick and in short order discovered, and munched into, one of the leaves.

"He was hungry!" said Son, adding with pride, "I chose some good leaves for him."

We are hoping for a chrysalis (Son knows this word, by the way, a total surprise to me) and a winged creature we can then set free. But until then, we remain utterly fascinated by the perfect little half-moons appearing in the edges of leaves, evidence of caterpillar meals.

McCandy...So Easy on the Eyes

You may not remember way back in March when the truth about my hunky TVLand Boyfriend was revealed to the world making LatteMommy and countless three other readers insanely jealous (for at least 4 minutes).

And now, bliss. Bliss, I tell you. McDreamy and the whole Grey's Anatomy cast have returned to life in the giant box that sits in the corner of my family room. And last night, I got to spend two whole hours with them. (Well, actually an hour and a half, because we recorded it and then fast forwarded through the commercials. Which makes it less time, but more quality time, uninterrupted by All State or Michelob.)

Husband thinks this show is a little silly, that all the characters are "self-indulgent whiners," that the thing is an unrealistic waste of time.

My response to these accusations: have you seen that hair and those piercing eyes?

Honestly, I don't watch TV to be enlightened. I don't really want realism. I'm not that interested in thinking very hard about it. I just want a little mindless fun, preferably with some interesting plot twists and as much eye candy as can be packed into a wide-screen format in any given shot. I'm what my friends in graduate school dubbed a "demi-prude," so I prefer my eye candy to be a bit mysterious, my steamy scenes to leave more to the imagination than otherwise, and my lover-ly tensions to get mileage from titillation rather than lots of skin shots.

In other words, a vaguely pseudo-smart doctor drama with lots of well-clothed hot doctors and love triangles in it is right up my alley.

And now, they've gone and brought on another McHottie, this time in army fatigues, who already has Christina all tingly -- and who is a maverick who does things like lean in close as if he means to plant one on her lips, only to use the leverage from the lean to pull the giant icicle out of her gut. Whatever. So I already know that icicles aren't that likely to do that, just detach themselves from roofs and plunge into your belly. And I suspect that even if they did, they might melt completely after several hours indoors, stuck in a nice warm human. lalalalalalalalala, I'm not listening. That scene was McHot, I'm telling you. And the fact that eventually he did kiss her -- and then just walked away? Even hotter.

I'm telling you, those Victorians had it all right. There is something much more provocative about being provocative than there is about jumping straight to the consummation part.

And so, this is me offering up my guilty pleasure. There are only a few TV shows I care about enough to watch regularly, and this is one of them. Another is Private Practice, the Grey's Anatomy spinoff that scored Kate Walsh (I'm not above appreciating her hotness; it's a simple fact), Taye Diggs and Tim Daly. It's two hours of can't-miss TV each week.

So come on now, fess up: who do you have a date with once a week in that big black box in the corner?

There Are Times When Only Poetry Will Suffice

I have no solutions to the problems in the economy, no more words to add to the political posturing surrounding bailout plans. There are moments when the difficulties facing Americans right now seem insurmountable. I'm not an advocate of hiding one's head in the sand, pretending problems don't exist, or playing escapist games.

On the other hand, there are moments when taking a deep breath, spending half an hour sweeping the cobwebs from one's own head, seeking clarity in an object of beauty may be welcome. In those moments, I turn to poetry.

This particular poem is not political, not timely in any specific way. But it is beautiful, filled with crystalline images stunning in their precise simplicity. If you would like to breathe some fresh, cool air for a brief space of time, read on. Read it slowly. Savor it.


POEM
by Elizabeth Bishop

About the size of an old-style dollar bill,
American or Canadian,
mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays
--this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?)
has never earned any money in its life.
Useless and free, it has spent seventy years
as a minor family relic handed along collaterally to owners
who looked at it sometimes, or didn't bother to.

It must be Nova Scotia; only there
does one see abled wooden houses
painted that awful shade of brown.
The other houses, the bits that show, are white.
Elm trees., low hills, a thin church steeple
--that gray-blue wisp--or is it? In the foreground
a water meadow with some tiny cows,
two brushstrokes each, but confidently cows;
two minuscule white geese in the blue water,
back-to-back, feeding, and a slanting stick.
Up closer, a wild iris, white and yellow,
fresh-squiggled from the tube.
The air is fresh and cold; cold early spring
clear as gray glass; a half inch of blue sky
below the steel-gray storm clouds.
(They were the artist's specialty.)
A specklike bird is flying to the left.
Or is it a flyspeck looking like a bird?

Heavens, I recognize the place, I know it!
It's behind--I can almost remember the farmer's name.
His barn backed on that meadow. There it is,
titanium white, one dab. The hint of steeple,
filaments of brush-hairs, barely there,
must be the Presbyterian church.
Would that be Miss Gillespie's house?
Those particular geese and cows
are naturally before my time.

A sketch done in an hour, "in one breath,"
once taken from a trunk and handed over.
Would you like this? I'll Probably never
have room to hang these things again.
Your Uncle George, no, mine, my Uncle George,
he'd be your great-uncle, left them all with Mother
when he went back to England.
You know, he was quite famous, an R.A....

I never knew him. We both knew this place,
apparently, this literal small backwater,
looked at it long enough to memorize it,
our years apart. How strange. And it's still loved,
or its memory is (it must have changed a lot).
Our visions coincided--"visions" is
too serious a word--our looks, two looks:
art "copying from life" and life itself,
life and the memory of it so compressed
they've turned into each other. Which is which?
Life and the memory of it cramped,
dim, on a piece of Bristol board,
dim, but how live, how touching in detail
--the little that we get for free,
the little of our earthly trust. Not much.
About the size of our abidance
along with theirs: the munching cows,
the iris, crisp and shivering, the water
still standing from spring freshets,
the yet-to-be-dismantled elms, the geese.

I particularly love the end of this poem, with its vision of "life and the memory of itself compressed." It touches me deeply, her notion that there are places that resonate from one generation to the next, locations just over the next hill that our children will recall fondly too. It may be a small thing, this painting of Uncle George's, an even smaller thing "the little that we get for free" -- the feel of cold wind on our faces, the look of storm clouds, the stance of cows in a field "two brushstrokes each, but confidently cows." But it is in these small things that we find the most vibrant, touching, persistent elements of life. It is here we find our abidance. It is this that lasts, even when it is transformed with the passage of time, this that counts.

Of course, many other things count too. More pressing things that have to do with want and crisis and need.

But just for a moment, I would like to pause and savor what Bishop calls a "little of our earthly trust" -- my Daughter's full-body laughter, the excited light in my Son's eyes, the warmth of my family standing in a ray of fall sunshine, the curl of hair still wet from the pool and matted on a small forehead, the spontaneous hug, the tiny dusty outgrown shoes mute yet eloquent in the stories their scuffed toes tell. These small things, at once fleeting and enduring, encompass what makes life worth living.

And so I read Elizabeth Bishop to remind me of the value one might reasonably place on a "minor family relic." The value of seeing, really seeing, the world around us.

I Crack Me Up

The other day, I was in the middle of writing something that really needed my attention. It was short but important. Daughter was in the living room playing contentedly. Son was wandering through the house, asking me questions that required answers. I was stationary at the kitchen table. I--like virtually all mothers of preschoolers, I imagine--am fully capable of carrying on multiple conversations simultaneously (one on the phone, one with my husband, and one with my children, for example) and keeping all the threads straight.

Perhaps I have been a bit too cocky about this ability, however. For on the day in question, I was monitoring Daughter with one part of my brain, answering Son's questions with another, and writing with a third, when a sneeze interrupted everything.

"Bless you," I said immediately, mid-sentences. And then continued answering Son's question while signing my name to the mushy birthday card I'd just finished writing for Husband.

Son burst out laughing as he entered the kitchen.

"What?" I asked, sliding the card into the envelope.

"YOU were the one who sneezed," he gasped out, giggling.

It took a minute for his point to register.

Oh. Yes I did. I sneezed, thoughtfully blessed myself in the third person, and then went right back to the different sentences I'd been writing and speaking as if there had been no interruption whatsoever.

There's no question that it was a masterful stroke of multi-tasking.

But it does seem to lack a little something on the self-awareness front.

Do You Blog Nosh?

Did you know that Blog Nosh Magazine has relaunched in a newer, even more delicious format? Still at the same location, but with even more features to help you navigate through all the wonderful content there. I hope you will check it out. You'll find thoughtful, funny, touching, fascinating discussions on everything from politics to religion to parenting to art. There are new channels too -- including a Fiction and Poetry channel and one for Military Families. So I hope you'll pop over there and make some new discoveries of your own.

Just as a reminder too, I am an editor on the Family Channel, and I am always looking for new posts to promote. We strive to publish magazine quality posts, and the Family channel is devoted to all topics family related -- not just the parenting of small children, though that of course is included. If you have something you're particularly proud of that deals with a Family topic, please email me with your post suggestion and link. You can nominate a post of your own or one you've read on another blog that you love. And be sure to check out Blog Nosh yourself so you have some ideas of what we're looking for. (Here are the Submission Guidelines and FAQ.)

I am also excited and honored to say that a post of mine was chosen to appear there today. "Good Porches Make Good Neighbors" is up in the House and Home channel, and I have to thank Catnip of Catnip and Coffee so much for choosing it. So if you want a less "informational" MommyTime post to read for the day than the one you're in the middle of, check out the one at Blog Nosh.

And finally, if you've come here from Blog Nosh looking to wander around Mommy's Martini a little, WELCOME! And thank you. If you liked that post, you might want to check out some of my favorites in the sidebar like "How to Name a Town" or "The Power of Place." I'm delighted to have you here.

***** P.S. Have you read the post below? Reminisce about the circus. And learn how you could win free tickets for your family too. *****

If You Joined the Circus...

When you think of the circus, what's the first thing that comes to mind? For me, there are several options, depending on my mood.

When I'm feeling nostalgic, I recollect fondly the old spring horse we had in the basement when we were children. Ours was an old style spring horse -- the kind parents gave their children in the 1970s, back when carseats were optional and really less desirable than a big open bench backseat on which to practice one's tumbling on long car trips. Our spring horse had none of the current fancy-schmancy features like extra-wide stabilizing bases attached to the metal frame, padding on the handle bars, or thick flexible covers over the springs. No, our horse was blissfully safety deficient. Its thick, exposed springs could catch your bare feet if you weren't careful. No use suggesting shoes. For when I rode that horse, I was always the Bare-Back Rider in the circus, which of course required that I ride barefoot or shod in tiny, close-fitting footie-shaped slippers that I fancied looked like ballerina shoes. Barefoot felt safer, as those slippers had a tendency to slip right off that highly-polished saddle. I would stand up on the horse's back, hold onto the reins with one hand, bounce up and down as hard as I could, hard enough that the horse would give little jumps off the floor, its metal frame catching air before landing again on the thin indoor-outdoor carpet (with no underlying pad) that was all that separated me from the poured concrete floor of the basement. And I would do all of this standing on one leg, with the other stuck out "gracefully" behind me, while my sisters played my theme song on the record player.* My horse and I would gallop around the ring, and I would do trick after trick. Some days were just practice, and others were performances. I spent many many hours on that horse, long after I was much "too old" to play on silly little kid toys like that.

Because I wasn't allowed to have a real horse, this was the closest I could come to feeling like a glamorous rider in the circus. So ride I did, imagining all the while that I looked something like this:

My other early circus memory is of falling in love with Toby Tyler. Of course, I read the book before I saw the movie. But I thought that any boy with his kind of gumption was worthy of the love of a Bare-Back Rider. And with his ten weeks of experience with the circus (not to mention the glorious circus wagons and other paraphernalia he was surrounded with), he seemed a worthy object for a crush.

When I'm slightly less nostalgic, mentioning the circus calls to mind the wonderful opening chapters to Charles Dickens's Hard Times. In this novel, the industrial city of Coketown is visited by the circus, and the sharp contrast between the lives of the happy extended family of circus performers and the pinched emotionless existence of the children of the wealthy industrialist, Mr. Gradgrind, is thrown into sharp relief. My favorite part of the whole novel comes early on, in a chapter titled "Murdering the Innocents." The school master, Mr. M’Choakumchild, allows Gradgrind to question the children. Asking Sissy Jupe, daughter of one of the circus men who takes care of horses for a living, to define a horse, Gradgrind (who eschews emotion as unnecessary) assumes she does not know the answer when has actually terrified her into being unable to answer, despite the fact that she has lived around horses all her life.

‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ said Mr Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. ‘Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.’

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely white-washed room, irradiated Sissy. . . .

‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind. ‘Your definition of a horse.’

‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.’ Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Mr Gradgrind. ‘You know what a horse is.’

I don't know why, but this bit never fails to crack me up. Actually, I probably do know why: because, as you have already seen, my vision of horses has always been tinted with the glamor of the circus, a la The Saturday Evening Post. And Bitzer's mechanical answer, like Mr. M'Choakumchild's name, is too preposterous to be taken seriously.

The circus, then, has always been for me a place of wonder, amusement, fantasy. I've only ever seen the circus once in my whole life. But that didn't stop me from playing circus constantly with my sisters. If it wasn't indoors on the basement floor, it was hanging by our hair--or something else equally improbable--from parts of our backyard swing set, imagining we could really fly.

Or I read books about kids running away with the circus. Or I hungrily gazed at images of old circus posters in books or antique stores. Or whatever. The point is, I think the circus is a deep-rooted childhood fantasy -- the fantasy of living in a world of glittering glamor and daring exploits, of astonishing bodily feats and beautiful painted wagons. A world where rules, and parents, and school, and normalcy all take a back seat to the breath-taking wonder of flying through the air

and taming wild beasts.


And here's the best part: I have it in my power to give you a piece of that fantasy (satin Victorian trapeze-artist bloomers not included). Thanks to the magic that is promoters contacting bloggers with potentials for giveaways, I have some of the most fantastic prizes on offer. Here's what you can win (and how to win it).

1. For a circus DVD and program book of your very own, featuring the new and modern Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, leave a comment on this post telling me what your childhood fantasy was for when you ran away to join the circus. What would you have been? I'll pick one name next Monday (Sept. 29) using the lovely Random Number Generator, and you'll get the circus in your very own living room. (Just as long as you promise not to blame me if your children start using the kitchen light fixture as a trapeze.)

2. For a piece of circus action in person: ask your children (or nieces or nephews or grandchildren or whatever youngsters you'd take to the circus if you could) to tell you what they think of when they think of the circus. Either write down the stories they tell and put them in a blog post of your own, or ask them to create a picture, and put that picture into a blog post of your own. Come back next Monday (Sept. 29), and add a link to your post on the Mr. Linky you'll find here. Every one who enters a post by next Monday will have a chance at free circus tickets for your family to the Ringling Brothers show nearest you. (Please check the Ringling Brothers 2008 Tour Schedule to be sure that there will be a show near you.) Again, winner will be chosen using Random.org.

You can enter for both prizes, but I'll draw for the tickets first, and that person will become ineligible for the DVD/program prize. It's only fair to spread the wealth around, right? As an added bonus, everyone who enters but doesn't win will get a special promotional code that will get you a 20% discount on Ringling Brothers tickets this tour season.

Michigan readers, stay tuned, I've got something else up my sleeve just for you that will be available a little closer to the Ringling Brothers visit here (Nov 12-16). Yes, a third chance to win. And the prize is excellent. Trust me.

On Tuesday, September 30, I'll announce winners of both the DVD/program and the free tickets. So start talking circuses!

********************
*For the record, my own children would never in a million years be allowed to do this. There are moments when I wonder if our safety consciousness hasn't in some measure gotten in the way of our own children's fun. Then again, bonus: no cracked open heads from bareback riding of spring horses.

(Saturday Evening Post cover from here. Wagon used in the film Toby Tyler: Ten Weeks with the Circus from here. Circus posters from here, here and here, respectively.)

Apple Spice Muffins -- Perfect for Fall

We went to the local orchard and cider mill yesterday. Not JUST for the fresh cinnamon donuts and cider. Honest. We met up with friends to ogle the animals in the petting farm, play on the wagon and hay bales, stick our heads through any number of cutouts where you could pretend to be a scarecrow or bumble bee or Halloween black cat. (Actually, Son stuck his head through every single face space and made me take a picture of every one.) And, of course, we bought fresh apples.

So it's not surprising that last night's dinner involved pork chops, green beans, and apple muffins. I love the pork and apple combination, and these muffins are super easy and delicious. Added bonus: if you have eaters with food allergies, these have no eggs and no butter, and you could easily substitute soy milk or rice milk for the regular milk and avoid all dairy altogether.

What could be better than a warm spiced apple muffin on a crisp fall morning?

Easy Apple Muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Ingredients:

1 ½ cups flour

½ cup packed dark brown sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. cloves

½ tsp. nutmeg

¼ tsp. salt

¼ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup applesauce

1 cup milk

½ tsp. vanilla

2 small apples, chopped in small pieces (no need to peel the apples, unless the peels are very stiff)

Thoroughly mix together dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry. Stir well. Batter will feel a bit gooey. Stir in apples. Spray muffin tins lightly with cooking spray before filling. Bake for 25 minutes for regular size muffins or 13-14 minutes for mini muffins.

Try not to eat them all in one sitting.

"Did you do something different to your hair?"

Way back in the day, I entered a contest. Remember? I had to show pictures of my hair -- the good, the bad, and the everyday -- in a bid to win a hair makeover courtesy of Moosh in Indy and Hair Thursday. So, I mortified myself with old photos of my Senior year in high school, a pouffy triangle of curls with monster bangs, and other hairtrocities. And, unbelievably, I WON!!

Thanks to the generosity of Sarah and Casey, I got bumped up to the head of the line at Hair Thursday, where I received all sorts of excellent advice. I was hoping to go get my hair done in August -- but of course between summer vacation, several weeks of illness, the flurry of getting ready for classes to start, I just got my hair cut this past Tuesday. Here is the whole story of the magical transformation.

First, the obligatory BEFORE photos. My very very long (I wait embarrassingly long between haircuts) hair is usually pulled back in an clip or some other device that makes me look about twelve years old.


Having promised to go along with whatever Sarah and her readers suggested, I was in for a dramatic change -- color and a big big cut. I figured if I was going to lose that much hair, I might as well do something good with it. So I decided to donate it to Locks of Love. My fantastic stylist, Kisten (at Inn Style Salon in Ann Arbor, MI) separated my hair into a series of pony tails, since cutting off a single pony tail leaves hair much shorter in the middle than on the sides.

Then she made me cut off the first one, which, quite honestly, was a little nerve wracking.

At that point there was no turning back. And as you can see, I ended up with a hefty handful of hair to donate.

Then the real fun began. First, she dressed me up in a fancy tinfoil hat perfect for channeling alien communications.

And then, while we were waiting for my head to begin receiving alien transmissions, she launched into my sister's hair. (No this wasn't part of the mooshwhoorly package, but it made for a very fun evening.) As you can see, MIQuilter has been trimming her own bangs. Kisten says, "Just back away slowly from the scissors, sister."


A good stylist (like our lovely Kisten) will give you quick bang trims in between cuts, as needed, so you don't have to torture your own hair (or your friends' eyes) with your homemade versions. If, however, you are genetically predisposed to wait too long between haircuts, all a good stylist can do is patiently wring her hands and wait until this walks through her door.


But then, with very good grace (and much talent), she'll take those shaggy locks and shocking bangs and turn them into this:


Which takes just about enough time for the aliens to finish their work. So she took off my tinfoil hat, washed my hair, and set about cutting.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of the actual scissor action in progress, since it was about this point that my sissy and I discovered our coupons for a free glass of wine courtesy of the bar in the hotel in which this salon is located. So MIQuilter spent most of my haircut fetching us each a glass of white wine and then drinking hers (and, I swear, surreptitiously drinking mine too).

But here's how I looked once Kisten had finished with her scissors and her products and her blow drier. I am thrilled.

If you want Kisten's magic fingers for your very own self (which, seriously, you should if you live anywhere within reasonable driving distance of Ann Arbor, MI), look her up at the Inn Style Salon. And be sure to tell her I sent you; you might even score a referral discount. I have to say, too, that she deserves extra praise (and more clients), since she does Locks of Love cuts for free. So do yourself a favor and check her out.

As for my sister and I, here we are headed out the door to eat a giant sushi dinner, which really is the only way to cap off such a transforming afternoon.

As a follow up, I have to say a public enormous THANK YOU to Casey's generous funding of this hair adventure. I have all sorts of lovely brownish red highlights to hide the gray, and a sassy new haircut to start the semester, and I am so incredibly grateful.

I was intending to post photos of my hair curly, too, but I have discovered that I am more than a little incompetent with the styling of short hair. I look a little fuzzier than I'd like, due to my utter lack of skills with a blow drier. But I have high hopes for the magic of Bumble and Bumble Curl Creme, and with this lovely cut, I have real reason finally to figure this out -- so I promise to post a photo of my hair dried curly in short order. If only to prove to those who know me that I am an utterly transformed woman who will now happily spend more than 3.4 seconds on her hair each morning.

Top Ten Reasons I Love My Kids' Daycare

10. They're always improving the facility. This summer, they added a basketball hoop and small soccer field for the older kids and new sidewalks through the center of the parking lot (mostly this will be handy in winter, when they'll keep them shoveled).

9. They mother my kids when I can't. Last month, when I had a fever over 101, and Husband was on kid prep and drop off duty, Daughter went to school without anyone having done her hair. Poor dear has no bangs, so all her fine hair ends up in her face all day long if we don't put in ponytails or hair clips of some kind. When I picked her up that afternoon, she had two tidy ponytails bouncing over her ears -- thanks to the teachers who neatly combed her hair after Daddy dropped her off.

8. They really value exercise. They have a large outdoor playground, a separate water-spray playground with giant frogs and flowers that make sprinklers for kids to run through in summer, and a big indoor play structure for inclement weather. Not to mention mandatory dance breaks every day for the kids to get moving in between their class's turn on the playgrounds.

7. Their chef cares about health value of foods: a year ago, they switched to all whole-wheat, whole grain breads and wraps.

6. They experiment with new ways for kids to learn. This summer, they planted a small vegetable garden that the kids helped tend. Recently, at pickup times, we've been met at the check-out computer with a colander full of freshly washed string beans or grape tomatoes, picked that day, and a smiling sign saying, "Please taste!"

5. They have a special "teacher's schedule" whereby I do not have to pay for any weeks when the kids are out during my vacations, and they go down to just two days a week in the summer, thereby saving me lots of $ in unneeded daycare.

4. They are extremely kind about adding an extra day if something unforeseen comes up as long as there are spaces in the rooms for that day. Even better, they have even on occasion let me switch a day, so that I don't pay for an extra day, but get to move the kids to a day when they're not normally there to accommodate my schedule's idiosyncrasies.

3. They put the kids' needs first. They moved Son and a group of 3-going-on-4-year-olds up to the 4-year-old class last fall because they were clearly ready. Four-year-olds then was a giant, multi-area class with four teachers and 36 kids. Then this fall, they moved the cohort of kids with birthdays just shy of making the cutoff for Kindergarten into a separate pre-K class for the "older" four-year-olds. So he's now in a separate room, with just ten kids, and a bit less chaos -- the perfect preparation for Kindergarten next year when he'll be expected to be more focused.

2. The teachers are largely career daycare professionals. There are a few young teachers scattered throughout the building, but every room has head teachers who have been working with very young children for a decade or more. They notice things right away -- bruises, diaper rashes, new words, bad behaviors that need correcting, skills that deserve praise -- and they always mention them to me.

1. The teachers love the kids, and vice versa. Every time one of my kids has moved up rooms, the previous teacher has checked in a few times and offered me reassurance that the transition is going well. My kids still remember their old teachers, and those teachers still make funny faces, exclaim over how much they've grown, and fuss over them in motherly ways.

I have no particular agenda with this post, except to say that I feel incredibly lucky to have found a loving, flexible daycare staffed by smart people who really care about the well-being of children. And somehow, today, I just feel like saying: I am grateful.

Old Novels on Your Children's Shelves?

Did you ever do something so incredibly foolish, so obviously antithetical to your very nature that you have to ask yourself, "Self? Do you really know me at all?"

Like, say, for example, going away for a long weekend to a cottage in the woods without a single good book packed in your bag to read?

I know, I can't believe me either. I plead desperation and packing flurry. I looked for Aurora Leigh, my next planned read, but when I couldn't find the book quickly enough I gave up the search. Foolish woman.

On a good uninterrupted evening of reading, when I don't have any work to do, don't have any TV to watch, am not online, do not have anything to vacuum or fold or scrub or dust, I can read several hundred pages between the kids' bedtime and my own. Easily. That is, if I'm reading something good. Something good could be a biography, short stories, a novel, Virginia Woolf's essays, Elizabeth Bishop's poetry, or the story of the week in London in the 1850s when a horrifying cholera epidemic led to the ground-breaking discovery that the disease is water-borne, not airborne. I have a lot of interests.

Also, if I do not have books waiting for me, I will hunt and hunt until I find something to read. And there is a direct inverse relationship between my desperation for something -- anything! -- to read and my level of pickiness about what I will read. I have been known to read the backs of shampoo bottles for lack of anything better. They are, however, extraordinarily dull.

This past weekend, bereft of Aurora Leigh, I turned to the Bobbsey Twins mystery books, a small collection of which is tucked into the pigeonholes of the desk at my cousin's cottage. These books have an immediate appeal for me on two counts. First, these would appear to be quite possibly first editions, with charming 1930s and 1940s illustrations in the end papers, and old green leather covers -- and anyone who knows me knows that old books hold a special place in my heart.

And second, as a very small child (around ages 6-7), I was utterly fascinated with the Bobbsey Twins who were twins! and detectives! and solved mysteries! and found treasures! all the while being twins! *deep childish sigh* "I want to be a twin," I would think wistfully, as if having a twin would suddenly make me a detective (which I also very much wanted to be) and endow me with a lumber baron father who could afford to take me on all sorts of dramatic and exciting vacation adventures in exotic locations. Exotic for me included anything with a romantic-sounding name. Hence, their trip to "Mexico" was not as exciting as their one to "Lighthouse Point" which carried with it all the romance of the sea.

The imagination of children is a wonderful thing, and it is perhaps easy to forget that the images carried in the simple name of a place may evoke untold quantities of ideas. To wit: I envied my elementary-school chum, Kim, almost endlessly because every year at Christmas, she and her brothers and parents went to visit her grandparents who lived in the most romantic sounding place in the world: The Great North Woods in the faraway and magical state of Wisconsin. I didn't know what happened in The Great North Woods, at least, not until 3rd grade when I began to devour the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and learned that she, too, had lived in the "Big Woods" of Wisconsin -- whereupon, I am sure, I was convinced that when Kim went up there she was transformed into a girl who wore high button boots and took a horse sleigh everywhere she wanted to go and had all manner of fabulous and quaint adventures involving homemade quilts, pies with unexpected ingredients, and astonishing blizzards.

So I'm sure it surprised no one that I wanted to read all the Bobbsey Twins books about their adventures at Meadowbrook Farm and other evocative places. It didn't hurt, either, that even as a child, there was something romantically "foreign" seeming about this family. They were children like me, and yet so unlike me. Not just because they were twins, but for other reasons too that I doubt I could have put my finger on at the time.

Having read several of these novels while rained in last weekend, I am sure I know now what fascinated me. Even at that early age, it was obvious that these were not children from my own time. They were not "old-fashioned" exactly, since their Daddy drove a car, and they went places on airplanes, but they were not my contemporaries either. In retrospect, I can tell you this: those Bobbseys are almost preternaturally polite. They always eat their vegetables and qualify for dessert and have excruciatingly good table manners. The boy of the elder pair of twins, Bert, takes recourse to his fists on a regular basis to defend the honor of his sisters or ward off bullies picking on his small brother. And all the adults nod approvingly and call Bert a "brave lad" because he never starts fights himself, only finishes them deftly and with justice. The Bobbsey girls always wear dresses and "frocks" that are custom-made, and the boys are very good with tools, and all of them (although only about 5 and 8 years old) are allowed to run around town having unsupervised adventures, doing errands for their mother, or hiking in the woods without a grown-up present. It's only when they don't come home for dinner that people get really worried. Frankly, the Bobbsey Twins mysteries (in addition to the fascination of twins! who were detectives!) could not have described a way of life any more different than my own if they'd been set in medieval France.

This is most notably the case in terms of their "colored" cook/housekeeper who is married to the "colored" handyman/gardener, both of whom speak in dialect and are alternately obliging to the whims of "the chillin" and good-naturedly grumbly about the amount of work this requires. This was a completely shocking discovery for me, as it was an element of these stories that I had utterly forgotten. And then, because I'm me, I did a little research just now, and I found out that after 1950, the Stratemeyer Syndicate which published the books started undertaking rewrites of earlier volumes to update in terms of technology and social customs, with the biggest character changes happening to the depictions of the family servants. So the volumes I read as a child probably did not have these disturbingly obsequious servants at all. (What a relief!)

I was also surprised to learn that the first book in this series was published in 1904, and the last in 1979, with 72 volumes comprising the set. Some were completely rewritten, others abandoned, when they undertook to modernize the series. The books I read this past weekend, though, were originals, all with dates prior to 1943. And they were fascinating. Not, this time around, because of the "romance" of the place names but because of the slice of Americana they provide in revealing what popular children's books looked like in the early decades of the twentieth century. The expectations, behaviors, freedoms and restrictions placed on the Bobbseys were a sometimes-stunning reminder of how very much has changed in our ideas about child-raising. And, sadly, in the level of safety in our communities.

I'm not suggesting that you run out and start reading big stacks of 70-year-old children's novels. Or that you begin allowing your little ones to run to the bakery alone or praise their fist-fights with bullies. But I am interested in knowing what you think about the fascination of such books. Is it just the reading version of being a tourist, feeling nostalgia for a time and place in which we never lived? Or are there valuable reasons to resurrect, to read to our own children, for example, books like these? Would you hand your first-grader The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge or not? And why?

Total Cheater Fried Chicken

"Now, I don't like to brag, but I make a mean weed-rat stew." (Shrek)

It's no weed-rat stew, but it sure tasted mighty good this weekend at our lovely cottage-in-the-rain. Yes, I undertook to make fried chicken while on vacation. What can I say? I looooove fried chicken, particularly home-made friend chicken.

Admittedly, the process takes a very long time. And unless you are a housekeeper/maid/cook from a 1940s movie, you probably don't have any more time than I do to make perfect fried chicken. So, here is a very nice substitute for spending half a day coating and frying chicken. It's total cheater. Still homemade, but with several of the key hassles cut out. And just as tasty. (Well, nearly so. I'm not 1940s homemaker goddess, so if you are, take this recipe with a grain of salt.)

1 small package corn bread mix
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
lots of fresh ground black pepper
2 eggs
4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
canola oil for frying

Mix together all dry ingredients in a plate. (Feel free to adjust spices according to your family's preferences; you may like more or less of something.) Scramble the eggs in a shallow bowl. Cut the chicken breasts in half by cutting off the thinner part of each, and then slice horizontally through the thicker half, so that each breast yields three pieces of uniform thickness. Dip each piece of chicken into the dry mixture, then into the egg, then into the dry mixture again to produce a good coating.

Heat about 1/4" of oil in the bottom of a large skillet. Place chicken pieces in hot oil, and turn flame down to medium-high. Cook until chicken is well browned on the bottom, and the coating is beginning to look cooked partway up the sides. (See picture below, where some pieces have already been turned and others haven't. This cooking will take approximately 8-10 minutes). Turn carefully, and cook another 8-10 minutes more. Adjust the heat throughout the cooking process to ensure that the coating does not cook too quickly. Check pieces for doneness by slicing into their center with a sharp knife. Juices should run clean, and chicken should not look at all pink.

Here's why this is so much easier than more traditional fried chicken:

(1) the coating produced by the corn bread mix seems to stick better than plain flour, and it puffs slightly to make something crispy and good;
(2) the pieces are uniform in size and thickness, which means they all need about the same time to cook evenly;
(3) the pieces have no bones, which dramatically cuts down on cooking time (and the amount of oil you need to use), as well as making it far easier to ensure that they are cooked through.

Also? Can you say YUM?

When is a vacation at the beach not a vacation at the beach?

Texas and Michigan are pretty far apart geographically. (Also politically, gastronomically, and many other -cally, but those are less pertinent here.) I certainly wouldn't begin to claim that Michigan is dealing with anything like what Houston is facing. But it is the simple truth that we have received 4-8" of rain, with locally higher amounts, since Friday. Much of the state, like much of the upper midwest, is flooding.

And since, perhaps, a lighthearted post on the weather might be welcome in the aftermath of the dramatic onset of hurricane season, let me give you, absolutely free of charge, the following excellent advice*:

If you have a choice about what weekend to borrow your cousin's gorgeous cottage in the woods, which has easy proximity to lovely wide sandy beaches that sit at the feet of impressive dunes on Lake Michigan, you might consider choosing a weekend in which a ginormous hurricane is not expected to make landfall and spin torrents of rain across half of the United States.

If, however, you are all la la la la la...It obviously won't rain ALL weekend, and anyway this weekend is the most convenient in the next month, here are some ways you might occupy yourself when in fact it DOES rain all weekend.

Play late-night Scrabble while drinking good beer. With about two rounds left in your Scrabble game, start yawning and announcing you feel tired. Harry Connick, Jr. will have finished his crooning and playing. When you think you might be ready to go to bed, check the time just to be sure. (Checking the time will be an exceedingly complicated affair requiring booting up your computer, since the cottage you are staying in has no working clocks, and neither of you are wearing watches.) Forewarning: you will find it's 1:30am. Don't be shocked. Realize what this means: you have, on your very first night, already relaxed into Vacation Mode (VM), where VM means you eat when hungry and sleep when tired and do everything only when feeling in the mood to do so rather than doing anything by the clock. This is a good thing.

Play Wee Hours of the Morning Musical Beds. (If this is your usual m.o., kick it up a notch as follows.) End up in the guest bedroom with your son. Although the children will wake up early,be sure you have previously married a man who will take them upstairs to play, so that you are left to awaken when you are actually ready to wake up. Forewarning: you will be pleasantly surprised to find you have slept until 9am.

Go to the beach, even though it is tremendously overcast and foggy. After all, you have come for a vacation on the beach. Build sand castles and frolic in the waves. When it starts to drizzle, don't leave. Why bother? You're already wet. Not until the sand castle, complete with attacking dragon, is good and finished should you pile into the car.


Shower and eat really only when you want to. (If you are the parent, you get to dictate showers to anyone who comes home too damp and sandy from castle building to be allowed into any room that isn't tiled and equipped with running water.)



Nap and snuggle together reading stories liberally. Bear in mind that a covered screened-in porch is a particularly nice place for these activities if said porch has a hammock. So are built-in velveteen covered beds high under a sloped ceiling fitted with skylights. Both of these locations are also excellent for watching the rain, which smells fresh, sounds like the thrumming of lovely tiny drums, and makes the trees intensely shiny green.

Go swimming in the bathtub. If you have chosen your cousins well, you will have borrowed a cottage with an enormous tub, long enough for you to stretch out full length, and deep enough for the water to be over you daughter's head when she's sitting down, so "going swimming" is not that much of an exaggeration. Feel free to jump in with your children if they are small ones; it will be far more fun (and safe). Spend at least forty-five minutes blowing bubbles in the water, practicing the backstroke, and generally being silly. When everyone's fingers and toes are fully as pruney as they can get and the water is cooling off, it's obviously time for dinner.

Go hiking in the woods in the rain. If everyone wears slickers, and isn't afraid of getting wet, it will be a fun adventure, as long as it is not cold out. No human child ever melted in the rain.

Be prepared to be outvoted and go out to lunch overlooking the river instead of hiking. Spend all of lunch talking about whether families whose 15,000 square foot summer "cottages" overlook rivers full of yachts still employ live-in servants as the did a ages ago in those summer "cottages" in Newport, R.I. and Kennybunkport, ME.

Explore the village in the rain. Take an umbrella, wear a rain jacket, and leave the party poopers at home. The town will no doubt have several excellent fudge shops, enabling an impromptu lesson in this important food group. (See, vacations can be educational too!) You will be no drier walking around town in the driving rain, heavy drops splatting sideways onto your umbrella, than you would have been in the woods. Do not remind anyone (including yourself) of this when you return to the cottage completely waterlogged. Instead, host races with the tiniest of perfect pull-back racecars purchased in town. And share the fudge. Good fudge cures all moodiness.

Go bowling when the rain becomes even harder. (Though it will seem impossible that it could, it will.) Be sure to ask for bumper lanes. And very small bowling shoes. But do not bother to pay for games for the grown-ups, who will have all they can do helping the little ones carry around the "light" balls and taking lots of pictures.

Teach your children age-inappropriate board games. For example, Trivial Pursuit: Preschool Edition.

Toddlers can match all the pie pieces with their respective properly colored pie holders. Allow preschoolers to roll almost continuously. Modify questions on the cards, keeping to the same general theme and topic wherever possible. A ratio of one question s/he is unable to answer to every three or four s/he can is perfect for keeping up morale and making it seem like the game isn't rigged. Examples:

* [science and nature] What unique substance did scientist Alec Jeffreys use to identify criminals in 1985? (DNA) becomes: What red stuff inside your body keeps you alive? (duh, blood)

* [history] What despot reportedly blinded the architect of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, so he couldn't deign anything so magnificent again? (Ivan the Terrible) becomes: What is the name of the tall beautiful tower made of metal in Paris? (be prepared for the guess "Gusteau's Restaurant" instead of "Eiffel Tower" if your children's exposure to Paris is largely through the movie Ratatouille)

* [history] What gangster's safe, buried for decades in Hollywood's Formosa Cafe, was revealed on live TV to be even emptier than Al Capone's vault? ("Bugsy" Seigel's) becomes: What is the name of a famous pirate who buried treasure that everyone still wants to find? (any pirate name is acceptable; be prepared for surprises such as "Braid Beard" from the book How I Became a Pirate)

Eat treats for nearly every meal. Strawberry muffins for breakfast, gourmet chocolate chip cookies after dinner, Heath Klondike bars after lunch, popcorn for snacks, excessive amounts of bacon with your challah-bread french toast. Whatever you prefer, really. It's only a few days. Fruit counts as a vegetable. Fried chicken and fresh green beans is enough for dinner. Just eat more. And don't forget to drink some of your favorite wine. All evening, if you like.

At least, those are the things I would do if I were ever at a lovely cottage for three days of incessantly pouring rain, having arrived with suitcases full of bathing suits and every intention of hiking and wearing sunblock.



* I in no way mean to imply that I don't take seriously the real suffering of people in Texas and Louisiana, only that if you are on vacation and it rains a serious crazy lot, you can still have a good time.

Our Impromptu Weekend at the Beach

There's no point in dredging up the forecast for later this afternoon, or including yesterday's or Friday's. It's all more of the same.

And yet, we're having fun anyway.

There's just something about the power of being in a cottage not one's own that makes even three days of incessant rain (seriously, the whole area is under Severe Flood Warnings from the National Weather Service) more fun than not.

Stories and ridiculous photos coming soon. Well, as soon as I dry off.

Laugh Track

This week's photo hunt theme is "Wild." I don't have any ferocious lions in the neighborhood (thanks, I'm sure, to the family Dog, who is clearly doing her job as a well-bred Rhodesian Ridgeback). So I thought this might work instead: wild laughter, courtesy of Son, who was supposed to be posing for formal photos earlier this summer but preferred to roll around on the bed and giggle hysterically instead.

I do love the wild abandon of preschool laughter.

For more entries for this week's photo hunt, check TNChick.

Seeking Inspiration, One Page at at Time

I have half a dozen posts sitting in my drafts folder, nearly done, any one of which I could spend just a few minutes on and whip into shape for posting, and yet I look at them all and think "meh. whatever. you don't inspire me." So I ignore them and start a new post.

I want to be inspired.

I read other people's posts, and I am Dazzled. Enamored. Awe-struck. Impressed. I am made to think, to feel, to learn, to laugh.

Then I come back here and look in my drafts folder and think, "blech."

Here's what has inspired me lately:

* a group of students, sophomore and juniors mostly, sitting in my classroom talking about a very famous poem and collaboratively coming up with a fascinating idea I'd never heard anyone suggest before, even though the poem has been written about ad nauseum.

* this list and this list and this list of famous folks who were English majors in college -- which just goes to prove that a Humanities degree can be a valuable stepping stone to all sorts of careers. Want to know who's on the lists, but you're too lazy to make all those clicks? A few of them include: Justice Clarence Thomas, Sting, Bob Woodward (All the President's Men), Emma Thompson, Martin Scorsese, Carol Browner (Head of the EPA), Joe Paterno, Harold Varmus (MD, Nobel Laureate, head of the NIH), Diane Sawyer, Mario Cuomo, and Steven Spielberg.

This item in my inspiring list, by the way, is dedicated to my good friend and colleague, Joe, who for months has been alternately mocking me for having a blog and asking when I was going to mention him on it, all the while not so secretly reading it. Though if he'd really read it carefully, he would know he's already merited at least one laudatory mention. Which is why this is all he gets today. I can't have his head swelling too much. You can thank me later, pal, for giving you these links (which he needs for a project he got nominated to spearhead at work). You're welcome.

* a story about a high school teacher who, on the first day of class, gave her students a stunning, modern, thought-provoking poem as their very first introduction to the power of creative writing, instead of choosing something insipid, hackneyed, or "classic"

And when I look at this list of things that I've been inspired by lately, I realize there is a pattern. All of them are about the power of words to stir people to action. They suggest the value in writing, the force that might come from reading closely and well, the power of an education that is not a program with a job title in the major, but is a program devoted to broadening the mind.

I am a little sensitive these last few years about the beating that the Humanities take in the face of tightening budgets, talk of "accountability" and "progress," and concerns that U.S. students are "falling behind" in science, math, and technology. Obviously, those disciplines are important for succeeding in a wired world. But it strikes me as sad and problematic that no politician ever publicly laments that our students are behind in literacy, even though anecdotal evidence would clearly suggest that they are.

Rather than dwell on this problem, however, which often consumes me with frustration (and about which I could write diatribes the likes of which would no doubt bore you to tears, citing multiple studies containing mind-numbing jargon), I would like to take this moment to reflect instead of the positive side of the equation:

There are moments around me every day where I see in small ways that people do in fact still value the power of language. I read lyrical blog posts, hear students talking in the halls, see bold new poetry being introduced to excited high school students, and I remember that even when I cannot write or think something inspiring, other people can, and do, and are.

All I have to do is open my eyes and look around for it. And it will be there.

Quiet mastery of the power of language, even for a moment or a page, is indeed a powerful, beautiful thing.

Want inspiration today? Try this poem of Pablo Neruda's, musing on the wonder that is a common vegetable.

Ode To The Artichoke
by Pablo Neruda

The artichoke With a tender heart Dressed up like a warrior, Standing at attention, it built A small helmet Under its scales It remained Unshakeable, By its side The crazy vegetables Uncurled Their tendrills and leaf-crowns, Throbbing bulbs, In the sub-soil The carrot With its red mustaches Was sleeping, The grapevine Hung out to dry its branches Through which the wine will rise, The cabbage Dedicated itself To trying on skirts, The oregano To perfuming the world, And the sweet Artichoke There in the garden, Dressed like a warrior, Burnished Like a proud Pomegrante. And one day Side by side In big wicker baskets Walking through the market To realize their dream The artichoke army In formation. Never was it so military Like on parade. The men In their white shirts Among the vegetables Were The Marshals Of the artichokes Lines in close order Command voices, And the bang Of a falling box. But Then Maria Comes With her basket She chooses An artichoke, She's not afraid of it. She examines it, she observes it Up against the light like it was an egg, She buys it, She mixes it up In her handbag With a pair of shoes With a cabbage head and a Bottle Of vinegar Until She enters the kitchen And submerges it in a pot. Thus ends In peace This career Of the armed vegetable Which is called an artichoke, Then Scale by scale, We strip off The delicacy And eat The peaceful mush Of its green heart.

* Neruda's poem taken from here, where the translation of this poem is unfortunately not attributed.

The Post Where this Blog Becomes a Stereotype

I swore I'd never do it, but here I am, doing it after all. That's right. I'm launching into a post about my child's potty training. *sigh*

But it's to ask your advice, so please bear with me. Here's the current situation:

Daughter, 2 1/2 yrs old, has shown absolutely no interest in the potty except for the constant interest she has in the m&m's that are the treat for actually using the potty. She has never managed to earn the eating of a single one. But that doesn't stop her from wanting to see the container in which they are stored ("I wanna look") or touch it ("I hold it") or attempt to count the tempting candies. As for producing what will enable her to eat one of these sweet treats? Not on your life, you crazy Mama.

Oh, she'll sit on the potty. Sometimes for ten excruciatingly long and dull minutes. Sometimes only for 15 seconds if we beg her to sit still longer. But nothing happens.

I am of the opinion that until she manages to go once, she won't really know what it feels like. So I figure we won't be able to begin the potty training in earnest until she manages that first miraculous pee pee on the potty.

HOWEVER.

Toddler changes her own diapers.

Not even kidding here.

On any number of mornings recently, she has taken off her own pajama bottoms, removed her diaper, and announced "It's all wet. I need a dry one." Sometimes, she rolls it neatly and folds the tapes over to seal it closed like we do. Yesterday morning, she came trotting into the kitchen in all her glory from the waist down, and matter-of-factly threw the wet diaper away while explaining, "It too wet, Mama."

Then she didn't want to keep the dry one on because, she explained, "It have boo boo." What she means, based on gesticulations of illustration, is that she doesn't like the feeling of it rubbing on her skin.

So I let her run around nekkid on the bottom half all morning. I started out setting the timer for 15-minute intervals and putting her on the potty every time it rang. She was delighted with the process. But nothing happened. I stretched it to every 20 minutes. Then every 25.

Four hours, one lunch and large glass of juice, and untold trips to the potty later: still nothing. But by then it was naptime, so I put her down wearing a diaper. As I sit writing this, she is sleeping, and I'm sure she'll wake up soaked.

So here's the question. It would seem to me quite obvious that a child who will periodically change her own diapers, who finds even dry ones uncomfortable, and who can "hold it" for four hours at a stretch, is clearly ready to be potty trained. But I've led this little horse to water, and yet I cannot make her tinkle. What would you do? The scenario with Son was so completely different from this that it is not helping me in the slightest. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to get a child to take that giant leap and actually use the potty?

I swear, tomorrow I'll get my mind out of the toilet and be "thinky" again. But for today, suggestions? Please.

Career Change, Anyone?

Do you have fantasies about the careers or life paths you might have taken if you had made different choices five years ago or ten years ago? (Or thirty years ago if the path you fantasized about required you to be a child prodigy?) I think we all do this. At least, I hope we do because otherwise, I'm just weirder than weird.

On my more modest days, I would be an archival researcher for a museum. Or an architect.

On more exhilarating days (say, when I'm getting all tearful watching a particularly moving Olympic Gold Medal Moment), I fantasize about my fabulous ice skating career.

On really red-letter fantasy days, I spend whole segments of time writing acceptance speeches (in my head) for the Oscar I have just won for my fabulous screenplay, and trying to come up with light, witty-but-smart quips to toss into my speech that's all about gratitude but also is really about being the first Professor of Anything ever to win an Oscar. And lest you think this is too far-fetched even for fantasy land, I'll have you know that these dreams have been modified, thank you very much. I used to plan speeches for the Best Actress Oscar I'd won, but I have finally come to the realization that a handful of high school and college plays does not a Hollywood starlet make, and I have decided that the best way to achieve my Oscar dream will be through writing.

Which just goes to show that I really am an oldest child, a Taurus, and a practical procrastinator. Have you ever met anyone else whose fantasy career success was carefully restrained within the walls of possibility? Mind you, I don't say probability. That would be too absurd. But possibility. It is still possible that I could write a screenplay that would get noticed. Just as it's still possible that Michael Douglas could father more children. He's married to a young and fertile wife. He might still succeed. So might I. It is a statistical possibility, no matter how small, that as long as I write, and try to write screenplays, I could theoretically win an Oscar for one.

Of course, I will have to try to write a screenplay at some point.

Details.

Thankfully, practicality doesn't interfere with my speech-writing prowess. "I'd like to thank the Academy..."

And you? What would you be in your fantasy different career self?

And Where Would You Get the Water-Safe Helmets?

You know about "fantasy" sports, right? Fantasy Football and Fantasy Basketball and Fantasy Baseball. If you love sports, these are no doubt your fantasy. You get to play team owner and draft players from any professional team in the sport to create a fantasy team of epic proportions. The only limit on whom you can draft is that you are typically playing in a league with a group of other people who are also picking teams -- and just like in real life, two teams can't both have dibs on Peyton Manning. Then, there are complex systems of point assignments that have to do with how many points the players on your fantasy team score in real life in their games, as well as how many yards they run or rush or pass or whatever. You have a roster of more players than are allowed on the field in a real game, and you choose whom to play each week. You win and lose "games" in contests against other team owners in your league based on how many points the players on each team rack up. And you even get to playoffs.

If you aren't a sports fan, that paragraph above probably read like this: blah blah blah blah blah blah Peyton Manning blah blah blah blah blah blah points blah blah blah blah blah blah playoffs. *snore*

If you aren't a sports fan but you live with someone who is, I'm pretty sure you read this: Ah, yes, Fantasy Football, the bane of my existence. Now, not only does my _________ [fill in the blank with relationship name of your choice, such as "darling husband"] have to follow the every move of the teams to which he has long-time loyalties; he also has to watch every single football game broadcast on any channel anywhere because his Fantasy team includes players from all of them, and he needs to know how many points he got this week. Which means approximately 984 hours of football per week from now until the Superbowl in early February. By which time basketball season will have already started, so there will be simulcast picture-in-picture watching of football games AND basketball games so as not to miss any of the possible points that Fantasy Basketball team players rack up.

Which means: it's hard to get anything productive done on the weekends from September through May.

As if football, basketball and baseball weren't enough fake sports to stack up to make family daytrips on Saturdays a difficulty, this summer, I heard they'd introduced Fantasy Golf. I just find that amusing, since it's such a solitary rather than team sport, and I can't really imagine how that all works... Everyone playing gets just one player? I don't know.

But here's something I learned all about today while running on the treadmill at the gym, something I'll bet you've never heard of, something so over-the-top that really, it deserves the name "Fantasy" even just for its gutsy weirdness: Fantasy Fishing.

Yes, you read that right. You can now participate in Fantasy Fishing. The best part? The tag line on the television was "Just like Fantasy Football--But with Fish!" And there was a fantastic animated graphic of two beefy-looking bass decked out in football helmets butting heads like angry goats to emphasize the comparison.

Seriously, I could not make this up if I tried.

And here's the thing: if Fantasy Fishing actually WERE just like Fantasy Football with fish, I'd be all over that. Can you imagine how much fun it would be to try to wrestle a whole bunch of testosterone-crazed pumped-up trout into shoulder pads and uniforms? How great it would be to see human team owners fighting over the mute muskies they wanted on their teams? How interesting it would be to watch coaches underwater screaming plays at knuckle-headed catfish who refuse to run the 3-4 defense and instead just scurry along the bottom looking for some sludge?

But you see, here's where that comparison falls sadly short: if in Fantasy Football you draft players from various teams and care about their points, then in Fantasy Fishing, you don't actually draft fish. You draft fisher-folk. Anglers. Guys and gals with poles in their hands.

They don't play on teams or have coaches. They don't have any baby-mama-dramas or ostentatious necklaces. They don't tend to get tackled by other anglers, producing unexpected season-ending injuries that make your first-round draft choice suddenly and completely into a dud.

They just sit in boats, toss back a few cold ones, and fish.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not in the least implying that fishing is not a sport that requires tremendous skill. I have huge respect for anyone who can land in just a few hours five fish that collectively weigh over 30 pounds. What I am saying, however, is that it doesn't seem like a sport with enough drama to warrant a fantasy. It's not like you'd have to decide strategically whom to play each week based on injuries. Your winnings will be based as much on the luck of which fish bite as on the skill it takes to land them. It's sort of like turning high stakes poker into a Fantasy game where you manage teams of poker players. It could work. But how exciting would it be?

Unless of course, you are this guy, who won $100,000 playing Fantasy Fishing one weekend in May. No, he is not a professional angler. No, he did not have to suit up, buy a bass boat, or do anything other than pay his nominal online entry fee, draft a "team," stock his cooler, and turn on the television. $100,000.

The most I've ever heard of anyone winning at the end of an entire SEASON of Fantasy Football is about $600.

So.

Even though the head-butting fish make no sense whatsoever to explain this sport, and even though I can't figure out how it would be fun to play, I am willing to admit that Fantasy Fishing does have its charms.

Not least of which is that $100,000 in prize money for one weekend of devotion to the television sounds so much more family-friendly than six long months of football. And $1,000,000 for the winning "owner" of the Fantasy Fishing team with the most points at the end of the tournament season isn't so bad either. With that kind of prize money, I'd say Fantasy Fishing might just be the only sport around that really lives up to its fantasy name.

Well, At Least They Tried

Just in case you need some distraction or some funny this weekend, here's a little sampling of the greatness than can be yours with just a little web surfing.

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks Misinterpreting Bad Punctuation Since 2005.
Posting photos of signs written by people tortured by (committed to torturing?) punctuation, the commentary on the signs is as funny as the signs themselves. Sometimes even funnier. You knew I'd love this blog the minute I discovered it. My favorite post of the ones I browsed so far is this one. I don't know why. It just tickles me. I could spend hours reading every single post from the past three years on this blog, though. Except that there are others blogs demanding my attention too...

It's Lovely! I'll Take It! A collection of poorly chosen photos from real estate listings.
Browse the archives, and find photos that will turn your stomach, make you laugh so hard you cry, and make you wonder how in the world these people ever thought they'd sell their houses with these as the listing photos. (And on this blog, it's worth clicking the links provided to the entire listing for the house, if you're really enamored of the sample photo included in the post -- because there are sure to be more photographic greats in the complete listing.)

Cake Wrecks When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.
It recently featured an ad for "Mouse Filled Party Cakes," though I have to say that one of my favorites is the "watermelon" cake that really looks like a frog with diaper rash (or something much much worse). Or this infant cake made for a baby shower. Watch the video of the creation -- which is nothing short of incredibly impressive -- if you want to be amazed at the artistry that can go into cake making.



And then imagine this: you take a giant serrated knife and chop off what? for the first slice? Who, really, is comfortable eating those sweet, perfect, tiny little baby fingers? Sometimes, realism can go a bit too far. So can honesty or political correctness. At least on a cake top.

I promise, you'll thank me for all the links in this post if you bother to click on them. Pinky swear.

P.S. Must give credit where credit is due: The Bloggess and Moosh in Indy are both responsible for pointing me towards some of this hilarity thanks to recent tweets, though I "found" the "unnecessary" quotation marks blog all on my own.