dooce.com

How I spent my morning

dooce — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:21:48 -0600

This morning Jon and I were interviewed live on KUER's RadioWest with Doug Fabrizio (that same old dude who interviewed me for Utah Now), and man are those people rude. First they frisked us when we walked in the door, and the security guard demanded to know what I had hiding in my shirt. And I was all, that's not a gun, that's a padded bra, but thanks for asking. GLAD WE CLEARED THAT UP HERE IN THE LOBBY IN FRONT OF 15 STRANGERS. Then they proceeded to drip water on my head throughout the entire interview, my guess is to distract me from all the muffled, terrified screaming I could hear coming from the closet, which I later found out is where they store their slaves. Sex slaves. Not to mention the fact that Doug repeatedly turned off his mike in between questions to insult my mother.

You can listen to the entire hour-long interview here, but if you're in a hurry I come in at about the 20 minute mark, Jon comes in toward the very end. As you listen to this I want you to imagine trying to hold it together while being interviewed by someone who routinely eats panda bears.

by dooce in Nubbin

Ruthie Pearl reusable and reversible bag

dooce — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:05:57 -0600

We found an excellent stand at the farmer's market on Saturday selling adorable reusable shopping bags. Leta's yellow polka dot school bag died a couple of weeks ago and we've been using whatever we could find around the house since then. So I walked her through the booth and had her pick out her favorite bag. She chose this one, of course, it being pink, and it SAVED OUR LIVES this morning when she kept moaning and wailing, "I can't go to school because I'm not feeeeeeeling well!" (She'd been sick yesterday and over the weekend) And I said, well then I guess you'll have to wait another day to take your new bag to school to show your friends. Which dried up her tears instantly, and suddenly school was her favorite place in the world. Do you know how intoxicating the power of parenthood can be sometimes?

by dooce in Daily Style

Flying nun

dooce — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:33:07 -0600

This is one of Leta's skirts, and the elastic around the waist is so strong that even though I took this photo over a half hour ago he's still got it on his head. And he's chewing a rawhide bone right now, his head jiggling here and there, so you can understand it when I say that I don't miss working in an office one bit.

by dooce in Daily Chuck

I never meant to cause you any sorrow

dooce — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:28:17 -0600

My mother gave me two pots of flowers for Mother's Day, and now that summer has finally set it I'm having a hard time keeping these alive. If I don't water them twice a day they pretend to fall over dead. This has happened three times now, I'll look out the window and think OH GOD, I killed the flowers. And then I'll go dump several cups of water on them and they're all JUST KIDDING! I think they need some Zoloft.

by dooce in Daily Photo

A routine expedition

dooce — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:51:30 -0600

Saturday afternoon I checked my mailbox and found a package from a reader named Lindsey full of t-shirts silkscreened with images of the characters from Land of the Lost. I bet half of my readers haven't ever heard of that television show, and if you're one of those people then I am very sorry that your childhood was so unfulfilling. I bet you never owned a My Pretty Pony either. These are surely unresolved issues that you should bring up next time your family gets together for dinner, right after your father turns to your sister and says, "You were always the pretty one."

I was so excited about these shirts that I actually stripped right there in the kitchen to put one on. I gave a cursory glance over my shoulder to see if there were any neighbors passing by the house, and Jon just shook his head because he knows that even if there had been I would have stripped anyway. It's not that I'm trying to tempt the old Mormon up the street, it's just I'd have to walk several feet into another room to find a place that you can't see from the street and that is just too sensible. The part of my brain that would tell me to walk to another room is missing. It's the same part of the brain that would stop me from putting on a pair of five-inch heels when I know I'm going to be walking half a mile uphill. In that situation all my brain says is THAT'S WHY GOD MADE BAND AIDS!

I chose to wear the shirt featuring a portrait of Chaka, a small chimpanzee-like humanoid:

After I pulled it over my head and straightened it out over the top of my shorts Leta took a step back to admire it.

"I love your shirt, Mama," she said. I was waving my outstretched fingers around it like a model on The Price is Right, and before I could thank her she continued, "Is that a picture of Daddy?"

by dooce in Jon

Handstitched wallet

dooce — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:58:12 -0600

Saturday morning we went as a family to the local farmer's market, and I don't know if it was because we weren't there right when it opened, but we were a bit disappointed with the selection of fresh vegetables and fruit, the reason we had gone there in the first place. We did see a bunch of stands selling homemade goods, and I picked up this wallet with the help of Leta's discerning eye (she pointed to this one and said, "The circle one! The circle one!"). I may let her have this so she has something cute to carry around all her gum wrappers.

by dooce in Daily Style

Disputed historical authenticity

dooce — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:38:46 -0600

"Jon, who was that guy with the apple on his head?"

"Didn't Sir Isaac Newton shoot an apple off of someone's head with a bow and arrow?"

"Wrong story."

by dooce in Daily Chuck

Hot cereal with fruit

dooce — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:33:15 -0600

For breakfast most mornings I have a bowl of Bob's Red Mill Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal with rice milk and assorted fruit. I also drizzle agave nectar over the top to add a touch of sweetness. This is actually way more filling and delicious that what I would normally eat for breakfast, but it takes quite a bit longer to fix. I'm always hungriest in the morning, so the wait is sometimes excruciating. But that's exactly what this cleanse is for, to be more thoughtful about what I'm eating. The cravings over the last few days have been hard, but not as hard as resisting the urge to stuff food in my face as fast as it will fit in my mouth.

by dooce in Daily Photo

As high as a preschooler can count

dooce — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:56:05 -0600

Yesterday as we dropped Leta off at school the Tumble Bus was pulling into the parking lot. It's a gigantic school bus that has had its seats extracted and replaced with gym mats and equipment. It comes to her school a few times a month, and any kid can participate in the hour-long program for a small fee. Leta has never been interested in joining the other kids on the bus, we don't know why, although we've asked her repeatedly and her response is always, "ARRGH!" Which I have taken to mean, please, don't even go there, the list is too long and starts with my angina.

She was still resistant yesterday, but because there weren't many kids in the Tumble Bus class her regular teacher encouraged us to take her on the bus for a free sample class. Leta understood exactly what her teacher was telling us to do and started protesting immediately, clung to my leg like a desperate koala bear and moaned, "But I don't want to! I don't want to go on the Tumble Bus!" Both Jon and I started rattling off everything positive thing we could come up with, started listing reasons she would love it, and nothing worked, not even when I asked her if she knew who drove the Tumble Bus. Who? Why Cinderella, of course. Although sometimes it's a little difficult to shift the gears in that big blue ball gown.

I was ready to give up, but that is the mother in me. I don't like feeling my daughter's fingers gripping me in abject fear, and I could tell by the look in her eye that she was totally scared of that bus. I don't know if she thought that she'd get on there and find a field of lifeless princess bodies dangling by their necks from the ceiling, or maybe a bus full of miniature Australian Shepherds, but she wasn't getting on that thing, no way. Except, her father is not her mother and is the type of person who derives great satisfaction out of frightening little children regardless of whether or not they are his own. I married a charmer.

Jon plucked her white fingers from around my leg and stuck her on his hip as he headed toward the bus. Her reaction was to scream and grip his neck as if he were walking up to a cliff to drop her over the edge. She was hysterical, and as he climbed the stairs to where the other children were standing her screaming became more tragic. The Tumble Bus teacher, someone who has had no interaction with Leta, seemed concerned by this reaction, but I was all, dude, this is nothing. You should see what happens when I accidentally fast forward through the previews on the Finding Nemo DVD.

At the top of the stairs Jon told Leta to turn around and look, but she would do no such thing, and then he'd say no, you're going to look, and she'd say no, you're out of your mind. This went on for several minutes until he physically moved her head so that it was facing toward the back of the bus, but she covered her eyes with both hands. Finally I saw her take a two-centimeter peek through her fingers, and I am not even kidding, it was as if her scream got sucked up into a vacuum cleaner. Suddenly she released her hands from her face and declared, "I LOVE THE TUMBLE BUS!"

She could not get her shoes off fast enough, and as she joined the other jumping, tumbling kids Jon headed back inside to drop off her things while I stood beside the bus and watched her interact with everyone else. I didn't want to linger too long, but I did want to take in the moment of my daughter being a kid with the other kids. She didn't walk when the other kids could walk, couldn't run when the other kids could run, has been physically uninterested in doing what most kids her age can do. And even though her jump looks nothing like the way the other kids jump, here they all were giggling and not giving a shit. There have been so many instances in her childhood when I am reminded that the reason kids are the way they are is to remind adults again and again, HEY, STOP GIVING A SHIT.

Last night as I was telling Leta stories before bed I asked her if she had a good time on the Tumble Bus. She nodded vigorously, said she loved it a lot, loved it a hundred times, loved it a hundred hundred times, and when I asked her how many a hundred hundred times was she said, "The most times!" Thank God her dad likes to scare little kids.

by dooce in Daily

Campaign portrait

dooce — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:03:02 -0600

Running on a platform of healthcare reform and believes that studs should be able to marry other studs.

by dooce in Daily Chuck