Culture
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Michelle Selden Rocks!
And who is this Rockin’ Michelle Selden, you may ask? Well, she’s an 8th grader who lives in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. Why does she rock, you may ask? Because when faced with the somewhat insane policy of segregating boys and girls in her school district, because of how our brains work differently, she stood up and said, “Uh, Hello?” She got the ACLU involved, and they sued the school district on her behalf. From Salon’s Broadsheet: The school board made its initial decision based on impressively retro theories of girl- and boyhood. Among the sources defendants cited in the proceedings was Dr. Leonard Sax’s “Why Gender Matters,” which argues for…
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Hospital Food
I read with interest this article about Kaiser’s desire to change over to more locally produced, fresh produce in their patient care menus. I think this is a great idea…really, who could use good, healthy, fresh food more than folks on the mend? Unfortunately, ‘hospital food’ reminds me of a story that makes my blood boil a bit. Last summer, my mom had surgery at UC Davis Med Center. The care she received was 90% wonderful. Her surgeon was wonderful, the nurses were mostly great, etc. However…when it came to food, I found them lacking. My mother is border-line diabetic, meaning she can control her diabetes through diet, and doesn’t…
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How to raise a child/Save a marriage
The other night I was up too late, watching stupid TV, and I saw two shows back to back that made me realize that we know a lot more than we think we know. First, I watched Supernanny, and then I watched One Week to Save Your Marriage. The moral of both shows, it seemed, was communication, consistency, kindness, and fun. If you haven’t seen Supernanny, you should probably watch it at least once (and once is enough, really, because it’s always the same). Just so you can laugh and feel all superior, because these kids are such beasts. They hit their parents and call them names. They beat up…
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Do Your Kids Eat Only Crap?
I have issues with this stuff. Not for the maybe 2% of children who really need it…I know of some families with children who simply WILL NOT EAT, and they must resort to drastic measures to get nutrients into their children. Believe me, if your child is this way, I feel your pain, and I’m NOT talking about you here. Nor am I talking about the children with health conditions that mean they must go on a temporary liquid diet while they recover. This stuff is probably perfect for that. But the way this stuff is marketed, and the way I suspect it is most often used, it’s a supplement…
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Permanent Collection
Saturday was one of those lovely grown up evenings, when you realize that the whole world isn’t focused on kid things…I mean, I am home with Maya every day, and the blogs I read are mostly mommy blogs, so my life is very much kid focused. I wouldn’t change that…I love her madly and love the life that I have because of being a mother. Still. There are times when a parent, when a couple, needs to get out and remember a bit of what life was like before there were kids in the picture. And really, Maya’s happier when she’s not along on such ventures, because she finds them…
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Sometimes I Read My Spam…
And I get gems like this, which kind of makes me wonder if this is a frustrated writer, making a living finding ways to get past spam filters so the stupid stock they are trying to get me to buy or whatever since I never actually GO to the sites, so maybe it’s something else entirely…anyway, some of this stuff is so bad it’s good, and here’s one damn fine example of that. Taken directly from a spam to my work email account, and only edited to remove the stock info. but I could go with you. He held onto one thought – she was going to lift him into…
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A Few Tings
(I say tings because I’m trying to affect a Guyanese accent…) 1st. My mom (aka, Maya’s Granny) wrote a post yesterday that really gave me a peek into growing up in the 50s, being a girl. I would say that this is her best writing so far…good stuff, and definitely worth the time. Check it out. And now that I mention it, today’s post isn’t shabby either…I wrote a quick post back in March about Feminism, and she gives it a more thorough treatment today. She’s on a roll. 😉 2nd. I’m guest blogging over at Birth Stories. My fellow ‘J’ blogger, Black Belt Mama started a new blog, and…
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The Dark Side of Genealogy
Many years ago, in my mis-spent youth, I worked at the front desk at a big San Francisco hotel. One evening, a very cute black man checked in, whose last name was Ward. “Hey,” I said, semi-flirtatiously, “that’s my last name, too.” He smiled and said, “Yeah, it’s that southern thing.” Ugh. Stopped me cold. Maybe he thought that somewhere back in time, some of my ancestors owned his ancestors. Which is surely not true, since, 1. My Ward surname came from my mom’s step-dad, so I wasn’t descended from him by blood; and, 2. Our Ward family was poor Irish in Oklahoma, and surely never had the kind of…
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Escaping Ennui
Ted and I went to escape the heat as well as taking advantage of Maya’s going to her best friend’s house on Saturday (free babysitting!), and we drove into Berkeley to see “A Scanner Darkly.” It’s a complicated tale, and one wonders how and why the main character (played by Keanu Reeves….whoa….) got to be where he is. In one flashback that may or may not be real, we see him in his home, with a lovely wife and two children. The wife and kids are playing a board game, and he is reading the newspaper. He gets up to make some popcorn, bonks his head on an open cupboard…
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Saturday Poetry
OK, after the last three days of serious, personal family stuff, mostly written by someone else, I’ve decided to lighten things up a bit, and bring you a poem today, also written by someone else. Who knows, maybe this will become a Saturday tradition, a poem that I love but did not write. no man,if men are gods;but if gods must be men,the sometimes only man is this (most common,for each anguish is his grief; and,for his joy is more than joy,most rare) a fiend;if fiends speak truth;if angels burn by their own generous completely light, an angel;or(as various worlds he’ll spurn rather than fail immersurable fate) coward,clown,traitor, idiot,dreamer,beast- such…
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Props to Safeway
I stopped at Safeway on Thursday evening, and when I got back to my car, there was a woman filling the trunk of the car next to me with fruit and veggies. Corn, watermelon, strawberries, and so on. She didn’t have any bags, she was taking the items out of a big box and putting them into her trunk. I asked her if she had bought all of this at Safeway, wondering if she was against bagging her groceries for some reason, or if she were planning a huge party, since there was so much food. No, she said, Safeway donates the food to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum. Color me…
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Happy Independence Day
Go get your BBQ on, and while you’re enjoying feast, family and fireworks and a long weekend, let’s remember what we’re celebrating, what our little experiment in democracy means, how much we have gained these last 230 years, and just how much we stand to lose. Happy Birthday, America. Let’s all work together to make this the best country we can. K? (It’s been awhile since I read the whole document, which is indeed a very dangerous document – It brought about a complete change in government, after all – so if you’re interested in having a read, click here.)
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Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris concert
Last summer, Ted’s boss had 8 tickets to see Mark Knopfler at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, and then something came up, and he couldn’t use them. He knew how much Ted loved Mark Knopfler, so he very generously gave him the tickets. No $$, just tickets. NICE! So, we rounded up the family, and we all went. It was such a great concert, with SO MUCH energy, so much fun, wonderful wonderful. We had a great time. You all know how I feel about Dire Straits, and this was a great concert, because he played a lot of the old Dire Straits material for it. Friday was the last…
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Children Who Feel Empty…
I found this article in my SF Chronicle Magazine, from Sunday’s newspaper. It’s pretty long, but worth a look if you have some time. Really, there’s nothing here that I haven’t thought before…too many kids today are overscheduled, over-pressured, and very unhappy because of it. One thought that came to me, though, is that this story is about upper-middle to upper-class kids…what about the lower-middle and lower-class kids. When their parents push them and push them, isn’t it supposed to be a sign of caring? And conversely, if they DON’T push them, isn’t that a sign of failure? Where’s the happy medium? The article, which is really exerpts from the…
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Everything Old is New Again
My buddy Neva and I went to dinner and a little shopping on Monday evening, and one of the places we ended up was Sephora. I wanted to get some Lorac mascara, as recommended by Gina. The girls who worked there had the bright, multi-colored eye shadow that was semi-popular in the mid-80s. You know, like Cyndi Lauper here used to wear. Seeing them made me think a couple of thoughts… 1st, boy, I’m getting old, because things that were trendy when I was in college are coming back around. 2nd, it reminded me of my mindset when I tried these looks…I just wanted to be cool. That was the…