mother-scratcher

Resuscitation

2011-01-15T18:57:00.000-08:00

As I've pulled this blog up occasionally over the last five years, I've realized that it's the only baby book my daughter is going to have. I fear google will remove it if I don't post something, so here's an update:

I'm happily divorced.

Easy E, three years old, has joined the famous Sabra. Two kids, check.

I now have three days a week to myself which, after some emotional adjustment, has been a personal revolution.

I bought a cute little cottage in Oakland. The rest of my life remains in San Francisco, but I'm happy to be over here where I can buy Trappey's Pepper Sauce with no grief.

I'm now a Montessori teacher, yo! I'm starting a Masters in Education this summer.

Gus the rabbit died of a stomach virus at the age of nine; that's like Methusela in lop rabbit years.

My old apartment on Natoma Street has been re-rented twice post-blog, and I've gone to tour it both times. I'd probably do it again. I love that house. I always tool through there when I take my mom by Rainbow Grocery for peppered Daphinois and Sevre et Belle after picking her up from the SF airport.

Should any of the old regulars look me up, know that I check in on you occasionally as well.

Hope you're happy: if not, find a job you don't hate, drop the people you don't love, and live in a place that makes you feel like you. I'm not making this up-- it's evidently Richard Florida. He said it, but I've lived it.

Peace.

I'll call it an update, if you will...

2006-01-31T19:24:00.000-08:00

Several possibilities for this entry, all falling into why-do-you-bother-to-post category.

Prima: My folks are in town, again. Much working of crossword puzzles, watching of court TV and eating of comfort food going on around here.

Segunda: Last year's tax refund Saab cracked a gasket head, totalling its basically worthless self. Looks like we may be renting a $14.95 a day airport compact whenever we need a car until we get our next tax refund. We hate cars, and they hate us.

Terza: Cedra has some high-fever mystery condition that requires a dose of Children's Motrin every six hours. She fakes a seizure while we administer it, then spends a few minutes licking clothing, the couch, whatever's handy in an attempt to get the taste off of her tongue. Poor girl.

Finally, hoping to redeem "lame" with "cute," I offer a little representation from the fourth member of the family. He gets suprisingly little play on the blog given the big place he has in the household. The pic is kind of blurry, but I like it because the first time my huz pulled it up on Shutterfly I glanced at the computer screen and offered a sincere "What the f... is that?"

It's Gus, our rabbit. We'd tranced him, which we typically do to cut his toenails. He's out like the proverbial light. Any manner of molestation, including the occasionally attempted but always unsuccessful search for the Gus-Weenie in all that fur, doesn't faze him. I love your life, Gus.

Knitting progress.

2006-01-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I knitted up the Juniper bonnet this weekend. It was too small for Cedra's big ol' nog. I'd gone up a needle size and added a few stitches to each end of the border in anticipation of this probability, but no luck. I have to re-juggle the fanning pattern to bring it up a size. I'm determined to succeed.

But I did finish and seam up a sweater I've been working on for six weeks, my first Irish cable-knit project ever. We put it on her for a twenty minute trip to Rainbow Grocery saturday night...

...and of course it's been pushing 70 degrees out every day since. Not that I'm complaining about that; after two winters in Portland I'm always grateful for the sonnenschein.

In other news, Michael and I are leaving for Carmel thursday morning for our first trip of two consecutive Cedra-free nights ever. I mean the first in 20 months, but it seems like forever. It's our anniversary. Honestly, we'll probably sleep for three days; I can't wait.

Breaker-One-Nine...

2006-01-21T09:10:00.000-08:00

We learned this week that one of my husband's high school friends has named his new daughter Mozelle. I like it, stop snorting. The child's mother, Laura, had stipulated that any successful name would contain a "Z" or an "X." Cool rules rule; I like the Z names, too.

But I'm fond of the name for another reason: Mozelle is my step-grandmother's name. No, I didn't turn Jason and Laura on to it; they thought they'd come up with an original. But the original is indeed my jitterbugging, red-shirting grandma. She turned seventy, now wears only red shirts. Good for her. She's half Cherokee, an Oklahoma half-breed. In fact, that was her CB handle in the late seventies: Half Breed.

Damned straight my grandma had a CB handle! The first time I met my husband's mother and brother, I spontaneously dropped that piece of info in conversation over a formal Thanksgiving dinner. Admitting that your grandma had a CB handle is one of those things that encourages a certain impression of you, and regrettably in my case it is not a very accurate impression. She had a CB handle not because she was a truck stop lounge lizard, but because her husband was the local fire chief (handle: Gas Pump) and she often answered the scanner calls, the scanner being in the living room and blaring 24 hours a day. Still, I think the Thanksgiving incident did initiate the concern and mefiance in my MIL that still characterizes her attitude toward my relationship with her son.

My brothers and I also had handles: Buck Skin, Red Bone and Junebug (edited: mine was BeetleBug, not Junebug. Little Sweet Juniper must be channeling me.) respectively, although performance anxiety dictated that I never touched the CB. These were the days of BJ and the Bear, Smokey and The Bandit, and Jerry Reed's Convoy. Having access to a CB radio made us the coolest . I was classe among the 4th grade set, I'm telling you. By the way, Jerry Reed, Tulsa's highway demographic does NOT include a "cloverleaf." But thanks for the mention, anyway. You and I are the reasons god made Oklahoma.

I'd be tempted to use the Half-Breed nickname for little Mozelle if she weren't, you know, white and white. I'm still not sure that'll ultimately stop me. And by the way, I'd like to pass along that my biological grandmothers are named Roberta and Waythena. Those are still up for the taking, if anyone's up to using them. I'm not.

Switch to Tinkerbell Diapers...

2006-01-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

'cause it's time for a change.

I put up a more recent profile photo, but I wanted to keep this one somewhere on the blog for posterity. I've always been fond of it.

Cedra was about twelve hours old, and I just look so darned proud of myself.

In the shadow of girls wearing kickass coats.

2006-01-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

Ohf. I was just over on Sweet Juniper, admiring the vintage baby coat on little Junebug. It made me want to show off Cedra's winter coat, which we picked up at DPAM in Carcassonne for a mere 27 euros. Laughing at how silly she looks in it has been a major depression-fighter this winter. Like on the day we were screwed by the Christmas tree farmer.

This was the first year either huz or I has put up a tree, ever. Last year it didn't cross our minds; Cedra was tiny, and went on vacation for Christmas. But this year capitalism dictated that there were a full four weeks of "holiday" season before Hanukkah started on December 25th, and we just couldn't wait it out. We had to get on with the cheer.

So in early December we headed up to the the Bay Area's Christmas headquarters, the town of Occidental in Sonoma County. They've been making a good percentage of the US's door wreaths since the 40s or something, and there are tree farms everywhere. We picked the friendly and festive sounding Frosty Mountain Tree Farm. Well, screw them. We wanted a wee little apartment-sized tree, and picked one that stood less than 48 inches tall. I mean, we have no ornaments and were planning to make them ourselves. It had to be small. I want you to know that that Frosty Mountain assclown shook out our tree, half-glanced at it and proclaimed it to be seven feet tall. Seven feet, forty-five bucks! I waited for Michael to balk. He waited for me to do it. Neither of us did. Maybe we just figured this is the way Christmas goes, you know? We paid $45 for a 45 inch tree. Then the same guy sizes up the tree again, looks at our compact car and shamelessly declares that there's no need to truss the tree to the hood, "it should fit in the trunk pretty easy."

Here's the winter coat at the tree farm, and sourpuss Cedra posing with the decorated tree later (much later, this photo was taken January 1, five minutes before we took the tree down. The prop Red Envelope box is empty):

Anyway, we decorated our lame little tree and even a gingerbread house. My MIL bought us a Playmobil Christmas panorama of a photographer snapping a little Danish plastic kid on Santa's lap, then probably charging his mother $45 bucks. But next year, forget it. We suck at Christmas.

However, if YOU should head up to Occidental next year, note: Frosty Mountain Tree Farm and its neighbor and rival, Reindeer Ridge, are owned by feuding members of the same family. So give your money to the reindeer.

Now excuse me, I'm off to knit Junebug's hat thanks to the generous pattern posted by its maker. Call me a follower, but the Junipers set a high bar. And these SF girls've gotta represent.

Nachas simchas

2006-01-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

You know when your baby-crazy self is cooing over the newborns on Only Simchas for the second consecutive hour and you start getting this Proustian synesthetic flashback to the sweet smell of that white-wine-dijon new baby poop and...

What, you don't hang out on Only Simchas? Well, then you're just missing out.

It's a window onto a parallel world, let me tell you. It never ceases to amaze me that people still have six kids, and still name them Faigie, Yankel, Shlomo, Yitzie, Tzvi and Rivki. Very sweet. Of course, I do know a reform Rabbi that named her kids Zilla and Bluma. But I think she was kind of being a smart ass.

I also like to check out the upsherin listings. For those not in the know, orthodox Jews, particularly the Hungarians, don't cut their sons' hair until the third birthday. The first haircut ceremonies are called upsherins. I know that some reform families are "reclaiming" this practice, but if any male child we have is blessed with the shag Cedra's always had, he'd look like Joey Ramone by six months. I think we'll pass.

My apologies.

2006-01-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

It's been a long couple of months. I wouldn't say I've really been depressed; I know real depression, believe me. But I have been under some kind of funk cloud. Hope it's over.

I'd planned to dedicate a vicious rant post to do my part in the war against Christmas, but everyone else was doing such a good job that I didn't bother. Famous last words: This was the last year we're going anywhere for spendmaskkah. Meanwhile, here, for comparison, are the photos of Cedra that went out with the holiday cards in 2004 and 2005:

The girl's growing up.

So anyway, we lived through the holidays and we're currently trying to conceive. Not this very second, but in general. This is the first month and it's already become an obsession for me. Expect to hear a lot about it, with frequent entries to be categorized under "TMI, no thanks." Example:

Have you heard of this product, "PreSeed?" It's a sexual lubricant that, unlike others, is not toxic to sperm. Yes, the name is horrifying. But even worse is the name of the other product they sell on the website, to facilitate sperm collection for IUI: "HisSeed." MY GOD, that's appalling. Should you need the PreSeed, heed my advice: you only want to use half of the recommended application. Otherwise, it'th slip n' slide thity, thweetheart. Just a little public service announcement.

ISO: instructions for shit assemblage.

2005-12-16T08:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry, Countdown. We've all been sick 'round here. I've been having migraines for the first time in my life. Yesterday I went to the medicine cabinet to take two Wal-Profen and absentmindedly took two Prozac instead, on top of my daily dose. That may explain my motivation this a.m. to get this done, so here's your meme. It was mostly gleaned from the 99 things list, don't know if it'll be all that interesting:

Fact one: Two of my toes are webbed. No lie.

Fact two: I share a birthday with Mister Former President William Jefferson Clinton Esquire.

Fact three: One of my ex-boyfriends once pissed on Jacques Derrida's shoe. There are witnesses.

Fact four: When I was eleven, my mother cuffed me on the back of the head for referring to eggs as "chicken periods" in the grocery store. I think of it nearly every time I make Cedra a toad-in-the-hole.

Fact five: Once there was this beautiful seven story Haussmannian luxury apartment building in Paris. I set it on fire.

Fact six: My huz made my wedding ring. It involved tying the mold to a string and spinning it above his head for a long, long time. About two months ago I took it off and threw it across our bedroom. I didn't find it for two weeks.

Fact seven: I smuggled a rabbit out of Guatemala in my pants. He was in a fish aquarium in front of a pet store next to our hotel in Antiqua, with about twenty other rabbits. I just had to save him. We smuggled him across four borders and on two international flights, plus a third flight from Houston to SF. He rode in my backback, except through customs. Then he was in my pants. Yes, this was post-9/11.

Fact eight: Michael once gave me petrified sloth dung for my birthday. We were living in Oregon at the time, and it's like the state rock there or something.

Fact nine: As I type, Cedra is lifting up my shirt and chanting "Neh-nehs! Neh-nehs! Yah, yah, yah!" Neh-nehs are household vernacular for breasts.

Fact ten: My mother-in-law is taking us to Cirque de Soleil tonight, then we're gathering at her house to celebrate Solstice. snort. The MIL has claimed Solstice as her holiday, since we're always somewhere else for Thanksgiving-Hanukkah-Spendmas-New Years. No, Solstice isn't until the 21st, but we'll be in Oklahoma then. They're not into Solstice yonder. I'm hoping this will feel like the shortest day of the year, regardless.

Metamorphosis

2005-11-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

Going through the itty bitty baby pictures. Check out Cedra at four weeks. The chicken legs! The uncoordinated little hands!

Teenie Weenie.

Who knew that a mere 17 months later she'd be using them to tear live pigeons apart:

Naughtie Wattie. Give me a twenty, I'll rock your party.

Mama's baby, Daddy's maybe

2005-11-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

'Twas a long Thanksgiving day at Cedar Oaks. Cabin fever was epidemic. Michael and his step-brother got a serious scolding from the 'rents for having sucked down a rare and expensive bottle of wine the midnight before without permission. That was the highlight.

My dear spouse managed to duck out of most of the day's social interaction by having picked up a copy of Freakonomics when we stopped to trot Cedra around the Targét in Redding on the way up. So while I spent Thanksgiving day chasing her around the cabin, trying to keep 90 year old McCoy pottery unshattered, an antique spinning wheel unspun and attempting chitchat with the world's two most pretentious rural cabin-dwellers, he sat by the fire, sipped the sanctioned wine, and read Steven Levitt. I could have killed him.

But turns out it was in my best interest. See, we've been dueling for six months now over the subject of Cedra's future sibling. The long-term plan called for a two-year span between them, but when the time came to take the subject seriously last May he wasn't ready. Fine, I thought; we were going to France in a few months and I didn't want to spend the trip looking down the hole of a Turkish toilet. But when we returned, he still wouldn't discuss it. September, October, November passed and there was no longer a chance of a baby with a summer birthday. Baby #2 won't make the school enrollment cut-off, and I'm looking at an extra year banging my head against the walls at home or an extra year of childcare that we can't afford. Remember all those posts where M. and I weren't talking? This was the issue.

He let me know on the way back to California this weekend that he's finally ready. I gleaned from the series of monologues I listened to on the ten hour drive that there were two major catalysts for this change of heart: the first was the stroller display at a swank Corvallis toy store. I know you're holding your breath, but no, it wasn't a Bugaboo. It was a mere Zooper. Zooper? Hhhm, I'd never really considered it. I was a staid Perego fan myself. But hell, now I'm a Zooper lover.

The second factor was chapter six of Freakonomics, entitled "Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?" The chapter includes lists of names categorized according to several themes, and among them are names that Michael has deemed "okay...cool." Especially Asher. Asher? I'd never considered that, either, but it has now replaced Michael's previous first choice of "Eliot" for a boy. I'd always liked Eliot. I figure if you're going to spend three months of pregnancy looking down a toilet you can take some satisfaction in the fact that your son Eliot will spend his middle school years with his head in a toilet, as well. I mean, what's fair's fair. But whatever. Maybe it'll be a girl.

What does this mean to you? It means brace yourselves for some babycentric babble while I bide my time between now and that Clearblue Easy. And wish us luck.

Sorry for Sunday's histrionics...

2005-11-22T13:35:00.000-08:00

I haven't read the comments yet, I'm just not up to another spell of bawling. But many sincere thanks to anyone who said anything nice. I'll read them soon, promised.

We're in for a ten hour drive to Corvallis, Oregon this afternoon. My huz's sire is a Forestry prof up there in the land of the Ducks and the Beavers, and lives in the middle of nowhere in a log cabin they like to call "Cedar Oaks." What the hell is a "cedar oak," anyone? No one is allowed to spoil the precious hardwoods of Cedar Oaks' Martha Stewart-goes-to-the-Adirondacks interior with shoes, so we're all armed (¿footed?) with brand new cheap n' tacky non-skid house slippers from Chinatown. Supposedly it's cold there today, and anyone in SF knows that we've been basking in the '70s here the last few weeks. I'm a pussy in the cold, so more whine-tainted posts could ensue.

By the way, I logged onto blogger with Safari today and was shocked to see that my blog looks like ASS, everything is out of place. I normally use Mozilla, and thought I had the HTML under control. I'll fix this when we get back next week, bear with me.

Self-portrait Sunday

2005-11-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

I've given my mother-in-law a lot of play on this blog, particularly of late. She's a nut, that woman, real blog fodder. A real laugh riot.

She makes me think of a story I read once, written by a college student with a prosthetic leg. This victim of childhood bone cancer had made it through junior high and high school by being the funny girl, laughing her ass off about her hilarious wooden leg fueled mishaps; her leg falling off at the skating rink, that kind of thing. Then, as a sophomore in college, she found herself suddenly bawling like a baby in the middle of reciting a formerly funny lost-leg anecdote to her Speech class. She'd realized that the story wasn't funny anymore. And furthermore, a big part of the story had never been funny at all.

My mother-in-law is crazy. But she's rich, and when you're crazy and rich that makes you merely eccentric. Her own mother is a diagnosed schizophrenic, with the interesting sub-diagnosis of hypergraphia or compulsive writing. If my MIL could only tap into the hypergraphia, maybe she'd finish the dissertation that will finally give her an official PhD in Psychology. She currently works as a therapist, although her clients keep leaving her as she diagnoses them with cases of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, or whatever she happened to see on the Discovery Channel the night before. She's dangerously engaging. She can talk a good talk. But make no mistake, she's crazy.

Some actor once gave a definition of tragedy versus comedy; Dutch probably knows who it was. When someone else slams his hand in a car door, it's comedy. When you slam yours in a car door, it's tragedy. My MIL recently learned that my brother-in-law Jeff, her eldest son, has taken out a life insurance policy to protect his wife and daughter in case of his early demise. She consequently jumped to the conclusion that his wife, Laurie, was going to hire a hit man and have him knocked off for the cash. That was comedy. My parents left yesterday after a week-long visit, and my MIL took Cedra for an overnight stay on cuckoo's nest row today. As she left I gave her a tube of Aquaphor and carefully explained the treatment for the diaper rash that Cedra has developed as the result of her mother forcing her to wear fashion tights seven days a week. She called me two hours later to inform me that she suspected my father of sexually abusing Cedra. No, I'm not laughing. That's a fucking tragedy.

I've been crying for two hours. I opened a cheap bottle of wine to console myself, and that's been a little more cathartic. I think I've hinted before that this blog, begun in January of this year, was actually a therapy assignment. I was supposed to keep a journal. But a journal requires introspection, honest feeling, sincere expulsion of heartfelt sentiment onto a written page. Hell if I was going to do that. It was much safer to compose a public blog, with the requisite expectation of providing entertainment, humor, comedy to the reader. I've been prone to depressive episodes lately without the help of this type of cruel catalyst. I don't need this shit. She's not funny anymore, and I don't think she's ever really been funny at all. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be here rocking back and forth in a puddle of my own piss all week.

Everybody's funny.

2005-11-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

My parents are in town. I know it's low, real low to mock your parents, at least after you turn twenty-five or so. But they make it so easy.

They're staying at The Ovation, next door to the San Francisco Ballet. But when my dad gives a geographical description of the hotel's location, he says it's "across from that mosque thing," "that mosque thing" being CITY HALL. Seems that since late 2001, any building with a gold dome on it is a mosque to my dad.

In other news, we're going up to scenic Vacaville today. My mom's internet research indicates that Vacaville has a Guess factory outlet, and my dad is on a quest for Guess jeans like they made in the old days. The old days being 1985. Seems the pockets on the new jeans are too high, and they don't have darts in the front. I could add that they aren't acid washed either, but mocking your parents is real low. I didn't even know that Guess still made clothing.

In still more news, Cedra has turned into a nay-sayer. It sounds more like "nang." "Nang!" "Nang!" She's sitting behind me eating a bag of Chee-tohs provided by my parents and watching television. But my parents are supposedly keeping an eye on her, so will I put a stop to it? Nang! These people exhaust me.

Stop Week

2005-11-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

Just want you all to know that this blog is going to suffer for awhile due to the veritable cornucopia of crap I have going on at the moment. Sorry. It doesn't mean I don't love you.

Pissedopus

2005-11-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

She was crying because the pumpkin was too heavy to carry around. She'd already dropped it once, but was determined to pick it up again.

The Solar-Powered Chili Piss Test

2005-11-01T07:58:00.000-08:00

True to character, my Nutter-In-Law lives on the Palo Alto street where Ken Kesey and his chums beat a piano to death in an early chapter of Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Forty years later, the neighborhood is full of old hippies, Stanford and NASA researchers who wear slip-on shoes because they'd forget to tie their own laces otherwise and, call me Scooter, an FBI executive. But he's not undercover; unless you ask the hippies maybe. It's a crew to rival the Merry Pranksters in its own way, except you better believe no one is going to be wrapped in an american flag 'round there. Except perhaps the FBI guy, but even he probably voted for Nader.

Well, these people still love to throw street parties, although the Hell's Angels or even the otherwise unavoidable Wavy Gravy never show up anymore. And they do one every Halloween. This year, as usual, there was the classic brew of smoking apple juice mixed with dry ice along with a pot-luck spread of Mexican-themed classics and the party host's special Chili. It never crossed my mind that the juice might be spiked with vodka, or a hallucinogen, or other, but I'm telling you: that chili tasted like piss.

Now, I know these people. I've listened to my mother-in-law, the neighborhood therapist, expound on their bickering, cat-fights, fights over each others cats, and each others lawns and kids and SUVs that take up the whole damn street. I've read snitty three-page notes left by neighbors irreparably insulted over borrowed pizza stones. And that chili smelled like piss, it tasted like piss (please don't ask how I know how piss tastes) and I wouldn't put it past these crazy vindictive Peyton-Place-meets-Amercian Beauty people for one second to piss in a pot of community chili out of pure spite.

I didn't eat it, and of course I didn't give it to Cedra. I did watch out of the corner of my eye as Michael ate his, but I didn't say anything because I'm not really talking to him these days. He ate a little, but not much. He didn't mention piss. Maybe I was just imagining the whole thing. But still, I've felt inexplicably guilty for not warning him. It says a little something about marriage when you occasionally think about dipping someone's toothbrush in the toilet, don't actually do it but do leave the toilet lid up on the off-chance that your 18 month old might do it for you, then still feel guilty for not telling him that his chili might be spiked with piss.

I wish to god I had pictures of Cedra in her Octopus Diva costume (can you believe that every kid in my MIL's neighborhood knew all the lyrics to "Octopus's Garden"?) but we forgot the digital camera and have to wait for my MIL's boyfriend to email us some. In the meanwhile, here's a picture of her in her pre-costume get-up. I love this outfit:

There goes the neighborhood...

2005-10-31T15:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it just never stops around here. I just had the pleasure of seeing three lovely and dramatic mushroom clouds rise outside the kitchen window. Turns out a nearby car rental office with a bunch of propane tanks out back exploded, six times. Nearby means a block and a half away. Worse, the Hertz rental is directly across from a gas station that's a mere 3/4 block away.

All this was enough to have me down three flights of stairs, out on the street and over to Rainbow Grocery's payphone with a naughty toddler and a reticent rabbit in tow faster than you can say "fuck this shit." Couldn't find my cell phone, of course. Huz picked us up, we spent a few minutes trying to decide what to do, and he opted for just taking us back home rather than bringing a rabbit, an infant and a sullen spouse back to the office. I'm sure he then headed down the street to gawk at the fire and pester the cops with dumb questions.

According to the live coverage I'm watching right now, the two blocks surrounding the explosions have been evacuated. Like I said, I'm typing this from a block away. They're also saying that nobody was killed, unbelievably. Not yet, anyway. If I live through this, my husband is in for a well-deserved whuppen. Stay tuned.

postscript-- I lived. 120 firefighters had this thing put out in an hour, before it hit the nearby gas station. With this city's fire history I guess they've got their system down.

Celebrity Crushes

2005-10-30T22:02:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting out the blog due to the morbid funque I've fallen into this week. I won't go into detail since it has nothing to do with San Francisco or motherhood, but it goes a little something like this: My husband is a prick.

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the request of one Dutch of Sweet Juniper. Full responses to the meme in question could probably be extracted from the "XX Things About Me" list that is encrypted somewhere in this blog. I won't give a link, I really don't recommend reading it. But I will indulge in the celebrity crushes list, especially since my husband is a prick.

Celebrity crushes:

1. Stephen Colbert, particularly in his Strangers With Candy incarnation as Mr. Noblet
2. Meaux Rocca, why don't you love me? Well, nevermind.
3. Ted the food consultant from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, ya squinty facial ticker
4-5. The corn fed and Oklahoma-bred dorks in the Briantologist's new photo set
6. The rockabilly guy who owned Slow Bar in Nashville. I forget his name, but he was a total local hero.
7. The Reverend Horton Heat, who I hope is enjoying the royalties from his recent Boston Market deal. Don't blow it all in one place, Mr. Jim.

You'll all be surprised to hear that Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor does nothing for me.

Since we're talking celebrities, allow me to kind of name drop for a moment. As disclosed in my Things list, one of the above mentioned individuals once shamelessly hit on my production manager husband IRL. Well, more like two of them, but The Reverend was in his usual inebriated state and my huz is kind of girly. Advise: Stay off him, Mo. He's a prick, I'm tellin' ya.

Sac à dos! Sac à dos!

2005-10-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

That's what Dora L'Exploratrice sings when it's time to open her backpack.

Yes, we watched Dora in France. The French version is bilingual in French and English rather than Spanish and English, and we thought it might benefit Cedra. I think my MIL's 46 year old NASA engineer of a boyfriend picked up quite a bit of vocab from Dora, but Cedra couldn't have cared less.

Les Teletubbies, that's another histoire. Yes, I feel your scorn. But I got my hands on eight old VHS tapes of Les Teletubbies from Canadian public television, and thought they'd be fine in moderation. The idea was to watch an episode a few times a week and let her soak up the poetry of the Quebecois twang. The program is so lame/trippy/lame I doubted it would even hold her interest. Forget it, she's obsessed. We limit her weekly Teletubbie time, and she spends a lot of the rest of the time carrying the VHS cases around the house muttering "Cou-cou! La-La!"

So anyway, my pretty asian-print diaper bag has stood up to the last 17 months about as well as I have. I'd been planning to graduate to some kind of toddler bag for awhile, but the perfect specimen had failed to present itself. That is, until I walked through the dollar store on 16th and Mission, the one behind the Walgreens. There, for a mere buck, I found this perfect and probably perfectly illegally imported kid-sized sac à dos, sac à dos featuring Tinky Winky, Dipsy...a convertible Volkswagen, and a windmill. WTF? We love it.

By the way, if anyone can translate "Tianxian" or "bao bao," please clue us in.

And if you all jumped off a cliff...

2005-10-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

Yes. Yes, I would.

I am no HTMLer, so this is another blogger template. I know the stepped text on the masthead looks crappy, but I can't make it fit and I give up.

That photograph is actually the "view" off our back balcony, if you want to call a spiral stairway to the hell that is the recycling bins a balcony. We do, and we used to spend a lot of time waving from it back around Easter when the pope was in the news. What's a San Francisco apartment without a view?

The photo is the very first one my huz took after we were the last people ever to get a digital camera.

I don't know why the bicycle is on the pole. I don't even know why the pole is there, there are no obvious power lines. I do know that the ladder wasn't there because they were planning to do any paint touch-ups, though.

I apologize if the blog's aura is now a little depressing. If you find it so, I recommend doing what I do: remind yourself that the $800,000 loft across the alley has the same shitty view. Hahahaha! Suckahs!

DeBarge

2005-10-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

All she needs is Arsenio Hall's fade.

Among the many things in this photo that require an apology, I single out its poor quality. It was early in the morning (for us) and the camera needed new batteries.

I'd like to say that Michael dressed her, but in fact I am responsible. In my defense, she'd worn all of these clothing items previously, just not together, and they looked fine. I'd roused her because we had to take Da to work early, and there was no time to change after I realized how ridiculous she looked. She actually left the house like this.

big city livin'

2005-10-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

or "The Dark Side of Karma, reprise."

I think I can safely say that everyone who reads this blog, with one exception, is contemplating or actively plotting a move out of San Francisco, or, having already made the exodus, is sitting smug with their decision. Quitters!

We're staying put, because we have to. But god knows I understand the temptation to just admit defeat and start looking into the logistics of packing up life and hauling it across a bridge, then up or down I-5. Some days the temptation is greater than others.

Our car, the Tax Refund Saab, was booted this morning by the DPT. That means that a big yellow metal lock was placed around a wheel, and we have three days to settle $860 with The City or have the car towed. You may or may not know that we lost another car to SF this year, that one being utterly totalled out in parking tickets. This time the car is worth $2140 more than the sum of the tickets, so we'd better to pay up. You say: "How can you accumulate more than $1600 in parking tickets in about 18 months?" I say: "Better recognize: My huz's ride, The Chicken-hooded Rayko Truck, was also totalled out two weeks ago." Although it only took about $300 in tickets to finish off that one. It was a gem, that vehicle. So, $1900 in tickets. And then I add: "Besides, we live in The Mission."

You can say a lot of nasty things about The Mission, and Dutch has said a few so I'll just refer you to him. But the parking situation is a nightmare for residents, mostly because there are very few permitted parking areas. As you all know, a permit allows you to ignore parking restrictions. Around here, it's all metered retail parking peppered with two short non-permitted streets, and everyone in the city lines up to dump their cars on Natoma and Minna when they're going out of town for a week. So we're constantly racing the $2.50 an hour meters, and usually losing because we're both lazy and absent-minded. I could make other excuses, but they won't hold water either. Truth is, there's not much excuse for us. We don't like cars, and we don't want to be bothered with them or their parking tickets. Apparently we don't like our money, either.

It's at times like this that a suburban two-car garage with a long driveway doesn't sound bad, but I know from experience that we couldn't do it. We were homeowners once. Did you know? We left SF for Portland, where we purchased a 2,500 square foot house with a beautiful yard. Parking was a non-issue, but there were trade-offs. The washing machine broke. It seemed like the landlord should have shown up to fix it. He didn't, because we were the landlords. Same with the dishwasher, the hole that started forming under the sink, the mold that started growing on the roof. According to the neighbors, the yard was supposed to be mowed and maintained. It was beyond us. It seemed like we would have had to mow and clip shrubs every damn week. Like we had nothing better to do? The house and yard never reached West Virginia Jesco the Dancing Outlaw status, but we were getting there. After two years we did the neighborhood a favor and moved back to SF, to a 900 square foot rental apartment where we were relieved to pay $1600 a month to a reassuringly responsible landlord.

And $1600 a year to the DPT for the privilege of parking our cars on the street in our own neighborhood and having them towed three times a year, evidently. Is this better than spending 12 hours a month of our leisure time pushing a lawnmower? Dunno. Dunno.

Pumpkin Lover

2005-10-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

We cut her hair last week. A mere two inches was enough to take out the curls. I'm thinking end of December before they grow back.

View from the dark side of Karma

2005-10-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Michael was busting ass for San Francisco's Open Studios yesterday, and my mother-in-law took Sabra for an overnight festival of repetitive flower watering, kitty-cat watching, and probably meditating on celtic knots and scouting for crop circles.

So I had a rare day to myself and I settled in on the Karlanda to knit up the ubiquitous five-hour baby sweater for my friend JuJu's new baby, Nico. I thought I'd put the television to use, since we pay $88 a month for expanded cable so we can watch the French news for 30 minutes a day, then always forget to watch it. I was determined to find something in English that doesn't call itself "The Weather Channel" or "Noggin'." Potential answer: Discovery Health Channel, featuring the program "Born With Two Heads."

Snag: A satellite mishap resulting in no sound and a screen that looks like a tossed box of Triscuits, but damn if I'm going to change the channel when the subject line reads "Born With Two Heads." Speshly after I got up and moved all the crap off the cable box and pushed the remote's "up" button 109 times to get there.

Insult to injury: Still no picture as the subject line eventually changes to "Face-Eating Tumor" and later to "I Am My Own Twin." Damn, and damn!

Fine, I apologize to the mother of god and to the Lourdes chamber of commerce for Saturday's post. (beats chest twice) Mea culpa, dang. Just make it stop.

Lourdes. You know, Esther's daughter?

2005-10-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, that's a dumb title. Esther is a euphemism for Madonna; props to you if you weren't aware.

Welcome to France retrospectives, installment I.

I'd never been to Lourdes, the Catholic pilgrimage site that's about two hours from my MIL's village. Now I may be more or less agnostic, but I think I do have a healthy enough respect for sincere religious belief. Well, that may not be entirely true. I think I often look upon the religious activities of others with somewhat of a voyeuristic eye, and enjoy the spectacle. Particularly if those religions involve a generous amount of ceremonial camp. Few things are as enthralling and befuddling as contemplating religious rapture from a safe distance, be it snake handling or some crazy middle-aged woman bursting into reverent tears as she crosses the threshold of THE Temple in Salt Lake City. So I went into Lourdes perhaps not with an open mind, but with high expectations.

Sadly, I must say that Lourdes may be the ass-tackiest scene I've ever laid eyes upon, and keep in mind that my hereditary stomping grounds are a mere few hours from Branson, Missouri.

No this isn't the entrance to Disney World. Well, yes it pretty much is.

A bit of preparatory geography: The village of Lourdes proper gives way to a long row of tourist trap shops that make Chinatown or Solveng or, god forbid (Apartment Number One) Gatlinburg, look classe. Saintly snowglobes, five foot glow in the dark rosaries, that kind of thing. This cack-trap runs right up to a footbridge, and on the other side of the bridge begins the last half-mile (edit: okay, more like a quarter-mile) leg of the pilgrimage route to the Lourdes Cathedral and grotto. If you're lucky you may see a devout Argentinian cowboy, complete with hat, boots and belt buckle, crawling toward the grotto on his hands and knees. Otherwise you'll probably see a lot of young Italian nurses in modified nuns' habits flirting loudly with the be-sportcoated official Lourdes ushers, both groups there to help the sick hobble through the Stations of the Cross.

As for us, we got to Lourdes late on a tourist season evening with intentions of an overnight stay, but with no hotel reservations. After hours of pavement pounding followed by a mediocre dinner, and still suffering from enough jet-lag to make 10:30 p.m. feel like high noon, we headed for the cathedral in hopes that the area would be only lightly touristed and the lines for the holy water spidget (my MIL had promised to bring her therapist a vial) would be short.

It started as soon as we hit the footbridge. This isn't all that unusual; any sight of outdoor water has Cedra quacking like a duck. Quacking brings immediate attention from passersby, and the attention encourages her until she's worked up into a delirious rapture of show-offedness. Well, she shot off that footbridge and down the pilgrimage route like a little wobbly-legged bull out of a pen, yammering at high decibals as she went. After about 50 feet she turned to make sure we were following her, lost her balance a little and had to bend over and put her hands on the ground to steady herself.

Anyone who knows a 15-month-old knows that they are creatures of repetition. After she'd added putting her hands on the ground to the routine once, she had to stop and do it about every ten feet. All the way to the cathedral. A half mile (quarter mile!). Shriek, raise hands into the air, toddle ten feet, stop, place hands on ground, repeat. Fine, except my mother-in-law, god blesser, is a nutty bonafied specimen of California flake. She started making observations about the earth surrounding holy sites having special "vibrations." Cedra was surely stooping over to feel them.

I didn't tell her that I'd seen Cedra do exactly the same thing along the length of 24th street between Noe and Sanchez while we waited for Michael to get a SuperCuts haircut.

By the time we made it to the cathedral and Cedra started climbing the steps, my MIL was misty-eyed. Sabra climbed most of the way, then came back down, then climbed them again. Allow me to pause here and quote the BabyCenter (shame) newsletter I received shortly after our return:

Physical Development, Your 17-Month-Old

"Your toddler has probably never met a staircase she didn't like.
By now she may be able to climb up a set of stairs, turn around at
the top and sit, then scoot her way back down again..."

Spirit-filled Cedra, climbing the steps of the Lourdes Cathedral. It must have been 11 p.m.

But nevermind that. Cedra was having a religious experience, and my MIL was having one by proxy. She snatched Cedra up and carried her behind the grotto, to solemnly contemplate the hundreds of votive candles left by the faithful. The following night, we followed the official procession and she took Sabra back to add two more candles to the multitude. One for Cedra, one for her crazy self.

Cedra's whole religious trance was just damn funny. Nothing else, as far as I was concerned. I'm glad my mother-in-law was able to get something deeper out of it, but it just wasn't happening for me. However, I did expect more out of the official procession. It was a normal Thursday, no religious holiday, but there must have been three thousand people carrying candles and chanting. It should have at the very least been a little touching. But it struck me as shamefully vulgar, like a big tacky Jesus bumper sticker or a Tulsa mega-church with an electric guitar and drum set behind the pulpit.

Before we left, we bought Cedra a little wooden rosary--actually, we had to buy it because she snatched it off a display and took off down the street with it-- and a little stuffed sheep with a mechanical "baaaaaaaa" that was the scourge of the rest of the trip. Penance for my attitude, probably.

"In the truck, Mary."

Knit-along

2005-10-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

Anyone want to knit along wimmee? Here's my project for Halloween: Cedra-hair helmets for the whole family!

To achieve appropriate color and texture, I prescribe cheap acrylic Lion Brand Homespun yarn, dark brown in color. After binding off and weaving the loose ends, rub in one scrambled egg and a few spoonfuls of yoghurt, then shit your pants.

The wavin' wheat sure smells sweet

2005-10-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

If anyone with the patience of Job is still reading, my excuse is an impromptu crisis trip to Oh-klahoma, my home and native land. And for all the internet access I've got here, I might as well be in the middle of nulle-part in southwest France. Except there I'd be eating state fair quality produce purchased for centimes, instead of my grandma's pot roast with Lipton onion soup gravy. And Cedra wouldn't have had a playdate this weekend with a distant 15 month old cousin named "Dub," or be expecting a visit this evening from an invariably-sports-jersey-clad two-year-old family friend known as "Cay-Dog." Which is no worse than the official "Cayden," if you ask me.

I swear I'll spend more time on the clavier after we're back in SF Wednesday.

Back in town, back into my post-partum elastic-waist skirts.

2005-09-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

We're back, and jet-lagged. As suspected, internet access was scarce. The one bar in Axat that offered internet service still had pinball machines, and French fifteen year olds were still using them. Very sweet.

The France retrospective posts will appear off and on for awhile, I'll try not to throw out too many of them at once. I'm not sure there's that much worth telling anyway. It kind of went like this:

We ate.

We watched the laundry spin.

We ate.

But then, we do a lot of that in the US. The essence of the France trips is that we do what we do anyway but we do it to excess, laundry excepted. Including indulging in uninterrupted family time: to excess, I'm telling you. Then we finish it off with a twelve hour plane ride, five people stuffed into four seats in the middle aisle of a 747 with pissy, pissy stewards. Of course, they knew that their carrier (Northwest) was going to file for bankruptcy as soon as we hit the tarmac and their retirement funds were going to go the way of United's. We just thought they were misanthropes.

Despite the family overkill, I'm feeling less like a misanthrope myself than I was pre-vacation. My ma, who probably swiped the phrase from Erma Bombeck, says that the purpose of vacations is to stay away long enough that you're glad to come home. Accompli.

That Francey-pants mother-scratcher...

2005-08-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in Wednesday's post, we are indeed leaving for a trip to the land of the gauls this weekend. For those new to the blog who think this may be a case of huppity-hup, keep in mind that we are the people who have cars kidnapped by the DMV, trip over junkies when we walk out the door, and drink two-buck-Chuck Shaw unless it's a special occasion. Like Friday. We may spend $5 on a bottle of wine on Friday, especially if it's my birthday. Like Today.

In order to understand our trips to France, a short biography of my mother-in-law is required. You know all those breakfast-related words people use to describe Californians? Fruit, Nut, Flake? Well, my MIL is big into reincarnation. I've never completely understood if she's a reincarnated Cathar or a reincarnation of Saint Sophia, but I think it may be both. Her father made a lot of shame-money in the defense industry in the 50s and 60s, setting her up for a life of ease. She just studies. The Cathars, Alchemy, Kabbalah, Irish mysticism. To love the History Channel is to love her. God willing she will never see this blog. If she does I am so dooced.

She has a house in southern France, cause that's where the Cathars were. And a lot of alchemists and Kabbalists. No, it's not a big house. To her credit, that's not her style. In the US she lives in a tiny cottage in Palo Alto and buys all her clothes at TJ Maxx. She's not a bad person at all, she's just never had to look reality or practicality in the face.

By the way, I was told, or more correctly my husband was told after she had her therapist do up my "chart," that I am a reincarnation of a Vienna pianist whose husband and two children were taken away by the Nazis in WWII. She uses this to explain my occasionally bitter and spiteful behavior.

It is my sincere hope that I'll be able to update the blog periodically over the next three weeks, but I can't make any promises. If the following means anything to you, we're going to be in the hamlet of Puilaurens-Lapradelle near Axat in the department of Aude. This is extremely far-flung as far as France goes. Suffice to say that it's the land that knows no DSL.

For the most part we're going to be doing a lot of hanging out at the French version of Home Depot and engaging in manual labor on the house. She's doing some research that will take us to Lourdes, Carcassonne and a few other tourist sites, so maybe I can manage a few blog entries that aren't all "We had lunch with X and he gave a three hour lecture on mushrooms" or "We watched the neighbors get a goose drunk." I'm hoping Michael and I can get away to Barcelona for at least one Cedra-free weekend where we'll probably stay in the kind of dump that won't mind if we stumble in drunk at 4 a.m. That will be our real vacation.

If I can't manage many posts, expect a series of retro-entries complete with photo essays when we get back. Take care.

This just in...

2005-08-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

compliments of zappos.com.

I don't usually wear Chuck Taylors, I'm just not that cool. Not usually, anyway. There is one exception. And if a fresh new box of sneakers with no arch support is sitting in our living room it can only mean one thing. I'm going to France. We're leaving Sunday. We'll be there 3 weeks. More on what that means to this blog in another post.

I would like to take a moment to admit that the above photo was inspired by ParisMOMster's blog (see June 8 entry under "Party of Four.") I also need to admit that I felt terrible yesterday when I stopped working on a draft of this post long enough to refresh my blog, only to find that the MOMster had written a very sweet comment about Cedra. I'd just typed an extended rant about the French and their fashion exigeances. Delete, delete, delete! But it's true that I do feel the need to upgrade my wardrobe every time we go to France.

I wish I were more naturally fashion-forward than I am, and I used to try harder than I do. But since I hooked up with my huz our shared fashion disorder has only become more acute. Compulsive Uniform Disorder, that's what it is. We both dress as if we're in uniform. If we find an item of clothing we like, we buy it in five colors and wear it over and over. That's why I have six pairs of capri pants, about ten knee-length skirts, six vintage 50s housewife dresses, and 10 Johnny-collared shirts. Michael's wardrobe isn't as complicated. 10 pairs of Carhartts, 20 t-shirts from Target, 20 pairs of white tube socks and four and a half million pairs of Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic (could there be a more offensive name?) boxer shorts from when my SIL worked for Gap Co. .... Four years ago.

The Chuck Taylors are kind of a French classic. People have been wearing them for decades. And for the fashion-challenged like myself who can't remember whether I'm supposed to be wearing beaded Pakistani slippers or gold ballerina flats this year, it's nice to have them to fall back on. I used to always try to buy a color of Chucks that isn't marketed in Europe, at one time it was green, another time purple. I got off on having young Francs stop me on the street to say "Ooooh, gym yang tape ass kit! Genie Al!" (okay, that's "J'aime bien tes baskets.") These days all I ask is that people NOT take notice of me. Solution, white Chucks. Couldn't resist getting Cedra's in the impossible to find cocoa brown, though.

Dumb Pictures of My Kid, suite.

2005-08-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

You dig?

2005-08-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

Still on the topic of Wednesday Addams after yesterday's post, my favorite episode of The Addams Family was the one where the beret-and-basque-striped-shirt wearing beatnik rode into their lobby on a motorcycle and stayed with them for a few days. Or for one 30 minute episode, I guess. He kept banging on bongos and saying "You dig? You dig?"

Said Wednesday, deadpan as always: "Only graves."

So very Raven. But not THAT Raven.

2005-08-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

About ten years ago I went out with a guy who had a two and a half year old daughter. He was a recovering goth and his ex-wife was still heavily into the goth thing. Their daughter's name was, of course, Raven. This was before the Raven of Nickelodeon fame. Interestingly, it was also long before Emily although Raven bore an amazing resemblance. They dressed her in striped tights and black overall shorts. I think they were going for a Wednesday Addams look. I guess she'd discovered once that those multi-colored gummy worm candies matched a particular pair of her tights and she was obsessed with wearing that one pair of tights in the way that only a preschooler can be. She would carry around a bag of gummy worms and intermittently lay one across her leg to compare the stripe pattern.

Raven has crossed my mind frequently over the last week, probably as a result of an exchange with Dutch of SweetJuniper over our admiration for weird kids. We spoke of a particular Poe poem that merits being hung over the cribs of our children the way one would hang that print of Jesus leading Hansel and Gretel across the bridge under which surely lives the troll from the three billy goats gruff. One of my childhood babysitters had that picture hanging over a crib, dontcha know. Makes me shudder just thinking about it.

I'd like to tell you that Raven had a beautifully hand-illuminated copy of Poe's The Raven hanging over her bed, but that's not true. She had a little plaque her uncle had made that featured her name and a smiling infant surrounded by three huge dobermans. Not kidding, I swear to god.

My relationship with Raven's father lasted about five months, then reached that stage where there wasn't anything there but we didn't have a good excuse to break up. I finally called it off when he insulted my beloved old college ride, a Dodge Omni that now belonged to my brother. He referred to it as an "old clunker with Oklahoma plates." Bastard! That car's name was Hoop-Dee, not "Clunker." Jesus!

The thing about being involved in a relationship with someone who is a parent is that invariably you will have a relationship with the child as well, and I was sad to lose contact with Raven. I wonder what she's up to these days. She's probably hammering out book reports and geometry proofs over at Adda Clevenger. Wonder if they've read Poe's The Raven in English class. When they do, will she be smug or, like, totally humiliated? I'd really like to know.

By the way, what's hanging over Cedra's bed is a beautiful rendering of her name purchased for a mere $1 a letter from a street artist in Chinatown, along with this Yoshitomo Nara print. Not Wednesday or Emily, but you've got to see the resemblance to Cedra. We definitely recognize that attitude.

I XO Dr. Dentons

2005-08-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

I love french baby pajamas. They have a drop-seat diaper panel à la Dr. Denton's. The idea is that you can totally undress the bottom half of the baby without taking off the whole (Alisyn!:) jim-jam.

But these dumb-pictures-of-your-kids representatives illustrate why I really love them:

If you're flush, you can buy these types of jim-jams from Jaques-a-dit or Tibato. If you're like us, you can use hand-me-downs your cousin wore in 1992.

Sez Mojo Nixon: Cedra is alive in all of us

2005-08-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

My friend JuJu's baby is due on the 31st, and they're at the desperate stage of baby naming. They've spent 8 months searching for an Italian boys' name that doesn't sound too feminine in English and, having admitted defeat (and scoffed repeatedly at my perfectly sound suggestion, "Italo,") must now scurry to decide on a regular English name.

Don't know if you've noticed, but the "new" batch of boys' names reads a lot like the mailing list for your great-grandpa's Masons coven circa 1908: Oscar, Ezra, Otis, Henry, Felix, Jasper. This is how she explains her arrival at the Social Security Administration's 1000 most popular names list for the 1880s.

Well, we were both excited when she found "Cedra" at #961 on the girls' list. There were 44 born nationwide over the decade, resulting in a 9-way tie with Junie, Jemima, Karen, Glenn, Euphemia, Dosha, Ula and Audie. Now that group sounds like a party of piperettes.

A couple of people have commented here on Cedra's name. We also get this often IRL. So, as a public service announcement, here's the explanation: My husband and I each had a childhood friend named with the name. Neither of these individuals was necessarily a friend after whom we would naturally name our child, but we did like the name and it ended up on our original list along with about 30 others. It was still there, along with Lucia, Cecile, Noemie and Mirabel, when we showed up at the hospital at 3:00 a.m. on May 19, 2004. It was on the birth certificate when we left 8 days later. Yes, eight days. Long stay, long story.

We knew that her (real) name is the term used in Israel for a native Israeli, and that no one in Israel would actually give this name their child, and that the name is politically charged given the xxxxx-Shatila massacre in the 1980s. But we loved the name and we chose it. Nay-sayers, mind your own!

Her name hasn't appeared on the top 1000 list since 1889, but a SSA insider did tip me off that the name was number 1,931 in 2003. This piece of info was tucked away for the baby book, should it ever be assembled. Also saved for posterity was a list of googlisms on Cedra's name that was emailed to us shortly after her birth. Here's an abridged (believe it or not) version:

Cedra is one strange and beautiful cat
Cedra is equipped with an automatic fire and explosion suppression system
Cedra is a poet with strong ties to the west of ireland
Cedra is just acting out because her callous, rich-bitch mother (Fay Baker) doesn't love her
Cedra is only a place to run through
Cedra is a loyal member of Professor Xavier`s mutant underground
Cedra is available in two sizes
Cedra is the only interventional radiologist in Mckinley County
Cedra is a professor of theology on the faculty of the Near East School of Theology in Beirut
Cedra is speechless with horror as she notes that her husband files a sixth notch in his revolver handle
Cedra is simply the best personal chef in the world
Cedra is the only kosher restaurant in San Francisco with a mashgiach on the premises
Cedra is fearless to the point of recklessness
Cedra is designed as a transitional experience for the middle school aged camper
Cedra is a metaphor and a nickname for the strength
Cedra is alive in all of us (....to paraphrase Mojo Nixon)
Cedra is a noted highland dancer and bodhran player, and is also a choreographer who teaches and performs her own dances
Cedra is able to lift 50 tons and possesses super human speed
Cedra is going to be wed to Charlemagne Bolivar of Pride Jagaur to form a strong alliance between the two prides to end a 200 year old blood feud
Cedra is eight months pregnant with Ronnie's baby
Cedra is in the clear to stay drunk for the entire summer

Beware The Overlook, Mrs. Torrance

2005-08-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Take another look at the Art Grant photo, below. It's an excellent example of Cedra making the "Mrs. Torrance finger."

Remember the creepy little boy, Danny, from The Shining? He was possessed by a seer who, if I remember correctly, was described as "a little boy who lives in my mouth." The kid would crook his finger, work the finger up and down a little, and his alter-ego would dispense predictions of doom in a raspy voice. redruM! redruM!

Cedra makes this little finger gesture often, and I mean like twenty plus times a day. We're waiting for the raspy voice to start and consequently to find Scatman Crothers hacked to death in our hallway. Meanwhile, if any of you armchair child development specialists are sitting there feeling the need to inform me that this is an early sign of autism et al., better check yourselves. I don't want to hear it.

On the subject of Danny Torrance, I remember seeing an interview with the actor who played the little freak and being absolutely blown away. In opposition to the subdued and barely verbal Creepy Danny character, he was totally hyperactive and had a thick Brooklyn accent. He bragged that he'd been payed the sum of "like, ten dolluhs uh suhmpthuhn" for his performance.

And on the subject of The Overlook, M. and I were married in the hotel they used to film The Shining. Scatman couldn't make the reception, but Shelley Duvall was there and kept berating the rabbi and faking seizures. Just kidding.

16th and Mission

2005-08-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Among the veritable cornucopia of things that annoy me every time I walk by 16th and Mission is this sign:

Is this the best way to procure an art grant? Are readers of The Onion your best bet for a receptive audience? Well, I guess they probably are.

If art grants are there just for the asking then that may explain why my friend Mike The Librarian, who worked in SF for a government-sponsored center that offered support to those applying for grants, claims to have spent most of his days playing computer games.

Incidently and somewhat ironically, he's now working as a children's librarian in a suburb of Portland and aparently busting ass to an exhausting degree. I've heard him complain about having to entice the sub-adolescents off of the computer games and into the reading groups. It's always nice and schadenfreudique to see one of your good friends punished in a manner akin to a chapter of Dante's Purgatorio.

Trouble in the So-Van

2005-08-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

Some sad fool parked his truck in front of the private garage next door. Actually, it was a pack of young fools. We saw them as we rounded the corner on the way home from the SuperMercado with our $52 receipt. $18 in baby food and drink, $25 plus for the weekend’s liquor, 3 bananas and an eggplant.

Foolhardy young fools. If you live in San Francisco you should really know better than to block someone’s garage. But this particular garage--ooh! Last time it happened my husband witnessed the car’s unfortunate proprietor standing on the sidewalk contemplating a used tampon that had been thrown onto the hood.

There's a sticker on the front bumper of this most recent soon-to-be-soiled vehicle:

I’M HUNG LIKE EINSTEIN AND SMART AS A HORSE

Yep.

"That picture is from Burning Man. I'm the one in the orange fur bikini."

2005-08-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

So stated an acquaintance of mine who is now a mother of two.

A note on my passing mention of Burning Man in yesterday's post:

If you're from the Pacific Corridor, or the 6 major cities between Vancouver, Canada and San Diego, California, I'm sure you've heard all you'll ever want to hear about Burning Man.

I've never been myself, but Burning Man was a big adhesive element among my husband's Palo Alto high school friends. He last went in 2000. From what I understand the idea is to leave your resident PaCo urban area, go to the desert in Nevada, and spend labor day weekend doing something cathartic. I don't know if Extasy, nudity and pyrotechnics are actually required, but everyone's cathartic activity seems to have these things in common.

When I moved to California in 1997 I was told that while the previous year's Burning Man had indeed been "rad" (I was talking to someone from L.A., obviously) the current year's gathering would surely "suck." How is it that I've heard the same precise statement, with or without the use of the term "rad," each year for the past 9 years? Anyone?

The marriage wrecker

2005-07-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

My husband has many nicknames for Cedra, not among my favorites is "the home-wrecker." She earned this one after several of our couplefriends experienced relationship-shaking fights in the wake of a visit from us. The source of the battles was babylust. Michael likes to think it's because Cedra is just so cute.

I think the truth is that many, many of our friends are at the lifestage when cultural pressure and biological desire to reproduce start to clash with years of being told that parenthood is to be avoided at all costs until you're good and "ready." Financially ready? Chronologically ready? Until you've read all the classics and visited Bali? Until you've forgiven your own parents? Whatever, just "ready."

We've gone to two weddings this summer and have two more to go. There were also two to attend last year, and three the year before. We're all 28 to 35, and it's evidently time for the hedonism to stop and the family-forging to begin. In most cases the female involved is dealing with some impending birthday before which she absolutely must be a mother. It's usually 35, although 30 and 32 are also commonly cited. The women are ready, the guys just don't see how a pregnancy is a practical possibility. There are problems with insurance, housing, jobs, the relationships themselves. The only solution seems to be throwing the voice of reason toward hoo-ha and just jumping in. Appropriately, I'd say. Once they're parents they'll be doing it constantly.

There was another wedding yesterday. The groom wore a kilt, the bride is Brazilian but ethnically Yoruban and wore a long red tunic. There was a lot of chanting, a lot of Portuguese spoken, and a lot of wishes for many healthy children from the bride, the grandparents and the two Yoruban officiators. The groom looked uneasy each time procreation came up, and there was a lot of nervous laughter from the attendees as well. There was also some shrieking, clapping, ululating and Apache war-calling, all from Cedra and always during the most poignant and hushed moments of the ceremony. I could have died. Instead I prematurely opened the complimentary bottle of bubbles intended for the reception and tried to inconspicuously blow them at knee-level. She quieted down and the whole thing was much less mortifying than when she morphed into a banshee during a tearful reading of a Pablo Neruda poem at one of last year's weddings. I'm changing her nickname from "The Homewrecker" to "The Marriage Ceremony Wrecker."

The conversations at the reception yesterday ran a wide gamut and included baby names, pregnancy, just how drunk on champagne you're allowed to get when you have a young child on your hip, and the fact that only two of those present (both single) went to Burning Man last year. No one's going this year.

14th and Van Ness

2005-07-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

She ate a worm.

2005-07-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

Sabra ate a worm at her playgroup this morning. One of the mothers found it and gave an impromptu biology lecture, encouraging the kids to touch it. Sabra, the youngest, was either the only one brave enough or the only one dumb enough to take her up on it. It was in her mouth within a half-second. I said "Oh, shit!" in front of six toddlers.

We managed to get both pieces of the worm out before she swallowed any, so I guess she didn't technically eat it. I am obviously a little proud otherwise I wouldn't have called four family members and booted up the blog to share the joy.

What disturbs me is that only one of the other mothers seemed to think it was as damn funny as I do. The other four were genuinely shocked and appalled. WTF? I'm mean, it's not like they all don't eat sand like Carter ate little liver pills, as my uncle Roy used to say. Worms eat dirt, Sabra eats worms, and the cycle of life goes on.

Yosemite

2005-07-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

We were in Yosemite last weekend with my parents and nieces, out from Oklahoma. It was an american family vacation in the purest sense from the "I'm here and I paid the entry fee, now entertain me" destination to the mini-van we rented to haul all of us.

A few soundbites from the weekend are probably worth a thousand descriptive words:

9 year old, after wading in water that had been snow maybe 10 minutes earlier:
"My feet are, like, totally numb."
6 year old: "Yeah, my feet are totally dumb too."

"Hey! I think I left my ($120, cheerleading-team uniform) tennis shoes in the parking lot back at Bridal Shower Falls!"

"Can we go to MacDonald's?"(Repeat 60 times, turning to Aunt Kim and adding hopefully:) "They make fruit and walnut salad."

6 year old, woefully, to her mother on the telephone, "Aunt Kim says they don't have KFC in California."

and finally from my mother, in her most authoratative tone:

"If I hear the words KENNY CHESNEY one more time, you girls are NOT going swimming when we get back to the hotel!"

But the conversation I'd really like to transcribe took place on the Yosemite Valley Floor tour bus. I think you probably had to be there, though, and I couldn't do justice to the accents unless you're an expert at reading phonetic script. The protagonists were a group of 18ish French backpackers and some elderly Amish men, the topic: the ins and outs of Greyhound bus travel. Evidently the Amish are considered experts of sorts on Greyhound travel, who knew? Both groups were decked out in their full respective uniforms, the Amish with their hats and beards and the French with the word "PUMA" emblazoned across every clothing item and accessory from socks to packs. Good lord, the Amish and the French! You can spot 'em from a mile away, you can't get 'em to fight a war for ya, and they think they've got the last word on every damn thing. (Just kidding--about the Amish.)

Waiting for the tour bus with Doody (cherokee for "grandpa," and conveniently descriptive in English) and half the population of northeastern Indiana.

The blogger blockade is down

2005-07-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

I learned yesterday that my blogger account didn't allow anyone without a blogger handle to comment. I changed it so if you have something to say, shout it on out.

BTW I love it when I'm filling in a text field, I get a few letters typed and my browser (Safari) automatically makes suggestions based on things I may have typed into any random text field over the last 2 years. When I started typing "the blogger blockade is down" above, I was given the options of entering "The Bermans are soooooo L.A." and "The bitch! The bitch!," both of which I believe were titles of posts I made to UrbanBaby, the former last fall and the latter 2 weeks ago after I learned that Angelina-Jo had named her daughter Zahara. Zara was at the top of my list for the new baby I'm plotting.

Soy Vey, it's Sabra in Chinatown

2005-07-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

So we didn't name her Stephanie or Tara or Tiffany.

Here's Sabra in front of her favorite Chinatown restaurant (although we've never actually eaten there.) It's near Grant and California, if I remember correctly.

KidPOWER! (SF Playground Review #1)

2005-07-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

First in what may or may not become a series, I offer a review of our closest and favorite playground:

"KidPOWER PARK"--so the sign reads-- is located on the backside of the 16th/17th and Mission block, which locals will recognize as one of the rowdiest in town. Nevermind that, once you're inside the playground you're a world away. Well, pretty much; more on that later.

You'll find it on Hoff Street, the half-block between Mission and Valencia, or, if you prefer, between the dignified twin security guards who never fail to wave back at Sabra as we pass. Twin A guards the Wells Fargo ATMs on the corner, and Twin B has held the more frightening station at the door of Pancho Villa's Taqueria ever since someone was shot there in the late '90s. But again I say: Nevermind that. Feel free to drop in on Pancho Villa. Sabra loves to drink horchata there and watch the cleaver-weilding meat man chopchopchop.

KidPOWER Park is evidently relatively new as Sofia, the four-year-old who is present and ready to dote on Sabra most afternoons, informed me that she attended the "gwand opening" herself. It's modern and clean, with one of those squishy turfs made of recycled tires. The adolescent palm trees do little to block the midday sun, so it's a little lacking in shade, but mornings and late afternoons are great for slacking at the picnic tables with ice-creams purchased from the inevitable helados guys.

As is requisite for any good toddler playground, the baby and big kid areas are clearly distinct. A "community garden" and the picnic area with a three tiered fountain separate the two. Sabra adores the fountain and I'm happy to say that I've seen no dead birds in it for more than a month now. Sofia says don't throw pennies in there; city ordinance.

The community garden is apparently always locked unless a certain dark-haired woman and her very cute and spunky sixish-year-old daughter happen to be there. They evidently maintain the garden and no one else has access. They may also have the keys to the front gate which is occasionally padlocked, especially on Sundays. But note that the two other doors open from the inside, and it is standard procedure to scale the 8 foot fence and prop open the doors if you find the park locked during the day.

The community garden and toddler play structure

The big kids' side has some of the most appealing play structures I've seen. I once saw a two year old stop in her tracks under the flowered archway entrance, stare dumbstruck at the jungle gym and repeat in a quiet, incredulous voice: "It yooks yike a 'pider web.... It yooks yike a 'pider web." And it does. There are hammocks under the spider web of which my hub Michael is particularly fond. Another city ordinance discourages the lounging on of hammocks by adults if you are not accompanied by a child in the immediate vicinity.

The Spider Web and the Morgan-and-Sabra-Go-Round

It's a veritable oasis on the underside of one of SF's most colorful blocks and for the most part the gritty side of urbia stops at the gate. You may still get the occasional soundbite, though. Example: Overheard as I pushed Sabra on the baby swings on a recent warm summer afternoon:

CITIZEN STREET-INHABITANT OF THE MISSION, FEMALE: (Barely audible proposition, along the lines of:) "Buy me a burrito. What's wrong, you don't have the money? Asshole!"

CITIZEN WALKER OF TWO DOGS, MALE: "Fuck you."

CSI o'the M, F: (more inaudible harrassment)

CW o'2D, M: "Shut the fuck up! Crack whore! I'm gonna call the police!"

CSI o'the M, F: "You're gonna call a five-oh? I'M a fucking five-oh, motherfucker! Yeah, that's right! I'm a fucking five-oh, and you better get those dogs on a leash!"

Something tells me she wasn't a cop. But remember that the security guards Hekyl and Jekyl are always right up there on the corner, armed and wishing to god something would happen.

Come on over, you'll likely find us there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons and Sofia will be happy to give you a tour and read you the rules. And don't forget to bring two bucks a head for helados.

Pietro and Re-Pete

2005-07-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend we learned the names one of my husband's high school friends has given his brand new identical twin sons. I was a little taken aback at first, but now that I've sat with the news awhile I say props! props! props!

Background: The mom's last name is Italian, for the sake of her privacy we'll say it's Zamboni (it's very close to that.) The Dad's last name is something close to Mulligan. They've given the kids different last names, with first names that are a shout out to each side of the family tree:

"Matteo Zamboni" and "Aidan Mulligan."

Remember, these are identical twins. And Zamboni and Mulligan aren't the middle names, they're the for-the-record respective last names.

Their father is a stand-up comedian and a former segment producer for The Daily Show and their mother is an actress with my all-time favorite show Strangers With Candy to her credit (call me a name dropper, but then remember I'm not actually using their names.) Both of them, as you would expect, are natural born smart-asses and collectively represent my best hope for bringing my lustful preoccupation with Steven Colbert to fruition.

Babies and mom are healthy and doing great, and I guess Dad is too. Although we all keep laughing about the time his arachnaphobia got the best of him during a job interview when he was faced with a tarantula-inhabited terrarium on the desk of the potential employer. He ended up in tears.

So now we're all like, "Hey Paul, you crybaby! Twins, like tarantulas, total eight arms and legs!" Good luck to 'em.

Soliloquy: For Guh

2005-07-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

I think the first word out of Sabra merits a few words from me:

"Guh."

This is Gus:

I would guess it's common for couples to have a child-pet before they try out parenthood on the real thing. In our case, the child is Gus. I refuse to use a term like fur-baby, but raising the topic of Gus usually turns me into that Looney Tunes monster-manchild that used to love on the reluctant Daffy Duck: "I want to hug him and squeeze him and kiss him and love him and comb his hair..."

Gus came to us four years ago, within weeks of our temporary move to Portland, Oregon. We had a big new house and no bossy pet-hating landlord and it was clear that what we needed to make our domesticity complete was a cat. We went to the pound and checked out plenty of cats, but it was a just-for-the-heck-of-it stop in the small animal room that ended in the misty-eyed bliss that comes with love at first sight. He was stuck in there with a bunch of cute but pissy and antisocial chinchillas, and we just had to bring him home.

Gus was litterbox trained even before we met him. He moved right into our kitchen, with his little box under the computer desk, and Michael proceeded with plans to install a cat door nearby. Gus spent most of his days slacking on the deck and making the squirrels nervous before climbing back in through the cat door/Gus door at nightfall to lie under the woodburning stove while we carried out our nightly rituals of three hour dinners and wine drunks. He made the move with us back to San Francisco, where he weathered the brunt of my pregnancy-induced maternal infatuation with his well-being. I made him five salads a day, stuffed him with yogurt chips, bought him wind-up zoo animals and a little yellow matchbox Hummer to toss around the kitchen. I brushed him and clipped his fingernails much more often than was necessary, and he patiently endured.

As my pregnancy progressed and we began thinking about birth plans and labor strategies, I compiled a little photo album of our best Gus pictures that I planned to meditate on when the contractions became too much. As it turned out, when the contractions started I couldn't bear to look at it. Gus, so calm, so quiet, so sweet, so composed... it just seemed wrong to stare at pictures of him while I was writhing, screeching, wheezing.

I worried that little Gus wouldn't get enough lovin' after the new baby came. It's true that he did get much less attention after Sabra moved in, and I'm sure he was relieved. But that only lasted until Sabra was old enough to take notice of him. Now, "Guh! Guh!" is the morning song we hear from her crib at the break of dawn. Getting out of bed means going straight to the kitchen to give Gus his morning salad, and she wouldn't stand for any variation in routine.

Now that she's more mobile I'm having to step in more often to protect Guh from her copious affection, and now that she's more verbal her vocabulary has expanded to include her other favorite things: "(ba)Nana!" "Cat!" (a stuffed one) "Da!" (never the oft-coached Dada) "ClapClap!" and, occasionally, "Mamamamama." But Gus was her first word, and he was her first love. Which just stands to reason, and just reconfirms that Sabra is taking her place in our little family; Gus was our first love, too. Love ya, Gus!

6:15 on a saturday night

2005-07-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

Nothing like it.

Walkin' the floor

2005-07-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

See this hallway here?

If you've seen many San Francisco homes you know that all the old buildings have apartments that are variations on about four standard themes, and the Long-Hallway-Apartment, or "sleeping car apartment" (so-called because all the bedrooms open off that long hall) is a popular one.

Well, I've walked the length of this sleeping car a genuine minimum of 720 times in the last six weeks, bent over in neanderthal stance all the while. That breaks down to 40 times a day, seven days a week in the six weeks since Short-And-Naughty-No-Walk started toddling while holding to one of my fingers. She just won't let go of that finger, even if I've let it go dead-fish limp so that it gives her no support whatsoever. When I shake her loose, she stands confused for a split second before bending over and placing her hands on the floor and breaking into a squall.

The girl is thirteen months old, plus the nine days I always give her to compensate for her arrival a week and a half before her due date, and she's yet again dawdling on the threshold of a major milestone. Don't tell me "she'll walk when she's ready." I know she will. But she's damn lazy, just like her daddy. And hypervigilant just like her mama, "hypervigilance" being one of my defining characteristics according to my current therapist. (Aside--I find this label useful and cite my hypervigilance as an excuse for everything from selective agoraphobia to the refusal to take responsibility for cooking expensive slabs of meat.)

My grandmother, by way of Oklahoma, suggested I find one of those old-fashioned clothespins and subtly use it to replace my forefinger. After she acclimates to walking with the clothespin in hand, I am to let go of the clothespin on the sly allowing her to walk free. Course she'll have one hand in the air, pointlessly waving a clothespin; hearty har-har!

We're fresh out of old-fashioned clothespins, but I led her around on the end of a Sharpie all morning. She's napping now, I plan to try releasing the Sharpie on her this p.m. I'll let you know how it goes.

Red States

2005-06-28T19:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks to CityMama, by way of local blogger ChildbearingHipster, for turning me on to this:

States I've visited:

create your own personalized map of the USA

And here are the very Eurocentric countries:

create your own visited country map

Ain't much, am I? Got to start working on that life-list.

On the other hand, I'm quite proud of this one:

You Are 32% American

America: You don't love it or want to leave it.
But you wouldn't mind giving it an extreme make over.
On the 4th of July, you'll fly a freak flag instead...
And give Uncle Sam a sucker punch!

How American Are You?

Tulsa World

2005-06-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

I try to be fair about Oklahoma when I'm not here, partially because mocking it is just too easy to be considered a respectable demonstration of wit. In fact when the occasion arises I usually try to follow my mother's advice and say something nice in lieu of nothing at all, often describing the state in terms of the musical-- "It's great, people dancing in the streets!"

But invariably Oklahoma does something to disgrace itself, and today, on day one of my tri-annual visit, I was faced with this headline in the area's major newspaper:

"ZOO AGREES TO DISPLAY CREATIONIST VIEWS."

This evidently in response to complaints about a science-based educational exhibit. Fave part of the accompanying article?:

"...those who favored the creationist exhibit, including Mayor Bill LaFortune, argued that the zoo already displayed religious items, including the statue of the Hindu god, Ganesh, outside the elephant exhibit and a marble globe inscribed with an American Indian saying: "The earth is our mother. The sky is our father."

Allow me to paraphrase Rogers and Hammerstein:

"OKLAHOMA!(.....uh,) oooooh-kaaaaay..."

PS to the PB

2005-05-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

Regarding the Photo Booth picture, I had it up on my screen yesterday when I heard Sabra, seated behind me and on the floor, wimpering. After a little investigation I discovered that the photo-booth picture was the source of her displeasure. When I told Michael about this phenom later he had to experiment a few times before we confirmed that photobooth pic has the same effect on her as the coffee grinder, the garbage disposal and her stuffed Taco Bell Dog (repeat in a creepy voice: "I tink I'm in luff.")

Kind of gave me the same genre of insight into baby psyches as the Cloned Santa Claus Nightmare scene in City of Lost Children.

Since then, Michael has frightened her for the entertainment of invited guests as well as an ensemble of his co-workers. Fun times!

Photo Booth

2005-05-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

Check out Sabra in the Rayko photo booth, and keep in mind that she was 11 months old here. Not Five years. I was a little horrified by it at first, but now I'm hoping that the passport photo we're having taken this week has a similar timeless freakishness.

Same time, last year

2005-05-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

Sabra's first birthday was Thursday. I put together a fete at the park that made me the laughing stock of all the second-time moms in my playgroup. But, Sabra had a blast. The look on her face when she realized everyone was not only singing, but singing at her was priceless.
Here are some photos:

Buuuuuuuuuuuuhbble....

Forks! Cups! Straws! Must be a party.

Daniel fisted the cake (see blotch, center rear of confection).

Why do the best pictures of her so often include my mother-in-law?

i-YELL-it!

2005-04-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

Over the course of my own personal recent media blackout (see "screech---halt," below) I missed the fact that Mrs. Michael Chabon appears to have managed to get herself into a mess of pretty much well-deserved trouble.

Schadenfreude! Schadenfreude!

I'm now thanking g-d I didn't name my daughter Ayelet, which placed high on my list of potential names but fortunately tanked on my husband's. A friend also thought highly of Ayelet, but it was eventually demoted to middle name by the "much less likely to be mocked on the playground" (¿?) 'Zilla.' (Love ya Noa and Zilla, should you ever read this.)

I must admit that I was a sort of devotee of her blog, which I discovered while trying to pull up a webpage that contained a scan of the above-mentioned child's very cool birth announcement. I think my initial interest was rooted in the fact that she lives right across the bay, and that she has four kids--who, I learned from her blog, attend the school right next to my former residence in Oakland. How I would love four kids! How wrong it is that I know exactly where a public figure's children attend school! Over the months I watched with some surprise as she divulged very personal information about herself and her family, and revealed herself to be exceedingly neurotic and proudly bi-polar. Plus she posted pictures of her kids, who look nothing like her or Chabon. Why, why would I be interested in looking at pictures of a well respected (talkin' Chabon here, not Waldman) author's kids? It was like a sleazy tabloid tailored to my specific interests.

Speaking of, I knew that she'd dropped her blog in order to take up a writing assignment for salon.com. My subscription to salon had run out and I briefly considered renewing it, but, having grown weary of the parenting forum "for mothers who think" (and what the hell does that imply?) I decided that my fascination with the Chabon-Waldman household didn't merit the monthly stipend required to for rights to peruse a site "for tabloid-readers who think." (Actually, the original subscription wasn't even mine. It was linked to my computer but actually belonged to my ex-roommate Mike who had let it run out after spontaneously marrying a girl he met in a Portland coffee shop, thus curbing his habit of trolling the salon.com "personal ads for people who think.")

Poor Ayelet. The woman is so obviously troubled, and it's playing out in front of an audience of newspaper readers who think. 'course she soooo asked for it. Crazy woman.

Movin' on up...

2005-04-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

For anyone still sick with worry over our loss of the Contour to the San Francisco DPT, take comfort in the fact that we spent our entire $3400 tax refund on a ten year old Saab. It was kind of disheartening, the way the used car salesman kept making digs at us for buying a Saab.

I heart librarians gone to seed...

2005-04-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

As the breastfeeding trails off and the libido creeps back, I now embrace my recurrent crush on Steven Colbert. Our relationship began with a "Hot For Teacher" crush on his Strangers With Candy character, Mr. Noblet, back in the late '90s. So condescending, so cold, so insincere; just like my real highschool teachers. Just like my boyfriends of the epoque.

Interestingly, the dork-crush superimposed onto Ted-the-food-specialist from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy during my pregnancy last year; probably an indication of my complete abhorrance to the very idea of sex--even my fantasy object had to be gay.

M. is very aware of these crushes, and even finds them endearing. One might ask why. I think the answer is that they indeed confirm that I really, truly am attracted to dorks. It's not difficult to see the resemblance among my husband, Ted the Food Consultant and Steven Colbert. Maybe he justifies that my obsession is in his best self-interest, the same way that I rationalize his interest in "barely eighteen" porn to benefit my concern with my less than impressive chest size.

You know you live in the city when...

2005-03-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

all of your dryer lint is black.

My mother-in-law, having bought me $200 in scrapbooking supplies for "Solstice," (worthy of another blog altogether; and no, I don't scrapbook) signed the two of us up for a paper-making class.

Yes, the woman has actually met me. There's no explanation.

I was instructed to save my dryer lint, as it evidently is ideal for pressing into paper and can be easily dyed into pastel hues fit for Easter/Eastre, to celebrate the festival of the fertility goddess.

Unless all your dryer lint is black.

Screech-halt!

2005-03-15T10:07:00.000-08:00

So, I started a blog this year as a sort of New Year's resolution-qua-therapy assignment. Actually, the therapy assignment required a "journal," but having failed at dozens of other journal projects I decided to try a variation. It took a mere five weeks to stall. My excuses: an inspiration-stifling to visit the folks, a cross-town move, Michael's expanded schedule surrounding the Rayko opening, and a few new exhausting but redeemingly cathartic social obligations.

Not only did I give up blogging for six weeks, but I also neglected the few blogs I do read regularly. Meanwhile, two of my primary inspirations for taking up the clavier laid their blogs to rest; may I offer a melancholy farewell to Ayelet Waldman, Bad-Mother and fellow Tulsanne Sarah Brown of Que Sera Sera. (postscript: False alarm! QSS is alive and well!)

Grandma's House

2005-02-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

Our current trip to Oklahoma calls to mind a poignant poem I remember reading in the Letters To The Editor section of Thrasher magazine, circa 1985. It was penned by a 14-year-old skateboarder:

Grandpa's House

Posers, posers everywhere
And not a place to shred
If this vacation doesn't end soon
I might as well be dead.

Slow ride, take it easy

2005-01-28T19:02:00.000-08:00

Cars are a liability in San Francisco. Adage reconfirmed this week when our '98 Ford Contour was totaled out Wednesday-- by parking tickets.

That's a little more than $900 in parking tickets culminated by a $250 tow. Scoff-laws that we are, we always had better things to do with our 35 bucks than offer it up to the DPT, and considering that we were ticketed nearly weekly, and again considering that 35 dollars a week is a bottle of cheap wine a night... well, you get an idea of our priorities.

We're not into cars and we're not into microwaves. Both take up space and are seldom used. My mother has, however, given me a minimum of four microwaves over the years-- always when she found my kitchen piteously lacking one during a visit. By the same token, people generously give us cars. They see us driving decades-old clunkers, it pains them. Example: Shortly before our return to SF, Michael's brother gifted him "The Dog Truck," so named because my brother-in-law used it to haul doggie playgroups around Oakland for his dog walking business. We were moving, it could haul, so we gladly accepted it. No longer good enough for Jeff's clients' dogs, it was good enough for us until it was totaled back in November under the sad circumstance of a pricey clutch job.

We were just taking a few deep-cleansing breaths at having The Dog Truck off our backs when Michael's employer offered him The Rayko Truck. This truck had, in fact, been donated to Rayko by the sculptor Jack Soman, well known for (among various and sundry other distinctions) creating an ArtCar every year for the Bolinas, California "How Bolinas Can You Be?" 4th of July parade. Given that one of Jack's masterpieces was made up of many hundreds of stainless steel scales I was afraid of what to expect, but as it turns out the Rayko Truck is a dignified plain black. Only the "War is Stupid" slogan soddered into the back bumper and Jack's signature superchicken hood ornament indicate its origins.

The Contour was the last of numerous former company cars passed down to me by my parents' business. They were traditionally given upon my destitute return from an extended seat-of-my-pants stint outside the country and driven up and down the entire stretch of I-40 until they gave up an exhausted ghost. The Contour had logged more than 200,000 miles in her seven-year life, and had recently begun flashing a red "check-engine" light in protest when the DPT came for her and held her for ransom. Little did they know that her greatest value to us was in the "urban cred" Michael gleefully calculated we stood to gain by having a car totaled out in parking violations.

And that leaves two adults, an infant and a carseat in a filthy king-cab truck with a chicken on the hood...but hey, my mother is coming out to visit in a few weeks. At least we have a new microwave to look forward to.

New Family Photo

2005-01-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

Poprocks
Originally uploaded by llamaschool.

This one was taken last weekend on our trip to lovely Los Angeles. More specifically, it was taken at the Sheraton in San Pedro where we stayed friday night along with about 500 Texans leaving on a Princess Cruise the next morning.

Michael has Pop Rocks on his tongue.

Natoma Street

2005-01-19T19:34:00.000-08:00

For those trying to keep up, we're moving again. This time to a two bedroom, on infamous Natoma Street as immortalized in the final chapter of J.T. Leroy's The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. It's closer to Rayko, so we may be seeing either more or less of Michael.

Oh, and the nabe is a bit more, uh, urban than the Inner Sunset, where we've been posing since we moved back to the city last year. So if your vacation plans include us, consider yourselves forewarned.

Le Plaie-Groupe

2005-01-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

Before attending Sabra's playgroup for the first time, I was more apprehensive about the other mothers than the kids. Mothers are snarky, defensive, competitive, self-righteous. Babies aren't difficult to like, and I could surely forgive a toddler a few negative character traits, right?

Well, as it turns out the other mothers are very cool. Much cooler than I, sadly. But the kids! Oh, my. In fact, thank god for Les Mamans because even under our vigil the whole thing threatens to degenerate into The Lord of the Flies.

For those unaware, Le Plaie-Groupe is attended by francophone mothers and their sub-verbal but hopefully soon-to-be bilingual toddlers, ages 8 months to 16 months. (Those further unaware should note that the "Plaie" in "Plaie-Groupe" is French for "bandage" as in one needed for a puncture wound, head wound, sucking chest wound...) They pass around maladies like a chapter out of La Peste, and every toy becomes an object of territorial dispute worthy of the Franco-Prussian war.

Yes, the kids are probably too young; but with languages you're supposed to start early. At this point, the few that can say anything at all in French or English are limited to a variation of "uh-Maaaaah!"--always an exclamation and meaning variously "MAMAN," "A MOI" (French for "mine!") or one of the repertoire of animal sounds. Comment fait une vache? "uh-Maaaaah!" Et un chaton? "uh-Maaaaah!"

One of the little crapulets gave Sabra her first-ever snotty nose this week. At least it wasn't a bloody nose, or another of the facial scratches she's come home with every other week. The big girls, Charlotte and the two Isabelles, clomp around like pieces of heavy machinery. The boys, Auden and Daniel, are quite meek by comparison but when pressed can also slap, pinch, and bite. But Sabra is awestruck by "les grands." Think along the lines of those teenage girls you've seen in the audience footage of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show-- staring wide-eyed, clapping ...shrieking, sobbing.

Bad Mother! (dodges rolled newspaper) BAD! BAD!

2005-01-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

In our defense, we really don't watch a lot of television. We were given a free month of NetFlicks two years ago and still haven't used it. But we're not above flipping on the Baby Neptune DVD we received as a shower gift (thanks, Adrienne) when an emergency arises-- like an important telephone call that would be undermined by a background soundtrack of high-pitched babyese. It has a semi-permanent place in the DVD player, ready to jump in for us in a pinch.

Such an occasion arose this morning. I plopped Sabra in the middle of our bed, surrounded her with pillows, activated Baby Einstein and left the room phone in hand. I even stuck my head in the door to check on her a few minutes later. She glanced at me, expressionless, then back at the TV screen.

I came back into the room later to find that she'd watched about 20 minutes of Resnais' Night and Fog, a very graphic holocaust documentary that we'd been watching the night before.

I just hope that in 35 years her therapist is not into regressive hypnosis.

Cuddlefish

2005-01-10T18:41:00.000-08:00

After I'd passed the pet store fish anecdote around, Michael and his mom organized a trip to Steinhart Acquarium yesterday. Michael has wanted to go for awhile; I'd listened more than once to his musings about what must have been involved in moving all those fish (snakes, bugs, penguins...) across town from GG Park to their new home next door to Boca di Beppo. Who got to drive the trucks? And how does one go about applying for that job?

Resigned to Resolutions

2005-01-04T11:00:00.000-08:00

Having allowed room for failure by procrastinating until the 4th (midweek), Sabra and I now commence the carrying out of my one and only New Year's Resolution:

Leave the house at least 3 days a week. No excuses.
Addendum: Errands and conventional daily trips to the park don't count.

Assuming that a pre-meditated, well-scheduled extra-curricular activity would be more likely to anchor my resolution with a sense of responsibility, I did spend some time in December looking at options. Anyone who knows me knows I've decided against baby yoga. But the excuse may surprise you: Based on recent experience with teething, I believe that even if Gus didn't end up chewing up the yoga mat, Sabra would. And I've assured myself that jogging strollers are surely dangerous. The waitlist at La Piccola Scuola Italiana is too long. Sabra's new shrieking-banshee tic rules out library storytime. The reelmoms.com website is too difficult to decifer. I can't justify giving more money to Gymboree for classes considering my susceptability to their shameless merchandising and goofy clothes. So I arrive at week one with nothing in place except enough rope to hang myself.

Yesterday we stopped by the pet store to pick up some Gus supplies, and Sabra flipped out in front of the fish tanks. She was particularly excited by a fight we witnessed among 3 South American Parrot Fish. So we're going back to the pet store today, but just for fun this time--so it counts! And again tomorrow and the next day, if I can't think of anything better to do.

99 things...

2005-01-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

I started this blog in January 2005 without much in the way of explanation. I didn't actually publish it for six months. In retrospect, I wonder if a little personal background might be helpful to the reader, and I offer what seems to be the requisite "## things about me" blog entry. I'm pre-dating this post to the beginning of my blog, it was actually published July 10, 2005. Here y'are:

Three things about this blog you should know: The only computer I have access to is a huge-screened Mac; this may be the explanation if my blog looks like crap on your PC (but please let me know anyway, and I’ll try to tweak it.) I often finish a post days or weeks after it was begun, and the post date may reflect either. If I link to your blog don't feel I expect you to link to mine.

Three screen names I've had: Narcissa (the defunct HipMama boards); Llamaschool (Craigslist); kimchilla.

Three things I like about myself: I’m shy, but then I shock new acquaintances by being blunt and smart-assed. I can hold a grudge forever, don’t even try me. I am a good enough mother.

Three things I don't like about myself: I pick the hairs out of my legs with tweezers as a compulsive tic, so they look like I have the plague. I sublimate my anger at the world onto my husband. My bedroom is and has always been a mess.

Three parts of my heritage: French, assorted Anglo Saxon, Native American; or, as they proudly still say in Oklahoma, “Indian.” My CDIB card says I’m 1/8 Cherokee, but there’s some Creek in here too.

Three things that scare me: Talking to salespeople. Talking to the bank teller. Unexpected phone calls.

Three of my everyday essentials: A bath--ALONE. A nap. Cheap wine.

Three things I am wearing right now: Capris from Target that I dyed because I didn’t like the color. A cuffed T-shirt I stole from my brother. Expensive shoes.

Three things I want to do badly right now:
Eat Petits Ecoliers and from Trader Joe's and drink grapefruit soda; Read a book while eating Petits Ecoliers and drinking grapefruit soda; Hear no whining for cookies or cheese while eating Petits Ecoliers and drinking grapefruit soda.

Three of my favorite songs: (varies daily; today): Papa Was A Rodeo (The Magnetic Fields); Too Much Pork For Just One Fork (Southern Culture On the Skids); Big River (Johnny Cash)

Things I want in a relationship: Big dorky glasses. Three kids. A mother-in-law with a house in France.

Two truths and a lie: Two of my toes are webbed. I smuggled a rabbit out of Guatemala in my pants. I think 100% of NPR’s programming is just great, it’s not pretentious at all.

Three places I want to go on vacation: France, always. And Brazil, and India.

Three places I’ve lived that I loved: Paris; San Francisco; Quintana Roo, Mexico

Three places I’ve lived that I hated: Portland, Oregon and Clermont-Ferrand, France; no offense to the locals—the people were great, the weather sucked. And McMinnville, Tennessee; the weather was fine, the people sucked.

Three places I’m embarrassed to have never visited: New York, Washington DC, Israel.

Three celeb crushes: Steven Colbert. Ted from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Mo Rocca.

Three brushes with fame: My ex-boyfriend once pissed on Jacques Derrida's shoe; there are witnesses. One of the individuals on my celebrity crushes list once hit on my husband IRL. It wasn't Ted. In 11th grade I dreamed the current Elite Supermodel (1986) Renee Simonsen, who was at the time living with Duran Duran's John Taylor, stabbed me to death in a jealous rage. Six years later my BFF from high school met her in Denmark and told her, and they called me (drunk) to laugh about it.

Three people I’d like to cuff on the back of the head: George Walker Bush. William Jefferson Clinton. George Herbert Walker Bush.

Three people I admire: Hillary Clinton, I don't care what you say. My brother John, who tells it like it is. My paternal grandmother, who didn't kill herself as planned after she outlived the 3rd of her three children.

Three things I just can't do: Two-Step. Roll my Rs. Roll up the sides of my tongue.

Three kids' names, female, that I thought about using but didn't: Narcissa, Lilith, Salome

Three kids names, male, that I thought about using but didn't because I didn’t have any boys: Felix, Max, Lex. Don’t know what it is with x names. And no, it has nothing to do with secks.

Three things I didn’t think I’d do as a mother that I do regularly: She sucks a Nuk-Nuk at night. She watches Les Teletubbies. I give her cookies so she’ll shut up and leave me alone.

Three things I regret: I slept with a professor in graduate school. I dropped out of the program with a 4.0 and one class to go when he started making my life miserable. I never resumed my education.

Three habits I’d like to drop: The leg picking (see above). Saying “cotton pickin’,” as I grew up in Oklahoma and honestly never knew it could be considered a racial slur. I drink Diet coke on the sly.

Three accomplishments I’m smug about: My French is excellent. I play classical guitar, and my Leyenda rocks for an amateur. My baby is the very cutest.

Three jobs I’ve held: French/English Instructor, Nurse’s Aide in a home for the elderly, academic grant management

Three ways I am stereotypically a boy: I don't take criticism well; If I bathe every day that's enough of a grooming routine, hair fixin' and make-up application aren't going to happen; I want a big ol' pleaser.

Three ways I am stereotypically a girl: I usually wear skirts; I'm a crybaby; I want a big ol' pleaser.

Three very personal things I wouldn't tell you if I met you IRL: When I lived in Portland I suffered from seasonal depression so badly that I used to drive out to the suburbs to tan in a tanning bed at a tacky salon, just to experience the warmth and bright light. I drink Diet Coke to wake myself up in the morning, then force myself to vomit it up; I don't display any other signs of bulimia. I don't like anal sex, I don't care how trendy it is.

Three things I want to do before I die: Apologize to a crapload of people. See my grandchildren. Learn to cook.