Sophie's Choice

I'm not a psychologist or anything - but I'm thinking that Sophie's choice of chew toys is a symbolic backlash against our male-dominated society that subjugates and sexualizes females (apparently of all species).


(This is an athletic cup, in case you didn't know.)

"Run, Brody, Run"

BRODY: "Mom, can we go to church today?"


ME: "No."


BRODY: "Why not?"


ME: "We just don't do that kind of thing, honey."


BRODY: "But mom, all of my friends do it."


ME: "If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? Now stop whining and go play some more video games, or you're grounded."


Our Christian neighbor offered to take Brody with them to church last Sunday in an attempt to save one of the Lord's lost lambs. Great, I thought. One experiment with organized religion would definitely break him of this nonsense.



I waited for him to come home.


ME: "How was church, Brody?"


BRODY: "Good."


ME: "What did they talk about? The Bible? Sinners? Reverand Sun Yun Moon? Taking
the Lord's name in vain?"



BRODY: "No." (Whew!) Just stuff about encouragement."



ME: "Those bastards!"



If I didn't know better, I'd think they were trying to brainwash our children like that damn Obama did when he spoke to the schools. They must be stopped!



Does anyone know a good cult deprogrammer?

I Dreamed a Dream

I dreamed a dream that everyone who has now been introduced to Les Miserable through Susan Boyle could see the song being sung by a professional.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pScod6sfNpw

How To Make a Rapper

Luckily for Charmaine, my son knows how to beat-box!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHwjL-tgPf8

Poop vs. Vomit - That is the Question

My sister and I believe we possess superior intellect. Our brains have a constant need for challenge which is not satiated by conversations with normal people.


And since our friends and family are mostly "normal" (and I use that term loosely), we find we must save discussions of the most intellectually-challenging imponderables between us.

For example: Why did our father marry our mother?

Why are there Republicans?

Why don't any of my kids look related even though I know, for a fact, they
all have the same father (despite a few suggestions to the contrary
from the in-laws)?

Is there any man hotter than Keith Urban?
(Ok, so we don't discuss that. I just happen to think it's true.)

Today's topic, (drumroll please), What is a better indicator of love - poop or vomit? (We can thank OneMoreMom's blog for inspiring this topic today.)

The argument for poop:

From the day you have babies, and every day thereafter for many years, you are cleaning up poop. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it looks like marbles. Sometimes it's never-ending diarrhea blowing out of a diaper in every direction all over you, clothes, carpet, etc. But you clean it and their bottom's up, because you love them. A lot!

The argument for vomit:

From the day you have babies, and almost every day thereafter(although decreasing in frequency), you are cleaning up vomit. At first it's mainly spit-up (which is really funny when someone offers to hold the baby after you fed him and they don't first get a towel). Then, when associated with a stomach bug or the flu, it becomes a projectile known to fly many more feet than one would think. And they vomit on you, your bed, your carpet, etc. Vomit has been known to produce the gag reflex more often than poop, but you clean it up, because you love them. A lot!


We're pretty much equal at this point.


The argument against poop:


From the day you meet your significant other, and every day thereafter, you are totally disgusted with their poop, as well as, the odor that lingers in the bathroom. You find yourself screaming at your significant other every time they pass gas outside of the bathroom, particularly when confined in a moving vehicle, and you find yourself wondering how you can jump across the car, open the door, and throw them out.


The argument against vomit:



From the day you meet your significant other, and every day thereafter, you are totally disgusted when you overhear them vomiting in the bathroom. Although you are a little more sympathetic. I mean, they are sick. You still find yourself (silently, of course) wishing they would close the freaking bathroom door.


In conclusion, when it comes to kids, you love them despite their proclivity to poop and vomit. When it comes to spouses, you hate both, but you're a little less judgmental about the vomit, and if you didn't love them, you'd bail.


So, I conclude that vomit is a better indicator of love. What do you think?



Tomorrow's Topic: Why won't Charmaine look for a job?

My Best Friend is a Bitch!

This is Sophia.

Ok, Sophie.

I wanted to name her Maggie, but apparently she was attached to the name that she had been given at birth and the year that followed thereafter (that bitch)!

She's a Goldendoodle (golden retriever/poodle mix). We got her from the Golden Retriever Rescue Shelter. Apparently, the owner was being treated for lung cancer and couldn't take care of her anymore. The Rescue people said they could hear the owner's 10-year old son crying in the background as they took Sophie away.

Bummer for him!

Baseball Slideshow Hell

I spent every fricking one of Brody's baseball games taking pictures on the sidelines, in the dugout, through the fence, etc. I was even hit in the ribs by a baseball that the 1st baseman failed to catch. That hurts!

My thinking was that since none of the other parents had a good camera like mine, they all might appreciate photos of their kids. Better yet, how about a slideshow dvd for all of the kids?

So day after day, game after game, I took pictures. Literally, thousands of pictures. Then I painstakingly categorized pictures by child, by action shot or candid, by batting, sliding, etc. (you get the point) then compiled the best of the best accompanied by appropriate music with certain photos matching up with certain lyrics.

In other words, I have been obsessed!

Just as I am coming to an end of this excruciating process, I learn that the team is dissolving (that's a story in and of itself).

But here's a very small clip of the DVD that almost sent me to my grave.

Vocabullyishness (Re-post)

Don't feel bad if you don't know the meaning of vocabullyishness. I'd tell you to look it up, but you won't find it there. Why not? Because I coined it.

Ya see, I'm sitting at work catching up on Maureen Dowd's columns in the New York Times, when to my great vexation, I stumbled upon an unfamiliar item in the lexicon - solipsism. I moved on to her next column, and there it was again, solipsism.

What is the meaning of this curious word, I pondered, that it would be felicitous in two sequential columns? Extreme egocentrism. No, I'm not talking about my mother right now. It's the definition.

Do you ever discern that some writers take pleasure in bestowing words they cognize no one will comprehend? To the ambit of being loquacious? Me too. I deem this praxis to be an impudent essay to cause us sycophants to feel middling.

In other words - vocabullyishness.

"Santa Isn't Black"!

(This is a re-post. I have writer's block!)

When's the last time you heard THAT at a Christmas party?

I heard it last night. Uttered by a 7-year old girl, embroiled in an argument with, you guessed it, a black Santa. Santa tried, in vain, to explain to her (over the raucous laughter) that there were, in fact, black Santas. "Just go out to East Denver".

She wasn't buying it.

I can't really say I blame her. I had to convince black Santa himself (as I was delivering my Santa suit a few days earlier) that there ARE black Santas. As proof, I showed him my Christmas ornament of a black Santa sitting at a piano.

He didn't buy it either.

Of course, until recently, no one thought that there would be a black President in the near future either. Which would lead one to think that times are changing, right? But change is slow, and racists never change their spots. (They just blot on a little concealer). But every woman knows that concealer doesn't work for very long.

I discovered a heavily "made-up" man at Friday night's Christmas party (which had no black Santas). We were having an interesting conversation about the First Amendment. Some of you might think that those are mutually-exclusive terms, but they're really not. (Previous readers will remember that I took a class in First Amendment Law taught by Archibald Cox).

Anyhoo, there was a small hullabaloo a while ago when a kid wore a t-shirt to school that said something about Obama being friends with terrorists. The school decided that the t-shirt was disruptive. They gave the kid the option to turn the shirt inside out, change, or be suspended. He chose to be suspended.

His father immediately alleged this was a violation of the First Amendment. So this guy at the party brings this up with a very strong belief that the First Amendment was, indeed, violated.

As someone who took First Amendment Law from the man who argued more First Amendment cases before the US Supreme Court than anyone else, and who had the most impact on how the First Amendment continues to be interpreted to this day, I explained to this man that kids in school do not enjoy the same First Amendment rights that the rest of us do.

This man was so annoyed that I felt I had to explain that this wasn't my idea. It's just the law. For a moment, I thought I had a real card-carrying member of the ACLU in my midst. But later, as he dismissed the notion of respecting others' religions, I realized that he was just another bigot.

I bet he would be surprised to know that Santa is black. (And God is a woman! )