Our Larry David Moment at the Animal Shelter

It’s no secret that I would rather not have a pet. It’s not that I don’t like animals, but I like my house to be clean and I don’t like to have to clean it – just not do-able in a house with children and adding pets doesn’t seem like it will be a big help. Still periodically my husband and I have the big talk.

“Honey, I feel like we’re really bad parents because we don’t have a pet,” I say.

My husband says, “me too."

Then he goes on to say, he wouldn’t mind getting a dog and I say that’s the worst possible pet I can think of (aside from rodents or birds or reptiles or fish) and I suggest a cat and my husband says no he’s not that crazy about cats anymore. Then one day he saw a cat video and sighed, “Cats are so cool.”

“I know,” I said, “Did you change your mind?”

And he said yes. So we discussed at length how we would practically remodel our house so the cat would have a good space, be able to get fresh air when he wants, have a litter box somewhere that wouldn’t make me hate him and so on. My husband overhauled the garage, we discussed all the things we’d need to buy at the store, etcetera. We were excited – we had a cat before we had kids and we loved her so much that once when we spent a weekend in San Diego we left her a message on the answering machine – in case she was lonely.

We took the kids to a no-kill shelter and as we were walking around looking at the (literally) hundreds of cats living in cages there, out of the blue and apropos of nothing J announced loudly, “Our cat used to scratch us so she had to die.”

My husband and I looked at each other with raised eye brows first wondering what the hell he was talking about and also trying to hold in our laughter.

From that moment on a large older woman in Birkenstocks wearing cat broaches and cat earrings and cat bobby-pins began following us around and finally said (essentially) we are simply not good enough people to rescue a homeless cat who is otherwise destined to live out his miserable existence in a small cage – perhaps we might consider a goldfish.

Which I suppose is just as well – I do have enough daily messes to clean up here, but still.

In the car on the way home we said, “J, Deja didn’t die. She went to live with another family.”

”Oh,” he shrugged. “I didn’t remember.”

“Too bad,” I said so only my husband could hear, “because now you’ll never adopt a cat in this town again.”

And we laughed and laughed. Yes – at our kid’s expense. We know. No wonder people think we’re not fit for pet ownership.

On a positive note, we are still pet-free and it’s not entirely my fault so I’m feeling really good about myself as a mom and at peace with the universe. I mean, I tried, right?

A Mothers Day Medley - With Attitude

If you're sick of hearing about Hillary, I promise it's only two little paragraphs and I'll make it worth your while to suffer through them. Trust me!

On Saturday I took my kids to a Hillary Clinton rally. She's not going to win Oregon, but I wanted to let her know that some of us wish she would. After five minutes or so of listening to Sophie Hawkins tell us the story of how she's met Bill, Hillary and Chelsea and how great she thinks they all are J said, "When are we leaving?"

So I had to shamelessly bribe them with a trip to Slutbucks (what the hell is wrong with some people?) if they would just be patient and clap for Hillary with Mama. It was a kid friendly event though and they left with flags and kazoos, headbands and tattoos -- but clearly they aren't as passionate about the issues as I am.

Cute though, right?

Okay, I'm done with Hillary, now on to my favorite subject -- me! I'm taking a very interesting class this term and I wanted to share this marvelous and hilarious essay called, "You Are an Awful Parent." It originally appeared in The Sun Magazine, but isn't available there online. Oh and so you can sympathize, my assignment is to pick a broad topic and write about it in a similar manner. Wish me luck.

Last but not least, here's a quote about motherhood that sums up my experience and feelings on the matter perfectly - and definitely more succinctly than I ever could:

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own." -- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons

Amen sisters. Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, godmothers, just-like-mothers, future mothers and anyone else I left out.

Vote For Hillary Unless You Hate White Women

Old news I know, but while I was internet surfing recently I came upon some comments about Gloria Steinem’s January New York Times Op-Ed. Apparently a lot of young women are disturbed that Gloria seemingly implied that if young women really “got” what is at stake here they would all support Clinton over Obama. And then I read the craziest opinion (I won’t even link to it it’s so crazy) that Oprah has betrayed the white women who have made her rich and famous by supporting Obama. Finally, I read that a great deal of older women, even republicans, are voting for Clinton because they “want to see a woman president” before they die.

Is it me or has everybody gone insane?

I don’t support Clinton because she’s a woman or because she’s white. Neither my self-esteem nor my belief that women are capable of governing hinges upon seeing a woman in the White House this year. I wore one of those t-shirts as a young girl in the seventies that said, “Anything Boys Can Do, I Can Do Better.” I have forgiven my single working mother for all the times I felt like she put her work before me because I now understand how her dedication paved the way to make it so I don’t have to be as extreme when trying to balance work and child-rearing (though we have a long way to go) - not to mention that I now get how much work it is just to keep a roof over your kid's head all by yourself. I had a father who told me in junior high school not to worry so much about my grades in English and to instead focus on Math and Science because as he said, “you can always get a secretary to write things for you.”

In other words, I don’t blame my general lack of achievement in the world to any sort of oppression or feelings of inadequacy due to having been born without a penis. So I understand where young women are coming from when they wonder what the hell Gloria Steinem is talking about. And at the same time, I totally get what Gloria Steinem is talking about. Ironically, though, if I weren’t a mother, I might not. Young women today don’t have much to complain about in terms of equal opportunity to education and employment. But parenthood changes everything – at least for a while. Even though work places are more flexible and men are more helpful than they were thirty years ago, it is damn hard to simultaneously achieve professionally and take the time required to mother children.

This is not fair, but as I’ve written here numerous times I don’t think of it as only a social construct that can be overcome by convincing dads that it’s okay to wear the Baby Bjorn. As a stay-at-home mom I often felt like I was fading into nothingness here all day being a servant to the never-ending needs of my babies. But as a working mother, I usually feel even worse than that. I feel like I have to miss them when I’m gone, like I have so much work to do to make sure they’re clean and fed and educated and rested when I’m here that I don’t have enough time to enjoy them. And while I need to have a life outside of them I always want to be the one who gets to answer the important questions.

Like the other day J said, “Mama, I want a fur coat.” (We’ve been reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in which there are fur coats.)

PETA sympathizer that I (not really so much) am, I explained that it’s cruel to wear fur coats because we don’t actually need to kill an innocent animal to keep our bodies warm and also that the animals are not treated well while they are alive. He said, “Well, I just mean we should go to the store and buy one, then we didn’t really kill any animals.”

And I had the opportunity to explain that when we reward someone else with money for killing an animal for us, it’s just as bad as if we’d killed the animal ourselves. I am grateful that I was here to answer that, because who knows what the nanny would have said about it.

This is why I support organizations like Moms Rising because raising children comes with its rewards and joys, but the combination of biology with the way our society is designed it is oppressive. But it’s tricky to address because there are so many systemic and personal issues at work there. What mothers really need is a grassroots movement to add more hours to the day – any volunteers?

But wait, I think I was planning to make a point here, oh yeah, about Clinton. I don’t think everyone (or even every woman) has to support Clinton, but I really don’t understand why they don’t. There is not a single politician in the history of U.S. politics who has taken such a relentless and vicious public beating year after year after year. And every day she gets up, holds her head high and works for her constituents. (Yes, I do agree that her Rocky Balboa imagery has been exploited to absurdity lately, but that's politics.)

She seems to understand the difficulty in being a good mother while achieving professional success. She’s not “radical” for sure, but her Senate voting record is reasonably impressive barring the initial vote for the war. Her resilience, tenacity and dedication are unmatched. And she may not have a penis but she has some serious cajones. Not only that but she has a sound economic plan that could actually be implemented. I’m baffled by anyone who doesn’t admire her.

What’s more, if Barack Obama wins the nomination, he is going to be chewed up and spit out so fast, and we’re going to have another four years of “see how much progress we’re making in Iraq” republican propaganda.

Finally, I want to thank Hillary because she sent me a free bumper sticker the other day, and all I had to do was write a short note in support of democracy. You can do it too. If not for Hillary, do it for America – where everyone’s voice matters.

Don’t give up Hillary!

Why Democrats Should Nominate Hillary Clinton

All along I’ve said that Hillary Clinton will have a much better shot in the general election than Barack Obama, and I’m surprised by the number of people who claim to disagree with me. I’ve read some opinions that indicate people think race is easier to overcome as an “issue” than gender, but I don’t think Obama’s problem is that he’s biracial (or even that he has an Arabic middle name). For instance, if Colin Powell were running for president I’d say he might have a shot. It’s Obama’s politics that are going to be difficult to sell to the general public when the competition expands beyond average Democrats and extreme-left-leaning Democrats.

I asked two registered Republicans who they think will be the easiest candidate for McCain to beat, and they both said Obama. I know that doesn’t constitute a study (though it often suffices for the sake of Internet squabbles), but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Still, my reasons for thinking Clinton has a better chance against McCain aren’t anecdotal in nature. Obama doesn’t have any ammunition with which to spin his progressive ideas into something that will look more similar to McCain’s. Politics is a game of appealing to the masses – and Clinton is going to be much better positioned to pull that off in the end.

You can read the rest of my opinion here. Be sure to read all the comments, especially if you weren't already aware that I'm an idiot -- you never know when that kind of knowledge could come in handy.

Of Course My Kid's a Genius -- Isn't Everyone's?

My kids got a Wii for Christmas. My husband came to me shortly after we got it, semi-distraught, and said, “J can beat me at every game – and he doesn’t even have to work very hard to do it!”

“Oh good,” I said, “I’ve been wondering what he’s going to write on his Harvard application someday and now we have something – ‘I could beat my dad at Wii Bowling from the age of 6’ – I’m sure that’s impressive to someone.”

But then one day I was looking at J’s school work and there was a picture that had been drawn with a pencil and then painted over. I said, “Oh wow, you made this?”

“Well, actually Mama, I just painted it,” he said. “Salvador Dali drew all those lines.”

"Really? Well isn't that cool," I said.

Then I found another picture J drew and I swear it’s a John Lennon lithograph, right?

And last night at the dinner table, J announced, apropos of nothing, “Fruit is a suitcase for seeds.”

My husband looked at me in disbelief. “Slightly clunky, but that’s a well-formed metaphor for a 6-year-old!”

“I know – it’s brilliant,” I said.

But then we got hold of ourselves at Target when we were quietly making fun of two people we overheard talking about their kid. The husband wanted to buy a board game. The wife said, “I don’t know – he doesn’t really understand how to play the game yet, he just messes around with the pieces.”

And the husband exclaimed, “I know! That’s because he thinks outside the box!”

Admittedly it’s not just other parents who remind us that our kids are ingenious to us, but perhaps not so much, objectively speaking. The other day I overheard this conversation:

J: There is no Sandbag character.
Little One: Yeah, he’s in Spiderman 5.
J: There is no Spiderman 5
Little One: Yeah there is.
J: No there isn’t. You’re trying to trick me. You can’t trick me! You have to get up pretty late at night to trick me!

So he’s still a first grader, I suppose, however much in awe his dad and I are of him. Still, we’re not that worried about his ability to get into Harvard someday. I mean, how many applications could they possibly get from people who can channel Salvador Dali? And besides, there’s always Yale.

That's Why Democrats Can't Win an Election

"As a hopeful Democrat, I’m so disappointed in Barack Obama’s recent stereotyping of working class, religious, rural, and small town people. In the small Midwestern town where I grew up, there are doctors, teachers, farmers, business owners, and lawyers. There are rich people and poor people, smart people and dumb people – pretty much like the west coast city I live in now, only with fewer places to hang out on a Saturday afternoon. I suppose that Obama shouldn’t be expected to know first hand what shapes the values of ordinary Americans, but even George Bush, who had the most pampered and privileged upper class upbringing possible, has a better intuitive grasp of it (or at least his speech writers and advisors do – maybe Obama could borrow one). "

You can read the rest of my opinion here.

Oh and sorry for editing this post a day later, but I almost forgot I had this in my e-mail and I don't want to let another several days go by without sharing it. Check out these amazing stories here and then follow this widget to donate. Girls rule!

No wait -- one more time because I'm evidently not smarter than the average widget. Click here to donate -- below is just half of what the widget might look like if I could figure out how to download it -- at least I can be informative if nothing else, right?

So That's Where All the Good Men Go

Apropos of nothing to do with the topic of this blog:

Recently I was talking to my mother about a couple of her single friends. They are fifty-ish, physically fit, cute, fun, employed. Not frumpy old hags like me, nothing wrong with them at all. I said, “It’s been ages since either of them has had a boyfriend, what’s up with that?”

And my mother said, “Oh, there aren’t any men our age to date.”

“Well, how can that be?” I asked. I mean the population is about 50/50, right? So for every single woman there must be a single man somewhere, no? The two women I was contemplating each have an ex-husband out there (one of them has something like three ex-husbands, in fact). So how can the numbers be so skewed?

“Oh no,” my mother said. “They’re all married or they want a twenty-five year old girlfriend.”

Now, as a matter of course, my mother and I don’t share the same worldview, so I just dismissed her and then I was talking with a co-worker about a client of our’s. “Staci,” he said, “I’m sure this guy’s recently divorced, because he’s forty-eight, he’s not married and he’s not gay.”

“Well, maybe he’s just never married,” I countered.

“Listen,” he said, “I was between marriages in my forties, and I’m telling you, if you’re in your forties, you shower and you have a job, you can’t stay single for very long – you can have any woman you want. You don’t have to be smart or good looking or rich – over forty, clean and employed, that’s it.”

“Well,” I shrugged, “We’ve only met him on the telephone – maybe he doesn’t shower.”

Still confused I consulted my husband on the matter and he said that a middle aged (man) friend of his had told him the same thing several years ago. He told my husband that even as you feel like you’re getting older and balder and fatter, etcetera, it gets easier and easier to get girls.

What IS the deal with that I've been wondering - perhaps obsessing - and now Slate has given me a possible answer to ponder. And it has a link to this wickedly brilliant piece by Lori Gottlieb. After reading it I've decided to refrain from asking my husband what is so difficult about picking up the bathmat and draping it back over the tub after the kids are done bathing. Well - for today at least.

Anyone Know Where to Find a Toy God?

I have mentioned here on several occasions that I’m Catholic but if you hung out with me in real life you probably wouldn’t know that unless you asked. I have been pretty careful and pretty selective with what I’ve taught my kids about religion. Spirituality is of the most profound importance to me and when it’s dumbed down in order to teach children a list of things they should and should not do, it’s reduced to something inane and even dangerous in my opinion. (And hello, you don’t have to look very far to find many adults who never outgrew the inane interpretation and the scam artists who take advantage of them.)

So I have a Bible for my kids. I have books about saints. I say prayers with them sometimes and I answer their questions as they come up without trying to speak to them on their level necessarily. Often they give me a blank look, but I figure when they’re ready, they’ll make the connection. I don’t want them to think of God as some sort of policeman waiting for them to screw up when they do something wrong, so I don’t say, “you shouldn’t lie because it’s a sin.” I say, “you shouldn’t lie because it’s disrespectful to people who trust you, it can hurt people and particularly if someone asks you to lie to Mama, they could be putting you in danger.”

Although if I can’t get someone to behave in public I’m not above saying that SOMEONE will kick us out of the store or the police will take us to jail if you don’t get your seatbelt on!

Don’t judge - sometimes a mother needs help from on high.

Little One goes to a Catholic Montessori Preschool which is obviously fine with me – they’re a little heavy on the religion, but he’s also reading and writing (legibly) at four and a half so we just cut them some slack there. However, as I’ve mentioned my nanny is quite religious and I really really REALLY wish she would not discuss Jesus with my kids. (But she is a great nanny so I just tell the kids she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and not to believe anything she says and we keep asking her to come back week after week.) She brings them all these pappy children’s books and sometimes Little One asks me to read one and I tell him to go put it away and that Mama doesn’t read that crap. (I know, I’m mean, but unless you are the parent or have been honored with the role of Godparent you really should not give children religious items. It’s presumptuous and rude. And it really offends me.)

I rarely discuss much to do with Jesus. We do read the Bible, but we’re reading it in order and we’re at about the part where Joseph’s brothers leave him for dead. (If you’re not religious, that’s roughly like being on Chapter 1 of War and Peace - for three or four years.) We’re not even close to Jesus entering the scene yet, and at the rate we’re going he will have come again in glory to judge the living and the dead by the time we get there. (And my vehicle will probably NOT be un-manned, in case you’re wondering.) But I’m trying. Really. A little bit.

So between the nanny, preschool and Easter, Little One has really been obsessing about the “Jesus dying on the cross” story lately. He’s been picking that part from the Bible to read as his bedtime story a lot. The other night we were reading it and he kept interrupting me. First he said, “Mama, I want a toy cross and a toy Jesus.”

I said, “That’s called a crucifix, I’ve got some I’ll show you and I’ll see if I can find one you can have to play with.”

“Well, I don’t want one where he’s just stuck there in one position,” he huffed, “I want one that I can stick him on there but he comes off too.”

“Uh – I’ll see what I can do,” I said and tried to continue reading the story.

Then he said, “I want a toy Blessed Mother too and a toy Mary Magdalene and toys of all the bad guys who nailed Jesus to the cross.”

“Umm, ok.”

“Mama, I don’t want one where Jesus is alive on the cross. That’s not what I’m talking about. I want Jesus to be dead on the cross.”

“Yes, I got it, Honey, I’ll see if we can find that somewhere.” …trying to continue reading the story...

“Oh and Mama, I need a toy God too.”

“Well,” unable to hold my laughter in now, “Silly – what do you suppose a toy God looks like?”

Looking at me like I have two heads, “Well, I don’t know, Mama! I just want one!”

“I don’t know if there is such a thing, but I’ll see what I can do,” I said, trying to finish the damn story already so I could tuck them in and hit the wine bottle.

(My husband suggested we choose a white teddy bear with a Ninja headband to be the toy God or else a jar that we can close and pretend that we’ve trapped the essence of God inside. But I told him I’m not going to hell for his amusement.)

And Little One said, “I’ll just put God in the clouds when I’m playing so He can be at Heaven.”

“Ok,” I said, “But God isn’t just in Heaven, God is everywhere, in your heart, everything that we see that is good and beautiful and love is God.”

And J chimed in, “What about my Wii guys, sometimes I make girl ones and they’re beautiful.”

(My husband shrugged later, “tell J he is the God of his Wii characters, technically speaking.”)

“Well, J, I was thinking more of greater things that are beautiful, like when people do good things and rainbows and forests…”

“And flowers,” J added.

“Yes, definitely flowers.”

“And burnt up posters, sometimes I think they can be really beautiful.”

“Er, um, sure,” I shrugged.

(I had no idea what this meant and later asked my husband if we’re raising a psychopath or what, when he reminded me that this hole-in-the-wall restaurant we like had a fire many years ago and they just kept the burnt up paintings as part of the new décor because they actually look kind of cool, and we’d discussed this at length with J last time we were there. Whew.)

It’s not that I mind talking about Jesus, it’s that I don’t like to have to run around behind and clean up after what may have been said about him already. Ironically, my husband doesn’t mind in the least, because he thinks it’s all dumb and meaningless anyway and that they’ll figure that out on their own. But I care deeply about what they learn about the life and death of Jesus, even though I freely admit to them that it’s a myth and happened so long ago that nobody knows if it’s “true” in the historical event sense of the word or not. Because it’s important to me regardless, and I’d appreciate it if people would shut the hell up so I can share the reasons why that is with them as the opportunity arises naturally – or, you know, when I get around to it. Whichever.

When I'm Suddenly Reminded of a Life Long Long Ago...

Someone arrived at my site recently by googling “Why do men marry?” And it reminded me of this story.

When I was 22 or 23 at the most I briefly had a coworker who was about my age and married, we’ll call her Becky. They were very serious Christians of some sort (well, of the sort that liked to discuss with me at length why Catholics are going to hell with all the rest of the non-Christians). You might wonder why I liked them, but I actually enjoy those kinds of discussions and (you’re probably not surprised to hear) it’s not every day you meet someone else who does too – I’m talking about people who relish the going back and forth of philosophical arguement without feeling particularly emotional about your or their point of view.

But mostly I was fascinated by these two people. Fascinated by what I thought was his complete cluelessness (which is not a word, but just be flexible here) and fascinated by the very fact that she was happy to be married to him.

One day I invited Becky and my friend/coworker [we’ll call her] Kay to go with me to see the musical, Cabaret. Becky brought her husband (we’ll call him Vic).

I should back up a minute and tell you that once Vic was trying to explain to me why it’s important for women to be submissive to their husbands and he said, “Well, let me explain it this way, Becky and I are equal, but I’m in charge.”

It also might be important that you know that one of them was a virgin when they married, and it wasn’t Becky.

Ahem.

So Cabaret opens and there are a bunch of women who are dancing in big dresses, which every now and then they pull over their heads to reveal their (GASP) pantaloons. And there was whispering between Vic and Becky and much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth and I whispered, “Beck, are you ok?”

And, clearly distraught, she told me that Vic had to leave. They were leaving because (and I quote), “Vic already has so many issues with lust and he just doesn’t need to see something like this.”

(I have issues with lust too, but you know, it’s Cabaret for crying out loud.)

And they left – like one song into the show. Now as I said I was only 22-ish and had never even dated the same person for 10 whole months, let alone been married. So I consulted my friend Kay, who was engaged, certain that she must get what had just transpired.

She gave me a blank look. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“Your fiance doesn’t struggle when he sees singing women on a stage wearing pantaloons?” I asked.

“Uh – no. If he did, I’d re-think marrying him.”

“Well maybe that’s what happens to people when they get married?”

“God I hope not,” she said.

So, dumbfounded, we watched the rest of the play as we periodically furrowed our brows and shrugged in one another’s general direction. As we were driving home she screeched, “Now I get why those two got married – so he could have sex without being a sinner!”

So that’s my best guess, Googler. If that’s not it, then I have no idea why anybody marries anyone.

Oh Yeah, I Almost Forgot... I Have a Blog!

Today in my inbox I received an e-mail from BlogHer with a link to an incredible speech by Lisa Stone. And as I read it and cheered I remembered, Oh my God – I have a blog, I maybe ought to think about posting on it one of these days! But you know the drill, I’ve been sick, kids have been sick, busy at work, husband is sick, the dog ate my laptop and so on. Oh, and it’s Saturday afternoon and SOMEBODY has neglected to buy Easter eggs for coloring or any candy for the Easter Bunny to hide...

So I had a brilliant post about Eliot Spitzer and why prostitution is not “cute” and how much I despise the movie “Pretty Woman” going and then I got sidetracked and now it’s last week’s news so I’ll just give you some links that you might enjoy.

First read Lisa Stone’s speech. My favorite line is this:

"Now, let's look at the numbers. Women's interests and behaviors do not fit into discrete pink and purple silos -- the domestic diva, the soccer mom, the Sex and the City single, all labels I've seen applied to women at one point or another -- these are not keeping up with the social media times. Women online today are as interested in discussing our choice of a candidate as we are our choice of a blogging platform as we are our choice of dog food and our choice of money market account. "

It reminds me of the time I was in a fiction workshop and a single twenty-ish girl was saying that my story was not realistic because it had suburban housewives having “Sex and the City” conversations. As if just because some of us found ourselves accidentally in a cliché demographic we suddenly have no interest in our girlfriends or in sex. Grow up!

Which along with this fun op-ed about Ken Kesey reminded me of one of my favorite women, Carolyn Adams Garcia aka Mountain Girl. Not that I’ve ever been a Deadhead – for a variety of reasons I’d make a terrible groupie – but she is the epitome of a strong, independent and free-spirited woman who ended up bearing the drudgery of a typical domestic life complete with a husband who came and went as he pleased. Because, hello, when you have children depending on you, it doesn’t matter how much you’d like to smell the daffodils and soak up the sun and do whatever you want, somebody has to make sure these little humans get fed and cleaned and educated. And guess who ends up taking on that role? (Hint: it wasn’t their father, Jerry Garcia.)

And all of those combined led me to remember that I should share here one of my favorite places to take action for women everywhere from the comfort of my own computer. Check out this list of campaigns and use their very easy format to tell your representatives to support important legislation on behalf of social and economic equality.

Oh yeah, and Happy Spring and Happy Easter!

(I’d kiss you too, but you'd probably rather I not share my sinus infection.)