Wired Wednesday

Once again, I’m all over the place this morning.

1) General Pace. WTF were you thinking? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can (and should) have your own religious beliefs. BUT. You are a SECULAR leader, not only to the military, but to our nation. You cannot call an entire portion of our society “immoral.” I know conservatives decry political correctness, but there is a reason for it. It’s also called common courtesy, showing respect, not trying to tick people off for stupid reasons. You and I agree on one very large thing: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is an idiotic program. But in 2007, the military’s got some larger problems on its hands right? Women are getting raped, harassed and beaten in the military, never mind what’s happening to Iraqis, Afghans and detainees. What two consenting adults do off the job is no one’s business, and should not even be on your radar right now. Take care of some of these other items, then we’ll let you tell Americans what is “immoral.”

2) It’s Spring Break. Parents and tourists, do NOT ride the light rail during rush hour, or I will hate you and give you and your croc-wearing, denim short-sporting, Teddy Graham-eating self the evil eye. People use the rail to get back and forth from WORK. We value our quiet time. We do not want to hear your children asking “how many more stops until we get home?” And, “What’s the stop where we get off?” for the 100th time. I don’t want to hear your theories on the “inner city” and how “they should do something about that old building [Dallas High School].” I REALLY don’t want to hear you tell your preteen son (who’s old enough to stand up and let someone take his seat, BTW) how smart he is every time he COUNTS the number of stops on the train map.

I'm back with a new friend

I’d like to introduce you to my new best fantasy-friend, Mindy. (There's also a link over there to Things that I've Bought that I Love.)

Most of you know that my old best fantasy friend is Tim Gunn from Project Runway. And I still love him, but while I totally want to have coffee with him everyday and discuss all sorts of things, he will never, in spite of his orientation, be a true girlfriend.

That’s where Mindy Ephron/Kaling comes in. I discovered her blog a few months ago, and now between that and her acting/ writing on The Office, I think she may be my new best fantasy-friend, taking over from the illustrious line of Isaac Mizrahi, Ellen DeGeneres and Tim Gunn. (Yes, there’s a pattern there, and it’s not a good interview and a love of a well-cut jacket. I may be breaking the pattern with Mindy, but maybe she’s just a closet case like in all those blind items. Whatever, I don’t care.) Everyone knows that the basis of a truly meaningful, deep friendship is a shared interest in superficial things. Mindy’s blog makes me laugh and makes me want to shop and write about things I love, and I know that during my next shopping trip I will be having a deep, thoroughly superficial, thoroughly imagined girl-chat with her.

Right now, she won't take my comments. Is that the fantasy world equivalent of not taking my calls?

All over the place

Back to the princess phenomenon: See how I'm not the only parent to resist, and how totally commercial, contrived and evil it is? And how parents will have to eventually justify the tiaras as some sort of post-feminist reclamation of grrrl power? Oy vey.

Here's my latest in the paper. I'm not all that proud of this one, but whatever. It's published. It's got my name on it. I better get proud.

Many of you that are on Google Talk have seen my away/here message and asked about it. Yes, someone ate my burrito. And yogurt. And healthy choice frozen dinner. There's someone at work that steals food. They've stolen food from me before in my 3 years here, but never this much, all together. I alternate between being royally ticked off to just feeling kind of sad that not only has someone stooped to this level, but that I have to work with that kind of person. Plus, Mrs. Dallas K told me a story about someone who purposefully set out to steal the food from an officemate who they didn't like, just to f#ck with them, so I'm trying not to get paranoid about that.

Y'all gon' make me lose my mind

Ok, first of all, what’s up with me not getting carded… twice yesterday?

I bought wine yesterday at two separate stores and there was NO request to see my identification. WTH.

And if the “buying wine” item isn’t enough to tell you that I’m ready for my husband to come home, here’s another clue.

I was telling Football Widow last night that I suspected my brain had stopped working, and I needed another adult around the house. For instance, I could not come up with something for dinner last night. Nothing sounded good to me, and though it was tempting to let E have an all-cracker meal last night, as she suggested, I literally stood in front of the fridge, waiting for inspiration. Finally, I came up with eggs and toast (brilliant) but it took me way too long to think of that. I suspected something was amiss with my brain.

This morning, I was got E and M dressed, putting great effort into keeping everyone happy and moving along. I got everyone dressed, fed, downstairs, got the dog out, got my shoes on, got the bottles in the bag and was taking M out to the car when E said, “I go poo poo mommy.”

“Oh, really? Really? Um, can you hold it until you get to school? NO! I mean, don’t hold it, hold it. Just, wait, ok?”

I’m still on my one track mind, and I get M out to the car and strap her in. I come back to get E and she says, “I need go potty poo poo NOW mommy.”

Remembering that she’s been making significant progress on this front, I decide that I really can’t ignore this quite clear and quite insistent request. I run out, and put the garage door down and lights on in the garage so M doesn’t freak out, then come back in and quickly take E to her potty.

As soon as I start unbuttoning her pants, I notice something.

She doesn’t have a diaper on.

“E! Mommy didn’t put a diaper on you this morning?” “No diaper mommy.” “Ok, well you sit down on the potty while mommy runs upstairs to get your diaper.”

I run upstairs in my heels, and find E’s diaper, where I left it on her bed this morning. I have no idea what happened. I have put a diaper on that child every morning for the past 2+ years. This morning? I lost my mind.

I run back downstairs (in heels) and into the bathroom, terribly cognizant of the time clicking and M sitting by herself in the car. I bend down, E says, “No poo poo mommy.” Damn. All that and no poo poo. I start to take off her pants to put the diaper on, and I realized a second thing. Her pants are sopping wet. I tell her I’m going back upstairs to get new pants for her, and tell her to try again with the poo poo (we need something positive out of this situation, right?)

I run back upstairs (slipping off the heels) and get some new pants. Back down, changing the kid in a Guinness-worthy moment, jumping (literally) back into the heels, telling E to “run run run!” out the door to the car.

I’m tired just typing it all again.

So yes, I need, no, deserve wine. And my husband comes home on Saturday. Expect my brain to start working sometime after that.

weekend update

So I could write about how E put herself into time-out on Saturday after sitting on her sister's head. (I yanked her off, yelled something like, "WE do NOT sit on the baby's head!" Then she put her head down and said, "Time out" and headed to the time out corner. Then I said, "No, MOMMY puts you into time out, not E. (pause) Go to time out!")

I could write about how M now pulls herself into a sitting position from laying down, and how she's *almost* crawling. Or how she talked our ears off this weekend. Bah bah bah bah bah bAH!

I could write about how E thinks Daddy's bringing home an elephant from India.... and I may, but right now I want to write about the three (yes, THREE) movies I saw on Saturday night.

We (Mom and Dad came for the weekend to help w/ the kids) started with For Your Consideration. I usually heart Christopher Guest's movies, and of course I will recommend this one to anyone, but it's not his finest work. Maybe I'm just not a Hollywood insider to get the jokes, but I don't frequent dog shows and I got the jokes in Best in Show. (Which I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend)

Then we moved onto Jesus Camp. My mom cried. I got angry, and I laughed at Ted Haggard. Seriously. It was a scary show.

Dad went to bed, and mom and I decided to push through the night with one more: Shut up and Sing about the Dixie Chicks. These were two very interesting movies to watch back to back since they are both about the "culture wars," if you will (hate that term, but too early to think of a better description.) My mom, who cried about what was done to the children at the Jesus Camp, and who naively wondered aloud, "I wonder if the Bushes know about these people" still carries a sizeable animosity against Natalie Maines, and the movie did not change her mind.

Me? I love the Dixie Chicks. In 2003 I was annoyed with Natalie for the way she handled the situation, but I love how they came back. I love that they are strong, talented, smart, opinionated women who have put their families and careers first. The movie doesn't always paint them in the best light, but I still heart them and wish I had been able to go to their show. I'm probably going to watch it again this week.