nablo, or no?

I am wondering if I should commit to NaBloPoMo this month. I can't believe it's already November! I'm sure I have enough to get by on without adding more stuff to do, but, well, I occasionally like to join in. I think I even completed the challenge once.

I am thinking, though, I've got to be all "gotta do more/gotta be more" if I'm going to commit to this. Perhaps I'll read more, experience more, cook/bake more, create more so I'll actually have something to write about.

I think I can do this, especially if I take more pictures. Oh, that reminds me, though, I have almost 1300 pictures I need to take off the camera right now. O, digital photography! How easy you make it to take a bazillion pictures that will never be seen in hard copy.

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All right. Enough contemplating this. I have to do some actual paycheck-earning work now. (Geez, is it really only the beginning of November? Ah, perspective.)

maybe an early morning walk?

If I leave now, I can stop for a tea. I can also drop off the book that was (oops) due domenica.

However, if I leave now, I have about an hour's walk ahead of me. And, while I do so love to walk, I don't so love to do it when laden like a pack-mule.

Okay, time's a'wastin'.

A good morning to all.

(And, no, I didn't sleep much last night -- a bit from eight to ten, but not continuously -- so that explains my current inability to form thoughts.)

pondering the paste*

Is it weird to brush one's teeth in a semi-public bathroom? I feel weird brushing my teeth in places I don't usually brush them. It's the spitting thing. I imagine others thinking it's gross, but I don't know why. It's not like they're going to scoop out the draining water and drink it. (Now, there's an image for you.)

I just don't want my breath to smell like scallions all afternoon, so I'll stick with the brushing and try not to think so much about what others think (unless everyone really does think it's disgusting).

(And, I suppose I should be much less worried about what others think in general. I've been thinking about that a lot lately and will write about that later. That is one of those ever-evolving, never-ending topics that I never actually get around to writing about because it feels to damned daunting. Oh, those topics torment me.)

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* Oh my, oh my, I've watched a certain movie entirely too many times because my post title makes me think "Wheeze the juice!" and I'm a dork, I know.

on irrelevant arguments

We went out of town last week, which meant I had time to catch up a teeny tiny bit on my saved podcasts. I like to put them on while we drive and la mia famiglia concedes to this for a while.

We listened to the August 6th edition of the domestic hour of the news roundup on the Diane Rehm Show (can I get prepositional phrases for $200, Alex?). One caller commented on the ability of gay people to legally marry. He said, in part, "They [gay individuals] have the right to marry and unfortunately they don't have the desire to marry within the framework that's available. They have the same right as everyone else." Really? Seriously?

I could tell that he had really thought his position through, but this argument is just ridiculous. Let's say practicing Mormonism was against the law. Would this caller, who identified himself as Mormon, be okay with being told, "You can practice a religion, just like everyone else, but it has to be Judaism. You have the same right as everyone else to practice religion"? I know that my analogy here isn't great, but it's the best I can come up with right now.

I will never understand opposition to gay marriage, or hatred and fear of gay people. I think it's such a joke when people argue that they are protecting the sanctity of marriage by opposing gay marriage. People marry and they remain committed solely to one another. People marry and they divorce. People marry and they have extramarital affairs. People marry and abuse their spouses. I'm married and I love my marriage (even when it's rocky), and I think it's ridiculous for gay couples to not be able to experience this also. How is a woman marrying a woman or a man marrying a man going to detract at all from my marriage?

Okay, stepping down now...for the time being.

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P.S. Here I go defining marriage as being between one person and one other person. Polygamy (and marrying oneself, possibly?) is a different topic for a different day, perhaps.

virtual penny for your thoughts

Dearest Interwebby People,

First off, I don't have enough actual pennies for your thoughts. Cardo and I cashed in our change recently after a couple of years of saving up. So, give me another couple of years and perhaps I'll offer actual pennies. Perhaps not.

So, I wanted to ask about something quasi-taboo and controversial: homeschooling. I say 'quasi-taboo and controversial' because I know that, often, the term brings up terrible, horrible, no good, very bad connotations, or something.

I'm not saying that I'm going into this homeschooling venture, I'm just interested in hearing more about it. I know that it'd be better to ask questions in a broader venue than here at the pond (ha! I'm hi-lar-ious! 'the pond'! I need sleep, stat), but I wanted some feedback from you all first.

Right now, I'm just wondering what your initial thoughts/reactions are? Do you have any stories to share regarding homeschooling? I don't believe that anyone I know to read this here blog has herself (I only know women to read my writing here) been homeschooled, yet I ask.

So, thoughts? Feel free to include thoughts on any other alternatives to public schooling also. It's getting close to the time that Pic will be in school full-time, so I'm starting to obsess about it...more.

Grazie mille,
v

the puzzles of advertising

I was just elsewhere on this here interweb and the following ad was up on the screen:



I didn't click on the ad, other than to right-click and save the image, and I have no intention of ever doing so. Let's, for now, put aside the issue of a one rule miracle cure for dealing with unwanted body mass. Really, who is this ad supposed to convince? When you really take a moment to look at it? First off, I'm not at all sure about that whole twenty-five pounds of stomach fat. (This makes me curious about how much my stomach fat weighs.) Where is this stomach fat? Maybe it's just me, but this woman doesn't look like she has twenty-five pounds worth of stomach fat. (She could maybe lose twenty-five pounds overall, but I wonder how thin (too thin?) this would make her.) My biggest issue though, because I really don't know what twenty-five pounds of stomach fat looks like, is the before/after pictures. Yes, we can definitely tell that she has lost weight based on that second picture of only her head, right? Right? Okay, so she got a tan and darkened her hair (I'm assuming that's the same woman, although I know the perils of assumption), and this is supposed to prove...?

Anyhow, I have other things to be doing right now rather than overanalyze this ad.

life: a circle or a line...or something

Someone close(ish) to our family recently lost his father. Yes, I despise death euphemisms, but that's the only way I could figure to word that sentence right now.

Anyhow, my screwy grammar isn't the point. The point is that I've talked to Pic about death before and we've been discussing it more lately due to the above and other events and instances. The other day, she said something about my mom's dad. I told Pic that my mom's dad isn't alive anymore. Then, she asked me why.

A few days ago, a group of us were signing a sympathy card for the above sort-of-mentioned person whose father just died. When Pic asked why we were signing a card, I told her it was because his dad died. Again, she asked why.

Explaining death to my four-year-old has proven somewhat difficult. I've attempted (and here documented) it before. I wasn't all that successful. How am I to be successful when I have zero idea what death is all about? I wanted to tell her that these people were older (or, well, old), but then what happens when I say that someone else we know is 'old'? Will she automatically think that other person is on the verge of death? I want to tell her that perhaps they were sick, but again, what happens next time I tell her I'm sick, or, even more disconcerting, when I tell her that I think she's getting sick?

I oh-so-lamely told her something about death being a part of life (hello oxymoronic something-or-other). 'We're born, we live and then we die. It's just what happens.' Yes, that clears it all up. I have clearly given my child all of the answers she needs. Mamma of the year, right here, folks.

I then went on to tell her what I think happens after we die, but I doubt that was very helpful to her either. And, as with most arguments I try to make, I qualified the statement in the exact manner I just mentioned: what I think happens. Why can't I just tell her, 'What happens is...'? Would that even help? I really think not, because what does she do when she encounters probably most of the people she will encounter who will tell her that I'm wrong? At the same time that I want to give her definite answers to sooth the gnawing uncertainty, I want her to remain openminded.

So, gah and ugh, this has been not fun. Not to mention (wait, I'm about to mention it), my own deep anxiety about death. It doesn't matter what I believe happens after I die, I still can't convince myself that I can just let go and die. I take this as a good sign right now that I'm not finished living, that I have the resolve to go on, but this is mainly optimistic thinking. I can only hope that when it's my time to move on (or whatever), I'll have accepted the fact that I too must die.

dear helpful people of the interweb...

I kind of want to cancel my account on my Other site. I don't want to lose my blog entries there, though, and I like to have the connection to others I'm otherwise not connected to.

What do y'all think? To cancel or not to cancel?

(Also, if I do cancel my account, how do I save my blog entries?)

Okay, one more quick question: How fast do y'all think I can read Paradise Lost? It's about three hundred pages. I still have plenty of reading to do this semester and I haven't even begun the writing process for my two final papers. So, how many licks does it take to get to the center of Paradise Lost...or something?

snow dance

I'm pretty sure that this morning, Nature is laughing at us silly mortals with our 'spring' ahead notions of Daylight Savings. She's giggling at our ideas that we can control time, somehow, by the solely symbolic move of spinning the hands on our clocks around. (I'm sure she's also snickering at our quaint little Groundhog Day ritual.)

I woke up this morning to a lot of very powdery snow covering the outside world (okay, a very small part of the world). I was able to drive a whole fifteen miles an hour for most of the drive and between thirty and forty miles an hour for the rest (this is on the freeway, mind you). I did, however, find a decent parking spot, though, which is a change.

I'm pretty sure that Nature is sitting back, telling us, 'It'll be spring when I say it's spring.'

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P.S. Yes, I do realize that not everywhere in the time-changing world is it snowy.

anyone? anyone?

Okay, there are a few of things I'm looking for and I'm wondering where to find. Can anyone help? Where, online or here in the Biggest Little City (or around here) can I find

-- shampoo bars?

-- loose leaf tea?

-- a good place to take Cardo for his upcoming birthday (because, I'm not taking him back to the same place from last year, which was good, but is now questionable).

Thanks much, in advance.

in which i whine...and the earth weeps

[It was really hard for me to kill the alliteration there, but I really didn't want to use 'world.']

To appropriate some wonderfully famous words: It’s not easy being green.

I’m trying to cut down on the amount of paper I use, I am trying to do more and more on my computer (which uses power…ah, dilemmas, fun stuff). However, I have a hard time reading things on the computer screen, so I have printed about about a billion pages worth of reading this semester. I like pages to turn and margins to scribble in. I like the materiality of paper. I love paper, in fact. And books. And I have many, many books and much paper. I’m only somewhat decent at this game.

This aside, we are continually making strides here at La Casa B to be a bit more friendly to our little rock. And, you know what, Costco is our friend.

Recently, I have been whining (ah, with this whining) to Cardo that I want glass storage bowls instead of plastic. Costco delivered. The lids are still plastic, but the bowls are nice, thick glass. Costco also sells in bulk, of course, which is nice. We've been using Method soap since I decided to take us off antibacterial soap here and Dooce so nicely provided me with an alternative when she featured a container of Method on her 'Daily Style' feature. Costco so nicely offers huge refill containers of Method so we still have the original small containers which we periodically refill (when I get around to it). We also have Kirkland Signature (Costco's brand) environmentally-friendly laundry detergent and their environmentally-friendly dishwashing liquid. And, tonight, we bought Pic some more reusable cups (yeah!). Fifteen dollars for four and they are BPA-free.





I still have the little plastic containers to put Pic's lunch in (the glass containers are a bit on the big side for our lunch bags and I have to include a freezer-pack in her bag for school) and most of our travelmug things are plastic, but other than that, the plastic has largely been banished from our kitchen. I send Pic to school with actual metal and wood flatware. We both still have our Mimi the Sardine lunchbags and I've switched us over to cloth napkins (except Cardo, who kind of refuses to use the cloth napkins).

Oh, and I use things like Trader Joe's Citrus Shampoo and their Tea Tree Oil Face Wash, but until recently I've just been using Johnson and Johnson's regular yellow baby wash/shampoo for Pic. We bought this at Costco and it takes us about a freaking year to use up a whole bottle. I've wanted to get Pic something a bit friendlier, so I finally just went and bought her some Method baby wash.



[The babywash is Rice Milk + Mallow (as in marshmallow...as it says on the container). Pic smells yummy, but every time I see 'mallow,' I think 'tallow,' and I wonder why I would want my child to smell like rendered animal fat.]

These are small steps, I know, but I'm making an effort here. The nice thing is that Cardo goes along with me in most of this. At the beginning of our relationship, I was afraid that he would think I was some kind of total freak for doing all of this, but he's pretty supportive.

So, yes, we're making strides, but I still drive way more often than I should. Often I have four or more lights burning here because I have to dispel the gloom at twilight. We've got countless electronic gadgets that need to be plugged in (okay, so not really 'countless,' I'm sure I could count them if I tried, but I don't want to). We buy way too much crap that we don't need. I use Google. I sometimes still get plastic bags and paper to-go cups. And, have I mentioned my little book obsession? I'd take some pictures of our bookshelves but it's a freaking wreck in my apartment right now and I can't subject you to that. And, for the rest of my life, I'll be buying more books, printing out more articles, making more copies, ecc. Also, I'll have to be writing some articles, traveling for work, publishing at least one book, ecc. I'm surprised there are trees left. Perhaps I should look into a tree-planting program to start replacing some of these. (Are there such programs?)

So, I'm interested in hearing what other suggestions you all have, please, for keeping us alive and cancer-free for at least a little while. (I haven't mentioned lately, but I'm pretty sure that at some point in my life, I'll be told I have cancer and I am beyond terrified of this moment.)

For instance, Poke and Mr Poke are looking into cloth diapers. This is something I wish I would have been more forceful about. Cardo said that if we used cloth diapers, he'd never change a diaper, but, geez, we threw away a lot of plasticky-badness full of baby surprises.

What else have you all to offer me in the way of suggestions?

nickelwho?

I recently told a friend that I wasn't familiar with Nickelback. She seemed surprised. I am wondering if y'all know Nickelback's music and if you think it's worth checking out? I didn't get around to asking her opinion of the group, but perhaps I'll remember to ask her today.

Okay, so I'll leave you with what is stuck in my head right now...and, no, I have no idea why this is so.



Oh, and just a little not-unrelated* bit of information: listening to someone sing well (or well enough to touch something inside me**) = total turnon. It's like Wanda with the men who speak foreign languages (without the humping of banisters...or barristers).



* Litotes strikes!
** Pun not intended but there you go.

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P.S. Apparently not only do I talk to myself even more excessively than usual when I'm tired, but I also become increasingly inappropriate.

129 sonnets to go...

129 sonnets, read one over, figure it out, 128 sonnets to go.

Ha! Okay, so a songwriter I am so definitely not. One who finishes her reading before the day of discussion I am also not. I just can't stay awake that much longer and finish these. Actually, I probably could, but then I would be forced to sleep all tomorrow. That's just not going to work, people.

(I'm in word processing mode...I just hit the little apple key and 's' to save this. Yeah, I'm an automaton right now.)

So, Cardo and I are still debating what to get Pic for her birthday (and I can share with you because she doesn't read this yet). He wants to get her a Disney Princess dress-up dress. I do not. He says, 'It's what she likes. She'll like it.' I'm all for the shaping of the child into a shape that doesn't so resemble Disney princess. Anyhow, we went to the Disney Store and looked at the dresses and saw a Belle gown for $80 and had simultaneous heart failures (this isn't really funny, considering Cardo's heart, but I'm using the phrase anyway). I knew that looking at the Disney Store would be risky, for just this reason, but he wanted to look there anyway and I wanted to hang out with him for an afternoon (this was last Friday when Pic was in school). We also looked at Target and at Wal-Mart. He wants to get her an Aurora dress, I think, but we didn't see one of these anywhere we went.

I don't have a clue what I want to get her. I'm thinking sleeping bag. She really wants one. Our dearly beloved friends just bought a house (their first and possibly last) and Pic chose a room for her own. It was designated as their office so I suggested she could just sleep in there in a sleeping bag. She was all for this suggestion, so now she wants a sleeping bag. I looked a bit online for kids' sleeping bags and, freaking deal, most of those are covered with trademarked characters. I just want a sleeping bag, not an advertisement. I swear that not everything I owned growing up was covered in some mass market character. I did have a Barbie and the Rockers lunch box, and later, in high school, I had both a Scooby Doo and a Little Mermaid lunchbox. I might have also owned a few pieces of clothing with such characters on them, but I can't recall any at the moment. Now, though, this marketing is like a disease and sometimes it makes me crazy (can you tell?). So, anyway, I'd like to get her a cute, un-brand-splashed, not too expensive sleeping bag. Thoughts?

Okay, while I have you thinking, what about a gift for Cardo? I asked him if we were exchanging Valentine's Day gifts this year and he got kind of quiet and gave me a look as if to say, 'Duh, I bought yours last month.' We aren't gift-exchanging people so my somewhat unromantic question was, I believe, warranted. Other than giving birth to our child, I don't believe that I've ever given Cardo a Valentine's Day gift (and, hey, isn't that enough? and, he was nice enough to not pass out so that's enough for me). Cards, yes. Dinner or lunch, yes. Gift, I don't think so. So, do you exchange gifts with your significant other? If so, please give me some ideas. And, no, I can't buy him a Silvia, so I need actual, affordable ideas, please.

Grazie mille.

Now, I have to go pack up all of my four thousand books for tomorrow (er, today) and throw* together some lunches and pretend to sleep.

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'Throw them?' Pic would ask me had I said that to her. She's very into what things mean right now and creating definitions to her nonsense words. And, she's very into denotative meanings of words, which made a recent message from a friend to 'shoot me an e-mail' something of a concern for Pic.

let's make a date

I know that it's only January, but who's got plans in July? I really want to go to BlogHer. Unfortunate as it may be for me (who was hoping it'd be in San Francisco), it's going to be in Chicago. Anyone interested in saving up all of her extra (ha HA!) money and going?

Think about it.

gearing up for next semester

I was telling Poke tonight that come a bit-over-a-fortnight from now, I'll be teaching a class themed in American popular culture. After I uttered that, we both had the same thought: I'll get to learn plenty about what American popular culture is. Sure, I can tell my students about things like blogs and Twitter and Flicker (the latter two services I have yet to join and use because I know that I'd never update anything on them and then I'd feel guilty about it). If anyone other than me is interested, I could tell them plenty about 'mommyblogs' (in quotes because I know some people loathe the label, but there it is for lack of something better). However, beyond that, I'm pretty clueless. I listen to classic rock and NPR. The only magazines I currently even open are Self and Cooking Light. The only tv I watch anymore is fuzzy PBS Kids.* I buy clothes at Goodwill and Savers. I own the cheapest cell phone available (it doesn't flip, it doesn't take pictures, it's not a fancy color). I kind of abhor text messaging. I still hyphenate 'e-mail' (I actually had an internal debate about this and We decided that We would continue with the hyphen). I don't know that many books, if any at all, will fall into the realm of popular culture. I'm just a bit out of touch. Regardless, I think that next semester should be fun and a good learning experience for me.

Some questions I'm thinking to ask my students at the beginning of the semester:

* How do you/we define 'popular culture'?
* What are some examples of things/people/places/ideas that fall into this realm?

The first essay in our text is 'The More Factor' (from The Hunger for More: Searching for Values in an Age of Greed, 1989) by Laurence Shames. In it, Shames discusses our notions of 'frontier' and how that term now describes the economy and the possibilities for personal wealth, rather than 'frontier' indicating the great and wild west. Shames discusses how we measure success in the quantity of things we buy, even if the quality of those things is not great. I plan to also ask my students the following:

* How do you/we define success?

This question, one I contemplate often, always makes me think of high school Senior Superlatives from the yearbook. 'Most likely to succeed.' First of all, I always feel that that phrase is somewhat filled with hopelessness. 'As a group, you probably won't succeed, but of you, these two are most likely to do so.' Anyhow, my weird, inane thoughts aside, I always wondered what 'success' the choosers had in mind. At our school, the guy and gal with the highest GPAs were chosen, and I think that this is probably how it usually works. But, what did the voters have in mind? These two would, of course because of their successes as shown by grades in high school classes, go on to lead full and rich lives? Lives full of expensive cars and vacation homes? What?

So, anyhow, I'm interested in finding out what my students have to say.

I could go into an entire discussion about my own thoughts about my own level of 'success' and how I hate that I too often base it on my (meagre) paycheck, but I'll spare you...for now.

Okay, so I'll leave you with one more quote from the essay. This comes after Shames has discussed how we (Americans), from our inception, have always been wanting, well, more.

If the supply of more went on forever, perhaps that wouldn't matter very much. Expansion could remain a goal unto itself, and would continue to generate a value system based on bulk rather than on nuance, on quantities of money rather than on quality of life, on 'progress' itself rather than on a sense of what the progress was for. But what if, over time, there was less more to be had?

That is the essential situation of America today.

Let's keep things in proportion: The country is not running out of wealth, drive, savvy, or opportunities. We are not facing imminent ruin, and neither panic nor gloom is called for. But there have been ample indications over the past two decades that we are running out of more.

Again, please keep in mind that the book from which this is taken was published in 1989. But, wow. We could almost get by with removing all of the negatives from that last paragraph of the quote, no?

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* This is a very recent development. I used to watch perfectly unfuzzy PBS Kids, Monk, sometimes Psych, House, M.D., Grey's Anatomy and What Not To Wear on a regular basis.

as moving day approaches

I'm trying to decide, "Which things can we live without for the next five or more days?" I mean, do we really need the canisters of flour, sugar, coffee and baking soda (yes, baking soda...hi non-toxic cleaning supplies)? Probably not. Do we need paper towels or nine-tenths of our dishes. Nyeh. Do we need our underwear? Okay, so maybe I'm going a bit too far there.

So, I'm off to pack our "fancy dishes" (we got a set of four dinner plates, mugs, saucers and dessert plates at Goodwill for just under $20). Fun, fun stuff.


And, just for 'scuz. I like this song and I'm listening to Celtic Woman on PBS right now.

argh!

I have a question: how did I ever get into grad school in the first place? What is up with all of these stupid applications? Why do I have to apply twice at every place? Can't they make this easier? I feel like this is never going to happen.

I am frustrated.

Also, it's a good thing I'm not some sort of math/engineering/ecc major, because that was not "a" question.

quick question...

If I'm making pear/applesauce, is it okay that when I open the lid it smells like I'm making some kind of pear wine or something? It smells a bit fermenty in there. We'll see.

Anyhow, I'm making this sauce to use up some of the fruit we've got sitting around. Apparently if I leave fruit around, Pic uses it as toys. I've now found two very sad-looking avocados up in her room.

white 'chocolate'

I don't really care how it's defined, I'm one of those people who doesn't think of white chocolate as actual chocolate. Chocolate needs cocoa powder, not just cocoa butter. Also, I prefer mine dark (like my men...OH, lame! I know, I just couldn't help it).

However, not calling white chocolate "chocolate" leads to the dilemma of what to call it. All that ever comes to my mind are things like "white...stuff" or "that creamy white stuff" and these suggestions just never sound appropriate for anything other than...Cetaphil.

I think that I might not be so anti-white chocolate if it wasn't always pretending to be chocolate.

So, suggestions for what we should call it? Anyone?

lucas wants money, lots of money, joe's money

On Friday, before I watched What Not To Wear, I caught some of Say Yes To the Dress. I’ve seen this show once before so I don’t know why I watched it again. I become so annoyed with these people that I end up having full-on conversations with these women (okay, to the conversations are one-sided, but I do talk to them a lot). Also, the family members and friends who come along for the dress-shopping trip make me crazy.

Most of the time, though, it wasn’t actually the shoppers who made me crazy but the prices that made me crazy. Some of these people were spending more on a wedding dress, a dress that will be worn for a few hours for one day, than I spent on my car. My car that I’ve used for the last seven years. On the most recent episode I watched, there was a woman who was having a Muslim ceremony one day and a Christian ceremony the next. She had a dress for her Muslim ceremony and was buying one for her Christian one. That dress cost $11,000 (more than my car, people). Later, she came back for yet another dress because she needed a dress to put on when she changed out of her wedding dress. So, she bought another wedding dress. It doesn’t really matter how much the second (ahem, third) one cost because the other one was $11.000!

I’m sure that these amounts of money seem like nothing to some people, but I can barely comprehend being able to do that. In fact, I can’t comprehend it.

Often, Cardo and I muse about the possibility of being stinking rich one day (this isn’t one of our goals and neither of us are on the path of getting us there, but we sometimes wonder about it anyway). We wonder, “How much will we change if one day we are rich?” (And, our ideas of what rich is, is tremendously different. Cardo has much loftier ideas about what rich is than I do.)

Will we still buy our big furniture items from Craigslist and Goodwill? Will we still clothes shop at Savers? Will we continue to mainly only buy used books? Will we still buy store-brand (Kirkland Signature) toilet paper at Costco?

I think that we will. This kind of second-hand and bulk buying is just a part of how I live.

I think that what would change the most is our current lack of travel. I would love to travel to so many places and that’s just not all that possible for us right now. Oh, and I’d like to be able to pay for all of Pic’s college (if she goes and as long as she’s putting in the effort). I, possibly somewhat hugely naively, believe that our everyday lives would be pretty much the same.

Oh, I almost forgot, though…I’d finally get my hybrid (or other alternatively-fueled car).

What would change for you guys if you were suddenly stinking rich?