I watched the Presidential Address last night, and while it was a great speech, my favorite part was watching Michelle Obama.
She was sitting next to an obviously scared eighth grade girl who was seated in the audience simply so that the camera could pan to her when the president mentioned a letter that she sent to Washington demanding repair of her piss-poor school. Apparently, the teachers have to strop teaching six times a day because the school is too close to train tracks, and the trains rattle the walls and are loud enough to drown out instruction. Nice.
In any case, I was watching Mrs. Obama's body language - she seems like such a tender woman, a real mom. As soon as the president mentioned the girl's name, you could see the girl stiffen - you could tell that she was nervous because she was sitting in Congress around all these old farts and every eye - not just in the room, but anyone watching on television - was on her. I would have had a stroke if as an eighth grader that happened to me. But you could see Mrs. Obama reach out and hold her hand. Her shoulders were turned toward the girl, and she smiled and whispered "that's you!" You could totally tell that she knew that the girl was probably terrified, and needed a warm hand. She helped her stand so that people could see her to applaud her effort, and kept her hand around her shoulders while she congratulated what I assume was the girl's mother sitting next to her.
I thought to myself how that moment would have played out if it were Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton instead of Michele Obama sitting next to the girl. I think that Laura Bush would have had a Stepford smile plastered on her face, and maybe would have patted the girl on the lap. I think Hillary Clinton would have done less. I know that I'm only basing that off my own perceptions - I'm sure all three women are decent, kind women. But it was so obvious to me that Michelle Obama really relishes her role as a mom - she identified with the girl as she would have one of her own daughters.
I really look forward to what Michele Obama's role as a first lady will be. Hillary Clinton really pushed the role beyond just wearing pretty dresses and smiling at kids rolling Easter eggs on the White House lawn. She took an active role in writing legislation to be put before both houses, was a vocal proponent of health care reform, and fiercely fought to keep the press away from her awkward, pubescent daughter and strove to make sure that Chelsea could lead the most normal childhood possible given the circumstances. Laura Bush did a good job of returning decorum and respect for tradition to the daily operations of the white house: the state dinners, the preservation of American artwork, and explaining the traditions and quirky history of the White House and the families that lived in it. I remember watching a documentary in which some art snobs followed Laura Bush around the White House, and she went on for hours about all of the artwork on the walls and the period furniture and the lives of the wives and children of presidents past. It was fascinating: the woman really knew her history.
So I wonder what Michelle Obama will do - she's smart and funny and capable of doing just about anything. She could be a ball buster like Hillary, or she could be a cookie baking tour guide like Laura. I hope she'll be something else altogether.
Sigh.
My hair is at the length where it's grown too long to be coiffed into its original short and sassy style, but too short to be coiffed into the next medium-length hair style.
My hair is at a really unattractive, grown-out, but yet not grown in enough stage. Essentially, my hair is going through puberty right now.
Also, my dye job has grown out to the point that my once wonderful highlights are looking pretty sad-sack and trailer trashy. My roots are too exposed. It looks sad, people. I have to choose to either cut it short again, or suck it up and wait a few months for it to get a bit longer so that I look less like Shaggy's unkempt girl-cousin.
Unfortunately, part of the RODIS SAVE MONEY IN 2009 plan consists of my not getting my hair done five times a year, but three. I'm trying to hold out until my birthday (end of April) because I think that I can wheedle my girlfriends into pitching in to my hairdresser, who happens to be a girlfiend as well, to get my hair done.
Normally, my girlfriends each pitch in 20 bucks to get one of the girls a sizeable gift certificate to one of her favorite stores for her birthday. They also pay for lunch or dinner at a restaurant where we all gather and titter and guffaw (you guessed it, I'm the guffawer) for a few hours. It's nice. I think that if I ask for the money to go straight to my hairdresser instead, two things happen 1) She feels slightly weird for taking her girlfriends' money, and charges less than normal, which means the girls would each chip in less than 20 bucks, which helps them and 2) I get my hair done for free (to me).
I'm not banking on #1, because she's a really good hairdresser and deserves to be paid well for her services, and with the Las Vegas economy in the shitter right now, she's having a harder time filling her appointment book, since personal care is one of the first things people cut back on when times are tough.
In the mean time, my hair and I will be hugging the wall of the multi-purpose room, terrified that a boy might ask us to dance and notice that my hair has braces.
I had a recipe from a blog that I read stashed away for a slow-roasted pork butt. Apparently, it makes killer pulled pork sandwiches. I normally throw a pork loin into the slow cooker for that, but I wanted to try this different cut and different method.
So pork butts (okay, it's the shoulder, not the ass, but it's still fun to say) went on sale at Smith's, so I bought one and prepared it last night according to the recipe I read. I even invited my mother-in-law over to share with her my culinary prowess.
Stories like this never end well, do they?
The directions called for 400 degrees in the oven for 30 minutes and then 200 degrees for five hours to slow cook it. I get it, that particular cut has a lot of connective tissue, and you have to cook it low and slow to soften it. But after six hours in the oven, my probe thermometer was only reading 140 degrees, when the recipe said it should be between 195 and 205.
I thought that bacteria was killed at 180 or so. The fact that this thing had been plodding along for six hours and was only up to 140 told me that one bite of that thing would kill us all from some strange food-borne illness. Dim was willing to eat it, but I said absolutely not. That butt was a death trap waiting to kill anyone who tasted it, I'm sure of it.
We ended up with Mexican take-out instead.
There must have been a typo in the recipe. Maybe the temperature was supposed to be 250 or 300. In retrospect, it's not really rational to expect a piece of meat to get up to 205 when the oven is only set at 200. But I wasn't thinking through that bit, I just trusted the recipe.
So out the door went a $15 cut of meat, and we forked out $40 for take-out.
That's such a pain in the pork butt.
So....does Charlotte speak Korean because Jin taught it to her when she was a girl? Is that where they're going with this?
Last week, I had a bad cold. Of course, I gave it to Bean, and Bean to Chris.
Chris's coughing sounded like barking, not coughing. He was having a hard time catching his breath between barks. He didn't have a fever like Bean did, at least that I could detect, but that barky cough set my Spidey senses tingling. It wasn't a kosher cough, by any means.
I took him to the doctor, and she told me it was croup. Croup? Isn't that one of those old-timey diseases that you only caught if you were a six-year-old working in a shirtwaist factory? Apparently not. It's the infant and toddler verion of laryngitis. She gave him a steroid injection and sent me home with a scrip for a few liquid doses of the same thing.
That night, Bean told me "Mama, my ear's broken." I asked her if her ear hurt, she told me no. I asked if she had a boo-boo in her ear - no, she says. My spidey senses were tingling again, but I decided to let it pass.
In the morning, I found her half on and half off her bed, crying and pulling her ear. Listen, my kid is tough as nails. She doesn't cry unless there's a bone sticking out. If any other kid were in her position, I think they'd be writhing on the floor, screaming for mercy.
It was the weekend, which meant our pediatrician was not available, so I carted her across town to the clinic's sister office. After waiting for an hour and a half past our appointment time (seriously? Why bother with appointments then?) I saw the same doddering old pediatrician that treated my husband when he was little. One tympaogram later and, yup, double ear infection. A doozy, by the look of the tympanogram results.
Bean's really good about taking the antibiotics that the doctor prescribed. The antibiotics, though, have some unfortunate gastro-intestinal and behavioral side effects, so we're back in diapers for the week, and I'm working extra hard to keep my temper. My poor little girl. She's such a brave little trooper that I didn't know something was wrong until it was a full-blown double ear infection.
Chris is doing fine now. He walked nine steps the other day, nine!
No one told me how hard marriage would be. It should have been obvious, given that there are so many carcasses of marriages strewn about our lives and our family trees. Marriage isn't like the happy-sappy love songs on the radio or the cutsie-wutsie speeches people make at weddings.
Except when it is.
The day-to-day existence of marriage is far from glamorous. It's listening to a giant fart first thing in the morning (from you, of course). It's holding my hand when I'm in the hospital for horrible morning sickness even though I'm so weak I can't tell you're holding my hand. It's three a.m. bickering about who's turn it is to check on a crying baby.
The cyclical nature of a marriage is not for everyone. We slip into the same bad habits, fight about the same tired old issues, improve for a time but swing back to the initial fault again. We're human, and it's to be expected. But there are many other cycles that are far less gnawing, like those that involve my missing you when you're gone for the day, and how happy I am when you come home, knowing that we'll repeat tomorrow. Our Friday night TV dates, fast-forwarding through commercials but still pausing to chat with one another about the show ("That's Bullshit. This show got so dumb." "Want to stop""No! I want to see how it turns out") or chat about anything else, our hands magnetically drawn to one another's.
We fit. After all this time, we fit like puzzle pieces. My hand in yours, my head on your shoulder, your arms around me. I know what foods you like (my roasted potatoes) , what you don't (blue cheese dressing), what peeves you (drink glasses left on the desk), and what inspires you (a new programming problem, our kids, hopefully me). We left the dating phase behind a long time ago - I know your habits and you know mine, but we have an easy affection and familiarity that comes only with time, and I am glad for it.
There are prices to pay for this family of ours, we four. We pay tolls in the form of weird and proud and stubborn family, different cultures and values, a baffling lack of boundaries from some and oddly silent and unasked-for boundaries from others. But we pay it. Hell, we might as well have an EZ Pass, because it brings me you and you me. And it gives us something to laugh about when we're by ourselves.
There was one cutsie-wutsie thing that I remember from our wedding, and it makes me smile. My dad said it during his toast. He wished that our wedding day was the day we loved each other the least. I'm not a fan of the cutsie-wutsie; smarm just isn't in me. But this Valentine's Day, I wanted to tell you that I love you more that I did at our wedding, and I'll love you more tomorrow. You're my husband, the father to my children, and my best friend. I can't imagine even one breath without you by my side.
Except for maybe that first breath in the morning. I could do without the bed farts.
I love you.
Last night we had twenty minutes of toilet mayhem, MAYHEM, I tell you.
Bean aaaaaalmost made it to her potty before she totally lost her bladder all over the carpet. *sigh*
While I was mopping up, she decided to sit back on the potty and give me blow-by-blow accounts of what her BMs were shaped like that day, including the newly created tree.
I cleaned her up from that, let her loose, and returned to the loft, where I find Bean running around with no panties on and Chris trying to eat a marble-sized turd.
I scream for Dim, yank the dingleberry out of Chris' hand, and rush him to the sink to get him cleaned up. Dim asks Sophie if she pooped on the floor.
"Yes, dada."
"Okay, where is it?"
"Mama took it."
Dim and I both start laughing histerically. Chris, from what I can tell, didn't actually ingest anything, but MAN. MAYHEM.
You can't take your eyes off these kids for ten seconds.
Mark your calendars - I just became an old hag.
I tweezed four dark hairs from my upper lip. FOUR.
Yes, I ran out and bought a home waxing kit. It's made by Nads, which just makes me giggle.
Hags can giggle.
What else do we do? I'm not sure - creep out neighbor kids by handing out apples for Halloween? Perfecting our cackles? Develop facial moles?