Ann Coulter? Hitler called. He wants his conscience back.

Isn't she just the BEST poster child for "family values"? Because she is an attention whore, and clearly when you're selling a book there is no bad publicity, I was reluctant to write about her here. But my concern is that some people may not have seen or read excerpts from her latest diatribe. This time, her target is a group of 9/11 widows from New Jersey:

"These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them."

"They believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony."

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."

and my personal favorite:

"How do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy."

What the hell would that (divorce) have to do with anything? I was divorced from my son's father when he died. My heart was broken...because someone I had once loved had passed away as I held his hand, and because MY 8 YEAR OLD CHILD had lost his dad.

So much of what she says about these women could be pointed right back at her. Self-obsessed? Millionaires? Reveling in their status as celebrities? Hurry up and appear in Playboy? I guarantee that if this woman looked like Janet Reno the conservatives would not be using her as their hood ornament of the month.

When my son and I attended a bereavement group, four women in that group were 9/11 widows. I guarantee you, none of them were celebrating their family's loss. They were dealing with intense grief, anger, confusion, all while having to help their children cope with this horrific tragedy.

Maybe Ann Coulter ought to watch Loose Change. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but there are questions raised in that film that even SHE could not answer...no matter how much Kool-Aid she's had.

Eau d' Humanity

Kids stink. Not babies. Babies smell great...powdery fresh and brand new. But no one quite prepares you for what happens about eleven years later. All of a sudden, your child emerges from the shower and you find yourself saying, "Uh, did you use soap? Did you use WATER??" It's like they work up a sweat going from the shower stall to the towel rack. And that sweat is SMELLY.

It's not just adolescent boys, either. My daughter was just as bad. And for whatever reason, they don't smell it. She'd get absolutely indignant with me when I would gently suggest that she needed to shower more often or more thoroughly. I was trying to be sensitive, although talking while holding one's breath is NOT easy.

I'll never forget going to see a guidance counselor at her Middle School one day, while he was monitoring detention. I walked into the cafeteria after school hours and was nearly knocked over by the odor. It was intense! I asked him how he managed to sit through it, even for an hour, and he said he had become completely immune. Immune? It was like walking into a room full of tear gas.

Now my little boy, heading to Middle School in the Fall, has joined the ranks of the rank. As for me, I'm preparing well in advance for that first parent-teacher meeting on campus:



If no one gets my Hindenburg reference in the title of this post, I will be very sad. I thought it was brilliant. ;)

Panthergirl's Funniest Home Video

I've been converting all my analog videos to digital, and in the process have been saving some good clips to QuickTime. This is one of my favorite clips of all time... my daughter Emma playing with my then-husband's kooky Uncle Ray on a frozen pond in the Catskills. Look out, Emma!!

A Favorite Viral Video

If you haven't seen The JCB Song video, please take a moment to watch it (and stay for the end credits). In the true spirit of "viral video", it is infectious and you should pass it along. ;)

Lucas and I just watched it together. Poignant for us, since he greatly misses his dad...and because the little boy in the film's name is Luke too.

Panthergirl's Pick of the Week: Murderball

Much more than a "sports documentary", Murderball chronicles not just the intense rivalry between the quadraplegic rugby teams of the USA and Canada, but also the personal backstories of the players and one coach. This is not a "oh, those poor crippled boys" story. It is funny, sad, inspirational, infuriating, thrilling, poignant and mesmerizing. And the soundtrack is great, too.

My secondary pick of the week is Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. While the country was focused Taylor Hicks winning American Idol, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted of the crimes they committed...and if you think only Enron employees were affected, pop in this DVD ASAP. Having seen this film a few months ago, I'd been keeping a close eye on the proceedings and couldn't have been happier about the outcome. Too litle, too late, I'm afraid.

Photo Friday: New

It doesn't get much newer than this. Emma was 9 when Lucas was born, and she was in attendance for most of my labor. I had a drug-free birth with both of my kids, and although my labor with Emma was very peaceful and calm, it got a little more intense with Lucas. It was a short labor, but WAY tougher. When things got a little crazy towards the end, my sister took Emma out of the room and they waited until immediately after his birth, when she was able to give him his first bath.

She has mixed feelings about being present during the more difficult moments of my labor, but the one very positive result is that I never had to worry about her being a teenaged parent! And ultimately she was very, very happy to be such an intimate part of her brother's arrival into the world.

I have taught childbirth classes and done professional labor support...probably the most meaningful work I've ever done in my life. Although I made this decision to have Emma present for Lucas' birth, I don't think it's a decision I would make again or even recommend. While I think it was beneficial in many ways, I also know that if something bad had happened to the baby, and my 9 year old had witnessed that, it would have done irreparable damage to her psyche. I didn't realize it at the time, but that's probably not a risk worth taking.

Buzz Kill!!

My blogbuddy Twist of Kate posted a link to a site that will certainly cause you to have the pasta boil over. (That's on the higher end of my barometer for website pull. The highest end would involve a starving child and a dog rolling in his own waste. Thankfully this is fun, but not THAT much fun.)

The site is My Heritage, and there you can upload a photo of yourself or anyone else you know and it will assess your features and tell you what celebrity you resemble. Well, imagine my DELIGHT when I was a match for the Indian actress Bipasha Basu, who is considered by some to be the most beautiful woman in the world:



Unfortunately, I don't know how to quit while I'm ahead....

Help and Win!!

A retired racer and his friend Jackson

How can you resist these faces? Our rescue group, Greyhound Rescue and Rehab, is holding a raffle to raise money for our medical fund. When greyhounds leave the track, they need to be neutered, have dental work and sometimes have broken bones or other injuries that need repair. Go to the website, hit "make a donation" and you have TWO chances to win:

1. If you win the raffle, you get this exquisite stained glass piece “Freedom’s Wind” valued at $350 - $400 donated by artist Doreen Day:


Be sure to follw the directions to enter the raffle: Drawing to be June 24th at GRR’s annual picnic and you need not be present to win. Tickets for the raffle are 1 for $3, 2 for $5, or 5 for $10 (of course, you can buy more than 5). Click on the “Make a Donation” button above to purchase tickets through Paypal. Be sure to put number of tickets purchased with your name, address & phone number.

2. ANY donation made through this blog will win 100 Blog Explosion credits. Leave a comment here as soon as you've made your donation, with your BE user ID so I can award the credits to you.

If nothing else, PLEASE link to this post on your blog.

Thank you so much, and if you'd like to read more about retired racing greyhounds, I've blogged about it in my Shameless Plug for Greyhound Adoption.

Here's my beautiful Kelso, whom I usually refer to as a 'cat in a dog costume".

Photo Friday: Home

I've lived in many different places since I moved out of my parents' house at 17. The photos here were taken in my favorite of all those places: a loft space in Brooklyn Heights that I bought with husband #1 in 1984. I had my own business at the time and had done a hugely profitable project. We bought this place, gutted it and designed the space we wanted. Since it had windows on one end only (overlooking the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge) we left it open. The "rooms" were created by levels only. (Once my daughter was born we had to sell it because it was anything BUT childproof.) Hard to see here, but there was a Japanese rock garden that ran through the entire space.


I loved this piano. It was a Kawai grand and our music teacher once held a concert in our loft.


This was the bedroom, a few steps up from the living area. (Eventually there was a sofa that fit into the empty space behind the black chair.) The backlit glass blocks on the floor were my idea. Under the entire bedroom was a crawl space for storage.


I liked how the wall was curved on one side (flat on the other side, behind the bed). The floor of the foyer was a black marble circle surrounded by more Japanese stones.

Recently, New York Magazine ran an article about real estate and featured an apartment in this building. It was selling for 1.5 million dollars. We paid $145K for ours.

Digging Through the Archives

Actually, I was attempting to find out why people searching on Google for "Kathie Lee braless" keep winding up on my blog. (Then I tried to figure out why anyone would search for Kathie Lee braless in the first place). Anyway, it took me back into the archives where I guess I had mentioned KLG and braless, but not in the same post. I did like this one, though, from August '05.



Just turned on The Today Show, and they are doing a segment called "Cheapskate Week". I have to admit that watching this, featuring people who do things like fill their own jelly donuts, make diaper pails out of popcorn tins, and bring ziplock bags to the movies to divide up popcorn... makes my hair go on fire.

One of my ex-husbands said I would "go across the street and around the corner to avoid a sale", and he was probably right. I've only been to Wal-Mart twice (and couldn't wait to get out), don't comparison shop, and am a firm believer in "you get what you pay for". I know it's irrational at times, but hey...I've never claimed to be a completely rational person.

Why this visceral aversion to bargains? As with most of my other neuroses, I have to blame my parents. As children of the Great Depression, they turned penny-pinching into an artform. My mother made a lot of our clothes, and in doing so made them about three sizes too big so they'd fit for several years. This explains why, in most old photos, we look like refugees from Uzbekistan. She also made clothes for my Barbie doll, which was great except for the fact that she didn't want to have to buy special snaps (you know, the right SIZED ones), so the clothes had closures as big as Barbie's head.

Getting a greeting card from my mother meant (and still means) receiving one that had been previously sent to her, with the inside cut out. All of the food in our house was "Brand X" or awful store brands like "Ann Page" and "Krasdale". Although my father loved ice cream, the best we got was Breyer's Neopolitan, or maybe a Cookie Puss cake from Carvel for a REALLY special occasion.

My father loved electronics and gadgets of any and every kind (we had air-conditioning before anyone else), but I still remember the "brand names" that graced them all... Setchell-Carlson, Bonsonic, Royce Union... some of which, I think, fell off the back of a truck. Since he was a mailman, our house was FILLED with tiny versions of many products (free samples that had been addressed to houses that didn't exist). We used miniature cans of Rite Guard and Arrid Extra Dry, ate from little packettes of Carnation Instant Breakfast, and read magazines that had a big square cutout on the cover. Occasionally we'd score big and get someone's 8 free records from Columbia House, if they moved away before it was delivered. And there was Joe the Dented Can Man, my father's favorite place to shop for canned food.

Their premier cheapskate moment came one year on their wedding anniversary. They went to the nearest Hallmark store, each picked out a card and handed it to the other. On the spot they read them, said thanks, put the cards back and left the store.

I guess it's all about priorities. My parents did manage to raise three kids on a postman's salary (although my mother also worked or collected unemployment most of the time), and we always had new cars that they paid cash for. They never had credit cards until they retired and we never felt like they were strapped for cash.

Still, while I appreciate their efforts, it has left me with a psychotic disdain for sales and bargains.

So... fess up. Are you a Cheapskate? Are you the child of a Cheapskate? Or are you, like me, the Anti-Cheapskate?

Oops She Did It Again!

Unless you spent this past week on Jupiter, you've seen the photos/video of Britney's most recent parenting foible. Frankly, I'm not sure whether to call CPS or the Fashion Police. She was spotted crying in FAO Schwartz after the incident, but contrary to what the papers are saying, I think she was crying because she had forgotten to remove her black bra before putting on that white top, and she never expected all those people to get a picture of it. Kind of like when you leave the house in the dark and later discover that you're wearing one black shoe and one brown shoe? Thankfully most of us don't wind up on Page 6 every day, so we can get through the day in our mismatched footwear without much notice.

Oh, I've been hearing some people say that we're giving Britney too hard a time about her sloppy parenting, that every mother has done the things she does, they just aren't under the media microscope. Er, excuse me...but I've never driven with my baby in my lap, or plopped him into a car seat like a rag doll facing the wrong way (in a convertible, no less...call me a safety nut, but I would NEVER put an infant in a convertible). And carrying the kid on your hip, with a margarita in one hand (I know, I know, they said it was WATER) and pants dragging on the ground like mine did in 1971 is just a STUPID combination.

Good thing she's pregnant again, because she's going to need a spare.

PS: Britney has moved to Cyberia to escape the media spotlight.

She Never Disappoints Us

Before there was ballet and soccer and ice skating, there was tap. Almost every kid in the 50s and 60s, boys and girls alike, took a tap class and my sisters and I were no exception. We went to a small dance studio in Brooklyn called "Tip Tap Toe" [groan] and danced to period favorites like "Ballin' the Jack". (Even in my brief period of innocence, something about that title sounded dirty to me)

While my sisters continued on, I eventually said the six-year-old's equivalent of "screw that noise" and quit. I must have known that my parents would drag out the 16mm reels year after year to howl at my sisters in their various recitals replete with ridiculous satin and tulle costumes.

Apparenly not permanently scarred by that particular humiliation, my eldest sister decided to start taking tap again this past year. When I went to visit her in February I watched her in class and I was impressed!! She did great. I took a video and this is a still from it:



This past weekend, she went to visit my mother for Mother's Day and demonstrated the routine that she will be doing in a recital on June 1st. My mother watched attentively for the entire 10 minutes (an accomplishment in itself), and then said "Cute. Don't quit your day job."

Photo Friday: The Road

Ok, so you're thinking "That's not a ROAD, that's a TRAIL". And you'd be right. It's the Smokey Trail in Sedona AZ, 2002. But the theme of "The Road" also applies, because I love going on "the road" with my kids. I blogged about some of those trips here.

(click on the photo to enlarge it)

Idol Chatter

If Taylor Hicks wins American Idol, it will only be because the voters are too young to remember the REAL Joe Cocker. Or too old to know who he is. I have agreed with Simon all season...the guy is nothing more than a karaoke-style wedding singer.

Hicks winning Idol will simply trump the other current fiasco: Danielle winning America's Next Top Model. I guess it's a good season for hicks. (AW... that was mean!!) Well, at least JADE didn't win!

I need a life... ya think?

Charmed!

After the tsunami in South East Asia, my blog friend Charm offered one of her lovely paintings to anyone who matched her $100 donation for tsunami relief. I did it, and picked a fabulous one to hang in my condo. It's taken me awhile, but I finally took a picture of it!! Here's a closeup and an "in-room" shot. Go visit Charm and tell her I sent you over there!

Photo Friday: Masterpiece

It being Mother's Day weekend and all.... couldn't let this theme be about anything other than my two "masterpieces".

Panthergirl's Pick of the Week: The Perfect Crime

Hilarious black comedy, sort of reminded me of "Eating Raoul", another favorite of mine. The Netflix description is as follows:

"Alex de la Iglesia's hilarious crime caper stars Guillermo Toledo as Rafael, a typical Don Juan who enjoys his cushy job as a department store salesman and usually has his pick of the comely female staff. But when his bitter rivalry with co-worker Antonio ends in murder, Rafael must find an alibi -- fast. Lourdes, the one salesgirl Rafael has hitherto spurned, comes to his aid, but at a price; before long, prison seems distinctly appealing. ..."

Unrated, with subtitles. Definitely not for the kiddies.

Damn You, Hallmark

A timely rerun.

kitchen, originally uploaded by panthergirl.

I hate this time of year. Mother's Day this, Mother's Day that. All I know is, I have to go pick out a card to send to my 83 year old mother (you know, because I have to) and there isn't a damned one that tells my truth.

What is a dysfunctional child to do? Maybe I can write my own card, wtih little snippets to take her down memory lane...

....the adorable way she'd say "Who's gonna look at you anyway" to the pre-teen me as I'd brush my hair or look in a mirror before going out.

...the nightly game of "spin the knife" that my sister and I would play, to decide which of us was going to get to kill her.

...the loving way she said "Don't you have any respect for your body?", after my father beat the crap out of me for holding a boy's hand when I was 12. (it was so absurd that I actually laughed through my tears)

...those homecooked meals that were supposed to "taste better than they look."

...the way she tossed my favorite stuffed poodle into the back of a garbage truck as I sat, stunned and five years old, on my front stoop. She said it was dirty from me dragging him on a leash up and down the street.

...her sloppy technique when holding a towel in front of us at the beach, insisting that we take our bathing suits off before getting into the car. (cue "Who's gonna look at you anyway." It's a multipurpose expression, useful for humiliating children in countless scenarios.)

...and of course, her penchant for finding innumerable methods of inflicting physical pain when my father wasn't around to do her dirty work.

I've often looked at this photograph and compared it to those of my own children at about the same ages (I am 2 and my sister is 6 1/2). Thankfully, I don't think any pictures of my children show them as sullen as the faces you see here.

Maybe there's a card that says, simply, "Thanks for the memories."

Photo Friday: Adolescence

My favorite adolescent photo of my daughter Emma, (seen last week at age 5 along with Jonathan Pryce). I don't write about her much on this blog, because she's nearly 21 now and out of respect for her privacy I keep the current references to her to a minimum. But she was (and still is) an incredibly cool person.

As previously noted, her tastes have always run in extremely eclectic gamuts. In addition to the aforementioned affection for Baron Munchhausen, she was a Marx Brothers afficionado at age 6. Not only did she watch every film, but she read every biographical book she could find about them. She loved musical theater (in part due to my marriage to an actor/stagehand, but also due to the influences of her gay babysitter, or "manny", Arthur), British television (a huge Red Dwarf fan), and anything related to science fiction. She loved old movies, the campier the better. A subscription to the American Movie Channel magazine was a treasure for her.

While other girls her age were playing with Barbie dolls, Emma bought baby name books and invented families and their family trees. I bought her geneology software so she could transcribe the huge 3-ring binder full of these trees into electronic files. She would then write epic stories of these families, ala The Thornbirds, except the children in her stories went to places like "The Judy Garland Elementary School".

Her passion for Buffy the Vampire Slayer led to the buidling of several fanlisting sites (all have been taken down, but they were very cool) and several fanfiction submissions that got rave reviews on the web.

She was a challenge in high school, for sure, because being so unconventional made it difficult for teachers to keep her interested. She aced her SATs but considers herself "not a school person", so she's working a couple of part time jobs while I sit here, hoping that she'll use her multitude of talents and skills and unique personality to wind up in a good place.

Rerun: Hide the Salami

A retread, but a crowd favorite the first time it ran. And it links to another funny old post about my mother.

ew, originally uploaded by panthergirl.

This was Marge's first true love, George. I can certainly understand the appeal. After all, IMAGINING his belly button is so much sexier than actually SEEING it. And is it just me, or does it seem like he's squeezing his goods between his legs?

The poor chick on the left seems to show up in all these pictures. I think my mother must have gotten her from Rent-a-Homely-Friend. ("Be the prettiest girl on your block!") I bet her name was Lori Davis (remember that SNL skit?).

Looking at this photo again, I suppose I could have titled this post "Socks on the Beach". God, I crack me up.

Go See Marcia!!!!

You know that little "Rent My Blog" thing in the sidebar? Yeah, over to your right...scroll down a bit...see a thumbnail for my "tenant". The best thing about the whole space rental is finding little gem blogs that I never would have found otherwise.

I checked out Marcia ("The Pink Shoe") and loved her immediately. Anyone who mentions Catholic guilt and makes fun of Dick Cheney is a-ok in my book. I'm not posting a link to her here because you MUST click the thumbnail!

Use Your Words

Photo Friday: Famous

A rerun, but appropriate for this week's Photo Friday theme

emmas_hero, originally uploaded by panthergirl.

My daughter Emma (now 21) was a quirky child. Her favorite film at age five was The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. She was introduced to this film by Arthur, her gay babysitter (fodder for a future blog post), who made her the pop culture queen she is today.

She'd watch the movie over and over and over, and memorized the credits so she knew every character and every actor who played him or her.

At the time I was married to husband #2 who is a Broadway stagehand and was working at "Miss Saigon"...starring Jonathan Pryce, who is also a star in the Baron Munchhausen film. Although not her dad, husband #2 was wonderful with my daughter (probably the reason I married him...sadly our marriage only lasted 18 months). He arranged for Emma to go backstage and meet her idol. This was, for her, what meeting Barney would have been for other kids her age at the time. She was totally freaked out and nervous, even concerned about what to wear. She wanted to desperately to meet him, but to her this was the rock star of all rock stars. She finally mustered up the courage and this photo is the result .

Panthergirl's Pick of the Week: The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

I remember hearing/reading terrific reviews for this film when it opened, but it must have run in VERY limited release. God knows why. It is a sweet, funny, unique and heart-rending film... based on the true story of a woman in the 50s who keeps her family afloat by writing catchy slogans and winning contests. A wonderful period piece with a quirky style and great performances.

Now here's an idea for a contest: Guess how many freckles Julianne Moore has! LOL

Marge Madness!

Post title courtesy of my hilarious friend Joy. Although our visit was in April, a week with my mother can ONLY be described as "Marge Madness". (For background on Marge, go here and here and here.

Rather than drone on about the details of our whole week (think Elaine on Seinfeld going "BLAH BLAH BLAH") I'll just give you a list of daily "high points":

SUNDAY:

We arrive in Orlando at about 11:30 AM. Lucas has 103.9 fever. Other than that, the Air Tran flight was great. Flight attendants with a sense of humor. Just prior to takeoff, "This is flight 327. If Orlando is not your destiination, it will be now."

It felt great to experience the 80 degree weather, and as soon as we arrived at my mother's condo I put on a pair of shorts. Upon seeing the two distinctly brown burn marks, one on each thigh, I changed to capris and seriously considered joining a 12-step program for my laptop addiction.


I don't know why this struck me so funny, but I like to call it "My 83 Year Old Mother Servicing Her Police Car".




In addition to Marge, two of her three sisters were down there. The middle one is 80 (her husband, my Uncle, died a few weeks ago. I had posted about him being ill) and the one on the right (a twin, the other twin is in AZ) is 75. She plays tennis, singles, about 3 times a week. For YEARS she jumped rope 20 minutes a day. I can't jump rope for FIVE minutes. She also has a strange paranoia about bird flu. (She told us that there are 10 confirmed cases among humans in the US. Huh? Whatever!)

Anyway, with Lucas in bed all day, I sat and watched The Masters with my mother and aunts. Sports-nuts, all of them, I chuckled as they sat on the couch yelling "C'mon Tiger! Show us how!!!"

MONDAY:

We got up (of course my mother had been up since about 5 AM) and Lucas was better. In the afternoon we went bowling and I actually BEAT her one game (ok, so I was using the bumpers and she wasn't. What's it to ya?). Then she kicked our butts with a 159. (In her bowling heyday, she had a 165 average I think). She sent some horny old man over to hug me. Once not too long ago she told us that a man at the bowling alley had asked her to dinner. "As if that's all he wants!"

TUESDAY:

We went to Sea World and she came along. Hard to say why, since she spends most of the time standing six feet behind us as though she's tapping her toes waiting to move on.


Lucas feeding the dolphins.


A very cute dolphin.

WEDNESDAY:

In the morning we went to play golf. Her golf course, in Winter Park, is basically in the middle of a neighborhood so there are streets running through and around the entire course. Totally bizarre. Anyway, her golf "form" is pretty much like bowling with a stick. But much to the dismay of Lucas and myself, she manages to get the ball up the middle and even made a few pars. Go figure.

The most endearing part of playing with her, though, is that she laughs at you if you screw up.

On Wednesday night, Lucas and I went to Disney without her so we could just relax and go at our own pace. He's usually afraid of rides but I convinced him to go on Thunder Mountain Railroad with me. He was nervous, but I said "Look. I used to be afraid of rides, and then I said to myself 'What's going to happen? You're not going to DIE!" So we went on the ride and I was laughing my head off and screaming, but he was crying through the whole thing. I felt awful. Later on, he said "It WAS kind of fun..." And the next day the headlines on the newspaper read: "Woman Dies After Riding Mission:Space at Disney".

One unkind but true comment about going to Disney World: What an unhealthy bunch these "ordinary Americans" are. WOW. When you live in an urban area, you get used to seeing people who are pretty fit and healthy looking (I guess from walking a lot and maybe just due to a more educated way of living or something). I'm not just talking weight, either. It was startling.

THURSDAY:

Went to play golf again because we're just gluttons for punishment.


FRIDAY:


Drove to Daytona Beach so Lucas could play in the ocean. It was a gorgeous day, he loved it. My mother informed us that people go "BUNG-IE" jumping there (hard "g"). Ever the control freak, she decided we should leave at 3PM. Lucas was still enjoying the ocean and it was such a lovely day that I was really in no hurry to go. At 3, she said "Should I go wait in the car?"

SATURDAY:

We went to Winter Park to take a small boat ride around some of the lakes there. When we boarded, Lucas and I sat down in the back of the boat, but rather than sit next to us my mother found a "better" seat. Hokey dokey!





This was our last day down there, and all in all it was a good trip. We survived some pretty wicked meals (pasta with enough garlic to choke a horse), I must have said 'RELAX!!!" a billion times, (especially because she thinks everyone is out to screw her in one way or another), but it was still good to get away.

And I think the burn marks have faded somewhat.

Crazy Mom Post Coming Soon!

Tonight or tomorrow at the latest... I want to make sure and cover ALL the kooky things she said while we were in Florida!

In the meantime, does anyone know what kind of tree this is? Naomi is a blogger who knows lots about plants and trees, so hopefully she'll chime in!

Do You Know an Angela Shelton?

Do you know about the Angela Shelton project? It started out as a woman looking for other women who shared her name. What she found? 40 women.... MOST of whom had been raped or sexually molested at some point in their lives. She made a film about it called Searching for Angela Shelton, and now has a blog... check her out here.

Sorry for the dearth of postings this week. Work is kicking my butt, mentally and physically. On Friday I'll be posting pictures and highlights from our crazy week with my mother. In the meantime...go say hi to Angela!

My Newest Post Isn't Here

It's here!

My new blog-bud Matthew of ChildsPlayx2 has asked his readers to write about non-holiday family traditions and I was happy to oblige. I hope you'll enjoy reading my entry, and please poke around and read more of what he has to say. Plus, he has him some CUTE twin babies! ;)

Go! Now!

Photo Friday: Full

Our bearded dragon, Dylan, does not always puff himself up like this...but I'm glad I snapped him when he did. He certainly fits this week's theme of "full".

If you are considering a Bearded Dragon, please please please do the proper research. When we got him at Petsmart the guy gave us completely incorrect instructions for care and feeding. I wound up returning almost $200 worth of supplies and supplements. Thankfully, I found this Yahoo group and we've now raised a healthy 20 month old who is over 20" long from tip to tail. (We bought him as a 6 inch long baby.)

Are You Sirius?

....or do you XM?

We are back from vacation, and yes... I have a few funny stories to tell... but first I need some advice. On the AirTran flight down to Orlando we had free XM Radio and my son laughed his little butt off for two hours listening to "Laugh USA". When we picked up our Hertz rent-a-car, it came equipped with a Sirius satellite radio and I just loved being able to tune into songs of any decade or some micro-specific category like "Music of the 1970s That Is Not Disco". (Not really, but close.)

Anyway, I would really like to get a satellite radio for the car but HOW do I decide which one? I couldn't care less about Howard (I'll sometimes watch his show on E! just because it can be visually amusing, but I don't find him funny on radio at all), and I don't care about Oprah (who apparently signed with XM).

What I liked about Sirius that I'm not sure applies to XM is that they have stuff like CourtTV, the Discovery Channel, etc.

Any strong pros and cons from you satellite-owning blogsters out there?

Life Imitates Seinfeld

Remember "The Pen" episode of Seinfeld, where Elaine goes to Florida with Jerry? She has to sleep on the sofabed with the bar ramming into her back, and Jerry's parents refuse to put the a/c on?

Well, I'm taking Lucas to Florida tomorrow to see my mother for a week. We will be sleeping on sofabeds with bars ramming us in the back. We'll get into the shower and discover that the water is freezing cold because my mother doesn't always turn on the hot water heater. Or turns it on right before one of us is taking a shower, so the water has not yet become hot. We'll be brushing our teeth with bottled water to avoid that awful sulphur taste, but on the up side we'll be playing golf and going to Daytona for the day on Tuesday.

We'll also walk around the complex with my mother who will call out neighborly comments like "Tell me about it!" when a woman says she's having a hard time with the fact that her husband passed away.

I promise to come back with lots of material for the blog. In the meantime, do me a favor would you? Visit at least ONE person on my blogroll that you've never visited before and tell me what you think!

Photo Friday: Organized

Greyhound Yin/Yang.

Stardust Memories - Redux

A stressful work situation has inflicted me with a temporary case of writer's block. So, I bring you yet another rerun. Hope there are enough new readers so I'm not boring you guys to death.



There was something about that concoction of smells...the Old Spice, the Chanel No. 5, her pressed powder, his freshly cleaned suit...I loved it when they got dressed up to go out. They seemed different. Young. When I was little my older sisters and I would do silly stuff while they were gone...we'd dance on the coffee table and try doing cartwheels in our tiny living room. In my teenage years those smells meant that I'd have a boyfriend over who'd run out the front door as my parents came in the back way.

They'd always come home with a centerpiece of wilted flowers or little pink and blue candied almonds bundled in white netting. The delicious perfumes from the early evening would be replaced by stale traces of rye and vermouth, smoke and nail polish remover. He would have danced to make her happy. She'd complain that her feet hurt. By the next morning, they'd be snarling at each other and everything would return to ... normal.

Another Little Gem

A dear friend recommended this film to me but I didn't get around to watching it until yesterday.

All I can say is, HOW do movies that are this good fly under the radar for so long? Americans who won't go to non-Hollywood-blockbuster movies are missing out on so much. (And who is this Gerard Butler?? Grrrrrrrrrowl!)

I've see a few terrific non-American films with children at the center (but none are "chick flicks") One is Millions and the other is Iranian (subtitled) and called Children of Heaven.

When the remake of The Shaggy Dog is making a gazillion dollars at the box office and no one sees these truly great films, you have to wonder.

Shutting Down the Blog

Well folks, all good things must come to an end. I'm shutting down the blog for good.











And I'm also moving to Tahiti to write my novel and leaving my kids, my dog and my job behind.
April Fools!

Grisly, Man

I saw Grizzly Man on the Discovery Channel last month, but it was so full of commercials that I've now rented it from Netflix so I can watch without interruption (you know how much I love TiVO? I love Netflix even more. I've been a member since the beginning!). How do people watch movies on "normal" TV? Drives me nuts.

Anyway, this film is really amazing. If you are concerned about seeing someone eaten by a bear, or the remains of such, you won't see that here. But what you WILL see is an incredible character study, and the sad progression of a person's mental illness. Still, no matter how crazy Timothy Treadwell was, how do you explain the fact that he was able to live amongst Grizzly bears and feed foxes from his hand for five years before he was finally killed? Someone in the film says that he dealt with the bears like they were people in bear costumes, and that is the perfect analogy.

Werner Herzog also made one particularly wise decision in the making of this film. I won't say more than that. See it.