Adventures in Bad Parenting

In between marathon Grey's Anatomy viewing (I'm up to Season 2, episode 14!), I managed to get out and play some tennis with my son this weekend. Oh, how I wish I had a bronzed "Spearsie" statue to award to a fellow on the next court! He was playing doubles with what appeared to be his teenaged son and two other boys in their teens. What a good dad! Right.....? WRONG! See, in addition to this teenaged son, he had a baby daughter. An infant, about 8 months old. Who was on his left hip as he thwapped his forehands, backhands and even an approach shot or two. Better yet, the MOM was sitting with friends at a picnic table nearby, cooing "Oh look...he's got the baby on the tennis court!" (He was probably doing this in honor of Steve Irwin, another "Spearsie Award" nominee.)

And just when I thought he was this week's top prize winner, I overheard a mom in the next dressing room at Macy's yesterday as I tried on dresses for this weekend's wedding in Maine. She was apparently shopping for clothes with what sounded like a 9 year old ("Mom, I think your bra is on upside down.") and a 6 year old who was wearing a princess tiara. How do I know that? Because Princess asked for a piece of gum and Mommie Dearest screamed "IF YOU ASK FOR GUM AGAIN I'M GOING TO SMACK YOUR FACE AND THEN I'M GOING TO STOMP ON YOUR LITTLE CROWN!" (Unless the kid's name was "Jill", I'm thinking plastic tiara with rhinestones).

See what an upside down bra will do to someone?

What I Did on My Labor Day Weekend

Due to everyone I know *loving* this show, and wanting to watch season 3 when it premieres, I rented Season One from Netflix and watched the WHOLE THING yesterday and last night (actually until 2AM this morning). I'm hooked. I love it.

I love it so much that I can't possibly wait until 9/12 for the second season to come out on DVD, so I've been downloading the episodes (each one takes about 3 hours) and have watched the first two already.

Did I also mention how much better it is to watch network shows on DVD? (Lest you think I've given up on my diet and exercise, think again. I can take a DVD to the gym and watch it while I'm doing cardio. I love my gym because each cardio thing has it's own private TV/DVD player. Awesome!)

Anyway...if you haven't watched Grey's Anatomy...you're missing something very good. Much better than ER, IMO.

A Perfect Post - A Day Late

My sincere apologies to Metro Dad, to whom I've awarded August's

.

I was supposed to post this yesterday but since I was on vacation this week I forgot it was Friday...blah blah blah. There's no good excuse.

Just go read his perfect post, and tell him I sent ya.

Fall Preview '06

Some may recall that last year, I ran a Fall Preview post of things I planned to write about on this blog in the '05-06 season. Well, I came through on some, and others never made it to prime time. Life, work, it all gets in the way of blogging sometimes.

So, this year I'll try and follow through on my scheduled lineup:


"Blue Collar Men in Tights": My family's near-obsession with Halloween, particularly notable are the repeated scenes of my father and uncle (and sometimes grandfather) in drag.

"The Pedo-Files": Last year's promised entry about my near-abductions into white slavery as a teen in NYC. Thank god there was no internet, or I wouldn't be here to tell the tales. I'm sure of it.

"Today is So Yesterday" : Why I won't be watching The Today Show anymore. Meredith Viera? Please.

"The Manny Diaries": The story of Arthur, my daughter's "manny" from birth until she was 8 years old. A better caregiver there will never be.

America's Holocaust

I am watching Brian Williams (NBC)'s retrospective on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one year ago. I sit here, feeling the way some Germans must feel about the Holocaust. Deeply ashamed that something of this nature could happen in one's own country.

It wasn't the hurricane that caused the devestation. It was the blatant disregard for human life...the human life of poor people who were rounded up like cattle and left to die. For FIVE DAYS. And in a brief glimpse of Williams' interview with Bush, to be aired tomorrow night, we get to see that goddamned smirk in reaction to a sincere question about racism. I don't know about you, but if someone were to suggest that I was a racist, I don't think a smirk would be the facial expression of choice.

We "impeach" a President for getting a blowjob, but we somehow let this slip by? What is wrong with this government?? How can anyone see the footage, look at the photographs, or read any eyewitness accounts of those five days and not feel overwhelming anger and shame?

I've said this since day one: I don't just think Bush should have been impeached. I think he should have been, and should still be, prosecuted.

DISCLAIMER FOR THE LITERALISTS: I am not EQUATING the Katrina aftermath to the actual Holocaust. What I am pointing out is this: Holocaust: Group of human beings deemed less valuable than others, and as a result are killed. Katrina Aftermath: Group of human beings deemed less valuable than others, and as a result are killed. As we say in Brooklyn,"CAPEESH?"

Have a Fit!

I've been somewhat of a bad blogger. First, I was away for five days. But then, I discovered FitDay. Maybe it's the Virgo in me, but I cannot resist things that require record keeping, or questionnaires, or competition (even when I'm just competing with myself). I've been wanting to get back into shape for quite awhile now, and this site is the PERFECT way for me to do it. I'm tracking everything I eat and every single activity. Check it out...it's really great! (special thanks to my assistant, LJ, for turning me on to it!)

Why now? Well.......... I'm thrilled to say that I've got a wedding to go to in two weeks. Why thrilled? Because I introduced them!!! Anyone remember Nadia? She and I met a few years ago at a party, and then at another party. She's a fantastic singer and was looking for representation, so I hooked her up with my BEST guy-friend, Rich, who is extremely well-connected in the music industry. But in all honesty... I knew he would FLIP over her.

And I was right. (god, I love that phrase)

They're getting married on September 9th in Camden, Maine...such a gorgeous place!



Lucas and I are driving up there for the weekend, but the best part is that I'm going to "perform the ceremony". They will get married prior to the event, but it will appear that I'm actually hitching them.

If only I had been as good at picking husbands for myself... Oh well! (In the greatest irony of all, Rich introduced me to my first husband. But he refuses to take the credit/blame. Hey, I got a great daughter out of it. In fact, Rich has been pretty much the center of my universe since we met in 1977, because he affected most of the pivotal decisions I've made regarding life and work. I'm happy to return the favor.)

So....my goal is to get a really hip and cool dress at Anthropologie, and I want to look smokin' hot in it. A regular Justice of the Piece of Ass. (Is that rude?)

A Story About Wind

We're back from the Windy City, and have a ton of things to catch up on (work, life, bills, blogs) but I would like to share a little story with you. And it's no coincidence that the photo is of Lucas and "The Bean".

On our flight home, we were dismayed to see two women with infants boarding the plane and sitting right near us. I like babies alright, but I always prefer to sit in the "no baby zone" on an airplane. Luke and I gave each other a glance, shrugged our shoulders, and settled in...hoping that the babies wouldn't be much of an issue. Little did we know that seated directly behind me was a 25 year old woman-child who talked INCESSANTLY, the entire flight, to her seatmate, in that annoying volume usually reserved for cellphone users in line at the bank. When I say "incessantly", read: never coming up for air, not for a moment. I was sure I'd turn around to see the other woman bleeding from the ears. Even the occasional screaming baby didn't drown out this chick.

Lucas kept trying to catch her eye, but she refused to allow herself to be distracted for a moment.

Midway through the flight, I attempted to ignore her and do my NY Times Crossword puzzle while my son became more and more agitated by the whole thing. Suddenly, a distinctive odor wafted up my nostrils and I turned to him. "Oh no. Now one of the babies' diapers needs changing! Ugh!!"

He looked back at me and said in a hushed tone, "That's not a baby. That's me. You see, I'm FARTING so she'll have to hold her nose, and then will have to shut up! There's no way she can keep talking while holding her nose!"

Note to 11-year-old boys: Please consult parent before deploying creative schemes that involve noxious fumes.

Blowing into Chicago

...tomorrow through Sunday. Limited, if any, blogging time. I'll miss you all, but the good news is that even though it's a business trip I'm taking Lucas! My sister is meeting us there so they can hang out while I'm at the office. But we'll still have lots of time to play!

Take a peek into the Archives, or at my 100 Things, or pop over to Adventures in Cyberia and see what the Sim-lebrities are up to! And of course, visit my tenant, Laci!

Panthergirl's Pick of the Week: The Secret Life of Bees

Don't just read it, listen to it. It's narrated by award-winning voiceover artist and actress Jenna Lamia, and it is wonderful. I'm a huge fan of the audiobook, downloaded to my ipod and tucked into my waistband as I walk the dog, work around the house, whatever. Then I plug it into my MP3 jack in the car and continue listening as I drive to and from work. The best part, though, is not having to lug a book around!! I do love the smell and feel of a nice hardcover, but I swear...I would never be reading as much as I am now if I couldn't listen.

Next up...Middlesex.

Go Take A Long, Slow, Beautiful Dance...

...to my sidebar and visit my new tenant, Laci!! She has a perky new layout AND she's a cool chick who marathon blogged for charity recently. Go see her! Now! And tell her how you got there. ;)

Beyond Dick and Jane

Another blogfriend, Kenju, always posts pictures of old things she has kept for years, like postcards and books. I recently mentioned to her that I've kept some old books myself and she asked me to feature them here. So, Judy, in your honor...

Before there was www...ANYTHING, there were encyclopedias. We had your basic Funk & Wagnalls, but we also had "The Book of Knowledge" which we absolutely loved. I have the entire set, and it sits in my son's room where he devours every last obsolete detail.



In the "Dick and Jane" vein, there were "Friends and Neighbors", and "More Friends and Neighbors". These were published in 1942 by some Catholic firm, so most of the stories managed to work in a moral whether we liked it or not. As for me, I liked drawing glasses and mustaches on the people (and, in this case, horses).




As previously noted, my parents liked to take us on long car trips. We had several books for these trips, including one by Dave Garroway, the first host of The Today Show. This Family Fun Book was my personal favorite, though.




"Days and Deeds" was another Catholic propaganda book disguised as entertainment. However, I was shocked to find the story of "The Man Who Kept House", which is basically a tale about a chauvinistic idiot who thinks his wife does nothing until he switches places with her one day. Surprisingly evolved for 1942.




I have several of these, published by Parents' Magazine. They were pretty cheesy but we loved them. I still remember the "My Shadow" poem and will recite it to you someday unless you give me a thousand dollars not to.




So... hope you enjoyed this little trip down Library Lane. And just so you can put these books in context, here's what I looked like around the time I was reading them. (I love the details in this photo...the Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, the Patty Play-pal doll, the kicked off black pumps in the background. I just received HUNDREDS of jpgs that my Uncle made from his slides, taken from 1959 through 1965 or so...thanks, Uncle Joe, for the blog material! Not that you'll ever know that!!)

Michelle and Michelle

OK, so I am actually awarding the "100,00th Visitor" prize to TWO visitors, since ... oh, it's too complicated. They are going to share the spotlight whether they like it or not. And oddly enough, they are both named Michelle!

First, we have Chele in LA. I'm so happy she's a co-winner because she is a stagehand and I have a special place in my heart for stagehands. She doesn't work on Broadway, though. She works in LA. Still, she's got lots of cool stories about her job, she has a spiffy new template, and she lists me on her rather short blogroll. And she actually spells her name with two L's even though her blog name only has one. I love wacky people like that.

Next, we have Michelle of Occasional Melancholia who revealed herself as visitor number 100,001! She is one of the earliest of my blog-readers, and is still sticking around which I really appreciate. She's a huge Simpsons fan, has three teenagers and can still put a coherent sentance together.

So what will it be, gals? I've got some of this with your name on it!

We Interrupt this Blog...

Sorry I have not yet posted the winner's honorary post. My son was in a camp bus accident last night (they were hit by a speeding car that was totaled). He is ok, but it was very scary. Thank GOD the kids were wearing seat belts or it would have been tragic.

I'll be back on track tonight.

There might be TWO winners, since someone has identified herself as visitor # 100.001!

Update: The driver of the car was DRUNK, driving while drinking beer. I hope they fry his ass. Lucas is doing ok, although sore in the neck and back. I'm still reeling from the whole fiasco. Not fun to see your kid strapped to a board and loaded into an ambulance... thanks for all the good wishes, and I promise to post my celebratory post soon

Queen for a Day!

Well, she wasn't EXACTLY the 100,000th... but that person surfed in through BE and I couldn't identify him/her (and they didn't stick around very long). So I picked the closest visitor that I *could* identify...and that person is:

Chele in LA (Michelle)!!!

I will be posting her official tribute tomorrow!! For the rest of you, we have some lovely parting gifts. (Not really, I just like saying that). Thanks for playing!

You Could Be A Winner!!

Sometime in the next day or two, some lucky blog-reader is going to be the 100,000th visitor to The Dog's Breakfast. If it's you, and you're a member of Blog Explosion, I'll award you 50 BE credits and a post dedicated to you and your (hopefully) wonderful blog.! Woo hoo! If you don't belong to BE, I'll still sing the praises of your (please god) extraordinarily entertaining site. If you are not a blogger, but just someone with a lot of time on his/her hands, or just happens to know me in real life, I promise to answer the phone the next time I see your number come up on my Caller ID. And I'll get you some free product from my job. Moisturizer? Laundry Detergent? Shampoo? You name it.
Update: The Site Meter also counts hits on my other blog, Adventures in Cyberia, so go visit that one too!!!

So......... let the games begin!

Photo Friday: Private

A private moment on Cane Garden Bay Beach, Tortola BVI, pre-kids. A simpler life, indeed. Is it wrong to long for it sometimes?

Happy Birthday MTV!

MTV is 25 today. Man, am I old or what?

As noted in my Factoid #37, a friend of mine designed the now famous logo. He was part of a 3-person, tiny design firm and they beat out huge icons who were fighting for the gig. While walking the streets of the city, he spotted a Mack truck with that big M on the front. That was the inspiration for the M, but the "TV" came from his love for Winky Dink as a kid. (Where you put a plastic screen on the television and drew on it). Defacing the M with the graffiti-like "TV" made the whole thing perfect.

It was a cool place to be at that time...the offices run by brilliant people who were essentially kids. Bob Pittman, the first president of MTV, was only 29 or 30. You just knew that this was something very special...very big.

Suddenly, the business of cutting a record also included making a video. Some artists, like Phil Collins, objected. They felt that the listener should be conjuring up his or her OWN imagery from the music, not locked into the vision of some director. There's a part of me that agrees. But it became inevitable for everyone to jump on the video bandwagon if they wanted to remain commercially viable.

Being married to an art director for CBS Records, and friends with the MTV crowd, I had a very exciting social life at that time. Concerts almost weekly, listening parties at the homes of the artists, seeing the likes of David Bowie walking the hallways at CBS (larger than life, really), attending premiers. It was a blast and although my life couldn't be more different now, I'm glad to have those memories.

Now, about that hair...

Keeping Her Distance - Redux

A summer rerun



I don't know anyone who is as removed from her emotions as my mother is. (New readers can find other posts about her here and here. )

She never really understood sentimental attachments...to things (which is why she thought nothing of giving away our toys and games to cousins as we stood there, heartbroken), stuffed animals (hence the previously mentioned incident where she threw my treasured stuffed poodle into the churning garbage truck as I sat in stunned silence), or even to people.

The first inkling I had, about the people-part, was when a young couple in our neighborhood had a baby which tragically died a few days after birth. My older sister was devestated by this news, but when my mother saw her crying she said "Oh don't worry...they didn't even have a chance to love it yet." While she considers herself 'close' to her sisters, she's always kept non-relatives at arm's length, and often referred to our friends as "strangers".

As with most of the stories about my mother, the tragedy is usually accompanied by a heavy dose of hilarity. That same sister was married for 29 years to a man that my parents welcomed into the family as a beloved son-in-law. However when they got divorced and my mother saw him for the last time, she waved and said, "Nice knowin' ya!"

She has talked about donating her body to science when she dies, and frankly I'd love to know what they'll find between her ears!

Photo Friday: Portrait

My little girl is turning 21 in August.... I love this shot of her!

He Put a Spell on Me

I saw Leon Russell in concert in 1971, at the then-new Nassau Coliseum. My best friend and I "charmed" our way into the FIRST row of a packed house, where we jumped and screamed and were completely convinced that Leon was singing a song for US. I don't remember much else about the concert, because another friend was with us...the son of a dentist. And with him? A canister of nitrous oxide. Anyone else out there who got high on laughing gas and promised to make out with a security guard to sit in the first row of a Leon Russell concert? I didn't think so.

Fast foward to yesterday, when I saw a poster in my local pharmacy window advertising a Leon Russell concert this weekend. At the Ridgefield Playhouse in Ridgefield, CT.

I was simultaneously thrilled and horrified. Wouldn't it be fun to see Leon again? Or would it? Should I just remember him as he was, and me as I was? (Fans will still probably have canisters...of OXYGEN!)

Honk If You're An Asshole

I spend way too much time in the car these days. Having grown up in NYC, I didn't even get my license until I was 23. Since moving out to the 'burbs, though, I've resigned myself to a life that is spent behind the wheel. And most of THAT time is spent in shock and awe at the limited driving skills of others on the road. (I often note to myself that the same person who turns without signaling is the one who can't seem to work out the physics of proper grocery bagging. The only difference is that no one is going to DIE when she puts all your heavy stuff in one bag.)

My father was a terrible tailgater and often on the receiving end of road rage. People would get out of their cars and scream at him, or just pull up along side him and mouth all kinds of nasty stuff. My sister and I fashioned ourselves after The Bowery Boys and gave the other drivers "Routine Number 59", which amounted to nothing more than funny faces. But we thought it was an effective defense.

One thing I liked about driving in the city was that people had car horns and they weren't afraid to use them. That joke about the definition of a nanosecond can ONLY work when a New Yorker is part of the punchline. (The time it takes between the light turning green and the horn blaring.) When I moved to CT, I discovered that no one uses their horns. I'd punch my steering wheel to alert the woman in front of me that it was time to stop applying lip liner and MOVE, only to be glared at by other drivers and onlookers.

Eleven years later, I moved back to NY but still outside the city, and even here...no one honks. But what occurred to me yesterday is that honking is pretty useless anyway. What I want is a car equipped with a selection of sounds and comments that I can direct to the proper audience. For example:

"BACK OFF" for those annoying tailgaters. Look, I'm going 75. What is your problem? I can count your nose hairs from here. Especially helpful when there's another car directly in front of you, and the tailgater still won't let up. Without this handy feature, I find myself making wing-flapping motions in my rear-view mirror, the universal sign for: "Whaddya want me to do, FLY over him?"

"HANG UP AND DRIVE", for you-know-who.

"SIGNAL MUCH?"

"[wild applause]" for those wonderfully satisying, but woefully infrequent, times that the person who just blasted past you at 120mph gets pulled over.


This would also eliminate the need to set poor examples for our children with endless namecalling and bird flipping. One Christmas, my friend Seth's 2-year-old daughter got one of those driving toys with the steering wheel and little red horn in the middle. While the extended family was noisily chatting and opening gifts, it became apparent that the toddler was off in a corner, wildly yanking the wheel from one side to the other, banging on the horn and yelling "IDIOT! IDIOT"

Whoops.

Photo Friday: Common

How common a face is this? Why do kids hate haircuts so much? Lucas was 3 and this was his first real haircut. He was one of those cueball babies, who went from having absolutey NO hair to having a head full of wild curls. The curls are gone now, but a full eight years after this photo was taken, he STILL hates haircuts.

Marley & Me

Lucas and I listened to "Marley & Me" this week, finishing it in a few days even though we only listen in the car. (Yes, that often means sitting in the parking spot outside our condos while we hang onto the last few words of a chapter.) I've been lauding the audiobook/iPod format a lot these days (hell, I've listened to more books in the past two weeks than I've read in the past two years!) but this time I *really* mean it. If you have not read this book yet, LISTEN to it. (see the link in my sidebar)

I'll admit, at first I wasn't sure I liked John Grogan's voice (sorry, John). He sounded a little too much like Misterogers to me. But hearing first hand every emotion that the author and his family experienced in their life with Marley...somehow conjuring that voice up in my head would not have had the same impact. And, of course, being able to read WITH someone else just adds to the whole experience. Lucas and I laughed and cried together as we soaked in the story of Marley...much of which we could relate to, for many different reasons.

Best of all, John Grogan has a blog. If you've read the book and loved it as we did, go visit John and tell him I sent you his way. He's way cuter than Misterogers.

And Most of All, By Miss Piggy

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Chix with Dix

Just finished watching Felicity Huffman's tour de force performance in Transamerica . I was aware that she had done an amazing job as a pre-op transexual (a woman playing a man who wants to be a woman), but was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the film as a whole. All the performances are excellent and it's smartly written. Highly recommended.

The film also reminded me of a pre-op tranny in our own lives. We had a "manny" when my daughter was born, in 1985. Who knew we were such trend setters? Anyway, the story of Arthur our manny is fodder for entire blog post, and he's not the tranny, so I'll get to the story at hand.

Arthur had a childhood friend named Frankie who, at 40, was a pre-op transexual. She had breasts but still had her male goods as well, and went by the name of "Miss Pearl." Always over-madeup, over-accessorized and overdressed, she looked more like another "Miss":



She was unintentionally hilarious. She took herself very seriously, strutted her stuff with confidence, swinging her bleached blonde ponytail from side to side and sending us into fits of laughter with her endless Brooklynese malaprops. When writing a thank you note one day, she looked at Arthur with a puzzled expression: "I want to write, 'Remember the fun we used to have'. How do you spell "Yoost?"). Or she gravely reported that a friend who had been killed in a car accident was "Very dead."

The most memorable moment, however, was the day she got into an argument with a woman over a parking space in her very straight-laced Bay Ridge neighborhood. She was pulling into the space, the woman was trying to back in simultaneously, and they were at an impasse. Finally, the woman got out of her car and marched over to Miss Pearl's driver side window. "If you don't get out of this space I'm calling a COP!" she hissed. And without batting a false eyelash, our leading lady shot back, "Suck my dick."

Photo Friday: Remarkable

Remarkable to think that exactly FIVE months ago, this was the view as I walked Kelso down my street. Today? 90 degrees with sweltering humidity. I'll take the heat, thanks. ;)

If You Read No Other Book

The Kite Runner.

(Actually, I listened to it which I think added SO much to the experience. I can't get his voice out of my head.) If you don't find yourself double-checking that this is a NOVEL, and not a MEMOIR, a million times while reading this book I'd be amazed.

Do yourself a favor, though. Don't read the Publisher's Weekly review on Amazon, because it gives away all the important things about the story. What's up with that?

I've moved from that to another sad book, Night, the Holocaust memoir by Elie Wiesel. Really hard to listen to, but so important nonetheless.

Factoid #65: The Shooting Gallery

Greg&Marian 1972, originally uploaded by panthergirl.

Another entry in the series of expanded explanations of my 100 Things.

#65 reads: "I sat in a "shooting gallery" in Brooklyn when I was 15 years old with my 22-year-old heroin addict boyfriend. Thankfully, I was terrified of needles."

This is a photo of me and said boyfriend (I was 17 here). At the point that this picture was taken, he was in a Methadone program. I remember riding the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan, him slumped on my shoulder, the other passengers clearly wondering what I saw in this drooling junkie. The Methadone was given to him at first as a liquid he had to consume in front of the administrator, but eventually in tab form to take home. He let me try a quarter of a tab one Saturday night. After a night of vivid and amazing dreams, I woke up to find myself hiding upstairs in my grandparents' bathroom, projectile vomiting. The high lasted for three very scary days. I was convinced that the drug had permanently altered by brain and that I would never be "normal" again. And remember, I was both living at home with my parents and still attending Catholic high school. As frightening as it was, it also gave me a clear understanding of why people become addicted to heroin. It was the most euphoric feeling I've ever experienced.

I was 15 when I first met him in the neighborhood and, flattered by his puppy-dog attention, began to hang out with him and his stuporous friends. While they languished in their drug-induced hazes, they would give me all of their "works" (needles, etc.) to hold because I was underage, and therefore wouldn't have gone to jail if caught. (I didn't consider the prospect of Juvenile Hall.)

Eventually, he went back to shooting up even while he was on Methadone and things got very bad. His mother called me an "angel of mercy" for sticking with him, which was a big wakeup call. I wasn't in the Angel of Mercy business, and left him shortly thereafter. His poor, sweet mother had to suffer through his drug addiction, and as if that wasn't pain enough, lost her eldest son to combat in Vietnam.

A few years later, my uncle spotted my former beau digging through a dumpster in a subway station, filthy, down and out. I was sure he'd wind up dead before 30.

About 4 years ago, I was stunned to receive an email from him. He had found me through Classmates.com, and told me that by that magical age of 30 he had hit rock bottom, lost all his teeth and was at death's door. His family dragged him to rehab and he was able to get a menial job at a convent, determined to stay clean.

He managed to get back on his feet and married a woman with a daughter that he loved as his own. Describing the home he now cherished, he said that he still loved music and had built himself a listening room and still had all of his old albums. He told me that he often played a Nina Simone record that reminded him of me. Although my memory, especially for sensory triggers lke music, is usually excellent, I had blocked out everything but the painful stuff. I had no recollection of Nina Simone or anything else pleasant from that time. I did not let on. He sent me this picture of us (nice makeup, eh?) and said he couldn't believe he had been given a second chance at life.

Scratch that -- a third chance. He had been working in Food Service at Cantor Fitzgerald in 2001, but left his job just 2 months before 9/11.

His is a true story of survival, in every way.

The Week in Reviews

Movie:


The Sea Inside. Intense film that explores the real life struggle of Ramon Sampedro, fighting the Spanish government for the right to kill himself. It's an emotional and compelling look at euthanasia, and Javier Bardem does an amazing job. It's no surprise that this film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film and even LESS surprising that it won for Best Makeup. You have to see it to believe it.


Book:


Anderson Cooper's Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival. I love Anderson Cooper, and this book which is a combination memoir and an insider's look at field journalism, did not disappoint. I knew a little about his personal life, but not the things I found out from reading this. I listened to the audiobook, and couldn't turn it off. Four hours later, I decided to save the last 30 minutes for my drive into work. Just didn't want it to end.

Currently reading "The Kite Runner". (link in sidebar)


TV:


Big Brother All-Stars. A guilty pleasure, but at least I'm not paying for the live feeds (anymore). Please get rid of "Chicken George". Season One was such a disaster you would think they'd have disqualified ALL of the contestants from that season for being terminally boring. Like this reporter from MSNBC , Panthergirl likes to pretend she has better things to do than watch Big Brother 7 three nights a week. She does not.

Death:


Ken Lay. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Although he really deserved to get some prison-lovin', so he could experience what it's like to get fucked by "management". I still think he killed himself, rather than take what was coming to him.

Tyrant:


Kim Jong-il (or "Kim Jong the Second", as Cheney called him). Check him out in Team America: World Police. The guy would be laughable if he wasn't so damned frightening.

Sport:
I par'd a par 4. OK, so that's not news for most people, but it is for me!! I have THIS to thank ...

Photo Friday: Summer

Lucas and me, Tods Point CT ... 1997. The only thing I miss about living in Greenwich.

Idol for Cool People

It's Rockstar: Supernova, baby. And I'm in summer TV heaven. I *loved* Rockstar:INXS last year (although I was pulling for my fave, Jordis Unga, to win), and this year's season is proving to be just as good. The rockers are GRRRRREAT (for the most part, with a few clunkers including one woman who appears to be the lovechild of Pam Anderson and Barbra Streisand, and another who I *swear* is Ann Coulter, doing research for her next book, "Rock Music: Can Our Children Be Saved?"). I voted for the South African chick (seen here) who sang "Lithium" and the Australian guy who sang "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". I think I'm in lurrrrrve.

Taylor who?

Sweet'a Hitchhiker

Remember hitchhiking? Ok, if you are less than 40 years old, you probably don't. Either because you already knew how dangerous it was, or because you are dead. (in which case, I'm delighted that my blog is popular in the afterlife)

For those of us who grew up in the hippy-dippy 60s and early 70s, hitchhiking was practically a rite of passage. I had friends who thumbed their way across the country, with nary an incident. (Oh, a pantless guy here and there. But they *usually* passed on those rides.)

My best friend "Minnie" and I (she has made me pinky-swear that I will never use her name on this blog) would regularly hitch rides from our Brooklyn neighborhood to Rockaway Beach. This usually entailed flashing our 16 year old bodies on Cross Bay Boulevard, in bikinis. It was a wide expanse of a road, three lanes in each direction, with several traffic lights before the causeway to the beach. Those lights were our only nod to safety. They were our exit ramps, if need be.

For the most part, we'd get picked up by cars full of rowdy and randy boys, who were completely manageable. Once in awhile, we'd accept a ride from a man driving alone, and could usually tell within the first 30 seconds if we were going to jump out at the light. (Thankfully, these were the days before automatic door locks.) Aside from the technology, things were no safer back then. We could easily have been abducted and killed, but we were convinced that we were too savvy to die.

The most memorable ride we took did involve death, just not ours. While cruising back to the funeral home from a cemetary, a hearse driver thought (correctly) that it would be a hoot to pick up the two kooky nymphets on the side of the road. He let us ride in the back so we could pop our heads through the curtains and wave to the startled drivers behind us. OK, so it wasn't quite "Girls Gone Wild", but I assure you, the reaction was almost the same.

The hardest thing about raising teenagers is knowing what "invincibility" felt like. Outside our homes, we felt free, powerful, and utterly convinced that bad things only happened to stupid people. We'd learn otherwise, and soon. But our hitchhiking memories remain untarnished.

Book 'em, Danno

Thanks to blogging and blog-reading, I've become lax about reading books. This might not be so much of an issue if I weren't a compulsive book-buyer. (My daughter howled with laughter the first year that Amazon sent me a coffee mug for Christmas. She called it the $3000 coffee cup.)

To make matters worse, I joined Audible.com a few years ago convinced that I'd listen to books in the car, or while 'power walking'. I neither listened nor walked.

I've turned over a new leaf. (har har) I am currently reading one physical book and listening to two. The first one I'm listening to is:



It's the story of the 12 days following the Lincoln assassination and it is fascinating! It reads much more like a novel than an historical account. Lucas is really enjoying it as well. (The iPod is great for book-listening, as it bookmarks the place where you stop, so you can go from one book to another, or to music, without ever losing your place. I have an mp3 jack in the car, so we listen there.)

When I'm not with Lucas, or have dragged my ass out 'power walking', I'm listening to:



I love Anne Tyler, but I'm hoping this one will pick up soon. The tale of two families in Baltimore (of course) who have adopted baby girls from Korea, it's an interesting premise but she is getting mired in the excrutiating details for the first 3 chapters. The only disadvantage to listening is that you can't 'skim'. If it doesn't start moving soon, I'm switching the "Marley and Me" (in my sidebar).

The physical book I'm reading is:



Possible Side Effects, by Augusten Burroughs. I loved "Running wth Scissors", and am enjoying this collection of essays about his adult life. This book is incredibly inspiring to me, because it's exactly the kind of book I want to write. A blog, bound. Funny, sad, poignant, snarky... he's my hero.

And while I'm plugging, my dear friend Joy Masoff has published another terrific kids' book.



It's an adorable, interactive board book for pre-schoolers. (Amazon says ages 9-12, but that's a boo-boo!!!)

(She's also the author of "Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty", and the upcoming "Oh Yikes! History's Grossest Moments"):



What are you reading?

Family Jewel - Redux

A rerun for the slow holiday weekend...



OK, kids...watch out. I'm organizing pictures today and scanning as I go.

This particular photograph always makes me laugh. It's my mother's family, taken probably in the mid 1930's.

Bottom left: My grandmother, Lucy, previously seen sitting on a donkey. Probably the kindest person I've ever known. Kept us laughing with these attempts at English:

"Aunt-a Mary went to the Poconuts on vacation..."

"Aunt-a Jo Ann got a new car...a Veal Cutless."

"It's-a time for bed. Putta you pinjamas on..."

"I like-a candy, 'specially Hemena-Hemena Peanoots." (M&M Peanuts)

She cut the ends off most words, so "children" became "chill", etc. Once, when she asked me if I liked my aunt's new house, I said "Yeah, except for the living room floor." (which was vinyl) She bristled and said "Whatsamatta? You no like-a linol?"

Bottom right; My grandfather, Sal, who looks so mean in this picture...what a joke! Nice try, grandpa. He smoked those gross little Italian Panetela cigars that would make you puke if you just touched one to your lips (Yeah, that's right. I thought that was a good idea at the time.) He'd pronounce my name (Marian) as "Muddiyan", which spawned my childhood nickname: "Mudd".

Upper left: My Aunt Ginny, who is the only sane one of the four sisters. She's given me a lot of insight into why my mother is so nuts.

Upper middle: Aunt Mary and Aunt JoAnn, in this photo known as "The Fugly Twins". They, along with my grandparents, lived upstairs from us and got married very "late" (in their 30s). Apparently what they heard from the marriage downstairs made them a little gun-shy. (getting rid of those hair bows helped too. They look a little bit like Wendy Willcox in this picture.)

Upper Right: My mother, Margie-Dearest. The oldest of the four, and already in complete control of the clan. Here, she's thinking "That's right, Mom and Pop...someday I will be your LANDLADY!"