He Loves Libby

Tonight I get to stay up late. No show tomorrow because of Wimbledon. I discovered that "I Love Lucy" is showing on one of the public T.V. channels. Two hours of shows. Ryan decided to go to bed.

"You don't want to watch 'I Love Lucy'" I called.

"If I want to watch it I just look at the pillow next to mine."

I love Ryan.

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Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

Okay, so I think we all agree that the incident on Friday was most likely about racism.

Only one problem though. I can almost guarantee the man who thought he was being asked for money instead the time does not think of himself as a racist. I bet his friends don't think of him as a racist. I wouldn't be surprised if he spent the rest of his night trying to convince himself that the way he responded wasn't based on race, and that it was all just a misunderstanding. He probably reminded himself that he has plenty of friends of color.

That's the problem.

You can't start making changes until you admit there are changes to be made.

I've thought a lot about what I wish had happened Friday night. I mean, other than it not happening at all. The best case scenario? It would have ended with an apology. It would have ended with an acknowledgment of what happened, and a new resolve not to let it happen again.

That would have been uncomfortable though.

It would have required an admission that racism still exists, even among people who don't consider themselves racist.

And no one really wants to do that, do they?

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The Time

Friday night Ryan and I decided to go to the big annual arts festival in downtown Salt Lake. There were TONS of people there, and all over the surrounding streets. On one corner, right across from the festival, obviously waiting to be picked up, were a man, a woman, and three small children. Two of the kids were playing/fighting, and the third, a baby, was obviously getting fussy and didn't want to be put back in the stroller. I could see the frustration on the parents faces, and as we approached the father asked a man who was passing if he had the time.

Wait, I mean he tried to ask the man if he had the time. Before he got two words out the man said "no thank you, I can't help" and tried to hurry his wife along. The father's jaw dropped. My jaw dropped. Ryan looked at his watch and said "6:30." The man turned back around and started to give the time, but the father just looked at him and said "I don't need it from you."

Oh, I probably should have mentioned the family was black.

Thoughts?

I have some, but I really want to hear what you think first.

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Multiplying

The children next door are multiplying.

No, I don't mean that way. Gross. They're kids. This isn't an "After School Special."

I've already told you about Liza. She has two older brothers. So, when they moved in we were glad to learn about the family of five. The little family of five.

Then the two nephews moved in. One came because he wants to play football at the high school. The other obviously is trying to clean up his act and needs his uncle (who is a pretty imposing man) to help him out. Okay, so a family of seven. Still small by Utah standards. We could handle it. And only two of the kids were little, right? The rest are teenagers and young adults trying the best they can to be mature and responsible.

This weekend, the mother's daughter from her first marriage moved in -- with her two kids. So, now we have the parents, a young female adult, a young male adult, two teenage boys, a pre-teen boy, a six year old girl, a four year old girl, and a five month old baby living next door.

I am expecting a partridge in a pear tree to show up any day.

So far we haven't had any real problems. Ryan is getting the worst of it as the two little girls (Liza and the even chattier Channa) have decided to "keep him company" while he works in the yard. I don't think it helps that they know he likes to eat popsicles to cool off. And if Ryan isn't enough of a draw they have practically formed a fan club for our cat Olive. It's only been two days and I have already told them both at least a dozen times hissing does not mean happiness.

Meg is loving all the action. Every time we go outside now there is someone in the yard, and she happily shouts "kids." She used to shout "Liza" at all of them, but when they would correct her it got confusing, so now she just stays generic.

I just hope there aren't more coming. And that the parents don't feed any of them after midnight.

That's when it will really get ugly.

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Stuck in the Mud

I am in landscaping hell. No, really, I am. Check it out.

Yeah, so you will forgive me if I don't feel like a full post here today. I am other places though. Over at Sprocket Ink I've written about how I really want Samuel L. Jackson to tell me to "Go the Fuck to Sleep" (no, not like that, sicko). Oh, and at Tired and Stuck I am revealing how trying to make my body do what I want it to sent me to the emergency room.

Be back here tomorrow though. If I haven't been swallowed alive by my lawn I will give everyone mud facials from the copious piles of it in my yard.

Oooh, dirty.

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Meg Takes a Tumble

It was all because of the cupcakes.

Meg was riveted by them from the moment we arrived at the party. There seemed to be thousands of them to her small eyes, all green, and gorgeous, and brimming with sugary promise. She knew she would do anything to make one her own.

Never before was it so easy to feed her. Once she heard she would get a cupcake if she finished dinner she took it as a verbal contract, and ate as if going for a bonus. We could have made her eat liver wrapped in spinach dipped in Marmite and she would have gulped it down, knowing every bite was getting her one step closer to cupcake nirvana.

She didn't care about opening presents. The other kids oohed and ahhed over every thing that was opened, but Meg just sat next to our neighbor Erica, keeping up a steady patter about the cupcakes that sat just ten feet away. Erica tried to distract her, pointing out every new toy that piled up on the table in front of the oblivious one year old birthday boy, but Meg could not be distracted.

Finally, it was time for cake. She kneeled on one of the picnic benches, just inches from her goal. She listened and smiled as everyone sang "Happy Birthday." She put one hand on the table, and then brought the other hand up -- and missed.

She fell face first onto the concrete under the table.

Ryan and I sprinted the second we saw her start to fall. Eight feet has never felt farther. When we got to her she was a mess of tears and snot, but not obviously injured. We checked her teeth, and her head, and all of her appendages. Nothing broken, nothing bruised. Still, she couldn't stop crying. We both were sure there was something really wrong -- until she choked out a single word: "cupcake."

She was fine the second the frosting hit her lips. Her Dad even let her have half of his too.

I think if you asked her she would say it was totally worth it.

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ARGH!

I should be writing the "23 months" post tonight. I am not though, because tonight that certain 23 month old tried to kill me.

It was a pretty good day. She played with Grandma and Aunt Cate and Luke. She went to Little Gym. She ate fruit snacks and got stickers and hand stamps. She should have been happy!

Then? Just as we were pulling into the driveway at 5:00pm she fell asleep. When she awoke, the demon came out.

The dinosaur is scared of Meg.

First she wanted a snack. Not just any snack though, a rice krispie treat. I countered with fruit leather. She countered with throwing herself on the floor and kicking the fridge.

She wanted to draw. Then she wanted to eat the markers. I said she could draw, but not eat the markers. She threw herself out of her seat and onto the floor.

Realizing I could not make dinner without her lighting the house on fire I took her to the neighborhood Thai place. I ordered all her favorite stuff -- rice and pot stickers. When the food arrived I stuffed as much as I could in her mouth, and then tried to eat myself. She then UNBUCKLED the high chair and stood up. I put her in a chair. She got down. I put her on my lap. She tried to pull my shirt down. I put her on the floor. She tried to run out the door. Finally, holding her arm as she screamed and kicked in circles "Three Stooges" style on the floor, I signed the check and took the boxed up food.

Bath time was okay. I had wine and she pretended to be Mark Spitz. By that I mean she spit water at me.

After bath, I was putting lotion on her skin and hair. She asked for some, so I put it in her hand knowing she normally rubs it on her belly. She put it right in my eye. For a non-allergenic lotion Cetaphil burns like a motherfucker.

The worst part of all of this? Was every time she pissed me off, she would do something to make me laugh. At one point I actually said "stop making me laugh, I'm mad." Her response? "Laugh, Mama."

She does make me laugh.

I will tell you all about it in the "23 months" post this weekend. That is, if she lets me live.

I still love my girl.

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There is Nothing Wrong With Me

Want to know a surefire way to make sure a health complaint isn't something serious?

Go to a doctor and tell him you think it's something serious.

Or, if you really want to be sure? Go to the ER.

Works every time.

Take, for example, my recent stomach woes. They had been going on for about a month and slowly getting worse. I had tried a litany of medicines, and cutting a number of things from my diet, but nothing seemed to work. My stomach hurt, my back hurt, and it felt like nothing in my digestive tract was working properly. I walked around all day with a look on my face suggesting I had just smelled sour milk, or been told Sarah Palin was up for a Nobel Prize. If I ate, the pains got worse. If I drank, the pains got worse. If I moved around a lot, the pains got worse. Luckily, the moving thing doesn't happen that much, and slowly I stopped really taking anything in besides Pepto.

My Mom was convinced it was my gall bladder.

Ryan was worried it was my pancreas.

Tara said it was the crazies. Oh, and then she said I probably had a wheat allergy, because she's mean.

Meg just wanted to know why the milk was sour.

I called doctors. The earliest anyone could see me was July. I made an appointment and decided I could stick it out. Then the pain stopped being annoying to being disruptive. Yesterday I came home from work trying to convince myself I had a stomach bug Ryan had been carrying around. By mid-afternoon I knew it wasn't. By six last night I had agreed to go with my Mom to the ER this morning, and had called work to tell them I wasn't coming.

This morning I woke up feeling pretty good. Still a little sore, but better. I called my Mom to tell her I was not going. She reminded me that I had felt better before, and it had gotten worse.

So, I went.

Four different people asked me about my symptoms. They felt my stomach. They took my vitals. They drew blood. They took other fluids. They did an ultrasound.

They found nothing.

My blood work was fine.

My gall bladder looked "perfect."

I started to cry because nothing was wrong with me. I am still not sure if they were tears of joy, or frustration.

At least they didn't say it was the crazies.

The doctor thinks it could be all of the supplements I have been taking. Or maybe a bad reaction to a medication. He also says he can't be sure. I am supposed to stop taking everything not absolutely necessary and see what happens. He might have a point. When I woke up this morning, feeling better, I had taken a single pill in more than 48 hours.

Of course, he says if that doesn't work I can always go back.

After all, that seems to do the trick.

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Wieners and the Truth

I really hate it when Republicans do something better than Democrats -- even when it comes to embarrassing sex scandals.

Think of the last three big Democrat sex scandals: Clinton, Edwards, and now, the fortunately named, Weiner. All three engaged in varying degrees of sleazy behavior, all three lied about it, and all three really wouldn't have been in that much trouble if they told the truth in the first place. However, because they didn't (for whatever reasons: wives, cowardice, wanting to see his package on TV more) one faced impeachment, one is facing criminal charges, and one will likely face an ethics sanction. Not because of what they did with their dicks, but because they lied about it.

Now think about the latest Republican scandal. You know the name -- it's as big as his bicep. Arnold fathered a child with a household staff member, hid the child for more than a decade, and then just released a little four line message admitting to all of it and saying he was sorry.

All four of these men faced the wrath of the press, and their wives, and the public. All four of these men took (or will take) career hits because of their indiscretions. However, three of them tried to publicly deny their guilt, claimed to be victims, and then had to make very public admissions of mea culpas in front of a slobbering press corps. One of them just got to write a note.

Oh, and Arnold was smart enough to have his sex scandal surface after he was out of office! Score -- no criminal charges or ethics investigations. Think of how much money he saved the people of California.

If only the people of New York were so lucky.

Well, what do you expect from Democrats though? After all, we do love to spend.

Ugh.

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Me 'n Ann

I hate Ann Curry.

I can't help it.

I tried to appreciate her as a journalist, but then she slobbered all over Brad Pitt at Cannes one year, and all I could picture was her preparing a dungeon in her basement to "show him her love." Also, her "seriously, I care" eyebrows? Definitely more Sally Jessy than Barbara Walters.

I tried to appreciate her as a professional, but there have been just too many instances like this:

Yeah.

I tried to appreciate her as a woman, but really, if she is anything like the woman she is on air, she isn't a woman I can appreciate. I mean, between the too short skirts, the obvious need to prove she isn't growing older by pretending she knows everything about teen culture, and the fact she never actually starts a conversation peg, just agrees and follows along, I have a pretty fair idea that she and I wouldn't have a lot to talk about over coffee.

I even tried to appreciate her on the most basic level: as a human being. However, then I saw her Twitter bio is just "journalism is an act of faith in the future."

I guess "I am a self important douchebag" was already being used.

Still, despite the fact Ann Curry is not my cup of tea I still kind of was happy for her when she was named the new anchor of "Today." She's been passed over before, and I am sure this will be the high point of her career. I also know that she likely won't be anchor for more than two years, because that's when Matt Lauer will retire and they will retool the whole show replacing the entire anchor team rather than let Ann and Al try to headline. That makes me happy for me.

After all, if she succeeds, and then fades away from obscurity, I don't have to feel bad about hating her.

And she can use her early retirement stalking Brad Pitt.

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