I usually hate these things and musings on True Love

but this one was dead on for me, unlike most of these little bagatelles:

Your Love Life Secrets Are

Looking back on your life, you will have a few true loves. You're a little scarred from your past relationships, but who isn't? You expect a lot from your lover - you want the full package. You tend to be very picky. In fights, you seek compromise and back down from conflict. You always try to smooth things out. Getting over a break-up doesn't take long. Easy come, easy go.

Your Love Life Secrets, Revealed

The only thing which is off-base is the judgment that "you seek compromise and back down from conflict. You always try to smooth things out." Ha, the Sober Husband wishes I backed down from conflict. I wasn't a litigator for nothing. We actually do get along very well day in and day out, but it's not from any fear of conflict.

The things which are surprisingly true and dead-on are the judgments that I would have a few True Loves and get over losing them well. That has been the case (although given the amount of interdependence we share, I would NOT get over the Sober Husband easily and will endeavor not to be in that position. We're what the codependent people call "enmeshed", all right. It's a complex business, keeping our carefully cosseted children, pets, and insane mortgage all on track, and it requires more than one grown-up to keep it all functioning).

The first time I fell in love and had my heart broken, I believed that I was destined to live a loveless life from then on. I thought that not everyone falls in love and that, for the ones who are fortunate enough to fall in love, that there is just one True Love apiece. If someone, like me, didn't manage to make a life with their love, then that was it. That person had been extremely lucky to find their one person and fall in love, but that was the end of their luck. (In retrospect, this was an artifact from my own rather loveless childhood, and perhaps, more positively, due to my parents' relationship dating from their own high school years).

My teen-aged nephew came to visit us the year before last, and he was brooding over the end of his first relationship. He expected us to feel sorry for him over this when he referred to it self-pityingly at the dinner table, and he was visibly shocked when Anton barked at him, "So you had your heart broken? Get used to it!" with a humorless laugh.

A bit more gently, I elaborated: "At your age, it's extremely unlikely that you're going to stay with the person you are with for ever. Probably not even 1 percent of sixteen year-olds stay with their high school girlfriend. You're going to be in lots of relationships, and you're going to get dumped and you're going to dump people."

"So get used to it!" Anton interjected again (the man clearly has some baggage from his own teen years which is best left unexamined). Our harsh advice had a salutary effect upon my nephew, who could be seen to enjoy the thought of dumping someone else in the future. It's a wonder more people don't turn to us for romantic advice.

fabulosity in fur

The last of our foster kittens from 2006, Crazy Horse (also called "Silk Horse") is going up for adoption tomorrow at the San Francisco Animal Care & Control.

Crazy Horse earned her name due to her beauty and her proud spirit. She's an unusually silky haired, fluffy black kitten with bright green eyes. The Horse is an extremely affectionate kitten, good with children, grown-ups, and other cats. This entire litter was unusually intelligent and loving; their mother must have been an outstanding feral cat, indeed (this litter was discovered in the Mission Terrace neighborhood; I had them since they were just learning to walk). Her sisters were adopted by the charming and talented D.J. Mermaid, whose life is now even more filled with furriness and love.

Stop by the ACC at 15th and Harrison and check out Animal # A225875. Spread the word!

a suspicious Lola

Lola watched a little bit of the Teletubbies this morning, and she was charmed by seeing multiple Laa Laas splayed across the screen. "Look! Four Laa Laas!"

"Hey, imagine if we had four Lolas!" I said.

She immediately frowned and folded her arms in front of her chest. "I wouldn't like that."

"Why not? Imagine four Lolas! We could have so much fun!"

Lola kept frowning.

"We could have a team! A team of Lolas!"

With a huge expression of distaste, Lola said darkly, "I wouldn't be surprised."

"Fat Girl" and the sense of smell

On Saturday I finally got around to reading "Fat Girl" by Judith Moore, a very brief memoir. I had been meaning to read this since I'd seen Ms. Moore's obit, which praised this book to the skies. It was a painful, messy read, dragging one along through Moore's hideous childhood.

There are a lot of brilliant things about this book, but I'm never going to read it again, and I don't want to keep it in my house, either. I don't want to feel like poor Judith Moore again, although, like Moore, "I am not that pleasant. The older I get the less pleasant I am."

My favorite part of the book was the introduction:

I am fat. I am not so fat that I can't fasten the seat belt on the plane. But, fat I am. I wanted to write about what it was and is like for me, being fat.

This will not be a book about how I had an eating disorder and how I conquered this disorder through therapies or group process or antidepressants or religion or twelve-step programs or a personal trainer or white-knuckling it or the love of a good man (or woman). This will be the last time in this book you will see the words "eating disorder. . . .

I know, from being thin and listening to thin people talk about fat people, that thin people often denigrate fat people. At best, they feel sorry for them. I know too that when a thin person looks at a fat person, the thin person considers the fat person less virtuous than he. The fat person lacks willpower, pride, this wretched attitude "self-esteem," and does not care about friends or family because if he or she did care about friends or family, he or she would not wander the earth looking like a repulsive sow, rhinoceros, hippo, elephant, general wide-mawed flesh-flopping flabby monster.

Among other things, Moore made me once again extremely grateful that I have a very limited sense of smell. Over the years, many tactless people have informed me how very unlucky I am not to have a keen sense of smell and just how much my life is tragically blighted as a consequence, but I firmly maintain that there are many more bad smells in the world than good ones, and if I run across a nice one, I can ram my nose right up into it and huff away and therefore get some little bit of smelling joy into my usually odorless life. Moore must have had an excellent sense of smell, and she certainly was able to convey it, and after reading about all those body odors and cooking smells, I didn't even want to think about smelling anything, much less actually catch a whiff of anything.

Just as I was finishing up "Fat Girl" in bed Saturday night, the Sober Husband started putting the moves on me. There is not much I can think of which is a more powerful antaphrodisiac than reading "Fat Girl." All I wanted was to retreat to a clean, white, odorless, foodless, empty sanctuary and cleanse my body and soul, NOT enter into a world of secretions and odors and terrible, terrible flesh.

we're on a first name basis

This is another in an Occasional Series: Reader Requests. Hughman requested that I write about why Iris Uber Alles (and yes, I know about the umlaut but I'm just too lazy right now to figure out how to do it on this keyboard) calls us, her parents, by our first names.

I've never had a name I felt comfortable using for either parent. We weren't really close, and it always felt strange to call them "Mom" or "Dad"; those names seemed too intimate for the relationship. I remember my mother hissing at my sister and me once, "Don't you ever call me Mama" (pronounced "Mumma" in our neck of the woods), which was weird because I don't think it had ever slipped across our lips. I largely avoided calling them anything.

Currently they use their first names in correspondence and over the phone, and that just feels weird to me. I can't bring myself to speak their first names, which makes sense to me. After all, my mother felt very strongly when I was a child that I was not allowed to call any grown-up by a first name. This was particularly awkward when I was in my later teens and one of my mother's closest friends of the time insisted I call her by her first name. If I called her "Mrs. Friend", she'd be offended and say, "Oh, call me Mary." If I dared speak her first name, I'd see the glare of my mother (who had no shortage of time or energy for punishing me). So she became another adult I had to address without using any name.

When I became a parent, I didn't have strong feelings about what my children should call me, except that I preferred them to stay away from "Mom", which felt overly associated with my own mother. One of Iris Uber Alles's first words was "ma ma", which made me happy. Anton, who would like to be his father if he could, decisively plumped for "Daddy" from the onset, which was what everyone called his father.

Pretty much as soon as toddler Iris Uber Alles learned to speak our first names, she often used them, but not exclusively. Being an imaginative child, she also bestowed a series of nicknames onto us. As a two year-old, she called me "Mommymama", which I loved, but Anton glommed onto it and bugged her to call him "Daddydada", which cheapened "Mommymama", and both fell into disuse. She dubbed herself "Muggie", and for a while, she called me "MommylovesMuggieFisheater", scandalized at age 2 1/2 by seeing me eat some crab. Around the age of three, she called me "Momo", which I liked very much, but which she dropped after starting preschool and having the other little kids ask, "Momo? Who is Momo? Why is she calling you that?"

Of course, she still at times called us by our proper names, and her preschool reinforced this. Both my children have been enrolled in parent cooperative preschools, nonprofit descendants of the progressive education movement. In parent co-operatives, the parents are required to work regular workshifts alongside a few professional preschool teachers, and at the co-ops we know, the children are led to call the working parents by their first names (although, as Iris was a more memorable personality at her preschool, the other little kids there often tended to call me "Iris's mommy", which was fine by me).

It's easy to read Iris: when she wants to suck up to me, she calls me "Mommy" or by a cute nickname (currently she likes to call me "Flatfoot" affectionately), and when she doesn't, she calls me "Carole." I find this a useful barometer. On the other hand, Lola, a product of the same liberal San Francisco co-op preschool environment, calls us "Mommy" and "Daddy" almost exclusively.

Even in San Francisco, it's shocking to some to hear a child use an adult's first name. We've had numerous double takes and appalled looks over the years. Possibly the most judgmental on this point was an elderly artist, owner of a house we went to see when we were looking for a larger home. This house was probably at some point in time a beautiful house of the sort sometimes called Rousseauvian, with a weird little courtyard so small as to be unusable for more than a light well, and strangely shaped rooms. It was all quite filthy and in bad repair, but so large and in such a great location, and I was imagining what it could be.... until I found the tampon. There was a dried out used tampon next to one of the beds, and irrational as it may seem, the house was thereafter The Old Dried-Up Tampon House and I just wanted to flee. Anton argued with me that it was "a piece of art", but I said, "I know art and I know tampons. That is a tampon." As we were leaving, Iris called my attention to something, and the owner, who was supervising our showing to the real estate agents' palpable dismay, said, "Did she just call you 'Carole'?" She sniffed judgmentally and looked down her nose. "Is she two? And she calls you 'Carole'?" Whatever, old hag, at least no one's going to find used tampons lying around in my house, was my thought.

the beautiful princess

Lola's song:

"The beautiful, beautiful princess, she was pretty as ...

[Lola pauses to think, then finishes triumphantly]

...a whale!"

ten years and counting

So the Sober Husband and I celebrated the tenth anniversary of our forming what should have been our partnership in crime, but which has instead turned out to be a partnership of virtue, industry, and restraint in the service of our child overlords.

Gifts bestowed upon the S.H. by me: 18 volt cordless DeWalt drill, faux suede hat with earflaps (we're having a cold snap), and a refillable butane lighter (for miscellaneous fires, not cigarettes).

Gift bestowed upon the D.H. by the Sober Husband: the dining room print I've been wanting in a series by a local artist (I have the kitchen print hanging in my kitchen, the bedroom in my bedroom, and the bathroom print in the downstairs bathroom).

We went to one bar/restaurant, one just plain bar, one bar/cafe, a library (yes, a library, where I scored the new Richard Stark and the husband got a heavy tome on medical bioethics), and a nightclub.

Highlight for the Sober Husband: we had sex in the nightclub bathroom. (It would have been the more obscure stacks at the library, but it was too close to closing time).

Highlight for the Drunken Housewife of the rare outing sans children: as we were arriving at a fashionable new nightclub downtown, the two bouncers, one male, one female, rotely asked for I.D. The female bouncer immediately did a double take, noticing my tattooed cleavage, and said, "Don't show me your I.D., show me your tits!" I pulled down my low-cut neckline further to reveal a red push up bra, and she threw her head down and nuzzled into my cleavage, kissing my right breast.

Yes, indeed it has come to this: having an anonymous stranger feel me up is more exciting than actually having sex. As I remarked to the husband, I have sex with him all the time, but it's been years since I've been out of the house in a low-cut shirt and had a stranger get so excited about my tits. (Fittingly enough, his strongest memory of that fateful night ten years prior was taking the excuse of assisting me with a nametag to feel up my left breast).

how not to talk to a small child

Today as I was walking along a trail in Glen Canyon, one of the children from Lola's preschool saw a woman clipping the fur of her large, shaggy dog. (Incidentally this answered a question I've been pondering for some time, which is "where do those big clumps of hair come from? It's not the red-tailed hawks leavings' or there'd be bones in there. It's not human. What the hell is it and why is there so much of it?"). He ran up and asked her, full of beaming, friendly curiousity, "What are you doing to that dog?"

The woman, a middle-aged nondescript person, shouted at him (she seemed to be adapting the turn-up-the-volume approach stupid people have towards talking to foreigners to talking to children), "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm cutting his hair" rudely.

"Does that hurt him?" the little boy asked nicely enough.

The woman laughed snidely and shouted, "DID IT HURT YOU WHEN YOU HAD YOUR HAIR CUT?" (A more observant person would have noticed the long, shaggy hair on this child and realized he probably had no memories of having his hair cut). "DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M HURTING HIM?" She gave a fake laugh and shook her head at the child's ignorance, muttering about what a stupid thing to ask.

How cold does someone have to be to be so rude to a polite child? Okay, littering dog-owner, so you won a war of words with a four year-old. I wouldn't place money on you outwitting seven year-old Iris Uber Alles, though.

Iris picks a winner

First I would like to say thank you for your time to the people who tried to think of a name on Drunken Housewife's blog. And now I will tell the public who the winer is. And that is... Iris uber alles! And wait there is still more good news! Their will be prise, and that is that sillyak will be able to ask his questons! Love Iris Uber alles.

An aside from the Drunken Housewife: Iris Uber Alles had a lot of difficulty deciding on a winner. She loved many of the names, except Bossy Older Sister, which I think hit too close to home (she denies being bossy) and also over-emphasized her relationship to Lola, whom she'd like to vote off the island. Silliyak's prize is an interview of our young tyrant!

the most fascinating subject

"Let's talk about my favorite thing in the world," Lola said to her father.

"And what would that be?"

"BUTTS!!!!!!"

it's been ten years

Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the day on which the better half and I formed that social bond known as being a couple. It was the day I had to do that horrible ritual, the Dividing Up Of The Stuff, with Husband 1.0 (I had filed for divorce already, but it took him some time to find a new apartment, during which point we lived together more peacefully than pre-filing for the most part). Stressed from squabbling over the CD's and liquor, I called a cab at nearly midnight and took off alone for a party I'd heard about (a friend I'd intended to go with was sick). There, with no intention of finding a new husband, but only shallow hopes of cheap sex and liquor, I ended up with the man who has become known as Husband 2.0, and the next thing you knew, I had two children, a giant mortgage, and no career.

We rarely get out without the children. We used to have a delightfully responsible and personable transsexual babysitter once a week for date nights, but our babysitter got out of the babysitting business, and economic realities caused us not to get a replacement. We formed the resolve to live within our means, which meant, amongst other things, not paying babysitters the going San Francisco rate of (brace yourself for it) $15 per hour. Last year we did find a pair of fabulous and glamorous teenaged twins whom the children worship and who come for a combined rate of $10 per hour, but they are extremely busy with their sports teams, academic work, and social lives, so they are available to babysit about three or four times a year, it seems. (It's not that they hate our children. They play a LOT of sports).

I am aware of the fact that I could trade babysitting with other parents. I used to do that on a regular basis back when I had just the one child. The problem is that then I have to reciprocate and babysit someone else's child, and invariably Iris and Lola are total pills and do nothing but complain about the Alien Invading Child Who Steals Mommy's Attention And Touches Our Toys. Plus, I can't handle a ratio of too many children to one aging housewife that often. I do regular shifts at a co-op preschool, and that's enough for my fraying nerves.

Anyhow, so my dating instincts are completely atrophied. Anton has arranged for a friend to watch our hellions for four hours, and there appears to be nothing for us to do. The man is completely clueless and without ideas. I did think of attending the Crucible's fire ballet, but it's completely sold out. Sometime ago we were planning to go to Barcelona for this anniversarsary, but that fell through when the husband's second start-up failed (before paying us $25k in back wages, aaarggh).

It has been suggested to me that we go rent a hotel room or a hot tub somewhere, but eh, we have already had plenty of sex this week. (Sex and drinking: these things occur regularly, albeit with small children on the premises, usually lightly dozing in the next room). Not to mention that we have a four hour window for this potential date and we're not going to have four hour sex. It has been TEN YEARS. It's not the same exciting voyage of discovery and learning each other's bodies it was back in the last millennium. Plus, since I've gained weight and had two children over that decade, there are whole sections of my body I don't want explored. If it has a stretchmark on it, it wants its privacy).

I guess seeing "The Good German" is going to be it, but then we'll both go home wanting to have sex with Angelina Jolie instead of each other. Oh, well. (Incidentally, if anyone has any ideas for interesting presents suitable for an overeducated geeky guy, please drop me a line in the comments. I'm usually the queen of gifts, but I just got him the books & ipod he wanted for Christmas, and he hasn't had time to work up any new cravings since then).

it's a dangerous place, the breakfast table

"Get me a fork!" four year-old Lola demands.

"Say please."

"Please.... or I'll whack you," followed by an evil chuckle.

guest appearance by seven year-old Iris

As a person in the family, I am the older sister in the family. And I think I should have a special name too, such as Drunken Housewife or Sober Husband. So I think there should be a contest on who thinks of the best name, because I can't think of one. I will choose the wining name.

Iris tells it like it is

Me: "Brush your teeth, children!"

Iris, to me, her mother: "You, brush your humanity! Brush your dignity!"

San Bruno is no place for one with delicate sensibilities

Pathetically enough, I don't go beyond the city limits of San Francisco all that often. In my youth, I was a bit of a world traveller, but these days I have two small children and a hefty mortgage, so flying about is usually out of the question, plus my children absolutely suck in the car ("Are we there yet? How 'bout now? I'm bored! I DROPPED MY SIPPYCUP! I want different music! Lola spilled her drink all over the floor! Are we there yet? LOLA TOUCHED ME! NO TOUCHING!! I'M TELLING!") so road trips are really out of the question.

Anyhow, I've become so spoiled in my multicultural, leftist, little foggy paradise here in oh so many ways. My children, who are native San Franciscans, are even more spoiled, having never faced the adversities of a hard Maine winter or a brutal Filipino typhoon or the poverty of a penniless grad student or sitting through long sermons or any other significant hardship.

Lately we've just started weekly swimming lessons for Lola down the peninsula in San Bruno, and just a trip to San Bruno is testing our fragile San Franciscan nerves. "It's so far," frets Lola. "It is too far from our house! It will take FOREVER to get home to our house."

After the swimming lesson, the children refused to get into the car without having first been taken to a restaurant or cafe. "We're huuuuungry," they whined. We all walked down to Never Too Latte, choosing an independent cafe over the giant new Starbucks across the street. First, the two twentysomething suburban rock chicks working there completely ignored us (one was a Goth waif, the other a beefier heavy metal chick). They got really excited when a male friend of theirs walked in behind us, one of them pressuring him to tell who he was talking to on his celphone and the other one begging him to place his order. At this point, I decided I was going to go to Starbucks, but the friend displayed some gallantry and pointed at us, indicating we were before him (as would be obvious to even the most stupid). At this point, the heavy metal chick agreed to take our order (the Goth one never acknowledged our existence). I ordered a double, low fat latte. This taxed the intellect of the heavy metal enthusiast, who had numerous questions. Then I ordered a bagel for the children (the metal girl was unable to handle taking a multi-part order at once).

While the children were eating their bagel and I was sipping my latte, I saw the Goth one blow her nose by blocking one nostril with a finger and blowing hard. Snot flew out towards a distant trashcan. She then went back to making a sandwich, without washing her hands or putting on little food prep gloves. I pushed my latte away, having lost all appetite.

On our way out of town, we were almost creamed by a car which blew through a stop sign. My nerves, positively shattered, were calmed by returning to my nice, safe, cosy San Francisco neighborhood (okay, to be honest, we have stop sign runners here as well, but snot flinging and failing to wash the hands? One would be run out of the Castro for such behavior). It's just not safe out there for the fragile, people.

about the cats

An anonymous commentator asks the Sober Husband, "I would like to know why the Sober Husband dislikes cats? (Unless this is a topic which would cause contention - but I am genuinely curious.)" Seeing as how this is Ask The Sober Husband Day, an answer was forthcoming. However, unlike the prior questions answered by the Sober Husband, I take issue with many declarations presented as fact in his answer, which are in actuality false! false! false! and therefore I have had to interject some actual common sense into the matter (see the footnotes). Anyhow, herewith I present to you the Sober Husband, discoursing upon cats:


I do not dislike cats. I love and respect them.* I appreciate their gracefulness, their prowess as predators, their delicateness, and their cuteness. I just don't like having them around the house.

They destroy property. They make the house stink.** They keep me awake at night. They coat the house in hair. They bloody my legs when I'm sitting at the table.*** They make me sneeze. They cost money.

Worst of all, we suffer these cat problems in proportion to the number of cats in our house, and my wife is always trying to bring in more.*** She tells me that some cat or other is temporary, and then begs to keep it after she has become attached to it. She frequently***** pleads that some cat or other is special and therefore should live with us. She thinks cuteness outweighs every practical concern. She would be a cat hoarder if I did not restrain her.******

Last month we had one that was listless, and so she spent $400 to receive advice that she should spend a further $1000 on cat dental work.****** If you love a cat, you can hardly let it die over money. And I'm not made of money. So we need fewer cats.

Postscript:

The cats carry ringworm, a stigmatized skin disease that infects humans*******. It is spread by spores, and it has become endemic to our house. We're obligated to disclose it to our guests and to the schools. Our daughter has a splotch of it on her face.

What would you sacrifice to save a cat? Would you mark your child's face with a communicable disease?


* He let our seven year-old read this, and she said, "But that's a lie! You don't love and respect cats!"

** I clean the litterboxes like a motherfucking OCD patient.

*** The last batch of foster kittens liked to jump into our laps at the table, which I will admit resulted in the odd scratch, but they, not being fools, learned to avoid the Sober Husband.

**** Foster cats come and go, and I have only asked to keep two of the many, many fostered cats.

***** TWICE. TWICE. Is that "frequently?" TWICE over a period of two years.

****** I spent huge amounts of time and energy trying to help save animals rescued from a hoarder in 2006. I am a responsible, sane animal-lover who would NEVER amass an unhealthy number of animals. Yes, I may become a crazy cat lady in my senescence, but a hoarder? Never.

******* The cat was moribund, and for the ~$400 the cat was hospitalized for the day, given IV fluids, given a number of tests involving both blood and urine work, administered both antibiotics and steroids by shots, and given multiple prescriptions. The cat, which had been running a high fever, not eating, and lying still in the closet, was restored to vitality for this. Yes, it is true that the vet is after me to spend ~$1,100 to have the cat's teeth pulled, but that does not discount the value received in needed medical intervention for this one year old cat.

******* It looks like tiny, round patches of eczema. No guest, schoolmate, or neighbor has contracted ringworm.

and yet more from the Sober Husband

It is one of the Occasional Features of this blog that the readers' questions are put to the Sober Husband. Completely coincidentally the Drunken Housewife got very angry, in an unrelated matter, after soliciting questions, and consequently the Sober Husband has, in a conciliatory manner, been working extra hard to get those questions answered. Herewith Another Question Answered By The Sober Husband, this one going out to one of our delightful Texas correspondents, Texzmissy:

My question for the Sober Husband: True or false: You can microwave a cup of water and when you take it out of the microwave, if you are not careful, the water can more or less "explode" and you can get your face burnt with the presumably boiling water.

I say no, but my daughter insists that her science teacher says it's possible. Of course, it could be that the teacher said it was NOT possible, or only theoretically possible, and she wasn't listening, but I'd still like to know.

My first response is that it seems ironic when a science teacher is cited as an authority, especially on a subject that is so easy to explore experimentally. If I were the teacher, I would say: Try and see.

Anyway, I've tried. I have certainly been able to generate fairly violent splatters from a mug of hot water.

The idea is that while boiling requires high temperatures, it also requires sites for "nucleation" of the gas phase, like particles suspended in the water, or rough structures on the surface of the container. If the water is clean and the container is large enough, I think the water may well become "superheated" in the center (hotter than its boiling point) while still not converting into gas. Then when some nucleating material is introduced, like a teabag, there can be lots of thermal energy ready to generate a lot of steam in a short time.

I suspect a lot depends on the oven, the container, the heating time, and the stillness of the water. First, put the container in the oven, wait five minutes for the water to become absolutely calm, and then see how long you have to heat it before it starts boiling. Then, put the exact same amount and temperature of water in the same container in the exact same part of the oven, let it become calm, and heat it for ten seconds less. Leave it in the oven, but drop in a spoonful of sugar.

Let us know what happens.

Please perform this experiment at your own risk. The Drunken Housewife is not responsible for any injuries or damages sustained in the pursuit of science.

guest appearance by the Sober Husband

Which of your children is more like you and which is more like Carole?

Our older daughter shares Carole's aptitude for reading and her social competence. I am a slow reader, and I'm terrible with people.

Our younger daughter enjoys absurdity, as I have enjoyed Monty Python.

But the older one and I watch Dr. Who together, which Carole loathes, and the younger one dotes on the cats, which I resent.

From my perspective, we are all quite distinct individuals.


Are you SOBER sober or just sober?

I am not a teetotaler, but my wife definitely drinks more. I am always the designated driver when we go out, and I never drink alone.

Do you ever do the cooking?

Well, I do prepare food, but I'm not sure one would call it "cooking".

I often make breakfast food, like coffee and toast, and I can pour milk on cereal. I make french toast on the weekends, and pasta on weeknights. When I make food, I always offer some to the wife, but she invariably declines.

Have you ever thought about having your own blog?

I operate many web sites with various kinds of content, but I do not identify myself with any of them personally. I have a work image to maintain.

Whenever I encounter any new professional prospect, I'm certain that the first thing they do is google me. I can not allow these people to learn about me through the lens of personal anecdotes.

If I were to blog, it would have to be on a technical subject, for the purpose of promoting my reputation as an expert. Or it would have to be anonymous, in which case I wouldn't tell you about it anyway.

How do you feel about being married to a woman who is adored by millions? Have you ever been introduced as "Mr. Drunken Housewife"?

I am happy for every bit of success that my wife achieves.

I have never been introduced in that way, but if more people in our personal life knew about her blog identity, then it would surely happen. It's a matter of time.

Did you ever use Mathematica?

Yes, I have used Mathematica many times since its invention twenty years ago. It's a fascinating and useful program. I used it last year for working out the details of some linear algebra I was doing for a machine navigation project.

But when you mention Mathematica, I don't think so much about its usefulness as I think about Stephen Wolfram, the creator of the program. He was a brilliant, promising young scientist, but it turns out that his only substantial contribution to the world is a piece of software. This is something like my image of myself.

My dad was the only man in a house chock full of...uh...colorful women. He was the master of the Smile and Nod when we were all at a 10 and he needed us at a 4. How do you cope being the sole man?

I smile and nod a great deal.

But keep this in perspective. I have to cope with so much in life. The sexual mix of our household per se does not present a challenge.


1: Did you REALLY have sex in a elementry school bathroom?

This is a slanderous rumor. It was a pre-K. I also add that it was at night. And that we did this to escape from an oppressively tedious parent committee meeting. It's only human, like all those Londoners during the blitz.

I want to run away and stop being a grown-up.

Childless people (and some fathers), no matter how old, don't have to be grown-ups. They can have one night stands or go to a bar after work or run off to Burning Man or sneak out of the office early to go to the movies or live on junk food.

Being a mommy forces me into being a grown-up all the time. I remember the first time I had to write a note to Iris's teacher excusing an absence, and I felt like an impostor. It felt so deeply, deeply wrong to be the parent writing the note, not the child asking for the note! (Mind you, I was pushing 40 at the time).

Last night, I lost my temper. I work hard to make nutritious and delightful meals which are suited to the palates of my children and husband, food which is good and comforting but also a reasonably healthy diet, only to have ungrateful children snub the vegetables and argue with my husband over whether it's reasonable of me to require a child to try the fucking roasted carrots (which were magnificent, by the way, and the children in question do not dislike carrots).

Last year we had days of acrimonious discussions in order to create "Family Food Rules", which was supposed to get rid of this issue, but I'm the only one in the world who is interested in abiding by this policy (which everyone signed, including Lola).

I'm sulking upstairs with my laptop, having just informed my husband that "I fucking quit" and "I am NOT having this fucking argument any more" and "you can all eat whatever trash you want for the rest of your lives, I am sick of this." I'm so sick of being a grown-up. (Now, mind you, the husband brings in the cash in our nauseatingly fifties-ish arrangement, and he must, in a supremely grown-up way, worry about financing our menage. But when it's his turn to make dinner, he's been known to call milkshakes or ice cream sundaes an entree).

Questions, anyone?

Once again, I think it's time to return to what will be (until he refuses to participate any longer) an Occasional Feature of this Blog: Questions for the Sober Husband. Ask your questions here, and we'll get him to respond. You don't have to take my word for anything, people; here's your chance to get a second opinion on anything I've said.

the fusspots ate the peas

When Iris was a baby and a toddler, she was the best eater imaginable. She was breastfed to begin with, and when she was an older baby, we carried a little food mill around with us which would convert whatever we were eating into baby food. [Most people feed their children baby food from the store, which smells, looks and (probably) tastes inferior to what the parents are eating. There's a perception that you either buy unblemished organic produce and painstakingly cook, blend and freeze homemade baby food in a nightmare of work, or you conveniently buy the prefab, vile-looking baby foods, but what a truly lazy but yet gourmet parent does is shlep a tiny foodmill about, rendering whatever fabulous food she is eating into baby form]. She grew up loving risottos, frittatas, and all manner of vegetable. The only food she rejected was endive, which was noteworthy, and somewhat understandable, given the bitter flavor.

Then at age five, suddenly she turned into a food fuss. "Green food is not good for me", she said, picking the fresh spinach off the same yuppie pizza she'd devoured before on countless occasions.

Lola was a food fuss from the day one. Later I learned that this was part of her speech problem: children with severe apraxia have difficulty controlling the muscles of their mouths, and this affects chewing and eating as well as speaking. Her speech improved dramatically with intensive, expensive speech therapy, but her food issues remained.

Anyhow, last night this pair of culinary crabs ate peas. They had to be nagged to try them, but once they started, they continued willingly. Herewith my latest service to humanity:

Peas Fit For A Fusspot (from Jack Bishop's Vegetables Every Day, where they are referred to merely as Blanched Peas and where Jack B. explains that this is the very best way to serve frozen peas)

10 oz frozen peas
2 T chopped fresh herbs, preferably mixed, whatever you have around (I had sage, parsley, and basil, and conveniently I needed one cup of mixed fresh herbs for my pasta entree, and it was no effort to do a bit more for the peas. What's more, fresh herbs normally stand out as a splash of color, attracting the attention and scorn of the fusspot, but here they have protective coloration and hence add flavor without being observed by the normally keen eye of the child fusspot)
1 T butter

Bring a pot of salted, water to a boil. Add the peas and boil for two minutes. Drain and set aside (I shocked them with cold water so they wouldn't get mushy). When you're ready to serve them, melt the butter in a saute pan, add the peas and herbs, and cook just until they're hot. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

the magic of squealing

Tonight I was driving the children home after an exhausting day, and Lola was complaining. "I had a rough day." It turns out that at her playdate, Lola "wanted to watch TV, but she made me play with her toys."

"Were the toys cool?"

"NO!"

Lola also expressed the complaint that her little friend had been rude to her (although give that she also expressed the worry that her friend would think Lola wasn't really a friend, I suspect the alleged rudeness was bilateral, to say the least). Here big sister Iris jumped in with some advice:

"Lucy, you're going to have to get used to rudeness. EVERYONE is going to be rude! What you have to do is squeal."

"I always do squeal."

(By this point, I was riveted and, not wishing to interrupt the flow of conversation, remained silent behind the wheel).

"By squealing, Lucy, I mean tell the teachers. Tell EVERYONE. That is what I always do. That is squealing."

Lucy made admiring noises, and Iris continued on. "I always squeal. Squealing works! But once one of my friends squealed on me, and I was hating on it. It was really her fault. She was wrong."

Believe me, this is not how they were raised.

the Dutch, such an admirable people

I once spent a week in Amsterdam, and I was astonished at how fabulous and nigh-flawless Dutch society seemed to me. It seems as though the Dutch have solved the modern and urban problems which so plague American cities. Even the junkies were presentable and not begging for change. Everyone seemed so well-educated (the average Dutch person appears to be multilingual and highly versed in history, not to mention polite as all get out). I stumbled upon a huge, open air book market, and I so strongly wanted to become Dutch and stay there forever. The drug problems, the crime problems (yes, I know there is crime in the Netherlands, but I'll take the very worst neighborhoods of Amsterdam over the killing zones in Richmond and Oakland, any day), prostitution, environmentalism: everything seems so tidily sorted out. (Incidentally last year I planted tulip bulbs, but they won't thrive in my mild climate. It turns out you need a frost to shock them into a true hibernation in order for tulips to excel. I may or may not see mine again this spring, but I knew that when I planted them. I figured I'd try to enjoy what I got, seeing as how I am too lazy to dip up the bulbs and put them in my refrigerator for three months like a true gardener would).

The long arm of the Dutch has reached out and tapped me on the shoulder, and I've started doing more housework. Why? Self-absorbed as always, not to mention always attempting, in my poseur way, to be international, I noticed there was a sizeable influx of Dutch readers, and I followed them back to this saucy Dutch website*, where, as best as I can determine, someone recommended me to the other readers as a good source of unimportant information (and yes, that does not insult me. It's a pretty accurate description of me. For example, want to know the difference between an aperitif and a digestif? Ask me. Want some useful information? Go elsewhere). The Dutch website taught me that regular housework is likely to reduce my risks of breast cancer. Being fond of my tits (my best feature, aside from my sparkling green eyes--- forget the rest), I have obeyed this Dutch mandate.

We'll see how long it lasts. My history with housework is one of faux feminist-tinged laziness.

*The Dutch website discusses a recent, irritating study showing a significantly lower incidence of breast cancer in women who do regular, significant amounts of housework.

when I think of you

Iris said tonight, "Carole, when I think of you in my mind, I think of you as the mommy who is telling me so many things. I think of you as the Mommy Who Says So Many Things."

I expected her to go on to specify that I should shut up more, but she left it at that.

Lola takes a yuppie swimming lesson

Lola has been on the waiting list for months to take swimming lessons at La Petite Baleen, the yuppie swimming school of the Bayeria. She did her time in parent-child swimming lessons at a public pool, singing songs and being cajoled to blow bubbles, but she was never going to learn to swim that way. It was time to scoop her out of her mother's arms and put her into a more authoritarian atmosphere, where the children are made to swim in short order.

Today was her first lesson. We talked it up ahead of time, explaining how warm and fabulous the water would be, and how she was big enough now to learn to really swim. She seemed excited and enjoyed getting out her sparkly green bathing suit. She didn't cry during the lesson and could be seen singing along to the alphabet song (which is actually highly commendable; her older sister cried at her lessons until I questioned my sanity and parental judgment and dithered about pulling her out. I didn't, I rode it out, because I figured swimming is a survival skill she needed to learn and that if I had her quit, she'd be left with a fear of swimming and the water. It worked out in the end, and Iris wound up loving her swimming lessons, but it was traumatic getttng there).

Afterward, I asked Lola how it was, expecting her to tell me that some of it was fun. "It was terrible," she said.

"Why?"

"It was scary."

"What was scary?"

"All of it. Especially when we had to move along the side of the pool. I wanted you to help me."

"Did you ask the teacher to help you?" (In fact, there were two teachers with these two children, a ratio of one-to-one, so Lola was never ignored for a second).

"I wanted help from Mommy."

"But honey, mommies aren't allowed in this class." [Note: this is true. La Petite Baleen has formulated strict policies regarding parent control. Parents must remain in the waiting area, away from the swimming pool. Parents may observe the class through the glass wall, but they must not interfere or loiter by the pool edge].

"But they said Mommy could help if she wanted to. Mommy could come in the pool and help."

"Who said that?"

(extra mendaciously) "Everyone knows that Mommy could come in the pool and help. Everyone knows that."

I put her on the phone to her father to report on her first swimming class. "It was terrible. It was all scary. They put things on my feet, and they were weird." After complaining more in this fashion for some time, she abruptly commanded, "Call me back when I'm home" and folded up the phone.

I have the impression that it's not going to be easy getting her back down there next week.

quality parenting

The children were playing a game where one was a monster and the other one a giant, and they were talking on their imaginary celphones. I left the room as their playing seemed peaceful, but soon I heard them both shouting, ""I'm going to tell!"

"No, I am going to tell!"

"I'M TELLING!"

"I'M TELLING FIRST!" They tore upstairs, screaming.

I covered my ears with both hands and chanted, "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU, LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Lola burst out laughing and was instantly charmed out of her anger, but Iris is made of sterner stuff. She screamed into my left ear as loudly as she could, "CAROLE, LUCY TOUCHED ME!"

Hours later, my ear is still ringing.

parting is such sweet sorrow

So it's time to give my last batch of foster kittens up for adoption. It's in fact high time, as they are well over two pounds (at our kitten rescue, we work by weight, not age. It's just like lobsters, all about the weight). Their cuteness has already peaked, and they need to go before they uglify more.

The problem, of course, is that we are hyper-bonded to these kittens. Known as Love Love, Crazy Horse (also called "Silk Horse"), and Smart Horse, these three little cats have been cavorting around our house for months. I begged Anton to let me keep Smart Horse, offering to go out of the cat fostering thing altogether in exchange, but he was inflexible.

"NO CAT! No more cats! NO NO NO!"

We kept these kittens longer due to one having a touch of the old ringworm, which at our pound, is grounds for euthanasia. Ringworm is merely a fungal infection of the skin; it is not a worm of any sort, and it's a minor nuisance. However, it is highly contagious, spread by spores and surface contact, and it can (and does) spread to humans. Currently our kitten rescue believes that the optimal way to treat ringworm is through sulfur dips, meaning the animal in question is shampooed against its will and then submerged in a bucket of stinking yellow liquid, until, clawing and screaming, the kitten stinks like a rotten egg. I need to give these cats one last sulfur dip for old time's sake before they go, such joy.

To add to my joy, I have to take Lola to the dentist today, and I think she has a cavity. If there's anything worse than being harangued about flossing oneself, it's getting interrogated about flossing one's child. I do make her brush her teeth every day, using toothpaste (Lola resisted toothpaste; an epic battle ensued which lasted for months), and there have been occasions when we've flossed her teeth, but c'mon, people, there is more to life than teeth! My nerves are just not up to the battle required to floss a four year old's baby teeth every day.

the child is inscrutable

Seven year-old Iris writes on pads of paper and leaves them lying about the house. I picked one up this evening:

THE ROYALTY

I have been to where I am now many times, but I dont have anoufe money to afourd much money for the process, but I may be able to move the building matereals.

"I have been to where I am now many times." Me too, Iris, me too. Likewise, I don't have enough money to afford much money for the process, but you've lost me on moving the building materials.

the Biosphere

I'm currently reading "The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2" by Jane Poynter, and I'm enrapt. I went to considerable trouble to get this book, which deserves to be ubiquitous (I couldn't find it at bookstores in San Francisco; I attempted to order it at one, who later called me and told me their distributor wasn't getting any more copies. Finally I got it from Amazon.com, and I hate patronizing Amazon, but hey, what can you do when your beloved independent bookstores and then even your local giant chainstore let you down? Even Borders didn't have this book).

I paid very little attention to the Biosphere in the late eighties/early nineties, and I never appreciated the engineering and scientific work which went into it. The building was successfully built to be more airtight than the space shuttle. For the swamp and sea environments, the scientists and engineers felt unequipped to make conscious decisions, so they simply transplanted existing environments as completely as possible. This resulted in some octopi stowing away into the Biosphere, and the octopus is a wily predator. The biospherians were not able to capture the clever octopi, which fed voraciously off the fish intended for the biosphere's residents.

Poynter was charged with determining which insect species to include in the Biosphere (I stopped the book to marvel, They brought insects in with them?), a huge and fascinating task. The decisions were in the end a mix of science and personal taste: giant Madagascar roaches would have been a great choice, as they are efficient at devouring plant material and easily managed, but Poynter and the others balked at the thought of being cooped up with giant roaches. They ended up bringing in four kinds of bees, none of them honeybees, as honeybees would require far too many resources in order to create honey. Consciously bringing stinging insects into a sealed environment is not my idea of common sense. I'd have preferred the giant cockroaches.

she sees dumb people

Four year-old Lola dresses down her forty year-old father, the holder of a PhD in theoretical physics: "You are dumbing every day! You need a brain power machine!"

At bedtime, I overheard Lola shouting at the top of her lungs, "YOU ARE THE DUMBEST DADDY IN FIVE THOUSAND YEARS!" I went in to see what had provoked this, and it turns out that the Dumbest Paternal Act in Five Thousand Years is scratching Iris's back first, before scratching Lola's.

oh, the compatibility

The other night, the Sober Husband (who has been known since Christmas as "Mr. Ipod" as he has become completely obsessed with his ipod) and I were sitting up in bed playing with our gadgets. We both have spanking new laptops, mine a birthday present from the husband and his bought for him by his boss after the husband grew jealous of my lovely laptop.

I was idly surfing the web when, thanks to the geniuses at "The Blair Necessities", I happened upon Lisa 'Blair from "The Facts of Life"' Whelchel's scrapbook account of "When Daddy Fell Off the Roof." It would seem that Lisa Whelchel's born again preacher husband fell off the roof putting up Christmas lights, a feat worthy of Homer Simpson, and Lisa's reaction was to run for her camera and start snapping away. (Now when people in my family have had serious accidents, my immediate reaction has been to toss whatever I'm holding aside, race to the person, evaluate their injuries, and arrange transportation to the nearest hospital. Lisa Whelchel's reaction is to grab her camera and get in the face of any mangled loved ones and crying child bystanders). Lisa later purchased schmaltzy, cutesy-pie stickers and created a hideous, yet compelling, scrapbook account of what was possibly the greatest trauma in her husband's life. I was laughing so hard tears coursed down my face, and I bit my hand to try to get a grip on myself.

This mirth disrupted the studious husband. "What is so funny?" I showed him "The Day Daddy Fell Off The Roof," but he was not amused. "That's not funny! It looks like that man was seriously hurt. Look, there are EMT's there." He sniffed and then complained that my laughter was disrupting him as he was "downloading podcasts of lectures on medical bioethics to put on my ipod." He attempted to engage me in a discussion of the ethics of frozen fetal embryo adoptions, but I chose instead to return to those magical memories Lisa Whelchel had recorded of The Day Daddy Fell Off The Roof.

my new goal in life

My adored angel, Eric Felten (if you don't know who he is, shame on you. Mr. Felten writes the "How Is Your Drink?" column for the Wall St. Journal, bringing erudition and an inquiring mind to world-class coverage of sots and their drinks), has given me a belated Christmas present: a new goal.

I've been casting about, a bit shiftless of late. The first part of the year I was busy running my very own halfway house (we took in a crashing alcoholic, also we attempted briefly and fruitlessly to intervene in the life of a pregnant teen). Then, after we had to shut down the halfway house because our inmate relapsed and nearly burnt the house down, I became involved in the horrific Petaluma rat hoarding tragedy of 2006. That was like having a job over the summer, what with networking, making phone calls, checking email, picking up rats, delivering rats, hosting rats here in my home, etc.. When that was over, it was time for the annual auction at Lola's preschool, and I had a lot of work on my hands to fulfil our family's fundraising requirements. I was looking for a new tattoo artist off and on (this didn't rise to the level of a big, time-consuming quest, but it could have), and that's been achieved (Shannon of Braindrops on Haight Street!), but it has become apparent that each tattoo I get will result in a big hissy fit from the husband, who'll sulk and storm about for a day or two. (I'm still getting a little rocket ship on my right leg in January). I've been fostering kittens, and that gave me some intense weeks (when a litter is tiny and not really mobile, you have to feed them many times a day, do at least one load of kitten-caused laundry a day, bathe them, etc..) But my life had a big purpose for much of 2006, apart from ferrying my children about the city and doing laundry: first my virgin forays into codependence with my halfway house and next the saving of the Petaluma rats. I've felt kind of empty and purposeless since then.

But now Eric Felten is here to (temporarily) save me and redeem me. Mr. Felten confides that anyone who is not a shiftless loser can create their own cocktail. Why should you drink a regular old Manhattan or Cosmo when you should be drinking a personal recipe which reminds you of your heritage or travels? (But what about the people from undistinguished origins they would rather forget, who haven't really been anywhere? What about their pain??) Remember, most great cocktails follow a simple formula:

Take 1 1/2 of a base (vodka is the easiest to work with; spirits such as whiskey, gin brandy, or tequila are more complex and interesting, however).

Add 1/2 ounce of an aromatized or fortified wine (vermouth, Dubonnet, Lillet, sherry, port. Port?? Have I ever had a cocktail with port in it? I love port).

Finish with a 1/4 ounce of a liqueur of your choice (ooh, I love liqueurs).

Jeff Hollinger, the "chief mixologist" (I hate that "word") at the Absinthe Brasserie and Bar and coauthor of "The Art of the Bar"(and incidentally creator of the Galapagos, a cocktail I have greatly enjoyed when I've been to the A.B.&B) says one should fine tune a recipe by making four or five variations of it and line them up right next to each other. As you drink through them all, a greater understanding of the subtleties will emerge (although I imagine I would become seized by some idea that the proportions just don't matter and start flinging the ingredients about willy-nilly).

Anyhow, I am determined to create the Drunken Housewife cocktail. I'll post the recipe when I've reached perfection. I haven't invented a drink since college, when I created the Trash Fairy (whiskey and grapefruit juice with a maraschino cherry). My own child has outdone me in this regard; she came home from kindergarten one day and invented a (non-alcoholic, natch) drink she dubbed the Saint-Saens (god, I love that child).

I need more Christmas letters in my life

So I only got one true Christmas letter, a letter for mass consumption on a Christmas letterhead, but it did not disappoint in the least. One of my very oldest friends in life is getting a divorce, but her job is going well (a complete reversal from last year's letter, where we found our heroine pluckily persevering in marriage counseling and endeavoring bravely to overcome career setbacks).

God, I love Christmas letters. I used to get more, but there were some dark years when I didn't manage to send out any Christmas cards whatsoever, and I got ruthlessly trimmed from just about everyone's lists, the bastards. I should have been carried for a few years, seeing as how I had a divorce, a new marriage, two children, and two houses, plus a life-threatening illness, which in itself took up almost a whole year.

Even my parents and my mother-in-law don't even send us their annual Christmas letters. My mother once clandestinely passed me one of my mother-in-law's Christmas letters, and it was excellent entertainment value. (I was only mentioned in passing as having procreated that year). I still get some Christmas cards, but not with Christmas form letters, dammit.

In today's mail I got an excellent letter written to me after Christmas from a college friend. I'm guessing he had self-medicated himself extremely before taking pen to paper as a divertissement during a holiday exile at his parents' house, as the letter was all about the exciting gay sex life he is conducting these days. It would seem that there has been a reversal of our college days, when our Drunken Housewife was quite the scamp and her friend was less amorously successful. It could only have been better if it had been a photocopied mass mailing letter; there's just no scandal in telling only me about one's sex life. (I'm just a fountain of Too Much Information; why, once I was taken to a karaoke lounge, where I got drunk and demonstrated fellatio techniques on a bottle. Thankfully I chose not to sing that evening).

But all Christmas letters must pale beside the letter sent out this holiday season by Lisa "Blair from 'Facts of Life'" Whelchel, which the excellent folks at the Blair Necessities have exposed to the world:

Dear friends

Is it just me? Am I simply incredibly small and insecure, or do you sometimes want to throw up after reading certain family Christmas letters too? I mean, isn't this the time of year when we are supposed to be sending good tidings of great joy? After reading a litany of child prodigy feats and perfect family success stories, I often feel like pond scum. Oh, and by the way, "Merry Christmas."

Perhaps it is a knee-jerk reaction, but I decided to write this year's family Christmas letter from slightly below the surface of the pond. Although my whole family is onboard with this idea, it is probably only fair that I begin with me and my "accomplishments" in 2006.

For starters, I gained ten more pounds this year and went up two pant sizes. The bathroom scales hadn't seen those high digits since my third trimesters. The publishing company I'm currently signed with sold to a publisher that turned me down two years ago and they still don't want me. My last book way undersold projections and is probably available at your local bookstore on the clearance table.

This year, Steve finally decided we could no longer ignore the financial woes associated with the fact that we both stink at handling money. We got all of our back taxes cleared up, and we are ready to tackle the debt we got into when we couldn't get enough women to attend our MomTime Getaway events back in 2003. This living on a budget is for the birds.

Tucker fell in love for the first time and, subsequently, experienced his first broken heart. After six months, he is still recovering from the break-up. On a happier note, he finally completed his geometry curriculum. It took him a year-and-a-half, but I'm sure all those theorems will come in handy in the life of a musician.

Haven is no longer part of the student ministry worship team at church. She was replaced this year by a drummer with fancier fills. She received a "D" on her first English Lit essay, complete with notes from the teacher like, "Don't use such lame sources" and "Did you even read the book?"

We are thrilled to report that after three years, Clancy finally made a friend here in Texas. She played "Juliet" in her homeschool academy's school play last year, only to earn a bit part in this year's production. After playing the bass guitar for three years in the junior high worship band, she's a bit bummed about the fact that she's not yet good enough to play on the high school worship team.

Donut, our family dog, no longer has the run of the house. She has been relegated to a pen in the kitchen with a doggie door to the backyard. After failing two obedience schools, we resigned ourselves to the fact that she just wasn't going to get this whole house-training thing down. As soon as we get this whole budget-training thing down, we'll replace all the carpet in the house.

Now, don't you feel better? Merry Christmas! In my opinion, this letter more accurately reflects the spirit of Christmas. No, stay with me here a minute, I'm serious. Why did Jesus come to earth in the first place? Because we desperately need a Savior! We are fat, yet so empty. We owe a debt we cannot pay.

I knew I had very little in common with crazy Lisa Whelchel (who has been excoriated in liberal mothering circles for her draconian methods of discipline, such as dousing little children's mouths with Tabasco sauce and hitting them). I'm taken aback by her publicizing her children's embarrassing problems so blatantly (particularly the child who spent three friendless years, so heartbreaking). My reporting that my child made up a song about "I am a rockstar and I pee everywhere with my penis" seems so innocent and sweet in comparison. It seems unfair that the husband got off scotfree; his only alleged failing is having figured out how broken the family finances were.

More on point, she cannot appreciate the glories of that magnificent seasonal literary form, the Christmas letter, even as she has added to its canon so spiritedly. Let us all vow to celebrate the holidays next year by writing Christmas letters, and be sure not to forget to send one to the Drunken Housewife and one to Lisa Whelchel.

the message

Iris overheard me in part leaving a phone message for our friend Joyce, a rather banal message, but Iris was nosy. "What was that you were saying in the message?"

"Oh, I was just returning Joyce's call."

"But what were you saying?"

"I asked her if she wanted to come over and bash Hassenpfeffer* with me. I said that if she wanted to bring a small club, that would be okay, and we could chase you around and whack at you."

"NOOOOOOO!"

"And then we could hang up candy way up high, out of your reach, and watch you and Lubrick** jump up and try to get it."

"That sounds like fun!"

"Then we could throw eggs at you guys. We'd put you in the backyard and throw eggs at you and give points for whoever hit you."

"That sounds terrible! And you would lose anyway."

"What, you think Joyce would win? You'd get hit more, anyway, because you're larger. You make a better target."

"You'd lose! I want to play the candy game, though. Candy canes!"

Iris left the room and went off to find Lola. "They're going to hang candy up high and we're going to try to get it down."

"But I can't reach that high," Lola said in a tiny voice.

"We'll use glowsticks to get it down."


Hassenpfeffer = Iris
Lubrick = Lola

crazy Lola

Four year-old Lola insists I help her call her father at work today. "I have something I need to ask him!" Eavesdropping, I hear her inquire, "What are you wearing?"

Later, at home, Lola asks him, "Do you know what makes me so special?"

"No, what?"

"It's because I'm very special! That is what makes me special!"

a low quality photo

Lola loves my new tattoo:

That poor quality image was taken by me, using the tiny li'l camera on this computer (I am afraid to use the husband's overly elaborate digital camera, which technically belongs to his company). And here, to refresh your poor retinas, a higher quality image taken today by a four year-old who happens to be an expert user of Photobooth:

the best compliment in ages

We were playing sardines tonight, after hosting a little get-together, and Lola said to Anton as they were seeking, "Mommy is the best hider in five thousand years."

I am an idiot.

Currently I have three foster kittens, formerly feral and fierce, now adorable lap cats who purr endlessly and chase each other around. They are large enough and more than tame enough to be adopted out... but they can't go back to the pound and go up for adoption until they are free of their ringworm (ringworm, a ridiculously misnamed ailment, is not a worm but instead a fungal infection which causes cats' fur to fall out in little circles). There are several schools of thought about treating ringworm, but my rescue program currently believes in sulfur dips. This means taking writhing, clawing animals and dousing them completely in buckets of bright yellow liquid until one's entire body, clothing, and home smell like rotten eggs.

Today I felt like multitasking and getting two things done simultaneously that I'd been procrastinating over for days: touching up my roots and dipping the cats. The latest sulfur protocol calls for shampooing the cats before dipping them. I put dye on my roots and put the cats in the shower, with the bucket of sulfur handy. I got in myself. One of the crazed kittens jumped on my butt and clawed herself up to my shoulders, and I started screaming obscenities. I got out of that shower as fast as I could, and all the kittens escaped, taking refuge in the large, covered litterbox, which seemed like the best hiding spot available. When I pulled them out of there, of course their wet fur was coated with cat litter of varying degrees of cleanliness, which got all over the bathroom, which now looked like a hellhole as well as smelling like one.

Later, much later, after all the hell of the morning was over, I said to the husband, "I think that was the most stupid thing I've ever done."

"What were you thinking? It would be fun? That they would gambol around your feet while you showered?"

"I thought they'd cower over in the corner when I wasn't washing them."

a gracious loser

Four year-old Lola voices her feelings about not winning the Christmas igloo decorating contest on Club Penguin: "Those people are wicked! Wicked! Wicked! WICKED GAME! I WILL DESTROY THEM ALL!" (There was no humor in her voice).

in which I entertain (smallish) masses of small children.

Growing up, I never had any slumber parties. My parents weren't the type to throw parties for me (I did have two birthday parties growing up, two and only two, which I guess is better than one or zero). In contrast, we have birthday parties for our own children each year, and we had a pseudo slumber party last weekend.

The occasion was that her best friend from kindergarten was in town and was planning to attempt a first sleepover. We invited some other girls from the same kindergarten class and made it a slumber party themed event, but with the girls to be picked up by their parents around 8 or 8:30 or so (which is bedtime for most of these first graders, so I figured it would be more practical if they were already in their pajamas). We had several last minute cancellations, but the girls who did show up made such an unbelievable racket that I was somewhat relieved we didn't have more. They had pillow fights (I gave each girl a heart-shaped red pillow as a party favor). They frolicked about. They ate cheap frozen pizzas (I was going to call out for good pizzas, but the husband felt that frozen pizzas were good enough for seven year-olds).

The next day, Iris and our foster kittens and I were all exhausted. (The kittens were a little too popular at the party). Those kittens didn't get off my bed for about six hours, nearly three of which Iris and I spent slumped on the same bed watching the videotaped "Survivor" finale. Lola, who was less exhausted, spent the afternoon playing at a friend's house, and I even managed to get Anton to pick her up for me. "I'm sooo tired, I feel I can't drive", I successfully whined over the phone.

I had figured that if things got dull, I'd break out my nail polish collection and we could do pedicures or we could watch a movie, but it never came to that. Whacking each other with pillows and hauling the kittens around proved to have hours of entertainment value.

Meanwhile, Lola has suddenly unearthed a grudge from her birthday party... which was held over two months ago! It's all about that damn pinata. As the more devoted readers may recall, we hate pinatas, but we completely caved and got a pinata for her party. The actual pinata experience seemed so uncontroversial and anticlimactic. The little four year-old girls in attendance (the sole little boy invited declined to participate) ineffectively patted at the massive pinata with sticks for ages and ages, with hordes of protective grown-ups hovering around and overly anxiously monitoring the situation. Mind Eventually I gave in to the grown-ups' vigilance fatigue and softened the pinata up with a few whacks, and I brought down the house by remarking, "I can't believe how far I'm stooping", as everyone present over the age of four knew (and shared) our antipathy towards pinatas.

So we thought the pinata went off as well as it could, but suddenly two months later, Lola's mind was seized with the thought that at her friend Louise's birthday party, Louise went first at pinata time, but at HER party, Lola did not go first. Mind you, Louise's party was over six months ago, so it's not as if this were some fresh new injustice. I asked Anton who went first at Lola's party, and he said he lined the children up in order of size and let the most petite child whack the pinata first and that Lola made no complaint about this at the time. Lola has been bringing this up over and frigging again, sinking her head into her hands in despair over the lost chance to be the first to ineffectively wave a stick towards an effigy of Patrick the idiotic pink starfish. I've sworn that next year, she can whack first (therefore putting myself on the line to buy another frigging pinata and once again fail to uphold my ideals). Sigh.

what happens when the laptop is left unattended

I was stunned to find many self-portraits on my laptop of the household four year-old, all done without assistance. Since the husband has formed a specialty in UI ("user interface"), I pay more attention to such things, and let me say the Macintosh Photobooth program has the easiest user interface to master I've seen yet. An illiterate four year-old can master it quickly.

This picture is my personal favorite:



However, Lola herself vastly prefers the following one, which makes her laugh endlessly. I call it "Lola as Frankenstein's Monster", but she doesn't yet understand the idea of Frankenstein or his monster.

We both like this one:

it's time to be thinking about our New Year's resolutions

Every now and then I make a life change in the form of a New Year's resolution. There have been some huge successes with these. I used to be shy and quiet, and in high school I made the resolution to become more outgoing. (That was so successful that the following year, my resolution was to be less outgoing). In 1986 I made the resolution to become a vegetarian, and that has been a resounding success, as I have not knowingly eaten either a mammal or a bird since then (I've vacillated and had weaknesses about seafood, my Achilles' heel of ethics, but as far as birds and mammals go, I am made of steel).

Two years ago, the Sober Husband made a solemn New Year's resolution that we live within our means. I signed on to that, and we drew up budgets and spending lists and lists of cutbacks (amongst the things I gave up: Brazilian waxes, pedicures, professional eyebrow treatments, the Wall St. Journal, and professional hair dying). We managed to pull that one off through great discipline and constant conferring.

Last year, I made a resolution the Sober Husband joined with enthusiasm: to have more sex (I made a numerical goal, and I'll spare y'all the details, but I'm only one away from my goal, and there's another week and a half left, so odds are that resolution will be more than successful).

So what will it be next year? I'm thinking my resolution should be to exercise regularly. It needs to be a realistic goal, and it needs to be spelled out. To work out on my rowing machine twice a week? Walk for an hour every day? Hmm...

in which I come to grips with the holidays

As last we joined our errant Drunken Housewife, she was feeling unhappy and stressed, her nerves sadly frayed at the idea of buying gifts for family members, in large part due to a family crisis under which an infant was placed in foster care, and the overwhelming family reaction was to engage in a cover-up and pretend nothing had happened.

I would like to thank everyone who wrote kind words, and it was greatly appreciated. I thought about the situation more, and what I felt, very strongly, was that I did not want to spend any time, energy, thoughtfulness, or love right now for certain family members. At the same time, I didn't quite feel like cutting them all off or starting any kind of new family snits. So I simply ordered a gift basket from a local company, and unbelievably enough there was one for $19.95 with free shipping which was entirely adequate (surprisingly good for that value). Amount of time spent: about three minutes. Amount of effort expended: virtually none. Cash spent: $19.95 (almost nothing). Because I had spent so little on my sister's family, I gave some extra cash to a family which I think is pretty damn deserving (okay, I hate to even write about this, because it makes me feel like a spoiled bitch, but yes, I have a family which comes in twice a month to clean my house. Our lives have been so much improved by this, my husband's allergies are better, and we fight so much less. When we had The Horribly Traumatic Plumbing Disaster resulting in the husband taking a second job and me taking a temporary job, we didn't cut out our cleaning. We will work more jobs rather than live in the pathetic squalor which results when we are the only people who clean this house). They work hard and have a child the same age as my youngest daughter, and I gave them the money I would have spent on my family (and I got two really cute sweaters for their son as well).

I did also donate to needy families anonymously through a really fun program my older daughter's school does every year. They post little gift tags with the age and gender of a child and what is wanted (the parents can pick an item of clothing, a book, or a toy). So every year, Iris and I pick a couple of those, and this year we bought an item of clothing for an 11 year-old girl (Iris selected a black dress with sparkly trim from the Gap) and a toy for a two year-old boy (we picked a fun, colorful wooden dragon that can be pulled on a string). Last year, the charity added the ethnicity of the children, which was a little weird for me. I wanted to buy a beautiful pop-up Cinderella book, but as the recipient was an African-American girl, I had a weird, liberal white moment of feeling that perhaps I shouldn't buy a book with all white characters (it would have also felt weird and condescending to buy something very ethnically-oriented, like a doll wearing kente cloth). This year the tags left off ethnicity, which allowed us to pleasantly pretend we live in a world without race issues.

For my extended family I do love (and miss, as they live so very far away from me), I bought little boxes of Joseph Schmidt truffles (I live within walking distance of the Joseph Schmidt factory, and Joseph Schmidt chocolates are my very favorite). This is a holiday tradition, as most years (except the years I have been poor) I do this, and my extended family loves getting these, as much for the beautiful, handmade artisanal boxes as for the yummy chocolates within. (I stopped buying them for my mother after she dissed the truffles and said she only loves the boxes).

Iris and I made some beaded Christmas tree ornaments, and I was intending to put one in with each box of truffles. The problem is that I'm so much in love with the ornaments, which came out much better than I expected, that I just hate to give them away. I'm wanting to keep them all for our own collection. I haven't wrapped up the truffle boxes yet, because I haven't been able to make a definitive decision yet as to be overly generous and give the ornaments or keep them, on the theory that no one will appreciate them so much as their makers. Making a lot more so there will be enough to give away AND keep is not a good option, because Iris is sick of this crafts project and unwilling to bead any more. (My child labor is just not biddable enough).

For Christmas for myself, I asked Anton to buy me a beautiful new piece of jewelry for my nose piercing, which made him wince and cover his head in his hands. I also pointed out to him my handy book list (visible right on your left, if yer curious).

With seasonally appropriate good will for all, and a glass of Meridian Chardonnay in my sole remaining Christmas wineglass, from yer old Drunken Housewife

just because: another cocktail recipe from Eric Felten

Just because I love Eric Felten's "How's Your Drink?" column in the Wall St. Journal, and just because I'm a sucker for raspberry anything, I present to you the Florodora (named after six singing Gibson girls, the Florodora Sextette, who were a huge hit on Broadway starting in 1900):

1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz framboise
1/2 oz fresh lime juice (and don't let me ever hear of you using that nasty Rose's stuff)
3-4 oz ginger ale

Build in a highball glass with ice. Garnish with a slice of lime and some fresh raspberries, if you have them handy.

the big old gay post

This is the third in an occasional series: Reader Requests. The indefatigable Hughman has requested that the Drunken Housewife write about gayness, which could mean retelling humorous anecdotes about Gay People I Have Interacted With In A Hilarious Way, or, more seriously, talking about educating my children about gayness, and in the event, I'll attempt a little of both.

As Hughman could discern from between the lines, the Drunken Housewife has a big ol' fag hag streak. I like the gay male culture (I'm differentiating here between mainstream gay male culture, which I am somewhat immersed in as I live in the Castro in San Francisco, which pretty much sets the pace for gay men around the world, and mainstream lesbian culture, which is much less in-yer-face. There aren't so many lesbian bars, lesbian nightclubs, lesbian t-shirt stores, lesbian restaurants, etc...).

In college, I had an openly gay friend who was one of my closest companions (he now works for "The Amazing Race", which was one of my all-time favorite shows even before I found out my beloved college friend was on the staff). I also briefly and frustratingly dated a very hunky and adorable guy who was sort of the Universal Object of Desire. That didn't work out, but we still are friends, although he's a lousy correspondent (as students, we both worked at an NPR station in Boston, which hired both of us full-time after graduation. I left after a year, but he's still there, now working on nationally syndicated radio shows).

Several years after graduation the Universal Object of Desire came to San Francisco a few times. Once he came with a friend and stayed at my apt., where I then lived with Husband 1.0. We hooked up with another, now openly gay, college friend who'd also worked at the radio station and moved to SF (sidenote: I was puzzled in college that this other friend had not asked me out, and when a few years later I walked past the Dolores Park tennis courts and saw him playing tennis with a hunky gay guy, I instantly thought, "Oh, so THAT'S why he didn't ask me out." And another sidenote, if you're puzzled about why I was puzzled over a given man's lack of pursuit, you'll have to ask me later about my college years. I was one of the belles of Boston University, and no one would have predicted that I'd end up a frumpy, Drunken Housewife). At the time, I was leading sort of a lame double life: during the days, I put on conservative business suits and went to work at a large law firm, hiding my piercings and tattoos, and during the nights and weekends, Husband 1.0 and I led a funkier, grungier existence, associating mainly with SM friends and going to shooting ranges for recreation. During this visit, the Universal Object of Desire was the inadvertent cause of a huge fight between the other gay college friend and his boyfriend, as the old gay college friend was talking at dinner about how "I used to always think I could really see myself settling down with" the Universal Object of Desire, and we were reminiscing about how everyone had had crushes on him.

After this visit, the Universal Object of Desire wrote us a letter, saying that he was coming out of the closet. Visiting us and seeing how I led my adult life, not being afraid, supposedly inspired him to do this. This was very hard for him, because he'd been raised by a very close, very conservative Catholic family (we used to sit together at mass in college; although I was never Catholic, I used to go to mass at B.U. because it suited me better than the Protestant services and I had various Catholic friends). I felt after he came out that we could have a full, authentic friendship, without any weird blank areas.

Anyhow, I am myself not homophobic (if anything, I'm predisposed to like an openly gay person). When I was pregnant, I said, "If I have a son, I hope he's a drag queen, so we can go shopping together." I ended up having two girls, and one of them is an illustration of how sexual orientation is something you're born with (the other one is more of a mystery in this way). Iris is a straight girl, all right (sidenote: her middle name, "Alison", is in honor of amazingly talented lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel). She has had incredibly strong crushes on boys and adult men from phenomenally early ages. She was the five year old femme fatale of pre-k, going after one little boy and, after winning his affections, moving on to another, who ended up proposing to her on a field trip. (I was engaged at age four myself to an older boy who lived down the street). One of my mommy friends said to me, after seeing the normally quiet Iris acting up around her cute, beloved gymnastics teacher in order to get his attention, "You better put that girl on birth control the moment she turns 13." (Anton was appalled by that. He says loudly and often that he doesn't want the girls to engage in any premarital sex. My sarcastic response? "Oh, that was certainly one of your core values when I met you." He propositioned me on our first date).

I assumed that raising our children on the fringes of the Castro was all I needed to do to educate them about gay people and ensure they were not homophobic or ill-behaved. After all, we have gay neighbors all about us (we adore our next-door neighbors, a gay couple who have been together now for a mind-boggling 25 years; that's mind-boggling as they are only in their forties. They met in college and lived happily enough ever after). Lola's preschool has so many lesbian families that she and I once engaged in a spirited debate about whether one little playmate had two mommies or a mommy/daddy set. (There are so many lesbian families in the San Francisco upper middle class-lower upper class circles we travel in, that one lesbian mommy friend reported to me that on a school tour, she was told firmly by the director that being a lesbian does not count towards increasing the school's diversity; "There are so many lesbian family applicants that we can't just admit all of them.").

But then I was shocked one day when after kindergarten, I heard Iris call someone "gay" as a put-down. I immediately called her on it. "How can you say that like it's a bad thing?" I reminded her of various gay people we know and love and asked her if she thought they were so bad that saying someone was like them would be a good insult. She seemed to get my point, but she also seemed to want to cling to the word "gay" as a put-down.

At the time, I was volunteering in the school library, and I ran into the lower school's glamorous art teacher, who is incidentally an out lesbian. (There is a rumor among the parents that she is dating k.d. lang, who was supposedly spotted as the teacher's date at a school function). I shamefacedly told the art teacher about this recent, shocking-to-me event and asked for advice. She told me that Iris had undoubtedly picked this up at school and that the girls did use this as a put-down. The art teacher, who keeps a picture of herself with a girlfriend (I resisted the urge to ask if it was k.d. lang) on her desk, calls the girls on this homophobic talk. She told me that she'll say to the girls, "You know I'm gay" when she hears this, and they never know how to respond. It makes them realize that this slur hurts real people's feelings, and indeed, since this art teacher herself is an object of great admiration the girls must feel ashamed. Coincidentally the art teacher was in the library at that moment because she was asking that copies of "And Tango Makes Three" be ordered, and she learned about that infamous gay penguin picture book because Iris brought a copy to school. (This book is a beautifully illustrated account of how some gay penguins in the New York zoo were given an orphaned egg, and they hatched it out and raised the baby. The book leaves out that later one of the gay penguins dumped his gay mate and took up with a lady penguin hussy. Iris saw it in the gay bookstore in the Castro and asked for it, and I bought it for her because I can never resist her when she asks for a book and also because it is a beautiful book).

So anyhow, even raising a child in the epicenter of gay culture, naming her in part after a lesbian artist, and buying her "And Tango Makes Three" doesn't ensure that she'll always be a paragon of politically correct behavior. I haven't heard the word "gay" used as a slam since then, so hopefully that episode has concluded. Indeed, at the end of her kindergarten year, Iris announced that when she grew up, she wanted to have a girlfriend like her art teacher has a girlfriend, and she wanted that girlfriend to be a triplet (this is undoubtedly because one of our next door neighbors is one of triplets, a fact fascinating to Iris and me). I'm not expecting her to bring home any cute triplet dykes anytime soon, though, given her overtly heterosexual behavior from babyhood. Also, I'm suspecting that it could be hard to find just the right lesbian triplet.

like a bad dream

We were trying to put four year-old Lola to bed, and she resisted. "It's like a bad dream! IT'S THE WORST NIGHTMARE IN HISTORY!"

Aside from a sense of hyperbole, the child also has a well-developed sense of nostalgia. Putting her head down on her arms on the table, she mused yesterday, "I wish I were three again."

oh, the humanity: husband consigned to hell

So, Iris's best friend from kindergarten, a greatly beloved little girl, moved to Chicago last summer, but she is returning for a weekend visit. In a moment of madness, I had the idea that I should throw a little party for her on Sunday, when she is going to attempt her Very First Sleepover (we all understand that she may not make it through the night and may need to be ferried back home in the wee hours). Accordingly, Iris and I are hosting about eight little girls, all friends from those halcyon kindergarten days, for a sleepover-themed party. In reality, only the visiting girl will sleep over, but the others have been asked to come in pajamas, and we're going to dance, have a (carefully supervised) pillow fight, eat popcorn, do pedicures, and if things get either too boring or too exciting in a bad way, we'll throw on a movie.

I had the additional idea of getting pillows for the girls, as a party favor and also to emphasize the slumber party theme. I will strew them all about the living room floor, and then the girls could take them home at the end of the party. I thought this was a no-brainer, as a few years ago I bought a lot of fabulous throw pillows for Iris's old preschool. I went to Mervyn's, where I had previously bought big, funky pillows for pennies, and all their throw pillows were about $29.99. I found some on sale for $15, but I am not about to spend $120 on the pillows for this party (I'll be buying pizzas and drinks as well, and I need to be more financially responsible as I've already dropped some cash on Christmas presents).

By now, I felt committed to the idea of the throw pillows, and I asked the husband to swing by Cost Plus on his way home today. After checking the Cost Plus website, it seemed again that the whole throw pillow market had veered sharply upmarket since my last foray into that world. There were only two reasonable alternatives left: abandon the throw pillow as party favor concept (and I do hate to let a cute little hostessy idea like that go), or send someone (possibly even myself) to the dreaded retail hell, shudder, Ikea.

I hate Ikea. It's purposely laid out to be monstrously confusing; I have been lost and wandering about in the Emeryville Ikea to the point of rage. I feel nervous in Ikeas, because they are so crowded and confusing, and if there is ever a big earthquake, there are going to be tons of corpses at that Ikea. After you've identified some crappy piece of cheap furniture you wish to purchase, you must go down and seek it amongst the huge bins and high stacks, and if you're me, invariably whatever you wanted is out of stock, and you'll end up fleeing with empty hands rather than brave the insanity upstairs again. So I sent the Sober Husband, using the excuse that the East Palo Alto Ikea is theoretically convenient to his Palo Alto office.

The man must have called eight or more times to discuss his pillow choices. He hates choices, he hates retail in general, and he hates Ikea in particular. He was unable to find a suitable throw pillow; a reasonably cute one I identified on the Ikea webpage was not to be found in the store computer. We had the idea then of getting regular bed pillows with cute pillowcases, but all the pillowcases were bundled for sale with sheet sets, rendering that concept too expensive. This was all made more difficult by the fact that celphone reception was nonexistent in the pillow and bedding department.

Eventually we agreed upon a pillow choice, a rectangular, longish pillow with a colorful pattern. I informed the husband during this phone call that I had begun blogging about his Ikea trip (yes, up to the minute reportage here at the Drunken Housewife site), and he laughed. But then down by the register, as an impulse buy, there were the cheap throw pillows I'd envisioned from the beginning. He called three times and sent a picture from his celphone camera, agonizing over the decision. We took a vote here: Lola and I voted for the heart-shaped pillows, Iris voted for the flowery one.

Poor old husband, condemned to the Ikea, wandering about with no celphone reception (his celphone and his Swiss army knife are his security objects). I suspect he drowned his sorrows in those cheap meatballs they serve at the Ikea cafeteria (once he confessed that when he was mad at me, he'd go in the kitchen and drink milk straight out of the carton; I think he eats meat in moments of marital anger as well).

we have a winner; I have a headache (not related to our winner)

In the first of what will undoubtedly be an occasional series here, Reader Comment Contests, we have a winner: Hughman wins in the Post Six Weird Things About Yerself contest for his having been a gay porn scout! (Did you scout locations or participants or both?). His prize, which he may claim at his leisure, is that the Drunken Housewife will write a post on the topic of his choice.

I have some time this morning and should be writing something entertaining, but I'm dulled down by a headache. I've had a headache now for an entire week. I've chugged ibuprofen in scary amounts. The headache is such that I haven't been drinking, as I don't want to put anything potentially headache-inducing into my body (you know I'm sick when I don't drink and I don't put on make-up. Normally, I am not to be seen without my beloved Prescriptives). On the worst days, I had dizzy spells and nausea. The girls were complaining of headaches the week before, so I think it's a non-stomach virus thing. I'm starting to think I should call my doctor, but the one area in which she sucks (I love her otherwise) is that she is not one for prescribing pain pills. If you're going to visit your inlaws, she'll give you some Xanax or Ativans quite happily, but if you drag in there feeling like a sledgehammer is striking your head repeatedly, she's going to tell you to take some Tylenol (and implicit in that is an admonition to quit yer whining).

Coincidentally I picked up at a fabulous used bookstore a memoir about a woman's epic headache lasting for years, "All in my Head" by Paula Kamen, a few days before my headache hit. I can't decide whether to read it now or not. It might perk me up to hear of someone else's much worse headache. Then again, perhaps Paula Kamen herself handled the particular volume I bought, and her mysterious headache germs were on it and I got them, and now I'll be in pain for years.

Wishing you all good health, and bracing myself for the topic of choice by our dear Hughman, yer old Drunken (yet strangely sober of late) Housewife