a taste of what's eating yer drunken old housewife

I've been so depressed lately, with only my book about human evil to cheer me up (and I'm on the penultimate chapter, so that's going to run out). There's no one big reason I've sunk into this morass, nothing like cancer or death of a loved one (although the other great certainty, taxes, figures into it). It's a series of insignificant-in-the-big-picture things which are stressing me, and I personally find that shameful. I should be more resilient. (Oddly enough, when it has come to the Big Things, I have been fairly tough, weathering divorce, death of loved ones, being the victim of violent crime which triggered post traumatic distress in me and my ex, etc...) I will share a small taste of the stress with you, but I'll spare you much of it.One large source of stress is that I'm constantly running about, ferrying the children hither and yon. Our schedule, the one for the children and me, is so ridiculous it has conflicts built right into it. The most blatant example of scheduling madness is that Iris Uber Alles has a piano lesson which directly conflicts with picking Lola up at preschool one day a week. (So why not stop the piano lesson? Because she really wants to play the piano and practices so willingly, and if we screw around this teacher, a very talented young pianist who lives five blocks from Iris's school, we'll never find such a conveniently located one again. And because we started piano on the advice of Iris's music teacher at school, another longish story). So one day a week the Sober Husband has to leave work early -- and of course it's one of the days he's required to be in Palo Alto an hour away -- and deal with one of the children. I'm always stressed that he won't remember (and indeed, the man does get involved in his work and lose track of time, relying upon his celphone alarm to startle him out of his consuming focus, but sometimes he forgets to set the celphone alarm).

We also have just re-started speech therapy for Lola, which conflicts with Iris's loathed softball practice. And of course, this falls upon a day the husband must be in Palo Alto, as well. This is a short-term conflict; softball is close to an end, but in the meantime, it's another source of stress.

Then there's Tuesday, where for eight weeks running (eight! weeks!), I've been scheduled to work at Lola's preschool. That makes Tuesday mornings stressful for us, with me having to chivvy poor Lola constantly to hurry along, as we have an extremely tight schedule to get from her delightful child gymnastics class to school early (working parents are supposed to arrive fifteen minutes before school starts). Normally I try to "plan for success with my spirited child", as the parenting catchphrase goes, and my planning for success largely involved allowing Lola a ton of extra time. She's a dawdler, an extremely slow walker (although, in a marked display of lack of self-knowledge, she proclaims herself to be "fast as a squirrel" and is completely puzzled over why the other children are able to get to school before her when she is walking as fast as is humanly possible). I like to allot half an hour to make the 1/3 mile walk to her school (and no, driving it is not possible, because the whole point of this preschool is that it's located in a quiet canyon where children and dogwalkers cavort in nature away from the hectic city). When we can't do that -- as in these eight consecutive Tuesdays -- our walk is transformed from the most relaxing part of our days (Lola and Mommy in nature! observing red-tailed hawks! looking for the baby owls which were born in a eucalyptus tree right by the trail! walking on logs! picking leaves off the stinky monkey flower plant!) into nasty old Mommy nonstop nagging poor, poky Lola. "Lola, we have to walk faster. Mommy has to work today and she's going to be late! It makes your teacher unhappy when Mommy is late! Please, Lola, for the love of God can't you keep walking?? Godamit." And of course, once I am at the preschool, I need to be patient, calm, cheerful, energetic and observant to work with the children, plus I need to keep my normally truck-driverish vocabulary G-rated.

There's not much time in the day for me to be alone or with other adults sans children. Iris's alarm goes off at 6 AM. Lola goes to bed around 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. That is a loooong day. (Don't start with me about how I am a bad mother letting Lola stay up so late. Lola is one of those freaks of nature, like Bill Clinton or Thomas Edison, who require very little sleep. As a baby and toddler, she was a non-napping paragon of wakefulness. In addition to her relatively tiny appetite for sleep, the child lives for the time of day when Iris is already asleep and she, Lola, rules the roost). Some days, I have a block of time of nearly two hours of free time without children, and I usually squander it going to the grocery store or running other mindless errands.

I used to relieve stress and maintain morale by a series of money-wasting beauty treatments (pedicures, professional eyebrow shaping, Brazilian waxes, expensive haircuts, etc...) plus buying books almost as frequently crack addicts buy rocks of crack. Then the Sober Husband and I had the realization that we were living way beyond our means, and the first thing to go on the economic chopping block was the poor old Drunken Housewife's personal appearance. Sigh. (Less sadly, I rejoined a delightful private library, enabling me a better source of books than the dreary and depressing public library).

This leads us to our next source of stress, the Almighty Dollar. We were recently hit by an astounding tax bill, which was completely unanticipated by stupid old us because we'd just paid a large amount of money in estimated taxes in January upon the advice of our tax attorney. These are taxes upon extra income earned in the distant-seeming past by the Sober Husband from doing some side consulting work, work which has dried up and indeed work from which we are owed $25,000 in unpaid fees (this is an entertaining story in its own right which I have long meant to get around to telling). Currently we are living outside our means, and Something Should Be Done. Of course, the most natural possibility that comes to mind is that the Drunken Housewife get off her curvy rump and obtain paying employment, but given that we already cannot get the children through the week without making the husband come home early from work at least one in five days, how the hell am I supposed to manage getting to a job? Not to mention that I am currently unwilling to do the work for which I am trained (litigatrix), and I'm woefully over or under-qualified for anything else. (I have graded practice bar exams for cash, as it's something semi-flexible which doesn't require putting the children into daycare, but it sucks in its own right. There's nothing to cause one to despair for the future of civilization like being put to grading a few hundred essays on a more obscure subject, such as corporations, which the aspiring attorneys of tomorrow have completely failed to master. And then again the pay for this is not generous, and indeed collecting it requires numerous long-distance phone calls and emails with increasing tones of nastiness. Funnily enough the bar preparation people are completely capable of receiving all emails EXCEPT the ones with my paysheets, which invariably are not received no matter how many times they are sent).

The last straw recently was when, on a day when I was already stressed and depressed and had only enjoyed about 2 hours of sleep, due to chronic insomnia (and indeed, it was a Tuesday morning, the worst time of the week), I received a note from my mother-in-law (with whom I have a spectacularly stressful and crappy relationship):

REUNION 2008

Dear family,

I will turn 70 next year, and I would like to have a first-ever family reunion sometime in the summer. You are all invited with families, spouses, significant or even insignificant others. This is a heads up way in advance to get your input on available dates during July-August 2008. Do you have any specific plans for those months that would prevent you from coming?

Here's the general plan: I will rent a place for a week, big enough for everyone. I'm looking on Martha's Vineyard but probably won't be able to confirm rental for 6 or more months. Whatever I get will have beach access and other activities available. I'm hoping everyone can be there for a big cookout on a Saturday night, vegetarian and vegan options available. Then you can stay for as much or as little of the rest of the week as you wish.

I look forward to hearing from each of you.

And here's your Drunken Housewife on the Martha's Vineyard ferry to the "first-ever family reunion":


Now why should this bother a reasonably sane person? First, the last time I went to one of these family reunions (this is actually not the "first-ever" one; there was one for a landmark birthday for the husband's now-deceased grandmother), it was one of the worst experiences of my entire life. Secondly, at least at that one (horrific as it was) I had insisted upon staying at a hotel, so I was able to have a few bits of time here and there where I could escape from the inlaws and stare blankly at the walls in private, contemplating death as a feasible escape and pondering why, why, why did I think it was a good idea to carry that particular family's genes forward into the new millennium. I was so horrified at the idea of having to be in a house with these people (and a statement that it will be "big enough for everyone" is meaningless coming from a person who thinks a one bedroom house is large enough for a family of four to visit comfortably, particularly as they could use a futon in the basement) that I completely missed at first the spine-chilling fact this was a house on an island. Not just any old, conveniently visited island, but one with no bridges and only an infrequent ferry. Thus if yer crabby old Drunken Housewife were stressed and wished to escape, there would be no escape short of wading into the sea.

But most of all, the fact remains that we haven't had a vacation in over three years, a proper vacation. We did go to Camp Mather last year and will return this year (Camp Mather is the city-subsidized mountain get-away, consisting of extremely rustic cabins by a pond in the scenic Sierras), but that is a vacation for the children, not their cranky old mother. Our last vacation was wonderful, a couple of weeks in Panama (so underrated as a destination. Just as brown is sometimes the new black, Panama is the new Costa Rica), but that was years ago and poor Lola can't even remember it. Travelling abroad is the most important thing in life to me, my greatest joy and pleasure, even eclipsing reading and drinking (and of course, you can read and drink abroad! discover new and exotic alcohols!). Due to monetary constraints, international vacations are not part of my life as a stay-at-home crab, and there are no conferences or calls to action for a cranky old Drunken Housewife to heed which would entail flying her abroad. At the present time, going from California to Martha's Vineyard is completely not in the budget and would conclusively exterminate any hopes of a more enjoyable outing elsewhere in the foreseeable future. I can't live in a world where my only vacations are spent being miserable with my in-laws. What mistakes have I made to put me in this position?

I am not being paid enough to be cooped up on an island with people who hate me. On "Survivor", at least they have tropical splendor to gaze upon and the hope of winning a million dollars... and the joy of voting out despised enemies.

And today, as the icing on the cake, my mother-in-law arrives for a visit. I am so dreading any discussion of this "first ever family reunion." If things get bad, I am going to have to run away from home (readers: I am entertaining offers! I have a valid passport and credit cards, albeit no ability to pay them off).

everybody say "awwww..."

My foster kittens have just outgrown the awkward, ton-of-work stage. When I got them, they needed to be bottle-fed constantly (I was staying up late and then getting up early for a 5 am feed). It was like having a baby, except I could leave them unsupervised without fearing CPS. They were not capable of cleaning themselves, and they didn't understand the litterbox (also, they had cranky little kitten bowels). I had to do a load of kitten-related laundry every day. Also, the runt of the litter was a poor eater who was always dehydrated, and for two weeks I gave her subcutaneous fluids several times a day, and I was really stressed and concerned that she wouldn't make it.

Now they are just a joy and no work. The two larger kittens come when I call them. They are all so snuggly and dear and as cute as a Hallmark card. Of course, the cruel day is soon arriving when the two large kittens will be packed off to go up for adoption, and the runt will be separated from her siblings. The horrible part of fostering is the guilt of dropping the kittens off at the shelter, where they cry pathetically, obviously sending the message, "Mommy, why are you leaving me in this little cage? What is this nightmare? Don't leave me here!" I feel terrible abandoning them to the vagaries of life.

Last year my rescue program raised roughly 500 kittens, the overwhelming majority of which were tiny, feral kittens. If this program did not exist, many of those kittens would have been euthanized. So much fluffy joy in the world... contact me if you want some of it to be yours.

Lola-isms

Conversation with Lola is always most interesting when we're walking after preschool. Yesterday Lola was in a cheerful yet morbid mood and hit upon the happy-for-her thought of her big sister's eventual demise. "She won't be able to boss me around any more! No more bossy old Hassie!"

Today Lola had thoughts of personal glory. "I want to be a rockstar first, and then I want to turn into a roommate. A rockstar, then a roommate!"

bloodthirsty children

We gave a ride to Iris Uber Alles's fellow first grader, a child addicted to asking strange questions. "Iris, would you rather stick needles in your eyes or kill someone and go to jail?"

"I would kill someone, but only go to jail for a moment."

This talk of death inspired the listening Lola, who skipped down the sidewalk, shouting happily, "I want someone to kill George Bush! I want someone to kill George Bush!" I cringed, fearing some nearby Republican would report my four year-old assassin to the Secret Service.

the dark flirtation

I've been in another round of dancing with my personal demon lately, and no, the demon's name is not alcoholism, despite what one might assume (cue my latest idol, Amy Winehouse, singing, "They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said, NO, NO, NO"). In my case, the nameless demon (and yes, some demons do have names: my somewhat combat-addled first fiance called his "Tobias") is suicide.

Somehow I think I've always known my personal story will have that ending [although to date my near-death experiences, of which I've had many, have had different themes, such as robbers armed with machetes in the Andes, undiagnosed gallbladder disease, household accident ending in dramatic scar on right wrist (how ironic for one of my flirtation to have only an accidental wrist scar!), careless drivers, meningitis, nearly drowning after getting caught in a riptide, etc...]. It doesn't sound bad to me; it seems like a natural fit, much like how when I got divorced back in the nineties, I told everyone who offered their condolences, "Eh, I always knew I'd be a gay divorcee." (What I didn't know was that my projected life of a single urban sophisticate was not on the cards, but instead a life featuring Mortgages and Small Children).

This makes sense to some. When I was engaged to the man with a personal demon, a hard-drinking member of the Special Forces who kept a lot of weapons stowed about our apartment, I told him that when I did consummate this flirtation, I was going to stage it so it looked like murder at his hands. In all seriousness, he said to me, "I'll fall more and more in love with you as I go through the criminal process." Ahh, sweet first love.

However, I have to spurn my suitor in this narrative or, at the very least, postpone this ending until I'm elderly and/or on the losing side of a medical crisis, due to the plot twist of small children in this tale. It's not just that, under the Sober Husband's stewardship, they would never be presented with a green vegetable ever again. I have a close family member who killed himself two years ago, and I can't put Iris and Lola through the aftermath. (The horrible thing is that in the case of my nephew, I think the only family members who were really bothered were me, his aunt, and his siblings. Of course, his high school friends and girlfriend were devastated, and their suffering at the funeral contrasted with the calm of the family members hideously).

God, the demands of parenting never end: must not kill self, must drive softball carpool, must work shift at preschool, must remember to bring check for afterschool enrichment program, &tc., &tc...

yes, I realize how insane this sounds

I've been extremely depressed lately, and the only thing which perks me up is reading "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil" by Philip Zimbardo. "Huh?" you might think. "What the . . . ?"

How this works: this book is so enveloping and so thought-provoking, that it makes me feel that it is good to be alive in a world where there are such interesting things to read and so much to learn. This book is making me want to make a visit to the local medical library so I can find the journal articles listed in the endnotes. I haven't been so involved in a topic in years.

In college, I took a number of psych classes, but it seemed to be 99% crap. I've never bought the artificial id-ego-superego thing, or all that Freud nonsense, such as penis envy. While taking a course in "Theories of Personality", I concluded it was all bunk and invented my own "Theory of Personality", known to my college friends as "the Weirdness Scale", which I contended was just as good as any of the theories covered in my class. Zimbardo, however, is on another level.

Currently I'm reading a chapter about obedience. Here's one insight: it has been conclusively shown that people tend to obey others in their life most when they act out of character. This is a big part of why abused women obey their abuser: the acts of abuse are "out of character." We tend to have a gut reaction that if someone who is normally intelligent and loving acts abusively, then there must be some core truth to their atypical reaction and we should fall in line. (Sadly this makes me think of the one time I lost it with Iris Uber Alles and screamed at her after a morning of conflict, and she instantly scurried to obey. At the time, I made a joke of it, saying "Who knew bad parenting was so effective?", but it's an illustration of the abuser being a persuasive authority figure. For the record, I didn't lift a hand-- I just raised my voice -- but yelling angrily is out of character for me).

The last book I read which was anywhere near so absorbing and thought-provoking was "The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2" by Jane Poynter. That was a book which gave me material for thought for days and made my mind buzz in a hundred different directions. In the end, did that book change my life? No, not beyond making me squabble with my husband over whether the Biosphere 2 had any scientific import, but it gave me some happy hours of reading. I suspect these authors are hoping to change the world significantly, and I doubt it would be meaningful to them to learn that they have assisted one middle-aged sot in killing time, but anyhow, cheers, Professor Zimbardo and Ms. Poynter. Thanks for the books!

my challenge to all of you

Get yerselves a copy of Philip Zimbardo's "The Lucifer Effect" ASAP. I'm about a quarter of a way through this unusual and riveting book.

Zimbardo, a psychology professor, is best known for having created the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, where male college students were randomly assigned to be guards and inmates in an ersatz prison created in a campus basement. The guards quickly became so sadistic that the experiment had to be aborted early. Zimbardo had a book deal to write about the Stanford Prison Experiment, but he was unable to face writing about it until thirty years had passed. Since that famous experiment, Zimbardo has been involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal (he reports that the infamous pictures we see are NOTHING compared to the unreleased ones he has seen) and other instances of regular people becoming evil. He believes that we all have the potential of great evil within us, which can be easily drawn out by a horrible situation.

Join me in reading this important and interesting book.

"why I don't blog" by the formidable Lemonjuicer!

The delightful Lemonjuicer, one of the winners of our First, Possibly Annual, Reader's Photo Contest, has stepped forward with her prize, a day of guest blogging. I have interspersed a few comments hither and yon.

why i dont blog.

i know... this guest blog entry is horribly overdue. [More shamefully I still haven't written the two prize entries for the winners who assigned me topics for a prize. I know, I suck. -DH]. i have been suffering from a long spell of writers block, otherwise known as 'my husband travels a lot and i am brain-dead from child care'. i am currently lubricating my mind with a cocktail - the world's most perfect margarita, of which i posted the recipe some time back in the comments section. i invite you to mix one up and drink with me, as i am far more interesting when you are drunk.

i feel honored that my rack has vaulted me into this position - for once the girls pay off!! ok, i lied. they have paid off before. that story involves a stripper and the man i currently call my husband. alas, i digress.


i apologize in advance for my lack of punctuation and capitalization. you will get used to it. i do in fact know the difference between it's and its. if i ever need to compose a letter to someone, say, Bill Clinton, i will tidy up my writing. if he ever visits me i will also flip the couch cushions to the 'visitor' side. the rest of the world gets all lower case and grungy furniture.

so, back to the title 'why i dont blog'. what do i have to blog about? despite having lived in the hearts of the gay communities of nyc, LA, and SF (yes, another former castro dweller!) i have been calling rural wisconsin my home for the past 4 years. i also went from monthly international travel to being a stay-at-home-mom of 2. and, considering our illustrious hostess - the formidable drunken housewife, has cornered the market on the drunken ramblings of a woman slowly losing her mind, what could i possibly have left to offer? apparently a sentence with far too many commas, thats what.

my husband suggested i write about blow jobs. wow, thats a shocker. i am not sure if its a 'stick with what you know' or more wishful thinking on his part. [This reference is going to win the charming Lemonjuicer even more fans!]

so i give you the blog entry about absolutely nothing.

cheers,
lemonjuicer

And in Lemonjuicer's honor, let us all make the daily drink a margarita and toast her digitized image. Cheers!

"I can dream about wearing them"

Lola is obsessed with getting Homer Simpson slippers:
"I want them! I can dream about wearing them! Can you dream about me wearing them? Tell me when you dream about me wearing them!"


(art courtesy of Hughman!)

the minutia, the excrement, and all the driving is going to kill me

It's a rough week to be me, although in the great scheme of things, being me any particular week is not so bad. I live on one of the most beautiful blocks in one of the world's most gorgeous cities; I have more than enough to eat; I get laid on a regular basis. The big picture is lovely, but the small picture is sucky (and smells bad at times).

Monday: one of the working parents was scheduled to drive the frigging softball carpool, but a work issue came up forcing her to cancel. It is the lot, indeed the calling, of the stay-at-home parents of the world to step in and cover for those who have the dual stresses of work and child, so I volunteered to drive the despised softball carpool. So on Monday after driving Lola to her swimming lesson (and just as I was heading out the door, I discovered that one of my foster kittens had taken a giant crap all over Lola's swimming bag, resulting in a rather gross last minute clean-up AND me feeling stressed about getting to swimming on time), I had to make Lola spend an hour in the car for the softball carpool. Lola tried to make conversation with the bigger girls, trying such gambits as "I'm four!" and telling them that she goes to preschool, but they completely ignored her. In retaliation, Lola chose to shriek all the way to softball. Anton, who had completely blown off softball practice all season, had agreed to meet me at practice and relieve me from responsibility for supervising the girls (practice starts over an hour after school lets out, which I personally consider idiotic, but then again our coach is a highly successful hedge fund manager and I but a mere Drunken Housewife). He wanted to make it to at least one of the practices to help out, as the more athletic parents are roped into throwing balls and jogging with the girls and so on. (To date, I have been recruited only to walk girls to the far-away facilities. Evidently when a coach looks at me, he thinks, "She doesn't look like she could throw very good, but damn, I bet she's great at walking to the bathroom"). I was thrilled to see Anton and turn over my carload of first graders, who at that point were gawking lasciviously (children are so advanced these days) at a boy being made to change clothes in a nearby car. However, Lola, already sensitive by being shunned by the big girls, was deeply wounded by the idea that the Sober Husband would be spending time with Iris, not her. So Lola screamed and sobbed all the way home and for the next forty-five minutes, not being distracted by kittens , the prospect of cartoons on television, or even a desperate offer of ice cream. I finally calmed her down by helping her write a letter to Anton about how upset she was, which she illustrated with a picture of a frowning Lola with very big hair.

On Monday night, as on Sunday night, I had hellish insomnia, resulting in me spending much of the night sitting on the couch surfing the internet and reading old Parker novels. Oh, if it were not for Donald Westlake/Richard Stark, my life would be so blighted.

Tuesday: Lola is enrolled in a parent co-op nursery school, which means that a parent (read: me) must work one afternoon for every five afternoons Lola attends. The only day of the week it is difficult for me to fit working at the preschool into my schedule is Tuesday. It's not impossible; it is just highly stressful. I didn't ask for special scheduling accommodations because I know the scheduler has been so over-asked and harangued with accommodation requests that it's very difficult for her to make any schedule at all. Damn, did I regret being so mature and nice when I WAS SCHEDULED TO WORK TUESDAYS EIGHT WEEKS IN A ROW. Eight fucking consecutive weeks. Fuck me sideways. So, as it happens every single fucking Tuesday in a series of eight Tuesdays, I get Lola ready for her preschool gymnastics class, meaning she must hurry through breakfast, get her hair brushed and in a ponytail, and put on a gym suit. I drive her to gymnastics, attempting to arrive on time. Then I'm free to sit in the uncomfortable, filthy bleachers with the other parents, so long as I remember to buy Lola's apple juice and faux fruit snack for after class. This week, a three year-old boy pulled a little girl towards him by the arm and hauled off and bitch-slapped her like a born gangsta (before you condemn your Drunken Housewife as racist, be aware that none of the persons involved were of African American descent). The little girl cried hysterically, and the parents were all abuzz with gossip that the offending child's lesbian parents have adopted an extreme parenting philosophy, believing in home schooling and no discipline whatsoever. Your faithful correspondent tried to insert some compassion in the proceedings, noting that perhaps we, the gossiping parents, were merely lucky to date that we'd given birth to well-behaved little girls, but the other parents were hellbent on finding the little felon's mother to blame (this boy's mother does not choose to mingle with the other parents, instead sitting aside in her oh so cool Asian Film Festival t-shirt and black cargo pants, and hence gets no sympathy from the scorned masses). Also, Lola's beloved gymnastics teacher was out due to a soccer injury, and this caused Lola much concern.

After gym class, Lola always walks very slowly and is interested only in consuming her snack, but she must be hustled home. We had twenty-five minutes to clean our kittens' enclosure, check the runt of the litter for dehydration (and indeed, I needed to give her some subcutaneous fluids before leaving again), get Lola changed into preschool clothes, make Lola's lunch for preschool, make the Drunken Housewife (who had skipped breakfast) a lunch for preschool, make Lola's circletime snack, and get Lola and all our lunches and crap packed into the car. During this time, a kitten had diarrhea while I was holding her, which got into my hair. I had no time to take a shower and had to quickly rinse the fecally contaminated hair in the sink, disgustingly enough. We drove to school, where we must park and hike in a third of a mile. Lola typically takes half an hour to make this walk, choosing to alternate skipping with dawdling and outright balking, but on a workday, I need to be on time and must nag the child steadily down the trail.

So then, after all that rushing and nagging and stress, it was time to supervise a crowd of small children. I got into it with a five year-old boy who refused to eat his sandwich, but other than that, I did all right, despite the fact that I was so dog-tired from insomnia that I could hardly stand upright.

Seeing some friends of hers playing with a little rubber ball after school, Lola became extremely worried that she herself would become mutilated. Her gymnastics coach's injury may have spawned a soccer phobia.

When we got home, it was time to clean the litterboxes and feed the kittens. The Sober Husband expressed unhappiness that a kitten had pissed all over his favorite blanket (a gold comforter given to me by my friend Jewelz when she was purging possessions due to a bad roommate situation, it possesses the magical property of actively repelling cat hair). "What will I use for a blanket?" he complained, feeling that no other existing blanket was adequate as a substitute. I had almost finished a quilt I'd been working on intermittently over a year and a half, so I spent the evening feverishly sewing until quite late. "A cat peed on my blanket, so you made me a new one!" said the husband admiringly.

Wednesday (today, sigh): I woke up to discover cats had had bowel movements of various consistencies at diverse spots along the stairs. God, cats are such filthy creatures. Iris Uber Alles was remarkably rude to her sister, shouting "What the hell are you talking about!" when Lola expressed her concerns about the fallen gymnastics coach, victim of soccer violence.

Forecast for the rest of the week: extreme stress and outlandish amounts of driving children expected. On Thursday, I have to bake cupcakes for the celebration of Iris's birthday at school. Her actual birthday is in the summer, but her class will celebrate it tomorrow, which is fine for everyone except me, who has to bake the frigging treats and perform superhuman feats of driving: drive Lola to preschool, race home & get cupcakes & other crap, drive to Iris's school, celebrate Iris's birthday, drive across town to Lola's school, get Lola, drive back to Iris's school to pick up Iris. On Friday, it's more of the same: my kittens will be making a guest appearance at kindergarten, visiting the new class of Iris's beloved kindergarten teacher. I'll then need to race home, drop off the kittens, and drive Lola to preschool. Later, Iris has a piano lesson and Lola needs to be picked up and brought home. In between all that driving, I'll have to clean up various amounts of excrement. As long as it doesn't get into my hair, I will hopefully maintain a reasonable level of sanity.

such contempt for an innocent species

At the breakfast table today, the Sober Husband promised Lola toast and tea, but then wandered off to check his email, leaving me to take over the reins. I spread the toast with butter and honey, and I made the tea weak, with milk and sugar. This turned out to be all wrong.

"I like honey with peanut butter!"

"It's good like this; try it! That's how I eat it," I cajoled.

"This is MILK, not tea."

"It's tea with milk. White tea. Milk tea."

After quite a bit of sulking (I said, "Aww, you started out with a fabulous Daddy breakfast, but Mommy turned it into a crappy old Mommy breakfast!"), Lola ended up loving the breakfast. Anton offered to make her fresh tea, but she insisted, "I love this tea!" Charmed into a better mood eventually, Lola deigned to entertain me:

"What do you call a big dog that has brown spots all over on him?"

"A Dalmatian?"

"A CRUMMY OLD DOT-FROM!"

She laughed uproariously at her own inscrutable wit.

self esteem

"You are so lucky to have a little Lola! I love myself! I love myself!" Lola said to me at the breakfast table.

outgeek this

The husband reports that at his software start-up, the new CEO wishes to institute a practice of giving software releases codenames. I suggested naming releases after serial killers (Ng, Ramirez, Gacy) or flavors (Bitter, Salty, and Sour seemed like especially good codenames), but the Sober Husband revealed that he "campaigned hard to name them after Dr. Who villains."

and now, our occasional report of cognitive functioning

This just in: after last week's alarming spate of high mental functioning, I'm back down to idiot level. I have set aside the Friday sudoku, to be possibly attempted again after a caffeine assist. I feel far too stupid to start the weekend Wall St. Journal crossword.

the Idol of America

Until recently, I had sat out this particular American obsession. I didn't look down on those who were emotionally invested in the various iterations of it. I just didn't join in myself. I'm not up for watching a lot of television (aside from "The Amazing Race", "Survivor", and the occasional episode of "the Simpsons", which adds up to more than enough television for me, not to mention that I keep Lola company during some morning PBS cartoons), and "American Idol" seemed to require quite a time commitment from its fans. Mind you, it's not that I did anything particularly productive with my evenings; I just didn't spend them in front of "American Idol."

However, the first graders in our social ambit are diehard devotees, and Iris was determined to find out what she was missing. Additionally, the pointed observation that "Sarah watches every night with her dad" brought me into line. If the other parents are watching "American Idol" with their respective first graders, who am I to snobbishly sit aside with my Japanese crime fiction?

So now we not only watch, but we must watch attentively. Iris is required to go to bed as soon as "American Idol" finishes, so I have to man the redial button and get her votes in. So far, she -- working through me, her dialing agent -- has voted for LaKisha and Jordin; I voted for Sanjaya a few times in a passive-aggressive manner. (I am thinking of doing a ponyhawk and being Sanjaya for Halloween; the true bonus of that costume is that I would get to burst into song whenever I wished).

When "American Idol Gives Back" rolled around, Iris was practically beside herself. "It's musical history!" she screamed. "It's really important! They said so!" It was difficult for her to understand her parents' apathy. "Sweetheart," I tried to explain, "You are young. You haven't been jerked around by by television the way we have."

I knew getting up earlier was a mistake

Sleep is fragile and precious to me, a chronic insomnia sufferer. Last night I had wretched insomnia, awake from 1:30 until some time after 3:30, at which point I stopped checking the clock. When I finally fell asleep, I was awakened by the 6 AM alarm clock from a dream that I was having sex with Paris Hilton.

Shudder.

If that fucking alarm clock had been set for later, I would never have had to learn what my sick, sick subconscious was doing.

the ongoing case study of hypochondria in a four year-old

"I have a headache, but I can't feel it," Lola said fretfully several times today. (She appears to be jealous of her mother's migraine).

In other corporeal news, Lola has announced that she can cause her blood to move around and collect in different parts of her body. She makes a very intense face and then will point to her thigh or stomach and say, "See! The blood is all there!"

scarily adult

Seven year old Iris Uber Alles has outgrown her traditional bedtime ritual (a story read in bed, and then a backscratch). She breezily announces, "I'm going to bed" and goes off, firmly shutting the door after her. Iris Uber Alles has also outgrown her epic battles to stay up late (I'll never forget those times when exhausted Anton fell asleep putting her to bed and Iris staged an Escape From Bed Island, running out to rejoin me. In a display of crappy parenting, I always rewarded her for outlasting her father by putting on some cartoons and snuggling and giggling with her).

The Sober Husband is less ready for this maturity. "I'm not ready to give up our bedtime," he told me. "I'm horning in on it." He insinuates himself and asks to be allowed to read to Iris, which her majesty sometimes allows and sometimes does not.

I was okay with this evening maturity (I already had my bittersweet moment of mourning Iris's loss of childlike nature in the supermarket. Iris Uber Alles used to argue viciously with me over which supermarkets we visited, insisting we patronize either Albertson's, where there are hybrid shopping cart/plastic trucks a child may drive, or Calmart, where there are child-sized shopping carts with little warning flags, as well as a train which runs around the walls on a mounted track. I, however, want to shop at my beloved Andronico's, land of the amazing yuppie ingredients and fabulous produce. Then the day came when we did stop at Alberston's and Iris had no interest in driving one of the truck carts. I felt teary and sentimental, and Iris was nonplussed. "Should I want to drive one of them?" She gamely offered to get in one to please me, but I wasn't pathetic enough to accept). But now she's pushing my limits: Iris asked that we set our alarm clocks for 6:00 this morning, rather than our usual 7:00. She was tired of rushing out of the house to go to school and instead wanted to "have a balanced breakfast" (she has taken to demanding that her breakfasts be "balanced") and "have time to rest"

Iris was excited about this experiment in early rising. "I'll have a whole hour to rest!" I suggested that sleeping is the very best form of rest, but she riposted, "I'll be able to really rest when you REST IN PEACE!"

Going to bed without a story or backscratch. Passing by the plastic truck. And now, looking forward to her mother's demise. She definitely skipped the regular childhood years and advanced straight to teenager.

huh.

My next door neighbor, Brad, just told me that I "drive like Cruella de Ville."

Is that a compliment?

wasted powers

So today I'm in crack cognitive form, as high functioning mentally as I get these days. My personal barometer of neurofunctioning is the daily sudoku, which I whipped through this morning in practically record time for a Friday puzzle; indeed, last week I didn't solve either the Thursday or the Friday puzzle (sidenote for the non-puzzlers: newspapers print very easy sudoku and crosswords on Mondays, and the difficulty gradually ratchets up during the week and then resets the next Monday). Then I turned to the big Friday crossword puzzle in the Wall Street Journal, which is large and difficult and intended to occupy one over the weekend. I did the entire thing in about 45 minutes, which is definitely a record for me (about 50% of the time I pick and poke at the crossword over the weekend but don't finish it; the rest of the time, I solve the entire puzzle, but after a couple of sessions).

Frankly, this is as good as it gets, in terms of Drunken Housewife cognitive ability. If I were still practicing law, I could have cranked out a motion or an amicus brief in short order. So what did I do? I argued with Lola over whether she should wear shorts to preschool today. (I lost). I argued with Iris over whether we should go for a snack before or after her piano lesson (I won that one! Hurray for the middle-aged!). I attempted to defend our performance as "Graduation Assistant Family" at Lola's preschool to the director (this was pathetic). I had a discussion with another parent, who is also very active in animal charities, about how often everyone says you must clean birdcages and how often, in reality, we clean our birds' cages. Between taking Lola to preschool and picking up Iris, I read a novel about zombies.

"Wasted potential": that's the theme of my life. On the other hand, strawberries are in season, and I have it in mind, thanks to "Food & Wine", to infuse a decent bottle of tequila with a pint of strawberries, and my zombie book is really very entertaining.

Japan's lost generation

I've always been somewhat of a Japanophile. To my gaijin eyes, it's the most fascinatingly eccentric culture. I haven't been to Japan myself, although I have had a couple of particularly gratifying layovers at Narita (I ran around that airport manically, flipping through offensive "Rapeman" manga, gawking at unidentifiable snack food, admiring the Pringles can with its kanji logo, and loving every second. I had my picture taken under some sign to prove that I was technically in Japan. Oh, if only I'd been able to get into Tokyo).

Recently I read "Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation" by Michael Zielenziger. This rather depressing tome caused my Japan-loving heart to wilt.

It turns out that there is a new social disorder unique to Japan: hikikomori. Hikikomori sufferers are intelligent, mentally normal adults who withdraw into their bedrooms and refuse to emerge. Hikikomori can go years without even speaking to their own parents. Although Western agoraphobics are quite social with people inside their own homes, hikikomori refuse to interact with anyone. The overwhelming majority do not even interact with anyone over the internet, spending their days in complete isolation.

The typical hikikomori is a man who was bullied in school. It turns out that in Japan, there are no anti-bullying laws, and parents and teachers alike trust in the judgment of the group. If a child is bullied, clearly the victim drew it upon himself through some fault sniffed out by the group. Some become hikikomori after some form of traumatic adult ostracization: one example in the book was a man who was bullied by his inlaws after moving to a small, rural town.

Hikikomori is seen as a social disorder, not a mental illness. The sufferers are not sick themselves; if they are taken away from Japan, they can function.

Additionally, there is another new trend: "parasite singles", women who choose not to marry but instead pursue a career and live with their parents into their thirties and forties. The roles of wife and mother are so daunting that many educated women are simply opting out. Society seems very inflexible and not allow leeway, for example, in Japan, it is illegal for a married couple to have different last names. (Where is the Japanese Lucy Stoner?) Men are expected not only to work long hours, without taking vacations, but also to stay out late nightly drinking with coworkers, and the result is that childrearing falls entirely upon the mother. After experiencing the exhausting task of caring for a newborn, I can't blame the parasite singles for opting out.

Zielenziger's forecast for Japan is dim. He feels that Japan is not suited to adapt to modern ways, as its schools focus upon rote memorization rather than the analytical thinking needed to excel in the post-internet world (we here in the U.S. with our regrettable "No Child Left Behind" policies are falling into that trap as well). He can't see a solution, just plenty of problems.

My lazy, hedonistic style of mothering would not be possible in Japan, as it relies heavily upon the labor of the Sober Husband, who is actually better than me at brushing children's hair and making them go to bed (by the end of the day, I'm exhausted and tend to let Lola run roughshod all over me). I would surely have opted to be a parasite single there. Let us all raise a glass (preferably with a Hello Kitty logo) to the hardworking mothers of Japan, admirable, non-lazy women (and also to the parasaitos, may they be forever fabulous in their cutting edge couture).

inhuman

"I am NOT human," four year-old Lola informs Iris Uber Alles. "I am a vegetarian."

a day of sorrow, and a cynical co-opting thereof

My heart goes out to everyone at Virginia Tech in the aftermath of the horrendous mass murder there. What a senseless act of horror, destroying so many lives.

And then we have U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who, according to today's Wall Street Journal, flew to the scene to assist the investigation, thereby neatly avoiding dealing with those pesky Congressional hearings today about his controversial firings of eight U.S. attorneys. The Sober Husband nearly snorted his coffee out of his nose when he read this little snippet. We were both appalled at Gonzales's appropriation of this tragedy for his own use. What the hell use is he going to be on the scene? He is an attorney, not a police officer! His major experience is cranking out legal memos as one of the White House attorneys, NOT interviewing witnesses, bagging evidence from crime scenes, running fingerprints, hunting down suspects, performing autopsies, or doing anything else which could be remotely useful to the local authorities. What is he going to do, write a memo for the campus police explaining how much torture can be used on any suspects?

linkalicious love: blogs of readers & commentators

As part of the Celebrating A Year of Drunken Housekeeping, I compiled a list of blogs which link to the Drunken Housewife. Check out these readers:

Commentator 2am is in search of a new job and maybe even a new life.

A blog about SM sex which lists me under "Vague Mutterings." That's actually sort of offensive, but eh, I'll take what I can get. I used to be listed under something more flattering, but somehow I got demoted.

It's the holder of that august title, Mr. Drunken Househusband, although in reality he's sober.

The Freewheeling Spirit blogging mostly about bicycling (he's on hiatus... for no good reason that I know of. Come back, Freewheeling Spirit.)

Incisive political analysis from a liberal perspective... in Maine of all places. It's Jim, our marathoner-in-training.

More incisive political analysis, but with tits.

It's our Grand Prize Winner, Jack's Raging Mommy! She is the only mommy I know who reads as much as I do, and she has a great rack.

The thoughtful Susan has a more conservative viewpoint to offer and two of the world's cutest little boys.

A spunky Texan I'd love to go drinking with.

Liminal musings: She's smart, as you can tell by the use of the word "liminal."

A cutie who does a lot of Sudoku.

A thoughtful personal blog, with an aging parent and some good politics.

Another fine drinking woman.

She likes cats, palm trees, and books: great taste all around.

A blog written by a mother who is much nicer than I am!

Bikecentric blogging with a sense of humor.

A European living in the U.S., with a thoughtful perspective.

oh how I CAN wait to hear the details

I've never really been in analysis or therapy (depressing sidenote: I did go for three visits of short-term therapy to deal with the suicide of my nephew, which was very helpful because I was trying to keep a stiff upper lip around the children). Indeed, I like to say I have the Good Housekeeping Mental Health Seal of Approval, as twice I had the experience of doing couples' counselling with therapists who ended up stating that I did not need any therapy but my significant other did. (This is despite a lifelong off-and-on struggle with severe depression, which my delightful personal physician has diagnosed as genetic in origin and an easily remediable quirk of biochemistry. Viva la Paxil! Schizophrenia and agoraphobia are also in the family, so I'm lucky to have gotten off with just depression. Let us all take a moment to savor whatever genetic luck we have had).

Probably because I haven't experienced it myself, I love therapy memoirs, a quirky subniche of the mental illness autobiography field. Probably the best therapy memoir ever written is "The Day I Went Missing" by Jennifer Miller, which I reread lately. God, I love that book. I would love to know the acerbic and brilliant Jennifer Miller (a Los Angeles writer, maybe the tireless Hughman can track her down for us), survivor of one of the strangest analyses ever.

Even more recently I read "Group: Six People in Search of a Life" by Paul Solotaroff. The concept of group therapy makes so much sense to me: misery always does love company, and it can be highly motivating to get stuff done if you know you'll have to report to a group, all those judgmental eyes looking at you as you stammer out your lame excuses. Solotaroff was a lonely failed writer suffering from panic attacks when he joined a group facilitated by a charismatic Manhattan analyst. He attributes this group therapy with changing his life, giving him the ability to become a successful magazine writer with a happy marriage. Years later, Solotaroff was granted access to a new therapy group to write about what would presumably be a life-changing experience.

As a therapy memoir, this one was okay, gripping at times but irritating or boring at others. Some of the group members did transform their lives, but it's not clear why the group experience was so valuable for them. Others were unchanged and unaffected.

What drove me insane about this book was the philosophy of the therapist. Parents, it would seem, are to blame for just about everything wrong with a person, because we mold our children to meet our approval. It turns out that mothers harm the authentic personality of their children as babies and implant "false story" in them:

False story begins in the first year of life, when we learn that doing 'X" gets Mom's attention. . . . Soon, though, we discover that there're two kinds of attention -- Mom's approval and Mom's disapproval. She likes us when we're quiet and eat all our peach sauce, and allow her to get us changed without a battle. But, oh, she's angry and withdraws her love when we wake her for the fifth night in a row, or hurl that nice, new bowl from Mikasa halfway across the kitchen from our high chair.

A mother who takes a negative tone "when things go wrong" will "pollute" her child's identity. I found this profoundly irritating. So, when a child breaks something or misbehaves spectacularly, if I, the parent, respond with irritation or, god forbid, anger, I am polluting her identity and implanting "false story'(but imagine the authentic monsters I'd produce if I never reacted with disapproval to bad behavior).

But yet the therapist himself, without irony or awareness of his hypocrisy, enlists the group to pressure one of the members to fit into a particular mold. Rex, a wealthy financier with a major bad boy streak, is in therapy as part of a marital treaty after his wife's discovery that he had been supporting a stripper in an apartment and taking her on European vacations. He's torn between being a dutiful husband and church-attending father and his secret life of cocaine and strippers. Lathon, the therapist, enlists the group in pressuring Rex to pick the life of a family man: "Yes, it's true he's been on his best behavior lately, but his language tells a different story. It says that, underneath the piety, he's got a foot in each camp, and is having a hard time making a choice. So over these next months, I want you to press him on it, and don't let up till you've got an answer. Because either way it goes, that answer's going to mean a lot to" Rex's baby daughter. What if Rex's true personality is that of a skeeze? Isn't the therapist polluting Rex's identity?

So, as far as I'm concerned, this therapist is a mother-blaming hypocrite, but it is all fodder for thought. What scares me is that inevitable day in the future when the ever articulate Iris Uber Alles comes after me with her laundry list of ways in which I'll have fucked her up. I have a cousin who, urged by her therapist, wrote her parents a 23 page letter detailing all the wrongs they committed against her. Sadly no one in the family is circulating that gem (my uncle, who told me about receiving this letter, just gazed off into the middle distance and fell silent as he recalled reading it). I'd pay to read that letter... but I'm not looking forward to getting my own.

hard work for a change

I've been feeling stressed the last few days, with the obligations of the stay-at-home parent mounting up. I had to work a day at Lola's preschool, despite having Iris Uber Alles about on spring break. I volunteered to bring a meal to another family who just had a baby (and if you know me, that always ends up being a bit of a deal. I can't bear to just bring over one thing or something too plain). Another family asked me to look after their daughter one day. Plus, it was our little friend the Baby Violet's birthday, and I had it in mind to make a present for her. On top of this, it's kitten season, and we got the call yesterday that there was a litter waiting for us. Amongst this mix, there was Lola's ballet class and Iris's piano lesson (a new addition to our busy schedules and a new regular expense, plus now there is a rented piano ruining the feng shui of our living room but in theory bringing culture and music into our lives), and I had a long-standing movie date with my beloved hairdresser.

The end result: one normally indolent Drunken Housewife transformed into a paragon of industry. I was up until midnight working last night, by turns sewing (I made chicken and egg appliques for a sweatshirt for the Baby Violet), feeding kittens (three week old kittens are horrifically messy, and they require frequent feedings. I fed them at 11:00 p.m., 5:30 a.m., and then 10:00 a.m. again), and cooking. As I worked feverishly, I was interrupted by Iris chasing her naked friend through the room. (Evidently the Sober Husband averted his supervising gaze for two minutes, during which time the friend not only stripped, but also drew all over herself with markers. Iris decorated the friend's back). Today I managed to pull it all off, getting the meal delivered (caramelized onion & endive frittata with Gruyere, a rice, cucumber and mint salad, and marinated potatoes), the present handed over, the kittens fed over and over again, and a load of cat-related laundry done.

Now I'm at loose ends, able to plunge back into a spot of indolence, but feeling unsettled. It's just not in the natural order of things, working that intensely.

jokes of our lives

Iris Uber Alles had a huge hit in pre-k with this joke (which we gleaned off a cereal box): Where does the penguin keep his money? In a snowbank! If you're ever struggling for conversation with a five or six year-old, you might want to break that one out.

Lola is currently in the knock-knock phase, and her biggest hit to date has been Knock knock! Who's there? Lo. Lo who? Lola! Lola is the only family member with original material. She slayed her mother at age three when she interrupted her mother's matutinal coffee moment with a request: "I need coffee.... COFFEE ICE CREAM!" The child is a comedy natural, with rhythmn and timing.

The Sober Husband's best joke was one he used to tell after we came back from spending a month in Israel: "I'm Jewish enough to tell Jewish jokes. There's a town with only three Jews living there. How many synagogues do they have? Three: one for each Jew to attend and one for them to boycott." This was usually followed by remarks such as "and it's so true." We either read this one in the New Yorker or heard it in Jerusalem. I'm a WASP, so it's not for me to tell.

I'm not much for canned jokes, but this one is my all-time favorite and really killed when I told it soaking in the nude hot spring at Saline Valley years ago with a bunch of strangers under the stars: "Why can't the vacuum cleaner reach Nirvana? Because it has too many attachments."

but think of the children!!!

Our esteemed commentator, Jim (of the Borrowed Suits blog, where he covers politics from the perspective of an independent-minded, liberal from Maine), has chosen, as his prize in the First, Possibly Annual, Readers' Photo Contest, to guest blog here. And now, without further ado, I present Jim:

Greetings to all my fellow barflies at the Sign of the Drunken Housewife. Having placed fifth of five (Drunken Housewife's note: First Runner-up is not exactly fifth of five! Also, I gave him the chance to retroactively move up to Grand Prize Winner, but he chose not to make an attempt at that lofty title) in the First, Possibly Annual Drunken Housewife Photo Contest, I have been gifted the opportunity to bring my blogging skills to you, denizens of this estimable forum. To wit, may I present:

The Adventures of Fat Man and Chubby, a parable of hope and charity.

I'm on the run. No, really.

I've gone and entered a half-marathon. This is a scary deal for me because I am woefully out of shape. But no matter if I finish or not, some good is going to come of it. Introducing:

The Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Half Marathon (aka "let's see if Jim can get his round butt into shape by August and finish the thing before the sun goes down and his little sister starts taunting him").



The Children's Hospital at Dartmouth depends upon this kind of fundraising to meet the needs of kids throughout the upper Connecticut Valley region. Like all healthcare in the US, it's expensive. Also like all healthcare in the US, it's underfunded: CHaD loses about $9 million a year. Starting last year, they sponsored this half-marathon to help raise money. You can read more about it at the link, above.

Why you? Because you have a few bucks you can spare for a truly worthwhile cause.

Why me? Because I'm bang out of shape. My sister and I were mutually moaning about that fact when she dropped the hammer on me: "I'm going to run the CHaD. You want to do it with me?"

Pride, people. Pride will always lead you astray. Resist its sneaky pull.

I was in shape once, briefly. I am now round.

My goals are these:

1. Raise $1000 to benefit the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth.
2. Finish the race.

Please help me meet my funds goal by donating online. Click the link here, or visit my webpage and click the link on the right (under the CHaD logo).

It feels good to give! I'll update my training progress periodically and I promise a full-on post with pictures after the race is run. (By which time they may in fact put me in the running for the Grand Prize. In. the running, mind you. I make no claims to stardom, only a layman's portion of fitness.)

If you visit my website, you'll see that my sister has offered a title to this extravaganza: The Adventures of Fat Man and Chubby. So be it. Further updates on the Adventures of Fat Man and Chubby will be forthcoming there – don't miss an episode. It's a long way to August 25th and many pitfalls lie in wait:

Can Fat Man and Chubby complete the race? Will they reach their fundraising goals? Can they conquer the hills of the Connecticut Valley, or will the heat, cinnamon dust and Volvo fumes all be too much?

Stay tuned…

And the Drunken Housewife says: awww, what a good cause, and what a sweetheart Jim is to use his prize to promote a charity. He really is too good for us, isn't he? Let's help him reach his fundraising goals! I will make a small contribution myself.

fallout from the First, Possibly Annual, Readers' Photo Contest

Don't hate me because I am beautiful; hate me because I'm rude and bitchy. Heh. Keep in mind that not only do my commentaters write tongue in cheek, so do I:

Given that the First, Possibly Annual, Photo Contest definitely has some entertainment value, I think we'll definitely do it again (Celebrity Guest Judge Hughman and I like to make some little bit of fun for ourselves when we can). However, there has been a bit of controversy stirred up.

First, esteemed commenter and First Runner-Up Jim says it is "bullshit" that we didn't print the racy photos of Grand Prize Winner Jack's Raging Mommy. Jim, if Jack's Raging Mommy gives me permission, I would show the pictures, but only if she gives permission, which we won't cajole her or browbeat her into doing. After all, Jack will hit puberty and take up searching the internet for racy pictures at some point, and we don't want to be responsible for his getting excited over some pictures and then realizing, "Oh.. my ... God, I'm looking at pictures of my mother. I'm going to hell."

Jim speculates that his lack of cleavage stopped him from being declared a Grand Prize Winner, and a number of commentators have urged Jim to submit some racy pictures of his own. If you think you have Grand Prize Winner material to show us, Jim, we here at Drunken Housewife Industries will be happy to provide you with a forum in which to show your stuff. We'll upgrade your title retroactively if the pictures are stirring enough, and you'll make our Vermont correspondent, among others, happy. (Adding joy to the lives of hard-drinking housewives: what could be more uplifting?)

Next, our delightful commentater Susie Derk wonders why her picture was left out. Because you didn't send it to me until I was literally in the act of declaring the winners, honey. And, not to be a whiner, but it took me some time and effort to get the layout to work reasonably well, fitting in all those pictures, and with all the resizing and adding text and moving things about, I was in no mood to add more work for myself. But in any event, I present to you the charming Susie Derk, with our very own Celebrity Guest Judge, Hughman!

Awww, aren't they cute?

Finally, our Drunken Househusband, Silliyak, is suddenly quibbling because he doesn't drink and doesn't feel that title is appropriate. Oh, Silliyak, after all this time you suddenly tell us you neither drink yourself nor admire the practice in others? We know you can't cherish the joys of glutenous foods (and if you ever came to our home, we'd pick up some treats in the gluten-free section of our yuppie supermarket; we did entertain a little celiac friend of Iris Uber Alles here before without sparking any medical crises). But not drinking? And dismissing the sweet, sweet joys of alcohol, our dear companion? You're not even a caffeine man. Say it isn't so.

heard today

Seven year-old Iris Uber Alles, a propos of nothing as we were strolling along the neon-lit boardwalk of Santa Cruz: "Mom, are you interested in internet safety?"

Anton, singing to himself, "I am forty, going on forty-one" (after watching part of "The Sound of Music")

"D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! D'oh!" loudly said by Lola to herself as she skipped along. "It sounds like a slender Homer Simpson is about," I observed, and she corrected me. "I AM Homer Simpson."

"I wish the television was in charge of me," said Iris earnestly. "I would really go to bed when it told me."

off to indulge in some art

This afternoon we're driving to Santa Cruz, where we'll be staying a block from the boardwalk. The main purpose of the trip is for me to take a workshop with Roberta Lee Woods, an artist I've admired for ages. The Sober Husband will be escorting the Fashion Girls to the boardwalk while I do some art.

There's another trip on the horizon: we got the notification yesterday that we won a spot at Camp Mather, the dacha for the middle class of San Francisco. The city owns a parcel of land up in the Sierras, where our Hetch Hetchy reservoir is located, and the little cabins built for the workers who constructed the railroad and dam were long ago dedicated to summer visitors. City residents can enter a lottery and win the right to pay for a week's stay. Last year we spent the happiest week of Lola's life at Camp Mather, where the Sober Husband and I made asses out of ourselves by leaving a cooler to be mauled by a bear and bitched about the overwhelming wholesomeness of it all. This year the ever-ebullient Joyce and her toddler, the Baby Violet, will be there the same week (also presumably her Kyle McLachlan lookalike husband). My plan: drink nonstop all week, and Joyce has signed on to this. The children were so excited to hear about the return to Mather that their screams of joy must have been audible in the well-appointed, tasteful homes of gay men for blocks around. Iris Uber Alles is lording it over her little sister mercilessly because Iris is old enough for that immensely consequential Camp Mather coming of age, graduating from donkey rides to horseback rides. The Sober Husband is not ready to sign onto the constant mild intoxication plan and has not yet formed a coping strategy for this week of wholesome family fun and fresh air.

felicitations to each and every one of you

I received multiple emails today wishing me a Happy World Rat Day. Just in case no one wished you, Dear Reader, a Happy World Rat Day, here you are:

the winners of the First, Possibly Annual, Reader Photo Contest

This blog can be such a great toy at times. I can write some ridiculous crap here requiring people to send me pictures, and many of you will actually take and email me amusing pictures! God, I love the internet.

The esteemed Hughman, our Celebrity Guest Judge, has kept a stern eye on the proceedings. For example, he adamantly disqualified the following entry:>
on the basis that giving a prize to my own husband would smack of nepotism. A nice photo, nonetheless, featuring the Sober Husband himself, distinguished in a silk smoking jacket, with a fabulous Fashion Girl and a background of books. This could have been a winner, if not for the ethics and morals of our Celebrity Guest Judge.


Thankfully after some discussion we agreed upon our winners! So, I present to you our Mrs. Drunken Housewife, our Texzmissy! This photo has it all: the feet are up, the cleavage is on display, and there's a drink and a book. All that is missing is a cat and a visible tattoo. In a way, there is even a Fashion Girl here, as the picture was taken by one of Missy's very own Fashion Girls, a ballerina at that. As Hughman says, "Missy got my vote for originality, inspired as she was to create a real life tableau based on the DH's blog artwork. It's like those great works of art thingys where everyone pretends like they're in The Last Supper! Only drunker! And with books! Way to go Missy!" (Incidentally the Drunken Housewife is having some real estate envy here over the gorgeous pool with waterfall and palm trees).

And next, we turn our attention to declaring our Mr. Drunken Househusband: It's the one and only Silliyak, racking up another win (he previously won the Give Iris A Nomme Du Blog contest, which was quite a heated contest at that). Silliyak attempted to drop out of this contest, but the adamant judges would not permit such frivolity. If my house ever catches on fire (and it was nearly set on fire last year when our resident pet recovering alcoholic started a kitchen fire), I will want the stalwart Silliyak nearby to rescue the cats and booze! Hughman sez, "Silliyak was the only contestant to use photoshop and cleverly included DH-ish props : the cats, the wine... and fireman things! Who doesn't love to stop at a fire and stare at the firemen? Anyone? OK. Still a great pic."

We also have a Grand Prize Winner, Jack's Raging Mommy. However, although I hate to be a callous tease, we're not going to show the hottest of Jack's Raging Mommy's pictures which won the prize. Instead, we present to you this Safe For Work Version. JRM treated us to some amazing pictures which we could showcase only if we hid her identity, and we felt it would get figured out, and indeed we do try to keep things safe for our dear working readers here. In summary, let's say that if one got Jack's Raging Mommy liquored up enough and Jack himself is soundly enough asleep, one might be in for a real treat. A devoted mommy with a raging sexuality and tits to die for: my kind of woman! Hughman says, "JRG - It's hard to get hotter than this and I say that as a Certified Gay Man. The pic reminds me of some famous painting but I can't remember which one. Oh yeah, the one where the woman has the awesome rack. Boo-ya!"

First Runner Up goes to Jim, for a great picture showcasing my twin loves, booze and books. Hughman sez, "Props also to Jim for actually looking humorous in his pic. We knew ya had it in ya." Bonus points for (accidentally) including a book by someone who has been on my To Read List for years, Exley, and for being in the state of Maine, although we'll just have to take your word for that.

And here's our next runner-up, the formidable Lemonjuicer (gin and tits, a winning combination! I'm sure this picture will win her many fans!) We would have had another runner-up, our beloved Susie Derk (who submitted a picture of herself with the actual Celebrity Guest Judge, Hughman, very clever!), had she not (a) submitted her entry so late (I actually received it WHILE I was composing this paean to our winners and (b) disqualified herself from prizes modestly on the grounds that she had an unfair advantage in using Celebrity Guest Judge Hughman as a prop.

The prizes: our Mrs. Drunken Housewife, Mr. Drunken Househusband and Grand Prize Winner may select one of the following at their discretion: a post of their own choosing (they dictate the subject, I write it) OR an autographed photo of the Drunken Housewife and a book from her library (Their choice may well hinge upon their comfort level with giving out their mailing address. It's safe with me, as I'm far too lazy to stalk anyone successfully). Our runners-up, Lemonjuicer and Jim, may either write a guest post OR may request a post on a subject of their choosing.

Thank you, everyone, for playing!

happy anniversary to meeeeee: bear with me for some solipsistic meta-blogging

It was one year ago today that I started the Drunken Housewife blog, and I don't know about you, but my expectations have been exceeded. I've had more fun with it than I expected.

At first, I didn't tell anyone I'd started the blog -- not even the Sober Husband -- and I didn't give out the URL. I wanted to build up a respectable enough body of posts before I asked anyone to read it. After a while, I gave the URL to some friends. Then people started reading it who came across it by chance. I think the first person to write a comment who didn't actually know me was the Freewheeling Spirit. I assumed he was a woman, a fellow mommy, heh. Indeed, probably the biggest surprise was that the most enthusiastic followers of the blog have been men. Although I didn't set out to write "a mommy blog", I figured that since I am a stay-at-home mother at present, whatever I had to say would primarily appeal to other mommies, but that was not the case.

One of the highlights of the year was when Iris's "I am a rockstar and I pee everywhere with my penis" lyrics were picked up by the Daily Kos and Wonkette (via the Freewheeling Spirit) the day after the last elections. I loved the fact that across the country, so many politicians and their hacks were reading the major political sites for analysis and were brutally accosted with the rock and roll gospel of my seven year-old diva.

I've had a lot of fun with the readers who write comments. Thank you to each and everyone of you --- even the one who flamed me (only one flame in a year!) and the one who posted the signs of binge drinking.

Thanks also to everyone who has posted a link to my blog on their site. Everytime I run across someone's recomendation of this blog as a decent way to pass a few minutes as we all march towards the grave, you bring a smile to the aging visage of a middle-aged sot.

Our esteemed Celebrity Guest Judge, Hughman, and I are close to making some awards for the photo contest. The problem is that we have a number of fabulous entries, and we aren't agreeing upon a clear winner or even two clear winners. (Also, to be honest, it's been a rough few days and yer old Drunken Housewife has had offline life issues to contend with, not to mention that I'm on level 67 on Pirate Poppers). We'll be sharing some photos and announcing some winners soon.

And in closing, a major shout-out of love, ah glorious love, to the patient Sober Husband, who, although not exactly a devoted fan of the blog, has never complained about anything I've written about him here and who has, upon occasion, devoted quite a bit of time to writing entries when I've inveigled him into answering reader's questions. He's brilliant, he's handsome, and he has a sense of humor, not to mention that he is fascinatingly eccentric. He has held my interest for a decade, which is more than anyone else has ever done. (So stay tuned for another year of me complaining about his lofty intellectual antics).

saving time with the Sober Husband

The Sober Husband is a man with a keen, albeit unique, sense of efficiency. When he microwaves, he uses only one digit, say, heating food for 3:33 or :44, to save the time and effort of moving his index finger amongst the various numbers. Once he shocked a dental hygienist by firmly stating that he had no intention of taking up daily flossing, as instead he could just have his teeth cleaned an extra time a year and avoid wasting all that time and effort on daily flossing.

Nowhere is this passion for efficiency more noticeable than in his gasoline habits. He feels strongly that only a fool would waste time by unnecessary trips to the gas station. Any sensible person will wait until they can barely coast up to the pump on those last fumes of gas. Imagine the time savings over a lifetime!! Indeed, he once laughed, petting me on the head as one would pat an earnest puppy, as he looked at "all the funny little charges for gas" on my credit card statement. However, I would contend that the time I waste at gas stations is less than the time he spends trudging to a gas station, can in hand, when he has run out of gas.

And, of course, this calculus of saving time should take into account ALL THE YEARS THAT WILL BE LOST WHEN HIS HOMICIDAL WIFE SNAPS AFTER HER CAR WAS LEFT GASLESS ONE TOO MANY TIMES. We've had a number of heated little spats over this, when he parked my car and I was unable to start it again. The Sober Husband is not fazed by being out of gas (having grown accustomed to it over the years). He has a technique of coasting down the hill upon which we live, coasting almost all the way to a gas station. However, this closest gas station lies just beyond the intersection of Market, Castro and 18th Streets, the very epicenter of all gayness, and as befitting its eminence, this intersection is always clogged with traffic and pedestrians, including strollers who are far more interested in checking one another out than monitoring such tedious things as traffic lights, crossswalk perimeters, and the progress of gasless cars coasting desperately towards the gas station. (Incidentally this very same gas station is also noted for its exorbitant prices, charging usually over 30 cents more a gallon than my usual station).

Now, the Drunken Housewife is not exactly a demure, softspoken sort of spouse, and one would think any sensible husband would wish to avoid the sort of outspoken, candid exchange of views which inevitably follows her discovery of a gasless car. That has not proven to be the case, however. Evidently the time saved by avoiding tedious visits to the gas station is so valuable that it outweighs the loss of time spent being harangued by a rabid car-owner.

last chance for the photo contest! & horrible, terrible, no good very bad day

Photo contest deadline extended (but not forever, so procrastinateth not)So tonight I was going to confer with our esteemed Celebrity Guest Judge (Hughman!) and decide on the prizes, but eh, it's been such a horrible day I can't focus. Also, I have it on good authority that several readers (slackers! procrastinators! but beloved readers nonetheless) are "working on" getting their entries together, so my horrible day is your gain, as the fabulous prizes may yet be in your reach! We've had some great entries to date, although I am surprised that only Silliyak has featured a cat (or indeed any form of animal).

Horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day: It's so whiny and distasteful to go on in detail, so here's the summary: Insomnia. Sleep deprivation. Car left out of gas by spouse, discovered by moi at hour of driving child to school. Accountant informs us of massive tax liability. Giant tantrum by Lola en route to swimming class. Informed by husband that he, the official Softball Parent, needed me to drive the softball carpool (note: carpool driving includes supervising children for one hour before commencement of softball practice). Iris and a friend of hers bully Lola, resulting in me decreeing no videos, television, iPod, or other electronic delights for Iris for evening. Had to entertain tired, cold, cranky Lola for over an hour during idiotic softball practice. Discover that during the melee of unloading the carpool, sending children back into car for sweaters and soothing Lola's crying, I moronically locked keys in car. Cold, tired, hungry, thirsty, angry, (and broke! damn the IRS!), your faithful correspondent hit rock bottom.

last few days of the First, Possibly Annual, Reader Photo Contest

Two more days left! Email a photo to drunkenhousewife@gmail.com, one which may capture some of the esprit du drunken housewife corps.

the lost weekend

Last weekend, I was crossing through the kitchen in my underwear, en route to work out on my rowing machine (for the first time this year, sigh), when I paused to watch the Sober Husband fire up a game on his laptop. "What is that?" I asked. "Pirate Poppers", he said. "Want to try it?"

I shot through the first several levels quickly, then went upstairs and worked out. After my workout, I walked downstairs to shower, but decided to cool off with another level of "Pirate Poppers" first, then make dinner. I was interrupted by a fussy husband and children.

"It's their bedtime, and you're still playing that game!"

"No way!"

"You've been playing for OVER FOUR HOURS!"

It was like a science fiction movie. It felt like only fifteen minutes had passed. "You were in a fugue state," noted the husband.

I didn't eat that night. I didn't check my email. I just played "Pirate Poppers."

The next day, I played more. The husband got extremely irritable. "I feel like I don't have a wife," he said. Now, he went through some dark days of the soul earlier in our marriage, when he became obsessed with "Barrack", a game involving little balls bouncing about. So one would think that he would relate, but no. He's been quite judgmental over the whole thing. One would think I'd been smoking crack by the way he takes on.

a correspondence for the ages

Remember how George Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Terry wrote each other daily, an addictive exchange of intellect and passions?

I now introduce to you the correspondence between the Drunken Housewife and seven year-old Iris Uber Alles:

MOM,
Hi MOM bye MOM, I hope you DON'T like the message MOM.
iris

a new symptom emerges: ongoing study of hypochondria in a four year-old

Lola is crying in the kitchen. I go in and ask what is happening, and she won't tell me. Her father explains: "Sometimes Lola is running, and she stops running. It's not because she's tired. Her legs just stop running. It's bothering her."

Ever ready to go on stage, Lola bends one leg repeatedly and then holds still to demonstrate how her legs just stop.

who's zooming who?

Lola decided to train Iris Uber Alles's pet rats last night. "Not Curly* is so dumb!" she shouted. "He is so stupid! He ate a whole box of treats without learning to do anything!"

I felt "Not Curly" had demonstrated his superior intellect by scamming a whole box of yogurt drops without doing any work, but Lola insisted he is "so dumb!"

* Lola calls the rats "Curly" and "Not Curly." Iris calls them "Cutebone" and "Goosebye."

the joys of family

This story comes from a friend of mine:

My dad's first cousin - one of seventeen - died last week. I didn't know her. She had MS for years and developed sclerodoma in the lungs. She was 57 with a husband and two grown kids. My parents generation was very sad, and they and my grandmother traveled to Denver over the weekend for the funeral.

"How was it?" I asked my mom this morning.

"Your grandmother was soooo inappropriate! She wore a black velour warm up suit with rhinestones on it!"

Ah, family.

listen up

So, as the more observant reader may have noted, we have a contest going on: the First, Possibly Annual, Reader Photo Contest. The entries are trickling in very, very slowly (we note that Silliyak has made good use of Photoshop in preparing an apt entry, and we also note that Jack's Raging Mommy is a hotty. The Drunken Housewife had already committed to getting drunk and making out with Jack's Raging Mommy should they ever be in the same metropolitan area BEFORE seeing the pictures, and now she's seen the pictures, she's... well... we'll just move on to the next topic).

How to enter: email a picture to drunkenhousewife@gmail.com. Pictures need not show your face, for those who are in the closet for some reason or another. They should capture you in a Drunken Housewife moment (now, this can be very easy. Find a cat or an alcoholic beverage as a prop, and there you are! It can be more ambitious, of course).

Why enter: to win fabulous prizes and celebrate one year of the Drunken Housewife! But more than that, it's a boring, sober, cold old world out there, and we have to huddle together to create some fun. You've been amusing yourself at the expense of my worn out old synapses and tired typing fingers (did you even notice when I wrote under the influence? Although most posts are caffeine-fueled, there were a few tipsy ones). Now it's time to go to to a tiny little bit of effort for our April 3d anniversary party. I'm looking forward to some more fun pictures. For example, our commentator Tammy/vtprettypictures is (and I say this in the nicest possible way, as a compliment) a drunken housewife with a digital camera, and so what excuse would there be for her not entering our fabulous contest? None, I say, none.

love, your old Drunken Housewife (and celebrity guest judge Hughman)

hypochondria in a four year-old: the ongoing case study

Lola has been complaining "I sleep with my eyes open" for sometime now. One might think that is an enviable trait, one perhaps favored by evolution as it could fool predators, but no. "I have to blink too much all day because I sleep with my eyes open."

Along with the excessive blinking there is a sense of isolation: "I am the only person in the world who sleeps with eyes open", mournfully notes Lola.

Tonight the Sober Husband videotaped her sleeping in an attempt to prove to her that she sleeps with her eyes shut. We'll see if she accepts the evidence.

UPDATE: This morning, after watching the filmic evidence, Lola was unmoved. "Usually I sleep with my eyes open."

the commentators do the work for me

Some recent comments were so good, they must be brought up to the front of the stage, where the footlights may shine upon their coruscating wit for those readers who may not religiously check the comments:

Hughman said, "wtf is 'night-weaning' anyway? it sounds like a description of a conservative elmer fudd."

Silliyak responded, "H, Is there any doubt that Elmer was a conservative Republican? Don't you imagine that Karl Rove watched those cartoons and thought to himself, 'OOOO that wascally wabbit! I'D Get him!', and that is what Iraq is REALLY all about, a pudgy bald inner child trying to wreak his revenge on godless heathens who seem like they might be happy?"

when you are not here

"Iris, when you are not here, I play with your toys!" said Lola triumphantly.

"No. That's not true. You can't."

"When you are at school, you can't see me!"

Poor Iris Uber Alles is going to have nightmares now, I'm sure.

our celebrity guest judge weighs in!

Following the earlier announcement of the First, Possibly Annual, Reader Photo Contest, our celebrity guest judge, Hughman, has taken a moment to share his thoughts:

Gentle Readers -

As an honored Celebrity Judge for this Drunken Housewife contest, I want to assure you that I don't take my responsibility lightly. I promise to uphold the integrity and, you know, other stuff for this hallowed occasion. Here are my qualifications :

1. I look great in black. (Slimming! Hello!)

2. I have a big gavel. Make of this what you will.

3. While I have, in the past, been a judge for modeling competitions (really!) I perceive this to be more a contest in the spirit of the DH, not a beauty pageant. Beauty is , as we know, in the eye of the beholder. I'll be looking for "joi de vie"! and "espirit de things"! Therefore, if you aren't - for example - a hunky male who sends in a shirtless picture of yourself sweating shamelessly over building orphanages for wayward children, you will not be discounted.

4. Props always help. Especially props which refer to our own DH and her eccentric household. Examples include cats, glasses of wine, pirouetting "fashion girls" and dour confused partners.

As Our Lady of The Photo, Tyra Banks, would say - "SHOW SOME BEDONKA-DONK"!

Finally, we know who you consistent commenters are. We have your e-mail addresses, your blog site names and, quite possibly, your political opinions. We'd hate to see you shamed on the Internets as a wall flower in this expression of community. The question is - "what do YOU bring to the party?

WELL?

Kiss kiss -

Your Honorable Guest Judge Hughman

it's about time for another reader contest

We haven't held a reader contest here at the Drunken Housewife in a long time, AND the timing seems auspicious: we're coming up on this blog's first birthday! So here, without further ado, I present to you the First, Possibly Annual, Readers' Photo Contest.

This was inspired by a visit to the famous Joe My God blog, where Joe has a gallery of his readers' submitted photos (and two of his readers have found love, or at least consummated lust, which began through ogling each other's pictures). But don't worry, I'm not doing this to get my readers hit on (unless, of course, they want to be hit on, in which case we'll subtly highlight their availability and fabulosity in our witty captions). Also, I was looking for something to commemorate the year of blogging.

The Contest: submit a photo of yourself, dear reader. It's as simple as that.

Of course, the shyest ones need not show their dear faces (yet what are you ashamed of? It's not as if you're going public as a reader of "Bestiality Unbound Blog" or "Fungal Infection Fetishists" or "Confessions of the Pathetic and Lifeless" (oh, wait, maybe that last one does apply, sigh, but only to me). You could obscure your face with a laptop computer, book, Halloween mask, pitcher of beer, &tc...

The best pictures will be in the spirit of the blog. For example, you could submit a picture of yourself chopping down a magnolia tree (email me if you'd like some assistance setting up that photo shoot! I have a location!) or enjoying a cocktail or shampooing a cat suffering from ringworm or suffering at a Little League game. One of the judges will be awarding bonus points for tasteful or, dare we say, gratuitous, nudity.

How To Enter: email a digital photo to drunkenhousewife@gmail.com. Easy as pie.

The Judges: Our dear and indefatigable commenter Hughman will be joining the Drunken Housewife as a celebrity guest judge. In the event of a tie vote (or if we just feel like it), Iris Uber Alles will be invoked as Judge Uber Alles.

Readers who do not regularly comment are invited to break the ice and join in, and we are hoping to see the regulars weigh in. Our last competition yielded some fabulous entries; this one will take a smidgen more effort, but y'all are surely up to the challenge.

The Prizes: There will be a variety of prizes, such as a blog entry on the topic of your choice (you command, I write according to your whim, answering any questions you may have OR you guest write on the topic of your choice!), a copy of the CNN headline news item featuring the Drunken Housewife leading a chained slave (not the Sober Husband) on a leash, a volume from the Drunken Housewife's own collection, original artwork by Iris Uber Alles and Lola... The prizes will depend upon whether the winner wishes to divulge a mailing address and also just how fabulous the photos were (if the pictures are incredible, the prizes will be, too).

Deadline: submit your pictures as soon as possible, but before April 2, 2007. April 3 is the one year anniversary of this blog, and we'll announce some winners then.

we're not boring!

Sometime ago my friend Joyce, currently a stay-at-home mommy as well, and I were reeling over an accusation from an acquaintance that mommies are boring.

"We're not boring!" I said, trying to convince us both. "We can talk about lots of things!"

"Like what?"

"Night-weaning! Yeah, we're good on that."