my children are talented at freaking out

Yesterday I noticed several pages, stapled together with an illustration on the cover, lying on the coffee table. I picked it up and took a look. It was a short story, which I assumed was part of Iris's schoolwork which she'd brought home on the last day of school (Iris had brought home some similar documents, including one short story, "The Killing Dude", which had deeply disturbed the school's lower school librarian. I swear that I do not watch horror films with the children or worship Satan about the house; it comes to the child naturally. Maybe she'll be Clivette Barker when she grows up). I started reading it. It was a very well-written piece about a girl who had moved and was taking skating lessons.

Nine year-old Iris uber Alles walked into the room and freaked out. "You can't read that!" It turned out that it wasn't a school assignment; it was something she'd written recently on her own (she often uses computers to do some creative writing). She started crying uncontrollably and couldn't calm down or explain why she was upset. In yet another display of terrible parenting, I paid her ten dollars to let me finish reading the story (which was really very good; obviously writing comes naturally to her and equally obviously she has profited from her writing classes at 826 Valencia Street). She didn't stop crying for hours. I told her (and later her father reiterated) that, if she wants something to be private, for the love of God don't leave it on the frigging coffee table and that it was excellent and nothing to be embarrassed about, but our evening was ruined by all the uncontrollable crying.

Then six year-old Lola started playing the DvD of her recent dance recital. Lola had nagged me about this DvD repeatedly, saying "ISABELLE has a copy of it; why don't I?" and "I KNOW there is a DvD but I don't have it." I had finally picked it up that day, and Lola had eagerly asked permission to go watch it, but the moment it started playing, she freaked out crying uncontrollably (joining her older sister), saying that she was embarrassed and couldn't stand to watch herself. "So why the hell did you ask to put it on?" was my thought; "honey, just watch the parts you're not in" was my ineffectual attempt to calm her down. One might assume this was Lola's attempt to copy her older sister in the hopes of attention and ten dollars of her own, but she was upstairs while Iris had that freakout and got the payout and had witnessed only Iris's later inconsolable, inarticulated crying.

I went down to the kitchen and had a couple glasses of wine. The Sober Husband arrived home to a house filled with neurotic, crying, talented children and a very cranky wife. "We had a GOOD DAY," I tried to explain. "Right up until mid-afternoon, we had a GOOD DAY." The children wailed.

having horrible hobbies

When the children were very small, the Sober Husband and I used to bitch that we couldn't pursue our hobbies. The children ate up all our time and energy. However, as they got older and more independent, we were able to start following our interests from time to time. I quilted, until the World of Warcraft started eating up far too much time (and also I'm suffering from Quilter's Block right now, sigh, a subject for another day). The Sober Husband revived a boyhood interest in chess, sparked by playing chess with coworkers over his iPhone, which I encouraged initially. When we were on one of our extremely rare date outings downtown, I dragged him to the chess club at the Mechanics' Institute. He'd scoffed at the very idea of this chess club, sure it was beneath him, but he agreed to stop by the library to look for some chess books. Walking around the crowded and old-fashioned chess room, he lost his disdain. "Some of these ratings are really high," he said as he looked up at the handwritten results of the last tournament. "Really high. International player level." I noticed a picture hanging on the wall showing Garry Kasparov playing chess in that same room. He got in touch with the chess director the next day and was soon a regular at the institute's chess room.

Soon the Sober Husband was studying chess in books, playing online, working out problems on a chessboard, typing in the moves from his games into a chess analysis program, and generally spending every non-work moment possible immersed in chess. He made flashcards to test himself on the classic openings, which amused the children, particularly after I suggested they could add some cards to his deck. Lola made a study card, among others, for "Vomit: Has Many Powers" which we giggled over together hysterically.

Characteristically he is now seen at every possible moment checking his multitude of chess games over his iPhone. Once a week he goes straight from work to the library on Tuesdays to play in a chess tournament, not getting home until after the children's bedtime. The children were terribly annoyed by this, but I considered it fair enough as I had taken up going out one night a week to an evening art class.

The problem is that the Sober Husband's hobby isn't relaxing. It drives him to despair. He frets that he's studying the wrong thing, that he'll never become good enough so there's no point, etc.., etc... A bad game leaves him in a dark, dark mood, and I've lost count of how many pep talks I've administered. This chess stress also seems to happen to an acquaintance of ours who is a long-time serious chess player, who reportedly was cast into self-doubt at being defeated by a child in a recent tournament. Recently I asked the husband, "Why do you have a hobby that causes you stress?"

"I thought that was the point of hobbies. That all hobbies cause you stress."

"Most people have hobbies that are RELAXING," I contended. The Sober Husband failed to take my point.

"I play Warcraft. It is RELAXING," I insisted.

But even traveling around a strange and rich world on an oversized pink bird, having adventures and slaying monsters, can have its stressful moments. Today I found myself hating Blizzard, Warcraft's corporate creator, as well as its customer service idiots. In the World of Warcraft, it's the Midsummer holiday, and at all the settlements, be they Horde or Alliance, there are bonfires and celebrations. There are a lot of quests related to this holiday, and I spent about four hours yesterday pulling one of the most difficult ones off: getting into the hearts of the Alliance's four capital cities and stealing the flames from their most special fires.

Getting this done did not go smoothly. I joined a raid group which managed to get a warlock (after many, many, many deaths) and some others into the subterranean tram underneath the dwarven capital of Ironforge, which meant they could summon the rest of us to join them as they teetered on a ledge in the dark. We got a bit giddy as our numbers grew, and we danced and threw rose petals on each other. Finally we stormed into the city itself, fighting off the guards and the Alliance players alike in a crazy scrum, and we got to the fire and back to the tram in a nonstop frenzy of fighting. This went wonderfully, and I didn't even die. Then an idiot in our group pulled a Leeroy Jenkins: he screamed, "KILL THE KING!" and ran back into Ironforge with no premeditation. About half the group impulsively followed him, while the other players, dumbfounded at this (we had explicitly, repeatedly discussed that we didn't have enough players to assassinate the king, barely enough to get the fire) stayed in the tram. Naturally the Jenkinsing players died and died and died, whining that the rest of us weren't helping them, and many of the sane players left the group. After the Jenkinsing players had finally managed to rejoin us, our sadly diminished group went on by train to Stormwind City, where we fought desperately, all dying over and over again, until we almost all of us got the flame. We were giddy at this hard-earned achievement (which would have been a piece of cake if the whole group had stayed together).

Then I got back home to my own territory and turned in these flames to the Horde Lorekeeper, so happy to have gotten it done, and nothing happened. I didn't get credit for stealing the fires. I didn't get the achievement. I did open an online ticket, and the next day I was told, "Good news! You can try it again!" I felt rabid. I spent an embarrassingly huge amount of time doing this silly thing, and I endured a classicly witless raid group of Leeroy Jenkins proportions, and I didn't get credit for it and now I have to do it over again? And this is my hobby? I bitched about it on the online Blizzard customer service forum to no avail. I can't believe this is how I voluntarily spend my time. I suck.

Addendum: I stole all those flames again, this time soloing because I couldn't face being in another big raid, and I got it done in a few hours. Ironically I got it done in about the same length of time, dying more, but that was compensated for by time saved not standing around waiting for other people.

an insult

Iris complained, half-laughing, half-peeved, that "Lucy called me a child of the devil, living in a hellhole" and asked, "Is that what I am?"

I had to admit that at times, I would find that description pretty accurate. Lola ran about squawking in triumph, and Iris tried hard to overcome the giggles and mold her features into a stern look of admonition.

the greatest idea

"Momdude, I just had the greatest idea! Has anyone ever invented beer milkshakes?" asked nine year-old (and future frat party attendee) Iris uber Alles.

"Umm, I've never heard of anyone drinking one, but I'm sure someone has tried it."

"Do whatever it takes to remember this," Iris charged me. "On my 21st birthday, at my party, beer milkshakes!"

geeks and a non-geek

Nine year-old Iris uber Alles and I had been looking forward to Robogames for weeks (once a year robot hobbyists gather in San Francisco for a variety of competitions). Lola, however, had no interest in attending. "I'm not going," she proclaimed over and over again, and she took the strategic move of refusing to get dressed. Her father wrestled a shirt over her head (ignoring her shouts of "DON'T MESS WITH ME!") which she shrugged off after he left the room.

"I'm not a geek!" she shouted. " I don't want to see the robots fight! I am not a geek!"

I pointed out that I do lots of things I am not interested in for her sake, but Lola was unmoved. I noted that many of the robots at Robogames are cute little things; it's not all about fighting 'bots (indeed I was intrigued at the awards ceremony when two tuxedoed men accepted a bronze medal in the "Bartending Robots" competition for their robot named "Khaz Modan." First, how did I miss that there would be bartending robots? And secondly, why am I not hanging out with these people who share my interests in formal dress, cocktails, and Warcraft? Khaz Modan was bested by "iLush", however, whose creator was shaggy but happy).

Finally it was Iris who got Lola dressed and ready to go, after both parents had failed (the Sober Husband having issued some threats involving withholding of videos, television, and chocolate milk, but Lola viewed these as empty threats). Iris told Lola that if she didn't have fun, Iris would pay her five dollars... but if Lola did have fun, Iris was going to take five dollars out of Lola's piggy bank. This bet got Lola dressed, but what got her scurrying down the stairs was Iris's musing that some of the robots were bound to have butts. Our scatologically-inclined kindergartener headed for the door, giggling about "pooping robots!"

pranks and how to spin them

Not long ago I picked up kindergartener Lola to take her to ballet. A propos of not much, she remarked in the car that she hated her older sister. I said, "You don't always hate her. Sometimes you love her."

Lola thought about it. "I love her when we're playing games, but I hate her when she is bossing me around or playing pranks on me."

I had never heard of any Iris-on-Lola pranks. "She plays pranks on you?"

"Once she told me Bob Marley [our faithless ex-cat who moved in with a neighbor] was in the hall, so I ran down to see him, and she dropped a parachute on my head," Lola said wearily.

Later I picked up Iris uber Alles, while Lola was at school. I repeated to her what Lola had said, and nine year-old Iris interrupted self-righteously, "I don't play pranks on her." I continued with the story. Iris said quickly but yet judiciously, "That may have happened, but it was for entertainment purposes only."

a lonely vegetarian in a protein-crazed world

About a week ago I picked up third grader Iris uber Alles at school, and, when I asked her how her day at school was, instead of her usual "Meh", she said with intensity, "Momdude, I made the biggest mistake of my life today. Telling the PE teacher that I'm a vegetarian."

First the teacher went off on a sort of rant in front of the whole class, according to Iris, going on about how Iris should go on a mission to teach the world not to eat animals. But then, after considering it further, the teacher called Iris to her office for a private conference, where, turning her big earnest eyes on Iris, she asked, "Where do you get your protein?" Iris felt put on the spot and humiliated and embarrassed.

Hearing this, my blood pressure soared. I ranted in the car for a while. I hatehatehate idiots who turn their blank gaze on you and ask, "Where do you get your protein?" If I were ruder, I'd ask them in return, "Well, where the fuck do you get your fiber, vitamins, and minerals, because they sure as hell aren't in that meat you're so freaking fond of."

I realize that I've built up a chip on my shoulder about being a vegetarian. Whatever sense of humor I ever had about it wore off over a decade ago. I'm tired of being asked where I get my protein or being told that in Genesis, God gives animals to Adam to eat like fruit or being asked if being a vegetarian makes me have to forego oral sex or being informed that I'm at the bottom of the food chain while intelligent people are at the top of it. More than anything, I wish my beautiful, smart daughters wouldn't have to put up this crap.

Then last Friday I chaperoned an all-day, teacherless field trip for the third grade. Another chaperone had the very good idea of taking our group to Juban for lunch, a Japanese restaurant where you cook your own food on a little grill inset into the marble table. Of course the girls were thrilled with this, and this chaperone ordered filet mignon for them all, with one order of shrimp as a bit of a side, with rice. I intervened as gently as possible. "Iris and I are vegetarians." For us, I ordered tofu, corn, zucchini, and asparagus, which we happily cooked together. The chaperone (whom I actually like, a very nice woman) looked over at me and asked, "Where do you get your protein?" I could not believe that with everyone else at the table eating the nutritionally questionable choice of meat and plain rice while Iris and I had a rich and full meal of corn, tofu, zucchini, and asparagus, someone would question OUR nutritional choices. I responded as politely as I could, pointing out gently that the average American is rather protein-crazed and eats far more protein than recommended, including American vegetarians, and noting that as ovo-lacto vegetarians, Iris and I eat cheese, tofu, beans, eggs, and many other protein-laden foods regularly.

Meanwhile the end-of-the-year picnic for Iris's class was coming up. Last year this was held at a prestigious country club and catered, with each family required to pay a hefty charge. I asked, as civilly as I could, whether there would be any vegetarian food included, and I was told in return that no, there wouldn't be, and I would need to bring plenty of food for my family and assume we'd get absolutely nothing, but I still needed to pay the full, outrageous catering charge because it wouldn't be fair for our family not to help pay for the picnic. Neither the Sober Husband nor I felt like driving for well over an hour to pay for other people to have a catered picnic, so we skipped that one. This year's picnic was happily being held within the city limits at a reasonable price, but I still didn't feel like asking about vegetarian food. I'm sick of being the only vegetarian parent of the only vegetarian child in the third grade. I don't want to talk about it or bring it up with any of those people.

There are supposedly vegan families in the upper school, but I don't personally know them. The Sober Husband is a weak ally, given that he scarfs down meat on a regular basis and occasionally goes off on me about how he hates to go to fine restaurants with me because he feels constrained about ordering meat. Given that he lived primarily off taco chips and ramen noodles when we met, I do not feel any guilt about my impact on his diet.

Today I was feeling upset and unhappy, and a strange thought came to my mind. I realized that I missed my ex-husband. For all his faults and failings, the man was a dedicated vegetarian, and I never felt lonely as a vegetarian during the decade we were together. I always had someone who understood these issues and who was just as quick with an eye-rolling over that ubiquitous "how do you get your protein" or to take offense at foie gras. My children are more strongly and vehemently vegetarian than me, but they are children. (Indeed Lola recently learned that her father isn't a vegetarian and burst into tears. "I thought we were all vegetarians," she said between sobs). I don't have any other vegetarian friends these days, particularly vegetarian friends who are parents. I used to post on a board for vegetarian parents, but iVillage shut it down, the carnivores. I'm alone in this, without allies or anyone who gets it.

I tried to talk to the Sober Husband about the gym teacher's faux pas, but he didn't get it. "I thought you said the other chaperone asked you where you get your protein, but it was the gym teacher? Or the chaperone?"

"BOTH. They both did," I said impatiently. "EVERY idiot asks that. There used to be a vegan zine called 'Where Do You Get Your Protein.'" I hung up. How low I have sunk indeed, I thought, to be missing my ex-husband.

starting too soon

Today at a large picnic commemorating the end of kindergarten, six year-old Lola said to me wearily as we arrived, "Don't do anything to embarrass me."

an enigma depressingly revealed

A few weeks ago I came across a strange blog, an egocentric retelling of "the Journey" of a thirty year-old man with a large nose, who gave up his career as a financial adviser to pursue an acting career. This fellow, Arthur Kade, is certainly not lacking in self esteem:

At that moment, I realized that I am a savior, a god to people who sit at their desk the whole day, hate their lives, and want to probably jump off a roof because they are so miserable. I am the modern day “Acting Moses”, the person who was given the drive, looks, and talent to lead my followers to the promise land, and make the impossible, possible.

He's not lacking in misogyny, either (and constantly the question is raised, in the comments and in the reader's mind, "Is this guy severely closeted?"). Mr. Kade opined that he would not deign to sleep with Halle Berry or Charlize Theron; they are simply not hot enough for him. He won't even speak to a woman who is less than a 6 on his demanding scale; she isn't even worth being a friend. When misguided drunken girls come up to him in clubs, he fumes if they aren't hot enough. What made them think they could approach him, when he's out of their league? His misogyny was perhaps the most annoying the day when he had blood drawn from an unattractive female phlebotomist. Arthur kvetched that he should have asked for a different person; it's just so horrible having to have blood drawn from a woman who hasn't bleached the dark hairs on her upper lip.

Arthur posts videos of himself at his acting class, and it's pathetic, to say the least (my cat has a more charismatic film presence. So does my left foot). So far Arthur's "Journey" has led him to being an extra on "The Gossip Girls" and "Salt." Despite the fact that he hasn't been paid to utter a line on film yet, he's musing about all the Oscars he will win and what kind of characters he will play (he sees himself as a dark and complex leading man, despite lacking any signs of talent whatsoever).

I spent hours reading about "The Journey", all the while thinking, "This has got to be some kind of scam, some viral marketing, right? NO ONE can be this clueless and self-obsessed. It's not possible. What can this be promoting? What is really going on here?" From early on, commenters have been unrelentlessly harsh to Arthur (the Acting Moses!), and I couldn't imagine any burgeoning actor or blogger who could withstand so much meanspirited (and sometimes hilarious) mockery. But Arthur kept barreling along, spewing out judgmental remarks about women's looks and bragging about how he was so pepped up after delivering a eulogy at his grandmother's funeral that he could use that energy to bawl out a bouncer at an Atlantic City club and scam his way in without paying (Arthur views himself as God's Gift To Sleazy Nightclubs and always maneuvers his way in without paying a door charge). The mere fact that he could withstand the wave of disbelief and hatred washing over his every post made me think it HAD to be viral marketing.

But then Philadelphia" magazine ran a story on "the Internet's Most Hated Man", musing on whether Philly should be proud or ashamed of its most overly self-loving native son. A reporter followed Arthur around for two weeks, witnessing his self-deception (at an acting class, the reporter lies and tells Arthur his wooden recital of lines was good) and massive ego in action. The day that article came out was a dark day for the soul. It is true that a man of no visible talent, who would not lower himself to flirting with Angelina Jolie (on the grounds that she is "Mother Hot, not Stripper Hot"), who has no accomplishments whatsoever beyond being an extra in a crowd of extras, can spend much of his life musing about his many wonders and boasting about them online, always using the word "amazing" and capitalizing at random. Oh the humanity! I shudder at the horrors of what the human soul is capable of.

uh oh, competition

Lola just handed me a colorful slip of paper, reading:

(Mommys Needed) MOMMYS ARE BEST
BEST Momma AWARDS

BEST MommY contest

It is illustrated by a smiling, smug looking girl labeled "child" over the caption "Mommys are best", next to a frowning brown-haired man labeled simply "Dad."

I liked the artwork, but I harbor no arrogance here. I could well see Lola informing me kindly, with a condescending pat on my hand, that I have placed last in the "BEST Momma AWARDS."

angry senior citizen ceramicists

Since Lola started kindergarten, I've been taking ceramics classes at the Sharon Arts Studio. The spots in these classes are highly coveted, and in order to get one, the aspiring student (or her "proxy", in a certain case, an abstemious husband) must arrive on sign-up day around six A.M. and wait in line until noon, when registration starts.

That is, however, if the aspiring student isn't a senior citizen. Senior citizens have been allowed to register the day before, at their leisure, without waiting in line. This gives them an advantage, of course, and the classes are predominately composed of senior citizens, with there being huge competition for the remaining slots and plenty of middle-aged and youthful adults walking away disappointed.

This system is due to change, with the city pushing for the studio to join the rest of Rec and Parks in having online sign-ups. Although this system won't be starting for months, our instructor passed forms at our last class and encouraged us to create online accounts to be ready when the time does come, probably next fall. This will mean no lines, but instead thousands of people hitting the enter key over and over again, trying to claim a spot. It will also mean, as one disgruntled Marinite in my class discovered, no more senior citizen advantage. She asked querulously about whether there would be some system set up again so that seniors wouldn't have to compete with younger people for the coveted class spots. "We did that [early sign-up] so the seniors wouldn't have to stand in line for hours," the instructor breezily explained. "You won't be standing in line in this system-- you'll be in your house, at your computer."

"It's going to be a level playing field," I said in a light voice. The woman, normally friendly (and indeed one of my favorite members of the class) affixed me with a firm glare and started a monologue about how it's discrimination when you take things away from senior citizens and how the city might have to pay if a lawyer got involved, you can't just go taking something away from senior citizens, you know.

Our instructor made a big deal out of not taking, as required by the city, proof of identity and residence. "Here you are who you say you are." This soothed the nervous Marin residents, but it did irk me, and it made me think again about the senior citizens' advantage in signing up.

These highly coveted classes are paid for by the property taxes of San Francisco homeowners (the charge for these highly subsidized classes is minimal). The Marin seniors have a lock on spots in their preferred classes, keeping those spaces for years and years, and since they've been able to sign up a day before general registration open, they've had no fears of losing those spots. They don't have to go to the trouble I do to try to get a spot in the class. They don't pay taxes here; why should they keep San Francisco residents out of these classes? For one of them to start muttering threats that she'll get a lawyer to stop this discrimination is beyond ridiculous. Such a sense of entitlement, coming from someone who'll be lying about her place of residence to keep a spot in the class.

There are plenty who'd mock me for writing this, though. I don't actually stand in the Infamous Line From Hell: my husband does it for me. Here's his picture of last time's line:

All the seniors were tucked up in their cosy beds in Marin while the San Francisco taxpayers (or their significant others) waited in this line for what few spots were left, for over seven chilly hours.

using math in real life with the Drunken Housewife

Nine year-old Iris uber Alles is supposed to be learning how to divide and multiply fractions. She admitted at dinner tonight that she doesn't understand it very well and, what's more, she doesn't want to understand it. It's a dumb thing that she has no interest in learning.

I cut that off. "It's really important to understand percentages and fractions in real life!" I cast about briefly for an example, and then plunged on. "In cooking, when I double or triple a recipe, I have to be able to multiply fractions. And if I cut a recipe in half, I need to divide the fractions."

Iris was silent for a bit. She didn't want to admit that I had a point, and she does love to cook. Then she turned to her father. "Remember the last time Mom-dude was trying to find an example of using math in real life, and all she could come up with was Warcraft? That when she's selling stuff on the auction house, she uses nines?" Iris shook her head at the idiocy of grown-ups and their math and their MMPORGs. "Warcraft! That was the best she could do!"

it's driving me crazy lately

Lately I've been incensed that the Republicans are trying to end Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's career, on the basis that she knew American forces were torturing sundry Muslims.

I'm not a fan of hypocrisy. It strikes me as dishonest that the Republicans contend it was okay for Bush and Cheney to authorize torture, which was called "enhanced interrogation", and it was just dandy for it to be done, in the national interests, and all that, and that it was important right up until January 18, 2008 to both carry out and defend this practice heartily... AND that Cheney, Bush, Rice, and all their cohorts should be enshrined in history as American heroes and certainly under no means judged figuratively, much less literally, for this... BUT that Representative Pelosi's career should come to an end just because she may or may not have known it was going on. The people who ordered it are heroes, but someone who had no power to stop it should be condemned and thrown aside?

Incidentally I'm no fan of Pelosi's. I live in her district and voted for Krissy Keefer last time out (I turned against Pelosi in the nineties when she proposed that the Presidio be financially supported by authorizing a large animal testing facility there). I'm angry on her behalf nonetheless.

not to you

I overheard the Sober Husband saying frustratedly to nine year-old Iris uber Alles, "I don't have to make sense to you!"

Confliction resolution- the boring style. By Iris Uber Alles

The other day when I picked third grader Iris uber Alles up at school, as usual I asked her how her day was. Instead of her usual noncommittal grunt, Iris let loose with a rant about how instead of gym, she'd had a conflict resolution seminar. I found this fascinating and asked her to write a guest blog piece. Please welcome our resident nine year-old expert on conflict resolution and gym classes:

Okay peoples I'm her to talk about what happened a few days ago which was apparently very amusing.
At school everybody plays a game called "Four square" It involves a ball, and four squares and you pass it on and on and on, and you can't bounce it in your own square twice, and there's code language like "Buy me a soda" and "Peace out" and blah blah blah the rules go on and on and on! It's never ending! The P.E. Teachers are supposed to be in charge of this, because the homeroom teachers don't want to have to deal with people having "problems" caused by people not following the rules when playing this game. I don't play it. People talk about how they can make the world a better place, and how all wars should end, and then they play four square! by doing that they're promoting the opposite of "Peace out" which is why that is such a terrible game! But that's not the funny part. A few days ago, we walked out of the classroom to go to P.E. (I call it peh.) the "peh" teachers came up to us and said they were going to divide us into groups. they didn't tell us why, I expected we'd be like bouncing basketballs or something, then they led the first group indoors, and I didn't know what to expect. I was in the last group,and they led me into the other third grade classroom with the so-called"PEH TEACHER OF DOOM"! Then we sat down, and she said we were going to be talking about conflict resolution. I immediately realized that this had a deep connection with four-square. then we started talking about conflicts and resolution and stuff then the teacher pulled out a globe and pointed to Iraq. Then she said, "What is happening here?" I really wanted to laugh at that point but I had to hold it back. Then one person, with their face full of light, said, "A war!" Then we went over to the white board and the teacher explained how Anger is a good thing but you have to use it right. Then she pointed out what are good ways to let out your anger and bad ways. and what really made it official that this entire thing was pointless was one person raised her hand asked if war was a good thing! and then yeah it basically ended, or at least I wasn't there, because the lunch bell rang and for me when I hear that sound I just automatically start dashing out the door.

FIN


P.S. I need braces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OH NO!

there are some talented women out there, as well as those from those icy, cold places

This last week I had the pleasure of reading three mindboggling good books, books so good that you don't want them to end and hesitate to start another one right after, sure it can't live up to the pleasure of the one before, and another pretty good book as well. Two of these books continued my personal theme of reading authors from cold, icy lands of long winters, where there seems to be a disproportionate amount of literary talent.

"Doghead"(St. Martins 2009, originally published in Denmark in 2005) by Morten Ramsland comes to us from Denmark, where it's evidently considered the best book written in aeons. It swept the Danish literary awards, winning Author of the Year, Book of the Year, the Reader's Prize, and their very most prestigious prize, the Golden Laurel Prize. It also picked up a couple of prizes in Italy, but so far other nations have withheld their loot from Mr. Ramsland. I enjoyed this book, a rambling recount of a family's generations of harsh luck and odd characters, but not quite so much as the Danish did. It struck me as a much quicker moving John Irving novel, covering as much ground in 5 pages as Mr. Irving might in 75.

Another novel from the cold Northern lands, "Last Rituals" by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Harper 2007, now in paperback, originally published in 2005 in Iceland) absolutely riveted me. This was Icelander Sigurdardottir's first book, and it's unbelievable that she could have such polished prose and well-turned plot on her first outing. A heavily pierced and scarified German graduate student comes to Iceland to write a thesis on medieval witch burnings (which in Iceland were all-but-one of men, unlike mainland Europe, where women were the primary victims). His mutilated corpse is found at the university, and a single mother and attorney is hired by his family to keep an eye on the police's investigation. Ms. Sigurdardottir has a second book just out in the U.S., with the same main character, which I am eager to read.

"Dream House" by Valerie Laken (Harper Collins 2009) was my other top favorite of this very good batch of books, along with "Last Rituals." A neurotic high school teacher pushes her slacking spouse into buying a large fixer-upper in Ann Arbor, Michigan, later learning that a murder occurred there. Incidentally the man who committed that crime as a teenager has just been released from prison. This book is a tour de force, with truly believable, well-rounded, and flawed characters. I never wanted it to end. Like "Last Rituals", this unbelievably good book was a first novel. Both are very literary books, although "Last Rituals" can be termed genre fiction, a murder mystery.

The other very enjoyable book I read was "Life Sentences" by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins 2009). Ms. Lippman is already a bestselling author, but I hadn't read her previous works (her top-selling book, "What the Dead Know" is now on my to read list). Ms. Lippman gives us Cassandra Fallows, a best-selling author of memoirs full of too much information, who has just released a less-well received first novel. Ms. Fallows needs to write another memoir, since fiction isn't working out for her, but she despairs of wringing more material out of her life. Then she finds out that one of the girls she went to school with committed an infamous crime.

I felt like I was on a roll, reading one great book after another, without a dud in the lot. I hope this luck continues.

that age-old mystery, what women want

Back when I was single which seems like a world away now, I was often flabbergasted by what men would do to attempt to attract me. There was the old "have you been saved in Jesus" routine (funny how no one tries to check on my soul's status now that I'm middle-aged; when I was a young hottie, it was practically a daily occurrence). There were the chronic liars, who would go on about their cutting edge martial arts achievements and knowledge of dead languages (strange how those two seem to go together). In general, men tried to act like some fount of wisdom, dispensing the knowledge of the ages. And when it came down to their penises, they truly were at their most clueless, presenting them as though they were expecting the beholder to faint with ecstatic joy, and -- at the very worst -- introducing these rather ordinary organs by name. My God, how pathetic do you have to be to name your genitals?

I recently ran across a website run by a man who devotes himself to ridiculing men's attempts to woo women on the internet. Weasel, the foulmouthed proprietor of that site, has it down exactly when he muses that most men seem to view themselves as accessories to their penises, which they are eager to introduce to women. Weasel has an even better, but smaller, site, where he runs pathetic letters written by men to women(don't worry, fellows; he's intending to branch out and is actively soliciting insane notes from women to men, acknowledging that women can stalk just as well as men).

Over in Weasel's little corner of the web devoted to man at his most loseriest, I found an unintentionally hilarious gem, a film made by a man hoping to use it to win back his ex-fiance, whom he had not seen in two years:

This would make a great commercial for selling four-wheelers, but it is a loser as marketing the man as husband material. Evidently this young man thinks that women love carrying rocks and hay bales around in their spare time and building obstacle courses out of tractor tires. Who wouldn't sign up for a life of that? I'm particularly stymied as to why he would show his vehicles having trouble -- an unreliable car is not exactly sexy. There's nothing, in my experience, like a highway breakdown to bring a person to near-psychotic crankiness unless it is, say, a passive aggressive mother-in-law.

After making this little classic, the four-wheeling bachelor spammed forums all over the internet to get it as widely seen as possible. However, besides lacking an understanding for what women want, the video's star and auteur lacks a sense of humor. The posters at Cracked.com's bulletin boards saw the video and promptly dubbed its star "Douchebag Quadbike." One of them, Sanchez, wrote a parody song, "The Ballad of Douche Quadbike" and put that up on Youtube. After our lonely fourwheeler found that, he sent a series of threatening emails to Sanchez, including references to teams of lawyers winging their way to him on an airplane that very moment, years in jail, being reported as a terrorist and put on the no-fly list, etc.., etc.. (It can all be read here, if you have plenty of time). In response, the Cracked.com regulars made more videos, songs, and lots of T-shirts mocking the fourwheeling stud-wannabe. My favorite is Drizzt's techo remix of Sanchez's song, which is truly hilarious:

I suspect that the lonely four-wheeling guy's life would be easier if he were gay. Then he would understand the mind and desires of his love object; they could tone their dorsals and pecs together and hop through those tractor tires side by side. But sadly the hours of work put into his video paean to his four-wheeler and his muscles are not going to win his fiance back or earn him much more than the derision of the Cracked.com wits.

cannibal potatoes

Last night Lola screamed, "Mommy! Mommy!" in the night. I dragged myself into her room, where she, crying, told me that she dreamed "there was a potato, without any skin, in my bed, and he was eating himself. And there's another one over there! (pointing towards the side of her bed by the wall) Another potato without skin! I'm scared!"

I ended up sleeping with her for the rest of the night to protect her from the self-cannibalizing potatoes.

Garbagey update

"Garbagey is now named Hilary," Lola happily informed me. "My Hilary!"

free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last

Yesterday morning at the breakfast table, the Sober Husband noticed some tiny white dots on Lola's scalp. We tried blowing them off (this is the test we were taught to distinguish little scalp flakes from lice eggs: lice eggs are glued on the strands of hair, but dandruff and miscellaneous dreft are loose and may be blown away). They stuck to Lola's hair, but some could be scraped off. "But she's using that lotion every day, that's supposed to loosen the nits," I argued. "It could be nits." The Sober Husband blew at Lola's scalp again. "It's nits," he said resignedly.

The Sober Husband became deeply depressed at this and dragged himself off to work in a dark cloud. "We're going to be spending $1,500 a month for the rest of our lives at the Hair Fairies. I can see no end to this." When I tried to cheer him up from this pessimism, he snapped at me. "I don't call you crazy when you think bugs are crawling in your hair. Why are you saying this is crazy?"

Lola had won herself a day off school, to older sister Iris Uber Alles's great displeasure. It wasn't a particularly fun day, as we spent most of it waiting for a call back from the Hair Fairies lice service, who ended up not getting back to us until mid-afternoon and who couldn't fit Lola in. Today Lola had another day off school, but she balked at going back to the Hair Fairies. She'd had more than enough of sitting still and having her hair picked through.

"It's not lice! It's glue! It's little pieces of paper!"

I was unmoved. I forced her to get dressed and go over to the Hair Fairies, where she sat sullenly in the chair, refusing to make conversation with the kindly young woman treating her. To our great surprise and pleasure, Lola's specks were diagnosed as "dandruff, sticky dandruff" and (slow, building drumroll) since Lola's last visit, a whole week before, had yielded only eight nits and no bugs and this visit showed a completely clean head, Lola was declared to be free of lice and cured, by God, cured. Iris had previously gone over a week between clean headchecks, and my own head had been declared lice free. It seems that we are over the lice.

I was stunned and happy. No more daily changing the sheets and pillowcases, no more boiling all the hairbrushes every single day, no more elaborate lice shampoo-and-lotion regimes!

Meanwhile a blonde upscale woman had brought her foreign au pair in. The au pair was diagnosed with lice, and the blonde woman was not the most sympathetic. It seemed obvious that the au pair would be paying for her own treatment at Hair Fairies ("You have money, right?" the woman asked). The blonde herself was not willing to pay for Hair Fairies and loudly made an appointment for her children somewhere cheaper on her celphone, right there in the Hair Fairies. The blonde woman also first offered her au pair the day off due to fear that the sweet, soft-spoken au pair would contaminate her blonde children, but then reneged on that offer after considering the inconvenience of caring for her own children personally that day. "You can just play with them OUTDOORS. OUTDOORS. Okay?" I wondered why this woman felt it was less likely the lice would pass from one head to another outdoors than in, but held my tongue.

Later in the lobby, as I was leaving, the blonde woman set up for her au pair to come back the next day, presumably at the au pair's own expense, but loftily informed the Hair Fairies woman that she would be taking herself and her children somewhere cheaper.

Lola and I were happy as we left, Lola sporting a pretty braid with cobalt blue streaks. "I tried to lie before," Lola confessed," about it not being nits, but I was right. I tried to lie!" We laughed and held hands.

a truly terrible solution to the landfill problem

The other night nine year-old Iris Uber Alles ate a granola bar while watching "The Amazing Race" with her mother. I admonished her to throw away her wrapper, but she felt too lazy. She picked it up and contemplated it. "Hey, Lucy", she called to her little sister. "Lucy!" Lola looked over.

"Look," Iris said in an inviting tone. "It's Garbagey!" [Lola is a hoarder, given to collecting disposable slushee cups (the alpha one is named "Cupy"; the rest referred to indiscriminately as "Cupy Family") and paper clips (all known as "Clippy." One of the worst moments I had as a mother involved tracing our steps to recover a lost "Clippy", all the while thinking, "What kind of idiot goes to all this trouble for a frigging paper clip?")].

Lola was skeptical. Iris snaked her hand around alluringly, so that the torn granola bar wrapper caught the light. "Look, Lucy! Garbagey is shiny!"

"Give me that!" Lola demanded.

Later that night, I could hear the soft murmurs of the Sober Husband putting Lola to bed, interrupted suddenly by a terrible shout. "NO! THAT IS GARBAGEY! PUT HER BACK! SHE'S MY GARBAGEY!" The granola wrapper has become a treasured possession.

The next day I affixed Iris Uber Alles with a stern glare. "If you EVER," I hissed, "do that again, I will punish you severely. And I mean it."

Iris tried hard to keep a straight face. I upped the ante. "No videos --- and I mean no "Simpsons", too -- for a WEEK. At least. And more punishments, too."

having a lousy time

A week and a half ago, I was playing Warcraft on the couch, unwinding before it was time to drive across town, pick up Lola in Sea Cliff, drive across town to Noe Valley to take her to her dance lesson, drive allll the way back to Sea Cliff to pick up Iris Uber Alles, and then raceracerace back home to the Castro hoping to beat my friend who usually gives Lola a ride home from ballet (shameful indeed are the days when I find Loret, her daughter, and mine, waiting on the front stoop while I hastily park my nondescript Volvo and bound up, trailed by cranky Iris, exclaiming, "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!").

The phone rang. I let it go to the answering machine. But instead of leaving a message the caller rang my celphone immediately thereafter, and I hopped up and got that, suddenly imagining something was wrong with one of the girls. It was indeed their school calling, with the drily delivered news that Iris Uber Alles had lice and was in violation of the no lice, no nits policy.

"What about Lola?"

"We didn't find anything on her."

"Do I need to get her now?" I asked. The answer was vague. I could pick her up early or I could not, but once I did get her, she couldn't come back until she was nitfree. I decided to get her at kindergarten pick-up time, an hour early for her.

I'd never had lice as a child myself, and my children had never had it before. I was truly clueless. I called the Sober Husband and informed him, and I promised to go by the drugstore and pick up a lice kit. I questioned Iris in the car. "You didn't feel anything?"

We got a Walgreen's store brand lice kit while Lola was at ballet. At home, we washed Iris's hair with the lice shampoo. There at home Iris let the emotion of this get to her, and she cried for a long time. I tried to comfort her without a lot of success, pointing out that 13 out of forty-odd girls in her class had been found with lice. The best "it happens to all of us" example I could come up with was the "Arthur" episode where everyone gets lice from the rich girl, Muffy. This was scant comfort. I took advantage of the situation to trim off about four inches of hair. The Sober Husband tried combing out the nits with a Walgreens nit comb, but it was frustrating and unproductive. We decided to wait until morning and work on the hair in broad daylight.

On Saturday we washed Iris's hair again and set her up in a chair in the backyard, with a laptop nearby playing the Dr. Who episodes of her choice (she favors the Colin Baker Dr. Who). The Sober Husband spent nearly five hours trying to pick nits out of her hair with varying success. We looked at a louse under a magnifying glass and viewed its many claws with awe and disgust. Meanwhile Lola, who had been cleared twice at her school, danced around happily. The Sober Husband picked through Lola's hair and my hair and couldn't find anything, but Iris's hair refused to be depopulated.

The Sober Husband grew more and more frustrated. Iris Uber Alles has exceptionally fine hair, which slid through the little prongs of the nitpicking comb with nits intact. For a time he set out to just pull out every hair which had a nit on it, but that was protested by Iris and me. At some point he demanded I do some of this, but my extreme nearsightedness made me a poor candidate. Poor Iris was upset and exhausted, and I finally requested that We Just Quit and Let Me Take Iris to the Hair Fairies, Please, For the Love of God.

The "Hair Fairies" is a new service, located in New York, Chicago, L.A., and San Francisco, providing a posh atmosphere in which to delouse your child. There are personal DVD players, children's books, children's snacks, children's beverages of choice, and lots of fairy art on the walls. There is a wide variety of louse-related merchandise for sale. It costs $95 per hour to have a person treated for lice.

On Monday the Bay Area was hit with a record-breaking heat wave, and in the sweltering heat, I took Iris over to get her lice treated. Soon I felt better, watching the painstaking combing done by a meticulous young hipster wielding a nitpick (a superior nitpick to the ones offered at Walgreen's). However, Iris's abundant, fine hair couldn't be finished during our appointment, and so she'd won herself another day off school. While we were at the Hair Fairies, I got my own head of hair checked, having come around to the belief that if Iris had a full head of lice, there was no way I wouldn't have any (her hipster hair attendant asked, "Eighty percent of mothers catch it from their kids. Are you guys snuggly? Do you cuddle up?" and my mind immediately flashed to our two heads smashed up together the night before the fateful call, as we said our good nights). A ten minute check found ten nits on my head, and I booked myself and Iris to come back the next day.

Iris started coming around to seeing the benefits of lice, after seeing other families from her school getting their nits picked out at the Hair Fairies and after I took her for an upscale lunch at nearby Pizzeria Delfina, where she proclaimed the fresh parmesan and made-to-order limeade to be quite good.

Meanwhile on Monday little sister Lola was checked twice for nits by parent volunteers, as a Sibling Of A Lousy Child, and cleared by all. However, I didn't feel so sanguine, and so I took Lola along to the Hair Fairies, where over thirty bugs were found on her head. I myself had a moderate number of nits but no bugs. Iris had over a hundred bugs and over a hundred nits.

I had no idea that a person could have lice without realizing it. It turns out that if one is not allergic to the saliva of a louse, you do not feel its bite. It also turns out that most lice are very, very tiny and unnoticeable. Another thing we learned was that "a dry check", the normal combing through a child's dry hair, is very ineffective at finding lice and nits and will only turn up the more extreme infestations. A more subtle case, like Lola's, can be found only through a "wet check": the hair is coated with a cream (which helps loosen the nits), and combed in tiny sections repeatedly with a tiny metal nit comb, which is wiped periodically on a white towel, its leavings carefully examined under bright light.

Back at school, Iris was open about why she'd missed two days of school. Nearly a third of the girls in her grade had lice, but those other girls were keeping it on the down low. Iris got a bit of flack for honestly discussing what was going on... but that didn't last.

The parents of this first wave of infestees knew the school's checks were only catching the most egregious instances (Lola was not the only sibling to go undetected), so many of us requested that the school bring in the Hair Fairies for more thorough checks. When the Hair Fairies came in, more cases were found. Another check a week later caught a lot more: about seventy percent of the third grade had lice. By this point, Iris herself was bug and nit free, and her classmates, the privileged daughters of hedge fund managers, lawyers, doctors, and internet management types, were buggy. Everyone became more open about it, and being lousy and going to Hair Fairies was the norm.

On the home front, I was laundering like an OCD patient. Every day we changed all the pillowcases and sheets. Stuffed animals and blankets were bagged. Even the Sober Husband's favorite hat and my favorite jacket were bagged. The children respected the bags, although tears were shed over certain stuffed animals whom I insisted were having a party in their trash bags, but I caught the Sober Husband breaking into a bag for his beloved hat and had to sternly intervene. "You can have your hat on Friday. NOT BEFORE. I saw you let Iris wear it. You have OTHER hats."

Last Friday I took Lola to the Hair Fairies for a follow-up treatment (8 nits and no bugs) and had myself re-checked as well (no nits and no bugs. I am developing a new sympathy for psychotics, as I am continually sure I feel bugs crawling on my scalp, despite the fact that my last two checks from the Hair Fairies found no nits and no bugs. The Sober Husband has implored me to stop getting myself checked for lice at $95 a pop and to learn to accept my hallucinations of crawling lice).

While we were there, a mother from our grade came in with her lice free children. She was there to scorn the Hair Fairies, having been influenced by a parent in our grade who denounced my wonderful, wonderful Hair Fairies as spreading hysteria about lice and profiting off our fear, while much of the world simply accepts lice and chooses to live with these little insect friends. This mother's daughters were jealous of their friends who've been hanging out at Hair Fairies in Pacific Heights and really, really wanted to buy things there. I saw the little louse-free girls' eyes lusting after the special hairbrushes, combs and shampoos, lingering over the fairy paintings and large screen TV showing Pixar film after Pixar film. Truly peer pressure has swung around and made having lice the current correct experience for a private school third grader.

Although the girls may have adapted to the new, insect-oriented way of life (most of them now wear their hair up every day, with tea tree oil smeared about the perimeters of their scalps, the more extreme parents having given their daughters bandannas to wear), many of the parents have not. An email discussion of lice preventatives and whether to cancel the upcoming overnight field trip broke into a rather nasty discussion carried out into the wee hours of the night. Thankfully the head of school had a calm approach to the matter and refused to cancel the trip due to lice (the place where the girls are going was booked solid for the rest of the season, so the trip could not be put off).

Most people my age don't understand why it takes so long to clear up lice. When they had it as children (I never did myself), they had one powerful scrubbing of the head and it was over. I have learned that the answer is DDT: the DDT-laden shampoos of the bad old days were more effective than our modern, wimpy products (the lice shampoo I bought at Walgreen's did nothing). As one of the sweet, hip young things at Hair Fairies mused, "We're going back to the old days here, picking them out by hand. It's like monkeys." I agreed. "I like it that way; it's gentler." Lola, herself the subject of the simian grooming, didn't weigh in. She was busy watching "Happy Feet" and comforted by the gift of a new pop-up book for enduring another session.

understandable

Six year-old Lola takes forever to brush her teeth. Last night I checked on her to see her singing and posing, and I gestured strongly that she should brush her teeth.

"I just distract my own self!" she explained.

celebrating everyone's favorite California penal code section

I had a hectic day on Monday, and it was a bit insane getting my art supplies organized and driving over to my evening art class on time. As I drove into Golden Gate Park, I noticed that there were an unusual number of cars there for a Monday evening, but since it was a rare hot day, I figured people were probably taking advantage of being outside on a sweltering evening (it was one of those days which set heat records all over the region and made one reflect again about that damn global warming). But there weren't just a lot of people in the park: there were a lot of idiots about. In the little parking lot by the Sharon Arts Studio, a moron drove the wrong way at top speed, and there was a large group of people walking seven abreast through the parking lot (I resigned myself to not being on time to class and didn't even attempt to get them to bunch up as any sensible group would do when walking through a frigging parking lot).

In the parking lot, there were a number of people hanging out in or by their cars, some of them sending off those glowering vibes which cause me, after decades of city life, to walk faster, not make eye contact, but affect a confident and casual demeanor (in the World of Warcraft, we talk about "drawing aggro", and I was definitely drawing aggro by the mere act of being a white person carrying art supplies through that parking lot). I'd never had that experience in Golden Gate Park before. A woman who was missing some teeth was selling t-shirts in the parking lot.

As I walked to the studio, I was hit by a football being thrown about by a pair of morons who didn't apologize, but just giggled. The lawns were packed solid with people. I could smell smoke -- barbecue smoke, cigarette smoke, pot smoke. There was a man guarding the entrance to the Sharon Arts Studio, turning away a large number of people who, for no discernible reason (possibly full bladders) wanted to know what was going on in that building and why couldn't they go in. I was waved in, and I asked my teacher, "Dolores, is that a scheduled event?"

She said simply, "It's Four Twenty." Suddenly it all made sense, and I felt like an idiot. Being unemployed, I don't pay much attention to calendar dates, and I never was a pothead. "I'm such an idiot," I confessed.

Dolores assured me, "I didn't know, either. I had to ask Liz", the ceramics teacher. "Liz explained it to me." A classmate was still confused. I explained: "420 is the California penal code section penalizing possession of marijuana. So if you love marijuana, when it's 4:20 you can think about it and toke up, and if it's 4/20, you can celebrate your love of marijuana." The older members of the class were bemused. However, I heard one of our token twentysomething students confide in the other youngster, "It's so hot; I was so tempted to just stay outside and smoke, but I didn't want to come to class like THAT", going on to express the likely horror us older students would have for someone under the influence of the green leaf. I dismissed her concerns. "Oh, just sit in the back. No one would care."

a trick question

Six year-old Lola asked me, "Mama, have you ever met the devil?"

Abstractedly I muttered, "No, I don't think so."

Lola instantly erupted. "ALL THOSE TIMES I TOLD YOU I AM THE DEVIL? AND YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE ME?"

former lawyer writes blog! No film at 11, but book reviews.

I learned from being in an article which ran on the front page of the Wall St. Journal (granted, the two paragraphs about me, Iris and Lola were after the jump, on an interior page, but the article began on A1) and, at more length, in the Wall St. Journal's blog, that only one person I know currently reads the Wall St. Journal attentively (hell, I let my own subscription lapse after Murdoch bought it). But someone at the ABA read it and cranked out an article on me. You'd think they'd have felt like contacting me first, wouldn't you? Or at least checking my State Bar listing and saying what law school I went to. And is "former lawyer writes blog" news? Not exactly. If there's one thing a former lawyer knows how to do, it's type, and if you're not writing motions or memoranda, you might as well blog.

If I'd only known precisely when this was going to happen (my interview with the very thoughtful and thorough Ms. Gamerman of the Wall Street Journal occurred months ago), maybe I would have put up a Potemkin Village post and written something particularly witty. It hasn't been a wit-filled time, though: I'm still recovering from the Most Unforgivable Fight Ever with the Sober Husband and his mother's week-long visit. It's probably just as well I didn't even try.

While I haven't been being witty or particularly productive in any way, I have managed to read some great books lately. Indeed, some of these books were so compelling that I skipped my usual Warcraft playing for a few days.

"The Revenge of the Spellmans" by Lisa Lutz, just out, is brilliant. The third in a series about clumsy, funny Isobel Spellman and her overly intrusive family, whose family business is a detective agency, this book has a sparkling wit. Isobel has pathos and problems, but plenty of Guinness and the vocabulary of a longshoreman keep her barreling along. I loved it.

More seriously, "Lost Paradise" by Kathy Marks was a gripping and disturbing read. Ms. Marks, an Australian journalist, was one of six reporters sent to tiny Pitcairn island to cover the recent landmark sex abuse trials. Cooped up on a island only a few miles wide, inhabited by only 50 residents, Ms. Marks had to face the stares and gibes of the Pitcairners daily, who told her that family problems were best dealt with privately and that she, like all reporters, was a liar. Ms. Marks is made of stern stuff and delves into the history of Pitcairn, settled by some of the Bounty mutineers and their kidnapped Polynesian mates, to derive some disturbing conclusions about how rape and child molestations came to be so prevalent and how the myth of Pitcairn Island as a perfect society came about.

"Beat Until Stiff" by Claire M. Johnson was an engaging and too-short murder story set in the culinary world. I loved the inside look at the upscale food world, which rang very true based on what chefs I know have told me. I also loved Ms. Johnson's heroine, Mary Ryan, and Ms. Johnson's impulse control as an author. There were so many points at which Ms. Johnson could have taken Mary into a more conventional direction, and I appreciated her restraint. I will definitely pick up Ms. Johnson's other works.

"The Senator's Wife" by Sue Miller: Ms. Miller is a deep thinker, indeed, who writes intelligent, lovely prose and creates realistic characters who are flawed but engaging. A couple, who got married and pregnant after barely knowing each other, move next door to the estranged wife of a famous Democratic senator. The younger woman becomes fixated on her older, glamorous neighbor.

"Safer" by Sean Doolittle was a particularly gripping read. I picked it up thinking to read the first chapter and didn't set it down until I'd read at least two hundred pages, and then only because the importunities of the children could not be ignored any longer. An academic couple move from Boston to a small college town in Iowa. After their home was broken into on the day they moved in and the wife was assaulted, the newcomers are warmly welcomed by the community and become involved in the local neighborhood watch. As they are settling in and feeling oddly at home, given how different their sleepy subdivision is from hectic Boston, the husband falls into a feud with one neighbor which begins to escalate. The problem is that his neighbor, a genial man and retired police officer, seems like the sensible and sane one to everyone, and our underemployed, overeducated professor is starting to sound crazy even to his wife when he rants about this.

This reminds me of my feud with the sociopathic contractor building a house near me, and how my own husband kept siding with the tiny psycho against his own wife. The man tried to sabotage my car, and what did my husband do? He returned the evidence to him. It's when you're in a real feud with an unsettled person that you realize that you're alone in a cold, harsh world. Your spouse fades off to the office, pleading the exigencies of work and suggesting that you're the one in the wrong, and you're left alone to seethe and fear for your own personal safety. Anyhow, a brilliant and gripping book which I recommend highly.

And finally, a book which gave me so much unexpected pleasure, "The Elfish Gene" by Mark Barrowcliffe. Who would have thought that a memoir about playing Dungeons and Dragons as an unpopular, bullied adolescent would be so delightful? I loved, loved, loved this book. Mr. Barrowcliffe has a sharp wit and an unbelievably unblinking and immodest ability to chronicle his most embarrassing moments and epic fails, such as how he took to wearing an Elvish cloak (made from polyester) around downtown Coventry until some soccer hooligans threw him into a fountain. Here's how he starts the memoir:

You may consider that you wasted your youth. Perhaps you spent it shooting pool in some smoky hall, locked in your bedroom playing the guitar or just partying hard when you should have been studying.

That is not a waste. That is not even the beginning of a waste. I'll show you a waste. When others were developing the ability to win a few bucks hustling in a local bar, to lead a singalong at a barbecue or just to speak to the opposite sex, what I got for my endeavours was a wizard with a frost wand.

Read, people, read. In a world where sociopathic contractors and work-loving spouses can torment a sensitive soul, where mothers-in-law come to visit just when you're not on speaking terms with your husband, and where you finally get mentioned in your favorite newspaper, but only after Murdoch has dumbed it down and you ended your subscription and no one read it anyway, we have the delights of literature to console us.

now it's public: the children will need therapy

I've always longed to be captured in one of those pointillistic pictures in the Wall St. Journal. That day may never come, but my arguably defective parenting has been cited as a educational and possibly cautionary example on the front page of today's Wall St. Journal. The children thrill at their newfound fame.

insults of the urban child

I overheard kindergartener Lola calling her big sister "You crazy cabdriver!" the other day.

well, uh, I guess that makes sense

Kindergartner Lola states rather matter of factly, "I am Satan's kitten!"

dammit, I suck as a mother

On any given day, I spent huge amounts of time at home and am readily available should any emergency befall a child of mine. On Thursday, I had agreed to do a solo counseling session BEFORE a joint counseling session. Since I was going downtown, I planned a side trip to Bloomingdales' for make-up, returning books to the library, and picking up art supplies for my Monday collage class (I had the assignment of buying 4 new acrylic colors and a block of "canvas paper").

When my counselor and I broke for a bathroom break before the joint session, Anton, waiting for the joint session, informed me that Lola was sick and that he had picked her up at school and parked her at my friend Joyce's house (thank you, Joyce, I owe you, oh magnificent one). I was suffused with huge guilt. There I was, the first time in three months that I"d gone around shopping, buying art supplies and make-up and whining in a private therapy session while my child was ill. Such bad timing.

Sometimes I hate myself, sometimes I miss the old days when I was a childless lawyer. God knows that being availabe six days out of seven sometimes isn't enough when you're a parent of a small child.

an authority on life at a young age

Lola is only in kindergarten, but she's a clever and original thinker, and the years of combat with her older sister have honed her skills in arguing. Recently Lola reverted to resisting going to kindergarten (this was started by guests who were discussing home schooling. Lola had never realized before that her mother makes a choice in sending her to kindergarten, and that if her lazy old mother felt like it, Lola would never have to go to school again). After her request to be home-schooled went nowhere, Lola insisted that she was too sick to go to school. This was met with a polite refusal to believe on my part (and open laughter and derision on Iris's part. "You're sick? You were running around and laughing! Look, you're going to laugh!"). I did ask her to list her symptoms, and rather unconvincingly, "I have to go to school ALL WEEK" and "There are one hundred million days of school" were cited as symptoms, along with vague issues of various body parts allegedly hurting.

Peevishly Lola said the next day, "No DOCTOR said I wasn't sick." I had to admit that third grader Iris and I don't have medical degrees, and I had to admire her reasoning.

Last night Lola resisted going to bed. Along with a variety of other excuses, she stated firmly, "It's not the right weather to go to bed."

more bad timing

So my mother-in-law is supposed to be arriving on Thursday for a week-long visit, while the Sober Husband and I are barely coexisting.

I'm contemplating making a run for it and leaving her and the Sober Husband here to supervise the children, and I actually looked up flights to Barcelona on the internet, but it was all too expensive (and seemed to require lengthy layovers in Cleveland, of all places). I found a really great fare to London, a place I adore, but I've been to London in late March before, and it's not really the best time of year to visit, to say the least. I've seen an English "spring", and I'm not interested that much in seeing another one, thank you. I also contemplated going to L.A. or Washington state to visit friends (er, impose myself at very short notice).

The first problem with me leaving is that I'd be leaving the children behind, and I feel adverse to that. It's not that I don't trust the Sober Husband to keep them alive, but I don't feel good about leaving them with my mother-in-law without me, particularly when the reason for my absence is marital discord. I don't want them crying for me and having my mother-in-law storing up anecdotes to torture me with for the rest of my life. (Way back in the early days of my relationship with the Sober Husband, his mother was visiting us, back when we lived in my old rent-controlled apartment, and the Sober Husband was doing this annoying thing he used to do where he tore out all the ads from the New Yorker right after it arrived. I like looking at the ads. He tore right through part of that issue's long article, and, without losing my temper, raising my voice, or swearing, I told him to be more careful with my New Yorker in the future. Years later the MIL was visiting and saw a New Yorker and said in a sprightly manner to me, "Remember that time he tore your New Yorker and you got SO MAD at him?" She stores this kind of thing up for ammo, even a trivial thing).

I also contemplated emailing her and telling her that her son and I are on the brink of a separation and that it's a terribly bad time for her to visit, but I really just don't want to go there. I don't want to feed her negative information.

Additionally, I have three classes while she's here ("Family Clay Day" with Iris, collage, and pottery), and I'd like to attend those classes, which militates against leaving town. Sigh. I'm also considering checking into a nice hotel here in town, which feels depressing to me because I'd probably just be reading and playing World of Warcraft, whereas if I left town, I'd be exploring and having fun.

bad timing

Over the years (nearly twelve), the All Time Number One Top Cause of Vicious Arguments in my marriage is my mother-in-law ("the MIL"). The Sober Husband has his mother on a a pedestal (during one argument, he memorably said, "My mother has never felt jealousy or anger in her life. She doesn't know those emotions", to which I snapped back, "Notify the Vatican; we have a new saint"), and there's no love lost between the woman and me.

Last week I noticed, while writing all the art classes I'd signed the children and myself up for on the calendar, that the MIL was coming soon for a full week. I counted the days on the calendar to make sure. Years ago, during a prior bout of couple's counseling, we reached a marital treaty on the MIL's visits, where we agreed that a long weekend four times a year would displease both of us equally and was therefore acceptable. The Sober Husband had told me a week or two ago that he had invited his mother out for five days "to make it up to her" that we weren't going away together leaving her alone with the children (neither Iris Uber Alles nor I had turned out to be ready for that). Five did not sound like fun to me, but seven? I was instantly furious.

When I finally brought it up to my husband, he claimed it was only six days (it's seven days and six nights) and that it was a mistake, he thought it was five days. I worked at letting it go and didn't say anything more. A few days later, on Thursday, it was time for couple's counseling, and I raised this as an example of how we've been getting along well lately. How ironic that was, as within seconds the Sober Husband was in a rage and I was in tears.

Our counselor asked me for examples of problems I have with the MIL, in order to understand this dynamic, and I gave two examples off the top of my head: (1) after meeting me for the first time, the MIL then met my parents... and told them that she thought I was having a severe mental breakdown; (2) she used to lie on the floor in my kitchen while I was cooking, and this behavior escalated until once she was lying prone on the floor right in front of my stove. This lying-on-the-floor behavior was famous among my friends, and I was asked to act it out more than once. The counselor was taken by these examples and asked the Sober Husband for his feedback. After expressing the general sentiment that his mother is a perfect guest, a sheer joy, he went on after some time to say that actually, come to think of it, for most of our relationship I was having a severe mental breakdown and could have benefited from commitment to a mental hospital. Oh, and it wasn't true that his mother had ever lain on the floor. I was prone to exaggerating and misunderstanding things and inventing things and believing things that weren't true.

On top of that, when the counselor drew him out about his feelings of me coming between him and his mother, the Sober Husband said with considerable emotion, "Carole comes between me and my work, me and my friends, me and my family, me and the children, me and EVERYTHING." I cried. The therapist made a bravura effort to get the Sober Husband to admit that although in his eyes, his mother might be flawless, she might be hard for me to get along with. No dice.

I left, shattered and unable to look at the man to whom I have had two children. He, weirdly, was smiling and chipper.

"One of us is going to a hotel," I said. "I need to be away from you." The Sober Husband, smiling, suggested that I go to a hotel, but when I informed him that he would then need to pick up the children between five and five thirty, his smile flagged. "Five?" he stammered. I gave him a withering glare as he jumped onto the subway.

After I got home, I informed him that I would pick up the children and he should NOT come home. Then, however, he said he was ready to leave work early to get the children, but I curtly told him not to. Feeling extremely distraught, I managed to safely drive across the town, gather up not only my own two darling hellspawn but one of Iris Uber Alles's best friends, drive them all home, cook a a nutritious but beloved dinner of broccoli pasta, coax Iris and her friend down from the fence, clean the kitchen, supervise Iris's homework, and turn Iris's friend over to her mother. Then we were all unwinding in the living room around 7:30, me with a glass of wine, when the Sober Husband arrived with a weird, fake smile on his face.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. He kept the fake smile on and suggested that he thought I was going to go to a hotel. I said that I'd made it clear that I wasn't, and he said that he'd needed to come home anyhow to get his stuff. The children, who hadn't had a clue before that anything was amiss, asked him what was wrong. Smiling, he said, "Mommy got mad at me during couple's counseling and wants me to go to a hotel."

I felt white hot rage. "How dare you make me the bad guy? He said I was crazy and that I make things up!" I glared at him again. "I was going to tell them you were working late!" Lola cried; Iris looked stressed. I whisked them upstairs, fetched their favorite stuffed animals, started a video, and made them chocolate milks, hissing at my husband on the stairs, "Thanks for being an asshole."

The children calmed down and went to bed a bit troubled but all right. I stayed snuggled up to Lola until she fell asleep. In the morning, I got us all up and out to school early, everyone seeming fine. I spent most of the day at the school, since it was my day to supervise the kindergarteners and first graders at lunch and recess. When it was time to pick up Lola, I recoiled: she was carrying Clover.

Clover is a massive stuffed giraffe who takes turns spending the weekends with the different kindergarteners, whose parents are supposed to record his adventures in a scrapbook. This feels like a contest amongst the parents to show who has the best, most wholesome and fabulous weekends, and here I was, having thrown out my husband. I quailed. I don't even know how to get the pictures off our new digital camera. I cravenly told Lola she should call her daddy and ask him to come help her with pictures of Clover.

the crown jewels visit the kindergarten

Thursday is Lola's "Sharing Day" at kindergarten. She is supposed to bring in a small object, NOT a toy or something which would spark avarice and materialism in the hearts of her fellow five and six year-olds, but something with personal meaning and experience to share with the kindergarten. Lola decided today to bring nine year-old Iris Uber Alles's blood type test sheet.

Iris had been wanting to know her blood type for years, and so I gave her a blood typing test for her birthday. She was happy to get it until she realized we'd have to cut her open to get some blood. Then she decided to save the kit until one of us had some sort of terrible accident and then use the already flowing blood to determine that person's blood type. (Mommy was disqualified due to already knowing her blood type from her youthful past as a blood donor).

Finally Iris got tired of waiting for opportunistic bleeding and decided to take the test. The Sober Husband assisted her, but he was too squeamish to use the little lancet to draw her blood, so I did it. Iris let out a squawk when her skin was pierced (which was Lola's favorite part), but she enjoyed the rest of the testing process very much. Months later Lola decided to take Iris's testing sheet, with the four little smears of dried blood in different boxes, for sharing. Iris was disapproving. Finally Iris relented, on the conditions that Lola bring the test sheet in a plastic bag; that Lola keep the test sheet in her locker, NOT the classroom; that every time Lola left the classroom, she had to go check her backpack in her locker to make sure the test sheet was safe; no other child could touch it; and Lola could only remove sheet from her backpack in her locker at the actual sharing time. There were more conditions, including that Lola help Iris look for her misplaced money (Iris had accumulated about thirty dollars or so in allowance money but then lost it somewhere around the house).

The most ridiculous part of all of these conditions to me was that Iris hadn't wanted the old, blood-smeared paper any more and told me it was okay to recycle it... until her little sister showed an interest in it.

some quick book reviews

I read several very satisfying books lately to commend to you. I've noticed a trend in my reading: I'm gravitating towards books by Scandinavian authors. I guess I should say "North European" authors, as I have learned that the term "Scandinavian" is deeply offensive to many. Indeed, a Scandinavian may recoil and react as though you used the word "snownigger", so offensive is the Sc word for inexplicable reasons. I don't want to say "North European", though, because to me, that does not signify that group of snowy, fjord-infested countries home to so many brilliant authors. If I hear "North European", I think of places like Poland. But then again, I'm just an ignorant American, drawn to the books of that region like an ant to a picnic. I figure that with those long, hard, dark winters, a lot of people stay inside and write, and they get very polished and clever indeed. The only problem is that their work doesn't get translated into English and published over here as quickly and thoroughly as it should.

Knowing that we're missing a lot of great reads from that region-formerly-known-as-Scandinavia, be sure not to miss what does make its way to these uncouth shores. In particular, I'm commending "Nemesis" by Jo Nesbo to you. This thick and thoroughly satisfying book is more than a murder mystery; Mr. Nesbo manages to combine several murder mysteries into one, with lots of thoughts on the impact of 9/11 in Norway, the historical and psychological underpinnings of revenge, Sun Tzu's teachings on the importance of consistency, alcoholism and other kinds of escapism, etc., etc... Mr. Nesbo is a great writer, and I'm glad, seven years after it came out in Norway, that "Nemesis" made it here.

"Let the Right One In" by John Ajvide Lindquist was a big blockbuster in Sweden and the rest of Europe. I intend to write about modern vampire fiction on another day, but I'm just throwing this one in here as another example of an original and greatly talented author from the world zone formerly known as Scandinavia. Dark, depressing as hell, and violent, but very, very gripping, "Let the Right One In" is a thoroughly engaging read for the more stouthearted reader.

"Calling Mr. Lonely Hearts" by Laura Benedict was a weird and compelling book I hated to put down. Three well-off middle-aged, Midwestern women have their lives turned upside down, the repercussion of something terrible they did together as teenagers. Ms. Benedict is a beautiful and imaginative writer, and she packs a lot into a page. My only bitch was that she put her lengthy flashbacks into italic font; it gets really old, reading page after page after page in italics. The reader can figure out that it's not the present without that, Ms. Benedict! Give us some credit!

"Chasing Smoke" by Bill Cameron: this talented Portland author gives us a hero who is a lonely policeman on convalescent leave for bladder cancer. Skin Kadash, nicknamed for an eyesore of a birthmark, is an alcoholic who has managed to ruin almost every corner of his life. I loved this book; Bill Cameron has a great updated noir style.

"The Zero Sum Game" by Brad Meltzer: a quick read set in D.C. politics, with the conceit that jaded staffers and politicians are manipulating legislation as part of a game with prizes. This book started off very engagingly but then was less winning, for me at least, after the narrator was summarily dispatched a quarter of the way in. I loved this book at first but then turned on it. At least Mr. Meltzer had the backbone to resist adding a romance to his story. This one would be a fine book to take to the beach, but turn to the formerly-known-as-Scandinavians for a more deeply satisfying read.

at the gas station

Sometimes, if I'm feeling perky and yet don't have anything pressing to do, I drive the Sober Husband to work (this saves him about twenty minutes from his usual two bus routine). Yesterday after dropping him off, I stopped for gas. The man at the next pump called over, "I like your tattoos." I thanked him, and a conversation sprung up about them. He turned out to be from Tonga originally and had a tattoo on his ankle done the traditional way, with a fishbone dipped in ink. It was a great tattoo.

This man, who was very good-looking at probably a decade younger than me, asked me which was my first tattoo, did they mean anything, where did I get them, etc... During this conversation I said I'd have a lot more tattoos if my husband didn't hate them so much. He was disbelieving. "He hates them?"

"Oh, yeah, that's why I don't have more. I'd have a lot more otherwise. After I got this one (holding out my right forearm), he didn't talk to me for days."

My new acquaintance shook his head. "He's crazy." He looked me over. "The guy's CRAZY."

the torturing of the teeth

After a long time of procrastinating and agonizing, I geared up and tried another dentist yesterday. The procrastination and agony were the result of some bad dental experiences in the past, and it would appear I'm not yet through with this dark chapter in the history of my teeth.

Today my mouth hurts, a lot. X-rays and a cleaning should not be traumatic and painful proceedings that leave a person feeling like her mouth was raped and and in discomfort for days. I've decided never to return to that dental practice for another x-ray or cleaning again.

The x-rays took over half an hour. They did a total of 18 x-rays, EIGHTEEN, which each involved cramming a large, painful piece of equipment into a slightly different place in my mouth, while I fought to control my gag reflex. I believe there are bruises on the roof of my mouth.

I asked for gas during the cleaning, which I was refused because it is the policy of that dental office not to pamper patients. I should have gotten it, because the cleaning had some agonizing moments that had me leaping with pain out of the chair. Afterward I just wanted to go home, curl up under one of my homemade quilts, and cry for hours, but instead I had to race down to pick up the children, whom I discovered squabbling on the playground at their school (nine year-old Iris overheard Lola describing her to another kindergartener as "a weird, bossy little thing"), take them home, oversee Iris's homework, and take Iris to her writing class in the Mission, plus pick up the Sober Husband and buy cat food, all done on the brink of tears with a hurting mouth.

End diagnosis: I have two cavities and a cap which needs to be replaced. My dilemma: get the work done at that office, which has the extensively thorough x-rays, and then let my teeth go to hell for a few more years until I feel like braving the dental wilderness again OR just try another dentist to get that work done, which may or may not be better. I could also just wait until my teeth actually start hurting. Another option would be to fly to Arizona and go see my old, beloved dentist who moved away for the cavities, but I can't get a crown replaced that way because that means more than one visit spaced a few weeks apart. (I don't think asking for the x-rays to take to another office is an option, because there are no physical x-rays. It was all computerized, and given my bad luck with dentists, I have no reason to be hopeful that a prospective new dental office would have compatible software).

There's a special dental office down the Peninsula for people who have dental issues, and they sedate you completely before doing a thing, gently waking you after all your work is done. I really want to go there, but the Sober Husband is deeply opposed, thinking this is unhealthy. I don't think it's particularly good for my physical or mental health for me to be awake in a dental chair experiencing pain and stress, on the other hand, but he is freaked out by the sedation dentist enough to deter me from booking an appointment (and I would need someone to drive me home, obviously).

My children now have a lovely pediatric dentist, lovely, and I wish I could just go to him. Sigh. I'm starting to wonder if American dentistry and maybe this whole having-teeth thing altogther are overrated.

the extreme version of us, and I hate what I see

I don't watch very much television (although that is less true than it used to be; I'm insane for "The Amazing Race" and "Project Runway", and Iris Uber Alles and I have been watching old seasons of "The Office"). In particular I haven't watched "Wife Swap" other than one episode years ago, which I watched after I was approached online by someone purporting to be a producer of that show recruiting me for it (I didn't follow up). Over the last some weeks I've heard mention now and again of a local venture capitalist whose shameful behavior on that show is creating a lot of stir. I decided the other night to see what the fuss was about, with a little help from Youtube:

I soon found myself full of rage at this smug Noe Valley couple for going on television to represent San Francisco environmentalists. As if people don't hate us enough already, we had to have bullying Stephen Fowler spouting his superiority on national television at a perfectly nice woman who committed the unforgivable sins of being born in Missouri and not going to college. His wife, while not abusive, was just as snobby. As Stephen's wife Renee sniffed, the other family didn't have advanced degrees, and she gave an interview to ABC where she espoused the feeling that the only positive thing that came out of participating in this show was that her children have been vividly taught the value of a good education. The children are now terrified of ending up like Gayla, a pleasant, friendly woman who seemed bright enough and who took a genuine interest in their well-being and tried to influence their blowhard father to lighten up on them.

Stephen Foster, who brags about having once scored in the 99th percentile on a standardized test (assuming everyone is too stupid to understand what that means, Foster spelled it out in irritating detail that it means he has an IQ of 158 and is smarter than 99.9 out of a hundred of the rest of us), blames the producers for manipulating him into being a bullying elitist snob. Well, Stephen, if you're truly smarter than 99.9 % of the rest of us dumb Americans, then you should have been smarter than 99.9% of the producers and realized that it is not a good idea to behave badly on national television. Calling a nice woman a "dumb redneck" to her face and sniffing that you're surprised she can read is pretty rude, and Stephen Fowler added hypocrisy by saying to his child in front of Gayla, "She's a rude lady, isn't she? That's because she doesn't have an education." All his education didn't train him in etiquette to any noticeable extent. He seems shocked now that his charities have canned him from their boards and that his house was egged.

I'm fascinated by the fact that Stephen Fowler is so obsessed with his superiority due to his advanced degrees from Cambridge, but yet he's married to a New Age charlatan whose career, "certified life coach and certified destination coach", is lacking in intellectual rigor or scientific basis (Renee's bouncing about to demonstrate how she physically wafts energy back towards her clients is usually the sort of thing which irks a highly educated person). But I'm not fascinated enough to ever want to interact with him. I'm thoroughly irked that he portrayed people of my ilk so horribly.

I told the Sober Husband that I felt Stephen and Renee were an exaggerated version of us, and that is why I found myself actually caring over how someone acted on a foolish reality show (although I certainly don't care as much as the person who went to the trouble of creating stephenfowlersucks.com).. He was drawn aback by that, but I noted the following similarities: a couple with two children, living in San Francisco, who both have advanced degrees and place an extreme value on education. We also have a "no shoes" policy in the home, and I'm a rather gung ho recycler and composter (but that is typical in San Francisco, where we have a municipal composting program). I also pride myself on my foreign travel and am trying to raise my children as citizens of the world. We also send our children to an expensive private school, and like Stephen, I'm overly fond of a bottle of wine. I buy a lot of organic produce and care about my carbon footprint.

I meet parents like Renee and Stephen who drive their children far too hard (Stephen and Renee's poor children have to earn the right to a playdate, and Stephen and Renee have already determined -- for these little, little children -- which athletic pursuits they must perfect while learning three languages and the piano in order to get into the top colleges of Renee and Stephen's choice). At our school, I admired a self portrait of a second grader who'd painted herself with elaborate bloodshot eyes, until I found out that the child in question had painted herself that way because she'd been crying so much because a tennis injury had caused her parents to freak out on her that she was no longer on track to become a world-class professional tennis player.

I used to feel a bit guilty that I didn't push the overly bright Iris Uber Alles harder. Then I did some research on "gifted children" and came to the conclusion that the best gift I could give my daughter would be not to turn her into a perfectionist who was expected to constantly excel. Recently I let my children quit piano lessons, which surprised everyone. I had by happenstance heard Dr. Laura (I always feel ashamed when I admit to my secret love of Dr. Laura) lecture a mother about the importance of letting children quit. Dr. Laura opined--- quite convincingly to me-- that it discourages children from trying new things if once they start something, they can't quit it if they end up not liking it. Meanwhile grown-ups hypocritically quit things all the time.

I wish I could lock Stephen and Renee up in a room with Dr. Laura. Or perhaps exile them to the Mall of America. I'm ashamed of them, deeply ashamed.

to cockatiel or not cockatiel?

Nine year-old Iris Uber Alles fell in love with a cockatiel at our local bird supply store, while waiting for our crabby old Amazon parrot to get her nails and wings trimmed. "I couldn't believe it, Mom-dude," she reported back to me. "A bird that LIKED me and let me touch her!"

This amiable cockatiel was the topic of conversation for weeks, with Iris constantly asking me to take her back to see the bird again. Today we did go back, but as I'd predicted, the sweet, friendly cockatiel wasn't there any more. We peered at some cute owl finches and tried to strike up a conversation with some African Grays, but there weren't any birds who struck us. Then, after having us carefully wash our hands, one of the store managers brought us out a tiny baby cockatiel wrapped in a towel. He was so little and fragile that the skin over his neck was see-through, and Iris cradled him carefully. I stroked his head and beak softly. He seemed too small for his feathers.

Some other children ventured over. "Is that real?" one asked me.

We were in love. I carefully gave the baby back after almost half an hour of our cuddling him. The manager told us that if we wanted him, we needed to buy him before Sunday, as he was sure to be spoken for by then. He would not be ready to go home for another six to eight weeks, but during that time, we could visit him frequently, and then he'd know us well when time came to go home.

Positives: I've been intrigued by cockatiels for decades, and Iris has been longing for a bird for a long time. Cockatiels are legendarily charming and easy-going. Also, you can buy 110 cockatiels for the price of one Amazon Gray.

Negatives: we already have five cats (yes, I got one I haven't formally told my blog about --- I didn't mean to adopt him, it's just that he, the last of the 2008 kitten season fosters, went up for adoption and NO ONE WOULD TAKE HIM. He rotted down at the San Francisco pound for a couple of months, because no one particularly wanted a nondescript short-haired black cat) and one crabby old parrot who only likes the Sober Husband. An Amazon parrot, like cranky Zoe, is big enough and powerful enough to more than defend herself against a cat (our cats don't even make a move against her), but a fragile cockatiel would need to be scrupulously chaperoned.

Update: It would appear that we won't be adding a cockatiel to the household just yet. Iris didn't push very hard.

no, actually

Today at the grocery store I ran into another third grade mother from the children's elite private school. In the checkout line, she breezily asked, "Is it true that you own a tattoo store?"

I was a bit taken aback. It turns out there is a rumor circulating around the third grade that I own a tattoo parlor. This mother said, "When I heard it, I thought, 'Oh, I guess that adds diversity.'" (There is always an ongoing self-flagellation at our school over our diversity, or lack thereof. The quintessential family from our school would consist of a hedge fund manager, his size zero, bleached blonde trophy wife, and their adorable children with either old-fashioned names or last names for first names).

"Actually, I was a litigator," I said. "No diversity there."