another entry in the "this is going to come up in therapy" bad parenting files

So I've had a problem for a couple of years, which is that my Iris uber Alles, currently in the fourth grade, is scarily advanced academically and bored and underchallenged most of the time by her schoolwork. When Lola began school, she was also ahead of grade level, to the point where it seemed ludicrous. Last year when I went by the kindergarten, I would see some perfectly written, perfectly spelled, punctuated paper hanging up amongst all the regular kindergarten work. Amidst all the "i lov mi dg" sort of things, there would be something by Lola, saying "I wish everyone was a vegetarian" or "I would not like 100 Irises."

It is so tedious when parents of smart kids go on and on about how smart their children are, and I'll spare you. I hate hearing that kind of self-serving bragging, too. But the children's lack of challenges and boredom at their elite private school (I learned today that one of the gubernatorial candidates sends her child to this school) is currently my top problem as a parent. Iris has lost her natural curiosity and love for mathematics; Lola is upset with the sight words she is supposed to be learning (this is a child whose sight words include "crescent" and "vegan", and she's being sent home flashcards with "the" and "to" on them).

Iris's teachers do try to give her extra challenges, but there is so much they can individuate the work for a particular child. Each child in the classroom has parents who are paying top dollar for that child to get special attention, and there is so much a teacher can do for Iris (even when, as last year, she really was the teachers' special darling) as she needs to also be meeting the needs of all the other people's little angels.

As part of my dealing with this situation, I went down to tour a school for the gifted down the peninsula. Many people thought I was insane for even looking at this school, and I had a lot of qualms. I had met some parents from this school before who were pretty hellish, and I hated the idea of labeling my children as "gifted." I'd done some research on gifted children, and it seems pretty clear putting that label on them can have some terrible consequences later in life. I was disarmed when I said this to the admissions director, who told me that she'd had some issues with the label as well. And then I toured the middle school, and I fell madly in love. In one room, they were studying the Holocaust. In the next, Japanese. In another room, they were studying chocolate, and this struck me as the most fascinating. The children were looking at the packaging and asking, "What is the company trying to tell us with this wrapper?" They were looking at the history, geography, and agriculture behind the chocolate. They were considering the social justice aspect: they remarked to the touring parents that the cacao bean pickers were horribly underpaid but that some chocolate growers are now paying a fair wage. It wasn't just the workers' point of view that concerned them, though; they had also watched a videotape of an entrepreneur explaining how difficult it is to start a chocolate company. And finally, they were eating a lot of chocolate. I was enthralled. Also, the parent volunteers accompanying the tour were all delightfully normal and friendly. I felt besotted with the school.

Of course this school is significantly more expensive than the children's current school, and of course I am determined to apply for them. And here we enter the annals of crappy parenting: this school screens its applicants with an IQ test. Children must have an IQ of at least 130 to be considered for admission. I have signed my children up for IQ testing next month. My nightmare is that one tests over 130 and one falls short (I shared that fear with my friend Joyce, who told me how funny it was that she and her brother had exactly the same IQ, so coincidental!, and then she realized that obviously her mother must have been lying about that to spare one's feelings and to diminish sibling rivalry. Joyce resolved on the spot, laughing, to call her mother about the IQs).

What if one of them has a bad day? I don't think I myself would score 130 or better. It seems ridiculous to have a big decision riding upon the outcome of a two hour test (I note that scoring 130+ only gets them the right to complete the application process; it is no guarantee of a space in the school). I feel very queasy about this whole IQ test thing, but yet I have signed them up for it, and they are eager to go. I would have just called it "meeting with a teacher" or something, but the Sober Husband, believing in full disclosure, spelled it all out in vivid detail. "And if you fail, that means for the rest of your life.." he launched merrily, and I cut him off sharply before he could finish his thought. "Don't talk to them that way!"

Many a person has suggested to me that I solve my problem by home schooling, but that is no solution, in my opinion. If I were to home school those children, they would major in computer games and minor in sibling rivalry. Also, they have friends and really enjoy spending time with other children out of the home. I just need them to get more challenging work and try not to create too long a list of Things They Will Need To Discuss In Therapy.

but still pretty stupid

Since I finally went to the hospital, I've been on narcotics. This is highly satisfactory to me; it takes my quasi-unbearable headache and brings it down from being the only thing going on in my life to background noise. I can read (although I feel too stupid to read a new book; I'm rereading old books I love, which is a much better pastime when you are sick). I can play a little Warcraft with the sound down or off. But the medications don't exactly bolster my IQ. Yesterday I couldn't manage how to put my pearl nose screw back in (I took it out for the cat scan). After some ineffectual jabbing with it, I decided to leave the problem for another day.

Meanwhile, the husband is talking to me as though I had a functioning brain. I pointed out to him a message I got with a doctor recommendation, and he starts haranguing me about what is my meaning. "Why are you presenting me with this information?" Umm, maybe because you spent a whole day allegedly trying to find a new doctor for me? At one point, when I was half-asleep, he snapped the voter information brochure at me quite firmly. "There's an election coming up, and I don't know anything about it." He affixed me with a bit of a glare. (In the division of marital duties, it is my job to research all elections and provide a suggested How To Vote guide).

I feel a little more at home conversing with Ray Charles, my weird little cat. He gives forth with a long and whiny mmmmmmmmmrrrrrrrrooow, and I say, "Baby!" We go back and forth like that for some time: mmmmrrow "Baby!" meeeeeeowwwww "Baby!: mmmmmmyowwww "Baby!"

Meanwhile everyone in the family was very well impressed by all the lectures we received about how I should have been taken to the hospital sooner. As a result, everyone is continually asking me all the time if I need to go to the hospital. Especially if I make the mistake of complaining abut the pain, we're bound for a big round of "Are You Sure You Don't Want to Go To The Hospital?" It's much easier just to stay with Ray Charles. Mmmmrrrrrrrroooow. "Baby!"

not quite as much of an idiot as I was all week

Yesterday, after spending hours vomiting in pain, I threw my antique cowbell across the room to attract the Sober Husband's attention. When he came within reach, I grasped his arm and said, "Take me to the hospital. NOW."

We stayed at the UCSF emergency room from the early evening until about 2 A.M. It was the best night within memory. I got a CAT scan, which showed no anomalies, and prescriptions for compazine, vicodin, and industrial strength ibuprofen. I felt a little bit better as each hour went by, as I was plugged into an IV and not just sugar water was pouring into my veins; my IV was heavily spiked with narcotics. I went in with a pain level of 10 out of 10 (like giving birth naturally to 9 pound Lola) and came out with a pain level of 4 out of 10 (like the time I had a bicycle accident and broke a couple of bones).

The nurses were all very kind and warm and kept lecturing me over and over again to go to the hospital, to go to the hospital, to go to the hospital IMMEDIATELY the next time. I lectured the Sober Husband as well later. "Next time make me go to the hospital! Right away!"

At the hospital the nurses gave Iris and Lola unending cups of juice and a couple of popsicles apiece. Iris's only disappointment was that she wasn't able to go to my cat scan and experiment with bits of metal. Since they didn't get to bed until about 2 AM, they were allowed to stay home from school today and rest. Their main source of amusement has been that when their sickly mother dozes on the couch, her cat, Ray Charles, keeps pressing his butt firmly on the side of her face.

a week of hell

Last week, on Tuesday morning, a powerful headache took control of me, and it hasn't gone away. Yesterday I spent much of the day vomiting from pain. I haven't left my house since last Friday, and then I felt too unwell from the pain to drive.

It's another bout of aseptic meningitis. I haven't had one since 1996, and I thought it was over for good. I have a rare syndrome where I have repeated episodes of aseptic meningitis. A neurologist once confided in me he was going to write a medical journal article about me, saying he thought I was setting a record for this syndrome of Most Meningitises Ever, yay me; I wonder if he ever did. For the worst episode, I was hospitalized for a week. During other episodes, I was hospitalized for a night. This time, however, I have no doctor, and so I'm getting through the whole thing with only over-the-counter generic Motrin. In the wee hours of Monday, I actually felt like killing myself to put myself out of my own misery, but my head hurt too badly for me to actually do anything involving leaving my bed (and every time I changed positions, the pain was agonizing).

Today I still feel like hell; it particularly hurts behind my eyeballs, but compared to yesterday, I seem to be on the mend. The Sober Husband pulled my "meningitis FAQ" out of the files (a list of all the times I had meningitis, all the places I was hospitalized, etc..) and was working the phones today to try to get me in with a doctor, with no luck. (I tried out one doctor already since my dear Dr. Scott moved to Kaiser Oakland, but I don't want to see him again, and a friend's recommendation isn't accepting new patients, etc.., etc..).

In the middle of this, I had to pull it together for Lola's birthday party. As soon as the last guest left, I immediately went back to bed, skipping dinner. Lola's party went perfectly, and I don't think anyone noticed me continually chugging Motrins. That was difficult, but not the hardest thing I've done during these episodes.

I actually passed the California State Bar at the end of a meningitis episode. I got special permission from the Bar to bring my prescription painkillers to the bar exam (I had a doctor back then to write me prescriptions). I was doped to the gills on painkillers, but I squeaked through. I wanted to postpone it, assuming I wouldn't pass with all the painkillers and the, you know, actual pain, which doesn't help one's thinking, but the law firm I was joining took a dim view of that. I was told that it would look better for me to fail the bar than to fail to take the bar, which would make me look like a flake, whatever medical excuse I had.

If you live in San Francisco and have a competent physician, please leave me a recommendation in the comments. I promise I will be more entertaining to you as soon as this awful fucking headache goes away.

crazy cat lady behavior: genetic?

My mother spoke to Iris on the phone today and asked her, "How many cats do you have now?"

"Five."

My mother was not impressed. "I have that many just sitting by me!"

gone but not forgotten

I like to screen phone calls in general, thus avoiding many an annoyance, but the other day, for no reason, the phone was ringing off the hook. Out of laziness, I took to carrying a cordless phone around with me and actually answering the phone, so I wouldn't have to trot upstairs and turn off the answering machine each time I screened a call. Thus I was taken off guard when John, the new owner of my faithless ex-cat, Bob Marley, called.

"I wanted to talk to you about Bob's knee," said John. "His knee is bothering him, and I wanted to know if you know a feline joint specialist."

John went on and on and on, describing Bob's knee issues. Evidently Bob dislikes having his knee palpated but when it is manipulated in various ways, it appears not to hurt him. It all sounded confusing, and I was recoiling silently in horror at the anticipated cost of it all.

I observed to John that Bob must be at least 18 years old and has been morbidly obese for at least ten of those years and so some wear and tear on the old joints must be expected. John went into denial, asserting that Bob couldn't possibly be that old and wasn't that fat. I could relate to John's defensiveness: I used to be humiliated when Bob lived with me, as people used to walk by and say, "Oh my, that cat is going to have kittens at any minute." "Actually, he's been neutered," I'd say defensively. You just can't control the weight of a feline bon vivant, as there are no end of neighbors keeping canned food about for his delectation when he visits.

During this long, long phone call, I was determined not to commit to paying for a joint specialist for a cat who hasn't lived with me in years. Coldblooded as that may be, I've moved on; I have my own newer cats to pay for.

We danced around the topic gingerly, one determined not to pay and the other one hinting but not asking out right, and then John took an unexpected tack which seemed rather passive aggressive to me. He urged me to give him a bill for my expenses for the years I'd had Bob, because he was now having all the enjoyment of Bob. "Oh, no, no," I demurred. "But you had his adoption fee," pressed John. "Send me a bill!" I think I was supposed to say, "Oh, no, YOU send ME a bill", but I just got off the phone, urging John to give Bob a hug for me. "Oh, I will," said John a bit smugly. "We enjoy him so much over here."

on our way home

Leaving school today after getting Lola, I drove slowly by a big group of tiny-looking girls. "Do you think they're in second grade?" I asked.

Six year-old Lola was exasperated. "I'm not a fortuneteller, Momdude!" She sighed.

Iris, whom we claimed later, was more cooperative. After we picked up the Sober Husband, I saw Bruce Brugmann, editor of "The Bay Guardian", pacing on the sidewalk. I got Iris to shout out the window, "DOWN WITH PG&E!" at him, in homage to his decades-long, quixotic attempt to overthrow our local utility.

"Why did you do that, Iris?" asked the Sober Husband.

"Momdude told me to."

"If your mother told you to jump off..." he started, but his voice trailed off.

anonymous notes

The other day a friend of mine confided in me that she'd sent an anonymous note. There's a yoga studio near her, which has a big sign posted saying, "Unattended Children Will Be Given Espresso And Puppies." That sign irks her, and I understand. The same sign was prominently posted at the veterinary opthalmologist down the Peninsula where I took my blind kittens, Helen Keller and Ray Charles, and it always pissed me off. I sometimes had to take Iris and Lola along with me on these appointments, and they were always perfectly behaved, but the sign made me feel like we were deeply unwelcome and perhaps even hated. I never saw a problem with a child at that vet's office, but inadequately restrained dogs were a big problem for me and Helen Keller on several of our visits there.

My friend actually likes yoga and this studio is conveniently located for her, but she won't patronize it due to the sign. After some time of being irked by that sign when she passed by, she left an anonymous note telling the yoga studio that the sign offended her, a parent, and that she wasn't patronizing them as a result. (It occurs to me that I may go by there and send Iris and Lola in to say, "I am unattended. May I have an espresso, please?" Then they can either bring the espressos to me, their perpetually caffeine-seeking mother, or they can take satisfaction in having made a point about the vapidity of the sign).

Anyhow, my friend made the mistake of posting on a parenting board about this note, and she was ripped up one side and down the other by fellow parents who found that sign hilarious and thought my friend was out of line. I was incredulous. "That's a mass produced sign. It's not even original! They think that's witty?"

Sometimes great anonymous notes pay off. In college my roommate had a crush on a tall, skinny guy who was in our Tolstoy seminar. He grew a rather unappealing mustache, and she fired off an anonymous letter. The letter was sort of a mixed bag of cattiness and sweetness; I think it asked him who he was trying to impress with that mustache and made some rather insulting analogies to the mustache, but it did also convey some fascination with him in his shaven state. The next time our class met, the mustache was gone, and the skinny guy looked kind of nervous. My roommate was proud. The yoga studio may be more set in its ways and less open to anonymous criticism than a college undergraduate, however.

six great books, after a Warcraft rant

I'm still reading a lot. I'm tired of playing my level 80 paladin on Warcraft; I'm not geared well enough to do heroic raids, and it turns out I frigging hate running level 80 dungeons too much to get well-geared as an elite, top-of-the-server player. Too much squabbling and bossiness. "Hassen [a Warcraft nickname], I need you to do this." "Hassen, when I say something, I need you to do it IMMEDIATELY." "One of the pallies doesn't have 'pally power' set on interactive! Hass, you really need to change that." (No matter what snotty random Warcraft players want, if I set anything to allow random other Warcraft users to have any access to my computer whatsoever, my geeky husband will be all over me in a New York minute for Egregious Stupidity On The Internet).

Here's the truth: if I wanted to get micromanaged, I would go get a paying job. If I am going to put up with that much attitude, there had better be something in it for me. And that's the crux of the matter: I never get anything worth my while from these runs. Instead, I end up losing money having to repair my armor (and although my gear isn't good enough for WoW snobs, it is good enough to be very, very expensive to repair). I've been working on a rogue character, but it turns out that the rogue class is harder to play than it looks. Everyone complains, myself included, that rogues are overpowered and it's sickening how they can just murder you so easily, sneaking up on you while they're invisible and stabbing you in the back, but it turns out that it's not as easy to be a master assassin as the other players make it look. To speak in the lingo of the game, I never seem to have enough energy or combo points for finishing moves. It may indeed be that I suck at Warcraft, my chosen game, sad to say. Anyhow, I've been reading, and I've had some great books on my plate lately, and here are some reviews for the few brave readers who struggled through that Warcraft rant:

"Roux Morgue"(2008) by Claire M. Johnson (an occasional commenter here on this blog!): This is the second in a series about a spirited but unlucky hard-drinking pastry chef, following Ms. Johnson's award-winning debut, "Beat Until Stiff." I had put off reading "Roux Morgue" because usually an author writing a series has a sophomore slump. I don't know what causes it, but it's ubiquitous, affecting talented authors as diverse as Patrick O'Brien and Lisa Lutz. However, it certainly didn't happen with Claire M. Johnson. Instead, she got better. "Beat Until Stiff" was very good, but "Roux Morgue" is great. I hated to put it down and actually attempted to read it while baking a chocolate cake. I got a little buttercream on the pages, which I had to wipe off like a slob. Somehow that seemed fitting, though.

"Perfect Life" (2009) by Jessica Shattuck: a driven pharmaceuticals executive with an infertile husband gets her old Harvard boyfriend to donate sperm to her and sign away all his rights. He shows up back in Boston at the baby's christening, though, causing emotional havoc. This is a very clever book capturing the way people think and feel about parenting and careers at this point in time.

"Blame" (2009) by Michelle Huneven: a funny, brilliant, alcoholic history professor wakes up in jail with a terrible hangover, to find out that she's facing murder charges for running over two people. She blacked out and can't remember what happened. Moving and thought-provoking, this is a book that makes you ponder atonement, forgiveness, repentance, and fate.

"Panic Attack" (2009) by Jason Starr: a successful, happy psychologist wakes up in the night to discover two intruders. He shoots one to death, and after the shock subsides, he expects to be hailed as a hero. Instead he becomes infamous as a crazed vigilante... and someone starts leaving him anonymous, scary notes. I hated all of the characters in this book, but I was riveted. A true page-turner; I had trouble sleeping while I was reading it.

"When You Reach Me" (2009) by Rebecca Stead: Iris and I read this for a mother-daughter book club, and we were blown away. Miranda, a sixth grader and latchkey child in 1979 New York, gets a very weird anonymous note: "I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own. I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter." Her mother is preoccupied with getting on a game show, and her best friend isn't speaking to her, and how is she supposed to handle these bizarre and unsettling notes which she keeps finding? Brilliantly written, this young adult book is worth reading by grown-ups as well. It's on a number of shortlists for the Newbery Prize, and I expect it to become a classic.

"Breathers" (2008) by S.G. Browne: Andy comes to a few days after a horrible traffic accident as a mutilated zombie, and his mortified parents make him live in their basement, cringing during any interaction with him. Miserable, Andy seeks revenge by drinking his way steadily through his parents' magnificent wine collection, he starts some zombie activism, and he gets a crush on a glamorous goth zombie. A brilliant take on the zombie genre, replete with zombie sex scenes!

Read, people, read! When your beloved hobbies pall upon you, when you're afflicted by micromanagement: there's a world of literature out there ready to sooth and distract you.

extremely lame misadventures

Lately I've been fearing an early onset of Alzheimer's. Every day I have a set of setbacks for which there is no one to blame but myself. Backdrop: I'm recovering from a very thorough head cold and accompanying sinus infection, so I've been eschewing alcohol and instead resorting to the joys of napping, generic Theraflu, and the higher end Kleenex which is kinder to one's nostrils.

Tuesday: I was feeling proud of myself for arousing from my generic Theraflu haze and taking care of business. In the midst of running many errands, I realized, as I returned to my generic Volvo carrying a bag of books and three heavy bags of groceries, that my keys were missing. As I rooted vainly through my purse seeking my keys, endless streams of parking-place seekers pulled up, and one persistent man whose car was labeled "The Dent King" pushed vigorously for me to pay for him to fix my dent on the spot. Stressed over my inability to find my keys and my realization that my celphone battery was dead, I told the Dent King that I didn't want to fix my dent. He would not take no for an answer. Finally I hissed at him, "I like it. I like my dent" and finally he went away.

Keyless, phoneless, and weighed down with bags, I had scant time before I needed to pick Lola up at first grade. I hid my groceries in front of the car, tucked the books (presents for Lola's birthday) in my purse, and trotted over to the restaurant where I'd had lunch. I had three theories about my missing keys: (1) they fell out of my bag when I was rooting around for my lipstick and Kleenex, (2) I dropped them in the trunk when I was getting a receipt out to make a return, or (3) I had no fucking idea whatsoever how I'd managed to lose them. Pursuing theory number two, I darted into the Asqew Grill, but the manager couldn't go check on my keys without taking the order of the woman ahead of me, who had no clue what she wanted... and three other customers came in. I gave up and left crankily, realizing I had no time to spare before meeting Lola. I ran to the nearest bus stop and caught the #1 California out to Lola's school.

There I confided my state of fucked-uppedness to the office manager, who led me to the phone in the supply room. There I called my husband repeatedly, who did not answer his phone. (Folks, he screens calls from his wife. Can you believe it?).

I took Lola to a nearby cafe, filling her in on the sorry state of affairs. She was the picture of equanimity as she ate her Asiago bagel. "At least you have money," she pointed out.

We went back to pick up Iris, to find that one of the school's administrators was looking for me semi-frantically. "Your husband is going crazy trying to find you," she said. I was irked, because I'd left clear messages stating that I would be unreachable (due to the dead celphone) but that he should please just answer his phone and I'd call him when I could. I called him. Busy signal. I waited. I called again, to get a repentant husband who felt terrible about having screened out my calls but who wanted me to wait and let him call me back in nine minutes (yes, he said "nine minutes" of all things). I cut through that, saying we had no need to talk but that he should take a cab to Rigolo's (a restaurant the children adore, located near my poor old dented Volvo) whenever he could; I would wait there with the children for hours if necessary.

We took the bus to Rigolo's, an overcrowded bus driven by a speed maniac. A kind young teenager observed Lola's desperate attempts to stay on her feet and gave Lola her seat. (Such good manners the young can have!). At Rigolo's, I left the children at the table and ran out to the parking lot, just in time to observe a shifty-eyed woman about to appropriate my groceries. I darted up and grasped a bag firmly, which led to a debate between the two of us over who had the greater claim to the groceries. I prevailed and carried my three heavy bags of groceries, which I had honestly not expected to see again, over to Rigolo's, feeling like a winner for once in that awful day. There we sat, children eating grilled cheese sandwiches and fries, until the Sober Husband arrived. My keys were in the trunk. I didn't get a ticket. We drove home, and the Sober Husband made up for leaving work early by working in the garage.

Wednesday: I went downtown to run errands, and I realized that my beloved funky red watch was gone. Somehow it came off my wrist and was gone for good. I felt too depressed to do my last errand (going to MAC to get a replacement lipstick of the color "Sweetie", due to mine being mutilated by an anonymous child). My sinuses were aching and I felt depressed at losing my watch (and possibly my mind: what kind of a moron loses so many things?).

At school I found that Lola had lost her lunchbox (last week, she lost Iris's jacket which she had borrowed). I could have given her a hard time, but as I'd just lost my beloved watch, it was difficult to judge a six year-old for a lack of care and attention to her possessions. I lived the first four decades of my life losing my keys only once, but over the last few years, I've lost them several times. Clearly cognitively speaking, things are not improving.

I had decided to take my abstinence from alcohol while I was sick (I never feel like drinking either coffee or alcohol when ill) and extend it into a healing liver vacation (every year or two, I teetotal for a solid month to let my liver rest. I got this idea from an alcoholic doctor I used to booze with). However, checking my records I realized that I had a liver vacation just this past February. Why give the liver two full vacations in just one year, particularly when abstinence didn't seem to be helping? I picked up a bottle of cava and a bottle of Tommy's margarita mix (made from fresh limes and fresh agave nectar).

the wee hours between Wednesday and Thursday: I dreamed I was losing the little emerald nose screw which I've been sporting for some time, and I woke up but told myself, "Get back to sleep and deal with it in the daytime." When I woke up, my nose had no gem, and stripping my bed carefully led me to no finds. I felt again like a world class idiot. I am now losing things which are actually fastened to my head.

Later, to cheer myself up, I ran over to Haight Street and picked up a pearl nose screw, after admiring a number of diamond nose ornaments. The need for a trained professional to adjust the fit of this nose jewelry led to me being slightly late to pick up Lola, who was a bit judgmental but calmed down by the proffer of an Eloise book and an Asiago bagel.

And what will it be tomorrow? I fear. I was not always an idiot. Once I got a perfect score on the LSATs. Now, however, I'm reduced to being a bumbling foil for the children, losing things and locking myself out and with no one to blame but my poor old self.

the secret from the past

Iris enjoys visiting her old teachers and keeping up with them, and one in particular fascinates her. This teacher lived through the tumultuous sixties right here in San Francisco, "but she was a square," reports Iris incredulously, who herself feels cheated out of the sixties and loves to sport peace sign accessories and tie-dyed clothing.

"You would have never known it was the sixties to look at me," agrees the teacher.

However this teacher has hidden depths and told Iris and me, in a discussion about what the sixties were about, that she lived "briefly on a commune. How brief I won't tell you."

I suspect she regrets greatly having let this slip, because Iris is like a dog with a bone. "Can you believe she was in a commune? Why won't she tell me how long?"

"Maybe she was just there for a few hours before she freaked out and left."

"Maaaaaaybe.... Why won't she tell me?"

This isn't the first person I've met in the Bay Area who did something of a communal nature in the seventies or sixties which she doesn't care to discuss. I used to have a friend and colleague who let slip that she used to live in one of the More House sex communes but declined to discuss the matter any further. I realized my friend was embarrassed and let the matter slide, but Iris is unlikely to do that. She wrote a speech down to try to persuade her teacher to be forthcoming:

"If I wasn't nosy, I wouldn't know half of the things I know now. It's not immoral to want to know something, it's human nature.

It is your duty, especially as a teacher, as a human being, to fulfill my knowledge to the extent possible.

Since I was not there at that commune in the sixties or seventies, it is not possible for me to know this.

Every single person on the planet deserves a right to a fair education. No matter how you approach it, from opening a school in Africa like Oprah to telling a ten year-old a secret from your hidden past, you are still making a change.

Maybe you say it is wrong to take this any further, but I strive to disagree.

I ask you only one last time, how long were you in that commune?"

This speech got Iris nowhere with her teacher, although her mother roared with laughter at the line comparing opening a school in Africa to telling a ten year-old a secret. We'll see how what happens next, as "I lied when I said I would ask 'only one last time,'" Iris said sassily.

"the Iris MOMA"

Ten year-old Iris Uber Alles turned the master bedroom, with the assistance of little sister Lola, into "the Iris MOMA" yesterday after school. What this means is that any time the Sober Husband or I want to get into our own room, we have to pay fifty cents to the outside guard on the landing (Iris herself), get a ticket, and show that ticket to the inside guard (Piggles the parrot). Only then are we able to have access to our possessions or sit on our own bed, and at that point, this access includes watching performance art starring Lola, whose art seems to focus upon the naming of body parts and giggling. (I think many professional artists go through that same stage as well).

Yesterday the artists (the security guard having joined the performance artist in her piece) were breaking the Fourth Wall. The audience grew rather nervous as the principal artist took to brandishing a stick threateningly at audience members, and a marker was placed to serve as a proscenium of sorts and give the audience an illusion of a safe zone.

too cool for me

While leaving a snippy comment over at Arthur Kade's ever-inscrutable blog today to the effect that this supposedly world-class actor doesn't even have an iMDB page yet, I had an interesting thought:

the Sober Husband has both an iMDB page and an Erdos number. How many people have both those arcane and enviable achievements? (He also has a PhD, but most people with an Erdos number have those).

He's pretty effortless at achieving all around. He also achieved more in the art world than I, would-be artist, ever did: despite his never having taken an art class, looking down on art, and his feelings of a lack of creativity, he showed a piece in a curated art exhibit about the Art of Burning Man in San Francisco City Hall and a photograph of a robot he made once hung in a big museum in Chicago. Thank God he hates writing or he'd probably get a book deal without trying. I've got to cling to my cooking and writing abilities as the only areas in which I am clearly superior.

a new love

"I think I'm falling in love with noses!" six year-old Lola announced cheerily. "Who doesn't love noses??"

what I read on my vacation

So just before school started, we spent our traditional week at Camp Mather, San Francisco Rec & Parks' rustic cabins in the Sierras, a week with no internet for anyone, plenty of bike riding and swimming in the days, and, for me, lots of reading by the poolside. Here is how I spent much of my vacation, in the order read:

"The Last Detective" by Robert Crais (2003): why if this came out in 2003 was it in the "New Acquisitions" at the Noe Valley public library? I wish it had been shelved with the regular, old collection, because then it wouldn't caught my eye and I wouldn't have wasted my time with it. Dreary detective fiction... I think the characters of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are played out. Even Crais seems tired of Joe Pike; he crippled Pike physically and psychologically in this outing and didn't bother to tell us, the reader, that Pike is a vegan (maybe Pike took up eating meat and that was the beginning of his troubles?);

"All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" by Janelle Brown (2008): a thoroughly satisfying book about a woman whose high tech mogul husband files for divorce on the day of his IPO, running off with her best friend. She's consoled by her fucked-up daughters. This is what chick lit SHOULD be: intelligent and capturing an era. This introduced both of the themes I noticed in my reading: young, bright people running troubled magazines and a pair of siblings, one extremely academically gifted and the other not;

"Bad Things Happen" by Harry Dolan (2009): an intelligent murder story which I loved, loved, loved for the first half, but the book deteriorated towards the end, and I really just wanted it to be done. I notice this often with murder stories in particular: the author has a great concept and really works hard, polishing the prose, but then you get the feeling that the author became tired to death of writing the book and in a hurry to just get it finished. Another book featuring characters who put out a relatively unpopular magazine. I'll read Harry Dolan again and hope he can sustain the quality he reached in the first half of this book for an entire outing.

"The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell (2008): a breezy, bestselling history of the Puritans which irritated me no end. Ms. Vowell professes to be fascinated by the Puritans, and indeed she seems to have learned a lot of interesting things about them (e.g., I never knew Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, was exiled from Massachusetts in the middle of winter and had to do the colonial equivalent of couch-surfing with friendly Indians to survive). However, the book was very short and full of annoying writing, which seemed to be Ms. Vowell's attempt to insert her personality into every page rather than focus on the personalities of her subjects, who seemed much more interesting than Ms. Vowell herself. I particularly hate it when a book has more talking-about-what-it-will-talk-about than actual substance. A huge example of this was the fascinating subject of Anne Hutchinson, an early feminist figure excommunicated from Puritan Boston for holding wildly popular Bible studies at her home. Ms. Vowell kept saying she'd write about Mrs. Hutchinson, she would write about Mrs. Hutchinson, oh the spellbinding foofaraw of Mrs. Hutchinson's alleged apostasy which would come later in the book... but then in the event, there were scant few pages given to that riveting woman. Ms. Vowell gave almost as much space in the book to her nephew, a relatively boring young child whose insights on the Puritans were NOT worth recording for history. A few pages devoted to taking her nephew around a museum were agonizingly boring;

"I'm So Happy For You" by Lucinda Rosenfeld (2009): I had to read this new release after it got a rave review in the New Yorker, and it was a great summer read, breezy and witty. It's an intelligent story of a friendship between an editor at a struggling magazine (again with the magazines...somehow at this point in time, authors seem to feel that editing a magazine is what all intellectual characters must do in a novel) and her "Sex In The City"ish best frenemy. Clever and biting, this book was a fun read. I was a bit taken aback by the author's statement in an afterword that we were meant to love both characters equally, though. One of the characters was completely loathsome to me, absolutely heinously selfish;

"The Shotgun Rule" by Charlie Huston (2007): I'm in love with Charlie Huston's noir vampire series, the "Joe Pitt Casebooks", so I decided to check out his non-vampire works. This is a gritty story about troubled adolescents in a crappy small town in central California, and I didn't like it. I think I would have liked it if I were a guy and wanted to read about the kinds of trouble rural and suburban adolescent boys get into. It featured the second recurring theme in my reading: two siblings, where one is a great and strange genius and the other is ordinary.

"Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death" by Charlie Huston (2009): unlike "The Shotgun Rule", I LOVED this book. I never wanted it to end, and I wish I'd bought it, rather than borrowing it from the library. My faith in the non-Joe Pitt work of Mr. Huston was restored by this riveting book about a young Southern Californian fuck-up who ends up working for a crime clean-up team. I loved the way Huston doled out the backstory on the characters; he doesn't pander to the reader or spoonfeed you, and his hand with dialogue is amazing. Dark, witty, and engrossing.

"Waiting for the Apocalypse" by Veronica Chater (2009): a memoir of being raised by a rabidly Catholic father who thought that Vatican II meant the End Times. I do love a gripping tale of a fucked-up childhood, and I'm fascinated by nonfiction about religious extremism (this all plays into my upbringing in a born-again Christian family where faith healing and speaking in tongues were done around the house on a daily basis). I found this book fascinating at first, but towards the end I was skimming and sick of it. Worst part: pages of dialogue between Ms. Chater and her mentally retarded brother... Hint: if you can't sustain the interest of your mentally challenged, loving sibling, you won't sustain my interest, either. I did learn a lot about Vatican II, though, and the story of the family's move to rural Portugal and back was spell-binding.

"The Enthusiast" by Charlie Haas (2009): like "I'm So Happy For You", this was a brilliant new novel which didn't get a hardback deal but instead had to put out a first edition in paperback. Feh, publishers! This deserves a hardback! I loved this charming account of a bright, directionless young man who ends up dropping out of college to work on magazines (again with the magazines), obscure magazines directed at niche markets, like crochet enthusiasts and spelunkers. This book brought together both of the themes I saw running through my reading, working on troubled magazines AND an unbelievably brilliant sibling (not the protagonist) paired with a regular sibling. Very much worth reading, this was a book I didn't want to come to an end. Bonus: Mr. Haas's suggested reading group questions at the end, which included "Who brought this salad?" and "Is someone sitting here?" I wish I were as smart and witty as Charlie Haas.

"The Devil In Dover" by Lauri Lebo (2008): a nonfiction account of the Dover, Pennsylvania's born-again Christian school board's grapples with evolution and intelligent design. Ms. Lebo has a huge brain and a huge heart, and you see both on every page. She is a small-town journalist from small-town Pennsylvania who covered this as it unfolded, arguing incoherently with her editors and railing at the problems with modern journalism as she went. I'm calling this one a must-read for every American (and for every non-American who wonders what the hell is going on with those crazy Americans and their crazy "culture wars"). I want Ms. Lebo to keep writing important books and hope she finds another big subject in Pennsylvania to occupy her formidable mind (it doesn't seem like she's going to be leaving PA). I learned a lot about evolution and the "debate" over it (incidentally evolution was never taught in the public schools I attended. Never. Not for a second).

Read, read, read!

eavesdropping

Iris has taken up recreational eavesdropping in a big way. The other day the Sober Husband and I had a long conversation in the shower, which had always been the best place to talk openly, as the children are rather bath-averse, but when I opened the door, Iris said accusatorily, "I heard everything you said."

"What? I didn't even say anything bad! Did you hear the part where I said we should raise your allowance?"

"I heard it all," she said with a baleful glare.

Last night the husband and I were again talking when I suddenly raised my voice and said, "Iris, I hear you eavesdropping."

"How can you hear her eavesdropping?" the husband asked.

"She said, 'hush' to Lola."

Iris said stoutly, "I'd be stupid not to eavesdrop. I learn a lot of things." I asked her what the best thing was that she'd ever heard while eavesdropping, and she pondered. "Most interesting or best? Because most things I hear are not good."

sibling issues at midlife

Two weeks ago my mother called me and informed me that she had bladder cancer and had already had the surgery for it. That's how she is: whenever she's had a health crisis, she doesn't tell me until it's over. I told her tartly about twenty years ago to tell me when she goes INTO the hospital, not OUT of it, but evidently that is not going to change. I told her this time that if she tells me before the fact, I'm likely to send her something, but she was dismissive. She got roses from my father, and that's enough.

My mother did say that she was waiting to get the biopsy results analyzing her growth. The results were due to come while I'd be off with the Sober Husband and children on our annual trip to rustic Camp Mather in the Sierras, cut off from cellphone and internet coverage. I thought about her test results while we were at Camp Mather, and I worried.

When we got home, I checked my email and answering machine, but there were no messages from my mother about her test results. So I called her while I was cooking dinner. The news was great, which made me happy: her cancer was caught at an early stage, and she and her doctor have decided that chemo is not necessary. Instead, they'll take a wait-and-see approach. I promised that if there does come a need, I'll make myself available to go help out. Then my mother shared with me that she and my sister have big plans to go get matching tattoos next year to commemorate her coming through this.

Whaaat??

I'm the tattooed one. I have many tattoos. My mother and sister have none, and indeed my tattoos (expensive, carefully designed custom work with the exception of one beloved piece, which was taken from the wall art on the spur of the moment with my best friend from high school in a Middle-aged Girls Gone Wild moment) have been the source of a lot of family ridicule over the years. And my mother making special plans to do something with my sister, excluding me but telling me about it, is pretty much the theme of my whole childhood. My sister has always been the beloved child, the one to get the attention, money, resources, gifts, etc.... When I finally called my mother on that for the first time, in my twenties, she just said, "Well, I wasn't the favorite child, either."

I can't believe that I'm middle-aged and still having sibling rivalry. I told my mother how much that matching tattoo idea hurt my feelings, and she was defensive.

Decades ago I was reading some sociological work and came across the phrase "pathological favoritism." I felt comforted, that there was a phrase for the horrible thing which had been the poison seeping through my childhood. I clung to that phrase. Pathological favoritism seems to run through both sides of my family, and my mother has been pretty vocal in denouncing and discussing one instance of it, but yet still carrying it out in our own nuclear family. The favoritism is a topic I discuss with my newly acquired psychiatrist. "How did you come out of it so strong?" he muses. I shared Dr. Michael Thompson's observation with him that sometimes a child who is disliked by the parents grows up to be extremely independent and strong, with Eleanor Roosevelt a key example.

My strongest resolution as a parent has been to raise my children without a discernible favorite. This particular inherited piece of dysfunction ends with me. My husband was the favorite child in his own family, but he agrees that while it worked out well for him, he could see it damaged his brother. So far we seem to be succeeding, as both Iris and Lola accuse us on a regular basis of paying more attention to the other (my personal favorite parenting moment, sigh, is when both of them accuse us simultaneously of favoring the other).

Weeks ago, long before my mother's matching tattoo came up, I was lying on the couch playing Warcraft, and I said out loud, "I have a favorite now." Iris and Lola both froze up. They turned to me, as did the Sober Husband, in silence. "Ray Charles is my favorite cat," I said. "I have a favorite now." Iris and Lola let their breath out and relaxed.

just not understanding

I'm used to being out of step with mainstream America, and often I can see merit in both sides of an issue. However, I'm just flabbergasted by the vehemence and venom being spouted off in the current health reform debate.

Riddle me this: why are public schools good (no one bitches about "socialized education") but public doctors are evil tools of Satan who will bring us all down to hell?

Lots of people scream that they can't trust the government with their healthcare. So we can trust our employers instead? Also, don't we trust the government with our drinking water, roads, police, fire departments, libraries, prisons, etc.., etc...? Why is it okay to entrust those things to the government but not health insurance?

I am lucky to have crappy health insurance through my husband. Crappy health insurance is better than no health insurance at all, which is what I would have on my own (we have applied for private health insurance, and a health insurance broker could not find a single company willing to insure me. I have many friends who have had the same experience).

However, even though I feel lucky to be insured at all, I still wrestle with the occasional desire to burn down my insurance company's headquarters. My crappy health insurance recently sent me a letter asking me to change my antidepressant to a generic one. Going off antidepressants is a bad idea for a person who has struggled with depression since age 13, but switching to a generic sounded okay to me. So I discussed it with my psychiatrist, who told me that there was no true generic alternative for my medication and that the medication my insurer wants me to go on is less effective and has more side effects (he explained this on a biochemical level which went over my head a bit), but yes, the other medicine costs sixty cents a pill, whereas my old medication costs three dollars a pill. He wrote me a prescription to try the crappier, cheaper meds, and I took that to my pharmacy, only to be informed that my insurance company, who wrote to me and asked me to switch to this inferior product, was charging me a $153.00 copay. How on earth did my share of a prescription which should cost $18 for a month's worth end up being $153?

Another cute thing my insurance company did lately was to refuse to pay a cent for my mammogram. My doctor nagged me for years to get one, and I finally gave in (she whipped the test requisition form at me quite firmly), and then it turns out that I must pay quite handsomely for the privilege of having had the mammogram. According to my insurance company, mammograms are whimsical, unnecessary things unless you already have a lump. Since I didn't have a lump, I had to pay every penny of my mammogram's mighty, mighty bill. I was under the impression that mammograms served an important preventive function in society and that they were supposed to find the tiny lumps before they grew large enough that you could feel them, but that must just be me. Silly me.

I posted a note on my Facebook status about my $153 copay, and that made old friends of mine from high school froth at the mouth. Within minutes people were screaming that I should just pay my fair share and that anyone who wants socialized medicine is an idiot who is threatening our American way of life, only morons think there's anything wrong with our current system, etc.., etc..

It is mindboggling how in America we pay more per capita than any other country for health insurance yet overall get less health care and are less healthy, but yet so many people defend it so rigorously. It's also mindboggling how many of those vehement anti-socialized medicine people are on Medicare themselves, which IS socialized medicine.

My friend Epiphany (an occasional commenter here) shared with me a brilliant article which sums up the health care reform situation in remarkably few, well-chosen words: Here Are Our Healthcare Choices. Another must read comes from Dr. Atul Gawande, who traveled to the city in the U.S. which spends the very most on health care and wrote about it for the New Yorker. President Obama asked everyone in his administration to read Dr. Gawande's article, and the Sober Husband nagged me to read it for weeks. When I did read it, finishing it up in the waiting room of the pediatric dentist, I found it highly edifying, and I passed it along on the spot to the children's dentist, who, as it turns out, has strong feelings about getting healthcare for all. Read it for yourselves online.

geniuses and those who sadly fail to make the grade

The Sober Husband made an appointment to take the laptop known around the house as "the Warcraft machine" down to the Apple store's "Genius Bar" to see about getting the fan replaced. The children are huge fans of the Apple store in general and of the "Genius Bar" in particular, and so they were very excited about this and got up early for a Sunday so they could go along. "We'll see a genius!" they said.

I tried to explain that just because the Apple store puts up a sign saying "Genius Bar" and hires young people to work there does not mean those workers are actually geniuses. The children scoffed and suggested that the Sober Husband and I are just jealous because we ourselves are not geniuses.

"You aren't smart enough to have a cool job!" jabbed six year-old Lola at her father.

"Did you hear that?" I asked him. "Being vice president for research and development at Doggy-o is not as cool a job as working at the Genius Bar at the Apple store."

"THAT'S RIGHT!" shouted Lola smugly.

Maybe if I made him a "Genius" sign for his workplace, he could win the respect of his small children (and if I want that respect, I should change the name of this blog to "the Drunken Genius").

Iris has answers!

Ages ago we here at the Drunken Housewife did Ask The Lola, where Lola answered a variety of questions. One satisfied customer raves, "I actually asked Lola a question last time around and took her advice! I was trying to decide whether to get a large dog or a purse dog. Lola advised large and I then acquired, from a German Shepherd rescue organization....a Belgian Tervuren. Since she came to live with me, she has foiled two prowlers at my home. Thanks Lola!" Ever since we ran Ask Lola, older sister Iris uber Alles has been consumed with rage, and as a result, Ask Iris had to occur. Iris has a lot to live up to, little sister Lola having actually foiled crime with her guest column. Let's see how she does:

2 AmSomewhere asks: Q1: You know, this whole "dominion over everything" role probably exacts a great toll upon you. Have you considered shifting the scope of your power base to something less overwhelming, or at least rebranding away from the "über Alles" image to something a bit kinder and gentler?

No. I am powerful so my name has to be. I am ruler of everyone, and they should look up to me.

Q2: How was the deity status of Frowsty established? Is there a mythos behind the mightiness?

He loves being powerful. When he was small and just a puffball, he acted like he was king. and he was. He even claimed his throne, which is on top of the tv. He still sits there.

Snowqueen said,"Iris, I would like to know what is the thing you find most puzzling about grown ups?"

They do not appreciate tv. even cats like to sit and stare. I see them do it all the time. especially at the simpsons. Adults say that tv makes you stupid. I have never heard a more absurd thing.

Laggin asked,"Does your nickname have anything to do with the Dead Kennedys?"

Maybe. A long time ago, I wanted to have a nickname like daddude does. and so we had a contest. Silliyak came up with Iris Uber Alles, and it won. I didn't come up with it.

Davi inquired, "I am currently locked in an epic battle with the villain Maleficent, in the game Kingdom Hearts, and I've already been KO'd once. What battle tactic should I employ to ensure victory for myself and my comrades, Goofy and Donald??"

KILL EVERYTHING. As you must know, We love world of warcraft. and in warcraft at least, you have to kill! I have died so many times because I hesitated. I tried to just walk around them and hide. That was a very wrong thing to do.

NonymousGoatsePants said, "Hey Iris! How long do you think it would take for you to be good enough at WoW to beat Mom-dude? Think you could do it in a month? Two months? Or, are you not good enough... Let us know!

Ok, dude. We have been playing warcraft since the dawn of time. meaning a couple years ago. I have never beated her. But according to tv, nothing is impossible except for dinosaurs.

Transient Me said, Dear Iris, If somebody gave you a million dollars, what would you spend it on?"

More money. I would create a Ponzi scheme, and I would sell soap.

Summer asked, "What are your feelings on bugs?"

Ohhh, I hate them all. except bees. many people hate bees. But they are so small and fuzzy. But I hate mosquitoes so much! Why can't they just all die. I also like spiders, but only the ones that dance.

Silliyak inquired, "What is your policy on the treatment of peons?"

Well, they are like feet. more like shoes. Sometimes they are stupid, and you have to move them yourself. Sometimes they give you blisters. You need to order them around. "Okay right foot, mush! Left foot now! Mush!"

Coyote Blue said, "Iris, should I keep growing my hair out or cut it?"

Keep growing it out until you get lice and somebody says, "Cut it! Cut it now!"

Kim said, "Iris, how should I keep my kids from bickering so much? And should I intervene or let them work it out?"

Well, You should intervene just so much that they feel threatened. then they will be scared and forget everything. then you make pie, so they forget about being threatened. Then everyone eats pie and is happy.

Debbie said, "I want to make my little sister as miserable as possible. I am 58 and she is 51. What do you think I should do?"

First, wait until her birthday. Then make her a pie. then say, the pie is not for you. then she will say, "it is my birthday." then, you must say, "Oh, right. here is a card."
Then you hand her a very ripped piece of paper that says, "you are old." Then, you cut a piece of pie. then you pick it up, run around the room shouting pie pie pie! then she will feel awkward. then, you throw the pie in her face.

Julep said, "Hey Iris, I'm getting married in December and I'm trying to figure out what I will give my guests as favors. I think I'll give the grown-ups wine or some other kind of alcohol, but there will be a lot of kids there too. All ages from 2 up to 19. I need to figure out what to give the kids (since I can't give them alcohol). I was thinking about a mug full of chocolates or something, but I thought maybe you would have a better idea. Is there some kind of candy you think all those ages would like? Or something else entirely? I need specifics, I have no idea what to do!"

Chocolate coins. Kids love chocolate, they also love money chocolate coins combine them both. then, maybe there should be a little bowl of assorted candies. You let them spend the money on candy. 1 coin for two candies. then, you get the chocolate coins they spent, and give them back to the kids evenly. I wish I went to a wedding with that.

Also, I would like to say, since nobody asked the question, you need to always assume threats are hollow. with the exceptions of; death threats, threats from your mother, and, death threats from your mother.

you can also ask more questions by commenting on this post. I will answer them!

And, I will give you some spare advice; follow my advice.

GOOD BYE!

P.S. I am supposed to tell you that Lucy had a question. I guess I will answer it. here it is.

Lucy said; My cat keeps meowing at me. Should I take it to Wag hotels or should I say that I am very stressed out with my sister, she should be ashamed. Ray Charles should be ashamed for meowing at me A LOT for ten weeks, but only a little. I have a little hex bug named rob champ. and from all this, I need a stress monitor. Who do you suggest?

I suggest the tv. Thats my final answer. Also, that's my hex bug! and that's not his name!!! He looks like his;



And there you have it: the wit and wisdom of nine year-old Iris uber Alles. Ask more questions in the comments if you dare.

sibling rivalry is running high

For days six year-old Lola has been stalking around dramatically shouting, "Iris has been stressing me out FOR TEN WEEKS!"

Today she said vehemently, "I won't be happy until Iris is dead...and I'm not going to her funeral."

no internet, no television, just suckage

Our internet connection has been really crappy lately, and I shamed my tech god husband, saying, "If your coworkers only knew how bad my internet connection was, they would ridicule you so much" and other aspersions against his tech godliness (my shrink reminded me of the old adage about the cobbler's children going shoeless). I threatened to grab a credit card and order up cable, and the husband instead worked at upgrading our DSL.

As part of this effort, the wretched local phone company came out last Wednesday to upgrade our physical phone line (they oh-so-helpfully gave us an 8 am to 8 p.m. window of when they might stop by. This was exceedingly helpful. The children, who otherwise are thrilled to spend a day at home in their underpants, were freaking out with cabin fever by 11 a.m.). The ISP sent a man out on Friday to install a new modem.

After the ISP representative left, I was unable to access the internet at all, and on top of that, he broke the jack and outlet where our cordless phones and answering machine were plugged in (our over-a-century-old home only has one spot, in the children's bedroom, where there is an outlet anywhere near a phoneline, and that one spot was wrecked). I was bitter. I'd even given the internet guy a cup of coffee with real cream. I didn't exactly want to kill him, but I wouldn't have minded stabbing him lightly a few times.

After the Sober Husband came home from his high prestige position as a sparkling gem in Silicon Valley's diadem, he managed over the weekend to get the answering machine and cordless phones back up (after a failed interim attempt where they lived on the floor in the kitchen, which I rejected vociferously). He couldn't get the internet to work, however. It now cuts out for roughly 50 seconds out of every two minutes. The husband has created a computer script to document this and is using my laptop to monitor it, so if I wish to check my email, I need to crouch on the floor in the children's room and hope I can achieve my email-checking between outages. I have resorted to "borrowing" a neighbor's unprotected wifi network, but I don't feel obnoxious enough to play Warcraft on that network.

As we don't have cable, television is usually watched via Hulu.com, and it's been impossible lately. The children are cranky and unconsolable in the evenings, predictably uncomforted by their parents' remarks about how in olden times, there was no television.

Personally, bereft of Warcraft, I've been reading too much. I'm a powerful speedreader even when I don't want to be, and I'm mowing through all the reading material on hand. Sadly I hit a bad patch of several unsatisfying books over the weekend. Lola, who takes after her mother in this regard, finished up her library books and got rather crabby. "What am I supposed to be reading! I read 17 chapters already today!" To put the icing o the cake of crappiness, some of those 17 chapters involved a hammerhead shark, reigniting Lola's shark phobias. For the last three nights, sometime in the middle of the night poor, wretched old Mommy has had to go in and hold both of Lola's hands (an unheld hand could be caught by a shark!) and talk Lola down. The Sober Husband attempted to use logic and humor to defuse the hammerhead phobia, saying jocularly, "Why are you afraid to go to bed? Sharks could be in this room, too! Sharks could be anywhere!", resulting in a fit of hysteria and a cranky, internetless wife.

ask Iris

Aeons ago I solicited questions from the readers for Lola, who happily answered your questions and gave you life advice. Older sister Iris uber Alles never forgot or forgave this, and it's high time we did Ask The Iris. Please post your questions here, and Iris will be happy to dish out the dirt or direct you in your dilemmas.

a swan and a fart

The Sober Husband always wants to drive (which incidentally is not a reflection of my alcohol appreciation; I never drive drunk). He's a very slow, poky driver who comes to stops at times for no apparent reason and who, until recently, was given to texting a lot on his iPhone while driving. I can be driven to madness while riding shotgun (the trip to insanity is shortened by the squabbling emanating from the backseat). Today he was insisting on driving and wanting me to look at his iPhone to tell him how to go, despite the fact that I didn't want to look at the damn iPhone because I knew exactly where we were going and if I were driving, I could just head there expeditiously. I voiced that opinion and said, "Why do you always have to drive? I'm a great driver! I drive like a swan! Graceful and quick!"

"Well, I drive like a fish! Smooth and strong!"

"You do NOT drive like a fish! You do not drive 'smooth'!"

I appealed to the children, normally reasonable arbiters (in other words, usually siding with their mother on the driving question. They adore their father but have been known to say, "Oh, good, Mommy's driving" when their mother managed to grab the seat behind the wheel first). "What do I drive like?"

"Like a big wooden stick," said Lola judiciously. I had committed the Cardinal Sin of Litigators: I had asked a question when I hadn't been sure what answer I would get. Emboldened, he Sober Husband jumped in. "What do I drive like?"

"Like a fart!" shouted Iris uber Alles.

Later Lola reconsidered the "big wooden stick" judgment and opined that her dear mother "drives like vomit. But vomit is a GOOD driver."

not told

Six year-old Lola accosted me fiercely last night, her hands on her hips. "You never told ME you had a stress problem!"

keeping a list

Iris uber Alles remarked animatedly the other day, "I'm going to keep a list of everyone Momdude calls an idiot! There are so many!"

"Who did I call an idiot?"

Iris mused. "Hmmm.... Oh! Ray Charles[the cat, not the talented singer]! And lots of people driving!"

stirring drama

Iris and Lola are writing a play, which begins with Iris announcing, "Hello, I am an artist, and I would like a martini." I can't really follow the plot well, but at some point they break out into a rousing chorus of "Butts and alcohol! Butts and alcohol! Who doesn't love butts and alcohol!"

the importance of having good standards

Over burritos tonight I made some mention of maintaining my high standards, and nine year-old Iris uber Alles interjected passionately, "It's very important to have low standards! And then you won't be disappointed! If there's one thing I've learned in all my years, it's to have really low standards!"

"In all those long years?" I asked ironically.

"Yes," said Iris uber Alles with complete seriousness. "I have learned to have really low standards!"

a need

"Dad-dude, I know why you are so stressed all the time! It is because you don't have an enemy! Everyone needs to have a nemesis! The brain can't function well without someone to hate!" said nine year-old Iris uber Alles excitedly to her father. "You need an ENEMY!"

beautiful butterflies

"Momdude," said six year-old Lola, staring into my eyes and speaking with the intensity of Christopher Walken in the watch scene from "Pulp Fiction." "I forgot to tell you something. When we were at Dolores Park, I saw a flock of butterflies."

"Oh, that's nice, honey," I said abstractedly.

Lola grabbed my arm. "Now I am afraid of butterflies." She shuddered.

days of sloe gin and idiocy

On Friday I stopped off at a wine shop to pick up some inexpensive yet fabulous wine and beer, amongst running other errands with my complaining children. Among other distractions and irritations, Lola, who had been charged with carrying a loaf of fresh artisanal bread from the bakery, dropped the bread on the sidewalk after complaining bitterly about having to carry it, and Iris uber Alles fussed about being hot and tired. When we got home, I unpacked all our purchases and found that along with my bottle of wine and bottle of beer, there was a bottle of Plymouth Sloe Gin. I hadn't paid for it.

This caused a crise du conscience. I love Plymouth Sloe Gin (we went through two bottles of it last year in a sloe gin fizz craze), but I hadn't intended on buying a bottle. I really am trying to cut back on spending after the incredible extravagance of buying my baby parrot (who had her first word lately, "hello"; I am so proud). I initially decided to keep the sloe gin, figuring that multimillionaire and mayor Gavin Newsom could afford to give me a bottle of sloe gin (he's half owner of this particular store), plus I have a grudge against that store because they give some customers tastings but never offer me a sip of anything, even when I hold a bottle up and twist it about in my hands pointedly, but then I would be too ashamed to go there again, and it is conveniently located near Lola's dance lessons. I really wasn't raised to be a thief, even an accidental thief, so in the end I called the store and authorized them to charge the sloe gin to my credit card. They were thankful I'd called, having realized the sloe gin went astray.

The next day was a long-awaited, rare date night for the Sober Husband and me. I'd bought us tickets for "Jack Goes Boating" at the Aurora Theatre, a play which had great reviews (indeed Philip Seymour Hoffman, who originated the role of Jack in New York, is turning it into a movie which should come out in 2011). As I was getting ready, the Sober Husband asked me what time the play was. "Eight, I think," I said, wriggling into my fishnets. He wasn't satisfied by that and went off to check, using his iPhone rather than a computer, as is his iPhone-addicted habit. "Seven!" he shouted. "It's at SEVEN, not eight!" He looked at Google maps on the iPhone. "It will take us at least forty-five minutes to get there, and it's at SEVEN."

We'd planned to go by the Triple Rock Brewery first, but that was clearly out. "I'm glad you checked," I said as I brushed my hair and put on make-up.

By six o'clock I was ready to go, in my shoes, with my velvet coat over my arm. The husband was anxious. The children, still in a funk from having been made to do housework that afternoon, were eager to escape from their parents' eyes into the custody of their teenaged babysitter. But where was she? At 6:05 the Sober Husband began to stress. "Relax," I said. "But she's never been late before," he said. He called and left a message. At 6:15 he walked down and knocked on her door, but there was no answer. He came back. "At this point, we can't get to the play on time," he said.

I felt like crying. I had really wanted to see this play, and I'd been looking forward to it all week. Since it was a sold-out show, I called the box office and told them they were free to release my tickets from will call and sell them. The box office woman kindly told me that she'd treat it as a donation to the theatre and send me a letter for my taxes.

We were at a loss, being all dressed up with no ability to go out. "We could all go out to dinner," said the husband, but the children were tired and slobby. We decided to open the sloe gin and have sloe gin fizzes, and I made a list of what we needed (lemons, soda water) and started to make a batch of simple syrup. Then our teenager called, apologetic, saying she could be there in a few minutes.

The Sober Husband, for some unfathomable reason, decided to look at the theatre schedule again. At this point he discovered that he had misread it. The show was at eight, like I'd said, not seven. It was on seven on Sundays. He shared this with me. "Dammit!" I said. "I gave the tickets back, and I didn't have to!"

I made him call the box office, and unbelievably enough they could restore our tickets unto us, and we set out once our babysitter was in place. The play was just what I like, a strong ensemble cast performing a witty script, with an imaginatively done set. On the way home the Sober Husband expressed a desire to see more experimental theatre, rather than "people talking", and I felt defensive. "I always feel like I'm apologizing for my taste to you," I said. "This was what I like. I like this sort of thing. I like to read novels, and I like to see this kind of play. I like Southeast Asian coffee, and I like a strong ensemble play, not a big musical or something with a star." The husband however wants either "old plays that have stood the test of time" or "something more experimental, like in Chicago." In the end, though, which one of us keeps an eye on the theatre listings and knows when there's a play which has good buzz, and which one of us doesn't even read the datebook section of the newspaper? I foresee plenty more witty ensemble plays in the future and a dearth of improv.

The next day we opened the sloe gin and were able to agree upon the sloe gin fizz as one of the world's finest cocktails. "It's fruity, but it's still manly enough for you," I remarked, and we both lifted out glasses happily.

Sloe gin fizz

2 parts sloe gin (preferably Plymouth)
1 part regular gin (I like Tanqueray)
1 part simple syrup
1/2 part fresh lemon juice

Shake over ice, and then pour into a highboy with plenty of soda water. Garnish with a lemon slice if you aren't lazy.

an insult

Nine year-old Iris uber Alles sized up some friends of Lola's and said to me confidentially, "They look like their mother dresses them! All... The color..." She struggled for words.

"You mean 'color-coordinated,' right? They are so color-coordinated."

"Exactly, Momdude! Exactly!" She felt vastly superior.

The children in question look like they're ready to pose for a Hanna Andersson catalogue shoot at a moment's notice, whereas Iris tends to look like she got lost on the way to Burning Man and Lola usually looks like a hobo's child. I expressed that opinion to Iris, and Iris beamed and reached out to me in a moment of affection for the mother who lets her children choose to be weird or shabby.

This was a change of sentiment from the morning, when Iris scolded Lola severely for wearing a purple butterfly shirt I gave Iris when she was only four, which is tattered but still beloved after five years and two owners. Lola owns many beautiful new pieces of clothing but prefers to wear certain beloved pieces, no matter how may tears, rips, or stains they have acquired over the years. "Someone is going to call CPS if you wear that! CPS!" shouted Iris.

trouble

Two severely undersocialized kittens I was given to work with, along with my crack team of kitten tamers, Iris and Lola, escaped and are living in the guts of my dishwasher.

exciting foods

Lola insisted on barbecuing Doritos and chocolate chip cookies today. Iris and I did not try these exciting new foods, choosing instead to stick to corn and potatoes.

more running in the family

Six year-old Lola has a blog. Today she used the blog to ask me to keep her favorite foster kitten... but I can't. Sigh. It's going to be a very rough day tomorrow, when I turn the kittens back in at the San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Know anyone who wants a very charismatic black or tortoiseshell kitten?

it skipped two generations --- why not three generations

Lola has always had a lot of special physical gifts. As a baby, she crossed her eyes spontaneously one day, and after everyone reacted with "Look at the baby's crazy eyes!" and doting on her, she made "crazy eyes" forever after. Once I raised one eyebrow at then-toddler Lola, who considered and then perfectly quirked a single eyebrow (her father still can't raise a single eyebrow, and I only taught myself to after considerable effort, during a "Star Trek" phase as a child). These feats were all the more amazing as Lola didn't even talk yet.

Recently she took up sport burping, so much burping that often she is sent into the backyard to spare her mother's sensibilities. An awestruck Iris once returned to tell me, "Lola burped sixty-nine times so far, and it hasn't even been an hour!"

The Sober Husband informed the children that his grandfather had been able to make himself burp on command and how amazing and rare that was. Lola burped at him. "Wait, did she do that on purpose?" Lola burped again, proving that she was indeed burping on command.

Iris got excited. "Lucy, you have GOT to teach me that!" Later Iris came up to me, depressed. "Lucy says that I have to SWALLOW air, not breathe it. Eat it. Then I will burp. But I don't get it."

Later Iris claimed to have mastered this arcane art, but I am not convinced. The two of them go around bragging, "Burping skips two generations. We are the generation that burps. We can burp whenever we want!"

I am not charmed.

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."